What were the most damaging aspects of the Red Pill teachings to you?

Aggravating-Stage739 · 2021-12-25T12:37:01+00:00

Hypergamy.

I want to start by saying I have lived in Miami and Miami Beach, FL for the past 4 years. I’m originally from a small town in the north. I’m also well off, above average height, mid-30s, Master’s degree, and I’m athletic. I’d been single for 5 years as I was working on my business, my last relationship ending with me breaking off my engagement. No, I’m not bragging, I’m setting the stage for this discussion which should probably be its own post. Hopefully this will help younger guys (or ladies) out there reading this as well, from a different perspective.

Living in Miami Beach is like living in an instagram post at times. I was trying to crack the code on how to date in the area, and at the same time was being fed a large portion of TRP material, and living alone so it became a bit of an echo chamber. I can honestly say all I could see when I would walk out of my condo were women acting the exact same way described in TRP strategies, and men doing the same. Expensive, flashy cars everywhere, men chartering or taking out their yachts (and inviting women), and expensive dinners. It was not uncommon for me to see men in their early 40s dating women who were 10, 15, 20 years younger than them as well. Everything the TRP strategies describe I saw first-hand. Men dating 19, 20, 21 year old women. Or guys in their late 40’s / early 50’s dating girls in their 20’s. It never occurred to me that maybe Miami Beach isn’t the best gauge for all of this or an area where a lot of these ‘normal’ views on relationships are, honestly none of this was really normal, especially given my small-town upbringing. What you don't realize, is that the majority of it is rented, or fake. That's a different post for a different time.

Going back to the topic, I would say it was a mix, a mix between my location and some of the TRP teachings, specifically around Hypergamy that were the most toxic to me. Frequenting the Miami night life (and regular, day activities), I found myself constantly around women who would gravitate towards tables or men who looked the most flashy. These men never looked half as good as me, but were considered higher quality because they had the bigger table at the night club, or the fastest car, or they owned a very nice apartment / condo in Brickell. Guys like me, who lived modestly at the time running a business (and spending the majority of my time in offices), while in a place where flash was the most important thing about you, saw this as the only way to get a girlfriend in the area.

I let it get the best of me, and I responded to the stimuli, and I was able to compete head on with these older guys, because I had the resources. I bought an Italian Sports Car, upgraded to a larger condo, and started getting bottle service at clubs. While it would attract a lot of women (I had women walking up to me on the sidewalk when I was idling at red lights) I found it was attracting the wrong women (and also the wrong friends / guys as well). That feeling that I had to be the best in the room at any given time and that women would naturally just fall into my lap because I spent money on these things, was probably the most toxic aspect of it all.

What cured me (or I will say has set me on the road to recovery) was my research into stoicism and getting into a healthy relationship, yes I got lucky. I found reading the works of Marcus Aurelius and doing what I’d like to do, as opposed to what everyone else in a specific area was doing for fun, was the best thing I could do, and naturally everything else would fall into place and attracting different types of people into my life. I have a lot of new hobbies, and the people I meet doing these hobbies (different sports, clubs, learning languages) are VASTLY different from the ones at clubs.

So it’s a long post, but overall I’ve found aspects of TRP to be good, but there is a lot of it that I disagree with now that I’m in a healthy place. Hypergamy, and that idea that a woman would monkey branch from you at any time unless you were THE BEST at all times, is a bit awful. And that idea / mindset only attracts certain kinds of people (as stated earlier, not just certain types of women, but also men and friends as well). Do not think that throwing money at a problem like this, will cure your issues. It will just exacerbate them, and you’ll end up attracting the wrong people.

To quote Mr. Aurelius, “You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

PrincessTiaraLove · 2021-12-25T17:05:01+00:00

As a woman it was the "you don't need college, just use your beauty and your body". That rhetoric is very dangerous for women because it could cause them to get stuck in relationships or even worse if they are discarded. I think this is one of the only reasons TRP promotes hypergamy so they can trap uneducated women or even trap women that gave up their ability to earn a livable wage.

doom_child · 2021-12-25T17:21:51+00:00

The confirmation bias. I could get into the whole architecture of red pill beliefs, but the root of it all is the reticular activating system (RAS) selective for beliefs and perceptions that are already held. This is a basic feature of human psychology: what you believe is what you find. If you believe in astrology, then you see it confirmed in your experiences. If you believe in Jesus Christ or Allah working in your life, then you interpret all incoming stimuli accordingly. If you believe all the things the Red Pill says about sexual and psychological behavior, that is likely all you’ll find.

Just like a religion, TRP has a fairly detailed philosophy that has reasonable explanatory power regarding human psychological phenomena. Underlying all TRP philosophy, though, is basic attachment trauma. All the points of experience and all the confirming evidence is extrapolated from interpretations of reality based on relationship trauma.

This is why it appeals to men with a certain type of experience, and also why the female equivalent (a subreddit called Female Dating Strategy or something similar) has the same perspective - mercenary strategies of manipulation instead of emotionally intelligent strategies of getting needs met in a healthy manner. These manipulative strategies are often employed on people who are easily manipulated. The experience confirms the beliefs because the strategies work on those already predisposed to be attracted to relationships that repeat prior traumatic relationship dynamics. The participants’ RASs are primed to only see things in terms of their past trauma, so past experiences repeat. This also explains the guy above who mentioned that he was traded up multiple times for “better” options. We attract those who behave similarly to those who’ve treated us badly in the past because we’re primed to only experience chemistry with those people because they repeat what feels “right” to us.

Until we learn emotional intelligence, boundaries, new beliefs about the world, and new strategies to get our needs met, we’re likely going to keep seeing what we’ve always seen and experience what we have in the past.

pekkauser · 2021-12-25T20:05:44+00:00

I think really anything that sort of made it seem like women weren’t capable of loving a man and that she only cares about superficial things(i.e the hypergamy nonsense). Also that women like mysterious dudes and “bad boys” only. As a result I felt like I was never gonna have a relationship cuz like that whole mysterious bad boy persona doesn’t really fit me and I don’t wanna have to change my personality for a relationship. Also the first part I was just generally afraid that if I were to get in a relationship I’d be used and left to suffer once she “got what she wanted”.

I almost forgot the never showing emotions to your SO thing because a lot of these coaches say it’ll make them not respect you and they’ll cheat so again I just felt miserable thinking I’ll have to bottle up my emotions around my SO.

prolific1997 · 2021-12-25T18:31:04+00:00

Basically rejecting every single girl that isn't perfect

UnitedIntroduction48 · 2021-12-25T19:49:16+00:00

All the content was fear-mongering about people/women screwing you over. Or, it was about that you're not good enough if you don't make enough money, lift enough, or sleep with enough women. There's a lot of similarities to MLM cults; everything toxic about the self-improvement space ramped up to 11

Here's some specific ideas you could cover:

It's a praxeology, not an ideology
It's a toolbox
It's facts, unemotional, we don't hate women 80/20
Men and women cant be friends, including social media fear mongering
TRP being amoral
AWALT
The obsession with putting your genitals inside her genitals / not giving a shit about how she might feel
Feminism conspiracy theories
The world hates us
Circle jerk amongst the Content creators, no room for questions/debates
The obsession with being the dominator, putting her in your "frame"
Obsession over self improvement rather than enjoying yourself and being happy
Saying its not political even though most of the audience comes from politics and the content creators are very political
Reducing women to children
Scaring men from having relationships even if thats what they want
Generalizing about men women and dating
Misinterpreting and cherry picking science to match their narratives
Mistake getting laid as fixing inceldom, or social issues you have
Making fun of women for being into mbti/horoscopes but believing in the sigma alpha beta crap
Saying women are not capable of thinking rationally
Talks about women in general as if they're all onlyfans thots

RedPillDetox · 2021-12-26T00:08:37+00:00

Perhaps a very overlooked and competely not obvious side effect of having been red pill: It made me have too much of a relaxed outlook of life and think that life was too easy. When i was 18 i thought i was goona become a dating coach or digital nomad or do some other entrepreneurship thing that would make me rich or some shit, so i dint work hard in college. I thought that, because i was red pill, i was special and had access to secret information and influences that no other kid my age did. I was full of myself and thought i knew everything about life just because i was TRP/PUA. Having a IDGAF attitude and give no shits about the consequences of anything i did or who it affected.

Red_Trapezoid · 2021-12-25T17:04:56+00:00

The most damaging effects actually came from that first redpill subreddit. Just me discovering the titles of the posts alone seemed to confirm all my fears and that my bitterness and cynicism was fully justified because women were just these evil creatures apparently.

The truth is that I was still in highschool when I discovered that subreddit and the girls that I engaged with were kind of awful, but so was I. We were essentially kids. It was highschool. And the outlook I had of the world for so many years partially originated from bad school experiences. I'm 31 now and looking back I can see how bad I was as well, how I could have set boundaries and not tolerated disrespect from people. But it was a different world then and I had no guidance. I hope the young people now have a better chance.

RealRussShackleford · 2021-12-25T19:33:26+00:00

I’ve seen a lot of guys that have lost girls that sounded like girls they really cared about to that whole “spinning plates” theory.

TempNameMofodamn · 2021-12-25T20:29:56+00:00

The idea I should never settle for less when less is considered my girlfriend being not as beautiful as another girl. In general I don't like the never settle always strive for more type of culture that we have in America in general. There is comfort and humility with being okay with what you have.

Second is them taking stoic ideas and warping them into their own fucked up version of it. They took stoic thoughts and retranslated them into pull yourself up by the bootstap bullshit that real stoics wouldn't ever agree with.

PhilosopherHistorian · 2021-12-25T21:10:15+00:00

I’m still fighting off redpill thought so I don’t know if I’m totally ex-RP yet but the idea RP promotes constantly that women love men for things they provide rather than men themselves has taken a tremendous toll on my dating life. It’s caused me to become very nihilistic and cynical regarding dating and I found myself falling into the black pill pipeline.

On top of this bizarre ideology becoming embedded into my mind, I’m not a rich guy who has a bunch of money to spend. I tend to favor simple first dates like coffee or walks around the park over fancy dinners. This makes me feel inadequate and invaluable as a partner automatically. I’m left feeling guilty for not being able to just provide more.

Ok_Fisherman7280 · 2021-12-26T23:29:52+00:00

Prior to my fiancée, I had a very Red Pill view of dating. YT Content Creators will describe it as, “Overdose of Red Pill.” I agree with some aspects of Red Pill such as being the best version of yourself, i.e, working out/being in shape, pursuing goals/interests/and pursuing your purpose and being a hard worker in your business or using your current job to get to where you want to be. No problem with that at all.. I’m 28 years old, fairly attractive, 6’3” tall, former college athlete. I starting dating my now fiancée a few years ago, and I was just looking for ideas for dating in the real world and stumbled upon these TRP Content Creators such as Rollo Tomassi, AMS, MJGetRight.. I have no problem with them, as they obviously use TRP to spread messages and thus, support their living. I even read The Rational Male a few times. That’s when the change started. I was in a happy and fulfilled relationship until I started to look at my GF as an object and not a person. I started questioning her past and her motives. There were days when I would play the so called “dread” games and not even give her attention and validation. Even sex seemed one-sided, as it felt like it was only for me and my satisfaction. I started to “spin plates” as TRP Community puts it and was in talks with other women. Nothing progressed with the other women, it was just a mental game to get her to be jealous and pursue me more, whenever she glanced over at who I was texting. It wasn’t until she came to me in tears and told me that I wasn’t the same man before and that I’m always bitter, angry and questioning her. I knew deep down too that this wasn’t the life I felt called to be a part of, nor is that the type of man that I am called to be. I do want a wife and family one day and the stuff that some of these TRP content creators put out, is bullshit.

To sum it up, it took away my happiness. I was bitter at everything and felt like this is the way of an “Alpha Male.” And by me being happy with one woman, stepping up and being a leader and a man for my future wife, family, friends, colleagues, and community is considered, “Beta” then so be it… To me all that Red Pill crap just inflicts unnecessary pain on yourself and your loved ones.

lawrieee · 2021-12-25T20:59:13+00:00

I was never really into the red pill, I had heard about it and wanted to find the information first hand to see if it was being reported accurately. I started watching YouTubers and eventually all my suggested videos were RP and before I knew it I'd been watching it for months. Even though I always disagreed with it I became quite paranoid about being cheated on and it really eroded my faith that long term relationships can work. I found it really surprising that it had any impact on my world view given that I felt it was nonsense the whole time but when you're reading yet another guys first hand story about paternity fraud it really messed with your perception.

M4_EnthUZIast · 2021-12-25T22:09:20+00:00

After a girl stopped dating me because I was a virgin, I flirted with the red pill, and started to believe the only thing woman want from men is to use them. Whether it be there penis or there wallet. Also the fact she was basically my boss (i was a volunteer, and she was my volunteer coordinator) created a power dynamic too.

I got out of the red pill luckily, but I still don't trust people. I think that instinct will keep me alive.

Troklokhan · 2021-12-26T02:04:31+00:00

I never been a redpiller but I was into PUA stuff, which shares some of the toxicity.

What I found most damaging is the idea that women are there to "test" you to see if you are a true alpha male or a beta provider or whatever bullshit. They bassically say that every time a woman seems to have a will or desire that differs from yours it's actually some kind of "test" that you have to "pass".

_shunyata_ · 2021-12-26T15:04:19+00:00

Of course there are biological differences between men and women. The differences between them are way slimmer statistically than within the groups. Means, women as well as men have a lot of individuality and share a lot of commonality.

I think one of the most damaging beliefs in the RP and PUA community is that men are in a natural state unempathic, cold and dominant . I think newer research in anthropology shows that without cooperation humankind could have not evolved. I believe men are just as empathic, loving and kind beings as women. There is a lot of trauma of course and I know from being engaged in men's work for a bit, that many men grew up as if they could feel the "cold stare of their fathers" on their neck. Many of us grew up with traumatized fathers, who are unempathic, cold and dominant. There is a lot of work to do.

For reference, I am a 37 yo psychologist and psychotherapist.

depoeta12 · 2021-12-30T03:42:15+00:00

TRP was just a bunch of fake Alfa males who were extremely insecure with their fragile male egos hating women because they had been rejected in the past. I never bought into it and knew it was all trash.

SteveJabbaUK · 2021-12-27T15:34:41+00:00

OK guys I hope this won't get me banned. One or two of you have asked to link the video when it's done. So here it is : Is The Red PIll Destroying Your Mind (Reddit Speaks)

I read through this thread on the stream
I have linked the subreddit in the description of the video, and recommended ppl sign up here.
There are a few cock - ups unfortunately..I am relatively new to livestreaming and it happens occasionally. But still it gets the point across.
I ended the stream with a takedown of Jack Murphy, the Red Pill Guru who is now imploding in hilarious fashion after his article from years past about being a cuck was dredged back up. It really bursts the Red Pill Alpha bubble!

Please..Don't ban me!!

lejeaneast · 2021-12-30T03:37:49+00:00

Well generalizing female behavior is damaging imo. Making statements like "It's in their nature" based off statistics with no attempt at trying to understand the why for these statistics. Here is an example. 80 percent of divorce is initiated by women. Okay sure, and that's very bad. So where is the discussion for male accountability in the why? Do you just blame every woman? That's as shallow as looking at crime rates in the black community and simply saying, "well it's in their nature to commit crime", and not examining all the reasons behind it. You can't say that shit, and it would be insanely wrong anyway. It's shallow and it's simple. It's no better than modern feminism.

So I think it's very destructive and gives men a superiority complex. "Men created everything" okay so yeah men have created a majority of technology and infrastructure. We're just gunna ignore how much women have contributed to that? They've invented a lot too and their support of men helped enable these men to create these things. And for the insanely prideful men are you one of those men that created anything though?

PrestigiousLibrary80 · 2021-12-30T10:09:47+00:00

Great post, video and thread. So sad I didn't get to post before you streamed (doing a follow up soon?)

So many good points made here, I'll add a few more:

demeaning to men -- RP reduces men to external factors (height, penis size, income, cars/house/clothes) and implies that all that matters
demeaning to women -- covered well in the thread already
obsession with a woman's virginity while encouraging men to "spin plates" with as many woman as possible, of course, when you're done spinning plates RP tells men they will find their mythic unicorn virgin bride when they're ready to marry
RP is not sustainable a long term strategy, maybe you can spin plates when you're 35 well, but when you're 50? Doesn't matter how much money you have, you will have to compete with men in the looks department who are 25. What about when a man is 70? 80? Do they really think a 20 year old will want to sleep with them (if said 20 year old is not being paid aka sugar baby)? When you're retired at 70, you could live for another 20 years. And if you don't find someone because you were too bust spinning plates, that's a long time being alone, without adult kids to look after you or grandchildren to preoccupy you.
no legacy -- live your life in a way which imagines your eulogy. People don't talk about what a "high value" man someone was. They focus on the relationships, a great husband, loving dad, doting grandfather.
spinning plates -- dating is exhausting; who would voluntarily do it? enough said
respect -- RP tells men to be a man of respect but this is contextual, if you do all RP tells you, you'll be respected in the RP cult.. sorry, community..... but act like that around normal people and they will laugh at you.
monogamy -- demonises and makes fun of monogamous men, just see how they treat Elon Musk and his relationship choices (Rollo makes a point of berating Elon for believing in the "soul mate myth", actually a hilarious video). When RP men provide even .01% of value that Elon brings to humankind then they can comment on his choices lol
cheating -- some RP men say "high value" men MUST cheat (emphasis on the "must") do I even have to detail this further?

thom92Pf3105 · 2021-12-25T16:06:35+00:00

It was just the Hole idea of that I was “the great catch” that Any woman should be honored to spend time with me. I always thought that as Long as i was just a sweet boyfriend everything was going to be fine. And so one day when i was fired and kicked out of the machinist study, which was a Dream of mine to become, because i did not really have the competence in the eyes of certain persons, she left me. She brutally left me for another guy with a better life, that could elevator her to that. In my heart and in the studies of redpill i knew that this was a possibility for women to optain this action, and so i thought i was prepared but when the fact came to me that she was now having sex with another man and i was not having Any, i felt so shamefully dominated and i was alone in the world again, realised that i had wasted my time chasing stacy, and i could have used that time instead by working and saving up $$$. But the loneliness was such a tumor and i needed to see if the grass really was greener on the other side, and it was but i was not prepared to just how brutally women Can be.

Zerofication · 2021-12-25T19:47:52+00:00

A downside of TRP is seeing females for who they are; inferior humans who may look more beautiful on the outside, but they are much uglier on the inside.

Title	What were the most damaging aspects of the Red Pill teachings to you?
Author	SteveJabbaUK
Upvotes	37
Comments	78
Date	December 25, 2021 9:11 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/ExRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/exredpill/comments/ro6ej4/what_were_the_most_damaging_aspects_of_the_red/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/ExRedPill/what-were-the-most-damaging-aspects-of-the-red.1090729 https://theredarchive.com/post/1090729

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