The Red Pill, this life altering discovery, is really just an overstatement of or overreaction to reality. It appeals to people who either hung on to illusions about life and women too long, or too preciously. At best it's a late or ungraceful awakening to the simple truth that women are people, and some people suck most of the time and most people suck some of the time. All people. And when not sucking, people are self interested. That this applies to women, that women are actually people, is the dark revelation brought to light by some sage. A revelation that we all know and can see evidence of without any spiritual guidance from a pill.

Some people struggle with dating far more than others. Some never succeed or even really get started. Sometimes those people are men, and sometimes it's not their fault. From a hetero man's perspective, if he chooses to see things only from his perspective and narrowly even then, women largely determine how difficult his success will be or whether he succeeds at all. This is almost the definition of an external locus of control, which is a classic sign of and predictor of poor mental health. And the solution is to paint women as doing this to men and to paint our culture as willing conspirators in this sinister plot. Oh, and gaslighting.

And before anyone says that the Red Pill is just about self improvement, then why brand it as an emergence from Plato's cave into the sunlight? No, it's predicated on the idea that men have been purposely and cruelly duped. The truth is closer to the Eagles' song,

And I found out a long time ago

What a woman can do to your soul

Aw but she can't take you any way

You don't already know how to go

This is already long enough to test many people's attention spans, but I'll end with this. Some things have changed. While the impact of those changes is often overstated, they're real and challenging for a decent % of men. And not along the lines of, "now men have to be decent human beings and too many can't adapt". That's also insultingly simple minded. But however you characterize the challenges, this narrative that hidden forces have caused them and that justifies some kind of cheat code to balance things out is wrong in both of the common senses of that word. Some men need to adapt, but they don't need a quasi religion to guide them. That adaptation is an individual journey.