TL;DR : this stuff works, and you guys saved my life

Background :

I'm a young man, early twenties, and stumbled upon this subreddit quite uneventfully a couple of years back. I wasn't actively looking for 'how to get chicks' advice or anything like that, though in all honesty that's why I stayed on once I accidentally made my way here. I started reading some of the field reports, some of the theory threads, and a few of the all time top posts. All of it blew my mind as to how accurate it was. I started thinking about all my experiences so far in life, and how perfectly these theories could explain it all. Be it the success of some person I had known in life, why people respect him, why girls behave the way they do, everything.

My father is, bless his heart, not at all a dominant person in his life. Don't get me wrong, we have always had a really good relationship, we are still really close, he has always had my best interests in his heart, but all said and done he never taught me how to go from becoming a boy to a man. Again, I love him, and I'm whatever I am today because of him, but I never had those important conversations while growing up that I realize now that I should have had.

About two years ago I got into a relationship with a girl. Both of us were each other's first. In that moment it seemed like something straight out of a fairytale. She gave me that look girls give you when they genuinely admire and respect you. We were close, intimacy was great, infact she traveled across the city before going to work some mornings to my house just to spend some quality time with me. In her eyes, I was the alpha.

Fast forward to about a few months ago. I had to move for grad school, and that's when things started to change. I realized she had started becoming more distant. Long story short, we broke up in a short time, and it was painful. Looking back, I do see what I did wrong during all those years. I had went from becoming the 'fun boyfriend' to a 'needy one'. In her eyes, I became beta.

Changes I made :

Enter TRP. Up until this point, I had at best only read the posts on TRP as some form of entertainment. I had put some of the advice in practice, but I wouldn't say I had still really assimilated it all. It was the heartbreak that pushed me into a dark spiral of negativity. For a few weeks, even all of my jokes and banter were all about death and depression. Looking back, I realize that I was almost suicidal at that point. Thank God I was a coward enough to not take action on that!

I recalled all the things I had read on this sub. Hindsight is always 20/20, and all the glaring mistakes I had made in my past came rushing back at me. When we first got into the relationship, I was quite the carefree, aloof types that I now realize might have come across as stoic. As time passed, I started 'losing frame'. Long ass text conversations, embarrassing use of emoticons, DEERing...God! I wish I could go back in time and slap my past self! I had also ignored tons of red flags while getting in and during the relationship that are now abundantly clear to me. But when you look at something through rose-tinted glasses, all the red flags are just...flags.

I began reading the books mentioned in the side bar. *No More Mr Nice Guy, The Rational Male, The Way of The Superior Man, The Prince, 48 Laws, Meditations, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil * and perhaps a few others that I can't recall right now. I went into some of the senior endorsed contributors' post histories and read most of their posts. Reading, re-reading, absorbing, all the information I could. It was painful, knowing the reality and the truth behind human behavior. I started reading the various blogs in the manosphere : Chateau Heartiste, Illimitable Men, Dalrock etc. I was growing.

It wasn't until quite recently that I started taking lifting seriously. The primary effects were apparent to me within the first few weeks itself. Improved posture, better mood, increased confidence...I began to internally feel these things. I am still far from being big or muscular or anything. In fact, if someone met me outside of the gym, they won't even be able to tell that I workout; I still don't have that Gym Bod. But I don't care about it. I know that I am doing it for myself, and I can indeed feel that something is changing. I'll get there eventually.

Minor Field Reports :

I have always been a rather teasing, playful kind of person with everyone, guys and girls alike. Yet, sometimes I ended up DEERing myself heavily. Since absorbing this new knowledge, I have been following STFU. If someone or something is annoying me, I try to fix it myself, and if I can't I just shrug and move on. I take satisfaction in the fact that if it could've been solved, I would've done it. If it couldn't be solved, there's no point whining about it. Massive increase in mental peace!

There are 2 girls I am good friends with in my grad school, let's call them A and B. A is cute, very feminine, but somewhat boring. I have noticed multiple IOIs from her since I opened my eyes towards human behavior and started looking at people's body language closely. If it felt like I may be reading too much into it, there was one incident that removed all doubts from my mind, when we were hanging out with a group of friends and she happened to be sitting next to me and multiple times in the evening she was holding my hand and feeling my biceps. You couldn't get any more obvious than that.

Another one, B, is more fun to hang out with. We have common classes, so we keep running into each other and only talk during those times. She is easy to talk to, and returns casual banter without taking offense. She is almost like a 'bro' to me, in terms of how I interact with her.

Yesterday, I was talking to another girl, C, who is pretty cute and seems to be interested in me as well. That was when I noticed something extremely weird with B. While C and I were talking and laughing, B was around. She comes out of nowhere and was trying to bring me down. It wasn't insulting or anything like that, on any other day it might just have passed as the casual banter I mentioned. But the timing of it and given how unprovoked it was, yeah I have my doubts. The fun part is, just about a week ago B confided in me that she was having problems in her long distance relationship. Go figure.

If just a little change in my mental frame and how I behave around people can have such an effect, I can't wait to check out the effects of a change in my physical frame. Gotta worship that heavy iron!

Thanks TRP:

All said and done, I am far from becoming the UberMensch Nietzsche urges us to become. But I'm getting there. It's a process, and I am learning along the way. Right now, I have atleast one thing clear : Mind, Money, and Muscle Maketh a Man. I have the mind, I am building the muscle, and working towards the money. I just wanted to let you guys know that without the help of this sub, I couldn't have done it. Quite possibly, I would still have been in the cycle of post-breakup depression, or maybe even worse. Reading through all the priceless knowledge available here helped me out of my grief, and enabled me to see the world as it is. I am now free of any delusional expectations of unconditional love. I know what I need to do, I am putting in the work, and will reap out the benefits. TRP is not a destination, it's a journey. And my journey has begun.

If you're new to this sub and are wondering whether to accept these beliefs or be skeptical about them, I would say the oft-repeated cliche here : read the sidebar. It has a wealth of knowledge! Apply it to your world, observe how people behave, and connect it with the mental model the books lay out.

If you're someone from Reddit administration or something and are monitoring this subreddit about banning it or not, take my word that this sub quite possibly saved my life. I had been here before the quarantine and that meant I knew that such a resource existed when I needed it the most. I don't think I could've accidentally stumbled upon it if it was hidden from the world.

A big thank you to all the contributors, in no particular order : u/VasiliyZaitzev, u/GayLubeOil, u/Rollo-Tomassi, u/OmLaLa, u/Heathcliff-- and all the countless others who keep contributing to this sub and make this such a wonderful resource! You guys are like the elder brothers and wise uncles that says the bitter truth as it is, which is nothing but helpful in the long run!

Edit: Grammar and spelling