So many on the RP journey suffer from the Dunning-Krueger effect. In the infancy of learning about hypergamy and all the other RP tenets, people believe they're suddenly experts in the subject. We ignore Paul's admonition: "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you" (Rom. 12:3).

This has shown up for me in my fitness journey. I started lifting in June 2019. I knew some lifts from high school. Bench press, cleans, and squats. I hit the gym, and after a few weeks, I thought I was hot stuff. I acted like I was. But I wasn't Here's a picture from July.

A few more weeks in, and I thought i was even hotter stuff. My confidence in my day-to-day improved. I started to get IOI's from women around me (probably because of my confidence, I don't know). However, I still wasn't that impressive.

Here's how I looked in August. Look out ladies, here comes your next fitness model!

Now, I look on those images and see a very unimpressive guy. I was frustrated that my wife was still not responding to me in the ways I read about in all the RPC material from our veterans. I was frustrated. I kept lifting.

Then, in October, 4.5 months into my journey, I took this picture. Can you see them? Abs!

After work the next day, I caught myself in the mirror and noticed - without the post-workout pump - I still had a physique I was proud of. This is 5'7, ~141#, ~13% BF.

So, any newbies out there who are only a couple months in, chill out. You're not hot yet. Your wife does not think you have the body of an attractive man. When I assumed I was physically attractive (when I clearly wasn't), I did stupid stuff. I became angry when my wife didn't respond to me the way I wanted her to. Now, I see that it was clearly my fault. Thinking I was something when I was nothing (see Galatians 6:3).

All the images.