I don't often post or comment here, and many among you would probably consider me still-plugged-in, but in this case I would like to share my opinion on one particular quote from /u/thebroathlete's great post "Why you're wasting your time with "self-improvement" if you want hot girls and why it shouldn't be the reason you better yourself".

Most of these guys went to high schools loaded with hot girls, were family friends with them, close with cool guys, popular, and had a lot of opportunities to get with them.

I originally wrote this as a comment, and it exemplifies a lot of stuff weathered RP'ers will already know, but I thought I'd turn it into a separate post both to keep comments on the original post on topic and so newcomers here might more easily find these personal experiences to see what drives an otherwise sane person into the arms of a hate group as TRP </irony>.

Caution: utterly BP sob story from personal experience ahead, conclusion and TLDR at bottom


For the first 18 years of my life, I went to schools with primarily female pupils. When I hit puberty, I was 1 of 3 boys in a class of 23, and other classes were lucky if there was a single guy in the room. Some teachers were male, but you can understand that their teaching style would be female-centered given the target demographic.

Many of these girls grew up to be undeniably hot. I'm not just talking about the hypersexual queen bees of the pack, the early birds who knew how to deepthroat by 12 and got knocked up at 15. My former classmates are now mostly WAGs, models (actually paid instead of the runs-a-fashion-blog-on-Instagram type), beauty pageant winners etc. Only the bottom 5% would not be appreciated for posting on gonewild or similar subreddits.

Growing up around these girls/women, I was barely exposed to any masculine role models, but I was bombarded with all the gossip and giggles that women usually reserve for each other or their gay best friend. I knew how my female friends fingered themselves before I started masturbating myself (can't say that never came in handy though). Whenever I heard some boy outside of my school sigh "I just don't understand women", I couldn't help but think "be glad for it".

Now, I can't say that having hordes of attractive female friends in itself hurt me in any way. I can now throw casual parties that make the average club scene in a TV series look like a nunnery, and to their credit, they have always been there for me when I (ugh) needed them - as they would for one of their female BFFs.

But whenever I couldn't help but developing feelings for a girl (we've all been there, at the bottom of the pedestal), I had no idea what to do with that. I had never seen any boy ask any girl out. I had never seen any boy dare one of his friends to talk to a girl and go to a lame teen party together, or kiss her or more. I had never seen the effect Chad and his rolling biceps had on the female water balance. I'd heard about it, of course, but I never witnessed what made this boy more attractive than the other. And of course, when I seemed sort of emotional about a particular girl, I'd quickly be cast back into the abyss that is the friendzone.

The result? I was raised a eunuch. Sure, my crotch carillon is perfectly intact and functional, but I could not process actual women as sexual beings, who can (and will) get so horny they'll put their feet behind their ears when Chad walks by and they can get away with admitting they crave sex more than men do, and they certainly could not see me as one. When I write about the friendzone, as millions of whiny wankshafts have done before me, that is what I mean. It's all fine and dandy when one woman says she'd rather be friends (i.e. is as dry as Tatooine without moisture farms), or when two do it, or when a dozen do it. But when not a single woman sees you as a sexual being, or is disgusted by the thought that occasionally you'd like to dance the horizontal tango, you are denied an entire aspect of your identity. An aspect that is obvious to you, as puberty typically leaves a boy with major amounts of blood in his testosterone, but appears to make any woman uncomfortable, because as far as she's concerned, the only way you'd have a D is if a teacher gave you one on a test.

I'm sure this story sounds familiar to you, and you probably won't be surprised either when I tell you that after two years of living in loin limbo, I was on the brink of just giving up and sticking a shotgun in my face. Then I thought of the people who'd have to clean the brain chunks and blood stains of the pristine white walls of my family home and settled for a semi-decade of ever more extreme porn, video games and bingeing on series (though I never cared much for Cheetos and only wear fedoras when appropriate).

My eventual salvation? A male friend. First one I ever had, didn't meet him until I was 20. Because for the first time in my life, I could about how I feel about women, about myself and about sexuality, without an audience programmed to shriek "boys are gross" from an early age. Of course many women asked us if we were gay, spending that much time together, going out together (cruising for pussay, obviously - another thing I'd never done before). Through him, I'd meet some more male friends and joined a fraternity. We'd read anything we could find by Neil Strauss and (ugh) Mystery, discuss and optimise work-out routines and generally have a great time. A male-only great time. The kind of space that is replicated digitally here at TRP, where men can work through their anger and resentment of being denied a vital part of their identity. The kind of space that is seen as liberating for women or for LGBT's, yet "toxic" for males.

Now, call me arrogant, but I think you couldn't find many men in the vicinity of this subreddit who have experienced more friendship from women, or who have more respect for them. But ultimately, boys need a place where they can be taught about the female subconscious - not the part that's looking for a nice guy who understands her, but the part that wants to climb the social greasy pole by, well, climbing the greasy pole. It's not a fault on their part, but a completely natural thing: men are built and taught to protect women, women are taught to be protected and revered by men. And IMHO, the best way to ensure that everyone gets to realise that in a healthy manner is to teach them about the reality of social interaction, including sexual interaction and attraction, from a young age, and not just the fata morgana that extreme feminists and white knights dream up.

(And for actual BP'ers who still consider male spaces as toxic environments: of course you should refrain from ever using violence, support others in achieving their goals while making sure you achieve yours, never discriminate anyone based on gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. etc. I, for one, hold these truths to be self-evident.)


So as for the point I wanted to make two A4 pages ago about the particular quote from /u/thebroathlete ...

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter if you grow up with attractive women at arm's length. As long as they'd sooner entertain fantasies about a door handle than about you, you will not benefit from it and possibly even suffer. As long as you don't swallow the truth about male and female sexual interaction; as long as the only strength you train is a stat in Skyrim; as long as you don't learn how to turn a shit test upside down and tease her off her feet: you'll never count as more than just a castrated friend.

So swallow that pill. Put yourself ahead of the rest of the world for once. Become the man you want to be, the best, smartest, strongest, most succesful man you can be. And before you know it, you'll be the man women want to be with. And THEN, go out, show people what a prime specimen of a human being you've become, and enjoy your new-found confidence and your well-earnt place as a leader of men instead of a tag-along.


Addendum

I have retired from eunuchhood and Grown A Pair. I don't lift as strong as I'd like, I still spend too much time in Skyrim and don't achieve as much as I'd like. But I'm on the right track, I've discovered how far I can go when teasing girls without getting unwanted slaps in the face, I have balanced the yin and yang that are kindness and cockiness, I am open and outgoing. A lot of people - men and women alike - actively look forward to hanging out with me, so I barely have time to spend two evenings in a row alone. I'm now giving the whole serious relationship a go and can't help but notice that that's not to the liking of many girls I casually meet, as I often have to push them back to stop them from sticking their tongues in my mouth or their hands down my trousers, whether they have boyfriends or not. And when I throw a party, I invite those female friends I grew up with, watch my mates drool over them - and have them tell me that they like being around me, because they're so comfortable being around a man who seemingly doesn't have any sexual thoughts about them...


TL;DR: Being around attractive women means jack shit when they see you as their gay best friend. First become your best possible self, then go out and build a lifestyle where women orbit you.