"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with," said Jim Rohn. This expression is parroted so often that it has practically become a cliche; yet, despite its popular usage, not many people take the message to heart. Essentially, Rohn is saying that you need to surround yourself with winners if you want to be a winner. Toxic people will absolutely nuke your emotional frame and well-being if you spend any time with them.

The Red Pill is about sexual strategy and, by extension, getting your ducks in a row and your shit in gear. There have been many great posts in the past about developing a strong frame and sense of will, there is no need for me to elaborate here. But I do think there is a gap in the Red Pill archives that delves into the importance of removing toxic people from your life. IllimitableMan briefly touches upon this idea at the end of this blog post, and while the article doesn't exactly focus on the point I refer to, I suggest you put it on your reading list; it contains a wealth of great information.

It is unfortunate that I had to discover these lessons alone while dealing with my own toxic family (although Whisper has offered some great advice specific to my situation), but that is what makes the manosphere awesome - it allows us to draw on each other’s experiences to ensure we don't all make the same mistakes again and again.

Specifically, I wish to identify five types of toxic individuals: The Judge, The Depressed, The Emotional, The Religious and The Victim.

The Judge

The Judge is the man who has such a large ego that he believes he he understands what fundamentally drives people. He thinks that he has a strong grasp of the human condition and is often compelled to voice his opinion regarding other people, as if anyone really cares what he has to say.

You often hear The Judge criticizing fatties who are at the gym or guys practicing game, implying that the efforts these individuals are applying to fix their problems aren't genuine.

Not only does The Judge suffer from an attribution error of what is motivating these people, he is unable to identify his own biggest fault: envy.

It's no joke when we say your friends are going to start to fall away as you become a better man. As my squat approaches three plates I have to get up twice a day to mobilize my shitty hip flexors including foam rolling and active stretches. My roommates (and my siblings when I’m home visiting the fam) do not hesitate to make fun of how I am "trying to become a supple leopard."

But deep down these people envy you. They hate you. They hate the fact that you remind them of how sheep-like and unspecial they are. As the Green Goblin said in the original Spider Man movie – the one thing people like better than a hero is a hero who fails.

The Depressed

Then you have the person who means well but cannot perform because he is depressed. I don’t think I need to elaborate here, avoid these people at all costs. If you yourself suffer from depression and you aren’t in the company of people who mope around all day, I’ll point out that it’s true that psychologists claim it is a result of a chemical imbalance in the brain, but 9/10 times you can fix this by treating your body well – sleep enough, exercise once in a while and don’t put shit in your body.

The Emotional

The depressed are just a subgroup of a larger class of individuals – those who are ruled my emotion. In TRP we constantly discuss the idea of “frame”. Dispensing of the metaphors, frame is mastery over your emotional state, not allowing others to provoke a reaction from you. When a woman falls into your frame it means that you are in control of her emotional state – she is intrigued, drawn to the persona you’ve crafted for yourself, whether you are genuine or not.

The emotional individual (read: women and “beta” men) is not in control of his emotions. He despises confrontation and lacks the cojones to take a risk, whether in the sexual, professional or social setting. He would rather bend over and take it up the ass than voice that he is not, in fact, a faggot. He’s the chump who buys a girl a train ticket when she claims she “forgot to buy one” before boarding, an incident that happened not five minutes before I wrote this. He is the stupid fuck who gives the basic bitch on Facebook a huge ego because he validates her photo with that stupid doggy filter. He is the jealous boyfriend that doesn’t do more than give you angry eyes when you clearly hit on his girlfriend of two years and she eats that shit up.

The problem with spending time with these people, and women in general (notice how white knights tend to have lots of female friends), is that they begin to rub off on you. It is very, very difficult to remain in control of your own emotional state when you are surrounded by people who are not in control of their own.

To be fair, most boys who suffer from the inability to control their emotions are a product of their environment. This is not to say that it is a valid excuse for being a pansy, but this leads me into the next category:

The Religious

Before I say anything I want to point out that there is nothing inherently wrong with religion. Many people draw comfort from the fact that there is a greater purpose, and there is nothing wrong with that. The issue begins when the religious individual in question starts to impose his morals on others. Specifically, when a parent instills feelings of religious guilt in a child.

TRP doesn’t have room for moralizing because morals (which are by definition subjective) cloud rational judgement. It will be impossible for you to figure out what you want if those around you are subjecting you to a subjective moral code. You must spend some time away from these people, if only to facilitate the process of introspection. In my case it involved giving up an extremely lucrative career opportunity to get some time away from my religious family to figure out what I really want.

It's more important that a decision be your choice than that it be the "best" choice. The only important thing is that whatever you do, you do it for you, not because you are afraid of what others will say.

-Whisper

The Victim

Finally, we come to the last class, The Victim. The Victim is a victim of fate, of circumstances beyond his control, or so he will have you believe. In fact, we see The Victim pretty often within our own walls here at TRP – how often does some newb post about how he can’t lift and eat properly for whatever reason? How often does some loser make excuses about how he can’t pick up women because he has some emotional problem?

Ultimately The Victim fails to take responsibility. And this is the crux of TRP – taking responsibility for your failures, your inability to pick up women, your inability to make six figures, your inability to squat three plates – when it comes down to it, 99% of the time there’s no reason that you can’t do any of these things except for the fact that you haven’t put in the time.

Remove these people from your life immediately. Out of all the types of people I’ve mentioned, Victims are by far the most insidious, luring you in with talk of accomplishing great things “if not for X”. It’s a terrible habit to blame shift, and you’ll find yourself doing it more and more if those around you don’t take responsibility for their failures.

Conclusion

Cut the bad fruit off the tree - make the sacrifice.