I've been thinking recently about the arguments about the red pill that argue that certain methods or attitude "work", which I usually reply back with "well, lying and stealing can work too". Some RP men will agree with my last sentence, especially those who idolize Dark Triad personality traits and try to build their personality around being an asshole.

But even when tackling the Red Pill with its own rules, sometimes you can see what they're "losing" to be like that. These paragraphs from Neil Strauss's The Game are pretty sad and got me thinking about this:

"I am shorter than I'd like to be and so skinny that I look malnourished to most people, no matter how much I eat. When I look down at my pale, slouched body, I wonder why any woman would want to sleep next to it, let alone embrace it. So, for me, meeting girls take work. I'm not the kind of guy women giggle over at a bar or want to take home when they're feeling drunk and crazy. I can't offer them a piece of my fame and bragging rights like a rockstar or cocaine and a mansion like so many other men in Los Angeles. All I have is my mind, and nobody can see that.

You may notice that I haven't mentioned my personality. This is because my personality has completely changed. Or, to put it more accurately, I completely changed my personality. I invented Style, my alter ego. And in the course of two years, Style became more popular than I ever was, especially with women".

Even in his most RP moment, his depiction of the Red Pill is as something that erased his own personality to be popular with women. The literary device (leaving aside exaggerations) is like a pact with the Devil: to get the sex you desire you need to pay the price of not being yourself.

I think I was 18 when I read the book and I count myself lucky that, even though I empathised with his insecurities, the notion of "not being myself" seemed horrible. At that point in my life I was already feeling like I couldn't be "myself" in front of anyone, so I was never deep into RP thinking because I felt like I needed to first interiorize that there was something wrong with me, with how I was. And I wasn't even trying to be myself at that point.

From this sub, I've noticed that many exRP people reach a point when there's a "this is not something I'm willing to do anymore" moment. I wasn't ready to give up my personality, but other people feel like they're losing empathy or that they can't view women as human beings anymore; and they make the choice to not interact with RP anymore (even if sometimes that's difficult).