Hello MGTOW. This is my story about weakness. I recently got out of a fairly good relationship, all things considered. She was a bit manipulative, and not very attractive, but she was supportive at least. She was reasonably intelligent, but not motivated and not creative.

I did the stupid thing of thinking with my dick, and just wanted comfort. Things escalated too quickly and she became very devoted. The drama isn't as important as this takeaway lesson:

I lost myself in the relationship. I became someone else over time. I became weaker, slower, more distracted, and I was consumed by the relationship even though I knew about her nature (her nature as a woman). I fell in love, and I felt my dreams slipping away.

She couldn't keep up with philosophical conversations, and she wasn't passionate about science and technology. She used sex as a substitute for genuine connection, and I fell for it. Instead of just masturbating, I had unprotected sex - thank the gods she didn't baby-trap me and had contraceptives.

I feel like women make me dumber. I've got a good education and a wealth of life/practical experience... but despite it all, I just get stupid around even moderately attractive women in real life, despite having seen female nature and experiencing it firsthand.

I'm pretty sure that if I didn't get stupid around women, then I would never take risks like having unprotected sex without the intent to have a child.

I never played World of Warcraft, for instance, because I knew that if I did, then I would have become addicted to it. I have had problems with self discipline in the past, but I've strengthened myself through philosophy and asceticism. I know myself enough to know my weaknesses for diversion. Women and sex are a diversion like that.

Women are like a drug; they give you the high - the irrational exuberance of love where you believe you can accomplish anything (like what I hear cocaine feels like). But the mania comes with a price - the crash is hard.

Believing in something like that gives the illusion of intrinsic meaning to existence; a cold universe is no longer cold.

If I'm going to love, then I aught to love myself and those who share my values. And so I try to provide myself a kind of fatherly love. I'm tough on myself sometimes, but I tend to feel good about who I am, and I get results.

My career is going great. I have money now. I feel motivated.

But I am going through withdraws, a little bit, from the love-drug.

Being given meaning through biological forces is the path of least resistance - succumbing to the brooding instinct and the illusion of love. Creating meaning is far more challenging. Creating something beyond a genetic legacy requires a bit more forethought and self-discipline than fucking your brains out.

There was a lot of sex.

This might sound impossible, but I think I've had more sex than I want. I seriously think that I should become celibate. I'm in my very early 30s, and in great shape, and a high in my sexual market value. I have access to more and better sex now than I've had at any other time in my life, and here I am seeing how worthless it is. I could go for younger chicks, but the problem remains the same regardless of the quality of sexual partner - I'm sacrificing myself for the female void.

Perhaps it is better to not leave a genetic legacy sometimes, regardless of one's genetic fitness. Perhaps, sometimes, a man is summoned by a higher calling. I'm not religious, but the idea of being an almost Epicurean monk has its appeal.

So, I wonder what my "monk-mode" would look like. I've been a literal hermit before, when I had my own business (for the mining industry) in a remote location. I enjoyed the solitude - being able to walk around naked, reading books all day, exercising, cooking all my own meals (never eating out), writing for hours on end... It was glorious.

The kind of devotion that I have to my education and career (and personal growth) is something that I'm sure results in a kind of greatness... but hopefully an obscure greatness that leave me lots of room to walk around.

Freedom... is an experience which is difficult to describe. I don't want to lose this freedom. I know that I have a biological imperative, but, thankfully that mellows with age. I hope that I don't regress into another relationship - to waste all this strength would be a mortal loss.

... But I think "going into the wild" and becoming a hermit again, exercising hard, reading, growing more intelligent, bulking up, becoming feral (in appearance; beard, long hair), walking around naked most of the day, talking to myself with the liberty of being unheard by others - is untenable. I need to use my knowledge and strength, and not just gather it.

Money is a distraction related to women; all this money I've been making and saving by working for someone else is as meaningless as an anvil without a hammer. The money is just a tool that I'm not using. I need to either put my money to work, or stop working so hard for money. But either way - it is a distraction and a false sense of security. Numbers in a bank account is not real power, and has no true meaning. Neither does the fact that I make more than the average household income for where I live mean anything - I'm not interested in being a patriarch sole breadwinner of a household. Those numbers mean nothing.

What matters is answering my higher calling in life by utilizing the philosophical and technical learning that I have (and will continue) to achieve.

So what if there is one less (or fewer) child(ren) in the world, and one more unsatisfied woman? The things I will (and have) achieve(d) are greater than having a family.

Would the world have preferred Tesla to be diverted from inventing AC power? Or Einstein staying in a failing marriage (for the sake of women and children) instead of working on the theory of relativity? Or Newton ignoring physics to chase tail?

I think it's going to be ok. I think it's best that I go my own way.