Summery: AWALT is something that can't be read on a forum, it's something you need to experience.

A year or so after starting my red pill journey I decided to start dating a girl; I personally prefer relationships over hookups; maybe it gets better after college, but that majority of the girls I've hooked up with have just starfished it the whole way. Now being someone who browsed this sub, I was aware of many of the warning signs of possible bad relationships, and so made sure to avoid them. The girl I would end up dating was from a non-western culture and had a strong father figure. She also dressed conservatively; while her friends would always wear tank tops that always left nothing to the imagination she would always dress in a respectable manner. Everything was going great during the school year, but them summer vacation came. We live 8 hours apart, but we decided to try long distance over the summer. Everything was ok until a week ago when she told me she "wanted to take a break." Ring ring ring, alarm bells everywhere. I buckled down and told her that if she wanted to take a break, we'd be done for good. She backed off, and agreed we'd still be together. Yesterday she called me and told me the reason she wanted to take a break was she had slept with another guy. I broke it off on the spot. AWALT

Analysis: So Lunar, this is a great AWALT story, but why does this apply to me? I see a lot of members on the sub urging new members to never have full relationships and instead settle for plate spinning. This is all fine and dandy, but I believe that all members should at least experience one relationship early in their RP days. Why? Because AWALT is something that cannot be read on a forum, it's something you have to experience yourself. While browsing the sub over many weeks, newer members will undoubtedly read many stories of AWALT and try to fit that into their new mindset. However, having just experienced cheating myself, reading on a forum did nothing to instill AWALT compared to my actual life experience. You can read all you want about branch swinging and women continuously wanting better, but until you experience that gut wrenching feeling of realizing that you aren't good enough and the utter lack of fidelity from women, you will simply have a rudimentary understanding of the concept. Events like this will also test your mental fortitude. During my first two years of college I suffered from severe depression and was on clinical anti-depressants. I was able to overcome it during my junior year of school, partially due to this sub, but experiencing cheating firsthand has brought the depression back, with my mind replaying themes such as "you'll never find another girl" and "no one will have sex with you again." I know that statements such as the above ones are false, but when your subconscious continuously brings those thoughts up it eventually wears you down and convinces you that the subconscious is right. I'm trying to avoid medication and therapy if I can, due to side effects of the drugs and the women-centric therapy I had before, so it'll most likely be a long road to recovery. I have no idea where I'm going or how I'm going to get there, all I know is I can't stay where I am.

So why do I believe everyone needs to experience AWALT firsthand? Because it will force you to grow and adapt. It's also a real punch in the gut, because it's no longer just some words you read on a forum, it's something that happened to you and that you experienced, which will engrain the concept 1000x more then reading this sub will.

EDIT: I don't know how to flair the post from mobile