It’s early Sunday morning here. It’s also summer so the rain starts early and pounds on your window only to have a lunch break and return once again in the afternoon. Rewind a few hours, it’s 3 in the morning – a Tchami bass-line bounces through the air, pulsating lights ricochet off the walls and alcohol is flowing – one of our rich classmates bought a bottle of vodka and some champagne with his mom’s card. A girl in my class with a boyfriend (she must’ve told me at least a thousand times) back home is grinding on me in the club. She’s leans back and pours some more cheap champagne into her mouth, whirls around and winks at me. What does it matter to her? Her boyfriend is 10,000 miles away and 12 hours apart, poor guy is probably heading to his internship. Actually, he’s probably texting her right now. I too was in a relationship before all of this.

We’re American students in our final year studying in Asia for the summer. My ex is in the United States as well, just like this girl’s boyfriend. My then-girlfriend and I started the summer off fine, I was in Asia and she was due to go to an internship in San Fransisco at some firm or another in a few weeks. As far as LTRs go, this one was good, really good. Two years in and she was still infatuated with me, I slipped from time to time (as most men do) but in the end, women want you to win; they want to be lead. We’d talk back and forth daily as much as we could but everything changed when she moved and she started working – when started meeting other people and going out to “company happy hour” more. Gradually the conversations became colder and more infrequent, her words became less, and her detachment increased. When I would freeze-out, she would return only to leave again at the smallest affirmation.

Note 1: Don’t orbit, ever – even your LTR. Her behavior won’t shift in one day, it will happen begin to happen gradually. You in your blindness will not even notice it, your gut will. Given you’re not in an LDR, strong shit tests and detachment in my experience will occur around the 3 month and 1 year mark. In an effort to gain relational leverage, women will try and force the dominant mate to become subservient. As much as I tried to convince myself, my girlfriend here is not really my girlfriend. There’s no sex or physical interaction involved, we’re chatting throughout the day and nothing else. Gradually she gave less and less. In the event I froze her out (i.e. went cold) she would return and leave again at the slightest sign of affection or validation from me – just to “check” if she still had me. I’d become an orbiter. It stopped being a relationship, It became a friendship and a quite shitty one at that.

I’ve seen this all before and if you’ve been around long enough, you too know how the story goes. Once you start reading the TRP and putting the principles into practice, your gut feeling – your subconscious voice, returns like a long lost friend who you always knew was there. My ex’s behavior started changing and with it my gut spoke to me louder and louder until I listened. People often say an LTR is like TRP on hard-mode, they’re right. No matter who you are, your feelings start blinding you, your male hamster will convince you that she’s different, she could never do such a thing, she’s yours. It’s wrong, listen to your gut, the real one not the blinded one. The medium is the message.

Note 2: In developmental psychology exists the idea of object permanence - that object continues to exist (and for our case, retain value) even though it cannot be perceived by our senses. For men in the case of LDRs, this is more true than anything, hell, my first “one” from middle school even still has a small glimmer a value to my emotional brain. I placed so much value on my LDR, her withdrawal began to effect me on an emotional level, this is the end. In the case of LDRs, women have little to no such regard for their mate. In an LDR as a man, no matter how alpha you are, you are always at the mercy of the most alpha male in her environment. There is nothing you can do. Certainly there are things you can do to “slow the rate of decay,” but in an LDR, the woman’s always hypergamy sting you.

Reading: Rollo’s War Brides

And so? We broke up, not officially, but we haven’t spoken in weeks. It’s better that way. Women long so dearly for an explosion, for you to mention her behavior and directly confront her – don’t, it will only cement your position as an orbiter and obliterate any future hookup opportunity. As I think about all of these things, the girl from my class who I thought was so innocent and sweet makes a small noise and shifts around. I slowly turn around and look at her snuggled under my covers, she’s still asleep. I can’t be mad at her for this, it is simply how she is, how they are. I sigh and can’t help but think that some guy in San Fransisco is looking at my ex in much the same way.