Reality flies in the face of the adage “love conquers all.” We have a 50% divorce rate, 40% of women cheat on their partners at least once (and that’s just the number that admit to this in a survey), and an even larger percentage of men cheat. And a depressing number of people who don’t fall into those unhappy percentages still confess that they’re not truly happy with their partner or their relationship/marriage. Either love is the weakest conquistador in the world, or more than half of the relationship pairings in the world aren’t actually in love. Maybe both.

Society shames men into considering the answer to one and only one question when deciding whether to commit their lives to a woman: Do you love her? If you care whether she has a job or employable skills, or even about her general attitude regarding money, you’re selfish and materialistic, and probably a lazy underachiever. If you care whether she’s willing and able to cook, keep a house, and utilize basic maternal instincts, you’re a misogynist. If you care about her appearance or how frequent and good the sex is, you’re a shallow pig. If you care about her sexual history, even instances of unfaithfulness, you’re an intrusive, dehumanizing slut-shamer. Basically put, if you care, in the slightest, about whether a woman will add any value – any at all – to your existence, then you’re a terrible human being. All you should focus on is whether or not you “love” her. Whatever that means.

Society encourages women to avoid settling too early or too readily for an imperfect man, and to hold out for “Mr. Right.” Women are encouraged to spend their youth “finding themselves” which is code for having as much meaningless sex as possible with as many partners as possible to “figure out what they want” in a man. Society tells women how unique, special, independent, and powerful they are, and that a man is “lucky” if he attracts a woman willing to be with him at all. Women are told that if a man wants anything from them, be it sex, cooking, housekeeping, or even their hand in marriage, that man had better well “earn” it from her (unless he’s so hot that she wants to do all of that stuff anyway). Women avoid creeps. Women avoid boring guys. Women react poorly to guys who fall all over themselves trying to please them. Women are drawn to strong, successful men. Women are taught, early and often, that for a man to be worth their time, he had better add value to their life.

Basically put, when considering a possible future with a man, a woman considers a huge variety of questions: “What quality of life can this man provide for me?” “What will our children be like?” “Will the sex be any good?” “How hard will I have to work to get him to marry me?” “How hard will I have to work to retain his fidelity and support?” “What do I have to say and do to make all of this happen for me?” “Am I okay compromising on some of these points?” and so on. Nowhere on this list is the question, “Do I love this man” because that question is answered inherently by answering the previous questions. If the man adds value to her life, then she “loves” him.

We short-hand all of this at The Red Pill by explaining that men and women love each other differently. That “love” means something different to the two sexes, and that women don’t love men the way men love women. I’d take this a step farther and note that it really doesn’t matter if or how men and women love each other. The simple fact is that love just isn’t enough.

Women prioritize value in a mate. For them, value = respect = love. If they respect their man – truly respect him – then the transactional nature of the relationship goes out the window. They’ll have sex eagerly, keep house, work a job to contribute to the household, and enthusiastically throw themselves into pleasing and bettering their partner’s life, because they respect him. If their mate is not valuable, then there’s no respect, no love. At that point, the relationship is nothing more than a transactional arrangement – using just enough sex to retain support, fidelity, and commitment, contributing just enough housekeeping/income to maintain the illusion, and slowly asserting her power and beating down the man so that future months and years require less from her to receive more from him.

Men prioritize value in a mate. They look for different qualities than what a woman seeks, but they insist on value, all the same. One of the qualities that provides a woman with value is whether or not she respects the man.

But men are in short supply. The world has very few men, and a huge number of losers. Loser men don’t prioritize value. They prioritize… the fact that their mate is willing to grace them with a little bit of her time and attention. The mere fact that their partner is female gives her all the value they could ever want. She doesn’t need to say or do or have anything. Just be willing to be with them. Society pre-conditions generation after generation of losers, trained from birth to expect nothing from women, demand nothing from women, and honor and value them just for being women. For them, love, alone, is probably enough. But that love doesn’t go both ways. Deep, down inside, they know this. They know she doesn't love them, but it’s enough for them just to have someone to love – they don’t really care if she loves them back, as long as she’s there. She’ll grow to love them in time, right? Nope. Because for her, love isn’t enough.