Shit Tests

Here is the first draft of the intro to the chapter on shit tests from my book. Please let me know what you think

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One of the strangest and challenging parts of game for most men is learning how to respond to shit tests.

I define a shit test as “any challenge to a man’s frame by a woman.” (Men can shit test too, but I focus on womens’ shit tests in this chapter.) For example, whenever a woman makes fun of your shirt, demands you do something she has done nothing to deserve, or talks about another guy in front of you, she is testing your frame. Women usually do not even consciously realize they are launching shit tests – they are just expressing how they feel in that particular moment.

But even though women often do not realize they are testing you, your reaction determines their attraction. If you show that their shit test perturbs your frame they lose attraction. If, however, your frame remains solid, they often gain attraction. In fact, shit tests are the primary way women determine whether a man is the alpha male. A man’s appearance, resources, and status are all good indicators of whether a man is alpha, but to a woman’s subconscious mind, the most important indicator of a man’s “alpha-ness” is how he responds to challenges, especially her challenges. You can be the tallest, best-looking, richest guy in the world but if you fold when challenged, women will subconsciously feel like you are a weak loser and emotionally investing in you will not end well for them.

For this reason, your frame is the most important thing about you, and you must defend it with your life. Nothing is more attractive to a woman than a man with a strong frame, and precisely because women are so attracted to strong frames, they feel a powerful subconscious desire to constantly check the integrity of your frame by challenging it in big and small ways. Can a woman distract you from your purposes, destroy your emotional experience, and make you violate your own rules? Or will your frame withstand her challenges?

When I was a little kid, I loved to climb trees. I quickly learned, however, that before I put my full weight on a tree branch, I should put a little pressure on it to make sure it is strong enough to hold me. I tested the tree branches because I knew that if I stepped on a weak branch with my full weight, it would break and I would get hurt. Women shit test men for the same reason – accepting a man’s frame is a huge emotional and practical commitment for a woman, so they test it first to make sure it is solid and will not break under pressure.

Shit tests, therefore, are somewhat counterintuitive – when women challenge your frame, they want to see your frame win! For example, when a woman makes an unreasonable demand of you, SHE WANTS YOU TO SAY NO. When a woman freaks out about something immaterial, SHE WANTS YOU TO ACT LIKE IT IS NO BIG DEAL. I have had many women even admit that they like when their man “puts them in their place” after they irrationally freak out about something. Put another way, women put pressure on the tree branch not because they want it to break, but because they want to make sure it is solid. Unfortunately, most men do not understand this and break instead.

The most important thing you need to know about shit tests is (almost) EVERYTHING WOMEN SAY OR DO IS A SHIT TEST.

I say everything is a shit test because no matter what is happening or what a woman is saying or doing, her subconscious mind is observing how you react to her words and actions. To a woman’s subconscious mind, your frame is her entire world and is relevant to every single thing that happens. On a deep, primal, evolutionary level, when a woman emotionally invests in a man she subconsciously feels like she is joining his tribe and the tribe’s fate is her fate. If the tribe is weak, or worse, if the tribe rejects her, she is in deep shit – she is vulnerable to being devoured by more powerful tribes in the jungle. This means that, to a woman’s subconscious mind, acceptance by a solid, reliable, powerful tribe is literally a matter of life and death. Therefore, at every single moment women are subconsciously asking two questions: 1) Is the tribe/frame strong and reliable and 2) Am I still accepted in this tribe/frame?

Obviously, this is all subconscious – women do not consciously realize they are testing your frame. For example, imagine your girlfriend’s grandmother dies and she comes to you for comfort. Your girlfriend being upset that her grandmother died is not an intentional “test” on her part – she is actually upset that her grandmother died. But how you react will affect her attraction to you. If you start to freak out that her grandmother died, or you say some gloomy, neurotic shit that makes her feel worse, or you show that you do not have the emotional maturity and stability to handle this kind of life event, or if you act cold and distant even though she has done enough for you to deserve your comfort in a situation like this, she will lose attraction to you. So in a weird way, your girlfriend being upset that her grandmother died is a shit test.

All this talk about “testing your frame” and “joining your tribe” sounds like crazy talk to most normal people. But once you understand that women are motivated by these deep, ancient emotions that are the result of millions of years of evolution, much of their behavior will make sense. Even if you have a casual relationship with a woman you met at bar, her subconscious mind still sees herself as “giving” herself to your tribe. These emotions are completely irrational in the modern world. The modern world has police, courts, and jails, so a woman does not need to submit herself to a powerful warlord for resources and protection. But nevertheless, those emotions are still there.

The key to passing shit tests is understanding that women want to live in YOUR frame, not their own. The alpha male’s frame is always better than any woman’s frame, even the hottest, richest, most powerful woman in the world because even the most amazing woman with the most amazing life is still a prisoner to her own neurotic emotions. No matter how amazing a woman’s life is, she would rather experience it vicariously through the alpha male’s thoughts and emotions than her own.

For example, imagine you approach a woman at a bar and she says to you “buy me a drink.” On a conscious level, she may not even realize she is shit testing you: she may just be thinking “I want a drink, so let me see if I can get this guy to buy me one.” (Remember, women assume all men are beta by default, and treat them as such until they are shown otherwise). This woman does not know you and has not bought into your frame at all, so she interacts with you according to the rules of her own frame: In her frame, if a man wants to talk to an attractive woman, he must buy her a drink first, even if she has done nothing else to deserve it.

In your frame, however, you only buy women drinks who deserve it. So when you say “no,” you are setting up a challenge: whose frame controls? Her frame or yours? In other words, do you make the rules or does she make the rules?

At first glance, it may seem like the woman should want her own frame to control. In her own frame, she gets free drinks without doing anything in return. That sounds like a pretty sweet deal! Why would she want to accept a frame where she must work for favors? But even though she gets free drinks in her own frame, she will still rather than live in the alpha male’s frame because she would rather vicariously enjoy the alpha male’s emotional experience than her own emotional experience. To her subconscious mind, joining the tribe of a powerful alpha male who does not do favors for people who do not deserve it is more fun than being a girl in a pretty dress getting free drinks from losers.

This strange fact – that women would prefer to vicariously experience the alpha male’s frame than their own – makes shit tests are weird, counterintuitive, and challenging for most men. When most men see an attractive woman, they immediately assume (often subconsciously) they must accommodate her frame, and thus buy her a drink. Other guys who have studied game might resist, but in a douchey or butthurt way. They may say something like “Why would I buy you a drink? Do I look like your servant!” or “I’ll buy you a drink after you give me a kiss!” Those responses are even worse than buying her a drink because they show that her demand perturbed your frame. The right answer is to just ignore her demand, leave, or laugh it off by saying something like “you’re funny.”

Here is another example. Imagine you are at a nightclub with a woman and a security guard randomly loses his shit and throws you out of the club. He yells at you, physically grabs you, and throws you out the door onto the street like in the movies (imagine for the sake of this example the security guard is much bigger than you and there is nothing you can do).

This type of event can traumatize a woman because it touches all her insecurities about being a woman: a physical confrontation with a big, threatening man, her man being too weak to protect and defend her from the bad guy, the bad guy standing in the way of something she wants (admission into the club), and rejection from where the cool kids are. The negative emotions from this event can ruin a woman’s night, and if you react by freaking out she may lose attraction to you. The wrong way to react to this situation is to get angry, pouty, or self-righteous, yelling “I can’t believe this, I am going home to leave a negative review on Yelp!!”

But in the alpha male’s frame, a crazy security guard is not a threat because nothing is a threat. Even the biggest, angriest lunatic on earth is like a 2 year old kicking him in the shin. As the alpha male, you are “above” fighting a lowly security guard, it does not scare you or hurt your feelings that the security guard is mad at you, and you do not care about not being able to party in the club because there are a million nightclubs in the world. After the security guard dumps you and her on the street, the best response is to laugh and say “well that was funny” or “add that to my list of places I have been kicked out of.” If the woman wants a serious response you can say “that poor guy is just doing his job – he deals with douchebags all day and has a hair trigger. I feel bad for people who work service jobs.”

Now which reality would you rather live in? Her frame - where an angry security guard is a scary threat that can ruin your night? Or the alpha male’s frame – where an angry security guard means nothing and creates no negative emotion? Both interpretations of the situation could be valid, but the alpha male’s interpretation is much more positive. To be able to accept your interpretation, however, the woman must confirm that your frame is “real” and that the angry security guard really IS just an annoying gnat.

This situation actually happened to me. I once had a date with an extremely attractive women so to impress her, I made reservations at one of New York City’s most exclusive nightclubs. Apparently, however, I made the reservation on the website wrong and when we got there, the doorman lost his shit. He cursed me out for being an idiot and not understanding how to make a reservation and told 1me we could not come in. I was mortified – not only were my plans for the date ruined, but this guy was humiliating me in front of this woman. Nevertheless, I held my frame, kept cool, apologized for whatever stupid mistake I had made, and laughed it off. As we walked away, the woman looked at me and said “that’s amazing how you kept your cool.” We then went to a shitty bar a block away and had a great night. A man with a powerful frame is better than reservations at a big time nightclub.

Men do not feel the same desire to shit test women, so most men have no idea what a shit test is, much less how to respond to one. And because most men do not know shit about shit tests, they fail. For example, when a woman makes fun of their shirt, most men get angry and defensive. When a woman demands they do something they have done nothing to deserve, most men comply. When a woman talks about another guy in front of them, most men act like it is ok. And so on. And for this reason, most men end up looking beta when they interact with women.

In fact, when most men have repeated interactions with women, whether in causal or serious relationships, they slowly become beta, feminine, and weak because the woman relentlessly shit tests them and they repeatedly fold, so little by little, they lose their masculinity. Oftentimes men completely ignore their passions, their interests, and even their friends and family to make women happy, only to be treated like complete and utter dogshit and sometimes even get cheated on. Other times men let women completely destroy their self-esteem, their feelings of self-worth, and their happiness by caving to women’s microaggressions. The world is full of hollow, broken men who have been destroyed by women. And the irony is that these women did not even want to destroy their men – they just wanted to test his frame.

I use four principles to respond to shit tests:

1) No matter what, I do not know allow myself to show that her shit test perturbed my emotional state.

2) If the woman asks I do something for her, I only do it if she deserves it (per the alpha male quid pro quo)

3) If the woman points out something wrong I did, I apologize for it once and only once.

4) If the woman’s shit test is based on a real problem, I address that problem, while still not showing that her shit test perturbed me.

I have dealt with some crazy shit tests in my life, but one of the craziest was when a random woman at a bar demanded that I pick up her purse. I had no idea who this woman was, and I did not even know she was talking to me at first. All I heard was a voice rudely say, “pick up my purse.”

I was not even looking at the woman because I was standing at a bar trying to get the bartender’s attention to buy a drink. I assumed whoever said the words “pick up my purse” was talking to somebody else.

“Pick up my purse,” I heard again, this time louder. This time, my curiosity got the best of me and I turned around to see what kind of asshole was saying this. To my surprise, I saw one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen sitting at the bar next to me, glaring at me like an angry schoolteacher. She was talking to ME.

Of course, when I saw how hot this girl was, I immediately wanted to pick up her purse. Beautiful women have an almost magical ability to bring out the beta in guys, and my brain immediately started making excuses to pick up her purse. Picking up a purse is easy! It shows I am a nice guy! The rules are different for hot girls! Even if picking her purse up is a little beta, what’s the big deal? At least I’m not cleaning her apartment! If I pick up her purse, maybe I can start a conversation! And on and on.

But by this time in my life I had learned some game, so I knew better. I knew that asking me to pick up her purse was a shit test and she had done nothing for me to justify me doing that favor or her, so the right answer was to say “no.” I flashed a weak smile, said “you’re funny” and continued trying to get the bartender’s attention.

This bitch was not happy. “Pick up my purse,” she said, louder. I completely ignored her this time. She then got up, picked up her purse herself and loudly asked nobody in particular “Is this what men are like nowadays? They will not even pick up a purse for a lady? What happened to manners and chivalry?”

The earlier beta version of me would have responded in an angry, butthurt, insecure way. I would have probably said something like “Why don’t you pick up your purse yourself? What am I, your servant? You think just because you are a hot girl you get to tell what you guys what to do?” And blah blah blah. But again, I now knew better. I continued to ignore her as she continued to complain.

Finally, when she finished her rant, I turned to her and calmly said “I don’t care what you say, I still think you are cute. What is your name?” I held out my hand for her to shake it, but she instead turned away like a pouty child.

When a woman deliberately chooses to ignore you, the last thing you should do is fight for her attention, so I just walked away, thinking I had blown my opportunity (if there had even been an opportunity) and would never see her again. And to be honest, part of me wished I had picked up her purse so I could have talked to her.

Later in the night, however, the woman approached me, this time with a completely different attitude. She was warm, friendly, and spoke with a completely different tone of voice, as if our earlier interaction had never even happened. We started chatting, and she ended up pouring her heart out to me about her struggles being a model and dealing with all kinds of creeps and scammers in the industry. At the end of the night, we went home together.

My experience with purse lady demonstrates just how weird and counterintuitive shit tests are. According to the normal rules of society, it is rude to demand a stranger pick up your purse. It is also bizarre to suddenly become warm and friendly with the stranger after he says no. This counterintuitiveness and strangeness is precisely why most men fail shit tests.

My website: http://www.woujo.com