The alpha and the beta personalities

I used to have sex with an extremely attractive woman who was polyamorous and in an “open” relationship. Her boyfriend was, in her own words, a mediocre-looking loser. This woman liked dirty, degrading, humiliating sex and even liked me to insult her boyfriend while we were fucking. After a few weeks of hanging out with her, my curiosity finally got the best of me and I asked her why she even had a boyfriend. She gave a surprisingly honest answer, saying “I like to be in a relationship because of the safety and security of knowing that somebody will always be there for me no matter what, even if I am not necessarily on my ‘A’ game. But there is something hot and exciting about fucking a new guy because there is an uncertainty as to whether he even likes me. It is like a game.”

“Ok,” I responded. “But what happens when you ‘win’ the game? What happens when the other guy admits he likes you?” I assumed most guys would “lose” this game because 1) this girl was really hot and fun to hang out with and 2) nobody told them there was a game going on.

She sat there and thought for a minute, as if I had asked her a very difficult question. Finally, she said “well then I guess he would be my boyfriend.”

I was amazed at her answer. This woman was hot, funny, cool, interesting, a freak in the sack, and ok with no strings-attached sex. It was amazing that she felt like she needed to keep a boyfriend around that even she admitted was a loser. But I eventually figured out the reason: even though women are excited by adventure, they also need acceptance. Just like they want unpredictability, excitement, challenge, and hot, wild, nasty sex with a hot, confident, dominant, guy, they also want to feel loved, accepted, and that their partner is reliable and consistent and will not randomly disappear. And when a woman feels like she cannot get both of these emotions from one man, she will often get them from different men.

I like to conceptualize adventure and acceptance as being provided by two different personalities: the “alpha” personality and the “beta” personality. The alpha personality is the heartless killer that leads the tribe into the unknown and defeats the tribe’s challenges (which, to our evolutionary ancestors, meant killing the tribe’s enemies). He is fearless, confident, cold-hearted, unemotional, challenging, disagreeable, unpredictable, focused, relentless, selfish, and sometimes kind of a jerk. The beta personality, however, is warm, affectionate, reliable, caring, empathetic, compassionate, loving, agreeable, accommodating, and “nice.” The beta’s job is to reward the woman for her contributions, make her feel accepted, and help her when she has done something to deserve it.

Women want a man that can provide both personalities, but they do not want these personalities from any old schlub – they want both from the alpha male. The alpha male can provide both the alpha and beta personalities, but the beta male can only provide the beta personality. The beta personality, however, is worthless to women unless it comes from the alpha male. In fact, the primatologist Franz de Waal has observed that in chimpanzee tribes the alpha male is most likely to hug and comfort the lower-ranked members, including the females. This makes sense – the alpha male is the most compassionate because he is the only person’s whose compassion matters. The beta male cannot actually do much for women, so his niceness is worthless, at least from an evolutionary perspective.

The key to game is knowing when and how to provide the alpha and beta personalities correctly, and the key is where you point your thoughts and emotions (in other words, your attention). Simply put, the alpha personality focuses his attention on his own purposes and the beta personality focuses his attention on the woman. To be maximally attractive, you must focus your thoughts and emotions attention on your purposes and only pay attention to women after they contribute to your purposes somehow. In other words, you must primarily provide the alpha personality and sprinkle in some beta personality only after the woman works for it. As your relationship with a woman progresses, you can provide her more and more beta personality as she emotionally invests in you and does more for you, but at the beginning you will probably be providing mostly alpha personality.

Most men fail miserably at this game. Most men have a tendency to provide too much beta personality, and therefore fail because women subconsciously categorize them as a beta male. These overly-beta guys put women on a pedestal, act like their butler, confess their undying love in cringy ways, and pay women way too much attention. Essentially, the big mistake these guys make is giving women more than they deserve. This tendency exists for two main reasons: 1) men emotionally invest in women quicker than women emotionally invest in men, which causes them to want to do things for women before women want to do things for them, and 2) our society teaches men to do things for women they do not deserve.

At the other extreme, men also fail with women because they provide too much alpha personality. The overly-alpha guys have usually been burned for being too nice, so they overcompensate by being overly cold, distant, and challenging. These guys think women like “assholes” so they intentionally ignore women, act douchey, and spend too much time trying to act “cool” instead of just having fun and being friendly. These guys pique womens’ interest but ultimately fail because the women feel cold and unwanted, and therefore cannot form an emotional connection. Women can also tell when a guy is trying to act alpha, and trying too hard is unattractive because it seems inauthentic and manipulative, and shows too much emotional investment. Essentially, the “too alpha” guys give women less than they deserve.

I think it is hilarious to see guys blow it by trying too hard to be alpha. One night my friend and I met two girls at a club and took them back to my place. My friend was an awkward nerd and was just getting into pick-up artist stuff. As I was in the kitchen pouring everybody drinks, I heard one the girls say from the other room “What the fuck did you just say to me? Did you just try to ‘neg’ me?” I rolled my eyes because I knew exactly what happened. My friend was trying too hard to look alpha and tried to tease the girl in hamhanded, autistic way and it backfired. The girl immediately lost interest in him and soon went home, taking her friend with her.

It is common for men to oscillate between being too alpha and too beta. A guy will act often too needy and beta, which causes the woman to go cold, and then try to make up for it by being an asshole, which repels the woman even more. Other times, a guy might blow it by acting too alpha, and then when the woman moves on he tries to get her back by supplicating and being a little bitch. A major reason attractive women are often crazy is that the men in their lives put them through this insane oscillation of opposing emotions.

Striking this balance is difficult for beginners because the alpha personality and the beta personality are like two completely different human beings and switching between the two will feel counterintuitive and weird at first. For example, if you are having a warm, fun interaction with a woman and she asks you to buy her a drink you may naturally want to do it because you will not want to ruin the interaction. But if a woman has not done enough to “deserve” the drink, buying her a drink will cause her to lose attraction, so in that moment you must risk ruining the entire interaction by bringing out the alpha personality and saying no. Similarly, no matter how well things have been going with a woman, the moment she does or says something shitty, you must immediately become a cold-hearted asshole and withdraw your attention. On the flipside, if you have been playing it cool and providing the alpha personality, and the woman starts to emotionally invest and do things for you, you need to start doing things for her.

Because most men cannot provide both these personalities in the right way, many women (like my polyamorous friend) keep multiple men in their life, some for the alpha emotions and others for the beta emotions. These women often have a group of nice, safe, reliable guys in the friendzone, or maybe a boyfriend she knows is madly in love with her, and then have sex with alpha males on the side. This phenomenon is so common there is a term for it: “alpha fucks, beta bucks.” Sometimes women become so used to getting these emotions from different men they assume that every guy who acts nicely is a beta male and every guy who acts like an asshole is an alpha.

Women gravitate towards alpha and beta guys differently depending on their life circumstances. For example, if a woman has been dating a reliable, boring beta boyfriend for the last five years, after she dumps him she will often want to fuck a bunch of alpha males because she has had her fill of the beta personality. On the other hand, a woman who has been getting fucked by lots of alpha males over the past few months, and then being and ignored and disrespected, will probably feel shitty and want a man who can provide her with the stability, affection, and warmth that the beta personalities provides.

Scientists and dudebros on the internet have even theorized that the alpha fucks-beta bucks dichotomy is wired into women’s DNA. The theory is that women evolved to have sex with the alpha male because the alpha male has the best genes, but they also evolved to try to find a different, more provider-y guy after they actually have the alpha’s baby. It is not exactly clear whether AF-BB is genetic or not, but the top scholars in this field, like the leading evolutionary psychologist David Buss, are currently leaning towards “no.” Buss believes that women prefer to get all these emotions from one man, and they only get it from multiple men when they cannot find one man to provide them all the relevant emotions.

Whether or not AF-BB is wired into womens’ DNA, you should still have the ability to provide both the alpha and beta personalities if and when necessary. Because most men are beta, most advice on the internet is about how to become more alpha. But if all you do is ignore a woman and treat her like shit, she will move on and find a guy that does not make her feel terrible. Believe me – I went on this journey myself. Like most guys, I started off acting too beta – I was needy, too nice, weak, and willing to accommodate whatever the woman wanted me to do. After seeing that beta males finish last, I started learning game and improving myself, and started learning how to act alpha. I started getting some success with women, but I often acted too alpha – I would ruin relationships because I ignored the woman too much and made her feel like I was uninterested. I am still not perfect, but now I do a much better job at striking this balance.

All else being equal, it is usually better to be too alpha than too beta because the alpha personality is much more rare, and thus much more valuable. Women constantly get beta personality thrown at them, so while they need the beta personality, it is less interesting and impressive than the alpha personality (if there was a hypothetical community where most guys were too alpha, then a guy who provided the beta personality would be more valuable). Providing the alpha personality is much harder than providing the beta personality because there is only supposed to be one alpha male in the tribe so the default for most people is to feel and act beta. Ignoring women, focusing on your mission, and holding your boundaries is tough when you desperately want pussy.

It is also easier to recover if you blow it by acting too alpha than if you blow it by acting too beta. Once a woman subconsciously categorizes you as a beta male, it is very difficult to change what her subconscious mind thinks of you. Women feel like an alpha male can easily be caring and nice if he wanted to, but a beta male cannot easily act alpha. Once you show a woman that you are needy, weak, and insecure, it is hard to convince her that you have completely overcome those weaknesses.

Sometimes people say things like: “These games are a waste of time; Either a woman likes you or she does not.” I strongly disagree. Women have a deep, subconscious need for adventure and acceptance, and will not be able to emotionally invest in you if they do not get the right mix of alpha and beta, even if they finds you attractive. Even the most innocent-looking, prudish girl wants to go on crazy adventures with a confident, dominant, transgressive man. And the meanest, hottest, bitch in the world wants to be held, comforted, and complimented. But these emotions are subconscious and irrational, so learning to provide them correctly is often counterintuitive and weird. Many intelligent, attractive, nice, well-meaning guys blow it with women because they act too mean or too nice. That is why game is so hard: you are not wooing her rational mind, you are wooing her emotions.

The alpha and beta personalities are just abstract concepts to help you calibrate your behavior. If these concepts do not help you, do not use them. There are many different ways to look at human relationships, and this is just one way out of many.

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