A significant focus here at The Red Pill is the transactional nature of relationships. Men exchange time, resources, attention, and commitment for sex, primarily. Women exchange sex, and if they’re actually feminine, charming, and worth a shit, their company, for male time, resources, attention, and commitment. The shorthand metric for this exchange is the SMV – the “Social Market Value” – of each person. A person’s looks, fitness, professional success, social aptitude, personality, and even skills and interests all play a role in determining their worth to other people. We sometimes call SMV the “sexual market value” of a person, but the S is actually for social, not sexual. Social cred is, hands down, the primary currency that matters with women.

The SMV concept actually extends well beyond sex and relationships. Valuable people (e.g., hot, high social aptitude, interesting) also tend to have more friends (and better quality/more useful friends), better professional connections and more success at work, and so on. Your social value is what makes or breaks you in the world. Very few ugly, socially awkward people go far just because they’re smart or hard-working. Very few hot, socially apt people go far without working at least a little bit or having at least a little smarts (though they’ll often go farther than smart, hard-working social rejects). You can compensate for one or two categories by excelling in others, but you can’t be a dead zero in any category or you lose at life. The most successful people in the world rank highly in every category. Because life’s not fair and humans aren’t equal. Some people are just plain better than other people, in every way. And some people just plain suck.

As we all know, women don’t date down. Or laterally (which they consider down). Women date up. Before you have a serious shot at a girl, she needs to perceive your SMV as outranking hers, by at least a little bit. Are women simply greedy? What does a woman get from a valuable man that she doesn’t get from a less valuable one? Sure, fucking is more fun if the other person is super-hot, and a rich person buys you shit, but you can’t fuck a person’s social aptitude. In fact, even if a man commits to a woman, his social aptitude, his skills and interests – all of that is going to cause him to spend less time, less attention, and less resources on his woman. Nonetheless, if you’re a social retard and you suck with people, that is the single greatest dealbreaker for a girl. Even if you’re cute and make six figures.

Men are more inclined (or at least more expected) to be risk-takers when compared to women. Men are the ones who walk up and risk rejection, while women just sit there and accept fuck applicants, passing judgment all night, getting annoyed with the less qualified ones, and imagining that their position is a tedious and difficult one. Men are more often the ones who start businesses, climb corporate ladders, request raises and promotions, and put themselves out there to get established. This carries forward into other aspects of a man’s life, such as making friends, seeking out hobbies, and so on.

It’s a social risk to sign up for some group activity where you don’t know anybody, travel across town to be there at a certain time, arrive at an unfamiliar location full of strangers, and just start talking to people there, trying to make friends. Hell, it’s a social risk at a party or some other friendly gathering to just walk up to a stranger – even a same-sex stranger – and strike up a conversation, trying to make friends. Making friends, developing hobbies and social networks – establishing yourself socially -- is every bit as much of a rejection risk as picking up a girl.

Most women suck at risk. Women are petrified of rejection. Women don’t hit on cute guys – they let guys come to them. That way, they already know the guy is interested. Women don’t drive across town to attend some event with a group of strangers. They’ll only go if their friends are going. Women don’t make new friends. They just do everything with their current circle of friends. If they do make a new friend, it’s through other people they know. Women don’t seek out friends or walk up to strangers. They just end up being friends with whoever they work with or go to school with or wherever else their circumstances put them. Women absolutely, positively, will not, do not, can not bear social rejection. So women do not take the risk.

Women seek out men who are social dynamos because these men take the risk for them. These men have friends, a social network, hobbies, and interests. A woman can cling to his arm as he goes around being social, and she can strike up conversations with his social connections, risk-free, because he’s already taken the risk for her. He did the leg work, took the risk, made the friends, made the connections, and established himself. And now she gets to be a part of all of that, risk free. No fear of rejection. That’s why women will pretend to be annoyed at all the time you spend with your guy friends, but are secretly happy that you’re socially established, since having those guy friends means getting invited to gatherings for her, having an immediate in for conversations with your guy friends’ women, and so on.

Women are social creatures. They need a socially established man because without social validation, they wither and die. But women are so dependent upon the social world that they just can’t bear a social rejection. They just can’t make themselves take a social risk. Their man, and his social status, are what gives them opportunities beyond their immediate circles of friends and coworkers. Their man faces the world for them, takes the risks, does the work, while they follow in his wake, reaping the benefits of his labor, risk free.

Your most valuable currency is being social. The kind of guy who can chat with strangers and walk away with a new friend or professional contact. The kind of guy who knows somebody everywhere, knows people in all areas who can get shit done. The kind of guy people like. None of this I’m an introvert, but I’ll just work harder in school and at my job and at the gym bullshit. If you’re a social retard, it’s going to hold you back in all areas. Awkwardly meeting strangers and risking embarrassment and rejection is scary, but smashing that fear is part of growing from a boy into a man.