Be one of the good guys

I spend too much time on the red pill subreddit.  One nice thing about that, though, is that occasionally I write some pretty good comments.

Redditor somedickcream (yeah) posted an (I thought) worthy question:

I’ve been reading TRP/PUA stuff for a long time, started posting recently. My slow but steady transformation into a better version of myself came with a lot of positive effects on my life (better with women, more assertive, better relationship with my old man, ambition, drive, a male identity I can be proud of and last but not least , a better body). The list gets bigger every month. It’s great.

Negatives:

Getting a lot of bitch behaviour directed towards me, from other men. Some of it I expected. You start being more confident (maybe a little cocky – when it comes to humor), steal attention from girls they like and some AFCs will call you a asshole behind your back. I get that.

I find myself interacting with a group (party / club / college), there is always a couple of guys that “disengage” – they go quiet, look at their phones and stop participating. The rest are social and respond in a positive way (both guys and girls). The more of a dominant atitude I have, the more I get the stink eye from other guys.

What’s the perfect balance then ? I see myself on the path to becoming that lone wolf type if I keep this going. While it’s better that being a beta, it’s not something I want – I want to be a leader, a man that other men look up to and respect, not one they are threatened/ put off by.

There’s a lie that some men who’ve taken the pill tell themselves, which goes like this: since virtue, kindness, and chivalry have apparently spat back in his face, he no longer cares for them, or for anyone else.

Heaven help him if he really goes down this path.  C.S. Lewis said it better than me:

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.  I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God’s will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness…We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as a way in which they should break, so be it.  What I know about love and believe about love and giving ones heart began in this.

But I don’t think men really do go down this path, or if they do, it’s with the greatest reluctance.  Somedickcream (yes, that is indeed his name) finds himself going down the rabbit hole, and the world is his: attractive women, his enemies driven(well, to their smartphones) before him.  But he was not made for this world, and he desires something more: to lift others up.  To channel Cane Caldo, God saw all that He’d created and called it good; this creative, lifting desire men have is good.

Here was my response to somedickcream’s post:

Here’s the interesting thing: while it’s easier to be actual friends with guys, it’s harder to be a leader of them.

Sometimes I’ll be talking to a girl—even if I’m not interested in her, in fact, especially if I’m not interested in her—and I’ll go full beast-mode game. When you can a) see the matrix, and b) you’re not distracted by how much you want her, it’s absurdly easy to keep a girl laughing non-stop.

And invariably, when I do this, I’m left feeling kind of bored, disconnected. Because it’s all bullshit.

I don’t mean game doesn’t work—it works fabulously. But it’s conning the stupid, like putting “Excellent at leveraging group synergies” on your resume. Presumably this is how a plain girl feels when guys fall all over her after she figures out makeup.

The thing I like about guys is that they see through it. Game doesn’t work on them, or at least not nearly as well. Frankly, it’s one of the qualities that I find, dare I say it, noble about men. There’s some truth in the accusations that game works by “manipulating” women*. Well, no shit, everything in society works by manipulating women. Women are the easiest thing to manipulate in the world. Just ask advertisers, politicians, and Cosmo. Game basically boils down to “All the cool kids think he’s cool. Don’t you want to be one of the cool kids?” just done professionally. What’s admirable about men is that they’re willing to say, “Fuck that, I find no value here.” Even if they’re too beta to be able to compete with you, at least they’re not lapping it up like the women.** The most omega of WoW-addict omegas is at least doing something he likes, rather than reading about the lives of movie stars who don’t give a shit about him.

What men value is not being treated like shit, being shown respect, people who can and will add value to their lives rather than people who can and might.

The thing is, it’s oddly kind of hard to provide value to a dude’s life. You have to bring something tangible. Being a good friend will do it, but that’s time-intensive. Sharing hard-to-acquire knowledge does it, but as a college student you’re probably low on that.

Anyway.

It’s kind of unavoidable. I have become more of a lone wolf as I’ve realized that most dudes don’t have a lot to offer me. Some do, though, and I prize those friendships.

If you want to be a real leader of men, then understand that they will be less competent than you; otherwise, they’d lead themselves. This is not nearly as bad as it sounds as long as they’re willing to follow. Also understand that with leadership comes responsibility—if you’re leading them, you’re responsible for them.***

Frankly, at my stage of life, I just don’t have time to be a leader of men. I have my own stuff to take care of before I can handle anyone else. So I have gone lone wolf in the way you’re describing.

* The question that never follows, but should: “Should we allow people so vulnerable to manipulation to vote?”

** Not all of the guys engaging with you will be “lapping it up.” Guys responding to you will be alpha enough to be unthreatened by you, or way beta and hoping to get validation from you. It’s the guys in the middle—beta enough to know they can’t compete, not so beta that they’ll embarrass themselves supplicating to you—that are looking at their phones.

*** I’m speaking in generalities. If you’re “leading” a bunch of guys hitting on girls at a party, and you expect them to do what you say, then it’s up to you to deflect a fatty who won’t leave your newb friend alone. If you’re leading a company, and you want employee loyalty, then you better a) never have layoffs and b) have a retirement plan. Point is, obedience demands security, from men or women.

In the future, I intend to write more about this concept of nobility.  Stay tuned.