Tuesday, May 21, 2013

No Guts, No Glory: Quit Being A Pussy About Love

For all of you doubters out there, let me lay some Cosmic Wisdom on you: Love exists.


That may seem like a whacky thing to hear from a dude who prides himself on taking a Red Pill approach to life -- but the Red Pill isn't about just the harsh, stark realities of life, it's also about being honest about the good things in your life.  

Take a step back and think about it for a moment: the idea of the Red Pill is to substitute, as much as possible, an Objective perspective ("how things actually are") for a Subjective perspective ("how things seem to be through our own perception filters") when collecting data and making decisions about your life.  That means ALL things, not just the stuff we're buggin' about.

Now, I'm not running down the power of the Subjective approach to reality.  There are whole vistas of human endeavor that depend utterly on our ability and willingness to set aside the Objective facts and substitute a Subjective perspective that proves more useful.  Hope, for instance, is predicated on the idea that even though things are shitty, that things will not remain shitty . . . without any shred of evidence that is, in fact, true.

Similarly, Fortitude is based not on the idea that you can, objectively, make it through a crisis, but that you, subjectively, WILL make it through a crisis, even though the objective facts of the matter seem to run counter to that proposition.  Hope, Fortitude, Courage, and dozens of other facets of the human condition require a Subjective approach to reality in order for us to overcome our perceived weaknesses and achieve.

Blue Pill reality happens when you put all your chips on the Subjective, and discard all but the most glaring elements of the Objective.  You not only believe in the power of Love, you're willing to use it as a justification and rationalization for the most foolish and self-destructive behaviors.  You not only believe in Fairness, you assume that everyone else also believes in Fairness and is trying to promote it just as fervently as you.  You not only believe in Equality, you insist that you're getting Equality, even when you are unfairly penalized by a system or culture that determines that your group, for whatever reason, is less equal than others.

That Blue Pill overdose leads to irrational idealism.  The Red Pill overdose leads to hopeless cynicism.

Neither one of those things leads to actual happiness.  



Athol makes an excellent point when he discusses the need for the Blue Pill, despite the number of ardent Red Pill proponents who insist that Love is a fruitless endeavor undermined by the "Red Pill Reality".  The Red Pill can be a heady experience, don't misunderstand - it will open your eyes to see the social universe in a whole new perspective.  Once you understand the underpinnings of modern social/sexual behavior through the lens of the science of evolutionary biology and neurochemistry, the impulse to reduce everything to those terms is almost irresistible 

But while the Red Pill shows you the stark reality of the dating arena in this day and age, it should also point out the fact that yes, Love still exists in the world, and it's possible for any human being to find it.  Hopelessly shmaltzy?  Or pragmatic observation?  Attend:

Love, as we understand the base emotion, can be loosely defined as "the emotion of feeling another person's happiness and well-being are a precondition of your own".

Mother love, Caritas, first results when a mommy fulfills her baby's vital need for comfort and sustenance, and that emotional transaction continues to be replayed throughout our lives.

Philios, "brotherly love", first results when we are children, and we develop empathy and sympathy for our playmates.  We don't want our friends to get hurt, and we don't want our friends to hurt us.  Those who take Philios to extremes often find themselves tirelessly devoted to improving the welfare of their fellow man even at the expense of their own well-being, using the buzz of Universal Compassion as their justification.  

Agape, the love between Man and the Divine, is  exercise of self-awareness and an existential development of a total psycho-spiritual response to the Universe.  It can develop in anyone, at any time, and be either profound or fleeting or both.

Then there is Eros.



Our conception and perspectives on Eros develop at adolescence  when our child bodies are subjected to the forge of puberty and we start noticing the opposite (or same) sex in a sexual manner.  "Sex", of course, is the goal.  Sex for reproduction, sex for pair-bonding, sex for recreation, sex because the cable is out again.

But Sex is not Eros.  It's merely a component -- albeit the essential component -- for Eros.  The motivation for Eros may be Sex -- 'cause orgasms are cool and all -- but Eros encompasses a far wider field than the mindless rutting implied in hook up culture.  True Eros is the combination of Sex with a deeper understanding of the soul of the Other Person.  True Eros is the institutionalization of a mutual feeling in which each party's happiness and well-being is essential to either and both.

True Eros happens -- and keeps happening -- because our sexual feelings become entangled with our compassionate feelings, the whole thing gets washed out in a wave of oxytocin and serotonin and vasopressin, and somewhere in our neurology a switch gets flipped: we make the emotional decision, quite apart from the objective situation, that the Other Person's well-being is now essential to your own.  Every aspect of their well-being.  

The gratification we get from the experience can be completely one-sided.  I've seen cases when unrequited love, instead of turning sour, was enobled by sacrifice and higher purpose.  I'm not saying that those people went on to be happy, but they did feel the satisfaction of seeing the Other Person thrive and prosper which, to them, was reward enough.

But usually Love - Eros - the love between (for about 75-80% of the population) a man and a woman for the implied purpose of pairbonding and reproduction is mutual, at some point, in some form or fashion.  It may be unequal, it may be toxic, it may be abusive, but there is a reciprocal element there.  She loves me, I love her.  Or "My happiness is predicated on her's, and vice-versa".  That's Love.  And when that Love is Eros, then the implied responsibility for that Love takes us into some very intimate areas, places where the other forms of love - Agape, Caritas, Philios - cannot touch.

Eros implies a pairbond, a mutual exchange of compassion, fulfillment and caregiving at the most intimate of levels, an exchange that benefits both parties.  The benefits may not always be equal in strength or capacity, but it is the reciprocity that is the key element in true Eros.  Following your wife around, kissing her ass and begging for sex Blue Pill style is not true Eros, because it has lost the reciprocal element.  Similarly, demanding sex from your wife regardless of her feelings in the matter might be pure Red Pill, for some people, but it is not true Eros.


There is balance in Eros.  Equilibrium.  Rarely is their Equality, simply because relationships are dynamic things and the notion of "equality" is highly contextual and idealistic.  Balance and Equilibrium are pragmatic concerns: when your wife is sick, you tend to her, you don't order her to clean the house.  When you lose your job, she should tend to you, not berate you for your failure.  True Eros implies not just the willingness to put another person's well-being as conditional to your own, but the willingness to adapt and modify your personal behavior to improve the nature of the equilibrium.

True Eros means you don't kidney-punch in an argument.  True Eros means you don't call each other mean names.  True Eros means you recognize and acknowledge the vulnerabilities of your mate, and while you are not obliged to "fix" them, you are obliged not to damage them further or put them in a position where others may do so.  True Eros means you are not just each other's intimate lover, but also their guardian, defender, and protector.  True Eros means that you hold each other to a high standard of accountability, but don't dwell on failures except as they serve as learning experiences.  True Eros means withholding summary judgement, considering your partner's perspective thoughtfully before acting, and being willing to sacrifice on their behalf.


That last part usually makes people squirm.  Thanks to 2000 years of Christianity (no offense), the idea of 'sacrifice' has been kicked around so much and in so many arcane directions that we often forget what it means, at its root: to give something meaningful up to the Sacred.  It doesn't have to be your life, it can be a goat, a cow, a car, a belief, a cherished heirloom, a perspective, a prejudice, an ignorance, a purpose, a plan, a vacation, a dream.  Because of the Big Sacrifice implicit in the Passion, too often Christians (and our Christian-influenced secular culture) misunderstands the nature and utility of sacrifice, seeing it only in its most stark and mortal terms.  They often miss its pragmatic nature.

Yet if we consider our pairbonds sacred, see our marriages as holy rites implicit with sacred responsibilities, if we accept that we are the priests and priestesses serving the higher purpose of establishing Eros - the basis of the Family - in our sanctified unions, then we alone are responsible for its success or failure . . . and far too often the abortive marriages we see in our society are due to the unwillingness of one or both parties' willingness to sacrifice for the benefit of the greater entity.

Western consumer "me" culture has taught us to ask "what's in it for me?", and then reduce the answers down to the absolute most objective elements, making a relationship a cost-benefit analysis, first and foremost.  Women shop for husbands like shoes, these days, trying on one after another and then changing their mind in a fit of hypergamous indecision.  Men shop for wives like cars, finding the shiniest, prettiest model they can afford and then being all-to-willing to swap it out for a newer model if he can afford it.


Neither approach leads to true Eros, and those who seek "love" through a numbers game or based on superficial issues are almost always doomed to disappointment.  True Eros isn't just passion -- we can just about bottle and sell passion these days.  Yet true Eros is in scant supply.  True Eros isn't about "variety", it's about interest.  True Eros doesn't come and go; it's hard to start, it's difficult to encourage, it's fiendishly tricky to maintain, and it takes skill and talent to sustain over the years.

True Eros implies trust, and that's a hard thing for a battle-scarred Red Pill veteran of Combat Mating to generate, when every member of the opposite sex is viewed with automatic suspicion.  True Eros implies compassion, and that's hard for a Red Pill man or woman to indulge in without being critical - for we are compassionate when the Other Person is damaged or weak or unfortunate.  The Red Pill often reveals to us just why they got that way, and it becomes all-too-easy to dismiss their pains and anxieties as "their own fault", which is the antithesis of compassion.



True Eros implies Respect, and the Blue Pill is far too ready to lend itself to a condescending, disrespectful, or obsequious pattern of behavior.  When we are too idealistic about how things should be, we hold out unrealistic expectations for our partner, which leads inevitably to disappointment  which leads - too often - to disrespect.  True Eros implies Devotion, and the Blue Pill seeks to bury both the intensity and the commitment intrinsic to that impulse under the weight of "independence", as if Eros could exist when either party is more devoted to their own happiness and well-being than that of their mate.

Trust.  Compassion.  Respect.  Devotion.  These are the things that contribute to the Love that is true Eros: the real True Love, leading to the real Happily Ever After.  Those are the ONLY things that can get you there.  If you don't have all four, then you don't have true Eros.

But to get there, as a priest or priestess devoted to the sacred nature of their union, you must sacrifice your mistrust, your vulnerability, your disdain, and your selfishness.  That may seem contra to the Red Pill philosophy to some, but I argue that the Red Pill insists we see things as they are . . . and the objective fact is that there are plenty of people who achieve true Eros, even in our damaged and evolving society.

The Red Pill Fact is that it isn't impossible to trust, respect, love and devote yourself to a person and not be betrayed.  While we see plenty of examples of total disasters, when it comes to marriage and relationships, if we look objectively we can also see quite a few examples of folks who, through talent, trial and error, or luck, got it right.

Love, true Eros, isn't impossible under the Red Pill.  Indeed, it is the ultimate fulfillment of the Red Pill, if you have found and vetted the Other Person to the point where you trust them, feel for them, respect them, and can comfortably devote yourself to their well-being.  That doesn't mean harboring illusions about their personality, mental and emotional state, or other issues, it means acknowledging the problems, being dedicated to the solutions, and being willing to weather a tempest or two while you come to that equilibrium.

Athol says we need both the Red Pill and the Blue Pill, the ALPHA mode and the BETA mode to be in a fulfilling Red Pill marriage, and I cannot disagree.  Vox adds, cogently, 

"I don't recommend choosing illusion over reality, but it is also important to understand that the potential for doing evil is not the same as actually committing it.  And experiencing temptation is not action.  Knowing that a woman does not belong on a pedestal is not synonymous with believing that she dwells in a sewer." 



I will go one further: you cannot discard the possibility of true Eros, of Love fulfilled, even of passionate and exciting Romance, and hope to find happiness with the Red Pill.  Contentedness, perhaps, but not happiness.  

There are no guarantees, and the cynics who abound in the Manosphere desperately want some.  That's their fear talking: fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of judgement.  They deride the idea of love because it's naturally safer for them to do so - without expectation, there can be no disappointment   Love, even the possibility of true Eros, is a very scary thing regardless of your gender, and often it seems just more sensible and reasonable to abandon the idea altogether -- hell, it's very tempting.  Athol, Vox and I get that.


But those supposedly Red Pill men who are certain that all women are secretly evil and prospective goldigging hypergamists, who don't think that love, true or otherwise, is even possible . . .y'all aren't just ignoring the objective fact that it is possible, y'all are being a bunch of pussies.

Seriously.  It's implicit to a mature masculinity that good men are willing to take risks.  Hell, taking risks is the male prerogative,  it's our forte.  Yet men who would put their life savings on Black and spin the wheel with abandon won't even approach women because of the "risk" of their hearts and wallets.  Men who would gamble that they can draw just a little bit faster than the other guy don't want to risk their feelings being hurt by rejection.  Guys who are willing to borrow extravagantly to fund an enterprise with little hope of a return aren't willing to consider that maybe -- just maybe -- all women aren't there to take them to the cleaners in a divorce.  That all women aren't unfaithful.

You men who feel that love is beyond your reach due to your culture, your era, your society, or the vagaries of feminism . . . stop being such a pussy.  Take a risk.  That doesn't mean you have to be stupid about it, blinded by love and led around by your dick, but right now you sound like the whiny kid who always stands on the sideline during Dodge Ball because he's scared to get hurt.  Yeah, love is scary.  Get over it and take the hit like a man.



The Red Pill didn't promise you Love, it merely shows you the schematics.  It didn't make you divorce-proof, it merely gave you some skills to deal with the possibility.  Vox can't tell you how to find the perfect woman, and Athol can't tell you how to have the perfect marriage, all they can do is point you in the right direction.  It's up to you to take the risks, make yourself vulnerable, and open yourself to the possibility of trusting a woman . . . because there are dudes out there who have made it work, and work well.  It's not impossible.  We're not fooling ourselves.  Yeah, we're lucky . . . but we were also smart enough to know when to sacrifice what was needed for the greater glory of our union.  We have taken upon ourselves to be the priests who do what needs to be done to keep the union sacred, and part of that is the risk of being hurt.

That's why a lot of us Old Married Guys (defined these days as anyone who has made it 10 years -- yeah, we know, we're depressed by that, too) who have taken the Red Pill and are running and enjoying Married Game shake our heads at the MGTOW who are so vocally anti-marriage.  Because taking the calculated risk of finding and loving someone who will, likewise, trust, love, respect, and devote themselves to you IS a perfectly valid way for a Man to Go His Own Way.

The key is to keep an objective eye on everything, the bad and the good, and a subjective perspective in your heart that knows yourself well enough to recognize a good thing when you see it.


Look, if you really, truly aren't "the marrying type" or genuinely recognize that you truly aren't that interested in pairbond in general, if you are preoccupied by your profession or your vocational passion and you feel that splitting your focus would detract from that, if you just don't think that romance, love, and Eros are that important . . . dude, I hear you.  Quit talking about how the rest of us are doomed idiots.  Go your own way with our collective blessing secure in the knowledge that you have made a conscious, informed decision . . . for you.

But if you harbor secret longings for true love and romance and a woman who will stay steadfastly by your side, devoted, loving, capable and as respectful of your masculinity as you are of her femininity . . . then don't look at the Mating 2.0 world as a disaster.  To do that is to admit defeat and concede that you have abdicated the quest for greatness, and have clung instead to the flotsam of mediocrity.  If you look at the women of the world and recoil in fear and horror instead of preparing yourself for the challenge of finding a superior mate -- and in the process make yourself a superior mate -- then you've already lost.  You're spiritually soiling yourself in front of ancestors who tamed the wilderness, crossed the oceans, built mighty empires and defeated insurmountable foes . . . because you can't handle the idea of losing something you don't even have yet.

Now go out there, learn some Game, inform yourself, hone your skills, take a fucking risk . . . and quit being such a pussy about love.  This isn't rocket science.  This isn't a marathon.  This isn't a fiendishly clever international plot to turn you into a mindless ATM machine . . . believe me, feminists just aren't that bright about that sort of thing.  Yes, the weather conditions could be better, but a man doesn't shirk from cloudy skies when sunshine might be over the horizon.


Love is a human universal -- not just sex, but true Eros.  It occurs in every human culture, and is the basis for some of our most powerful myths and legends.  Many, if not most of your ancestors knew of love, even when they were terrible at it.  This is something that men have mastered for thousands of years . . . and your whining and despair about how awful it is right now insults your ancestors and undermines your own self-respect.

That's not how a mature, masculine man reacts to danger.  He educates himself, understands the risks and the rewards, he prepares, he trains . . . and he at least makes the best attempt he can.

No Guts, No Glory: Either get in the game or quit yelling to the rest of us from the sidelines that we'll get hurt .  We know the risks, we know the dangers, but we know the rewards possible, too.  Assuming that no men are capable of managing a successful relationship just because you can't - when it's pretty clear that quite a few of us are - doesn't make you more wise, intelligent, or Red Pill-astute.  It just makes you look like a pussy who's just scared of getting hurt by the ball.  So get over it.

You're embarrassing us.




25 comments:

  1. MGTOWs usually avoid relationships due to current laws, (Western) female attitudes, and maybe getting burnt from past relationships. Its a reaction to how the way 'things are' now a days.

    We can shake heads at each other and that's fine and all, nobody has to conform to another person's perspectives on how one should live their life.

    I recall a very good article on AVfM a while about the different types of 'love', specifically agape, its worth a read since it came to a different conclusion from yours.

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  2. You can experience love and a long-term pair bond without a state-sponsored and regulated marriage...

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  3. Except, of course, for how even Eros is a also a contract between a man AND a woman on one side and a community on the other.

    Which you and Vox and Athol and almost everybody else in the manosphere (as sub-distinguished from the androsphere) still don't seem to get.

    But this is how they get you, guys. They suck you in with the promise of love with women, and then trap you with the far more overwhelming love of children.

    Because that's the ultimate purpose of blue pill positivism -- the exploitation of what really makes men get up every morning and throw themselves into the meat grinder again day after day after day. Their kids.

    The really sad/funny part is that I don't keep pointing this out to you guys to be a prick. No, the reason is that

    WINTER IS COMING

    BECAUSE VASALGEL IS CHASING ITS ASS!

    The nascent men's liberation market is going to change radically because of that. It's going to have an effect that will greatly exceed that of The Pill. You think there's a population crash now? Heh. You ain't seen nothing yet. Here's your two-years notice, girls:

    Fraudulent impregnation? DONE.

    Alphafucks cuckolding? OVER.

    I'll leave the completion of the reference to other commenters. What other major categories of pregnancies do you folks think are going away because of vasalgel? Because people other than myself need to start thinking about this stuff.

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    1. I don't think this will cause a population crash. I would have had more children if I hadn't been baby-raped and forced to have one with such a toxic human being. Being able to choose lets you create more stable families.

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    2. Why were you having sex with a toxic human being?

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  4. What I personally took away from the post was more or less that screaming one's cynicism and pessimism from the sidelines about someone else's approach doesn't lend credibility to one's own. If your approach has merit, that's fine, enjoy it. But just because it works for you doesn't mean you have to inject your views into the hard work of another man, especially when things are actually working out for them. I believe it's that unwarranted and uninvited interjection that communicates "I am too afraid to pursue love, to gather merit for my position I must convert others (even if they are perfectly happy disagreeing with me)" Caring so much about the precise method other people are achieving happiness, and being so upset that it differs from yours personally seems more like a common female downfall than an exercise in masculinity.

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  5. I agree with most of the stuff you're saying here. That took some balls, man. Glad you are saying this kind of stuff within the "red pill" blogosphere.

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  6. ...The key is to keep an objective eye on everything, the bad and the good, and a subjective perspective in your heart that knows yourself well enough to recognize a good thing when you see it.

    *This*

    Pair bonding is immensely satisfying and attainable even in the degraded culture today. I've found a Red Pill awareness is the vaccine against catastrophic loss.


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  7. There would be few men who didn't believe that love exists. They have felt it. They have seen other men feel it.

    That love exists in men is not in question.

    The larger question is how do women feel it for men? Is it the same?

    And the even larger question is what is the quality of this love?

    Most men know what it is to be drunk as well. Is this something to build a life on? Is this something to put all else aside for?

    Could love be nothing more than the refusal to confront the reality of life - to never outgrow the warmth of mother's bosom, and subject oneself forever to a superior female figure for fear of the cold, loveless reality that is every man's eventual fate, whether he accepts it intellectually and emotionally or not?

    There are many men who trusted their comfort to love, only to find a wife a little less accommodating than mother.

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  8. I'm not aboard for this one. I'm in a mostly happy, mostly table marriage. I started it about thirty years ago. If I knew then what I know now about the risks involved in marrying, I never would have done it.

    If I ever lose her to death or hypergamy, I may love again, but it will be a long term relationship, not a marriage, and I will not cohabit.

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  9. You're in your element inside the written word.

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  10. Excellent, fluent, passionate, committed and thoughtful as ever. So how is it that I agree with almost everything, and yet disagree with the overall sentiment?

    You're fed up of wussy MGTOWs and bitter MRA's telling you that getting married was the dumbest thing you ever did. It's rude. In ten years' time, when the cumulative divorce rate for your marriage cohort maxes out at forty per cent, and you're still together, you can thumb your nose at them and say "told y'all". I hope it happens.

    Okay. So here's what got me. You compared marriage to three risks and then asked, why not? The risks you list - betting it all on black, outdrawing Jessie James, and borrowing extravagantly - are all daft. Professional gamblers do not play roulette (because house odds), professional soldiers do not get into stand-up gunfights (they take cover in a firefight), and professional businessmen risk other people's money (professional investors only expect the businessmen to put some skin in, not all of it). I'm pretty sure a professional punter doesn't bet his continuing livelihood on Hot Girl at 3:2 on in the 2:30 at Kempton Park. His next holiday, maybe, but not the rest of his life.

    The MGTOW / MRA point is just that: if marriage was a business proposition, professionals would not do it. If I understand right, your point is that marriage is not a business decision, but an existential one, a deliberate engagement with someone who is likely to destroy or subvert, on a whim, everything the two of you have struggled to build up; a choice to put one's life, ambitions, assets and future in harm's way, with disaster averted by endless vigilance and good luck, for benefits that remain oddly unconvincing.

    A sensible person would not knowingly do that. So is it responsible to say to young men in doubt - hey, man up and give marriage a chance? Well yes, if you surround it with all the qualifications it needs. But by the time you've done that, most of those young men will quit the chase or ignore your qualifications. Most of the women they know won't meet the basic requirements (cooking, sex, financial responsibility, manners and charm, and in decent shape) and neither will many of those young men. Since they are driven by near-undeniable urges, they will couple up anyway, with all the consequences that make lawyers rich.

    You need to write screeds to Serious Marriage. Someone has to. You're saying that it is possible to live beneficially within the current system, and I'm saying that yours is a non-scaleable strategy, as it depends on finding a Mrs Ironwood, and you were lucky. You can't tell forty guys they shouldn't despair, because one of them can get a good wife. And the other thirty-nine? They seem to have a choice between chastity, PUA, MGTOW and dull indifferent marriage or train-wreck divorce. Maybe the numbers are different. Maybe one in five, but that's not odds I'd bet my life's earnings on.

    Marriage was never my thing. I could no more get married than I could, well, these days, pick up a drink. It's not a solution to a problem, it's the problem itself. It's your thing and you want to defend it. Thanks for making it clear that it's only for a handful of Flying Ninja Assassin Game Husbands, because that's not me, and it seems like, despite all those painful Sunday mornings I woke up alone, horny and hung over, I made the right decision. Thank God I also didn't have the genes to get married, because I would have been miserable, if constant Game is what takes to be even sane.

    "Don't have the genes for it" is my preferred reason. Following your thoughts, I could make "I'm too much of a wuss" work, but only because I've got sharp grey hair, a half-decent set of guns, a trustworthy smile, and no-one would believe it. And it's a heck of a shut-down.

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    1. Excellent reply. I agree that it is unmanly to live a life of fear, or to consistently make a decision primarily because you fear the other choice rather than because you think this choice is best.
      But to ignore risks is also unmanly. I should be "bold and courageous", not bold and stupid. What father would want to see his son taking huge and stupid risks?

      Ian did mention assessment of risks ("vetting"), but for a wiser post, this needs more prominence. Of course, it is easier for me to point out flaws, than to write a better article myself. So, Well Done Ian. For most of the article, I think you did an excellent job. And for the rest, so what? Glad you can make your own opinions :)

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  11. I believe in love, I just feel about as well prepared for it as those unarmed Iranian teenagers the Ayatollah sent to charge into minefields and clouds of nerve gas in 1979.

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  12. ahahahaha: "Flying Ninja Assassin Game Husband!" That's how I'm gonna be when I get married. This article got me hyped for marriage, for sure. I've been spinning plates two years now, but I've got my eye out for the right girl to have kids with, as that has always been my life plan, but now vastly improved with game. Thank Christ I didn't get married five years ago, I was so idealistic about love, which unveils many confusions and insecurities several months into a relationship-- not so when that puppy love is re-framed as TRUE EROS. Fucking epic article, impeccably timed.


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  13. Fighting mainstream windmills I see...

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  14. Wonderful article. Reading through the many comments of men who disagree with this left me feeling deeply troubled about the current state of gender relations and the future of 'Men.' The comments which question women's ability to love/nurture, that describe marriage/relationships as a sacrifice of your life's work, and that lament being 'baby-raped' transparently betray men alienated from the fairer sex and who are consequently miserable. Men have not historically felt this way about women. Let us look to the attitude of that famous Bronze Age hero - Hector, the Destroyer of Cities and the Breaker of Horses. You will notice that he does not find his wife and child a burden, quite the opposite- he values the warmth of his home. And I doubt she or anyone else could prevent him from performing his Dharma as it were to die for his city. As Homer recites it, almost 3,000 years ago, Hector searches for his wife Andromache in order to say goodbye to her before he meets the Greeks in battle. She begs him to stay:

    Then tall Hektor of the shining helm answered her: 'All these
    things are in my mind also, lady; yet I would feel deep shame
    before the Trojans, and the Trojan women with trailing garments,
    if like a coward I were to shrink aside from the fighting;
    and the spirit will not let me, since I have learned to be valiant
    and to fight always among the foremost ranks of the Trojans,
    winning for my own self great glory, and for my father.
    For I know this thing well in my heart, and my mind knows it:
    there will come a day when sacred Ilion shall perish,
    and Priam, and the people of Priam of the strong ash spear.
    But it is not so much the pain to come of the Trojans
    that troubles me, not even of Priam the king nor Hekabe,
    not the thought of my brothers who in their numbers and valour
    shall drop in the dust under the hands of men who hate them,
    as troubles me the thought of you, when some bronze-armoured
    Achaian leads you off, taking away your day of liberty,
    in tears; and in Argos you must work at the loom of another,
    and carry water from the spring Messeis or Hypereia,
    all unwilling, but strong will be the necessity upon you;
    and some day seeing you shedding tears a man will say of you:
    "This is the wife of Hektor, who was ever the bravest fighter
    of the Trojans, breakers of horses, in the days when they fought about Ilion."
    So will one speak of you; and for you it will be yet a fresh grief,
    to be widowed of such a man who could fight off the day of your slavery.
    But may I be dead and the piled earth hide me under before I
    hear you crying and know by this that they drag you captive.'
    So speaking glorious Hektor held out his arms to his baby,
    who shrank back to his fair-girdled nurse's bosom
    screaming, and frightened at the aspect of his own father,
    terrified as he saw the bronze and the crest with its horse-hair,
    nodding dreadfully, as he thought, from the peak of the helmet.
    Then his beloved father laughed out, and his honoured mother,
    and at once glorious Hektor lifted from his head the helmet
    and laid it in all its shining upon the ground. Then taking
    up his dear son he tossed him about in his arms, and kissed him,
    and lifted his voice in prayer to Zeus and the other immortals:
    'Zeus, and you other immortals, grant that this boy, who is my son,
    may be as I am, pre-eminent among the Trojans,
    great in strength, as am I, and rule strongly over Ilion;
    and some day let them say of him: "He is better by far than his father",
    as he comes in from the fighting; and let him kill his enemy
    and bring home the blooded spoils, and delight the heart of his mother.'

    ReplyDelete
  15. I honestly dont know what to think of this.

    Men take risks?

    Yes.

    But stupid ones were the likely ROI is very small?

    You want us to tilt at windmills, on the off chance that one will sling us to the stars.

    I have experienced what it was like when women had the upper hand and it never will be again this way, unless I marry.

    Naaaaa....

    I would rather be bitter, hurt and resentful than risking putting my life in a overgrown childs hand.

    There may be good ones out there, but if more than half of the apples are rotten, you dont grab one from the barrel.

    There is of course the added complication that you only know whether you lucked out the day you die, because she can turn into a narcissistic harpy at any second until then.

    ReplyDelete
  16. As written above, most of your article is excellent. This part descends to the level of feminist shaming language however, and is not only unseemly, but a disappointment from a man like you who is normally very competently articulate:
    "Get over it and take the hit like a man."

    My immediate (and childish) response is to respond in kind and say, Grow up Ian.

    Neither of these are helpful however. They both seek to denigrate and devalue the reasons the other person may have for their choices. Better I think to say that you see a valid possibility for great success, and that you think cowardice likely forms a part of the other man's reasons for fleeing marriage... and that you cannot see cowardice as manly, bold, or commendable.

    Personally, I have not dated for two years. Not due to fear, but lack of desire. Yes, I desire a loving marriage. But I lack desire for the masculine women I see. When I was in Ukraine, I estimated that about 90% of women there were much to vastly more feminine, and thus desirable, to 99% of women here. While there, I thought of marriage repeatedly every day, due to the women I saw and interacted with. Here in Canada? If I put feces on a plate when you are hungry, will you grab it?
    I do not date here, primarily because of a lack of suitable mates, although I should admit the high risks of a woman becoming a lazy wife or a betraying wife are also in my mind.
    My desires for a wife are channeled into learning Russian and preparing to return to Ukraine to seek a wife -- where I can (hopefully) take a wise risk instead of an extreme risk. Call me a coward if you will, but I won't even play Russian roulette. With only a 33% failure rate, Russian roulette is smarter than the North American marriage you seem to be advocating.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I agree with DBB, lack of suitable mates here in the US kills the incentive to date or pursue a relationship. The Captain shows that men leave the Eros market over time. http://captaincapitalism.blogspot.com/2013/06/why-you-cant-find-man.html

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete
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