Thursday, June 27, 2013

The Most Interesting 9 Year Old In The World

Believe it or not, this is a Game post.


I rarely talk about my kids here, because I don't want to drag them unnecessarily into anything that might be considered sordid, but this bears repeating.  For those of you just tuning in, Mrs. Ironwood and I are raising three precociously brilliant kids.

The eldest is a 13 year old boy who is intellectually brilliant but struggles socially -- think Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, only with far more interest in boobs.  My daughter (let's call her "Kitten", because she would like that) is 11, artistically gifted to the point of commercial consideration, is hyper-aware socially, and loves her Daddy more than life itself.

Then there is my 9 year old.

While he's almost as intellectually smart as his older brother and almost as artistically talented as his sister, his most impressive talents lie elsewhere.  Not only is he cute and smart . . . the boy has serious Game.  Like, better Game than most grown men.

Let's call him Bob, because he'd like that and it's the name of his favorite dog, not because it's anywhere close to his real name.  Bob has Game far beyond his years.  A recent episode demonstrated just how much Game he had, and I think you might find it instructive.

Mrs. I and I took the kids to a rare social event in which we reconnected with many old friends, some of whom had children about the same age as ours.  One couple's daughter, let's call her Sophia, is just a few months older than Bob.  Bob recognized that fact at once, took an interest, and began to plot his moves the moment he arrived at the party.

I tried to warn Sophia's dad, Seth, about Bob and his interest in his daughter, but Seth dismissed it with a wave and a chuckle.  "They're kids," he insisted.  "I'm not worried."

I was on "kid duty", which meant I stood out on the deck and talked and smoked cigarettes and watched the kids play in the backyard while Mrs. I was inside catching up.  I watched with fascination as Bob examined his environment and chose a comfortable porch swing.  As twilight fell, he claimed a spot at one end and made the rest of the cushions into a comfortable nest.

Then he waited.

When Sophia next ran by, he caught her attention by calling her name.  She turned to look, and he gave her a  stare.  Then he patted the space next to him, and with supreme and utter confidence he told her "Join me."

He didn't ask.  It wasn't even quite an invitation.  It was a politely-worded instruction.  Sophia balked, in response, and said something catty, because his 11 year-old sister was in earshot.  Bob ignored his sister.  He just patted the seat again, twice, very deliberately, and kept looking at her.  Within sixty seconds she was sitting next to him.

For the next ten minutes I vicariously witnessed my youngest presenting as The Most Interesting 9 Year Old In The World.  He asked about her school.  Her pets.  He told her about his, and discussed the differences.  Then he asked how she was feeling, and made sure she had a drink within moments when she admitted she was thirsty.  His arm landed just behind her shoulder when he sat down.  She laughed at a joke (it was genuinely funny, but even Bob knows when a woman is trying too hard) and he knew she was hooked.  Then he started talking about the full supermoon, and how it was larger now than ever, and why it looked that way, and how pretty it was, at which point his sister exclaimed a loud "Aw, Come ON!" in disgust in an effort to c-block him.

Bob was nonplussed.  After his successful approach and his hook, he used his sister's reaction as an excuse to invite Sophia to go inside and watch a movie.  Isolation.  The kid is a natural.

That's when I reminded Seth about Bob's interest in Sophia.  Seth looked up and saw them walking back into the house together and laughed.  "Aw, it's sweet!  They're just kids," he reminded me.

He didn't know Bob. But since he was inside, that was out of my zone.  he was Mrs. Ironwood's problem now.

Half an hour later, Mrs. Ironwood came out for a kid-check and head count.  The older two were still chasing fireflies with the big kids, but the younger two were absent.  I told her they were inside.  Alone.  Together.  Her eyes got wide.

"Seth, come with me, now," she demanded, and he reluctantly got to his feet to follow her.  They went down the hall to where the "kids room" was only to find the door shut.

"Uh oh," whispered Mrs. I.

"It's nothing," assured Seth.  "Sophia shuts her door all the time.  It was probably just too loud out here."

 Then he tried to open the door to find it locked.  He turned around and looked at Mrs. Ironwood in horror, as it struck him for the first time that he had a daughter, and just what that meant, as a father. I couldn't help but sympathize.

"I warned you," Mrs. Ironwood said, shaking her head.  "Now turn around, Seth, and start being a Dad.  You have a daughter, and when it comes to this sort of thing you need to be that dad."  It took him a moment - he was reluctant to acknowledge the truth of the matter - but he was banging on the door in seconds.

"Sophia, you come unlock this door RIGHT NOW!" he demanded.

"We're just watching the Incredibles!" she called back, saucily.

"Unlock the door . . . NOW!" Seth insisted.  It took far longer than it should have.  Seth aged visibly in the duration.

When the door finally did open, Bob was sitting back on the futon, cool and at ease, while Sophia indignantly confronted her father.  "Daddy, we were just watching a movie!" she dismissed with her little girl sass.

"I'm sorry the door got locked, Sir," Bob said politely and earnestly.  "I think it was my fault."  He wasn't acting guilty, he wasn't even acting busted.  He was acting as if this was an expected and completely cope-able interruption of his evening.  "It won't happen again, Sir."  (and yes, my kids really are that polite.  There are some very good things about raising a kid in the South).

Sophia wasn't having it, however.  She was used to running over her father.  "Daddy, it was MY idea to shut the door and MY idea to lock it, so we could have some privacy."

Before Seth could err and find that a reasonable and rational explanation for their behavior, my wife intervened.  She knows better.

"ALL RIGHT," Mrs. Ironwood said, knowing that Seth was about to crumble before the onslaught of cuteness.  Seth just has the one girl to contend with.  We have three brilliant heathens.  "Both of you, OUT OF THERE NOW!" she bellowed like a drill sergeant.  Sophia was unused to being spoken in that way, but trooped out, dutifully followed by Bob.  Bob didn't look fazed at all.  "I think it's time we leave," Mrs. Ironwood sighed.  "It's getting late."

"Thank you for a lovely evening," Bob said to Sophia, solemnly.  "Maybe we can do it again sometime."  Sophia, of course, was enchanted.  Mrs. Ironwood was determined.  Seth was attempting to adapt to the fact that his daughter had just had the moves put on her for the first time.  I just got the keys and started rounding up the older two. Quickly.

We said our goodbyes with good humor, and made it out of the party without further incident.  Once we'd all piled into the minivan, Bob's Game was a hot topic of conversation.  His older brother was speechless in admiration (he has a hard time talking to girls about anything but comic books or computer games).  His sister was indignant and jealous.  Bob was . . . thoughtful.  And utterly unapologetic.  Apparently he'd seen his foray with Sophia as merely his opening move.

"Why did you go there?" I asked him in a private moment, later.  He shrugged and looked thoughtful.

"She was cute, Daddy," he replied.  "She was nice to me.  She likes Minecraft.  Besides, when she was running around, I saw her tattoo and I told her I liked it."

"Tattoo?" I asked, confused.  I didn't remember a tattoo.

"Yeah, she had one of those temporary tattoos of a cat or a flower or something, and I told her I liked it."

"Where?"

"At the party?  Don't you remember?" he asked, exasperatedly.

"No, no, where on her body was it?  I didn't see it."

"Oh, it was on her back.  Way far down, just above her pants."  He indicated the region.

Bob had been allured by her temporary tween tramp-stamp.  I was in shock.

"Girls who wear tattoos," he said, shaking his head.  "You just know they want you to talk to them."

"Weren't you scared when Mr. Seth banged on the door?" I asked, thinking of all the angry fathers in his future.

"Nah," he dismissed, casually.  "It was all her idea, but I was ready to take the blame.  He's not my dad.  He can't spank me," he reasoned.  I couldn't argue with that.  It did set a dangerous precedent, though, and I couldn't help but worry.  "Besides," he said, philosophically, "she's having a birthday party soon.  Almost all girls are going.  I'm so in," he said, confidently.  He had every reason to be.

He was . . . The Most Interesting 9 Year Old In The World.


37 comments:

  1. Hahahahahaha! Amazing.. damn, the kid's a natural! I wish I could've had dem skillz when I was 9.

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  2. Wait, so are you actually teaching your kid game? Or is he just picking this up on his own?

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  3. I haven't started consciously teaching him Game. I've been trying to pour it into his brother's head, but he's slow to pick up on it. Bob is just that charming.

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  4. As a father with a soon to be 8 year old daughter, I have to keep my eye out for playa's like your boy. Too funny. I don't see my son having that gift.

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  5. This must be where the Naturals come from.

    But what is odd is I remember when I was 9 being a bit the same way. I always had a good imagination and could come up with good stories from my 9 year old head. I told girls what I wanted them to do because they had cooties anyway so I didn't care. I remember recess being me running after and playfully scaring all the girls...and they wanted me to do it all the time.


    Puberty and a healthy dose of brainwashing took it away until it came back recently.

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  6. "I'm not old enough to drink beer, but when I am... I will drink Dos Equis."

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  7. My youngest brother was that way. I was in high school, a struggling lesser alpha/beta on bad days, (or a shimmering sigma on good days), and my youngest brother was a wee 11 year old.

    I brought a date home, prolly one of the 3 hottest chicks I dated in high school. She sat on the couch, on the end seat. I went in the kitchen to get some soft drinks for us, and my brother, the natural, plopped down *right next to her*, touching her leg, and starts talking with her in a low, seductive voice. Kid was 11, and trying to cut my water.

    Alas, though, being a natural didn't save him from a couple of crippling bouts of one-itis. Though I've had my share of those, as a sigma I've had to work hard to get good & it's paid off. He could, too, and is definitely a red pill character, he's too busy with his businesses, music, and weed to work on his game. Too bad, he's still got that essence of the natural. I imagine he'll come around at some point if he's not consumed by the lifestyle he's created for himself.

    Great story, thanks Ironwood.

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  9. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  10. Bwwwahahahahahhahahaa....

    Well done son!

    (and you've got a handful to deal with)

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  11. It seems that a prototypical Wolf Alpha is someone like Charles Munger, the business partner of Warren Buffett. He is a billionaire buyout specialist, lawyer, intellectual, and former real estate developer. But at the same time, he is intensely devoted to his large family.

    In contrast, Ian Ironwood seems more like an intelligent Beta. Because realistically, do Wolf Alphas blog about Wolf Alphas? Even worse, do they blog about their kids? Worse still, do they force an artificial "dominant" tone to respond to comments, mixed with put downs?

    The latter is more a "smart Beta grad student" mold. It seems like actual Wolf Alphas are doing things like corporate mergers or running law firms.

    Just my two cents.



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    Replies
    1. It seems to me that a "prototypical Wolf Alpha" would only look like Charles Munger if he was interested in finance, so that's where he applies his talents. I'm interested in sex and writing, so I watch porn all day and write about sex and am paid handsomely for it.

      The fact is, I could give a rat's ass about what you think about me or the entire idea of "Wolf Alpha". If your opinion is so valuable, then go write your own damn book about it. As it is, I've written 18 books in the last 20 years, not to mention innumerable articles and blog postings (and yes, I got paid for it). I pump out about a million words a year. 18 books and a million words a year . . . for a "smart Beta grad student"? I don't think so. I blog because I love writing and I have something to say - something that people are willing to pay to read.

      So what the fuck have you done that entitles you to my respect?

      Delete
    2. Hey Ian, big fan of your blog here, I disagree with the occasional thing here and there but that is not a problem. But your angry response to "Anonymous" just screams insecurity. He may have hit a soft spot there accusing you of being a higher beta (you admitted to being a brainwashed beta in a previous blog) but jumping on him and stating all your accolades is not what a confident alpha would do. A confident alpha would let his action and accomplishments speak for themselves. Now you are a smart man and I am sure your game is excellent so the proper response would have been to ignore the comment.

      Your last sentence "So what the fuck have you done that entitles you to my respect?" is not the best way to go out. I learned all this stuff from reading your blog.

      Delete
  12. Ha, Ian you've proved my point! I'm sorry for striking a nerve.

    It seems that one can see the different Alpha categories in American Presidents. Politics aside, I think we can all agree that Presidents, by definition, are Alpha males.

    Lyndon Johnson was a classic Bull Alpha: massive womanizer, confrontational, power obsessed.

    George H.W. Bush seems like a classic Wolf Alpha: one wife since 1945, intense commitment to cultivating his sons and family tree.

    Obama seems like a Bear Alpha: focused on his ideals, no known history of sex scandals. Yet it seems like his family has been secondary.

    I like the blog, by the way.




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    Replies
    1. "Hahah, you proved my point"

      You win, you're Lord King Shit of the Internet.

      Delete
  13. I don't need to read another word about Game.

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  14. Very interesting story, and props to your son. One thing seriously confuses me though- why was he treated like he did something wrong? Have you spoken to him before about not crossing certain sexual boundaries until he is older and he just disregarded it?


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  15. Cute kid, at least until he bring home his first pregnant girl friend.

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    Replies
    1. It's all fantasy, just like the porn this tool watches all day, lol!

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  16. That is hysterical. Bob is an awesome kid!

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  17. Ian,

    Another curious angle on your philosophy is that it seems geared towards a blue-collar 1950s world, or what one might consider "Average Joe alphas".

    For example, why do you reference "fighting city hall" as alpha; rather than running city hall? Or having city hall in one's back pocket?

    It seems like your idealized alpha is something like a Little League baseball coach. It is a vision removed from wealth and power. But realistically, how alpha is that?

    It doesn't seem that you idealize, say, the Donald Trump form of alpha. Turning a blind eye towards people actually running the country seems ... quite beta of you.



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  18. That..... is actually better than what I see most men do.

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  19. For example, why do you referrals "fighting town hall" as alpha; rather than operating town hall? Or having town area in a person's returning pocket?

    It seems like your idealized leader is something like a Little Group football trainer. It is a perspective eliminated from prosperity and energy. But reasonably, how leader is that?Gold für Diablo 3 Kaufen
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  20. That was classic. I love how he was cool and composed in the room. My 10 year old twins wish they had that kind of game.

    And the tween "tramp stamp?" Love that. This spineless dad is in for some trouble.

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  21. Thanks for the fantasy read.

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    Replies
    1. Heh. I write fiction for a living, and I couldn't make this stuff up.

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    2. And I pen non-fiction as an occupation, and this story goes beyond the pale. Besides, I thought Facebook was the proper venue to gush over the accomplishments of one's children. Perhaps your son and Ender, VD's prodigy, ought to have a contest to see how many young lasses they are able to coax into an intimate tête-à-tête.

      Cheers!

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    3. I don't do facebook . . . and too many of my personal friends would look askance at this. But Bob has charm, Bob has Game.

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    4. "too many of my personal friends would look askance at this."

      Gamma move on your part.

      Regardless, I'll pray that your budding Valentino doesn't end up in the pokey someday.

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    5. Wolf Alpha move on my part.

      I'm raising three intellectually precocious children in a minority religion in a very tradition-oriented cultural matrix. My goal is to bring my children to maturity trained for adulthood. What my neighbors say about me is secondary to that. That being said, what my neighbors say IS highly important to socially-conscious middle-schoolers. Out of deference to their social development, Daddy tries to stay low-key.

      Facebook "friends" aren't my real friends, and I don't need to have any personal controversy rattling cages unnecessarily. I don't care if that comes across as "gamma", it's a matter of understanding priorities and executing them faithfully in pursuit of a long-term goal.

      Delete
  22. When that boy starts shaving, fathers of teenaged girls for miles around had better start cleaning their guns... :)

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  23. If you would like an alternative to randomly flirting with girls and trying to figure out the right thing to do...

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    Then I urge you to play this short video to unveil a amazing little secret that can literally get you your own harem of beautiful women just 24 hours from now:

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