Back in 1993, I worked for a school crew that poured urethane on gym floors for the district high schools and junior highs. It was a summer job for me, a way to earn money to go towards the next semester’s tuition. I was the only college kid on this crew of about 5. The rest were high school kids making some money to blow on booze or weed, or both. There was a supervisor over this crew of dipshits, and his name was Richard. Richard was about 35 at the time. He was dour, sour, scowled a whole bunch, called us dipshits and retards, and was a most unpleasant fellow to be around.

One day, right as we were about to take lunch in this sweltering gymnasium, I remember that I was talking with the high school retards, and we were talking about our favorite subject: Pussy.

I remember telling them something along the lines of how I turned down “some chick” because of reasons. I thought I was “smart” and that I was “cool.”

Now our supervisor, Richard, had already begun his lunch. He was eating a bologna sandwich and some chips and shit. He overheard our conversation and he stopped eating, looked up at us, looked me dead in the eye, and said, “Never turn down pussy.” He scowled and sneered as he said it.

“Why not?” I said.

“Because you’ll always be one behind.” And with that, Richard went back to scowling and eating his bologna sandwich.

At the time I was 21 and thought I knew it all. The truth was, I had no idea what Richard was talking about. It took me until I was about 35 to understand what he meant.

“You’ll always be one behind.“

I don’t regret the money I didn’t make, I don’t regret the jobs I didn’t take, and I don’t regret the places I haven’t visited. What I regret, what still haunts me to this very day, is the women that I didn’t bang because I was naive, stupid, or both.

I’m not talking about the women that I made a pass at and they told me in one form or another, “thank you, but no thank you.” I’m talking about the women, who in some cases, told me point-blank, that they wanted to fuck me. And stupid me, I didn’t get the message until it was much too late. Too late to take them up on their offer. Too late to say, “Let’s go.” Too late to have another chance because that chance was gone forever.

That’s what I regret.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dwell on it and I certainly don’t beat myself up over it, but it is my one and only regret. Like I said, I don’t regret the one’s that said no, I don’t regret lost job and money opportunities, and I don’t regret the places I haven’t been to. But I do regret not fucking those women when I had the chance.

I was talking with Swurv, Dante, Mish, Marty, and I think Jack Napier was still there too when “The One Behind Club” came up in our conversation. Don’t ask me how exactly it came up, but it did. All the guys had a gut, visceral reaction when I said it and what it was. All of them paused when I told them what Richard told me so long ago. All of them belong to The One Behind Club. It’s how Dante’s discord server got a name change.

I decided to write this post and hopefully you guys will see it and unfortunately, I’m sure far too many of you will relate to it. Far too many of you will be members of the One Behind Club. Can you “fix it?” No. If you passed up on a sure thing, a sure lay, you’re always going to be one behind. But learn from it. Don’t pass up on a good time again.

I have had a lot of sex with a lot of different women over the years and not one of them was “bad.” It’s like pizza. There’s no such thing as “bad pizza.” Just some better than others. Same with sex. I’ve never had a bad sexual experience, just some better than others.

You want to pass up a sure thing because of your morals, virtues, or something that someone else told you was “the way to go,” you will always be one behind. And trust me, you’ll think about it at some point, and you’ll regret it. Even if you never say it out loud to another human being, you’ll still regret it. You’ll always wonder. And it’s that wonder that becomes an itch that you can never quite reach, you can never scratch.

Rian Stone put out a video recently, and in my own opinion, it is possibly his best one to date. He has really grown as a video creator/editor and the message that he’s relaying to the watcher is very succinct, point blank, and it’s also something that is very important and is almost never talked about.

Early Frame Announcement or EFA is something that was brought up in the book, Practical Female Psychology. I have a copy of this book as I’m sure that Rian does too. I highly, highly recommend getting a copy of this book if you haven’t and read it. As far as I know, the author’s are the first one’s to bring up EFA. Hell, they may have coined the term for all I know.

I’m not going to go into EFA because Rian talks about it better than I could and it’s discussed thoroughly in Practical Female Psychology. I am however, going to tie something into it.

Let’s talk about “Rules…”

Now rules may or may not be a part of EFA. I’m not saying they are and I’m not saying they aren’t. I think that “rules” are at least a part or a manifestation of EFA, but I’m not here to split hairs and get bogged down in details and get into arguments. I’m here to show you what I have observed and how I deal with it. That’s it. So if you want to argue points with me about what EFA is or isn’t, know right now, I’m going to ignore you because I don’t care.

So what are “Rules?” Rules are those things that she says will or will not happen if and/or when you meet. Rules work in her favor because she is the one who created them. Here’s a couple of examples:

Me: “What are you looking for?”

Her: “Friendship first, and then we’ll see where it goes from there.”

Also her: “I don’t kiss on the first date.”

Also her: “I don’t share.”

You get the idea I hope.

I’m not including the “list,” which is the whole thing that most guys get all hung up on. You know:

At least 6 feet tall, 6 pack abs, 6 figure income, 6 inches in the pants, at least 6 months out of a relationship, and I believe 600 hundred horsepower under the hood.

Honestly, you can ignore her list. I do. She needed to put something in her profile to fill up the characters and so that’s what she put in order to finish her profile. Pay it no mind. If you do and you realize that you don’t meet most or all of the “list,” all you are doing is weeding yourself out for her and making her job and her life easier. Why do that? Why give her the reason not to fuck you? Let her figure that out for herself.

But back to “Rules…”

In my experience, “Rules” aren’t necessarily what she puts in a profile, although she can, but it’s usually what she says to you, either via written form like text, or she says it verbally over the phone or in person. This is where I think “Rules” fall under EFA. She’s telling you who she is and how things are going to go if you go along with her. She’s setting the frame and she’s setting it early. Like Rian said in his video, “Just believe her.” If she says, “friendship first,” just believe her. If she says, “I don’t kiss on a first date,” just believe her.

And then act accordingly.

Here’s my experience with dealing with women who have “Rules…”

If she gives you one rule, she’s going to give you two rules.

If she gives you two rules, she’s going to give you a thousand rules.

And if you go along with it in hopes of getting what you want (most likely that coveted, “golden pussy”) you are implicitly agreeing to not only her first and second rule, but to all of her rules.

Welcome to being in her frame.

What do you get when you get a woman with “Rules?” More rules. That’s it. Ask me how I know.

I have only one “Rule” when it comes to women and dating:

There are no rules.

I wrote about the “bitter, angry Jew” awhile back. She is a fantastic example of what I’m talking about here. She had rules. Lots of rules. Rules, regulations, and restrictions. Everything had to be a certain way, everything had to happen at a certain time and temperature (I’m not exaggerating about the temp thing, that was a real thing for her) and basically the fucking stars had to align in order for anything to happen between us. Long story short, she was open to the idea of meeting and fucking, but there were “rules.” Guess who didn’t meet up with her and get laid?

A lot of guys in the ‘Sphere, when they encounter a woman with “Rules” will fall back on something Rollo wrote:

“She will break rules for Alpha’s and make rules for Beta’s.” Or something like that. And then they will get all stuck in their heads about does she consider them an alpha or a beta and the whole “I won’t do (insert whatever here) with you.”

Guys, I don’t care if she considers me an alpha or a beta. I don’t care if she will make or break rules for me. You shouldn’t either as far as I’m concerned. All I care about is that there are no rules.

If I want to kiss her on the first date, I’m going to do that. It’s a great way for me to gauge her actual interest in me. It let’s me know if she’s a good kisser or not. It let’s me know how sensual she is. It shows me how uptight or not she is. It shows me if she has “genuine desire” or not. So that first kiss is kind of a big deal to me. Sometimes I get that kiss on the first time meeting her, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I’m not feeling it at the moment and so I let it pass. There will be another time in the near future where it will get there.

But if she tells me, “I don’t kiss on the first date,” I can promise you and her that there won’t be a second date. That’s even if we made it as far as the first date. If she tells me that she doesn’t kiss on the first date before we have even met, we won’t be meeting, it’s that simple.

Same goes with the whole, “friendship first” rule. She brings that up, it’s a rule. And where’s there’s one rule, there’s a thousand rules.

Baby, I’m not here to be your friend, I’m here to be your lover. You want a friend, get a dog.

So learn to recognize when she’s giving you “rules.” And what happens when she gives you one rule? She’ll give you a thousand rules. And if you go along with the first rule in hopes of getting whatever it is that you want from her, you are implicitly agreeing to all of her rules. Welcome to being in her frame.