And it’s better if you don’t

Most guys don’t accept that they need to change. They think being Red Pilled means talking about these ideas and wearing the Red Pill mask instead of solving their actual problems. They’ve turned Red Pill into a kind of performance art that they have to present to the world in order to get the results they want. And while you can play Don Quixote for a while, as Rob Says says, “they always out themselves.”

This performance of course isn’t grounded in any real change. It’s a lie that guys tell themselves because it’s an easy way to get validation from people on the internet. I’ve talked with guys who will outright lie to you in order to make it appear that they are slaying pussy left and right. But when prodded further, the stories, framings, and suggestions they give you can be seen to be neither reliable nor helpful. And the guys who fuck know that they’re bullshitting. Being a fuckup is one thing; lying that you’re not a fuckup when you are is much much worse.

“I am Alpha. And I have no problems.”

Here’s how you can tell these guys are faking it. They will be the first to talk about how successful they are with women and how they’re lives are just awesome. I laugh now when I see this happen, because a) nobody fucking asked, b) once you have it, you don’t brag. Consider the following: why would a successful guy want loudly prove that he’s getting what he wants? Who exactly is he trying to convince? Hint: Not you.

Another tell is that he’ll talk about how he’s never getting rejections, and he’s never getting LMR, and he’s never getting flakes, and he’s always banging 9s and 10s. I don’t know about you, but in my experience, when an uncertain event in question isn’t in your control, I’m certain of two things: It is never 100% failure, nor is it 100% success.

And finally, what you’ll notice is that details don’t add up. They’ll talk about how they pulled off something that will not work if you try it. The words they use are so bookish that they can’t talk about the experiences they’ve had in their own words. They’ll use ideas that have no relation to the situation you’re dealing with when giving you advice.

Cope hope

One of the few things that stuck in my mind when reading No More Mr Nice Guy is this idea of guys learning to cope. Lying is a form of coping. By lying you get to tell yourself that you’re still awesome even if by your own definition, you are far from where you want to be.

You’re hoping that by saying these things, you get to make up for the fact that you’ve done nothing. Here’s the thing: even if you convince all of us that you’ve got your shit together, none of us who believe in you have to sleep in and wake up in your bed. A guy might get his validation from RP Twitter, Reddit or YT, but if what he says doesn’t match reality, he has to suffer the consequences of that reality.

It is much easier to cope with a lie than it is to accept the truth of your reality and fix it as you feel like you need to. And the reality is that most of the guys on these platforms are doing it and that’s all they know.

Absolutely unnecessary

And here’s the thing. If you’re in a space that is built so guys and shamelessly post field reports and ask for feedback from total strangers, it is absolutely unnecessary to lie. If anything, it’s better that you don’t lie. If you find a place that gives you harsh feedback when needed, it’s one of the last places on earth that you need to lie to.

If I meet a guy on Twitter that wants to learn this stuff, he doesn’t need to be awesome right out the gate. In fact, quite the opposite. I expect him to be terrible with women, have no social skills, and only come forward with a willingness to learn and try things.

This is the last place on earth anyone needs to lie to. We all suck, me included. There will come a time when you no longer suck. But today is not yet that day. You’re in good company if you feel like you need work. If we see your effort, we are often inclined to help.

So if you’ve spent time here online and you’ve been lying your whole time here. Don’t. You’re wasting everybody’s time. And most importantly to yourself, you’re wasting your time. Start a new account and eat your humble pie. Maybe you’ll be better for it.

I used to be angry at how most of us suck. It bothered me because some of the people. I thought already “made it”, in fact did not. I started a discord server in the hope of giving guys a chance to explore these ideas together and to apply it in our own lives. I failed to do so, only because all of the work required is on them, and not on me. This realization frustrated me for months. It took me a long time to resolve this issue for myself, but I think I’m not angry anymore. And here’s why.

I was wrong to assume that men, if untouched by society, are going to live their lives as self-sovereign individuals. Quite the contrary. All men for the vast majority of human history were entirely slaves in one form or another, whether as prehistoric humans, as ancient peoples, or as modern creatures. Consider the following:

• Only in the last few thousands years did mankind have the ability to choose which goods and services to buy.
• Only in the last thousand years did men realize that rulers could be persuaded to act on the needs of the many.
• Only in the last five hundred did the notion of the people choosing who ruled become a reality.
• Only in the last 100 years has technology freed us from the land, made our labor super efficient, and gave us the free time to do whatever the fuck we want.

The rest of that history? Being a slave for the pack. Being a slave for the king. Being a serf for the lord. Being an upright citizen of the law. And working for “the man” on company time.

Slavery is our default setting. Human freedom is the anomaly. All the evolutionary, societal, and life scripts we have, for the most part, do not optimize for mental point of origin. You should not be surprised to see men suck.

All of our instincts are wired for us to find direction in others, if not others, an abstract ideal that has no real relation to our personal interest.

Why then would you be angry? We’re animals doing animal things running on animal scripts.

So if you’re doing work, what does this observation mean for you?

It means that this takes effort to go from slave to master. You need to do continuous reflection on yourself to figure out where your weak spots are and to work on them. You need to figure out whether this thing you’re doing is for your best interest or for somebody else or to seek validation from somebody else. And that work never stops, but it does become trainable.

There’s a lot of places you can take this insight. Maybe you don’t want to be a slave and you want to change your lot in life. Maybe you’re content with your station and are okay with life coming to you as it sees fit. Maybe you want something in the middle, where society can lead you into doing something that’s beneficial for it, but other times, you get your slice of the pie. Whatever you choose, and whatever people choose, understand that you’re a slave first, but not forever if you wish.

Originally posted on Substack.

It’s been a minute since I have wrote to all of you. There’s been a lot that has been going on since I last gave you my thoughts. I’m still missing my cat. One thing I have learned about the death of someone or something that is very close to you, that is very near to you, is that you never “get over it,” you just “get through it.” I’m still getting through it. It’s not as bad as losing a parent, a mate, a child, or a sibling, but it’s still “up there.”

I have also been getting more and more into fire performance. I remember BullRush saying something to the effect a while back that “you’ve (me) gone from chasing the Dragon to literally becoming the Dragon.” I like that.

Fire performance is a lot of fun, but it has its own inherent dangers of course. It’s hard to film yourself and put it on social media while you are doing it. The odds of setting yourself on fire and burning yourself alive go up dramatically when you are trying to multitask and do things for likes. You guys can check out the video of me doing this shit if you would like:

I have also been hanging out with the Belly Dancer and with other fire performers and entertainers. Over Labor Day weekend, we attended a party for a mutual friend of ours who was turning 50.

It was a pirate themed event. There was a LOT of rum and other sorts of booze to drink there. The party was great, but it is also why I decided to write to you today.

The party itself was on Sunday the 3rd of September. I drank a lot, she drank a lot. We both drank a lot. There was a lot of beautiful people, and by beautiful people, I mean there were a lot of beautiful women there. Almost all of these people, the men too, were in excellent shape. It’s summer still, it’s hot, there’s a pool, and so most of the people, including the women, decided to swim at one point or another. So there’s bikinis going on.

I’m noticing them in their bikinis and the Belly Dancer notices them too and makes a comment and I make a comment back. No harm, no foul right? The rest of the day goes on, the drinking continues, and by the end of the night, I’m the one driving us home because the Belly Dancer had too much to drink, threw up a few times, and couldn’t drive. I get her to her house, get her inside, put her to bed, and then I go home and go to bed myself.

I wake up the next morning with a slight hangover and she comes down to spend the day with me. That was the plan all along.

Except when she got to my house and came in, she said, “I need to talk to you.”

I said, “Here we go.”

And away she went.

I’m not going to bore you with the details. It would take several blog posts to cover it all.

Suffice it to say, we both went to the same exact party, hung out with the same exact people, and we both experienced two different realities.

My reality: I had never felt closer to her in my life. We joked, we laughed, we were together and yet we weren’t “joined at the hip.” She would go and talk to people, I would go and talk to people. It was a fantastic day.

Her reality: She felt neglected and “invisible.” I put quotes around that word because she used that word when she said that she needed to talk to me.

I let her talk without saying a word, I just listened. I was also shocked. This conversation truly came out of left field for me. I thought everything was fine.

By the end of the conversation, she felt much better. I didn’t. I was already mulling everything over that she had told me. I had interpreted what she had said as basically, “Rob, I felt bad and that’s because of you and what you said to me, and you need to change.” I’m not saying that was what was actually said, I’m saying, that’s what I heard.

For the next three days, I “put myself on trial.” It’s what I do. I go over things and I try to see them from the other parties point of view and also my own. I could see her points. I had been drinking. I ran my mouth about a woman in a bikini. I made a joke that she didn’t get and didn’t think was funny.

I also saw things from my own point of view. I like to drink and I run my mouth. I don’t set out to “step on people’s toes,” but I often do. I don’t do it intentionally or with malice, but it happens. I have always been that way since I was a kid. And you know what? I’m okay with that. Why am I okay with that? Because it’s part of who I am, and I happen to like me.

I mentioned all of this to some people that I know and respect, all guys. They agreed that I hadn’t done anything wrong, not really. But the “conventional wisdom” was to “let it go.” But that’s not me. Especially when it comes down to something that is literally who I am. It’s a huge part of why I’m writing this today.

On Friday the 8th of September, the Belly Dancer and I went to a play.

Before we even left to go to the play, she knew something was off. “Are you okay?” I brushed it aside and said that I was exhausted. Which was true. It had been a long week at work because making up for a holiday is hell, and I had also been pondering everything she had said to me on Monday for almost four days straight. I was exhausted. She took that picture of me while we were waiting for the show to start. I was pondering the future of our relationship at the time. I was wondering what it would be like to have my “shield’s up.” To be guarded. To watch what I said and did around her. I was wondering what it would be like to handle her with “kid gloves” and to “walk on eggshells” around her. This was me giving that potential future a “trial run.”

The next day, Saturday, she came to my house. I started off guarded and careful. It was tense and it sucked. She knew something was off and I knew something was off. That’s because “conventional wisdom” said to “let it go.” But I couldn’t. That’s not me.

She was talking about something or another, but there was an opening for me to ask her a very important question, which I did: “Hey, I know you love me. I know you are attracted to me, but I need to know, do you like me? As a person?”

She immediately answered me, “Yes I like you as a person! Why are you asking me that?”

To which I replied, “That’s good, because I like me too. But if you like me as I am, as a person, why do you want me to change? I have been the exact same guy since the day that we met. Nothing has changed for me. I drink, sometimes to excess, I run my mouth and say stupid shit sometimes, I always have. I have always been this way with you, so what changed and why? I don’t want to change who I am, I did that once, years ago in my marriage, to “get along and not rock the boat,” and I hated myself for it because of who I became, and I resented her (my ex-wife) for it as well. I can’t do that again, I won’t do that again.”

“Conventional wisdom” suggests “letting it go” because otherwise you may “open Pandora’s box.” Basically, you could make things worse for yourself, and generally, I would agree with that. But not in this case. I know me, and I know her enough. I know the context in this situation. I also know that if I did “open Pandora’s box,” I was okay with that. If that meant the demise of what we had, our relationship, I would rather get it over sooner than later.

Long story short: She didn’t and doesn’t want me to change. She likes who I am as a person. She knows that I like to drink and that I run my mouth. Believe it or not, it’s something she likes about me, it’s part of her attraction to me, because I have the confidence to say what’s on my mind, damn the consequences.

I said what I needed to say, she listened, and then she said what she needed to say to clarify her point of view, which I understand.

I finished up my part by telling her, “You might want to develop thicker skin and wear steel toed boots around me. I can’t and won’t police my words and thoughts around you to spare your feelings, I never have, and I never will. Just remember that if I step on your toes, it wasn’t intentional, I didn’t mean to hurt you, and it’s because I’m standing right next to you.”

Will this come back and “bite me on the ass?” Maybe. But do you know what? I don’t care. If that’s where it goes, that’s where it goes. Worst case, we end what we have, and I’ll move on and find another woman. It’ll hurt and I’ll get through it, just like I always have. But I’m not going to do “Death by 1000 Concessions.” It’s not me. I like who I am.

But for now, things are good between us as far as I can tell. They’re good until they aren’t.