Tag: men and women

The Hamburger Meat Moment

Rob Says1 Comment
I Don’t Know About You, But This Makes Me Hungry

Rian Stone posted a link on Twitter the other day, it was called, “The Hamburger Meat Moment.” It’s actually a pretty good read for a few reasons. One of the reasons is that it appears, and I say appears, because we all know that there’s no such thing as “women on the internet,” that it was written by a woman.

It’s not often that I see a woman have a “moment of clarity” and be able to take some accountability for her actions, but it appears that is exactly what happened here. The woman nags her husband over buying the “wrong” kind of hamburger meat and she gets on his ass and then watches him shut down over it. Then the realization hits her. She brought that response on. Her nagging on him was the reason that he shut down:

I saw his face gradually take on an expression that I’d seen on him a lot in recent years. It was a combination of resignation and demoralization. He looked eerily like our son does when he gets chastised. That’s when it hit me. “Why am I doing this? I’m not his mom.”

Like I said a moment ago, it’s not been often, at least in my experience, that women can recognize and realize that something they said or did was what caused their husbands or boyfriends to respond the way they do. I give kudos to her for realizing this.

That’s not exactly why I’m writing about this though. I’m writing about this article because of how much it reminds me of my past life. Reading it was like going back in time. Back to when I was married and my now ex-wife would get on my ass about one thing or another.

There was two incidents in particular that stick out to me:

I remember one time, when she first moved in with me, she opened the dishwasher and saw that I put the forks, knives, and spoons with the handles down and the sharp ends up. That wouldn’t do for her. Don’t get me wrong, she was “nice” about it, but she made a big deal about it, stating something along the lines of “being a klutz” and that she could see herself sticking her hand in there and jabbing herself with either a knife or the prongs of a fork or two. From then on, the forks and knives were placed in the dishwasher with the “pointy ends” down. It wasn’t a big deal to me then, nor is it a big deal to me to this day. It is something I remember though. It was the beginning of things to come.

One of the last things that I remember my ex-wife getting on me about was “not having an opinion.” You need to understand something about my ex-wife, and maybe some of you can relate, but my ex had an opinion on everything. I’m not exaggerating when I say this. She had an opinion on anything and everything from the weather, to whatever celebrity was doing whatever with whomever, to religion, politics, sex, and money.

If you have gotten to know me in real life you’ll realize or know that I don’t give a fuck about damn near anything. It’s not that I’m not aware of things going on around me, because I am, it’s just that I don’t care about the majority of things unless they have a direct immediate impact on my life. If they don’t have that impact, or especially if there is nothing that I can do about it, I don’t give a fuck about whatever it is. It’s easier that way for me and I can then focus on the things that do affect and impact me. There’s only so many fucks to give.

I remember her asking me my opinion about whatever it was at the time, and I told her that I didn’t have an opinion about whatever it was. I didn’t care. I was totally indifferent to the subject that she was discussing. It didn’t impact my life in the slightest, so fuck it. She was astounded that I didn’t have an opinion on it. It totally blew her away. I remember me saying something along the lines of, “it’s not a big deal,” and “it doesn’t affect me.” It turned that conversation into an argument of sorts for about 10 minutes or so.

What did I do at the time? I checked out. That’s what our relationship became towards the end. Her harping and me turning a deaf ear to what she was saying and me ultimately checking out altogether.

I’m not saying this like I think she was a bad person or that I was a victim because neither of those things are true. She’s not a bad person and I was certainly no victim. I allowed it to happen to me because I never spoke up until I got a “gut full” and it was too late because I had had enough.

“What this constant nagging and harping does is send a message to our husbands that says “we don’t respect you. We don’t think you’re smart enough to do things right. We expect you to mess up. And when you do, you’ll be called out on it swiftly and without reservation.” Given this kind of negative reinforcement over time, he feels like nothing he can do is right (in your eyes). If he’s confident with himself and who he is, he’ll come to resent you. If he’s at all unsure about himself, he’ll start to believe you, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Neither one is a desirable, beneficial outcome to you, him or the marriage.”

“If he’s confident with himself and who he is, he’ll come to resent you.” That is completely accurate. That’s what happened in the case of me and my ex-wife. I came to resent her. One thing that the author never mentions in her article though, is what the major consequences can be. Sure, the guy can avoid her or resent her or a bunch of other behaviors as well.

He can also leave when he has had enough. He can leave the relationship and go on to find another one where hopefully he learns his part in the play and he learns to set his own boundaries of what is acceptable and unacceptable and he’s able to call her out on it if and when that time comes.

I’m not advocating that leaving is the easiest and only option. Sometimes leaving isn’t feasible for a variety of reasons and I understand that. But it is an option, and sometimes it’s the only reasonable option.

I don’t know if “nagging” or women “correcting” behavior is a feature or a bug. Maybe it’s both, maybe it’s neither. Maybe it’s something else entirely. I do know that it does happen. It happened in my marriage and to a much lesser degree, my last long term relationship. Carl from Black Label Logic calls it “Death by 1000 Concessions,” and maybe that’s exactly what it is.

Sharpen Your Mind. Weaponize It. Start here and here. Sign up for my newsletter.

Space Junk

Rob Says2 Comments
Space Debris Orbiting Earth

On Saturday, I took Teriyaki out for “Dinner and Dancing.” Well, the dinner part at least. Yes, I know I’m destroying my credibility with the “Alpha Bros” and probably 2/3 of the ‘Sphere, but I don’t care. I’m not going to live my life for them considering that most of them have no idea what they are talking about and are just LARPing anyway.

It’s good to be your own Mental Point of Origin as Rollo calls it. It’s good to ask and hopefully know what you want. It’s great to not give a fuck. At the same time, there comes a time when you need to take other people’s feelings and thoughts into consideration. They are human beings after all. If everything you do is about you and you alone and only the things that you like and want to do, you’ll end up being alone. I know I wouldn’t stick around anyone whether they are a man or a woman if everything was only about them, for them, with nothing in it for me.

So I took Teriyaki out for a nice dinner, we had a great time, and it was a great evening. And yes, I paid for the dinner as well with no expectations of sex or anything else afterwards. She enjoyed it and I think she enjoyed the dessert that we had right after dinner.

While we were sitting in the car, eating our dessert, we got to talking. Teriyaki is 34 and I’m 49, so there’s a little bit of an age gap between us, which I happen to enjoy. I like my women much younger than me for the most part, and it isn’t just their “younger, hotter, tighter” status, but it’s also their perspective on things. You see, I not only enjoy younger women for their youth, but I actually learn from them as well.

I’m a Gen X’er. I was a young adult, in my early 20’s when the internet really first became a thing. I grew up without the internet, smart phones, GPS technology, and social media. I had none of those luxuries that we take for granted today. If I wanted to go somewhere I hadn’t been before, I had to get a paper map and look it up and figure out where I needed to go. I needed to learn how to use an actual compass in order to find which direction was north and which direction I was currently facing. If I wanted to talk to friends and family I either had to walk, ride a bicycle, or drive to them, or I had to pick up a phone and call them and until cordless phones became a thing, I was limited as to how far I could walk in a given room. Privacy, much like today, wasn’t much of a thing when the corded landline in the kitchen didn’t extend to my bedroom. And meeting girls? Yeah, much like today, you had to walk up to them and actually talk to them and get to know them.

Teriyaki is a Millennial. A fairly early millennial to be fair, but a millennial nonetheless. She grew up with some of the technology that we all enjoy today, but then again, she didn’t have all of it. She’s kind of a “hybrid” where she had more access to it earlier than I did, but she also has a lot of the skills that Generation X and earlier had to rely on in order to get around and function in the world.

We were sitting there, eating our dessert, and there was another car sitting next to us with a young guy at the wheel, who was engrossed in his phone. He had been so distracted by his phone and had spent so much time on it that when he finally decided to leave, he didn’t realize that he had already turned his headlights on. That’s because when he threw the car in reverse, he actually turned his headlights back off, realized that they had already been on, and then turned them back on again.

We watched him do this and that’s where Teriyaki and I got to talking about technology and where we are today. I mentioned that we as a society have become so dependent on technology, that if something were to happen, and the internet went down, most of the younger people would be seriously fucked. At least until they learned how to adapt and survive without that technology. What if we were to have a war and it knocked out the internet? The internet is pretty hardy I’m sure. I wouldn’t doubt that there are fail safes that are put into place in the event of something like a war.

But what about our own sun doing something like a massive solar flare? Or what about something like the space junk problem that is currently growing? A lot of our current technology and parts of the internet rely on satellites. All it would take is some of this junk that is orbiting the planet to hit one satellite, knock it out of commission and a catastrophic chain of events could easily happen where old debris hits new objects which creates new debris which then hits other objects and it’s a series of dominoes falling down from there. With all that junk, and more being created all the time, it’s only a matter of time where we may not be able to actually leave the planet to explore the outer reaches of space because of us creating our own orbiting prison system. If satellites can’t orbit, we can’t communicate globally.

The internet may become unstable or spotty, or inaccessible in some or many parts of the world, GPS technology could become a thing of the past, and it’s back to using a compass and a paper map again. While that’s not a big deal for me, what about the younger people who have grown up knowing nothing more than computer technology? Do the younger people even know what the Dewey Decimal System is? Do they even know how to use it?

We have become so reliant on technology that we are seeing the effects of it. Younger people today have minimal social skills. Everything they have done involves at minimum a laptop or a smart phone. All of their major communications involve texting and emoji’s. They literally don’t know how to have a phone conversation, let alone a face to face interaction with someone outside of their immediate friends or family. You think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not.

Why does the ‘Sphere even exist? It’s guys trying to figure out how to “get the girls.” At least that’s what it started out as. Game is nothing more than the ability to talk to women with the goal of getting them into bed. Most guys today have zero Game. None. That’s because they literally don’t know how to have a conversation with a woman, let alone have the confidence in themselves to actually try and escalate and get that woman to go and have sex with them. Most young women today are no better off. They don’t know how to have a conversation with a man either. They don’t know what to do. I have seen this in restaurants, bars, and other public places. Yes, this is even during the pandemic. If anything, I think the pandemic is making it worse as everybody is “social distancing,” wearing masks, and staying home, staying away from each other.

I saw young children, like between the ages of 2 and 4, the other day. They were in some form of daycare. They were in an enclosed space, with literal iron bars separating them from the rest of the world, and they were all wearing masks. Talk about sitting or standing in a literal jail cell, wearing masks. This is the future that we are creating.

All of this talk of technology, war, the possible fall of the internet, and space junk happened between a millennial woman and a cynical old gen X’er while we were eating ice cream in a car, after a night of “dinner and dancing” on the night before Valentine’s Day.

What have you guys done?

Sharpen Your Mind. Weaponize It. Start here and here. Sign up for my newsletter.

“Social Proof”

Rob Says2 Comments

It all starts with this screen shot from Rian Stone:

“Most things guys think they are doing to attract women actually attracts men.”

So far, so good. He’s not wrong.

Then Midlife Moves saw Rian’s tweet and raised him one of his own:

Midlife Moves: “Other men like your six-pack more than women do.”

Not in every case obviously, but Midlife isn’t wrong here either. Most guys obsess over shit that isn’t as important as they think it is or want it to be. Investing in yourself and in whatever it is that you believe in can create huge blind spots and make you question your very existence at times when those beliefs are called into question. Here’s a thing about the “six-pack” question:

I don’t have “six-pack” abs. Not even close. Never have, never will. I’m lazy and I don’t want to put the work in to get six-pack abs. I like my junk food and my alcohol too much, so I know I’ll never have those type of abs, and I’m okay with that. The women that have been in my life didn’t care that I didn’t have six-pack abs either. They still enjoyed running their hands, fingers, and tongues all over my body.

Back to the screen shots though:

Here’s a guy who has no clue and it shows: “Which then attracts women because of the social proof placed on you by other men…” This was in response to Midlife saying that “other men like your six-pack more than women do.” Here’s the full screen shot of that:

Now it’s time for a little history lesson, so bear with me here…

I remember dating and meeting women back in through the 90’s and even into the early 2000’s. I was single, ready to mingle, and going to the bar was pretty much my thing and what I did. The internet as we know it today either didn’t exist or was in its infancy.

“Back in the day,” guys were clueless about “how to get da gurlz.” I know I was. I had no idea what to say or to do. The difference between then and now was that at least guys understood to a certain degree how to dress, most guys were not overweight, and hygiene was mandatory, not optional, like today. In short, while guys didn’t have Game, they at least looked and smelled presentable compared to today. Looking and smelling good went far back then and I would say that it is even more crucial today than ever.

Guys “back in the day” were clueless, but today? I almost think the majority of guys are beyond hope and are a lost cause. When they don’t understand the concept of social proof, you know things are bad.

I agree with what Midlife is saying here. Being surrounded by a bunch of guys isn’t social proof to women that you are “the man.” Being surrounded by women is.

Considering that most guys are horrible at game and have no idea what to say or do to pick up women, being surrounded by guys is a liability, not an asset, when it comes to seduction. Guys step on their own dicks all by themselves, but put them into a group together and you might not step on your own dick, but your bro will step on it for you. Most of the time it won’t be intentional, but sometimes it is. I’ve seen guys throw other guys under the bus in order to get a chance to get the girl.

Back in 2019 when I got back into the dating scene, I remember taking a date to the bar that I liked going to. We were sitting down, enjoying a drink, and then I saw this:

Here’s your “social proof” of guys in a group. Does that look like a group of guys that are “getting da gurlz?” Hanging around in a bar, huddled over beers, at a bare minimum, is going to be seen as neutral to a woman. Worst case, your value to her is going to go down. I remember my date saw me filming this little interaction and so she looked over at them, rolled her eyes, and said, “My god, what a bunch of dorks.” That’s attractive fellas. As a bonus: notice the lack of awareness this group of guys has. Notice their clothing. This is the norm today.

Here’s another picture from that same scene, same night:

Chad Thundercock, your competition.

That video and that snapshot was taken in early 2019. A year later in 2020, right before the pandemic hit and shut everything down, nothing had changed.

Even back in the 90’s groups of guys that were huddled together over their beers wasn’t seen as social proof to women. It was just social proof to other men. Get three guys together at the bar and soon you’ll have a whole gaggle of guys standing around you, one hand in their pocket, the other clutching their beer as a shield. I have seen this phenomenon over and over again. In this respect, nothing has changed today. You think it is hard to isolate a woman from her group of girlfriends? Try getting a woman to walk up to a group of dudes in order to separate one guy from that herd. It’s never happened and it never will, and that’s because women don’t approach. Guys hanging around other guys and it will get you social proof in order to get the girls? No. That’s not how this works.

Guys talk about “unicorns” when it comes to women. You want to know a true “unicorn?” A guy that knows Game and can run as your wing man. In all of my years of chasing skirt, I have yet to meet a guy locally who knows how to run Game and be a wing for me. My Game isn’t spectacular, but I have Game and I can wing for another guy if that is what needs to happen. The problem is most guys have no clue, so there’s no point running wing for the clueless.

Speaking of clueless, I think technology has made people stupid. We don’t know how to interact with one another on a face to face level anymore. We have no idea about social cues, body language, tonality, and nuance. And it’s only going to get worse if what I’m seeing now continues. Technology is constantly changing and evolving and it’s doing it at lightning speed. Human nature hasn’t changed in years.

I have gotten to a point in my life that if I’m going to go out to a bar with guy friends, I have a choice. I can separate myself from the herd and run Game solo, or I can just hang with my friends and not worry about chasing skirt. Trying to get a guy to run as a wing is damn near impossible, so I don’t even bother anymore.

Guys running their mouths on the internet, I see you. Your ignorance and your lack of experience shows.

To all of you that are reading this post, be very careful and very skeptical of whose “advice” you listen to. In many cases it will do more harm than good.

Sharpen Your Mind. Weaponize It. Start here and here. Sign up for my newsletter.