It's a big world

Keoni Galt describes the Imputed Income Trap which puts men in debtor's prison for being unable to pay the court-dictated child support:

Deadbeats everywhere, look out! You've been identified, and classified and you WILL be brought to justice.

By virtue of marrying and having children in today's Brave New World Order, you are now officially eligible to join the ranks of all the other peons called "deadbeat dads." All that needs happen is your wife to deem you no longer fit to share her domestic living space, and you too will become just another American peon.

What's a peon, you ask? Go to wiki and look up the term "peonage."

Modern day child support laws and the entire Family Court System, is nothing more than 21st century peonage.

Our current child support system in the USSA Inc., is a travesty of justice and a clear abrogation of the 13th amendment of the Constitutions abolition of involuntary servitude.

But remember, only Men are eligible to become Imputed Income Peons. As commenter Pugs Fugly noted:

And yet….my ex-wife hasn’t paid a dime in over a year, I’m talking 11K in arrears, and the state does nothing.  They talk a great deal; the people I have to deal with have explained that revoking her license or issuing a warrant for her arrest are only considered as a “last resort” but they won’t explain or even hint when we’ll finally get to that point.

I realize this won't be popular, but I would advise men in failing marriages to make it very clear to their soon-to-be ex-wives that they will not be paying child support beyond a mutually agreed-upon amount, they will only be paying it so long as they remain employed, and that any attempt to involve third parties in what is a family matter will be met with an immediate international relocation and an end to all child support as well as all contact with the children.

If the woman is still willing to light the fuse once the relocation bomb has been armed, then there is little chance that she was going to permit her ex-husband to have a relationship with his children anyhow. On the macro level, the unjust system will not die until men refuse to keep submitting to it.

It's a big world out there, full of possibilities. If your ex-wife is determined to put an end your current life, then accept that it is over and go build yourself a brand new one somewhere else that doesn't give a damn about US family courts.

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The desexualized church

Deti of JustFourGuys warns Christian men of some of the perils that may await the man who looks for a Christian wife at church:

–The “Desexualized Zone”.    Women increasingly expect churches and church functions to be places of freedom from “unwanted” interactions. Translated, this means women expect unattractive men to know their place and not to ask women out or otherwise talk to them at church.  They expect men either to avoid them completely, or to be eunuchs, existing to serve them.  There have been reports in the manosphere of women actually complaining to pastors about “unattractive” men asking them out at church. It is as if women expect pastors and church staff to punish and rebuke men for “sexual harassment” at churches, merely because in a social situation they acted like men and pursued someone/something they wanted.   Of course, none of this applies to attractive men, who are never the subject of complaint or sanction no matter what they do.

–“Reformed” sluts.    (Not to be confused with actual, genuine reformed sluts, who really are trying to improve their lives.  This concerns the faux reformed.)   Every church has these as well.   These are women in their late 20 and early 30s with decent jobs and colorful pasts.  All have had multiple sex partners.  Most have never been married and have no children. Most show up at church, or are returning to church, after a parade of alpha sex partners, an abortion, contracting a sexual disease, a bad breakup with a long term boyfriend or fiancé; or occasionally after a brief failed first marriage.   She’s had her “come to Jesus” moment, she sees “the error of her ways”, she’s “tired of the games and the playas”, and she “wants to do it the right way this time”.  

Characteristics of a “reformed” slut:

1.   Speaks fluent Christianese.
2.   Extremely defensive about her past.
3.   Refers to her past as a series of “mistakes”.
4.   Has at least one alpha relationship in her past.
5.   Excuses, explains, justifies and defends her past.
6.   Quick to defend sluts.
7.   Actively looking for a husband, and enlisting the help of anyone and everyone she can find in this task.
8.   Her taste in men has markedly changed.  She used to like motorcycle riders and investment bankers.   Now she’s decided she really, really likes nerdy accountants and guys who sing in church choirs.

When Mark Driscoll and other pastors talk about “great” women in their churches who are over 30 and who really want to get married, these are the women they’re talking about.   These women are using church as a desperate last resort to find a husband.   Pastors and other women tout the “reformed” sluts as prime marriage material.   It’s done as a well-intentioned gesture to get these women married off.  It’s treacherous for men because too many of those marriages are destined for failure or sexless misery. 

I have to defer to Deti on this one, since I have literally never met a woman I dated at church. As an alternative strategy, I once suggested this:

1. Meet a woman at a bar or night club
2. Ask her if she's interested in attending church with you

One of my brothers took that advice a bit too literally. My thought was that he could ask a woman if she was up for attending church after going out with her a few times. My idiot brother instead walked up to a girl he didn't know in a nightclub and asked her if she wanted to go to church with him. She said yes, less because she was interested in church than the fact that he is extremely handsome.

But hey, it worked. And the punchline? They're still married.

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Fourteen years of fun

That's the choice that the average attractive young woman faces at 18. Fourteen years of fun or a family life:

My parents are first generation immigrants. I have a younger brother and younger sister. In my family I was always the rebellious one; I would often challenge my parents. My family was very strict, when it came to dating and my siblings usually fell in line. However, I would challenge that norm.

My brother and sister were very repressed with their sexualities as a result, while I lost my virginity at 17 to my then boyfriend. While my brother and followed the traditional Indian path. My brother ended up not having any sexual contact with a girl until he got married at 25 (arranged marriage) and now they have a child together. My sister (too never kissed a boy) has recently gotten married too at 24 with an Indian boy she met at our Temple (both parents approved).

I live in LA, a city where both men and woman tend to marry a bit later in life, and yet I still spent the last years of my 20‘s feeling that somehow, I’d messed up. I had followed the wrong trail and thus, my “important-life-moments” timeline was off. Even with my more progressive friends it began slowly at first, when I was 27 ... an engagement post on Facebook, an invite to a wedding—it was happening. People I knew were beginning the next stage of life and saying “I do.”

Throughout my whole life I never really dated any Indian guys; I exclusively dated white guys. However now I realize more than ever that the guys I dated never really took me seriously. They never really viewed me as someone they would eventually marry. I was always just some exotic fun. This part was definitely a realization that has hurt me to the core. I didn't actually do it to spite Indian men or anything like that. I did what a lot of my white female friends did; I thought I was the same as them, but that could be farther from the truth. Most white guys I ran into wanted white wives.

I am now 32, and seems like everyone in my family has lapped me. I too want a family a marriage. However, now my chance of finding someone is gone. At my age getting an arranged marriage or finding another Indian man to marry me is out of the question. Majority of Indian guys usually get married pretty early. Often either to another Indian girl they meet here, or they go back to India for an arranged marriage. My parents have tried signing me up for a matrimony site, but of the guys I’d meet they would be turned off by my history (drink/eat meat/not a virgin).

Notice that she initially felt superior to her more traditional siblings, but now she feels "everyone in my family has lapped me". And as for the N=18 and the white fever, well, it's hardly a surprise that there are few Indian men lining up to marry her.

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Black knighting: Occidental 404

This is exactly the sort of thing that should be happening at every university across the country in the new year:

Occidental College has been barraged with bogus allegations of sexual assault in recent days after two groups, one claiming to represent "men's rights," set out to undermine the school's anonymous reporting system, a college spokesman said.

Shortly after members of the online communities Reddit and 4Chan began discussing the idea late Monday, Occidental spokesman Jim Tranquada said, the campus was flooded with reports — some by people who claimed to have been assaulted by "Occidental College," "feminists" or "Fatty McFatFat."

Over 36 hours, some 400 such reports were made. Occidental officials now are trying to determine how to isolate false claims from any actual assaults that may have been reported during that time.

However, it would be much better if the male college students would file genuine reports against women with whom they have actually had sex. I would encourage every man who hooks up casually in college to file a sexual assault report against the woman the following day, especially since the chances that a man actually gave explicit verbal consent are nil. This is the only way to destroy the unjust system of sexual apartheid that is completely stacked against college men.

Black knighting is all about turning the machinery of the system against itself. If a few outsiders can so effectively monkey wrench the sexual assault machinery with obviously false claims, imagine what those inside the situation filing genuine reports that are objectively indistinguishable from the reports filed by women can accomplish. Every single time a woman so much as touches a man without explicit permission, she should be charged with sexual assault.

Flood the system. Crash it with data. 404 it. It works.

"In a letter to faculty on Wednesday, Occidental's interim Title IX coordinator, Lauren Carella, suggested the college may shutter the reporting system."

That's in response to a single act by outsiders. Once the men within the system begin acting in self-defense, the feminists will have no choice but to a) start prosecuting women, b) openly admitting the sexual apartheid, or c) shutting down the system.

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Banning fat talk

With obesity on the rise across the West, it will surprise no one that one of the most urgent political matters to arise is the possibility that someone might refer to a woman's adiposity and thereby inflict feelbad:

A minister has called for an end to so-called 'fat talk', including terms such as muffin tops, bingo wings and cankles. Scottish MP Jo Swinson believes the 'body shaming' language damages people's confidence and wants women and children to ban the terms from everyday conversation.

The equalities minister said: 'It's depressingly commonplace to hear women - and even young girls and children - insulting their own bodies. 'Muffin tops, thunder thighs, cankles - fat talk and body shaming too easily become a habit and an expectation.'

This is particularly a problem when the party that inflicted the feelbad is the woman herself. I tend to doubt it will shock anyone to discover that Jo Swinson is a bit of a chubsterfiercely real herself.

Surely we can all agree that every woman has the government guaranteed right to not feel bad or be held accountable, no matter what she says or does. I thereby encourage everyone to henceforth refer to women of a larger persuasion as "fiercely real". It should take about nine months for that to land on the banned list as well.

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Italian black knights

This action by the Italian police precisely demonstrates how you use the legal regime constructed at the behest of women against them:

Nina De Chiffre, 20, a student who was protesting last month against the construction of a new train link in northern Italy, was photographed as she kissed the lowered helmet visor of a riot policeman.

The photo went viral and was quickly held up as an example of non-violent protest, until COISP, a union representing Italian police officers, announced it had lodged a complaint with Turin prosecutors.

"We have accused the protester of sexual violence and insulting a public official," said Franco Maccari, the union's general secretary. "We fully expect an investigation to start."

Mr Maccari said he was not prepared to brush off the incident as a peaceful gesture.

"If the policeman had kissed her, world war three would have broken out," he said. "Or what if I had patted her on the behind? She would have been outraged. So if she does that to a man on duty, should it be tolerated?"

Men absolutely need to demonstrate the absurdity of the sex-related laws by relentlessly turning them against women. If you lift weights, register a complaint every time a woman feels your pecs or squeezes your arm without your permission, register a complaint. If you're in college, file a rape report every time the previous night's casual encounter wakes you up with a morning blow job. If you work in an office, run to HR every time a female co-worker mentions anything that is even remotely sexual within your earshot.

If you're not actively black-knighting, you have no one but yourself to blame if you ever find yourself falling afoul of the vast web of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment laws that presently plague the legal system.

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Merry Christmas

I wish you all a Very Merry Christmas.

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Holiday survival guide

It's Christmas Eve. The round of parties are reaching their climax and the gift-giving is about to begin in earnest. It may be helpful, therefore, to consider the how to approach the social aspects of the celebrations from a socio-sexual perspective.

If you are a man:

1. Remember that the women are putting in a lot of work and are feeling a lot of stress. This is not the time to remember things at the last minute or lament how things were done differently when you were a child. Avoid throwing curve balls.
2. Don't tell her to relax. She's not going to do so anymore than you are during a hard fought basketball game. Holiday-hosting can perhaps be best understood as a competitive sport for women, even if the only competitors are in her mind.
3. Ask her if there is anything you can do twice per day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Simply having someone willing to run out to the store once or twice, if necessary, can save considerable time and reduce tensions.
4. Pour yourself a glass of wine as soon as it gets dark. Offer her one. She'll probably need it.
5. Don't let her get away with snapping at you or anyone else. The objective is to be helpful and considerate, not a doormat.
6. It's Christmas. She cooked it all. After dinner, pour the wine, put the game on in the kitchen, and clean up.
7. Don't get bent out of shape if anyone accepts gifts with all the good grace of an entitled welfare queen. Just smile and be content in the knowledge that next year, you can achieve exactly the same results for one-quarter the cost.
8. Save the receipts. Enough said.

If you are a woman:

1. Try to remember that it's a celebration, not a competition, and the world will not end if a particular dish is not served or something doesn't go exactly the way you planned it.
2. The only person who can ruin the holiday for yourself is you. In fact, the only person who is likely to ruin the holiday for everyone else is you. Don't be that woman.
3. If someone is taking pictures or video, just smile. Drawing additional attention to yourself by complaining and protesting looks far more ridiculous than your bedhead or lack of makeup does.
4. It's Christmas. This is not the time to maximize the amount of familial drama or attempt to take center stage.
5. Sit down and take a deep breath from time to time. Remember the story of Martha and Mary. No one is watching in admiration and awarding you martyr points.
6. If you need help, ask for it. Don't wait for volunteers.
7. Save the opinion editorials when you open a present. Don't explain why it's not quite what you wanted or why it's almost perfect. Be gracious. Smile and say thank you.
8. Red lingerie. Enough said.

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The costs of divorce

It is time to seriously consider banning divorce. The costs of it are simply too high, in terms of economics, outcomes, and lives:

A man and his 3-year-old son died Sunday after plummeting from a building near Lincoln Center. Police on Sunday night were still investigating exactly what happened. But as 1010 WINS’ Gary Baumgarten reported, sources said the father — identified as Dmitriy Kanarikov, 35, may have tossed the boy — Kirill Kanarikov, 3 — off the balcony and then jumped to his own death.... Kanarikov’s own neighbors said he lived alone in a home in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, but his estranged wife and son were occasionally seen visiting. The couple was going through a divorce, and it was believed that the conflict may have led to the tragedy. Police told 1010 WINS Dmitriy Kanarikov was embroiled in a custody battle with the boy’s mother, and was despondent over having to return him.

That being said, I do wish men who are in despair over what their ex-wives and the family courts are doing to them would focus their actions on those responsible, not the innocent. The problem is that these are not angry men, these are men without hope or faith.

While there were problems when divorce was not possible, those problems were considerably less serious than the trauma caused to men, women, and children by the present legal regime.

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Threatening the Female Imperative

It is fascinating to see the irrational aspects of the Female Imperative at work. After publicly bragging that her three children by three different fathers live with her, Kate Winslet is waving her chubby arms and threatening to sue Fathers4Justice because they have used her to illustrate the intrinsic injustice of a legal regime which automatically assigns child custody to the mother rather than to the father.

It's a well-established fact that children deprived of their fathers do worse by every social metric known to science. But the demands of the Female Imperative are such that not only must the material interests of millions of children bow before it, but it is deemed unacceptable for men to even think about criticizing the behavior of women exercising their legally-protected Imperative. Of course, the ad's perfectly legitimate and rhetorically razor-sharp criticism of Kate Winslet is going to upset many women. After all, if the Female Imperative is weakened and family courts stop favoring idiot actresses dumb enough to marry three men, including one who calls himself Rocknroll, then they'll probably be raped and have their own children seized by court-appointed social workers. Or something like that.

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Solipsism is shameless

It's impossible to understand this sort of seemingly hypocritical behavior without at least a partial grasp of female solipsism:

A top diplomat at India’s consulate in Manhattan who lobbies for women’s rights has been busted by the feds — after allegedly mistreating her female nanny. Devyani , India’s 39-year-old deputy consul general for political, economic, commercial and women’s affairs, was busted Thursday for allegedly helping to submit fake documents to the US State Department saying she was paying the woman $4,500 per month — when, in reality, the caregiver received only $573 monthly, or a measly $3.31 an hour.

In an April interview with The Indian Panorama, a weekly Manhattan-based newspaper, Khobragade claimed that she’s a strong advocate for “underprivileged” women’s rights.

Men get tripped up by this sort of thing all the time. They think that because a woman with whom they are involved says she hates being treated in a certain way, she will not treat others in that way. But women don't think like that. To them, the fact that they don't like being treated a certain way has nothing to do with how they will treat others.

But it's not pure hypocrisy. The hypocrite usually recognizes what he's doing is wrong. The solipsist usually doesn't.

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Avoid online "dating"

This chart shows there is less than a 10 percent chance of an American woman even responding to a man on an online dating site and I've seen anecdotal reports of the response rate being under one percent for some men. Average response rate from women of the same age is about 4 percent.  That means that you would have to get cold-shouldered 25 times in real life to have the same rate of failure that you can expect in the online world.

Conclusion: online dating is a massive waste of time for anyone who isn't already successful with women. What's worse about the failure rate is that in the real world, the more you approach, the better you get at it. By the time the average man gets shot down 25 times, he's going to significantly improve his game; if nothing else, he will have lost most of his fear of approaching and that alone will tend to inspire more positive reactions.

Because being shot down online is only painful in its cumulative effect, men learn very little, if anything, and certainly don't gain any confidence through it. Being married, I'm not about to test the hypothesis, but my thought is that if a non-Alpha made 20 online approaches and made 20 approaches in the real world, his real world success rate would be at least 4x his online success rate regardless of his socio-sexual status.

Yes, I understand that it's easier and less scary to simply fire off a few emails every evening than go up and talk to women in public. It's also easier and less scary to sit in front of the television and eat potato chips than work out at the gym. The point is that online dating is lazy, it's debilitating, and it doesn't provide better results.

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Women crave boundaries

This is an interesting experiment which demonstrated one aspect of Game, namely, the foolishness of thinking that being agreeable will make women more pleasant:

As part of an unusual experiment, the husband was instructed to “agree with his wife’s every opinion and request without complaint,” and to continue doing so “even if he believed the female participant was wrong,” according to a report on the research that was published Tuesday by the British Medical Journal.

The husband and wife were helping a trio of doctors test their theory that pride and stubbornness get in the way of good mental health. In their own medical practices in New Zealand, they had observed patients leading “unnecessarily stressful lives by wanting to be right rather than happy.” If these patients could just let go of the need to prove to others that they were right, would greater happiness be the result?

Enter the intrepid husband. Based on the assumption that men would rather be happy than be right, he was told to agree with his wife in all cases. However, based on the assumption that women would rather be right than be happy, the doctors decided not to tell the wife why her husband was suddenly so agreeable.

Both spouses were asked to rate their quality of life on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the happiest) at the start of the experiment and again on Day 6. It’s not clear how long the experiment was intended to last, but it came to an abrupt halt on Day 12.

“By then the male participant found the female participant to be increasingly critical of everything he did,” the researchers reported. The husband couldn’t take it anymore, so he made his wife a cup of tea and told her what had been going on.

That led the researchers to terminate the study.

Over the 12 days of the experiment, the husband’s quality of life plummeted from a baseline score of 7 all the way down to 3. The wife started out at 8 and rose to 8.5 by Day 6. She had no desire to share her quality of life with the researchers on Day 12, according to the report.

My bet is that the wife's quality of life plummeted as well. That's why she was getting increasingly critical. In most male-female relationships, the woman will push until she is metaphorically slapped down. Whether they actually need them in the way children do or not, the observable fact is that women crave boundaries. Men who don't provide those boundaries, consciously or unconsciously, will tend to incite contempt and infuriate them.

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Be tall

You might want to reconsider those flat-soled topsiders:

Researchers analysed more than 80,000 interactions between users of the dating website in the UK.They found that every inch increase in a man's height directly correlated to his likelihood of being contacted by a woman.  Taller men were significantly more likely to be contacted by women than shorter men.

Their data revealed that the ideal height women seek in a man is 6ft. The 6ft men who were members of the site were 33 per cent more likely to be contacted than a man of average height (5ft 7), and 77 per cent more likely to be contacted than a man under 5ft 4.... The study by Dutch researchers found that women were most satisfied when they were much shorter than their male partners by about 7-8 inches.

I'm a little surprised that the 6-foot advantage is only one-third. The good news is that this is knowledge you can use to your advantage. For example:

• Wear shoes in the house. Women always go barefoot.
• Start wearing cowboy boots
• Add an inch with sole inserts

Conversely, height is an interesting sexual metric. The close a man is to his wife's height, the more alpha his personality is likely to be. The man you want to be wary of is the man of average height with an unusually tall wife. He's too tall to have a Napoleon complex or be compensating for his lack of height, but he's dominant enough to attract an Amazon.

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In the event you were unaware

I have a tendency to assume that most AG readers are also VP readers, and I'm occasionally surprised to learn that this is not only not the case, but there are some readers here who are completely unaware that I even have another blog, let alone write the occasional book. So, I thought the AG-only readers might like to know that two weeks ago, I published a pair of science fiction mysteries, one novel and one novella.

QUANTUM MORTIS: A Man Disrupted is not a novel that is based on Game, but is rife with human socio-sexual relations that the Game-aware reader will recognize is entirely consistent with the basic precepts of Game. It's a murder mystery set far in the future, in a world where AI personalities are citizens and the military police don't hesitate to enforce the traffic laws with air-to-air missiles. If you enjoy the content here at Alpha Game, there is a better-than-even chance that you will enjoy both the novel and QUANTUM MORTIS: Gravity Kills, a novella that features the same no-holds-barred detective, Chief Warrant Officer Graven Tower, MCID-XAR.

Thus endeth the commercial. A regular post will follow later today.

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Game in Japanese literature

Tamaki liked handsome men. She was a sucker for good looks. As Aomame saw it, this tendency of her friend’s ranked as a sickness. Tamaki could meet men of marvelous character or with superior talents who were eager to woo her, but if their looks did not meet her standards, she was utterly unmoved. For some reason, the ones who aroused her interest were always sweet-faced men with nothing inside. And when it came to men, she would stubbornly resist anything Aomame might have to say. Tamaki was always ready to accept—and even respect—Aomame’s opinions on other matters, but if Aomame criticized her choice of boyfriend, Tamaki simply refused to listen. Aomame eventually gave up trying to advise her. She didn’t want to quarrel with Tamaki and destroy their friendship. Ultimately, it was Tamaki’s life. All Aomame could do was let her live it. Tamaki became involved with many men during her college years, and each one led to trouble. They would always betray her, wound her, and abandon her, leaving Tamaki each time in a state close to madness. Twice she resorted to abortions. Where relations with the opposite sex were concerned, Tamaki was truly a born victim.
    - 1Q84, Haruki Murakami

Fascinating, is it not, how much both art and science reliably support the basic precepts of Game if one simply keeps one's eyes open. What are "sweet-faced men with nothing inside" if not Alphas with an abundance of Dark Triad traits?

Is it any surprise to anyone with even a passing familiarity with Game that they would always "always betray her, wound her, and abandon her" without her ever learning the error of her ways? And note how the author portrays the Tamaki character's total lack of interest in male character or other qualities.

I tend to doubt that Murakami has ever even heard of Game, and yet he somehow happened to describe its consequences in far more vivid colors than any of its advocates, with the possible exception of Roissy, could ever manage.

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Bitches because they want to be

The readily observable fact is that many women are too short-term oriented to behave in what they know to be their own interest. Far too many women would rather do and say what they want, then complain about the inevitable consequences that befall them, even when they know better. For example, after reading this little vignette, the reader will not be surprised to discover that Maureen Dowd never married or had any children:

I started speaking truth to power early. And my older brothers didn’t like it. They told me that archness in a 10-year-old was not welcome.

I concocted a plan to prove how boring life would be if you were just nice all the time, how much more bracing it is to have sweetness laced with tartness. I told them I would be very, very nice until they asked me to stop, certain that they’d get sick of saccharine and syrupy in short order.

Except they didn’t. They liked it. After a week, I’d overdosed on sugar myself and gave up, going back to my old ways of being angelic or devilish, depending on the provocation.

In other words, she discovered what she needed to do in order to have her brothers like her, but then decided it wasn't worth it. Their preferences didn't justify her behavioral modification. This would, of course, be perfectly fine had she accepted the subsequent consequences with any grace, but instead, she has written literally years of columns complaining that her life isn't what she wanted it to be.

But before you judge her and decide that she is stupid, consider if you aren't doing precisely the same thing. If you want to stick stubbornly to your own delusional view of the way women should be, or attempting to appeal to what you think women should like rather than what they do like, that's your call. But then, stop whining about your lack of success.

Game isn't magic, it is, quite literally, science. It is the result of hypothesis, observation, and experiment. It is both fully falsifiable and easily replicable. And it is far more indicative of a predilection for science denial to reject Game than to reject the global warming hypothesis or the theory of evolution by natural selection; you can very easily go out and attempt to falsify the hypotheses of Game yourself tonight.

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Treat them mean

To keep them keen. It's an old chestnut, but as with so many old chestnuts, there is truth inside. The Chateau quotes a woman to demonstrate why you should never feel terrible about treating a romantic entanglement like shit - because that's precisely what women find attractive.

A woman is as viscerally repulsed by a sensitive niceguy as a man is by a fat woman. If you want to know what a woman feels when a niceguy dotes on her in needy supplication, just remember how you feel when you see a land whale bend over in short shorts to pick up a donut crumb. The stimuli are different, but the disgust reflex is the same. And the reflex serves the same underlying reproductive purpose in both sexes: to avoid contamination of the egg with inferior sperm, and to avoid fertilizing and investing resources in inferior eggs.

Most women aren’t capable of this sort of self-reflection, and with good reason; if women had to grapple with their malignant sexual natures on a regular basis, they might very well go crazy. Or crazier than they already are. From an evolutionary perspective, mental stopgaps (aka the hamster) that block access to understanding of primal limbic impulses is a useful adaptation for ensuring women capitalize when the superior seed of self-driven, aloof, challenging, emotionally distant and often unkind men is available to them.

If you are a gentle, compassionate niceguy… a man of God…, a woman will become, inexplicably to you, cranky and moody if she’s in a relationship with you. You will be confused and wonder why she won’t listen to reason about all the good you do for her, and then you will blame her for your pain, unless you are an emasculated quasi-man, in which case you’ll direct the blame upon yourself.

Now, this has to be kept within reason, of course. If you're naturally an indifferent bastard, this does not mean that unleashing your inner sociopath is the means to a healthy relationship. But the reality is that most men are honestly nice, decent guys. Most men are also decidedly unsexy to women. These two facts are directly connected.

The thing is, if you're married, sex is not the entirety of the relationship. Keep that in mind before denying your wife the respect she deserves. But if your sex life is on the blink, rather than trying to be extra nice, try being uncharacteristically mean for a change. Extend your next business trip and go golfing for two days. Stay out until bar close with a friend. Get tickets to a game with a friend and don't bother telling her until you're walking out the door. Then compare notes with how it went compared to the time you tried buying roses, taking her out to dinner, and going on that romantic weekend getaway.

Women will tell you that it's not jerks that they crave, it's confidence. And you should put as much faith in that as a man's assertion that he doesn't like a nice set of double-Ds because more than a handful is a waste. Women don't even admit to themselves what they want, so why on Earth would you think they're going to be honest with you?

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Why you're on the Bang Don't Bride list 1

Women often seem to have an amazing amount of trouble distinguishing between female SMV and female MMV, which is a little ironic in that they seem to have no trouble whatsoever distinguishing between hot ALPHA males (SMV) and dependable BETA males (MMV) by whom they are graciously willing to be supported.

This may be because they only see the male sex drive in a binary state, on or off, and therefore don't realize that men, too, are capable of making a distinction between women to whom they are sexually attracted and women to whom they are sexually attracted and are also willing to support.  The two images below sum it up fairly well.

 

Now, the woman on the right is moderately more attractive than the one on the left. She's at least a full point higher in SMV terms than the very attractive woman in the one-piece And yet, even an inveterate fan of blondes such as me would tend to assume her to be of lower MMV due to the way in which she is presenting herself.

Keep in mind that at this point, we're only talking about superficialities and physical presentation. But that's where the whole attraction process starts and therefore that's where the initial sorting process begins.

Does this mean that the blond actually has a lower MMV than the brunette? No, we have no way of knowing. In fact, we don't actually know that she has a higher SMV, after all, she could be frigid, diseased, or insane. But she certainly has a higher initial perceived SMV. And the brunette has a higher initial perceived MMV, although for all we know, she is 10x the slut with 5x the blonde's N.

So, that's the first reason men put you on the Bang list. Initial Presentation.

More to follow in this series, including one for men entitled Why You're on the Friend Don't F--- list.

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Scalzi defines Game

"My definition is pathetic dweebs who think women can be manipulated into sex by a certain set of tricks and behaviors."
- John Scalzi

This would certainly explain why Mr. Scalzi has historically been so unsuccessful with women. Forget sex. Women can be manipulated into anything. Literally ANYTHING.

As the example of the recently convicted Ian Watkins proves, women can be manipulated into performing sex acts on their own infants and into offering up their own children to be raped. As 50 million+ abortions since 1973 prove, they can even be manipulated into murdering their own children. As the rising age of first marriage demonstrates, they can be manipulated into putting off marriage until they are less attractive and can only marry lower-quality men. As the rapidly increasing number of childless women over forty shows, they can be manipulated into remaining barren. As The Manifesto of the Fascist Struggle proves, they can be manipulated into voting for those who will oppress them.

But not sex. No, it's absolutely unthinkable to imagine that women could be manipulated into that. Only a pathetic dweeb could possibly think that.

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The feminization of Christianity

William Lane Craig addresses a woman who objects to the Bible's instructions to and about women:

My observations about the peculiar attraction that Christian apologetics has for men involves several claims. Let’s tease these apart to see which of them are objectionable.

First is my observation that apologetics seems to have far more interest for men than for women. That observation is based upon an enormous amount of experience in speaking on university campuses, at apologetics conferences, and in classroom teaching. It is a realization that gradually and unexpectedly forced itself upon me. It became very evident to me not only that the audiences which came to these events were largely male but that in event after event only the men stood up to ask a question. These facts seem to me to be undeniable.

Second is my hypothesis that this disparity is to be explained by the fact that men respond more readily to a rational approach, whereas women tend to respond more to relational approaches. Of course, this is just my best suggestion, and if you’ve got a better hypothesis to explain the disparity, Alexandra, I’m open to it. But there has to be an explanation.

My take is very straightforward. Cut off a plant from its roots and it will die. The Bible is very clear on the different spiritual responsibilities of men and women. If you reject them, you are rejecting both Biblical authority and a non-insignificant aspect of Christianity.

Everyone is fine with Christianity except for those aspects that directly address things that they want to do. Women are no exception. No doubt there are many murderers and fornicators who find the instructions to and about murder and fornication to be difficult too. The difference is that the male leaders of many churches have allowed women to corrupt the Biblical teachings they don't like and thereby corrupt their churches, while still holding strong against the murderers and fornicators.

It is not for the pot to question the pot-maker. The title of this post is a misnomer. Christianity cannot be feminized, because once feminized, what remains is no longer Christianity.

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Marriage: you're doing it wrong

Matt Walsh explains why it is a mistake for a man to call his wife "the boss", even in jest:

Recently a guy, around my age, came up to me when I was waiting in line at a burger joint in town. He had read my stay at home mom post and wanted to express agreement with the sentiments I articulated.

Instead he expressed agreement with sentiments I definitely did not articulate: “My wife stays at home. And, yeah, she sounds like your wife; she’s definitely the boss.”

No, dude, my wife is not my boss. I love her. She’s an incredibly strong woman. But she’s not my boss. Most importantly, she wouldn’t WANT to be my boss. She wanted to marry a man, not a henpecked hireling. I gave my life to her. We fused our souls together in the sacred act of matrimony. I’d take a bullet for my bride. I’d die to protect her. I give everything I have and everything I am to her. Everything I do right, I do for her, and my children, and God before all.

But she isn’t my boss. She doesn’t dictate to me. I’m not a cow, and she’s not a cattle driver. She counts on me to lead the family, and I hope to never fail in that duty. If I go around belittling myself and degrading my spouse by pathetically stammering about how she bosses me around all day, I have failed. I’ve failed as a man and a leader.

If you let a dog think he's the boss, he will cease to defer to you and begin objecting, violently, when you interfere with what he now believes are his prerogatives. Women are no different.

It's one thing to turn over your social calendar to your wife due to a lack of interest in the various social obligations of the family. But checking in to see if there is scheduling conflict, or simply being courteous enough to see if your wife minds if you go to the football game does not make you an employee or a child. Therefore, it does not make her the boss. And what might have been an ironic jest in the days of Mad Men is often taken quite literally now.

Belittling yourself isn't funny. And your wife isn't smiling.

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Everyone is a hot girl now

Modern dating technology creates an abundance mentality:

 In the past, Jacob had always been the kind of guy who didn’t break up well. His relationships tended to drag on. His desire to be with someone, to not have to go looking again, had always trumped whatever doubts he’d had about the person he was with. But something was different this time. “I feel like I underwent a fairly radical change thanks to online dating,” Jacob says. “I went from being someone who thought of finding someone as this monumental challenge, to being much more relaxed and confident about it. Rachel was young and beautiful, and I’d found her after signing up on a couple dating sites and dating just a few people.” Having met Rachel so easily online, he felt confident that, if he became single again, he could always meet someone else.

After two years, when Rachel informed Jacob that she was moving out, he logged on to Match.com the same day. His old profile was still up. Messages had even come in from people who couldn’t tell he was no longer active. The site had improved in the two years he’d been away. It was sleeker, faster, more efficient. And the population of online daters in Portland seemed to have tripled. He’d never imagined that so many single people were out there.

“I’m about 95 percent certain,” he says, “that if I’d met Rachel offline, and if I’d never done online dating, I would’ve married her. At that point in my life, I would’ve overlooked everything else and done whatever it took to make things work. Did online dating change my perception of permanence? No doubt. When I sensed the breakup coming, I was okay with it. It didn’t seem like there was going to be much of a mourning period, where you stare at your wall thinking you’re destined to be alone and all that. I was eager to see what else was out there.”

This is why it is so important to decide if you are looking to marry or simply mount ahead of time. There are positive aspects and negative aspects, but whatever you do, don't turn into the picky girl with The List.

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Games for girls

This Jane Austen game is actually a pretty good idea, in that it is a game actually focuses on status, clothes and communication rather than simply painting the guns pink:

Ever, Jane -- a Jane Austen MMO game -- has successfully reached its $100,000 (£60,000) Kickstarter target.

The game allows players to role-play in a Regency period setting using the weaponry found in Jane Austen novels, by which we mean gossip and social climbing rather than the flintlock pistols of the distractingly handsome militia.

"Instead of kill or be killed, it's invite or be invited," says project creator, Judy Tyrer, who has previously worked for companies like Ubisoft and Linden Lab. Instead of selecting the usual MMORPG character traits like strength, intelligence and agility, you pick from attributes like kindness, happiness and duty.

Strategising will be a key part of the experience. As Tyrer explains on the Kickstarter page, there's an invitation system where in-game events like balls and dinner parties can be used to boost one's stats:

"If a player invites a person of higher Status with the hope of improving their own Status, care must be taken. If the player invited rejects the invitation it will harm rather than improve Status. If the invitation is accepted, but out of Duty rather than Happiness, the Status will only improve slightly. On the other hand, if the player invited accepts with Happiness, Status improvements may be as much as doubled."

Of course, "invite or be invited" is the female version of "kill or be killed". I suspect the success of the game will depend upon whether one has the ability to be mean to other players or not. It's encouraging to see women attempting to provide women with new products they might actually enjoy instead of trying to invade, coopt, and ruin what the men have created.

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Why men don't like female sportscasters

Badger forwards a tweet and observes that media's finest know what is really important in picking the winner of a football game.

Ashley Adamson @AdamsonAshley 7h

David Shaw showed up to the press conference in an amazing black leather jacket. May have to pick Stanford tomorrow.

Ye cats.

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How to start a marriage on the wrong foot

I never paid any attention to the "cocky-funny" spams that used to show up in my inbox a while back. But even so, I don't know how anyone who even understood just that much about women could go so wrong on his wedding day:

Mr. Pagan, who under his Deangelo alter-ego preached the joys of being cocky and funny, never showing any weakness with a woman and constantly keeping her guessing, has gotten married.  And he’s done the whole thing in a self-humiliating style that I just can’t ignore.

So here is a bit from his wedding registry

“Soon after, Eben gathered his tribe in yet another circle, placing 3 women at the front of the room: his ex-girlfriend Rose, myself and his friend Shannon.” Rose was the only other serious romance he’d ever had.

“He kneeled before her and began to recount all the hard-won lessons learned from their relationship. He thanked her for being his teacher, for enduring the drama, and for preparing him so perfectly for me. Then, body to the ground, he bowed to her in reverence.”

Spammers are scammers, I suppose.

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Short-haired humor

Some more recent responses to the popular post on the unattractiveness of short hair on women.  Hayley doesn't take the news well:

Fuck all of you that say short hair makes a woman less beautiful. Sure, it may not work on some women, but if her physical appearance is all you love her for, you seriously need to reexamine your priorities. Fuck you.

She is putting the cart before the horse there. How is a man ever going to love a woman if he's not attracted to her in the first place?

Kimbrena fails logic 101:

How about women cutting their hair because THEY WANT TO? Maybe they LIKE short hair and don't care what a man thinks about it. What about the women that are confident in themselves and don't measure their worth by how attractive men are of her?

What about them? No man cares why you're unattractive. He's just not attracted to you. And if a woman doesn't care what a man thinks, then obviously there is no problem. He'll find her unattractive and she won't mind.

Mimi postulates repeating the obvious:

What if I told you women don't cut their hair solely with mens' opinions in mind. One more time: WOMEN DON'T CUT THEIR HAIR SOLELY WITH MENS' OPINIONS IN MIND.

Some women prefer having shorter hair. It's easier to manage and maybe it just makes them feel good about themselves. THEY like how it looks on them, so who gives a fuck what closed-minded guys think? A woman who is confident enough in her sexuality to cut her hair short deserves a man who's confident enough to say "Hey, she's hot!" without her hair being an issue. CONFIDENCE is the key rather than hair length. And honestly, are we really going to say that just because Emma Watson got a pixie cut, she's no longer FUCKING GORGEOUS? I think not.

One last thing: women falsely complimenting other women on their short hair choice because it bumps them up the sexy ladder?! Bullshit. Not all women are conniving bitches. In fact, most of us genuinely compliment our friends when they look good. Anyone that thinks otherwise watches way too many scripted reality shows.

Again, it is irrelevant WHY women cut their hair short. The point is that most men, the vast majority of them, find it unattractive. That is the fact. Who gives a fuck what those men think? Presumably women who would like male attention and hope for men to find them attractive. It's not about confidence. Men aren't women, they aren't attracted to confidence and they certainly aren't going to say "hey, she's hot" about a woman with short hair because the short hair makes her look less attractive.  And yes, Emma Watson is no longer FUCKING GORGEOUS with her pixie cut. She downgraded herself from "pretty" to "cute". Babies are cute. Puppies are cute. With the exception of the occasional pedophile, adult men are not sexually attracted to "cute".

As for the idea that women don't sabotage each other, well, Mimi probably doesn't realize that the women complimenting her on her short hair are laughing at her behind her back. Observing them in action, women primarily compliment the flaws in other women, particularly related to her weight or her hair. A woman who actually looks good is inevitably "too skinny" or "has split-ends".

Bethany completely misses the point:

What a vain post. I do believe that a man after a woman's HEART, Is far more attractive than a childish one looking only at her appearance. Those are typically the ones found unfaithful, considering with time outward beauty fades inevitably, and there will always be someone prettier around the corner. Hair is such a petty, shallow thing to seriously be a determining factor. Personally, I am trying very hard to grow my hair out, just because I want to and it is beautiful, but I certainly wouldn't go to the extreme you have. I'm embarrassed for you. 

That may be. However, the post is about what MEN find attractive. It's not about what women find attractive. And men will never get to the deeper aspects of a woman if they are repelled by the petty shallow ones.

Hannah also fails logic 101:

Just a thought, but maybe these women with short hair aren't living their lives for the sole purpose of being attractive to 'most men'? Maybe they like being attractive to the more discerning 'fewer men'? Or, (can you believe it?!), maybe, just maybe, they have more exciting things going on in their lives than just whether a man will be attracted to them or not?

That's fine. I'm sure they'll have a fulfilling relationship with their many cats. Men truly aren't bothered by unattractive women. They don't even notice them. If a woman's goal is to be invisible to men, cropping her hair is an excellent way to go about it.

Sarah pretty much explains why men find short hair to be a sexual turn-off:

Not all short hair is meant to be edgy or cool. I cut it because it embodies the character of a gamine (a girl with impish appeal). Free-spirited, kind, playful, and a bit innocuous. I'm not comfortable with being a sexy, sultry, come hither woman whose long flowing hair trails past her shoulders and between her breasts...

Hmmm, a sexy, sultry, come-hither woman or a free-spirited innocuous one. That's what men really want in bed. Innocuous. But it is nice that the women uncomfortable with their potential sexual appeal to men are willing to advertise this and make it easier for us to avoid them.

Luka can't even tell how long her own hair is, but that doesn't stop her from having an opinion:

I can never tell if my hair is short or mid-length, since the shortest strand is 4cm and the longest maybe even 18cm, but I will comment as a short haired woman. I have never EVER wanted to cut off my hair to show off or because I wan't to know if I am attractive no matter what happens inside space and time. You're also INCREDIBLY absurd saying that women over-rarate themselves. I've cut my hair for two reasons. First, I always felt like I have quite big features compared to my face size. In general, women with smaller features look better in long hair in my opinion. Cutting my hair meant that I could make it puffy and don't look like a long-haired soaked puppy all the time. I really hate when hair just lays there and looks like a 2D piece of paper on both sides. For me that felt like really feeling bald, with just a glued piece of paper with hair on it. That was about, lets don't overegsadurate, 89% of my reason? The second reason was that I wanted to become stronger. I was, and I still am, not confident. I don't think I am pretty at all and if i was giving myself a rating I just wouldn't be able to do it - there isn't any rating because I don't have any confidence whatsoever to actually consider myself attractive in any part of my life. I don't know where you've seen those women you are talking about. But I can assure you that you know nothing about the reason women cut their hair. Absolutely nothing. Better not make any more blog post on women.

And one comment wasn't sufficient for Luka to express the fullness of what pass for her thoughts:

The truth is that all the women that are ''pissed off'' are just very saddened by the level of male stupidity. Every woman wants a man that can love her no matter her hairstyle or looks. The only thing I would accept is a man that wants a women to care for herself. This type of a man seems to be extremely seldom. And will always be seldom.

Heterosexual women cut their hair to find a man just like that. It is nothing to do with showing off their beauty.

Personally, there are some women that look way better in long hair then short, and MOST short hairstyles are just ugly if I am to be honest. I don't think that bold hair or very short trim looks good on men or women.

The whole blog post was about women who look great with long hair cutting it short, rather than women who actually look so much better with short hair than long. Next time everyone simply needs to take into consideration that a man may have extremely limited knowledge about women, bless these idiots and wankers.

Yes, I'm sure they're just "saddened". They're not at all upset because the fact of their unattractiveness and the reason for it have been brought to their attention. I do so enjoy the futile attempts of women to emotionally unbalance those who don't care what they think. It's like bringing a knife to a space battle. It's not so much ineffective as a category error.

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Alpha Mail: on the feminine virtues

AD wrote and asked me to write about the feminine virtues. But rather than simply listing the virtues described by Paul and Proverbs 31, since AD can look those up for herself, I thought I'd take a different approach and see where that led us.

We can discern the masculine virtues by observing what male behavior causes dismay and disgust in both sexes.

Courage: we detest the male coward.
Duty: we despise the man who shirks it
Sobriety: we detest the male buffoon
Honor: we despise the man who won't keep his word or stick to his principles
Strength: we despise the man who is weak
Fidelity: we distrust the man who cheats on his wife

In this vein, for what sort of women do we naturally tend to harbor contempt:

The slut: therefore, chastity is a feminine virtue
The hag: therefore being open and upright is a feminine virtue
The adulteress: therefore fidelity is a feminine virtue
The gossip: therefore being reticent is a feminine virtue
The mean girl: thereby kindness is a feminine virtue
The flutterbudget: thereby tranquility is a feminine virtue
The bitch: thereby submission is a feminine virtue
The slob: thereby cleanliness is a feminine virtue
The bad mother: thereby maternal caregiving is a feminine virtue
The ungrateful: thereby graciousness is a feminine virtue
The spendthrift: thereby thrift is a feminine virtue
The whore: thereby self-respect is a feminine virtue

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Alpha Mail: the value of feminine virtue

AD is having trouble balancing her admiration for the male virtues with being a woman:

I have to thank you for changing my life. I stumbled across your blogs this past July and they have radically altered my thinking. I am a full believer in HBD and the socio-sexual hierarchy, etc.

On that note-- I've had a hard time adjusting. In the past I've drafted emails to you that I never sent, seeking advice on what to do with myself if I'm not supposed to be assertive, or to take on leadership roles, or... just any of the things I'm used to doing that are masculine. I've had a hard time realizing that everything I liked about myself was masculine, but I am, in fact, a girl. Until yesterday, when I found Part 1 of that Saving SF from Strong Female Characters essay, I had a hard time imagining that women were good for anything. I've been so wrapped up in these ideas of solipsism and hypergamy and everything else that makes women women as Ultimate Evils and I haven't known what to do with myself, or how to reconcile it all. Part of it, I think, is the feminist indoctrination that really taught me that femininity is lame and everything good and to be aspired to is masculine. I appreciated Wright's discussion of feminine strength: even though I'm still not 100% on board with it, it is a comfort to think that there's something potentially strong, or decent or good, about femininity.

Would you blog about the traits a decent Christian woman should develop, which are feminine in nature? And also, which things to NOT do, which are masculine in nature? I am a fan of conforming to reality and reality happens to involve gender roles. I've always known that, but now that I'm trying to implement it, I find myself at a loss. The one thing that Game blogs make very clear is the importance of appearance, and I 100% agree, and I take care of my body. But beyond that, what character traits are there that I should be developing? What more masculine traits should I be avoiding? I feel like every thing that I like about myself--directness and assertiveness and intelligence and so on--are basically supposed to be used by men and not women... so I don't know what to do, except maybe try to be less aggressive and more passive-aggressive in my life. I will admit I am a pretty aggressive person. But the idea of cultivating passive-aggression doesn't sit that well with me at this point. It's one of my least favorite aspects of humans and one reason I've always hated hanging out with other girls.

Just in case it matters, I'm a 25-year-old white woman--been married for five years this month. Earned my degree in soil chemistry when I was 20. I'm 12 weeks postpartum with my 2nd kid. I've been a SAHM for almost three years now. Ever since I started high school, I've been the default leader of every group I've belonged to--not because I necessarily wanted to lead, but because people would just turn to me like I was supposed to lead them, and strategic thinking and delegation come very naturally to me (but should I be deferring to men to do that?). I go to church every week, study scriptures and pray every day, and am thoroughly convinced of my need to start being more feminine. I just don't know where to start, beyond taming my gloriously post-partum figure.

Thanks for everything, again. You really have changed my life. You've made it a lot harder, admittedly--but it's for the better. Thanks for introducing me to reality.

I think I'm going to have to break my response into several parts. Consider this the introduction. Let's start by looking at something very basic: intelligence. AD is obviously intelligent, she values intelligence, but at the same time, being a woman, she is naturally hypergamous. So, this means that she's simultaneously a) attracted to men who are more intelligent than she is, and b) insulted by the idea that men might be attracted to women who are less intelligent than they are.

Catch-22. Do you see the intrinsic problem there?

This intelligence-related dichotomy is AD's problem writ small. And this is why she shouldn't ever wish to be what she is not. To be a man requires more than exhibiting male traits, it also involves valuing what men value. AD is making the classic female mistake of conflating the possession of a trait and the valuing of it in others, thereby setting herself up to violate the "opposites attract" rule.

Where to start? I think by first attempting to intellectually grasp the difference between being and being attracted. AD might be aggressive, but I very much doubt that like an aggressive man, she is very attracted to submissive members of the opposite sex. Once she grasps that essential difference, she should be able to take the next step and begin understanding that it is not at all important to develop the masculine virtues in herself that she values in others, but rather the feminine virtues that her husband values in her.

I will address what those feminine virtues are in a future post.

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That dumb blonde may not be dumb

Men and women can identify smart men on sight. Smart women? Not so much:

We used static facial photographs of 40 men and 40 women to test the relationship between measured IQ, perceived intelligence, and facial shape. Both men and women were able to accurately evaluate the intelligence of men by viewing facial photographs. In addition to general intelligence, figural and fluid intelligence showed a significant relationship with perceived intelligence, but again, only in men. No relationship between perceived intelligence and IQ was found for women.

We used geometric morphometrics to determine which facial traits are associated with the perception of intelligence, as well as with intelligence as measured by IQ testing. Faces that are perceived as highly intelligent are rather prolonged with a broader distance between the eyes, a larger nose, a slight upturn to the corners of the mouth, and a sharper, pointing, less rounded chin. By contrast, the perception of lower intelligence is associated with broader, more rounded faces with eyes closer to each other, a shorter nose, declining corners of the mouth, and a rounded and massive chin.

I've long has the impression that you can discern high and low intelligence by the eyes. Intelligent people usually have eyes that either sparkle or burn. I seem to have the latter; it's not uncommon for people to step backward in alarm when I forget to do what I think of as turning down my eyes. Stupid people, on the other hand, tend to have eyes that are dull and unfocused.

It is interesting, though, because the study matches my own experience. I have, on occasion, been taken completely by surprise with the unexpected intelligence of a woman, whereas that very seldom seems to happen with men.

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Gift Game

In The Book of Basketball, Bill Simmons has a footnote about a freshman gift gone woefully awry. In an apt comparison to the MVP vote for Wes Unseld, he recalls buying a half-dozen roses for a girl with whom he'd made out a few days before. Her reaction to the gift was so negative that he concludes a handful of plutonium would have gone over better; apparently she nearly left treadmarks running away from him.

Now, I once bought Spacebunny an expensive pair of quasi-steampunk designer sunglasses about two months after we met. Not only didn't she object, she was delighted with them and didn't lose any attraction to me as a result.  So why would a cheap gift of a few dollars set off alarms when an expensive gift of several hundred dollars didn't?

Although my SMV at the time was higher than Bill's, remember that it was already established that the girl concerned was at least somewhat sexually attracted to him. And although my SMV was higher, well, SB's was almost certainly higher than Janine Cunningham's too. Because Holy Cross.

The reason, in retrospect, is pretty simple, although I didn't realize it at the time. You see, the reason I was at the store was because I was there buying myself a rather expensive pair of prescription sunglasses, a pair that subsequently drew comments from a game industry magazine.

"Besides sporting the de-rigor all black outfit of a game developer, Theodore sports shades - indoors mind you - that look like they're made out of titanium and probably cost more than the entire budget of the Gamasutra yearly booze allotment."

So, the shades I bought for her were correctly seen as an afterthought, rather than the pressure-inducing bid for commitment they might have otherwise been considered. And, in fact, they were an afterthought of sorts, since I simply thought they'd look cool on her and would kind of match my own ineffably awesome style.

Anyhow, it strikes me that if you want to buy something for a woman, the safest and most effective way to go about it may be buying something even better for yourself first. There is a massive status difference between offering up a gift in supplication and giving one that comes with the implicit message: "yeah, you're going to want to up your game if you're going to run with me."

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