Life is tough for the beta male. During his twenties, as Manosphere dudes never tire of reminding us, women reject him, choosing instead to throw themselves wantonly at caddish alpha males.
Only after these cruel, callous women have squandered their youth and beauty – by the age of 30 if not earlier – do they turn at last to the betas, who’ve been patiently waiting in the “friend zone” the whole time. Those poor betas, nice guys and good providers all, are then lured into marriage with these now-ugly shrews, who are no longer interested in sex, and want only their money, often used to provide for kids sired by alpha males. (See here for Holly Pervocracy’s more detailed analysis of the “Greek system.”)
But life can be tough for the alpha male as well, driven to exhaustion by nearly constant sex with an incredible array of horny twentysomething women. The movie trailer below will give you some idea of just what the typical alpha male has to deal with on a daily basis.
@hellkell Darn, I was looking to make my funny-stories-to-tell-at-parties repertoire NEW & IMPROVED WITH MORE AGES!!!
Well, to be fair, I don’t think everyman makes the GRand gestures because they want sex. One guy in particular was just too far head over heels. My mom could have killed me because he probably would have married me and I would have been set for life. I don’t like being on pedestals, and I’m of the opinion that those who marry for money inevitably earn it. I didn’t think suppressing myself to fit on that very high pedestal was worth whatever physical comfort I might get.
And yes, being bad with money and ‘borrowing’ has nothing to do with gender. Met plenty of men who’ve tried the same thing with me. When people ask me for money, if I have it I give it..I don’t expect it back and I don’t hold it against every guy on the planet if one man fails to repay it.
@FelixBC:
Well, everyone has their kinks.
@All:
Brandon’s story is the reason why I take anectdotes with a grain of salt sometimes… The details are like miracle sometimes, where it goes from “I had an unmistakeable personal experience of God” to “It was sunny on my birthday after having rained for a week before.”
A tale of a woman manipulatively begging for cash of a stranger turns into somebody asking for a short-term loan… To the woman, it was probably just a shot in the dark that missed, no harm done and not a second thought afterwards. To Brandon, it was a calculated move the he skillfully and masterfully deflected, leaving the woman in awe of his awesome manly alphaness. It’s like a tale of two cities, only they are the same city.
@Viscaria: Because the larger topic at hand is that men shouldn’t just give give give to women who give nothing in return.
Also, have you known this friend for a while or did you just meet? Because that is what is important in the example I gave. Not that you wont help friends out, but people asking you for money and you don’t have a meaningful relationship with them.
Erm… the sentence totally makes sense: “The details are like miracle stories“
NO ONE should do that.
I’ve been following along Brandon, and I’m still not seeing where gender comes into this. Lots people beg money off people for cigarettes. Hell, my dad used to do that to me, back when we were still on speaking terms.
@Brandon:
“Because the larger topic at hand is that men shouldn’t just give give give to women who give nothing in return.”
Replace “men” with “people” and “women” with “other people” and you have a simple truism that everyone agrees with. The gender not only adds nothing, it makes it seem as if the gender is where the truth is, which is silly.
Replace “men” with “Brandon” and “women” with “women” and you get what you have really been talking about this entire time. ^_^
I had a co-worker once who used to frequent a bar with a guy who was, shall we say, lonely? Anyway, she promised him sex for $500 and had him pay up front. She then made up an excuse to leave and failed to return. She saw him the next week and this time convinced a friend to help her out by claiming they both would have sex with him for $500 each. He amiably agreed, paid them up front and they ran out on him with no sex. He never complained. It was a very strange story.
That was the closest I have ever heard someone come to the “I am a female, give me money” Brandon just made up.
@Felix: This isn’t about giving a dollar amount to what someone is doing for you. It is about learning to not be in a relationship where you are doing all the giving and getting nothing in return.
Relationships in the end have to be mutually beneficial, so there needs to be roughly an equal amount of give and take.
Yeah… but the “thing” in return that the women are supposed to be giving is sex, right? And you’re in a monogamous relationship with someone, so you wouldn’t be having sex with her anyway, right? So… what does this have to do with gender?
And yes, I’ve known this friend a long time. which makes my story not exactly the same as yours. I’ve also spent probably hundreds of dollars in “I’ll get you next time”s, which is a little different than $10 or $25.
@Brandon:
“@Felix: This isn’t about giving a dollar amount to what someone is doing for you. It is about learning to not be in a relationship where you are doing all the giving and getting nothing in return.
Relationships in the end have to be mutually beneficial, so there needs to be roughly an equal amount of give and take.”
Yeah, see how reasonable you can sound when you aren’t making the whole thing gendered? And how reasonable you can spin your position when in fact your position is to carefully tabulate everything someone else does to you and only ever give them less than or equal back what they give you? Sorta like Roissy’s “Only give 2/3s of what you get” rule…
Brandon, there’s nothing wrong about having reasonable boundaries. A lot of people I’ve known did not have any type of boundary when it came to dating and money, and gave away far more than they were happy to. At the point when you start to resent what your giving, its no longer a gift. So yes, boundaries are good. So is avoiding demonizing the opposite sex because you were burned by a few(hopefully only one).
Brandon: “Relationships in the end have to be mutually beneficial, so there needs to be roughly an equal amount of give and take.”
I agree with this.
What I don’t agree with is what you seem to consider equal: acts of interest, like conversation, in return for trinkets, flowers or drinks. I don’t want *objects* with monetary value in return for what I offer in a relationship. How about equally good conversation, interest, and hey, sex?
@Viscaria: Umm…no. It doesn’t HAVE to be sex. If I meet a girl and share a story, there are basically a couple of ways she can handle it.
She can just yea yea yea me to death, say “whatever” or say basically anything that shows she doesn’t really care if she is talking to me.
She can try to talk about something else if she doesn’t want to talk about the story I told.
She can relate to the story, get excited and follow up with a similar story.
Out of those three, the first woman is giving nothing in return. The second one is at least trying to maintain the convo and the third might end up being a good friend.
It is about reciprocity. I tell a story, you tell one to me. I touch your arm, you touch my arm. I try and kiss you, you kiss me, etc…
It isn’t about “I brought you flowers…now you fuck me.”
Just pointing out…If you’re fucking someone, they’re fucking you back.
@Pillow: I am demonizing no one.
Well, if that wasn’t a lovely piece of classist dickery. I’ve spent my whole life with friends in practically every tax bracket just above homeless, and the ones who mooched were just as varied. I may have spent a little more money on my poorer friends, but that was out of love, not out of their peasant greed or something.
@Brandon:
You do realize that you can’t expect somebody, even the best friend in a world, to be interested in everything you say… right? Good conversations just happen because two people find common ground, not because they are trying to prove something to each other.
Reciprocity is important in a broad sense, but you are going about it completely wrong.
Also of note, if you find someone who you don’t have good conversations with, the correct interpretation is that you don’t have a lot in common, not that the other person isn’t living up to your expectations. -_-
Brandon, I just don’t get why you come here blazing guns and then settle into something that sounds more reasonable.
Do you have some really strong image of what feminists are? Lots of feminists here and elsewhere do see some of the problems that men face. Many here actually do what they can to help.
Why the change and seeming back peddling?
This is boring. Anyone know any good trumpet solos I can learn? They have to be within one octave because yeah, that’s all I can play (so far).
So now the person in the hypothetical is a stranger? Because the context initially implied that this was someone they were were romantic with. Also, the very situation demands that they are at least casual acquaintances. I mean, I’ve had homeless strangers ask for money, but they’ve never sad they’d return it to me on Friday. If they did, that would be rather creepy, because it would suggest they knew where I lived or what my habits were that well.
Then brandon, there’s a real problem with communication here. Because what you often have to say seems mighty geared to starting a fight. Perhaps that’s not what you need to use is qualifiers or specific instances a little morE.
the thing is, normal people don’t ledger-ize their interactions in this kind of pedantic detail, because we’re generally around people we like and trust, and we’re confident things are generally on balance
the thing is you don’t seem to like or trust people in general. which is fine if you do. where you go wrong is when you take your personal tendencies and try to make them into universal declarative statements.