Oh, Reddit! Why must you be so Reddity? As a reminder of how deeply shitty Reddit can be even outside the confines of the Men’s Rights and Red Pill and related subreddits, consider the following comment from AskReddit, in which a RedPiller responded to another comment trying to summarize the “Red Pill Philosophy” for those unfamiliar with it.
Cyralea, a dedicated Red-Pill popper himself, took issue with the notion that Red Pillers are angry. (Gosh, why would anyone think that?) “Some are, certainly,” he wrote. “Particularly former betas who are recovering and are just discovering the nature of the world.”
But, he added,
The philosophy follows that one shouldn’t be any more angry at a women for her behaviours than one gets mad at a dog for chewing things up. We encourage self-improvement and self-respect in light of this newfound information. Some men use the knowledge to pursue sex, but others use it within their relationships/marriages. Alpha behaviours lead to healthier, stronger relationships. The women we date end up more satisfied in the long run, so both parties benefit.
I think it’s easy to get distracted by the angry people in /r/theredpill. There has been a recent influx of subscibers, so there’s been a little more angst than usual. The philosophy absolutely doesn’t hinge on anger though, though the language used may suggest such.
Emphasis added. As of this moment, this comment has a net 7 upvotes, 11 upvotes and 4 downvotes. That’s right: 11 Redditors saw this comment suggesting that women are like dogs who chew up sneakers and thought, “I’d better reward this bit of timeless wisdom! UPVOTE!”
In a followup comment, Cyralea tried to explain why the word “bitch” pops up so frequently on the Red Pill subreddit. Amongst Red Pillers, he noted, “bitches” is
literally interchangeable with “women”. It does not have the negative connotation when used there, again the same way 4Chan uses “fag”. I can understand how this seems aggressive.
Oh, “bitches” is like “fags.” Well then, no problem, use the word all you want, my dear fellow!
The mods removed this followup comment (though it’s still visible in his comment history). Apparently, in AskReddit, explicitly comparing women to female dogs is fine, and will even win you some upvotes, just so long as you don’t actually use a word meaning the same thing.
Thanks to a reader for pointing me to this very Redditty discussion.
@Xen
It’s pretty much pure solipsism – he takes his own experience being in a relationship with a woman with BPD and frames that as “true BPD” simply because, I don’t know? But he even lists the criteria for clinical diagnosis which requires five out of nine sypmtoms; ie: the particulars of any given case can, by definition, vary a fair bit. And that doesn’t even cover the potential issues surrounding the process of diagnosis.
The way that he charactarizes “BPD relationships” as being inherently abusive (as well as implies that BPD is an inherently female disorder) is just awful. Having BPD doesn’t mean a person will be abusive, and being abusive doesn’t indicate that someone has BPD.
Yeah, like there are no men with BPD. And like “normal” men can’t be abusers to women with BPD. And like he didn’t purposefully PICK her (which these guys are on record as doing, because crazylady = SEX, in their fucked-up calculus). Dude, take some responsibility…and take a hard seat.
RE: lana
Believe is or not some people still think if they aren’t getting a along getting married will fix it .(roll eyes) .
I had a friend who tried to repair his marriage by buying a house. It… didn’t work. Shockingly.
RE: CassandraSays
I kind of feel like, if it’s early in the relationship and you’re already having to put a bunch of work into things and having lots of conflict, maybe you just aren’t compatible.
Me and hubby’s relationship was tough at first — but it was the first time either of us had even been attracted to a guy, plus I had rape issues, plus he had past trauma, so it was just a whirlwind in general. The thing was, that work felt GOOD to do. It was the same sort of stuff I feel when I do my art; sure, it involves work… but it’s GOOD work. Enjoyable work. Work that makes you happy. The only time things have been a slog, it was OUTSIDE stuff, not each other.
Why do people feel so invested in other people’s relationships anyway?
The cynical part of me says it’s because they don’t want to have to look at their OWN relationships with the same lens. Seriously, I had some people FLIP THEIR SHIT over me leaving my folks, and the worst offender had really bad family dynamics themselves. Because if I was leaving my folks, by choice, and they weren’t treating me “that bad” then that meant this person might have to think about their own interactions with their family, and what it meant, and that was terrifying. It was easier to think I was just an ungrateful little bastard who’d one day be crying on their gravesites.
That person had some serious issues, and I am glad not to have them in my life anymore.
Serrana,
Or they haven’t . IOW they haven’t had to be the one to suck it down by close relatives as in your example . Like my husband . They are all ‘nice’ and “distant.”
I have a very close nit ‘fighting ” family and at times lines have been crossed and I took a stand .(distanced myself) .My husband ironically saying ” I wouldn’t let that bother me.”
I said you wouldn’t let it bother you because its not you its me .
Coming from someone who’s mother was a people pleaser the dad an ass hole and he only has one brother . Growing up they rug sweeped and tippy toed around the chronically angry dad .Then as adults RAN to take refuge in a soul mate spouse. Having a very surface and limited relationship with his own family I found it very arrogant he “advise’ me on how to handle my BIG loud fighting family .
Please don’t give me advice on something you can’t possibly understand especially if you are going to be a hypocrite .(talk to your brother only as necessary and on average that is 2 times a year in the past 25 years)
You might have a point, Lana. My husband’s family has reasonably healthy communication habits, and AFAIK, no one has been abusive to another, at least in the last couple generations, so I’m sure partly Mr. S was thinking “how bad could it be?” To be fair, I had never told him about the worst of my mom’s verbal abuse, so when I was so freaked out that my sister was acting a whole lot like our mom, he didn’t have a frame of reference. When I told him recently about the three incidents that made me move in with my dad as a teenager, he got it and agreed with me about distancing my sister.
But that’s the thing – he can afford to be so accommodating because he’s not triggered by a certain amount of crappy behavior, not having dealt with a fuckton of it in the past, so his first reaction is to think everyone should be that way.
This is really interesting. My family’s not close, never has been, really, and the only one I want to have contact with is my sister (I haven’t spoken to my father or brother in decades). My response to other people’s partners or families being shitbags is pretty much “throw the fuckers out of your life”, which I guess comes partly from that sense of blood relationship not counting for a whole lot. It’s also influenced by twenty-plus years of reading about the horrendous shit Louis went through with his family (politics and clashing personalities are a toxic mix).
/all about me
Yeah, it’s weird, the people who tended to be the biggest assholes to me about leaving my family were the ones with really shitty family dynamics themselves. And I understand; our mom is extremely close with her family, probably in part BECAUSE they all survived the generational incest together. But I can’t do that.
I mean, I’m extremely close-knit with my system. But we CAN’T get away from each other. If someone’s abusing someone else, we don’t get a choice of getting away, so it’s heavily slanted in favor of fixing things. Maybe that sucks up all my available dealing-with-shit resources.
(Also, nobody in my system is abusive anymore. While our family still pretends nothing bad ever happened.)
Serrana,
They have no idea.