The so-called pickup artists who inhabit a large portion of this thing called the manosphere are a strange bunch: They devote much of their life to figuring out ways to appeal to women they don’t like or respect.
Apparently, for most of those who actually are out there “picking up” women and not just boasting about imaginary conquests on the internet, the sex is good enough (for them at least) to make their otherwise joyless endeavor worthwhile for them. And if the sex itself isn’t that great, well, at least they get to brag to their internet friends about how they conned some hot “slut” into having sex with them.
But what happens when the sex begins to lose its luster?
Well, we get what seems to be happening with pickup guru Roosh Valizadeh, who over the course of the last few months has been chronicling what amounts to an existential meltdown in a series of embittered posts on his blog. Roosh may not be self-aware enough to realize that’s what he’s been doing, but it’s pretty clear from the outside that he’s beginning to sense the fundamental hollowness of a life devoted to pursuing women he hates.
In these posts, Roosh spells out in detail just how resentful he feels to have to make even a small amount of effort to convince women to come home with him. In one post I wrote about earlier, he laments that his pursuit of women has turned him into a “clown” performing for the women he wants to fuck.
We are not men in the traditional sense—we are clowns. With our tight game we have to be entertainers who create drama and excitement in a girl’s life, just long enough so that she spreads her legs and makes sexy noises, and even though she did commit such an intimate act with us, she will soon lose interest or simply get bored, and then move on to the next shiny cock that catches her eye.
Huh. She’s using you, just as you’re using her? Poor baby.
In other posts, he seems almost ready to give up the lifestyle he makes a living promoting. In one, he complains about “expending labor and much more money to lay” a young women who looked a lot like one he had previously dated. Or, as he so charmingly describes her, like “an inferior version of a girl I had let go.” He complains that all of his options look bleak:
Unless I’m looking at an easy one-night stand opportunity, it’s illogical for me based on my experience to go on a date with a girl for any other reason than to enter some type of relationship with her, something that I don’t necessarily want. Otherwise it’s a waste of time that provides me with nothing more than entertainment. Even a one-night stand has lost its luster since the quality will be modest at best and condom use will be usually required, decreasing the overall sexual pleasure. It’s clear to me now that I don’t want what I used to want (as much), but at the same time I don’t care for something deeper. I’m afraid I may have already extracted the most satisfying rewards women could provide me in life, and that this particular oil well in running dry.
Emphasis mine.
In another, he wonders if, to paraphrase the old song, this is all there is:
Mini-relationships and harem maintenance are nothing more than entertainment and serious relationships are drudgery, one step away from slavery. Both are unsatisfactory.
So what’s the answer? Is it eternal bachelorhood, of banging a handful of new girls each season, hopping from one new mini-relationship to the next, but achieving no depth or novelty in what you haven’t achieved before, or is it making what could be the biggest mistake of your life by knocking a girl up and riding the fatherhood roller coaster for the next 20 years? … Or maybe the answer is that the happiness I have sought in women can’t be achieved at all, and whether I ride the slut carousel or settle down with one girl, I’ll still end up asking myself, “Is this it?”
Again, emphasis mine.
It’s a good question, and one I’m sure a lot of these women you “bang” ask themselves after you roll off them and go to sleep. Or possibly even during the sex itself.
But the strangest of Roosh’s many laments comes in a post titled “Men Must Groom More Than Cats To Get Laid,” in which he complains, in all seriousness, about having to clean the shit off his own ass.
The thesis of this odd little post of his is that these days straight men, in order to appeal to women, “have to groom more than women of 30 years ago,” a sad state of affairs that he fears “must make us the most feminized men to have ever existed.”
To make his case, he presents a long list of “the acts of grooming I’ve done at least once in the past week.”
You may notice that, despite the length of the list, most of the items on it aren’t exactly onerous tasks; indeed, many are pretty much the minimum required to function in a civilized society. I’ve bolded a few of them that caught my eye.
- Floss my teeth
- Brush my teeth
- Scrape my tongue
- Gargle with mouthwash
- Pluck extra long and curly eyebrow hair that began to obstruct my vision
- Trim my beard
- Shave my neck
- Trim ear hair
- Trim nose hair
- Apply baking soda to arm pits
- Apply and remove contact lenses
- Wipe my ass thoroughly
- Shower
- Stroke my balls with my hand and then smell it to ensure lack of odor
- Apply benzoyl peroxide to a pimple
- Apply lip moisturizer
- Apply face moisturizer
- Remove boogers and other debris form my nose
- Comb my hair
- Trim my sideburns
- Wash clothes
- Wash penis in bathroom sink after sex
- Trim my fingernails
- Trim armpit air
- Squeeze out blackheads on nose
- Remove residual sock fiber from underneath toe nails
- Remove ear wax using cotton swabs
- Remove eye gunk after waking up
- Dab off extra grease on forehead with napkin
That’s right. Roosh is literally complaining about having to pick boogers out of his nose and wipe his own ass “thoroughly” enough to keep skidmarks off his underoos. He thinks women are oppressing him by forcing him to clip his fingernails and brush his teeth.
A common belief in the manopshere is that women want masculine, alpha men, but what they really want is sexy clowns who are well-groomed. If you have bad breath, bad skin, or odorific armpits, you’re not getting far with women no matter how good your game is. The modern man has to essentially groom like women in order to attract them, because I highly doubt that tribesmen of ancient times cared if their breath smelled or not.
Your life has taken a wrong turn somewhere when you resent women for wanting you to smell better than a caveman.
H/T to @keithcalder for the graphic at the top of the post.
Even if not being very fat was really the only requirement the mainstream has for female beauty that seems kind of demanding in and of itself. And wait, he’s upset women don’t like it when his vision is obstructed? Is seeing women’s work?
Why won’t women just provide existential fulfillment for me?
Why do I have to do it myself?
(Also can they wipe my butt for me?)
You might want to see someone about that, son.
As we know, our cavewomen ancestors regularly brushed their teeth with electric toothbrushes and whitening toothpaste, and styled their hair with shampoo, curling irons, and gel.
Is he still living in Siberia? I see I was correct in assuming he is working towards becoming a weird hermit in a shack in rural Russia. He’s well on his way to step two: get real hairy and stop bathing. Here’s hoping step three is “All electricity is evil”, and he disappears from the internet forever.
@Serrana
Well, it’s just such a pain to wash it every month, like women so selfishly demand. That thin film of e-coli and botulism is natural!
So, Roosh is basically saying that if he wasn’t so addicted to vagina, he’d be sitting in his own shit letting his eyebrow hair grow so long he can’t see anymore? And this is a guy who seriously wonders why women aren’t throwing themselves at him and why he has to work at it?
Good grief. I would love, LOVE to talk to his parents and see what he was like as a kid.
After reading that list, I can only thank my lucky stars for the fact that, as a woman, I am naturally hairless, odourless, gunk-free and do not ever have to go to the loo.
now excuse me, I have to go memorise the order in which you apply mascara, eyeshadow and eyeliner, anti-colour cream, foundation cream, foundation powder, lipliner, lipstick…
Hasn’t this same man, in the past, complained about all the ways in which a woman may fail to meet his standards?
I’ll bet he could perform his entire grooming ritual within an hour before heading out the door, and if he finds it really so difficult to maintain his personal hygiene, would the world end if he didn’t bother?
His personality is probably repellent enough to avoid being anywhere close enough to smell him.
I’m not sure what I like more about the image above, that “be ripped” is on there twice, or that apparently women aren’t judged on whether or not they are “clean” and “not smelly”
Yeah, I like how oblivious he is to women’s grooming rituals. I reckon he thinks women smell like roses and look like they’ve never even heard of acne just naturally, without any effort or bathing!
Who knew that “weight” was the only factor determining an “HB10” for these guys? I am amazed!
If I ever saw a shiny penis I’d assume I’d found some kind of sexbot.
Serrana: You mean getting my cock chromed won’t attract women?
This is the best, most loaded sentence that so beautifully summarizes all that is horribly wrong with his world view all while teetering on the brink of much needed self-awareness. I could write a freaking dissertation on all of the baggage in this one sentence.
He completely conflates grooming and hygiene.
Leftwingfox, only a diamond encrusted cock is good enough for a 10. Chrome plate is for 3s.
ESPN concurs that only men with washboard abs are attractive:
http://www.jockington.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Prince-Fielder-poses-for-ESPN-the-Magazines-2014-Body-Issue.jpg
This is so insanely pathetic, that if it weren’t absurdly clear that he’s only trapped in a hell of his own making, I’d be tempted to feel sorry for him.
Also, fuck this asshat: my grandfather lived with no electricity or running water in what amounted to a pre-industrial era life, and he had an elaborate grooming ritual every morning that he was intensely proud of.
Jesus Roosh, maybe you should just do it for you.
Serrana: Aww, but I don’t want to get pedazzled.
(Warning, side effects of cock chroming include excessive knob polishing and disco balls)
A sign of depression is not bathing or taking care of yourself. I’m serious, this dude needs to see a doctor.
Roosh sounds fairly depressed.
Wow. “Slut carousel?” Feeling like you were used? What’s next, looking into a mirror and seeing the thousand-vulva stare?
From one of the links:
This is fascinating. How horrifying that he’s having Beta dreams of… treating a woman like a fellow human being. Is Roosh going to have an epiphany one day? Or is he just going to keep burying it beneath his dogma?
Poor Roosh. Wherever he goes, there he is.
Zolnier:
I imagine what really happened was that when he finished, she was bored and moved on to her shiny chrome vibrator. Ya know, kernel of truth and all that.