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.
this particular oil well in running dry.
Oh dear Is he about to invent Pick-Up fracking, as if this isn’t toxic enough
Those excerpts all show the total fail of comprehending how relationships work in general. For Roosh, it’s all about him and his own self-fulfillment, right down to the fatherhood roller coaster.
Hey, Roosh, stop thinking of relationships as economic transactions or stop thinking with your cock and find ways to fulfill yourself. And while you’re doing that, why don’t you try this thought experiment: other people exist with their own interests, ambitions, desires and needs. Sorry, have I lost you?
It’s true that relationships are difficult, people are imperfect and fantasy is always easier than lived experience, but most of us realize that and realize that the voice in our head is an experience that others have too.
@Serrana – great Buckaroo Bonzai reference!
Yeah, I had to wonder if he was experiencing depression too. Finding wiping your butt and removing mucus from your nose and eyes too much to take is not a good sign. However, that doesn’t excuse his shitty, shitty worldview since plenty of people with depression manage not to be complete bigoted assholes.
Kirbywrap,
That paragraph in its entirety is interesting. It sounds like he wants an actual relationship but can’t admit it to himself because it would nullify his entire worldview and “career.” Without PUA and misogyny he’s nothing. Continuing on as he is makes him feel depressed and empty but he can’t handle changing either. I can’t feel sorry for him because he’s just been so terrible. I will never feel sorry for someone who rapes women too drunk to consent and suggests others do the same. It’s more pathetic than sad. Also, I can’t imagine he’s equipped to be in a relationship so for the sake of women everywhere, I hope he doesn’t pursue one.
I can only hope some of the young men who aren’t too deep into PUA yet witness this meltdown and realize that PUA isn’t some magic bullet that will make their lives perfect and happy.
Sit and think about why that is, Roosh. I’m sure your technique and attitude have nothing to do with it.
I can never ever ever ever get over guys spending sooo much of their time devoted to getting women into bed, but then having the complete lack of awareness to somehow claim women have no self control, or are obsessed with sex, or say lines like:
How can somebody be so obsessed with sex but still see liking sex as a character flaw?
This is amazing. What a pathetic old bastard he’s made himself. I think I’d feel more (i.e. any) empathy for his pain if he weren’t a self-confessed rapist.
If I shaved Roosh, I’m sure I could make a few carpets.
I find it utterly bizarre that so many of these are simply hygienic things that any self-respecting individual does. I mean, really, brushing your teeth and washing your clothes?
WHY AM I REQUIRED TO HAVE A CLEAN VISION WHEN MY OWN NATURAL HAIR DETERMINES OTHERWISE
WOMEN OPPRESS ME BECAUSE I NEED TO TAKE ACTION IN ORDER TO SEE, WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY A SHALLOW BEAUTY REQUIREMENT
Roosh reminds me of that old Twilight Zone episode, where the protagonist got every single thing he wanted and eventually discovered he was living in hell.
I think the eyebrow hair was my favorite. Wouldn’t you pluck a hair that was obstructing your vision even if you weren’t trying to get laid? Because hair in your eyes is annoying.
I read these quotes, and I start to feel sympathy for the writer, who clearly is dealing with some major emotional issues and has nowhere to turn for actual help as he goes into a downward spiral of self-loathing.
Then I remember he’s a self-admitted rapist shitbag, and suddenly, I stop caring. If he can’t be put in jail (because he gamed the system, targeting women who would be unable/unlikely to see him charged), then at least he can be imprisoned in his own, vile brain.
Does he really think that fatherhood lasts only 20 years?
That was my impression too.
I think something may be up with this guy. No snark, I feel bad for him.
And a more self-aware and less egocentric man would take a good, long look at himself and his life to figure out why the hell he was so empty and unfulfilled.
I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again: I don’t feel bad for Roosh, but I do feel bad that there are people in the world like Roosh. He’s completely miserable and he’s done it all to himself. And he’ll keep using women in an effort to fill that emptiness, so he’s going to keep spreading that misery around.
I just can’t muster sympathy for his depression when he still manages to display such disgust and loathing for women even as he approaches rock bottom.
He’s like a real-life version of Alfie, only this isn’t a movie and he’s not Michael Caine playing a character, so it’s all just so skeevy and sad.
Dude, if it’s obstructing your vision, then doesn’t it benefit you more than it does anyone else if you trim it?
Also, it’s adorable that he thinks that this is exactly the grooming ritual that women have to go through.
so basically he’s saying ,if he didn’t have to do all this stuff to take care of his looks, he’d be content to walk around looking like this?
http://hanna-barbera.wikia.com/wiki/Captain_Caveman
I have not one iota of sympathy for Roosh. He’s made (or not, this is a dude who finds wiping his ass too much work) his dirty unwashed bed, let him lie in it.
Oh my fucking god that first fucking image. Are they serious? Are these not the same guys who have an attack of the vapours if they see a woman with a minuscule amount of leg hair or stretch marks or whatever?
I was going to try to list the ACTUAL social expectations required for a woman to be considered ‘beautiful’, but it would probably take me all evening.
(Shiny cock made me giggle though. Sounds like some sort of horribly inappropriate pokemon.)
His biggest fear appears to be that if he has consensual sex, it’s only because the woman is using him in the exact same way he’s using her. Who knew the golden rule had such terrifying implications when applied to real life. /s
Dude, if you read these comments ever, get some help from a therapist. Not even you deserve depression. However, with regards to everything else wrong in your pathetic life…
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This is the field where all my feels for you grow. It is small and more empty than a patch of ice on the arctic ocean, which at least is home to micro-organisms. No micro-organisms in my barren patch of Roosh-feels!
WordPress, you don’t format correctly. The sentiment still follows. Here’s a better picture of my patch.
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I object. That comparison is totally unfair to poor Captain Caveman. :/
http://jpegy.com/images/uploads/2012/11/This-is-the-field-in-which-I-grow-my-fucks.jpg