my great-uncle stood just inches away from the old wooden radio console, his head craned toward its one remaining functional speaker as the game crackled over the AM airwaves. his beloved louisville cardinals, trailing heavily favored ohio state by only seven points, had steadily and systematically driven from deep within their own territory to within two yards of the goal line; the remaining time had ticked down to less than a minute.
my restless brain noted the eerie mirroring of his grizzled face — brought ever closer to the speaker with an almost menacing glare, as if to intimidate the announcer’s excited staccato into bringing good news — by the fresher, smoother face of the dog staring respectfully into the horn on the radio’s lovingly restored brand plate, eternally awaiting its master’s voice.
i opened my mouth, intent on breaking the tense vibe by pointing out this parallelism. as i began to deliver the quip, i fixed my gaze on his face, both wizened and wisened by a life of hard labor.
i never delivered the quip. my words were just gone, as if they had been ripped directly from the myelin express lanes leading from my brain to my mouth.
at that moment i felt the sheer magnitude of what i had always taken for granted — the passion in the hearts of men.
the passion that, when provoked, emerges from its slumber with the sound, fury, and heat of a welder’s torch, its emotional acetylene creating bonds that last a lifetime.
the passion that makes tragedy and loss saturate every molecule of a man’s body, but at the same time infuses objectively frivolous pursuits with the elixir of life to overcome such tragedies.
—
“all right boys.”
louisville had broken into the endzone with half a minute remaining, bringing the score to within one point. still, he managed these words of encouragement only sotto voce, as if trying not to lull his team into complacency.
—
two and a half years earlier, he had taken his beloved wife to the dealership to take delivery of the new pickup that was her birthday present. though normally the type to insist on driving when they were together, he had handed her the keys for the ceremonial first drive.
she never made it home.
—
a commercial break ensued.
despite the touchdown, which had capped an impressive scoring drive, my great-uncle marched toward the bathroom with no hint of joy or hope piercing his characteristic impassive scowl. he strode past the old, slightly cockeyed screen door, which had gradually drifted wide open on its freshly oiled hinges, and slammed it shut with unusually vigorous derision.
“fucking door.”
he was a man of few words.
he had slammed the door so hard that it vibrated lazily on the hinges, preventing its lip from securely entering the strike plate. the two danced momentarily, the door attempting a clumsy seduction, but they just didn’t click.
—
they had been broadsided by a drunk driver’s four-ton lifted truck, whose front grille had gone directly through the driver’s door, taking his wife’s life in a mercifully short instant. whether out of love, sadism, or both, though, the gods had saved my uncle from so much as a scrape.
he had stormed out of the new truck’s completely unscathed passenger door, the blinding white flame of his passion burning away all of his moral checks and balances. within seconds, my great-uncle had smashed through the drunk driver’s door, yanked the lock open, dragged the stuporous driver from the seat onto the hard, unforgiving pavement, and beaten him to within an inch of his life.
the driver needed only a few hours in the emergency room to go one more inch.
the jury acquitted my great-uncle of all charges after less than twenty minutes of deliberation.
—
“no… fuck, no.”
louisville had decided to be gutsy and try the two-point conversion, going for the big upset rather than settling for the tie. ohio state’s defense had correctly anticipated a pass play and had sent a heavy rush, forcing the louisville quarterback to float a desperation toss that glided tantalizingly out of reach above the intended receiver’s head.
ohio state 20, louisville 19.
—
the door, which was in plain view, had begun to drift back open into the still, humid air of west louisville.
silently, inexorably, at a steady angular velocity too slow to be perceptible, the door drifted back open, releasing some of my uncle’s pent-up passion into the dank, darkly aromatic, eerily silent night. a cloud of moths, clustered around the flickering yellow light outside, took this as an invitation.
—
my great-uncle’s otherwise unbearably monotone, gritty, tragedy-wracked life was animated by only three things: his faith, his family, and the louisville cardinals.
the saying that ardent fans live and die with their teams is usually meant metaphorically, but it became a literal truth in the year my great-uncle lost his wife.
his family was slowly dwindling, taken by accidents, cancer, violence, and disease.
his God had answered his faith by sparing him from the accident, but, with all the other things He had to attend to, had callously forgotten to do the same for his wife.
that year the oft-maligned cardinals posted their best season in school history, destroyed alabama on new year’s day, and very possibly saved my great-uncle’s life.
the following year, once my great-uncle had learned to handle the grief to the point where he no longer needed them, the cardinals reverted to their usual form, again losing more games than they won.
—
“NO!”
he stared at the old radio with visible shock.
louisville had successfully converted an onside kick and had run the ball all the way to the red zone — but the play was nullified, since the ball had traveled just shy of the requisite ten yards before being touched by a louisville player.
—
by this point, the door had drifted fully perpendicular to the frame, allowing the moths the run of the house.
—
final score, ohio state 20, louisville 19.
my great-uncle collapsed back onto the couch, despondent. “we shouldn’t have gone for the win. too greedy, you get nothing.”
one-and-a-half sentences. i was impressed with his verbosity.
“shit.
fuck!”
what?
“i forgot to shut the door.”
i sat there, sharing his burden as i best could.
in years past his wife would have sat next to him, wordless, putting her arms around him until it was time for him to go to the bathroom yet again.
but now it was just him.
and family like me, who would make the trip to visit when we could.
and the louisville cardinals.
—
—
the questions i haven’t been able to answer:
is it better to love deeply, never knowing when that love might be ripped away, or not to love at all?
is it a gift, or a tragedy, that i’ve come to see women as so alike that i will probably never feel that sort of love, no matter how i might want to?
if i learn exactly how to bond a woman to me, how to bond myself to her, and how to continually strengthen that bond — and i do so, consciously — can that still be called love?
—
the other thing i figured out that night:
the door opened so silently, slowly, and smoothly that its opening had become imperceptible.
so imperceptible, in fact, that my great-uncle had entirely forgotten the initial state — his having shut the door, even with such sound and fury — and had transferred the responsibility onto himself.
the key to successfully transforming your woman is to be like the brand-new oil in those door hinges.
be the lubricant that allows her to change, and the gravity that forces her to change, in the ways that will keep her enthralled.
slowly.
smoothly.
implicitly.
if you transform her slowly, smoothly, implicitly, and skilfully enough, she’ll wake up one day and realize that she is your slut, yours to do anything you want with, for as long as you want — or at least for as long as you keep pushing.
and she won’t know how she got there.
she won’t even realize that it was your conscious (wo)manipulation.
it just happened. … because you made it happen.
we know how women love when things just happen.
we grew closer. … because you’ve created everything she has become.
i respect him. … because you own her.
i trust him. … because you know her better than she knows herself.
he makes me feel like a woman.
i can be myself around him.
i forgot to shut the door.
the most powerful forces are those that we don’t see, don’t feel, and don’t notice, until they have transformed us.
hempstead village renaissance 
2010/06/22 at 13:12
This is a fascinating post.
My theory is that people (at least vertical integrators, who are the majority of people) love those they invest in, at least if their investment yields rewards (and sometimes, even if it doesn’t).
There is a nice irony here. You are getting the woman to invest in you & using sex as a carrot to get her to do this.
But at the same time you are investing by spending time in creating this situation.
So I would say that probably what you both feel is not that different, the paths you choose to get there are different but the end result, namely bonding, is more or less the same.
The difference as you articulate it is that the process is conscious on your part, but not on hers. Again, I’m not so sure it is completely unconscious on her part, women really do not talk about these things.
But in fact it is not fully conscious on your part either, you are ignoring the effect on any vertical integrator of creating something, no matter how detached they think they are they all fall in love with the creation.
I am not so sure that the curse of Pygmalion is limited to the Fourth Quadrant at all. You might want to redefine some of your early work.
2010/06/22 at 13:13
PS: And you are definitely a vertical integrator, albeit of a somewhat unusual sort. This post copper-fastens it.
2010/06/22 at 13:16
Damn this kid can write.
2010/06/22 at 13:19
He is very talented indeed.
2010/06/22 at 13:48
I normally don’t read long posts, and this was unusually long to me. But it was good and I like your writing skill set. cuddos
2010/06/22 at 13:52
spelling…”kudos”
2010/06/22 at 13:53
A classic example of how investment in something leads to attachment to it is the attachment of someone to a team that they follow, if they spend time following it, going to games etc. they become invested in it.
Obviously in sexual relationships the investment has to have some sexual component but a lot of the principles employed are applicable in a more general sense to explain emotion outside the sexual sphere.
2010/06/22 at 20:34
is it better to love deeply, never knowing when that love might be ripped away, or not to love at all?
A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships were made for.
is it a gift, or a tragedy, that i’ve come to see women as so alike that i will probably never feel that sort of love, no matter how i might want to?
A diamond, even if it’s common, is as beautiful and has the same utility and characters it always had.
if i learn exactly how to bond a woman to me, how to bond myself to her, and how to continually strengthen that bond — and i do so, consciously — can that still be called love?
A duck is still a duck even if you realize it’s just a latter-day dinosaur.
Even though we’re chemical machines, does that make the experience of love less real?
2010/06/23 at 00:06
But in fact it is not fully conscious on your part either, you are ignoring the effect on any vertical integrator of creating something, no matter how detached they think they are they all fall in love with the creation.
I am not so sure that the curse of Pygmalion is limited to the Fourth Quadrant at all. You might want to redefine some of your early work.
ironic that you would bring this up. i decided to cut this part from the story, since it was already about 1400 words and i didn’t want to add a third theme.
the old radio in question was his “baby” — he had restored it, including the logo plate with the dog, all by himself, and he only tolerated the broken speaker because he couldn’t find authentic replacement parts (the radio was about sixty years old).
boy was he attached to that thing.
in the first quadrant there is no curse — indeed, the shared depravity becomes the warp and weft of the physical relationship.
it’s only a curse when the beauty of your creation is sullied by your own fingerprints.
2010/06/23 at 06:42
I think a big part of intimacy is building relationships with people and knowing that they see a part of you that you don’t see. Intimacy is only intimacy if you feel like your sharing something that most people don’t get. Obviously every women is different, and most men share different things with every-woman so it is possible to form some kind of intimacy with a variety of women, but I think for vertical-instigators, the focus on one thing helps make it special. He’s not rooting for six teams at once, he’s only fixing up one radio. Perhaps he is the type to only want to fix up one radio, or perhaps he’s simply preferring the somewhat incompleteness of only fixing that radio, and then enjoying the feeling obsession. He’s not afraid of it, and perhaps even sees it as valid to be obsessed.
Also I’m not sure how in love he was with his wife. Obviously he cared about her a great deal, but the people we care about’s worth are always inflated (or perhaps finally realized) when they’re gone. The feeling he felt around her everyday probably was a far cry from bliss, and probably extremely less emotionally like whip-lash.
If you’re the person who loves stretching the elastic so much I would hypothesize that it’s maybe not only so much for the girls that you love doing it, but you too love the drama. Maybe you have felt this connection before, but you simply didn’t like it because it wasn’t exciting enough?
2010/06/23 at 13:52
Beautifully tragic johnny, and beautifully written.
2010/06/23 at 20:52
If you’re the person who loves stretching the elastic so much I would hypothesize that it’s maybe not only so much for the girls that you love doing it, but you too love the drama.
of course.
very few things make me feel alive, and that is one of them.
2010/06/24 at 02:57
“very few things make me feel alive,…”
–that’s a shame, makes me question your distance from the sun. Exploding past the line of salvation, an explorer may trip-wire himself right into never being able to come back.
2010/06/24 at 03:07
“is it better to love deeply, never knowing when that love might be ripped away, or not to love at all?”
–if one is the creative type then yes. for anyone else, I cannot speak.
“is it a gift, or a tragedy, that i’ve come to see women as so alike that i will probably never feel that sort of love, no matter how i might want to?”
–an utter tragedy. and this is no projection on my part. what you have risked doing is separating yourself from the human experience too much. I would imagine no matter what you boys claim, the deafening sounds of silence and loneliness will crush you under their weight eventually.
“if i learn exactly how to bond a woman to me, how to bond myself to her, and how to continually strengthen that bond — and i do so, consciously — can that still be called love?”
–nope. you’re a control freak and will have intellectualized the very same things that are at their best when not over-evaluated. If it is the thrill you seek then it should be the intangible you allow to remain so.
2010/06/24 at 06:00
i could point out that it’s kind of foolish to get very attached to a losing team, much in the same way it’s a mistake to get too attached to a bad woman. but that would ruin the effect of the story.
2010/06/24 at 12:06
maurice #15 —
perhaps, although there’s also the opposing the idea that victories taste sweeter when they are rarer.
a related notion is that being an optimist actually sucks, since there are only two possibilities: (a) status quo, or (b) negative surprises. ironically, under this observation, pessimism is a superior strategy, since the two possibilities in that case are (a) status quo and (b) positive surprises.
it’s all the way in which you frame stuff.
2010/06/24 at 12:12
anouk #14
I would imagine no matter what you boys claim, the deafening sounds of silence and loneliness will crush you under their weight eventually.
yep, that is the risk.
however, in my case, there’s a range of different levels of silence and loneliness; only the small tail end of that range is as bad as you are thinking.
ironically, this is a much greater risk for those in long-term monogamous relationships — in case of disaster, those people invariably lose everything.
in case of disaster, people like me lose very little.
—
you’re a control freak and will have intellectualized the very same things that are at their best when not over-evaluated.
what’s interesting about this comment is that it’s true in some situations, but false in others.
for instance, the magic in a magic trick is always lost immediately as soon as i figure out how to trick works.
on the other hand, when i read about how the sky scatters light to create sunsets, sunsets did not suddenly become less beautiful to me.
so it could go either way. however, i’m thinking it will go more the latter way — and maybe even to a greater extent, since there’s also the possibility of falling in love with my own creation. (my name is not “narciso” for no reason)
2010/06/24 at 16:01
“in case of disaster, people like me lose very little.”
–no. yours just happened more slowly so you think you’ve lost very little. Your realization of what you have lost will hit you near your death if not sooner.
“since there’s also the possibility of falling in love with my own creation. (my name is not “narciso” for no reason)”
–just like everyone else my dear. where do you think the concept of “soul mate” came from?
2010/06/24 at 17:15
let me add…
you read as power hungry. advising all men to do what you do or be what you need to be is irresponsible. for every move you advise, you should also be prescribing the dosage. So many of you “gamers” lead your following to water but never teach them how to fish. the dose should be customized per person.
2010/06/24 at 17:16
SDae, I think there is some truth to investment leads to preoccupation, but I disagree that it necessarily leads to love.
Before my husband, I was involved with a man for about 10 years, invested my “prime” ages (15-25), money, and tons of attention in that relationship. In the end, the result was not love on my part. Instead I felt grateful to have escaped a prison, and I was willing to pay everything I had for it. I only paid half.
I disagree again that those who lose a LTR necessarily lose everything. Experiences, memories and lessons learned are not lost. Without the past 10 years I would be a very different woman — a much worse woman. I am able to be a good wife now because I was bad. I have grown and matured because I have had this experience.
I am utilitarian in my approach to attachments. I do not get attached to objects that are ultimately frustrating. I do like the symbolism and memories that come with certain objects, but sentimentality is no replacement for the thing just working. Likewise with people. If I am very miserable due to my attachment to a person, then I shed myself of that attachment. It’s not always easy, but looking back it was always the right decision.
2010/06/24 at 17:18
Hope-
“I disagree again that those who lose a LTR necessarily lose everything. Experiences, memories and lessons learned are not lost.”
–I so agree!
2010/06/24 at 17:35
SDae, I think there is some truth to investment leads to preoccupation, but I disagree that it necessarily leads to love.
I think for some people, particularly vertical integrators, it can lead to emotional attachment, whether or not that is the same as love is another question. Like love, emotional attachment does not have to be sexual, investment occurs outside the sexual context as well e.g. adoptive parents/children.
Investment is not going to create attachment for horizontal integrators since by definition they don’t tend to invest. Whether or not that is a chicken & egg situation e.g. they don’t invest because investment doesn’t give them the same buzz is another question.
People need a return if they are to continue to keep investing. If the other party does not invest too then the well runs dry. The key thing is the investment on the part of the other person. If investment is in following a football team, the question is not whether or not that team wins, but the effort it invests in trying to achieve for its fans.
A classic example of a situation where investment does not yield returns is a vertical integrator who invests in a horizontal integrator, no matter how much they invest, this is going to end with the vertical integrator walking away at some point because there is no return on the investment. Sometimes walking away is not done soon enough and the vertical integrator loses everything they have in the bank. There is nothing left to invest.
It sounds like your ex-husband was a horizontal integrator, but that you got out just in time before the crash, while you still had something left.
I appreciate that Johnny5’s point on sliding scales probably applies to vertical/horizontal integrators as well e.g. there are extreme versions and then there are people bunched in the middle. But it sounds like you have quite high vertical integration, and your ex-husband had relatively little.
Unfortunately it can be more difficult to distinguish between vertical & horizontal integrators than one would think because a lot of horizontal integrators have big plans for the future and talk in terms of vertical integration, unfortunately they get bored, and won’t put in the effort. Sometimes they walk away, sometimes they just stay there, uninterested, and not yielding any return, leaving the vertical integrator to walk away. This can be particularly hard. Often when the vertical integrator walks away he/she finds that they have little or nothing left, not so much in financial terms, but in emotional terms.
Re. Anouk’s point that those who lose an LTR necessarily lose everything, it depends on how much they have invested by the time the LTR comes to an end, both in terms of time, age at the end of the LTR and also in terms of emotions. A slow decline of an LTR can be devastating, particularly when the other party consistently denies their true nature and insists that they are invested in the relationship, but their actions belie their words. It is very difficult to come back from that.
2010/06/24 at 19:31
SD said-(in her brilliant, articulate way):
“But in fact it is not fully conscious on your part either, you are ignoring the effect on any vertical integrator of creating something, no matter how detached they think they are they all fall in love with the creation.”
investment= ownership= to possess.
Possession is what makes the exchange unique, and also what takes hold of those involved. Somewhat sideways related: I’ve often said that I like imperfect facial features on any man I love because he’ll feel more like mine. Their individual ways/looks (including those I help to breed) are what contribute to my loving them. I admit to the male being the party that is most likely to form the female, as this is how most natural dynamics between two go.
also some tangent thoughts off off of this:
“A slow decline of an LTR can be devastating, particularly when the other party consistently denies their true nature and insists that they are invested in the relationship, but their actions belie their words. It is very difficult to come back from that.”
–SD, this is indeed sad. And indeed almost a complete loss. I have always approached life as a continuum of sorts, with the predicted course being of ultimate self-knowledge and awareness by the time I was in my forties. It’s too bad we won’t have our bodies and faces of our twenties by this time as well. Such a cruel joke life is. But on the flip side a bit, I don’t trust a guy who hasn’t been in a long term (preferably a live-together situation)because I feel he won’t know himself entirely if lacking this expereince. Guys don’t have to be pure, but they do have to be and feel fresh.
I believe we only get wiser and no two situations are identical. But time can be lost and it is the ultimate commodity. Money, fame, looks, material wealth all have got nothing on time.
Are we not all just seeking to be appreciated and witnessed?
The details of our daily lives only seem worth it or “alive” when there is a witness to them. Loneliness is when there is no witness…what a tragedy.
2010/06/24 at 19:31
I think the term vertical integrator might be too simplistic. It’s true that my ex was more of the “dabble-and-abandon” type when it comes to most things. But he was very much crazy about me.
Honestly I was just never as committed to him. It was less the case that he was the uncaring “bad boy,” and more the case that we simply were not compatible, but he refused to let me leave. I was just as complicit in my inability to be decisive.
2010/06/24 at 20:23
Hope
I was probably projecting, the investment thing doesn’t apply to every relationship.
It’s just J5 for some uncanny reason reminds me of a obverted Professor Higgins, turning a lady into a slut rather than vice versa. This of course made me think of Pygmalion.
There definitely could be a Hollywood screenplay in this (“My Fair Slut”, “Slutty Woman” and so on).
J5, re curse of Pygmalion, I take your point about glorying in the pawprints. But what about the curse of Svengali? This seems to be a risk for men in the First Quadrant, at least if they fall in love their creation?
2010/06/25 at 01:03
Fucking shit, man.
I’m stuck between narc and anouk.
And I know that I could go either way, and I tell myself to prepare for it because it could happen.
What narc says as being alone, if I confront myself with his notion I still have feelings left to think like anouk. Meaning it feels like a bleak outcome when I consider my future.
Whether I’ll lose it with age remains to be seen.
2010/06/26 at 04:15
sd, anouk —
A slow decline of an LTR can be devastating, particularly when the other party consistently denies their true nature and insists that they are invested in the relationship, but their actions belie their words. It is very difficult to come back from that.
however, this sort of slow decline, if indeed it is a decline on the part of the man, is exactly what keeps the woman from becoming the classic “woman scorned”.
these words are excellent counsel, by the way, for pick-up artists — many of whom, by the nature of their chosen métier, must also become master break-up artists (BUA) as well.
although i admit to not having read much PUA literature, this is not a topic that seems to be dealt with terribly often. interestingly, even the tidbits i’ve seen on maintaining harems/MLTR’s have not much dealt with the topic of breakups; it’s almost as if the operative assumption is just that the women will simply fall off the face of the earth when the player is done with them.
perhaps this omission is well justified, though, in that a PUA who is extremely skilled at one-night and short-term flings will naturally “slowly decline” in the eyes of the woman, and will thus be less susceptible to women scorned.
however, if there are any players out there who are going to escalate emotionally, those players are going to have to learn to become better BUA’s.
the main component of that process is the purposeful engineering of a “slow decline” — slow enough not to be consciously perceived by the woman — that will incite her to move on, and will avoid both stalker behavior and “woman scorned” behavior.
this is going to be especially important for PUA types in this sphere, since the only other way of avoiding woman-scored behavior — namely, the credible threat of devastating violence — is not something that is practicable in most of my readers’ social and economic class.
2010/06/26 at 04:20
sdaedalus #25 —
J5, re curse of Pygmalion, I take your point about glorying in the pawprints. But what about the curse of Svengali?
please elaborate.
from what i know of the svengali character, the “curse” aspect seems limited to the idea of dependence — the idea that svengali’s protégée is unable to perform outside of his presence.
this is of course not a curse at all; it is precisely the target that people like me are trying to engineer.
moreover, in first-world countries, this is essentially the only way in which a man who isn’t absurdly wealthy or powerful is going to maintain exclusive long-term possession of more than one desirable woman at a time — by creating in those women’s minds the impression that they absolutely cannot live, cannot breathe, cannot fuck, cannot be, without him.
or did i misunderstand?
2010/06/26 at 04:23
jules verne #26 —
losing all hope is freedom.
— chuck palahniuk
this quote applies to your dilemma in more ways than one.
2010/06/26 at 04:31
Re: BUA Breakup Artist
This is what Roissy recommends with his date recycling concept. Make it bland and boring till she gets it and wonders what happened.
G Manifesto suggests leaving guns lying around and other subliminal alarm bells. He’s not dealing with deep conversion however.
Deep conversion – Daniel Rose’s term for a girl on whom you’ve emotionally escalated to ownership. To her the experience of separation is like travelling through a burning desert.
2010/06/26 at 07:24
J5#27
I agree with you that deliberately letting someone’s attraction to you die is the best way to get out of a relationship without drama or indeed the other party’s feelings being hurt. I think Robert Greene had a very good example of this in the Art of Seduction, as far as I remember it was from Laclos and involved a woman who gradually allowed herself to become more boring. I have done this myself on occasion.
However this is not quite what I was talking about, what I actually was talking about was far more like your normal modus operandi where someone who was initially affectionate withholds affection in private while at the same time (and this probably differs from your modus operandi) formalizing the relationship in public.
The effect of this, of course, as a man with your knowledge of women will know, serves to increase, rather than to decrease, the withholdee’s attraction to the withholder, this combined with the formalization element makes it very difficult for the withholdee to walk away from the relationship, this gives the withholder great power.
Often one of the things withheld as well as affection is sex, this is slightly different from your modus operandi where sex is temporarily withheld, but completely withholding sex (particularly where the witholdee is of a type for whom an STR is simply not an option, and cannot leave the LTR because of the increased attraction resulting from the power-play described above) can have just as powerful an effect as your example.
What does the withholder get out of the relationship then? Well, they get increased power, and power really is what your m.o. is all about too., sex not for its own sake but as a means to an end. Plus, they usually have s.o. or a few on the side to take care of their sexual needs.
This can drag on for years, as the withholdee tries to ascertain what he or she has done wrong. Of course nothing has gone wrong with them for the withholder, they are the perfect candidate, the witholder has the exact situation they wants in terms of power, they are completely content, it is the withholdee who is unhappy (at least in your m.o., both parties appear to be happy).
So this is the example I was talking about. It is very difficult for the withholdee to get out of this situation, usually it takes a long time for them to wake up to what has happened (many never wake up) and when they do they are more than a bit damaged ime. There is also of course the doubt as to whether this was what happened, and the guilt at leaving in case they are mistaken (which never really goes).
2010/06/26 at 10:06
sdaedalus #31 —
indeed. it appears that we’re going to preview some of this blog’s more controversial material — or, if not controversial, at least loaded with moral hazard — earlier than intended.
if one’s goal is to have a woman begging for scraps, this is one of the best ways to achieve that goal. as usual, the optimal rate at which to implement this withdrawal of affection is a rate so slow as to create the illusion of equilibrium — again, allowing the door to swing wide open at an unnoticeably slow speed, so that the woman will rationalize the situation as though it had always been so.
you stated that a woman in such a situation would be unhappy, but that’s not necessarily the case — many such women show signs of angst when their cruel master is displeased, but are truly contented, however ephemerally, when the slightest hint of successful appeasement breaks through his icy countenance.
fact of the day: if you find a girl whose father was bipolar, or a mean drunk — or, in the absence of a father, whose stand-in was such — this is by far the best way to train her.
such women are naturally given to the purposeful creation of drama and the intentional destabilization of stable, amicable relationships — it’s the way they were raised — so the only way to keep them from destabilizing your life is to keep them satisfied, by destabilizing theirs first.
these are the girls who, to their very core, need a man close to +10 on the alpha scales.
they need drama.
they need fits of explosive anger at relative trivialities.
some of them need to be beaten, whether physically or emotionally, to feel loved.
but, to a man who masterfully uses contradictory signals to keep them hungry, horny, and uncertain, they’ll be among the most loyal bitches in the world.
2010/06/26 at 10:35
Your example is the woman who needs someone extreme in order to make her tolerable to live with. I don’t have a major problem with this, there are women like that out there, this is probably the best type of relationship they can get without ruining someone else’s life.
But there are also women who may possibly be bound in by this behaviour, who would have been capable of being happy and making someone else happy without having to be treated this way.
Also, the particular type of behaviour I have outlined (which involves the gradual reduction followed complete withholding of sex over a very very long period) is slightly different from your standard m.o.
I cannot speak for your standard m.o. and say whether or not it gives ephemeral moments of happiness the value of which on balance outweigh the pain.
But I can say that the behaviour which I have outlined gives no happiness at all to the non-masochistic withholdee, even ephemerally, at all. All there is is the memory of past happiness and the fading hope of future happiness. It is a dead end.
I have deliberately avoided describing the withholdee as female & the withholder as male, because I think withholding behaviour of the sort I have outlined is much more common in women than in men.
In both cases, however, the consequences are devastating and when the withholdee does eventually grasp, even vaguely, what is going on & walks away from the relationship, they really do not have anything left to enter into another relationship with.
In the case of men, this often results in discovery of the PUA community & a series of short term relationships. I would suspect that a lot of men in the Roissysphere have experienced the type of behaviour I outline in past relationships.
In the case of women (and you have to remember that women who get bound into the m.o. I have described (as opposed to your m.o.) tend to be those who are inexperienced & not inclined to be promiscuous for whatever reason) it can have the opposite effect. If something is taken away from someone for long enough, often the only way to survive is to lose all desire for it, and I am not just talking about sex here, I am talking about any type of relationship with anyone new.
This seems a shame. I suppose some people would say, maybe a blessing, but life is so short it seems a shame to lose even one aspect of it.
2010/06/26 at 11:05
sd #34
Your example is the woman who needs someone extreme in order to make her tolerable to live with. I don’t have a major problem with this, there are women like that out there, this is probably the best type of relationship they can get without ruining someone else’s life.
indeed.
i’m honestly sick of seeing the “all women, deep down, prefer thugs” meme parroted around the internet. the truth of the matter is simply that women prefer a man who is more powerful than they are — in whatever way that may be, financially, mentally, physically, etc.
with the rise of a society in which women hold such unbalanced, unchecked power, though, there’s only one of these areas in which men still truly dominate, and that’s physically.
worse yet, most men in the upper classes — those who will interact the most with disproportionately powerful women in daily life — have been trained from birth, by various iron fists, not to be physically dominant with women, indeed not to express any sort of disciplinary power over women at all. as a result, many women with worldly power — in the form of money, political or commercial influence, etc. — will do anything for a man who even shows the potential to be able to wrest the upper hand from them, and maintain it in a coolly disinterested yet mercurial, slightly disdainful, strict manner.
2010/06/26 at 11:19
Also, the particular type of behaviour I have outlined (which involves the gradual reduction followed complete withholding of sex over a very very long period) is slightly different from your standard m.o.
oh, yeah, i’m not talking about withholding sex — i was talking about the withholding of affection (note that this was the literal word you used, so i’ve at least some basis for the apparently unintentional shift of subjects).
i’ve got to take a moment to chuckle at your equating, even if in a qualified/limited way, of “sex” and “affection”. haha darling.
a key aspect of maintaining control over a woman is sexual control — to assume total rights to her body, whatever you want to do to her, whenever. this leads to sexual submission, which is inevitably followed by total submission if the right buttons are subsequently pressed. (note that women have no “fetishes” as such — every aspect of their sexuality is tied in to every molecule of their being. control the sexuality, control the woman.)
withdrawing sex itself from a woman would be a very bad idea, and would not lead to increased attraction at all; the key is to withhold affection, not sex, while continuing to fuck the woman anytime you want her. (inevitably, she’ll “discover” that she always wants it too, all the more so if she’s initially reluctant.)
some of the best sexual experiences i’ve had were with women from whom i had withheld any sign of affection for weeks, or even months, but whom i had still fucked regularly, thoroughly enough to “mark my territory” in ways both psychological and physical.
in my experience, this is the best way to make a woman genuinely sexually satisfied: fuck her so hard that it hurts — physically and even emotionally — but keep her chasing the elusive carrot of affection that rarely, if ever, comes.
i fully accept that this will prevent the woman in question from being fully emotionally satisfied, too, but with many women — i suspect most, in this day and age of unprecedented female power — it’s impossible to satisfy them both physically and emotionally.
to satisfy them physically, you have to keep building their messianic expectation of beta-type emotional appeasement that will never actually arrive in full.
to satisfy them emotionally would turn off, or redirect, the spigot of emotional satisfaction.
it’s a bitch. (heh)
i choose door number one.
—
The effect of this, of course, as a man with your knowledge of women will know, serves to increase, rather than to decrease, the withholdee’s attraction to the withholder
yeah, obviously, as long as you’re talking about affection, not sex.
however, with the men of whom you speak, i suspect that many do not actually feel this increased attraction — they are just bound in by their sense of duty and/or legally bound by the back-breaking potential of divorce. i suspect likewise that, if divorce laws were reverted back to the man’s favor, very few men indeed would put up with this sort of thing.
2010/06/26 at 11:23
In the case of women (and you have to remember that women who get bound into the m.o. I have described (as opposed to your m.o.) tend to be those who are inexperienced & not inclined to be promiscuous for whatever reason) it can have the opposite effect. If something is taken away from someone for long enough, often the only way to survive is to lose all desire for it, and I am not just talking about sex here, I am talking about any type of relationship with anyone new.
heh. well, yeah, i’m not totally heartless — i give just enough rewards to maximize my utility per reward.
i.e., any fewer rewards and, yes, they would experience this plummeting of desire, and would become less inclined to parcel out pieces of their heart, soul, mind, and amex card; any more rewards and i’d be spoiling them.
you’re a smart girl, daedalus.
with all your knowledge, do you think a man like me would become less dangerous to you?
…or more?
think carefully before you answer that one.
2010/06/26 at 13:04
J5#
many women with worldly power — in the form of money, political or commercial influence, etc. — will do anything for a man who even shows the potential to be able to wrest the upper hand from them, and maintain it in a coolly disinterested yet mercurial, slightly disdainful, strict manner.
Absolutely. And it’s usually the biggest bitches who fall hardest in this regard, I have seen this in practice. I would agree that this is often the only type of man who can satisfy them. Feminist sex in the true sense of the word?
2010/06/26 at 13:22
J5 #35
I was talking about the withholding of affection (note that this was the literal word you used, so i’ve at least some basis for the apparently unintentional shift of subjects).
i’ve got to take a moment to chuckle at your equating, even if in a qualified/limited way, of “sex” and “affection”. haha darling.
You didn’t read my comment at #31 (which is the one referenced in the above reply) in full. If you actually scroll down, I specifically distinguished sex and affection, see the following statement:-
often one of the things withheld as well as affection is sex
I’m not sure sex and affection are always completely separate (there are different types of affection & different types of sex) but I think it’s better to keep them separate at this stage, there is too much linking of them and it confuses discussion on relationships.
You also state:-
with many women — i suspect most, in this day and age of unprecedented female power — it’s impossible to satisfy them both physically and emotionally.
to satisfy them physically, you have to keep building their messianic expectation of beta-type emotional appeasement that will never actually arrive in full.
to satisfy them emotionally would turn off, or redirect, the spigot of emotional satisfaction.
If by many you mean the uber-bitches referred to above, I would agree.
But I wouldn’t say “most”. Most of the women you come in contact with, possibly (as someone whose dealings appear to be with both the upper class and the underclass I suspect you probably meet a disproportionately high percentage of the uber-bitch type discussed above, it would be the same if you worked in fashion, the media, film etc.) I come across the uber-bitch type a lot in my line of work which is why I agree with a lot of your observations btw.
But not all women are like this and I think you may be overestimating the figure a little, not everyone is suited to such an extreme version of control (which is probably just as well because very few men would have the self-discipline & perception & sheer bloody energy to be able to maintain this level).
2010/06/26 at 13:33
J5 #35
with the men of whom you speak, i suspect that many do not actually feel this increased attraction — they are just bound in by their sense of duty and/or legally bound by the back-breaking potential of divorce.
No, I don’t actually believe this, I have seen the most handsome & charming men in thrall to wives & girlfriends who don’t put out, I have sat and listened to them cry (literally) about how attractive they find the woman in question. Obviously the power of this is finite (what average looking man would cry about being refused sex by Cigtashe?)but I reckon a woman who offers and then withdraws affection can move up at least 1 if not 2 points on the scale if done properly. It is not something I would do myself (I have never had a hard enough heart to carry anything like this off) but I have seen it done effectively.
Most of these men could go out and get casual sex, but often don’t do so. I don’t believe financial & family considerations are the sole or even the main reason they refrain from this, I think they are tied in to the relationship. Usually what breaks the cycle is when they are targeted by someone to whom they can transfer sexual attraction and affection, not in the short-term, but in the long-term. I have seen many women capitalise on this to get men who are neglected by their wives. Funnily enough, family and financial considerations never restrain them from leaving at this stage, demonstrating how little these considerations really mean when faced with an emotional & sexual bond.
I think the increased attraction thing probably works strongest with women because the control thing is particularly appealing to women, but you are incorrect in assessing the power obtained by withholding simply in gender terms. All humans have a tendency to want what they cannot get, and all humans have a tendency to value themselves in terms of how others act towards them, these are not unique to women, and it is these two factors that tie in the male partners of female withholders more so than family considerations and financial considerations (although the latter two factors are the ones that they use for rationalization purposes).
2010/06/26 at 13:46
You’re a smart girl, daedalus.
I am smart enough to know how little I know in relation to these issues. I am also smart enough to know that a man like you does not disclose all or even part of his secrets to women as readily as you purport to do here, I suspect that what I am reading is a half-truth reflected through a prism, there are many things yet to be told and even more that will never ever be told by you.
with all your knowledge, do you think a man like me would become less dangerous to you?
…or more?
think carefully before you answer that one.
That’s an easy question, you underestimate me. The answer is:- infinitely more dangerous, of course. A little knowledge (particularly of the sort outlined above) is a very very dangerous thing.
2010/06/26 at 14:18
johnny in re: to #27–
Of course I have to respond a bit to this…
Breaking up is needed I guess if the woman is under the impression that she is in a realtionship of sorts. Many players I would imagine don’t ever give that impression in their vibe and general language, unless they outright lie. I think most just pull the avoidance technique when asked straight forward questions, from what the females I chat with say. In my own unique one-time case, I knew ahead of time what type of guy I continued a friendship with so I knew there was no realtionship of any kind. This by its own definition was just what I could handle at the time so it should have been an ideal fit. In terms of breaking up, it is not needed if both parties are aware that it is casual. A decent parting as friends is what should occur (or as I like to say– land the fucking plane) and what I was trying to get with the guy I was involved with. This ties directly into your slow decline theory/advice. Age and maturity come into play here. I also didn’t count on the guy trying to sabotage a friendship of mine and involving himself in my personal life the way he did. What is your advice for a real life scenario of having someone who is taking action to bring pain and hurt to you and others around you?
Included in your recipe for breakups, there should be a few chapters dedicated to simple, easy, mutual goodbyes.
In what SD refers to I believe is a full-on long-term relationship over the course of ten or more years. The taking apart of an entire life. Step outside of your online persona for a second here and imagine this for a woman, or a man for that matter. She makes even better points above in regards to not all women wanting to be as controlled as you describe. It is a human condition to seek happiness and I’ll repeat what I wrote earlier, only the weakened or the damaged will stay in something that doesn’t make them feel good. Withholding affection? And you claim to not be heartless? At times, affection should held back or dosed out to illustrate the finer mechanics of romance and push-pull game, yes. No healthy woman or man will stay in a relationship or exchange that leaves them feeling frazzled, exhausted and unloved forever. Some get out sooner than others admittedly.
2010/06/26 at 14:25
SD…”I come across the uber-bitch type a lot in my line of work”
Oh. That’s a relief. I first read this sentence as “I come across AS the uber-bitch type a lot”….which had me seriously questioning my judgment of people..
2010/06/26 at 14:49
sdaedalus said “it’s usually the biggest bitches who fall hardest in this regard”
I think women who refuse to accept the submissive aspect of their own sexuality are in most danger of having it surface in dangerous ways. Take girl #1 and girl #2. Girl #1 seeks out a man she respects a lot, she accepts his right to make decisions and supports him emotionally, she enjoys being submissive in bed and maybe even symbolic acting-out of submission like accepting spankings. Girl #2 does everything she can to ensure that her man does NOT have dominance over her and on the contrary seeks to grab more and more of the couple’s decision-making power.
Which woman is in more danger of falling for a genuine thug who will seriously damage her emotionally and maybe even physically? Isn’t it clearly girl #2?
(All of that said, the level of submissiveness needed for emotional satisfaction varies HUGELY from woman to woman. But in our society women are encouraged to repress ANY such instincts)
2010/06/26 at 14:59
Obviously it’s a sign of my uncruelty and innocence that I still associate sex with affection. Point well taken.
Perhaps this messianic beta appeasement you keep in abeyance is meant to simulate the status salvation a woman achieves through childbirth. Perhaps she’s programmed to find a man of sufficiently high status that only reproduction can hope to endear her to him, not simply nookie.
2010/06/26 at 17:33
Self-knowledge is illuminating. Once I became aware of my submissive nature and began earnestly embracing it, I was able to find a man I truly love and respect, who is a gentleman and a scholar rather than, well, trash.
I was once Girl#2 in Iconoclast’s example. I was young, foolish and ignorant. I was submissive and wanted nothing more than to please others, which allowed some seedy sorts of men to take advantage of me. All they had to do was appeal to my soft side, guilt trip me and then make some threats.
One of them lied to me, trapped me and wouldn’t let go. Because I had no concept of my submissive nature, I thought I actually loved him. No, I was just easily manipulated. I did manage to escape in the end, which I partly must thank a woman for — she was also the submissive type and cooked/cleaned for this jerk-off she was with since she was a teenager, then at 25 she got out of that marriage and married a good manly man.
Being submissive carries a great amount of risk, and without maturity and some actual self-control and inner strength, it’s easy for a girl to get involved with the wrong men. Having been there and gone through it, I have a much deeper appreciation for my husband. Being submissive to the right man is awesome. The wrong man? Not so much. The lessons that we girls learn are to be discerning about the man. After that it’s pretty smooth sailing.
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