The 4 Kinds of Respect

I started writing an article on how to be respected as a man for the main site, but junked it (actually, I've already gone through two partial drafts; haven't found a direction I want to go with this one just yet).

Anyway, I find the angle I started on a little too boring / uninteresting / tedious to write on - that is, the 4 kinds of respect. I might still take this angle, but I'm dubious about it at this point. I'll probably write about respect in some other way. But these might be useful to think about... so here they are.

As I see it, you can roughly break "respect" down into four (4) subcategories of respect:

1. Respect of Virtue
2. Respect of Nobility
3. Respect of Power
4. Respect of Luck

RESPECT OF VIRTUE

When you are respect for your virtue, that's when people feel an immense degree of reciprocity toward you, and feel humbled by your goodness. They view you as such a selfless, caring, virtuous person that they feel positively dirty by comparison in your presence. Virtue was the one I started discussing first in the aborted article, and cited these examples of historical figures generally revered as "virtuous" for various reasons:

Chase said:

Examples of virtuous men in antiquity are figures like Numa Pompilius, who consolidated the raucous new city-state Rome after the murder of its founder, and did so only after much pleading by the citizens because they knew him to be incredibly fair and just; or Timoleon, the Corinthian liberator of Sicily from the tyrants and Carthaginians, who, rather than declare himself ruler of Sicily or set the island up as a Corinthian colony once he had completed his ouster of the depots who preceded him, sent out messengers to invite back the Sicilian natives who had fled the island years or decades ago and beckoned them to return; then helped organize the new governments, before retiring into the countryside to live out his life in relative peace, only venturing back into the cities when his opinion was called for.

More recent examples of individuals esteemed more for virtue than anything else include George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Nikola Tesla, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi,Tenzin Gyatso (the 14th Dalai Lama), Deng Xiaoping, and Nelson Mandela. These are all people whose primary reputation while alive and posthumously was and is as someone who'd focused the majority of his or her energies on the betterment of others whose lives he or she could touch.

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I also noted that virtue is the kind of respect the largest number of men strive for (every nice guy and every white knight out there aspires to be seen by society at large as virtuous), but the fewest number of men actually reach (compared to other kinds of respect.

RESPECT OF NOBILITY

Respect of nobility is distinct from from virtue in that it is a respect of a man's composure and steadiness and adherence to his own principles. This is the man who holds his head high and does not look beaten even when he is defeated. He's the man who never gives in to emotionalism or depravity; he is always "above it all."

He's not necessarily virtuous; he may not even be all that powerful. And he could be incredibly unlucky. But if he's noble, people will hold him in a certain esteem simply for that characteristic.

RESPECT OF POWER

This is the one that most men fantasize about. Respect of power is respect of what you can DO to others.

Respect for you as a sexual man lies in this realm - sex is power. The ability to fuck someone or something holds power over it. Women hold nonsexual men in disdain because they view these men as weak and unpowerful - deprived of their sexual identities, these men are little more powerful than a woman is.

Your ability to wield other sorts of power lies in here too. Women and men alike are incredibly attracted to characters with destructive and self-destructive streaks - part of the reason Heath Ledger's Joker is so powerful in The Dark Knight is because he is so effective at bringing a city to its knees more or less by his own. Everybody falls in love with the conqueror. People respect those they know can hurt them... or hurt their enemies if they ally with him.

The coolness and attractiveness of lead men in a given niche is another example. The guy who's the head of the football team; the instructor of the salsa dance class; the professor of the college class; the boss at work, or the de facto head of the team project at school. These guys all get a natural aura of power around them that makes them more respected, and more attractive.

Respect of power has the tightest woven link to sexual attraction. If she respects your power over her, she will feel attracted to you sexually. If she does not, she will not.

RESPECT OF LUCK

This is the guy who just always seems to catch a lucky break. Even though he doesn't know why he's so damn lucky (or at least, he claims not to know), you can't help but respect the guy anyway because, gosh, things just always break his way.

Underlying this respect is the awareness that this guy is probably influencing things his way one way or another, but you and perhaps he simply do not know what it is. Nevertheless, he's probably better to have as a friend than an enemy if he is exceptionally lucky for some unknown reason.

A great example of this in antiquity is Timoleon, the Corinthian general who liberated Sicilty from tyrants and the Carthaginians and returned it to its native people. Read about his life, and you come away scratching your head at how many insanely lucky breaks he caught to be able to pull that off, but you can't help shrugging your shoulders and saying, "You know what? I respect this guy for his luck."

Note that this is based off a series of luck - you don't get respect for being lucky just because you one the Powerball once. One lucky incident in a string of mediocrity is nothing worthy of respect. However, if you are consistently lucky, people start to think there's something special going on around you, and they will respect you for it, although it's a different kind of respect than the respect of virtue, nobility, or power.

Chase

Interesting. There is something about the 'Respect of Power' that seems incomplete (assuming that you are trying to relate respect to seduction).

Compare The Dark Knight to a college professor, both have power and respect, but it just doesn't fit the right way under one title. One is negative, destroying, and other is positive, creating. Take Hitler, who had tremendous power to influence the whole world. I could be wrong, but IMO it is quite difficult to say that women found him sexy or irresistible. At the same time you can’t say he didn’t have respect. He is also negative and destroying like The Dark Knight, but Dark Knight is much more likable, it is easy to say that he is irresistible to women. Take a big muscular guy who has power to physically beat up any other guy. Some may be quite attractive, others appear rather repulsive.

Also, take an asshole. I would say definitely attractive, she may sleep with him easily, but she probably doesn’t want to stick around for too long, unless she’s got some personal issues. But she could easily stick around another guy in power - professor, lawyer,…

There is also respect that women have for men, probably most important as far as seduction. “Strong” man doesn’t necessarily mean only physical strength. The man has a spine, he stands after what he believes, he doesn’t cave in to her emotions and so on; he sees her as sexual object, he wants her and he goes after her, perhaps even chases her. She may not like him (which is probably quite hard), she many never sleep with him, but she always respects such man. She may easily disrespect Nice Guys, who also belong to category Men…

There could also be respect to supervisors, parents, grandparents; respect to random people that you meet on the street while having no idea what is their background, respect to religious person...

Drck-

I think the thing here is detecting the different categories and different gradations of respect among these example men.

Like, Batman is respected for his power, but he's also respected for some degree of both virtue (helping the good people of Gotham) and nobility. Hitler to most people alive today can only be respected for his power, though arguably he commands far more power respect than Batman (Batman beats up goons with his bare hands; Hitler commands a people and an army).

Then again, if you talk to a late-1930s member of the Nazi party, Hitler doubtless also commands some mix of virtue (for turning around Germany), nobility (for his composure and public appearances), and perhaps a bit of luck (his dream about dying in a trench that got bombed, getting up to leave the trench in the middle of the night after the dream, and the trench being bombed and killing everyone inside of it immediately after he'd left).

Big muscular guy who beats up people has power, but not virtue or nobility. Strong, upstanding guy who's able to pull off cool shit but stays a good guy has power + virtue and/or nobility.

Or, asshole vs. genuinely good-hearted man - asshole may command power respect, and nothing else, while the genuinely good-hearted man may command respect of virtue, and nothing else. If the only respect he commands is virtue, however, he'll have a lifelong struggle with attracting women because he's just not a powerful dude.

One example that's fresh in my mind (since he just passed) would be many of the characters Robin Williams played on screen; there was always a guy whose heart was as big as an ocean, but who seemed like he'd literally roll over if you told him to roll over. Cute, lovable, eminently respectable for the virtue he had pouring out of him, but not a man you'd normally view as powerful and not someone who'd be all that attractive to most women (of course, in real life Robin Williams was a successful comedian/actor, which gives him fame and preselection and wealth, which confers some degree of power; and he may well have been a firmer guy in real life, though actors' roles do often reflect pieces of their personas). e.g., think of his character in Mrs. Doubtfire - sneaking around, hanging his head when scolded at, etc. Virtuous, but not powerful, and he ends up well-liked, but not sexually riveting.

Chase

Chase said:

Women hold nonsexual men in disdain because they view these men as weak and unpowerful - deprived of their sexual identities, these men are little more powerful than a woman is.
Chase

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How about female friends? Normally, when trying to get a female friend, I don't act sexual or show my sexy side, I get more on the friendly side, And they act very warm and friendly though

A follow up to my last post : i've just read the article on how to make female friends. and I see that you mention that is better to be sexy even with girls you want to turn into friends, but you also mention that you have to bring the energy. Can sexiness and bringing the energy go together ?

Interesting, so basically you are saying that in order to be more respected by women a guy should work on combination of Virtue + Nobility + Power

Virtue = Goodness, positivity
Nobility = Strong frame, strong belief, stability (including emotional). High self-esteem?
Power = Ability to lead, change or influence other people's life (could be positive), ability to fuck somebody over (negative), destroy/conquer (negative). Typical Alpha behavior.

These also raise interactivity.

Just aside, Jesus probably had all 3, which makes me wonder how was his sexual interactivity. Probably high, but he re-directed it differently...

Recently, girl I've been talking with (one from my FR that you commented on, Chase) was telling me about a guy that she really respected. He refuses to accept money from his (wealthy) parents and has been doing everything he can to make his small business work. In short, the business has never been successful after some odd years, and he lives very much paycheck-to-paycheck. She said that she respects his pure tenacity and grit and unwillingness to quit and finds that very attractive in a man. What would you classify this as above?

Also, I know that "luck" seems to be one that's a bit grey, but I do feel like you can improve your luck, and at some levels can be measured.

Manifestation, Ingrained In Youth, Expectations
Whenever I've moved somewhere new in my life (new high school w/ no friends, new college w/ no friends, new city w/ no friends, new job w/ no friends), I've always easily made new friends with little-to-no work of trying to make friends. Most of my friends call me really lucky for this. But, because I never had a problem with it in my youth, it's like I just expect it when I go somewhere new. To this affect, I think there is something to manifestation and staying positive and just having positive expectations w/ confidence. And if it's something you've been used to as a kid, it seems to just stick with you, and people will call you "lucky" for it.

Confidence, Always Talking Positive (Ignores Negativity)
Rolling with the same theme, there's the guy that just always has confidence and always tells everyone (including himself), "I'm lucky." He always talks about the positive things in his life, and very rarely talks about the negative. However, if you compare his life with someone else's, he's really not (that much) luckier than the other guy. It's just that he always portrays himself as lucky and always talks about the positive that people just associate him with "luck." And because he has so much confidence, it does roll into his life in his way. And if it doesn't, he just says, "Good, there's something better coming anyway." Then he does get something better, but didn't get what he originally pursued, and yet, people will still awe in wonder and say, "Wow, he's just so lucky," like they completely forgot about the negative. Just talk about the positive and ooze confidence.

Numbers Game, Odds, Stats
Finally, there's the more mathematical way. Take 2 guys. Guy 1 approached 10 women this month. Guy 2 approached 100 women this month. Which one do you think got luckier? Exactly. The secret here is to not tell people that you approached 100 women. You just say, "Well, guess I'm just one sexy, lucky guy."

People do this with everything of course. Start a bunch of companies at once and hope 1 works. Venture capitalists, etc.

Just Luck
Lastly, I guess you have an unknown It just happens. You go to the right bar at the right time and meet the right girl. Everything falls in place. Maybe this is a little combination of all 3 of the above.

@ Moonray-

moonrayarc said:

Can sexiness and bringing the energy go together ?

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Absolutely. Think "burning intensity, inclusive heat" rather than "jumping around being super fun" for the right picture in your head.

@ Drck-

Drck said:

Interesting, so basically you are saying that in order to be more respected by women a guy should work on combination of Virtue + Nobility + Power

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Depends on what he's going for. If you're going for fast hookups, I'd actually recommend going for purely just power ALONE, because then you're just some guy she'd never want to keep around but, heck, he's just so powerful and sexy. Makes the decision much easier.

If you end up sleeping with her and decide you'd like her to stick around though, then's the time to start showing a bit more of your noble and virtuous side, before she begins to search for a man who's safer and more reliable.

Drck said:

Virtue = Goodness, positivity
Nobility = Strong frame, strong belief, stability (including emotional). High self-esteem?
Power = Ability to lead, change or influence other people's life (could be positive), ability to fuck somebody over (negative), destroy/conquer (negative). Typical Alpha behavior.

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I'd say those sound pretty accurate, yeah. Self-esteem's kind of a weird one, but I'd think you're more likely to be high self-esteem than not if you're noble, yeah.

Drck said:

Just aside, Jesus probably had all 3, which makes me wonder how was his sexual interactivity. Probably high, but he re-directed it differently...

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Or we just don't know all his exploits The Vatican DID destroy quite a number of the books about Jesus's life that it decided would not be included into the New Testament...!

@ Pinot-

PinotNoir said:

Recently, girl I've been talking with (one from my FR that you commented on, Chase) was telling me about a guy that she really respected. He refuses to accept money from his (wealthy) parents and has been doing everything he can to make his small business work. In short, the business has never been successful after some odd years, and he lives very much paycheck-to-paycheck. She said that she respects his pure tenacity and grit and unwillingness to quit and finds that very attractive in a man. What would you classify this as above?

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I'd say that's largely nobility. It's not virtue, because it isn't like his parents are going to suffer by giving him some change. And it's not power, because it's not like he doesn't need that money to make it and can do it all on his own - he's still struggling, and still unsuccessful. However, he's very principled, and wants to prove a point (that he can make it on his own) - two signatures of nobility. So, yeah, he's going for "noble" with that kind of respect.

The examples on luck all seem good, yeah. If you're respected for luck, that's one where people will say things like, "Let's bring him along, because good / crazy things just happen when he's around," or, "Give that assignment to Pinot; I don't know how he does it, but he always figures out a way to solve things like that somehow."

Chase