Relationships

A seduction doesn’t end at marriage. Let’s illustrate by tearing down a mediocre poem written by a man who’ll never keep his wife – a man who just doesn’t get it.

I was browsing a men’s forum and found this sad but educational letter penned by a heartbroken divorcé. It offers insight into how a man, lacking a foundation in female psychology, was able to destroy his marriage within seven years.

It’s not an easy read. It’s the lament of a victim on his ineptitude with women. It’s the poetry of a beta male, worshiping at the feet of a woman he sees as above him.

Women don't respond to timorous men. But they respond (in almost shocking ways) to strong, driven, valiant ones… with beauty as valor's reward.

Writing of the invasion in 396 A.D. of Alaric and the Goths into Greece (not long before the fall of Rome, and well after Greece had declined as a regional power and slid into decadence and decay), Edward Gibbon notes:

The troops which had been posted to defend the Straits of Thermopylae, retired, as they were directed, without attempting to disturb the secure and rapid passage of Alaric; and the fertile fields of Phocis and Boeotia were instantly covered by a deluge of Barbarians who massacred the males of an age to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females, with the spoil and cattle of the flaming villages.

...

The vases and statues were distributed among the Barbarians, with more regard to the value of the materials, than to the elegance of the workmanship; the female captives submitted to the laws of war; the enjoyment of beauty was the reward of valor; and the Greeks could not reasonably complain of an abuse which was justified by the example of the heroic times.

The descendants of that extraordinary people, who had considered valor and discipline as the walls of Sparta, no longer remembered the generous reply of their ancestors to an invader more formidable than Alaric. "If thou art a god, thou wilt not hurt those who have never injured thee; if thou art a man, advance:—and thou wilt find men equal to thyself."

The Goths had finished sacking Asia Minor, yet, unable to breach the walls of Constantinople, had wheeled about, crossed back into Europe, and burned a path through Greece.

The Greeks, no longer the manly warriors of their forebears, retreated, leaving the pass of Thermopylae unguarded. 900 years earlier, the Spartan King Leonidas I had for three days resisted a 100,000-man Persian army with a force of 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians at Thermopylae. And even only 140 years earlier, circa 250 A.D., the Greeks halted an earlier Gothic invasion at Thermopylae. This time, however, the soft and timorous Greeks retreated from the pass, and the Goths carved through, slaughtered the young men like pigs, and took the females as their prizes.

You might at first pity the Greeks.

Poor soft, unwarrior-like, decadent Greeks, invaded by the savage Goths, the quivering young men of Greece murdered, the fair young women of Greece carried away as war brides.

Yet, the people and land of Greece were hers to lose. Her soldiers shrunk back in fear of the invading Goths, and the Goths claimed their spoils, of blood, gold, and women.

And as Gibbon says, the enjoyment of beauty is the reward of valor.

Beauty is not something enjoyed by the man too cowardly to earn it.

In your own life, too, if you wish to enjoy beauty, you must behave with valor.

Have you considered dating a woman with kids? As the child of a single mother, my advice is to find someone else and avoid the many pitfalls intrinsic to stepfatherhood.

In my opinion, you should not date a woman with kids.

You can shag her, sure. Beyond that, I would not continue to date her.

The only exception is that you also have a kid you’re bringing into the new union, and you're both down to help raise children who aren't yours. In that way, the power imbalance is addressed, and you’re both helping the offspring of other parents.

If that recommendation upsets you, I’m guessing one of two things:

1. You’ve been programmed to think stepfatherhood virtuous.

2. Or, you lust for a woman who has a kid. Maybe you’re already dating her.

The only people who will say you should be a stepdad are those with an agenda. And I say this as a guy who was raised by many different surrogate fathers during his childhood.

My birth father was mostly nonexistent from the age of 2 to 12. I only would see him during summers after that. We have a good relationship now, but it’s taken nearly 15 years to get to that point, with drama in between that I would wish on no one.

I say this because it makes me immune to the most hateful responses someone might have about my stance on this topic, which I happen to know better than almost anyone. The only criticism that might strike me as genuine is, “You’re ungrateful for the love those men had for you!”

The answer to that is: no, I’m not.

I’m very grateful for the parenting attempts made by my many quasi-stepfathers (none ended up marrying my mother, except one briefly for a few months). They all had different influences on me. Some good, some bad, some mediocre, but I appreciate the effort they made if they did make one.

There are a few who had a significant impact on me, and I will thank them until the day I die.

One of them was an Italian chef. He was the first person my mother dated who truly acted like a father. My mother told me he is the one responsible for teaching her how to let my cry as a baby and not rush to soothe me. “Let him cry, and he will stop,” he told her. He even sat on her to keep her from rushing to me. He is still my mother’s close friend even to this day.

Another important man was a boyfriend who would later come out as gay. He had some degree of heterosexuality given he had a relationship with my mother, so it would be accurate to classify him as bisexual. My mother had suspected he was more gay than not, though, and after they broke up, he decided to follow that life. He was very, very good to her and me, and he loved us both very much. Even now, he is still a close friend of my mother and visited me on my birthday in Europe a few years back.

The most beautiful follow up to this story is that, after all these years, he still has a picture of my mother and me on his desk. When he’s asked about this picture, he says that if he had desired the life of a straight man more than his current life, then we would have been his life. My mother would have been his wife, and I would be his son. I think this is extraordinarily beautiful.

The third important surrogate father was as close to a stable father figure as I would ever have. Although he had a son and daughter of his own, we were more closely linked in personality than his own kids. You might say I was the son he always wanted. Karma brought us together for a reason because our similarity was insanely strong. However, he had serious personal faults that prevented him from truly being a man worthy of my mother’s respect. He lacked the skills to allow the relationship to flourish. I will say without regret that he was an amazing influence in my life and taught me much about what it means to be good, to care, to love, and to be a man. I love him deeply and wish him all the best in this life and the next. He is a good man with a good heart.

However, I will say this unequivocally: I would never recommend any of them to take on the role they did and attempt to become a stepfather. Even more so, I say this about the rest of the men my mother dated. Of them, none of any importance come to mind.

All those men, no matter how good their intentions, were going after pussy (except the gay one, of course; he might be an exception and probably loved me the most, as his heart wasn’t tainted by lust). For the rest of those men, I was a secondary concern. Even if they grew to love me later, I was not a priority.

Don’t get me wrong.

I don’t doubt some genuinely cared about me or loved me or wanted the best for me. Some clearly did, as I pointed out. It doesn’t change the fact that they still wanted to screw my mom. I know this because I know men. I teach them for a living, and I know their hearts and minds better than they do.

But I get ahead of myself.

Let’s look at why society lauds the stepfather and deconstruct its motivations so you can discover if you want to be praised for this act (and how this praise subtly motivates you to be a stepfather, even if you’re not aware of it).

Can you convince a girl to be your girlfriend by giving her stuff?

It's obviously not a strategy we recommend on this site. But LOTS of guys try to pull it off. So let's have a look.

A guy on Reddit talks about a girl who “let's just be friends”'d him six months ago, writing:

Earlier this week, I bought tickets for a musical next year that we both really want to see and she was over the moon. I really wanted to go with her but I thought maybe it could also be a good opportunity to ask her out again, seeing as it had been 6 months. She asked me how much tickets were and I told her, "Well, I was thinking maybe this could be a date. And in that case, no charge at all."

My friend told me she was sorry but still didn't have feelings, valued the friendship, etc. I told her it was fine and that I just thought I'd check in again and we moved on as usual. It hurt, but I was fine to just stay friends and hoped the feelings would eventually subside.

The next day, we started talking about the musical again. I mentioned the price of the tickets and she said something like, "Oh, I thought it was a gift?" I told her it would have been free if we were going as a date, but as friends, I'd want her to pay for hers. She got quite annoyed at me and accused me of trying to pay her back for not returning feelings. She told me she really didn't want to hurt me (and to her credit, her rejection was done as considerately as it can be) but this was really making her feel like I was trying to punish her for not reciprocating interest.

I tried to explain that I didn't mean it to come across like that, but these tickets were relatively expensive too and I just wasn't willing to spend that much on a friend. My friend told me she wasn't upset about having to pay for the ticket and she was always happy to do that, but she felt like this was me trying to get some petty revenge or even manipulation, that I didn't value her as a friend but just as someone I could maybe have a relationship with.

We see here the stereotypical nice guy / nice girl manipulation dynamic:

• Nice guy pretends to be fine with being friends, only to keep trying sneaky tactics at moments he has leverage to try to get dates

• Nice girl pretends to be surprised something nice guy offered her for free in exchange for a date is not still for free once she's turned down the date (and manages to get both tickets for free in the end -- see below)

In an update, the nice guy bends, giving the girl both tickets for free to invite whomever she wants. Meanwhile, the nice girl accepts the free tickets (of course... the actually gracious thing would be to say "No thanks, you keep them, take some girl you like instead" -- but this girl's not gracious), though says she will probably take the nice guy along. He's providing her free stuff and lots of fawning attention, without her having to give him anything in return... she is going to keep that going so long as it's still worthwhile to her.

While the whole thing is pretty cringeworthy, we must ask: does this technique ever sometimes work?

At times you'll hit an impasse with a long-term partner. You could breakup. You could submit to her desires. Or… you could give her an ultimatum, in a considerate way.

In relationship advice world, there is little more poorly regarded than the ultimatum.

Ultimatums are alternately floated as tools of heartless controllers, and of desperate weaklings clutching at straws. They are both tools of the too-strong and of the too-weak.

No healthy relationship could ever include such things, the experts say.

What the experts really mean is no equal relationship could contain such things.

What they rarely ever tell you is no relationship is ever 'equal'. There is always a party in the lead role -- it might be you, or it might be your gal.

The ultimatum, frankly, gets a bad rap.

While I agree you should compromise on what you reasonably can, there are indeed deal breaker issues you will encounter in every relationship.

And regardless what the experts say about compromise, sometimes compromise can't cut it. There simply is no compromise on some issues -- either things go how you want them to or they go how she does.

Perhaps you ought to just split up when that happens. Many couples do -- it's why the breakup rate and divorce rate are so sky high. Those who divorce their first spouses have an even higher chance of divorcing their second; and those who divorce their second a still higher chance of divorcing their third.

Perhaps there's another way to deal with deal breaker situations.

One in which you present an ultimatum, that is not a heartless ultimatum, but instead one where you get what you want, while trying your best to help her also get as close as possible to what she does too -- which often isn't always what she insists upon at first.

Insecurity and vulnerability are not the same thing. Women run from insecurity but find a little vulnerability endearing. So how much should you show her?

As I discussed in my last article, anxiety is very bad for your endeavors with women. End of story!

Unfortunately, women perceive anxiety as a weakness, and often revealing the anxiety to women can cause them to lose all attraction for you. Now the key here is in revealing anxiety. Everyone feels anxious once in a while, some more than others. Sometimes anxiety is genetic, and it’s within a person’s persona to feel anxious periodically.

However, just because you feel anxiety doesn’t mean you have to reveal it to anyone. More importantly, even when women see you’re feeling anxious, it doesn’t mean you have to reveal the true source of your anxiety to them!

Notice I said when. Women are naturally super sensitive to a guy’s vibe; by instinct, women are fully sensitive to human vibes. Think of the bond and senses women have to take care of and raise babies, even before the age of technology, farming, and civilization. It’s important to note that women can transmute another human’s emotions. You can transfer a sexual state from yourself to a woman if you let her feel allowed and if she actively follows your lead and dominance!

If you feel anxiety in the presence of a woman, she’s going to feel it. If you’re prone to frequent anxiety, you’ll inevitably feel anxiety at some point with a woman. For some guys, it’s feeling anxious on the approach, and this can mess up their approach vibe every time! Some get nervous about the first date. And for other guys, it can be about what to do with her when they get her home. For the longest time, I struggled with last-minute resistance and got anxious in the moment right before sex.

No matter what, if you feel anxiety, you can bet that she’ll feel it, too.

The good news is that you can change the source of anxiety over time. What makes you anxious can go away with concerted effort and practice by putting yourself in front of the anxiety-inducing situation and succeeding over and over. This is sure to change your body’s perception of what was previously a threat. And I can attest that it works. Unlike before, these days, I get super excited and horny when I have a girl at home.

In the meantime, you need to figure out how to be vulnerable in the right way when your anxiety comes up.

How do you train your girlfriend into the kind of partner you need? The secret is in the expectations you set with her.

We've talked about the importance of establishing expectations before you even begin a relationship with a woman in the past before.

We've also talked about establishing precedent within your relationships, and why this is so vital.

Today I'll be giving you a tactic you can use within already existing relationships to 'train your girlfriend' by setting her expectations of a relationship with you for the long-term.

Once you're able to do this, you'll be able to avoid both minor and major speed bumps later on down the line in relationships that you'd otherwise crash into.