(3) Journeyman

In the article on precedent, a reader asks for an article about what changes in a relationship following consummation of that relationship, saying:

“Also it would be great if you could delve more into the intricacies of relationship game. Particularly how it is different from the point up until consummation and how it changes. Much of what is taught is in the form of process and it would help a lot to understand relationship game in those same terms, which i'm sure is probably mostly the same but in different order or amounts etc. Keep up the great work!”

I think most people have an instinctive understanding that once a woman has submitted to a man in sex, her mood changes to him, either softening or (if she experiences sex regret) sometimes hardening. The biggest shift is in the biggest question about a man being answered for a woman: he shifts from an unknown quantity to a known one, and this is used to recast him along a number of different lines.

In today's article, we'll explore what the shifts women make in their attitudes towards men are after sex, and what those lines are that they recast men along.

Following up my piece yesterday on "The 4 Stages of Every Friends with Benefits Relationship", today I'm going to get into the nuts and bolts of running your casual relationships by giving you 8 friends with benefits rules that are absolutely mandatory you follow... to not have everything go to hell in a hand basket, that is.

Friends with benefits are lots of fun, but these relationships are also loaded with the potential to get messy on the turn of a dime. All it takes is a little bending of the rules, and you can very quickly find yourself:

• With a friend with benefits who's falling in love with you

• Falling in love with your friend with benefits yourself

• Experiencing confusion in your social circle about where you stand

• Enjoying reputation damage or drama or other bad effects from things gone awry

Break the rules, and you're playing with fire without a fire extinguisher handy.

Adhere to them, and, well, let's just say you're handling fire in a responsible, fun, and mostly safe way.

So what are these rules you've got to stick to, anyway?

The prospect of a girl fight holds a very special place in the minds of most men. We believe that if you voluptuous vixens start going at it, eventually their angry passion will be converted into sexual energy and they will start to make out, and even invite in a nearby man for a threesome.

But as most men who are in the know are aware of: this is very far from the truth. In fact, even if two women are fighting over a guy, the fight itself isn’t really about him. Rather, it’s about their instincts, and enacting the desire to snuff out competition in every way possible.

That’s what every form of female competition comes down to: protecting pride and destroying the competition. And today I’m going to delve deeply into the concept of female competition: where it comes from, how it plays out, and much more importantly…how you fit in.

Ricardus touched on avoiding STDs a little in "Dodging the Dangers of Sex (and Dating)", though his focus there was more on some of the other dangers that can arise; and I have a post on the forums that covers a good chunk of what we'll talk about in this article here: "Re: The Dangers of Sex." However, I wanted to clean that information up and put it in a more presentable (and scannable) way - hence, this post.

When you're relatively inexperienced with women, it's easy to get freaked out about STDs. Typically, the more sexually experienced you get, the less of a "big deal" these seem like... and, generally, the more likely you are to run into them.

Yet, if you're smart, and you do your homework, it is possible to avoid STDs almost entirely, even while having lots of sex with lots of partners... BUT, you must do your homework, and you must be on top of the ball at all times, because if you're trusting your own sexual health will be looked out for by that pretty stranger you just met (after all, she seems so innocent...), you've got another thing coming.

In my travels, I've been fortunate to have met a number of different men with different personalities who've all found success with women their own unique ways. One of the patterns I've picked up on has been that each of these men's "vibes", if you will, fall into one of three rough categories:

• Brooding / sad
• Smooth / charming
• Talkative / dynamic
  

No one of these vibes (or airs, or auras, or whatever term you like) is better than another, though each one appeals to different subsets of women. Some are more popular at different times of life - most of the teen male heartthrobs you'll see in books and movies are brooding, for instance, while the majority of mature (30+) male sex symbols hew more closely to the "smooth" way of doing things - but each can be used successfully at any point in a guy's life; there are plenty of talkative young guys who clean up with women, and I've seen my fair share of brooding older guys who do well with the vibe despite their lack of youth.

This article is broken down into three major sections: one on each of the 3 flavors of vibe. So read on, and find out which kind of sexual vibe is best suited to you - and, how you can learn to adapt each of these vibes for your own use, where needed.

Over the past month, 340Breeze, one of our members and commenters here, has made a couple of insightful comments and asked a few thoughtful questions about a subject that can be fairly boiled down to "the wrapping and the present".

His first comment was in the article on specialness (comment here).

And his second was in the piece on reversing poor precedent (comment here).

The first comment discussed his experiences meeting women who seemed outwardly impressive at first, but lacking in substance after he got to know them; in the second comment, he asked whether it was better for a woman interested in capturing a good man to focus more on playing coy and drawing things out with men (what I'd term "game" and "fundamentals", or style), or on becoming such all-around awesome people that they were simply naturally already in very high demand (who you really are as a person, friend, and mate - your substance).

In fact, this dichotomy - of fundamentals and game vs. who you are, style vs. substance, or the wrapping vs. the present - is one that underlies all of social dynamics, whether mating and dating, or choosing whom you want to be friends with, or hiring employees, bringing on consultants, or selecting the company you want to go work for.

The key here, and what everyone's trying to do, is to avoid being suckered by nice wrapping that isn't backed up by an equally impressive present underneath... but also not miss the great presents hiding under crummy wrapping paper.

Yet, that isn't so easy to do.

Reading through posts in the relationship forum, as well as guys' relationship issues elsewhere on the Internet, there appears to be a lot of confusion over how and when to implement what I believe is the single most powerful tool in a man's relationship arsenal:

The NEXT.

Throughout this article, I'm going to provide you with the proper contexts in which to execute a NEXT, which situations make it impossible or ineffective, and how to do it. But first, a definition: