Relationships

Nothing like a contentious topic framed by a loaded question to wake you up and bring out the strong opinions. So here’s one: what’s better, an independent woman... or a submissive one?

If you read “The 4 Kinds of Girls and Which Ones YOU Should Go For”, you’re familiar with both halves of the pie; for the purposes of this article, “soft” = submissive, and “strong” = independent. These are the same things, just described there in more neutral language, and here in more of the language du jour.

In today’s article, we’ll have a look at the merits of both kinds of women – the independent variety, and the submissive variety – and talk about what roles in what men’s lives each are best suited for.

Because while you no doubt have a very strong opinion yourself on which of these two women is “better” and which men should want... I dare say that’s going to vary tremendously from person to person and lifestyle and objectives to lifestyle and objectives.

Colt wrote yesterday on whether women really want to be treated as equals (or not), and it got me thinking about what men on the whole seem to want, and whether that's all that grounded in reality or not.

I talked before about my belief that most of the bitter women men think are out there are really just Internet bitter; in the echo chamber of the World Wide Web, it's pretty easy for one's thoughts to sound like extreme versions of themselves, and it's also very easy to treat others unempathetically, judge, excoriate, and attack, in spiteful ways online that we wouldn't dare do with even our worst enemies live and in person.

When you stop and think about it though, there sure are a whole lot of sensitive people right now ready to respond on a hair trigger with a vicious attack both online and (with a bit more subtlety) in real life, and there's a whole lot of lamenting about where all the "good men" and "good women" have gone, both from men and women. Why?

I'm going to propose here that there is a large undercurrent of wanting more than one's station in life among average men and women, without caring to elevate one's station accordingly. And that that undercurrent of wanting things without doing the requisite things to get them is what drives all this anger, torment, and strife.

It's simply a case of unmet expectations, played out at grand scale society-wide.

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?

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.

Last week I wrote a post on what qualities women want in their men. The post covered everything from independence to dripping sex appeal.

But what if you’ve already got most of those qualities?

What if you’re a man who has a lot to offer, and you want to know how to keep a girl happy?

Or what if you already have a girl and want to know how to keep her excited and fulfilled?

Think of this as the corollary to my previous post. This is an article on what women like. It will cover the things that keep girls happy and wanting to either keep coming back into your life, or wanting to continue to be with you if you’re already in some kind of relationship with them.

Let’s get to it.

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.