Guys have been asking what I mean when I talk about the “level” a given piece of advice operates at. There are at least two ladders of levels, maybe more, but for now we’ll focus on two ladders: the game level, and the discussion/pattern ladder.
There are GAME levels: the first bunch of levels are where the man does almost all of the work, typically. Initially, the man takes the brunt of the rejection, because he asks the woman out, sets up the dates, tries to f**k her. Sex is a fulcrum point; after a man and woman have had sex, more of the power and rejection ability shifts to the man. Before they have sex, the woman has more power. Men want to know, “Why won’t she put out? When will she put out?” Women want to know, “Why won’t he commit? Why doesn’t he call me after sex? Why doesn’t he acknowledge my love?” The seduction discussion among men is almost always about getting to sex and its immediate aftermath. The seduction discussion among women is almost always about getting a high status, attractive man to commit to the woman. Conversations about getting to sex seem weird and forced to a woman, because, for her, sex isn’t hard to get. Some man asks her out and tries to f**k her, and if she says yes, it happens. She can ask almost any straight male she knows to come over, and he will, and he’ll f**k her. Online dating simplifies this further.
For many men, female conversations about getting a high-status man to commit seem weird, because men who aren’t and have never been high status, and who have spent most of their lives struggling with women, don’t understand the problems women face. Most men struggle to get a single woman in their lives, let alone a high-status woman who wants to commit, so they don’t understand the woman’s struggle to get a top man to stay.
Women are not stupid (a common refrain around here), and they know that they can have sex quickly and easily if they want. Many guys, however, don’t understand women and don’t understand that the female discussion is almost always past the “good sex” stage. Sure, there are articles about how to bait men into making the first move, especially guys who are +2 in SMV, but the bulk of the discussion happens at the later levels (“Mismatched sexual market value (SMV): Diagnosis and cures” has greater detail).
Much advice is garbage because it doesn’t talk about SMV level. Are you accurately assessing your own SMV? The SMV of the person you’re interested in? What that disparity or lack of disparity implies? Too little discussion addresses raising SMV… which is one big advantage of the red pill discussion: the red pill and seduction discussions begin with lifting, fashion, and diet. It’s about raising SMV, if you want to have more casual sex, as a man, or if you want to get better men, as a woman.
Too much leadup. Some possible levels in the game:
- Non-verbal indicator of interest (IOI).
- Approach.
- Initial rapport/seduction/whatever.
- Exchange of numbers and contact information.
- Date / seduction.
- Kissing/stroking.
- Bounceback, logistical challenges.
- Clothes come off.
- Sex: the fulcrum point, where the female discussion starts: women want to know how, once a man has high enough status to lay them, to please the man and keep him interested and around. A lot of the male discussion ENDS here.
- Comfort/aftercare/bonding, especially if the woman has had deep sexual experiences and she doesn’t want to feel cheap/used/discarded. Many men fail here. Once they’ve fucked they feel their “job” is done, which is a good way to needlessly hurt a woman. This is where a lot of women don’t want to go home and a lot of men want women to go home. Not universal, obviously.
- Repeat sex/dates.
- “Where is this going?” conversation. Defining the relationship. That kind of thing. Many men don’t even get here, or only do so once or twice in their lives.
- Committed relationships.
- Cohabitation.
- Marriage (I think this is a bad deal for men in most Western societies but it’s here for the sake of completeness).
- Children/family/family structure. Overall life trajectory. Building soul and spirit.
Later on, there is group consciousness, pattern recognition, etc. There is understanding of a woman’s needs, psychologies, etc. Not all women are the same.
A woman who really wants to be monogamous and have a family (these do exist, contrary to what you may read) will differ from the wanton, sex-positive sluts I have found myself specializing in. High-status, high-value guys are much more likely to get here, and low-status guys should work on fixing and raising their status.
These stages can occur over long periods or short periods of time. Mystery’s famous rule posits that most women need 4- 10 hours of exposure to a man in order to have sex with him, though it’s possible to have a great sexual experience in a bar bathroom half an hour after meeting a chick. It’s also possible to know a chick for months or years before you plunder her. I’ve done both.
Discussion/pattern level.
- The “bottom level” among guys is things like “happy wife, happy life.” Or, “What do women want?” Or, “I don’t understand why she did this thing.” Or, “She says she wants a nice guy but only dates assholes.” Or, putting women on a pedestal. It’s a foggy mixture of confusion, hostility, admiration, desire, and uncertainty. Game strives to demystify this process. These sorts of things are maladaptive guy thoughts and behaviors, and they’re the comments of guys who are clueless. Guys who are asleep, you might say.
- The (better) Reddit red pill discussion is a step above that, thankfully. It’s about the need for men to improve: diet, lifting, socializing, etc. It’s about the need to eliminate negative influences like video games, pr0n, TV, etc. It’s about learning to approach and accept that women like sex and have sexual criteria. Unfortunately, it often stops around here. I’m aware of red pill’s limitations but also approve of it on the net because it’s an improvement for the average guy. I’m writing Red Quest in a probably vain attempt to raise the discussion level.
- The (worse) Reddit red pill discussion is about how women are evil demons and shrieking harpies and just trying to shake men down for money. This is the “anger phase” that men who discover cheating, men with f**ked up lives, men who have suffered through the divorce and “family” law court system, etc. are facing. Anger is an understandable response to trauma, but it is not the whole story.
- The evolutionary biology discussion is a step above typical red pill discussion, or at a similar level… it’s about learning long-term patterns of attraction, behavior, and incentives for men and women. It’s about field reports and testing the theory in real life.
- A step above that is applying patterns to individual cultures and situations, as well as dating situations.
- A step above that is seeing women as members of a group but also evaluating them as individuals: we are both at once. Not all women are alike, though one can see patterns.
- A step to the side of this relates to things like having FMF threesomes, and that sort of thing. Things that are way off most guys’s radar, because most guys don’t get past the beginner issues. A top guy who understands women and understands the stages of intimacy from meeting a woman to a lifetime with a woman can develop a level of mastery few men ever achieve. And, to be fair, a lot of men are content with one woman, and a family.
- Another step to the side of this is consensual non-monogamy, group sex, and the related things I’ve trafficked in. These things aren’t for everyone.
Other thoughts
Non-monogamy, for me, usually slots between “repeat sex” and “Where is this going?” You can put sex clubs in that zone as well, although sometimes “where is this going?” will appear earlier, in dates/seduction. If a woman says she is not looking for anything serious, thinks monogamy is silly, likes experimenting with drugs, likes music festivals, has an avoidant attachment style, cannot become deeply psychologically intimate with another person, etc., then she’s likely a party girl and an especially good candidate for sexual exploration. A woman who is looking for something serious, wants to have a family, is close with her family, etc., is not as good a candidate. Experienced guys also learn that sometimes a woman one from one category can be trained to be in another, but more often than not it’s better to work with a woman’s native disposition, rather than against it.
Consciousness of the other person’s world(s) might be another, and one I have been talking about lately, maybe because I find myself thinking about ways out of the game… I am not going to be able to get top girls forever and I don’t think I want the rest of my life to be about chasing tail.
Some men don’t like spending time with women (Krauser seems to be like this) and that impedes relationship/emotion formation. I’m not saying that men automatically have to want relationships or emotional connection but I am noting it. Guys who are “Dark Triad” (narcissistic, machiavellian, and sociopathic) aren’t going to be able to form deeper relationships with women, any more than a brick is going to be able to swim.
Other levels could be devised, and I don’t claim this to be exhaustive… some levels could be collapsed or expanded. “Theory” and “practice,” for example, are common divisions, and those are fine too. Some keyboard jockeys spam repeat red pill platitudes rather than telling stories from their own lives… I push many guys towards writing blogs because I want to read their stories and a large body of writing is often a good way to do a first pass as to whether they’re likely full of shit or not. Plus, the red pill and seduction discussions aren’t happening in the wider culture, so what can we do to ameliorate that problem? Have them ourselves. Be the change that needs to happen in the world.
Another point around levels is 1. underlying value, 2. game/conveying value and 3. environment. Many guys attracted to red pill and seduction have low value and must raise their value (thus that conversation is happening). Without higher underlying value they will most often image match. A male 5 will find a female 3 – 5. Many guys can raise their value a lot through the standard red pill advice… if it is executed properly. Just like a lot of women can raise their value when they quit sugar, be less bitchy, etc.
A guy with pretty low value who tries to learn “game” is likely to be disappointed… and he is going to have a lot of corrosive interactions with women. Then he is going to sign up at the usual sites and complain about how mean women are, not realizing that he’s seeing his own value reflected back at him. If he is a 5 chasing 7s he is going to have a rough time. If he is a 5 who can raise his value to a 7 the game is still challenging but he will be much more in the game and much less likely to take to Internet fora to write about how women are super duper bad.
Neither men nor women are bad, on average…. there are bad individuals in each group…. if you think half the planet is universally bad… that tells us about you, not about women, or men.
Male value is more malleable than female value and men are more inclined to date up AND down in age range. The “bitter older woman asking where the good men are” genre occurs almost exclusively after age 30 and most often after age 35, when top guys in that age range are dating women in their 20s, or have already married and have families. Stories by women about how bad men are, are almost always stories about how a woman is disappointed that a man who is +2 SMV compared to her doesn’t want to be monogamous with her.
This genre about the “good men” deficit exists because women are surprised that their SMV goes down and the guys they could get easily at age 25 are now passing on them or choosing easy sex without commitment. Delusional women think that men primarily desire social status / wealth / confidence / education etc., so women will cultivate those virtues in themselves, only to find men are not totally indifferent to those things, but are not primarily moved by them. I mean, I’d love to have women in my life who make more money than me and are also hot and also want to lavish me with sexual attention, etc., but that is not a typical outcome. Most people see their incomes rise throughout their early lives and incomes tend to peak around age 50, and in the 45 – 60 range. I don’t believe I’ve ever had sex with a woman that old and my interest in it is nonexistent, though maybe one day I will (I won’t be able to get anyone else!) and, for most women, by the time they generate the highest incomes, they are not in my target priority pool. I understand why guys who are uncertain of their value and who don’t bring much are worried about higher-earning women but to be honest if you’re working on value in other fields you should be all right. Half of doctors and a lot of other people in the medical professions are now women and not all of them are unattractive.
“More malleable” status still requires putting in the work, which most guys can’t or won’t. Many guys are also building from shitty foundations, so the foundations must be torn up and rebuilt, and that’s hard. In some ways I have been building value since I was a child… and reaping it throughout my adult life. Many guys also don’t see the higher levels of game, which can get a bit “hippie” like when it comes to raising consciousness, helping others build their value, etc.
For example, there is the endless Internet talk of the “nice” guy. Women like men who are kind… but not men who are weak supplicants hoping to f**k based on being “nice.” Women do like hot, high-status guys who are also kind, not based on trying to get sex, but based on genuine non-reciprocity and conscious decision-making… from a position of strength. I am not a nice guy… I have slept with women who now hate me… I have fired people who needed the job but were bad at it… I have broken rules… I have slept with married women… but I have also been kind, at times. I have given value without getting anything in return. I have helped people, including strangers. I have gone the extra distance. I have played with small children in front of attractive women (I have a fun and favorite story about this subject). By the time I was 20 or 21, however, I had figured out that being “nice” to women is a turn off and demonstration of lower value (DLV) that moves me away from f**king her, not towards f**king her, so I quit doing that.
Do women like “nice” guys? It depends. Definitely not niceguys, one word, but do they like a guy who they see as having high SMV, who is maybe a little mysterious in some ways, doing something nice for someone else, without any expectation of things in return? Probably. But they also like funny guys… most humor has an edge… if you don’t have an edge, you won’t be that funny. I have made mean comments… told mean jokes… I will again too.
I am getting off topic, but I am overall in favor of Rollo, Reddit’s Red Pill and seduction, etc., even when some guys aren’t, because they aid the average or low level guy in rising above his most basic level. They clear away a lot of bullshit mystification and set guys up to reach the higher end of their abilities. So that is a net win in my view, even if Rollo and red pill guys tend to cluster at the lower level of the ladders, and I want mostly to talk about the middle and upper end of the ladders… there is a lot of good material on developing underlying game and value in Krauser, in the book Mate, in other places, so I don’t have anything unique to add there. Game can be thought of a little bit like chess in that for good players the first 5 – 10 moves are memorized calls and responses and gamed out… the interesting stuff happens midgame.
But… to go back to the open forums and some blogs… some of these places focus too much on resentment, and how women are bad (they’re not, in most cases, unless men let them be bad…. women are mostly self-interested), how feminism is bad (modern feminism is bad, I agree, and I’m glad someone wants to fight that fight, but I don’t), etc. These places rarely have any talk about how to get guys from the medium level into the higher levels. I doubt most guys who get to the higher levels spend time in these places. The places with voting, tend to have strong crab-bucket mentality, in which low-level guys downvote anything that they can’t perceive, because it’s too high level for them to understand or get. Many of them are in the “anger” phase when they realize they’ve been lied to for much of their lives and that they would have been better off lifting heavy weights in high school than “being themselves,” soulfully waiting for some flighty teen girl to notice them, but she didn’t, cause she was off f**king a wrestler.
Without knowing where a guy is… it’s hard to address his needs, beliefs, etc. I have spent time at the lower parts of this ladder, with lots of limiting beliefs, etc., that meant I didn’t perform where I should have performed. That said I have not had some of the physical, intellectual, and social problems that some guys describe. I have not married the wrong woman and then suffered divorce-rape. I have not had some of the extremely bitter and caustic experiences some guys have, which damages their psychologies. I have had plenty of negative experiences with women, but none of the truly awful ones. Some of that has been luck and I don’t deny luck’s role. I have had a lot of luck! Given my love of raw dogging… a lot, lot of luck. Some of it though has been a decent amount of work building and protecting value. I also had a pretty early sense of reciprocity and value exchange… so if a woman was trying to take value without offering any in return, I was (somewhat) good at protecting myself from that. Not perfectly because in my teens and early 20s I was scared of top girls lavished a lot of attraction-killing retention, followed them around like a puppy, listened to their stories about the guys they really liked or were fucking, etc. I needed eye-contact work and escalation work. But I was never as low as some guys are/were, and I had some things going for me.
The bottom-level discussion online has clarified things for me, taught me things, made vague ideas concrete. I don’t scorn that level of discussion. Many guys need it. The absence of top-level discussion is revealing… it tells us about the state of the masses. That’s why I began writing the blog… I realized that in other venues, almost no guys faced the “where is this going?” conversation, and wouldn’t understand the dilemmas faced by guys who get it regularly. I realized that the high-level discussion of sex clubs for players would have no role. Most often the response would be “cuck lol.” For a guy who struggles to get and maintain one woman… who is worried about losing her… who is unsure about his own status… this response makes a lot of sense. I get where he’s coming from. He’s playing a risky game with rewards he can’t perceive. For a guy who struggles with liking women and wanting to maintain them while also achieving sexual novelty… this strategy can make sense. Where a guy is will condition his response.
There’s also nothing wrong with being a beginner… almost all of us start there… but most guys never seem to get past the most beginner of beginning stage.
It’s perfectly normal of course for a guy to be high level and not like what I’m doing. But a guy who is at the lower levels… he can probably barely understand what I’m doing, or the problems I’m familiar with facing.
In real life I meet plenty of guys who never get past the lowest levels. They’ve had one or a very few girlfriends they got by luck and circumstance. They don’t understand women. Maybe they got married and now their marriage is stale and they don’t understand why. Their wife or girlfriend isn’t intersted in sex with them. They stay together “for the sake of the kids” without understanding what is wrong. They “got lucky” with her. They say, “She’s the boss” (words that have never passed my lips and never will). They tolerate bad behavior because they think they have to. Plenty of guys never get past these levels… and they can still get a woman of some kind, have kids eventually, pass on their genes, etc., but the sense of mystery and frustration never ends. It troubles them when they are watching sports or playing video games… then their team does the thing, or their video game makes a fake fitness demand on them, and the trouble vanishes, cause the team just did the thing or the video game requires a move.
The red pill and seduction communities exist to boost these guys. Plenty of them will accept the boost… but not that many will go all the way… I am interested in the ones who want to go all the way, who want to play the game but also understand the game, who want to seduce women but also improve the women who are open to being improved and worth of being improved, the ones who want to master the game so they can move past the game.
I don’t submit myself as one who has surpassed the game or one who is at the highest levels… I can see the higher levels, I believe. Chances are I can never reach most guys cause most guys are at the lower levels or if they aren’t they will never find this. I can keep trying to do a little better, though.
The Red Quest 