I was reading Vox this morning and came across the following:
“Not much” is the correct description of any male activity that ranges from “I spent the evening rearranging my collection of Intellivision cartridges in order of release” to “I spent the evening snorting coke and banging a pair of Victoria’s Secret models”. Remember, women are solipsistic. They don’t actually care what you do, except insofar as it relates to them.”
This is a good example of what I mean when I talk about the building blocks of game having some shining gems among them. Knowing that what is written there is true and applying it to one’s own though process is indeed valuable. If men think this through, what it means and what it could possibly mean in their own lives I assert that most will have an Ah Ha moment where they realize that precisely this dynamic has played out, and that they have been doing the wrong thing.
The only place “not much” will need to be augmented is when the topic is not “whatcha doin?”, but “whatcha thinkin’, feelin’?” That is a separate topic.
There is broad application of the concept represented in the quote. Let’s say the man in the article had anger problems, or an addiction. If he genuinely had one of those issues and he genuinely begins to address it, he likely will go overboard in an effort to show, not tell, attempting to prove empirically that he is making progress, that they want to make progress, and lookee here sweety how good I’m doing and how much better I am getting. This will fall on deaf ears at best, and perhaps even annoy his GF at worst. Its a puppy face after pooping on the rug.
The point here is that the applicability of concepts that, when aggregated, are overly defined as the system known as game, require risk taking. Cliche, if you love it set it free, so forth, like that. This IS valuable information for the Christian married man. But i contend it is not part of some ethereal thing that must be constantly defined.
if half the energy spent selling game was expended explaining little nuggets like this one the transformation that game gurus speak of for men, and Christian game adherents speak of for men in the church could more easily take hold. It should be painfully evident selling a game religion to Christians is of limited utility. Selling the game of risk, however, may yield individual and collective results.
Empathologism 
It’s kind of like my toolbox analogy. You know how some Christians literally have read nothing but the Bible, believing somehow that this creates spiritual strength and stronger faith. Thus they have read nothing of history, science, or the study of anything else–deliberately–and the result can be a pile of ignorance because they have put all their eggs in one basket.
I can’t help but notice in most of these discussions among pickup artists or Gamesters that there’s little talk of how to deal with women when more is at stake than getting laid or getting along as a couple–say when it comes to dealing with the rest of the family. Or even worse, the kids. Let’s face it, women can always leave. The state will back them after all. Others will assume that they were justified if they are remotely clever about it. You’ll now and then have people think “but he was the perfect husband” but for the most part what I see is that people assume that the guy was a jerk. What irritates me about this is that you have the evidence of history–periods of time where men were definitely top dog over women where women still cheated, left their husbands for the gardener, hugely and dangerously manipulated him. The notion that these men were ‘not Alpha’ is ridiculous. Why did there need to be such strict laws against adultery in ancient times if women didn’t act against their marriages and male-female relationships of their own free will? Rare occurrences rarely require laws that get such copy.
Personally I see all these theories as an idea home improvement shop. All the tools are good for what they were made for, I pick and choose.
The degree of sophistry grows….
Unbelievable really the lengths to which it is carried, all so that it can be treated as self evident. It is the perfect example of sophistry, and like my post A New Game pointed out by comparing it to other similar phenomena, men are particularly prone, myself included, to falling for this if it is something we are made to feel special by seeing the cloths on the naked emperor.
You raise an extra point here that is absolutely crucial in game theory apologetics and its converse. There is no assurance that game is going to work to sustain a marriage. It may, it may not. Whats going to endanger the alpha?
Bigger alpha!
And there is always a bigger alpha. Then there is time and complacency, no matter how solid the game, its your face doing it, so, it can get boring.
This is just another reason why as Christian men talking about marriage, as you say here, tools in the box. Sometimes its best to use an open wrench, other times a closed one, and other times a socket. These are tools, very similar in overt function, different in specific reasons to use.
I know people in marriages where they guy is almost painful to watch he is so beta, we all know these, and yet it works. he doesnt have a wife running shod over him and they are wrapped up in each other. This doesnt sell beta-hood, it sells the idea that I dislike on other topics, that there are individual exceptions.
I’m the first to say exceptions do not disprove rules. In the case of game in Christian marriage I see the exceptions large enough to be mentioned.
It leaves us w/ the unavoidable conclusion that Game has efficacy for PUA’s, maybe, maybe its a numbers thing based on confidence and no hurt from rejection….anyway I dont care really.
But for the married Christian, the illustration in this post above, the shit test, understanding hypergamy (more below) and a couple other things are majorly helpful.
Even hypergamy is in my opinion applied with a broad brush to a fault. That all women are hypergamous may or may not be true. The degree to which they are, and then that coupled with the degree they have it affect them will vary. This does not diminish in any way the benefit of understanding it, but calling it part of game is specious as that is an observation, not a system.
You bet gaming is not going to lock down a woman. The woman was once locked down by the law and the culture regarding divorce. Game techniques may help keep the peace
I read that article too. Seems to me to miss the point of what Dalrock and Cane are trying to talk about. I don’t agree with them 100% either, but frankly as we have been saying–toolbox. I don’t need to have some other guy tell me how to run 100% of my life, and I don’t suspect the rest of us do either.
Game is frankly a really good tool–for what it accomplishes. But as with any tool, what it provides you with is a certain level of freedom. Just as a socket wrench is a better tool for some tasks than your bare hands, it’s the same with Game than what many of us have been deceived into believing is true. Anything that encourages us to make our own intelligent choices is generally good. But at the end of the day we cannot truly control, generally, what women will do, and cannot truly inform their moral choices beyond making them as clear as we can. We can only control our own choices fully and completely. Beyond that we can merely influence.
Another concern I have about it is this: surely women are actually capable of choice? Women are clearly capable of choosing whether or not to exercise, overeat, have children, go to school, etc. It strikes me that in some areas Game/Pickup avoids doing the very thing that the Church is generally avoiding–telling women when their behaviour is wrong. It is an interesting form of shaming that goes on that discourages men from doing this very thing–it’s called whining, sour grapes, weakness, you name it–and yet women are either our equals or they aren’t. If they are our equals, then we have just as much right to point out moral failure in women as we do with men. So on another level I think that Game avoids doing this, assumes that in fact women are impossible to teach morality to.
I disagree with this idea. I think that the problem is that the general cultural approach desperately seeks to avoid ever telling women off when they’re in the wrong. A woman pretty much has to murder her children to be considered in the wrong it seems. Even in Game–it’s the man’s fault if the relationship ain’t good. No. Women are capable of being entirely and awfully wrong.
Question….why do you think men get so caught up in this then, meaning the over selling, over defining, over reliance on game?
What is so appealing? Am I correct about the need to feel special? Can it be (partly) that simple? Is it intellectual peacocking to some degree? (all of this is to some degree, I get that)
In a way is it not cyber gaming everyone?
It’s something people in general do when things seem complicated. For example you see it in those evangelical Christians who only read what they buy in Christian book stores. or those liberals who’d never read a conservative newspaper. Because when you pursue an ideology you are often looking for a recipe for victory.
You dont see that sense of belonging having an effect? I say this because many of the men doing this are quite clever men, smart, very smart. They are not afraid of other views and in fact they are the types that would like reading other views. It has to be some other thing with some of the married Christian game sellers IMO
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