What does a young man born and raised in fog and chaos do?

This series of posts has been an attempt to find a way of talking about people’s behaviour without falling into gender stereotypes: “women do this, men do that”. Doing that involves some stylistic changes: use quantifiers like “most” and “some” instead of implicitly talking about “all”; give a swift nod towards the good before describing the bad in detail; talk about men, but not explicitly about women; talk about “people” rather than genders.

I can say most of the things Rollo Tomassi says, but without his generalisations and underlying assumption that there is an underlying Nature of Women That Is Just Different And Not In A Good Way. I see it as all part of a human condition that applies to and affects men as well as women.

Certain kinds of women do this, certain kinds of women do that. Sweeping generalisations do not help. We need to know what kind of flaws and chaos we are dealing with. If all women are like that, there is no point filtering. Rather, while all women have something wrong with them, they don’t all have the same things wrong with them, and it matters exactly what is wrong. Same thing for men, as well.

Throughout this series I have rejected dozens of generalisations and snarky comments about women and men, as well as whole paragraphs of theory about marriage, the effect of the development of digital-based cultures, and other such good stuff. I did that because I was rationalising my own behaviour and thoughts. And I of all people should not do that. Because I’m an alcoholic / addict / ACoA. I have a short attention-span, do things because it gives me a high, or am driven by a vanity only another formerly-pretty person would understand why I hold on to. (I do a damn good impersonation of a normal person. I pay my taxes and due bills, I wash and iron my clothes, I have a job and I even have a garden shed and a lawn. But get close and you will feel the self-centredness and dis-ease, the constant need for distraction and new. One day at a time I can do many things for many years, including staying sober, and one-day-at-a-time I might even hold down a relationship for many years, but that’s not what she wants.)

I started with the idea that everyone is flawed, and those flaws will turn into life-changing cracks. Everyone will mess up the lives of those around them: sometimes from malice or irresponsibility, and sometimes from sheer bad genetic luck. There are no right decisions for the long-term: the world will change in such a way that everyone will regret a choice made five or twenty or forty years ago. All we can do is cut our losses and change in response.

The idea that floated up while I was writing this stuff was the Marketing 101 thing. Women don’t want men, they want what men can do for them. And men don’t want women, they want what women can do for them. This has been behind all inter-gender behaviour since people started to notice that there was a difference. What is new, is that men and women now have the resources to do without each other, and that a fair chunk of them seem quite prepared to do so. What makes it hurt is that these MGTOWs and WGTOWs are reasonably high quality - who would care if they were only weirdos and un-dateables?

But they aren’t locked into it. If someone comes along who does what she needs doing, she may just team up with him. (The other way round is a movie fantasy involving Manic Pixie Dream Girls, so it isn’t going to happen.) Hence the need for self-improvement and Game: one of the things those career girls want is some fun and diversion. They are still women, and they still want attention, fun, diversion and fuss from non-creepy men.

What does a young man born and raised in fog and chaos do? There is no right answer. If there was, it would not be chaos and there would be no fog. Any given sequence of decisions might lead to bliss and fortune for one person, and horrors and poverty for another. Some are pretty slanted one way or another: becoming a junkie is pretty much going to wreck your life, but I’ve met some reasonably successful recovered addict-alcoholics.

He must filter potential long-term partners for psychiatric disorders and undesirable personality traits. I say nothing about children because I don’t approve of irreversible decisions. That aside, there is no decision that ensures the long-term, only decisions that can make the near-term a reasonable bet. Get into the gym, become familiar with the rich culture of our age, learn Game and don’t live in a distant suburb. Do what you want, have a way out and always be prepared to change.