Confidence

Friend, high status male, or outsider: every man must choose one of three romantic strategies to follow. The choice he makes determines the game he runs and the girls he gets.

As I read the fascinating book The Mating Mind by Geoffrey Miller, I continue to have nice highlights and wonderful little insights.

(previous installment: “Males of Every Species Must Learn Game to Mate”)

My latest highlight comes from this passage by Miller, discussing scientific research into primate (including human) mate selection preferences:

Three kinds of female preference have been reported in primates: preferences for high-ranking males capable of protecting females and offspring from other males; preferences for male “friends” that have groomed the female a lot and have been kind to her offspring; and preferences for new males from outside the group, perhaps to avoid genetic inbreeding.

And it’s a good insight and lets us split up the three different types of men women go for and the different ways they get together with those men. We have of course:

• High status “alpha male” type partners

• Kindly “friend zone” type partners

• Outsider “sigma male” type partners

Anyone advising any man on dating will have his preferences about which of these romantic strategies he recommends as the ideal path to follow… but it will always be one of these three.

Today I’d like to have a balanced look at the differences between these three kinds of men a woman will date.

Your luck surface area is the amount you expose of yourself for “lucky events” to happen. Men who open themselves up to more seductive luck enjoy more seductive “lucky breaks.”

Luck plays a role in everything. In seduction, your passive attractiveness (fundamentals) and skill with women and the mating process (game) have a huge impact on your success.

Nevertheless, there is still always going to be luck involved: you have to stumble into a girl you like, she has to be at least somewhat open to having something happening with you, she must be logistically available to have something happen, and you need to avoid any seduction-killing wild cards (and if you’re fortunate, luck into some seduction-enhancing ones).

There are all manner of things that impact your “ability to be lucky”:

• Perhaps your favorite venue just shut down for repairs (luck = lowered)

• Perhaps a friend texts to invite you to a wild, girl-filled after party (luck = raised)

• Perhaps your wingman’s out of town and you’re not good at solo (luck = lowered)

• Perhaps you get off at the wrong metro station and discover this one crawls with good-looking women (luck = raised)

But you don’t really have control over random events like this… right?

As a matter of fact, there’s a neat concept known as “luck surface area” that you may or may not have heard of.

This concept is simple: one can increase one’s luck by increasing the ‘surface area’ one exposes for fortunate events to occur.

If that sounds abstract, worry not, for we’re going to make it a lot more concrete.

More and more blockbusters feature “deconstruction” of established strong characters. This isn’t a good thing – it is harmful for viewers uncritically absorbing this nonsense.

I’ve recently found myself watching fewer and fewer recent movies.

We discussed it on the forum a while back. I mentioned in that thread that:

The way I think of it is most modern movies are being made for someone other than me.

I don't know exactly whom their target audience is, but it's definitely not a guy like me.

Many modern film themes are increasingly puerile. Their cultural revolutionary elements are stifling, jammed into every other scene and made as blatant and jarring as possible, seemingly deliberately aimed at breaking immersion.

On top of that, they all just feel hollow.

When I watch most modern movies, I come out of it feeling like I’ve spent two hours in a brainwashing chamber, and the only way to get un-brainwashed is to watch an old movie. Then a few days later I watch an old movie and it’s a breath of fresh air… the world makes sense again, all is as it should be, and everything returns to normal.

It isn’t every single modern movie that has this “brainwashed” effect I’ve found – it’s just a lot of them.

What, then, is the difference, between modern “brainwash” movies and non-brainwash modern movies plus older cinema?

Recently I began to really dig into the thematic differences between modern vs. older cinema, and it’s become increasingly clear what modern films are doing that, in my view, is just straight up poisonous to the healthy male’s psychology.

I’ve talked to you before about how the media influences thoughts and feelings. I’ve advised you to turn off the screens and limit the amount of time you spend on them.

Today I want to show you just what is going on beneath the surface in some of these “harmless” popcorn movies you are absorbing into your skull.

Men who don’t do well with women think worse of women. And men who think worse of women do worse with women. How do you escape this cycle and get results? By learning to really LIKE women.

Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of guys struggling with bitterness and alienation toward women trying to cold approach, only to fail.

This failure confirms and deepens their bitterness and alienation toward women. It’s sad.

People will judge you by generic metrics unless you show them what you’re about. A man who knows that about himself becomes attractive, respected, and admired.

On one of my articles, long-time reader Sub-Zero asked once more about his age-old preoccupation with old age, talking about his being a late bloomer and saying:

What would you say is a good reason a man can tell women why he is single, childless, and unmarried as an older man? I believe you said it wasn’t a good look before and I hear it all the time it looks weird, I heard women really dislike it too and say it’s a red flag. But if you’re not really interested in it or have the funds, I think it’s wise to not have those things just for society’s approval, especially if you can’t afford it. Is there anything you can say at all to make it not look bad?

SZ has been asking questions about variations of this topic for almost seven years now. Many things change in life, but if there's one guy you can count on to be consistent, it is Sub-Zero. If there is still a Girls Chase 20 years from now, I reckon you will still find Sub-Zero here, asking questions about growing older and being a late bloomer.

What I want to address here is this idea of "How do you explain yourself if you're outside the norm?"

Because that is a skill almost every man really should have... and it comes down to not "what things do you have", not even "what deeds have you accomplished", but instead rather "what are you all about."

There are three types of men: those who want status, those who want comfort, and those who want genes. Which type of woman you prefer depends on which type of man you are.

There are three (3) kinds of people in the world when it comes to mate selection:

1. Those who seek status: i.e., the flashiest, most popular mates

2. Those who seek comfort: i.e., the coziest, most companionable mates

3. Those who seek genes: i.e., the most genetically gifted, naturally elite mates

My experience in a decade-and-a-half instructing men in this space is that these preferences appear to be hardwired, whether by genetics or early life experiences. I've never known an individual to switch underlying mate selection paradigms.

The kinds of mates each type of individual is seeking and the most optimal ways to encounter them differs according to the mating paradigm. This introduces some subtle (and some not-so-subtle) differences in what styles of game each type prefers, and each type's opinions on which sorts of mates are the high watermark.

Clashes between the styles occur when a member of one or the other type insists his preferences are the best, and anyone who disagrees must be fooling himself.

Today though, we'll clear away the bullshit and look at things straight.

Charisma is a set of outward signals and behaviors, but it begins in the mind. The wrong mental focus makes you uncharismatic. Yet use the right one, and you magnetize.

We've got two (2) days remaining in the Charisma In A Bottle relaunch.

This is probably the last thing I'll write about charisma for a while, since I'm just about all charisma'd out.

However, before we put a bow on the relaunch, I want to cover this one last key tidbit about charisma:

How huge an element focus is to a man's ability to be charismatic, and just what is entailed in getting your focus dialed in just right.