The Rise Of The Beta Male
This may be a difficult post to read. But by the time you get to the end, you’ll have a much richer and deeper understanding of the current trainwreck of male-female relationships. There are a lot of moving parts, a lot of variables and a lot of blame to go around. We will attempt to take as objective a view as we can.
When we are finished, you’ll have a much better idea of what to do next, based on your own situation, and your own goals and objectives. On a meta level, the more you have awareness of your own skills, your own goals, the state of reality in which to operate, the more likely you’ll get what you want. On the other hand, if you don’t know what you want, don’t know how to get it, and are unaware of your environment, getting lucky is your best hope.
I Hope I Get Lucky
This has been the common method for most guys when it comes to finding women. Getting lucky. We only get lucky when things are out of our control, or we don’t understand the marketplace. If you were hungry, and you went shopping at the mystery mart, and the prices as well as the food were all random, getting lucky would be an appropriate metaphor for getting something to eat.
However, in the modern dating age, if you hope to “get some” and your only strategy is to “get lucky,” consider that you have a lower chance of luck than a similar man a few decades or even years ago.
Ideal Outcome
Most guys, and most girls have the same kind of strategy. To meet somebody that they click with. Somebody that they feel comfortable with. Somebody that pushes their buttons, and whose buttons they push, Somebody they can connect with. This is the outcome.
Common Strategy
The common strategy is to simply get out there and interact with people until “it” happens. Friends of friends, dating sites and apps, meet markets. The more shots you take, the more goals you’ll score. For the longest time, this has been an appropriate strategy. But recently, things have changed.
What Causes Male Attraction
Put simply, males are attracted to signs of youth. Firm breasts, slim stomach, long legs, clear skin, etc. All else equal, a man would prefer a younger woman to an older woman. The female fashion, makeup and cosmetic surgery industry centers around making women look younger than they are.
What Causes Female Attraction
Put simply, females are attracted to signs of wealth. Nice clothes, social skills, conversational skills, leadership skills. For female attraction, signs of wealth are much broader, vaguer and much more flexible than signs of youth are for male attraction.
Female Attractiveness Flexibility
It’s unlikely that a man’s feelings of attraction for any particular woman will change, unless her physical appearance changes. What causes attraction in a man is very much dependent on her physical appearance. Throughout the course of an evening, a woman’s attractiveness will remain relatively constant. Through a relationship, a woman’s attractiveness will remain relatively constant.
Male Attractiveness Flexibility
Unfortunately for men, the amount of attraction they can generate in any particular woman is much more flexible. Women’s level of attraction is based on much more fluid things like personality, social skills, leadership skills, believability, self confidence, etc.
Evolutionary Reasons
Caveman sees a hot lady and gets interested. That’s about it. The woman, on the other hand, must do a lot more screening. Consider that woman must not only judge his wealth, but his potential wealth. Imagine the average cave couple got together in their late teens. A woman’s instinctive ability to judge a man’s future ability provide resources must have been accurate.
Caveman Wealth
Ancient hunter-gatherers had to go out and kill animals. That was the only wealth that was available to them. So a woman wouldn’t be attracted to a man unless her subconscious and instinctive triggers told her that he would likely be a good future acquirer of wealth (meat).
Ancient women that were poor at choosing relatively young men that would turn into effective hunters wouldn’t have many surviving children. Ancient women that did a good job of predicting (unconsciously and instinctively) which young men would likely turn into effective hunters would have children that survived.
So Called Alpha Traits
The word alpha is kind of misnomer, when applied to human dating. It might be better to refer to these as “alpha traits.” The more alpha traits a young man had, the more likely he would be a good hunter. We can assume it was every cave girl’s desire to find a mate that had the most alpha qualities as possible.
Alpha Traits And Beauty
We can assume that men would seek, all else equal, the youngest and the most attractive females. And females would see, all else equal, the most alpha men. Or the men with the most alpha qualities.
Why Do Men Seek Youth?
It’s commonly stated that men seek youth, but it’s often not explained why. The answer is fairly simple. Young women can have more children, since they are younger, and have more child bearing years ahead of her. So men who have a genetic disposition for youth (e.g. men who like young and fertile women) will tend to pass on more of those genes, since their young mates will have more children.
Alpha Traits
Now we’re in a position to make some reasonable guesses about what these alpha traits would be in men, that would fire these female unconscious attraction triggers. The young guys most likely to blossom into successful hunters.
Ancient Human Productivity
All of our attraction triggers were calibrated when we were hunter gatherers. Humans have been physiologically and anatomically correct humans for tens of thousands of years. Yet agriculture, and the large societies that came with it, have been around for 10,000 years or less. So we can assume that all our human instincts, including our attraction triggers were calibrated during the days of hunter-gathers.
Men were hunters, and women were gatherers. The men who could get the most meat consistently were the most productive. Humans self-organize into hierarchies. The higher up a man was on the ancient hierarchy, the more alpha he was. We can assume that overall hunting skills were closely related to his alpha level.
What Constituted Hunting?
Hunting required intelligence. Planning. Leadership. When anthropologists watch modern humans who live in an ancient hunter-gatherer setting, they always hunt large game when possible. A large kill will gain social approval. But large kills can’t be accomplished by one man.
Leadership Skills
Hunting skills were tightly correlated with leadership skills. What are leadership skills? The ability to come up with a plan, and convince the rest of the men of the value of your plan, especially in the face of alternate plans. This required confidence, communication skills, (articulation, vivid descriptions, etc.), planning skills and visualization skills.
The more any man tended to demonstrate these, the more they would trigger a woman’s ancient attraction triggers. The less they demonstrated these skills, the less they would trigger them.
Water Seeks Its Own Level
Anthropologists tell us that ancient humans were more or less monogamous, but with a tendency toward polygamy when possible. So we can assume the most alpha men tended to get together with the most attractive women. However, there was (and is) plenty of evidence of cheating.
In many cases, the monogamous women would get together with the alpha of the day on the sly. This has been observed in modern societies living like ancient hunter gatherers, as well as in genetic testing in various neighborhoods. It seems that when given the opportunity, women will be have short term and very secretive affairs with men that are more alpha than her mate.
Enter Society
However, this trait of sleeping with alphas on the sly must have created tons of problems when large societies were created. During hunter-gatherer days, everybody knew everybody. So whatever problems people had were generally worked out for the good of the tribe. But once large cities were invented, this presented a problem.
Enter The Marriage Contract
Consider the idea that large societies solved the problem of these secret trysts with the establishment of a marriage contract, or law. We can think of this as a “one man – one woman” law. Plenty of passages in the Bible (referred to here only for historical significance) refer to the dangers of an unfaithful woman.
Modern Society
Something has been shifting recently, and it has been gaining speed. For the longest time, the one man-one woman rule was more or less intact. Even when it wasn’t intact (roaring twenties, etc.) the information about those non-traditional relationships didn’t spread nearly as much as information spreads today.
Media Comparison
For example, imagine living back in the 1920’s. Imagine that twenty percent of couples had one unfaithful partner. If we have the same amount of infidelity today (married or in committed relationship) today it would seem much more. Back then, there was no social media, and much larger percentage of folks were church-going types. And the feminist movement hadn’t gained much steam.
So even if you had the same percentage of people sleeping around back then, few people would have known about it. Today, it’s nearly the opposite. Every transgression is broadcast on social media, and the idea of a cheating boyfriend or girlfriend seems much more common.
Legal Differences
A hundred years ago, more marriages stayed intact because the woman had a much harder time not only getting a job, but getting any kind of alimony. There was much more financial pressure back then to keep unhappy couples together, at least from the woman’s point of view.
Modern Relationships
The last few decades have introduced several new variables. Social media, feminism, divorce laws, all of which have combined to remove all external incentives of a couple staying together. This isn’t bad or good, moral or immoral. But understanding that there are much fewer external incentives keeping less than perfectly happy couples together is necessary to formulate any relationship strategy.
Existence of External Incentives
Since the days of hunter-gatherers, to the existence of large communities, and even until recent human history (prior to the last fifty years) there has been some form of external incentives keep relationships intact. Legal and financial constraints, religious and moral constraints, pressure from extended family, all of these serve to set a relatively high level of discomfort needed to dissolve any marriage.
Lack Of External Incentives
With very little external incentives, the only remaining incentives are internal. Both parties in any relationship tend to feel that unless they are getting all of their needs met, their eyes will wander. In some cases, there will be social support to end any relationship that requires any work whatsoever.
Opportunity Costs Significant
An opportunity cost is what you give up when you choose to do something. If you’ve only got five bucks, you can only buy one item. As soon as you choose one item, you are simultaneously choosing to not have all the other items. When you are in a relationship, you are also choosing to not be in a relationship with every other person on planet Earth.
But with the never-ending feeling of popularity on social media, the amount of dating apps available, the opportunity costs (what you are not getting once you’re in a relationship) are enormous. Just checking your Facebook while on a date will present you with plenty of opportunity costs. All of the people who are following you and have liked any recent photos will make your date seem less attractive compared to what you COULD be getting.
State As Financial Provider
Due to our current Frankenstein monetary system, where governments can essential print whatever they need to pay for however they want to get votes, in many ways the state has become the male provider. Many females earn a living, but this living is ultimately connected to the government (or central bank) money-printing machines.
Much Less Need For Male Provisioning
This means that there is very little need for a traditional male “provider.” The state (in western society) has effectively usurped this traditional male role. Another reason (and legitimate justification) for women to demand continuous happiness from any man they are dating. For the modern woman, men have become much less necessary.
Collapsing Time Preference
The lower ones time preference, the greater one’s ability to delay gratification. These are both related to an individual’s lever of self-responsibility and self ownership. With a low time preference, an individual can plan ahead, delay gratification, and feel very much in control of his or her own life.
With a high time preference, an individual will have little ability to delay gratification, won’t be able to play ahead, and won’t feel very much responsibility to maintain any certain level of happiness. Those with very high time preference (and little ability to delay gratification) will tend to see it others responsibility for their happiness.
Modern Dating Playing Field
Unless you are a regular member of a close-knit religious community, the modern dating scene is not pretty. People in general are loathe to accept responsibility for their own happiness. Few people will experience any strong external incentives to maintain a relationship that isn’t satisfying them with very little effort. To the contrary, for many people, there is positive social pressure to end relationships that aren’t completely satisfactory.
Two Choices For Modern Men
If you are a modern man, it can certainly seem bleak. The days are long gone where you could meet a girl in high school or college, date for a few years, get married and start a family. Males today face a lot of potential hazards that didn’t exist before. (Women don’t have it much easier). Essentially, there are two choices.
Give Up
Many men have chosen this route. Decide not to participate. Accept your status as a beta male. Accept that your never ending sex drive must be satisfied with either masturbation or prostitution. If you’ve got a lot of money, that is a reasonable option. There are plenty of sugar baby sites where you can rent yourself a girlfriend for a time.
Sour Grapes Theory
It may seem like a reasonable idea to give up. But consider that this is structurally very similar to the sour grapes idea. The concept of devaluing that which you cannot get. If you want something, and you admit that you want it but cannot get it, this is damaging to the ego. So if you can pretend you really don’t want it anyway, it can be easier to accept. But unless you are wealthy enough to afford the best professionals (and even then it’s not nearly as satisfying) consider that giving up is not really an option.
Become More Alpha
When we say, “alpha” we mean become more in control of your life. The less you depend on others, the more you will be able to create your own life. The more you see the acquisition of a willing and happy female companion, the more this will enhance the rest of your life. This is not the same as the “behind every man is a strong woman” theory. This is much different.
Seize The Opportunity
Even if you ask out a hundred girls and get rejected by every one of them, consider what this will do to your sense of masculinity. In the short term, you may be discouraged. But if you continue any attempt to improve your results with the female population, you will be sending a very strong message to your subconscious.
Continuous Success Is Masculine Energy
The more you attempt to get your needs met, you will learn by trial and error. The more women you approach and talk to, the more data you will collect. All humans are hard-wired to continue to strive to improve ourselves. We are structurally the same as our hunter-gatherer ancestors. They continued to hunt different game, in different areas, their entire lives.
Continuous Hunter Improvement
See the quest for continued improvement with your girl-getting skills as similar to ancient hunters quest to continue to find and hunt better game with improved methods. In a sense, this is the absolute best time to be alive as a man. The dating market is wide open. It is absolutely acceptable to talk to women everywhere you go. This would have been impossible fifty years ago.
Giving Up Means Accepting Permanent Beta-Hood
If you join any popular movement which accepts a life of masturbation and prostitution, you will never improve your most valuable skills. It is easy to give up. Anybody can do that. It is difficult to continue to get in the game and trip over your feet. Few people can do that. But it is not any more difficult than getting up every day and trying to kill something to eat. Your mind body system today is identical to our ancient hunter ancestors.
If You Aren’t Hunting You Aren’t Living
Whether you believe in a godless biological evolution, or a divine creator, your male-mind-body system was built to hunt. Not to passively receive. Not to creatively come up with excuses why you aren’t in the game. You were born to be a hunter. The path forward is simple. Approach women and attempt to create attraction. This is the single thing, that if done consistently, will slowly build more alpha qualities.
More Alpha – More Money
The more socially fearless you become, the easier everything else will be. Including making a living. Sure, it’s easy to sit on the sidelines, spend all day watching YouTube videos about how hard or difficult it is to get out there and get some.
Just remember that among all the humans who have ever lived, you are descended from the ones that made the decision to get out there and get some. So get out there, and get some. It’s difficult, it’s embarrassing, it’s frustrating. But these are the very things that will rid you of the beta qualities that so many have today.
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