We’re definitely gonna need @EmilyQ too. 
Obviously.
@SkyzykS you warm my heart.
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This hits really hard
I got into a lot of trouble throughout elementary and middle school, but my parents were ALWAYS behind me, even if my mum could be very harsh at home. Had I not had the support, I’d probably be in a very bad place right now.
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Lack of parental guidance and support is as sure fire a way to get there as any could be.
I consider it my job, first and foremost to provide my son with the care and guidance he needs to become a respectable man.
I’m sure you’re a very respectable woman too. Becoming quite accomplished and already very kind.
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I’m gonna have something extra for you in the food porn thread too. It will be done in about 20 min. 
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Tortured/hurt people torture/hurt people. I can recognize that people who have hurt me are doing the best with the tools that they have - but I don’t have to subject myself to their abuse.
Biggest win for me was recognizing that expectations were frozen resentments waiting to thaw out (nod to @SkyzykS ). Realizing that, at the end of time, all debts will be paid. Also, realizing that no one is coming to save me.
A lot of life lessons in this thread - appreciate the shares.
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He’ll never see a majestic 4 inch Royal Toe !
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You definitely know how to break the tension man! 
Or my sons!
Without all of the fuckery, his mothers good looks, and my superior toe gene, that kid will rule the world!
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The age of the Morton Toe is upon us… LOTR type stuff
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I didn’t get back to this as intended. I dislike most manospherian and men’s content generally. I have mentioned which authors have had great impacts on me, and they certainly do not fit the Red Pill fantasy of sexual gaming and pseudo-harems. There is a nauseating analysis of female attraction and quest for sexual gaming in it, which I don’t care that much about, though I have mentioned in this thread what women are generally attracted to. All of this, while whining about female anti-social behavior (“her body count is too high”) and single mothers (people the Red Pillers and MGTOWs cannot stop whining about online) and at the same time pushing for male sexual hedonism (which creates single mothers), something I’ve engaged in to what I think is a small degree in the past compared to other men (that doesn’t get me off the hook though).
As I’ve said, I think the RP nails down the fundamentals of a sexually unregulated, broken society, which, in the early 90s I sort of was coming to understand, before I logged onto the internet. I think by the late 90s I started coming to a solid understanding just by observation, before the RP was around.
The fundamentals, some of which I’ve mentioned are such terms:
- Monkey branching, or the lesser used term rotating polyandry.
- Sexual designations of men: alpha (men women want to screw), beta (men women want to marry), and omega (invisible men). This lines up with that game Screw, Marry, Kill, though it’s not just a game, and the congruent term “alpha f–, beta bucks”.
- Your not hers, it’s just your turn (congruent with 1 here).
- Just be first.
- Alpha widow.
Even though these are true phenomenons, many RP clowns want to perpetuate this circus, and see all of this as reflections of “true” female nature," as if it’s all historical, rather than products of a hedonistic, broken society obsessed with sex and hotness and entertainment and a warped view on marriage. If they are so into history, as if all that is historical is good, they’d mention that “dating” (sexual gaming as it stands now) is only about, say 100 years old.
Something that I think is very unhealthy is “spinning plates,” having a group of potential partners or crushes on standby as an insurance policy in case a woman leaves. This is a very desperate, needy way of going about life, I believe. As if a man is going to die without a woman for even one measly day of life. How about just grieving and moving on with life?
This is a huge compliment as I didn’t know I can even have a positive influence on older people who have done more of life than I have, raising four children included (I only have two, and perhaps could have had three or four if I didn’t have my head up my ass for some of my life and had better influences, I believe). So thank you!
Regarding morality, those who scoff at it (eg, “Heehee, morality is relative; I don’t tell others what to do, and they can’t tell me what to do”) are edgelords, who as I said, would be begging for others to be moral if they were, let’s say, on the wrong side of a gun or in any position in which others were seeking to do harm to them. I was thinking of some day making a thread on morality in Off Topics concerning the notion, “You can’t enforce morality,” even though we do it in our society every single day (eg, courts, prisons, fines, firings, etc).
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I don’t even think they need a gun pointed at them! I think the tardy expect the prompt to arrive early so the tardy needn’t wait once they grace you with their presence. Cheaters are always, IME, the first to worry about others cheating on them, people who parent with low engagement want the more loving people to pick up the slack, etc. Rude, self-centered people rely on the more polite to keep interactions from getting unpleasant. Hypocrisy is rampant for people who are me-first, and the manosphere is a great example. (Edit: so are the women on the other side, the man-blamers.)
So your influence…I know you don’t like to think about this, but I don’t in any way mean to accuse or make you feel badly about it. Just the opposite, in fact, because I SO admire efforts to change. I remember very vividly you offering to throw down with me (“come to Queens and say that”), and the conversations that prompted that level of frustration with me on your part. And then you left for some time and came back with a slightly altered name and a very different perspective (you’d met your wife by then and maybe had one of your kids).
So the influence is mostly just a greater awareness of men’s issues, starting with your own many years ago. And the changes you’ve made have just reinforced for me the value of your experience. I read these boards because I’m curious, not because I’m combative (though as everyone knows, every blue moon or so I can be combative, very). Your years-ago conversations with @angry_chicken are information I’ve moved forward with, though I disagreed with you at the time, of course. And still do! Those conversations, even the ones I never participated in, are part of me now along with all the books I’ve read and the women’s issues conversations I’ve observed or participated in. The changes in you (and angry chicken) are also fodder for me when working with men and dealing with my three sons. We’re not the same, women and men, and I value openness to differences. As a kid I loved reading “boys books” because I want (need) to know what everyone is thinking, and why. I plowed through Tom Clancy’s books once upon a time because they’re men-candy.
You, in particular, have opened your head and let us see inside. And I thank you! Because it has broadened my perspective. When I argue, or just read things, I’m weighing the information against your shared experience, and @SkyzykS and all the rest of the men I believe to be people of good will, again, whether I agree or not. Your growth grows me (iron sharpens iron).
@angry_chicken, speaking of, was very kind to me when I was moving into the dating world post-divorce. Supportive of me knowing my value along with answering sex and dating questions over DM.
I needed to learn things, and TN has been my classroom. My formal education was very feminized in terms of perspective and cultural goals, as you know. My work with boys and men has been vastly benefitted by the classes I’ve taken here. And I suppose with women, as well, because they’re very often struggling with men, and I can mediate, to some extent, without the man having to be there. The conversations and jokes here about housework and etc allow me to be more than I would have been without the deep exposure to the thoughts of men like you.
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Back when I was first getting sober I was feeling a lot of loss and regret over time wasted. The overarching response was “Share it. Use it to relate to others. Thats what makes it useful.”.
That has held true for a long time. I’m always glad to share what ever I have with you. I’m pretty sure you’ll use it for good and not evil. 
.
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I’m very self-disclosing at work for the same reason. We’re all ridiculous! We’re all riddled with shame. But it doesn’t have to define us.
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I have seriously had to deal with this sentiment in the past few years, especially to not let it ruin satisfaction for my future years.
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And the present. Its hard to accept the present if you regret the past or see it as a waste.
My therapist is too, to the extent that she can be. Sometimes we’re of the same mind on a variety of subjects, others are more like “Well, we should talk about that then…”.
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Correct. It actually got so bad that a song played which reminded me of a certain time in my life ruined my whole evening when I was out. Just sadness, regret, and guilt came over me as I drove home. That’s when I knew I had to stop mulling over the past.
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For me Its a challenge. The challenge is “Make it useful”. An exercise in optimism.
There’s a thing in AA called The Promises. More specifically The 9th Step promises. I’ve always liked them because I believe in staying focused on the goal rather than the obstacle. No doubt, obstacles come up, or exist on a consistent reoccuring basis. But its a nice reminder that keeps the age old “Whats it all for, anyways?” at bay. That can be a fatal question for an alcoholic/addict or others that may default to a pessemistic mindset.
I’ve included them because they can be a good reminder, and also a little tune up. Like a checklist. If there’s something there that isn’t ringing true, I need to ask why. Am I overlooking something? Am I experiencing a demonstrable lack of gratitude?
The part that spurred me on early, and I referred to in the previous post was “We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it.”.
I still feel sadness over certain things like losing my girlfriend in high school. I couldn’t listen to jimi hendrix for a rreally long time, and still get some painfull pangs of sadness and loss. But they aren’t a game ender for me like they can be for others. Its more like a check in on the old 17-18 year old me that was there when it happened vs. something that is happening or that can affect my life now.
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Just as an aside I find this whole concept and double standard (men generating the demand or the situation for the activity that they hate the women for) kind of funny (not in the HaHa kind of way), and the men online who engage in it general seem to be completely un-self aware about it.
Perhaps an obvious one is pornography. Say what you want about it, but the fact remains that the only reason it exists is because men are partaking in it at scale. And no one hates a porn star more than a guy who watches porn from what I’ve seen online. The vitriol those women get is honestly quite shocking, they are basically thought of as subhuman gutter trash who deserve all the hatred, venom, and misfortune that comes their way because they did a thing that the men generated the market for and paid them to do in one way or another.
As you mentioned with single mothers… One of the main reasons they exist is because some shit bird knocked her up and split. But the manosphere completely lets the shit bird off the hook (or is actively handing out high 5’s for getting his dick wet) while simultaneously saying the women is now completely worthless and low value (because of the actions of the guy). She could have been down to be the epitome of what every one would describe as the perfect wife, but if dude decides to leave that plummets her stock through no fault of her own
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I’ve noticed in that crowd a disdain for women’s sexual leverage, including their ability to rake in huge sums of money from pornography. There is persistent complaining about “5’s thinking they’re 10’s” because ordinary women have more sexual options than the average man. They say, “she thinks she’s a 10 because she can attract a Chad for sex but not for commitment. Then when time runs out and she gets baby rabies, she’s gonna settle for a beta bucks deluxe,” or, “These women on dating apps who are 5’s think they’re all that and are shooting for 10’s.” This is true in many cases, as I’ve seen in real life, and is congruent with what I wrote previously about the screw, marry, and kill categories. I also know of some cases of women cheating on their husbands or “boyfriends” with alphas (and again, I am only using this term for sexually-attractive men). But again, despite truth to this sexual leverage, their complaing shows their contempt for it, instead of just accepting it. The fact is that ordinary women can attract good looking and high status men. And like you said, porn is so lucrative because men consume lots of it. And I don’t know if there is validity for the notion that the consumption is so high because there is a large amount of womanless men these days as I suspect many married men consume it.
Yes, you’re right again. You’ll also see in this content endless bitching and moaning about how bad women are while at the same time exhorting men to get them and figuring out ways to crack female psychology to get them. Why would people associate with those they can’t stand? They also refer to women who’ve had sex as “recreational use,” which I consider disgusting and dehumanizing. I don’t know how with a straight face people can expect “low body counts” while racking up body counts.
This is true. And this behavior, as I understand it, was kept in check in the past by the expectation that there would be promise of comittment from men by way of marriage (inb4 “but people were still screwing before marriage,” which I’m aware of ). We can see what happened after women gave up this leverage, what we are discussing now.
Yes, that is true. However, what I’ve sometimes clashed with others in these discussions about sex, is the vetting of male prospects. There is no way people can know all the future actions of men, particularly ones tat being deceptive. I can’t. And no one deserves mistreatment, even if they are bad judges of character. But I am surprised by lack of psychological and social acuity. Perhaps we overestimate our abilities, but my uncle and I can assess people very quickly, because of the wide variety of people we’ve come across. I do not know why many women cannot see things coming that we can see from a mile away. I’ve heard stuff like, “he was not like this in the beginning,” which is likely true in some or many cases. But I can tell what someone is like quickly from body language, style, facial expressions, gait, tone of voice, what he says or focuses on. Could I be wrong off in some cases? Yes. I think one or days of spending time with a daughter’s prospect is enough, without requiring any weird interviewing at all, just regular interaction. Perhaps @BethB and @EmilyQ can chime in on this as they are the women here who regularly comment on such matters.
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Just to focus on this part here because it really speaks to the broader point we are both making… Lots of these guys view women as bangable property essentially. They want the “recreational use” girls out to use recreationally, but basically hate the girls who do it and think they are contemptable people deserving of hatred based solely on that aspect of their life.
Similar sentiment here. They view women as this computer program with the “Female Nature” software running and all you have to do is use inputs XYZ and unlock the program to have it do what you want.
And while im not saying there isnt actually some truth to that, the same way men are running the “male nature” software program and will respond to certain things, they reduce mostly all women down to a string of inputs and outputs and use that type of rhetoric to dehumanize them as you mentioned above
I know all these terms are a bit fluid and you appear to be using them a slightly different way than the gen pop does, but do you consider yourself a beta male because you got married?