Unplugging

[mrRuckus]

1. Denial – “These game guys are a bunch of clowns, there’s no way this works on women. Women aren't stupid. What a bunch of misogynists.”

2. Anger – “This is ridiculous! Why should I have to jump through all these hoops for women? I just want to be myself. Why couldn’t I have been a natural alpha? I blame my parents/siblings/teachers/God/liberals/feminists/media/society”

3. Bargaining – “Well maybe it does have some good points…but, forget the hot girls, I’ll give it a try if it can help me get around the bases with a plain Jane. Do I have to wear the fuzzy hat and black nail polish?”

4. Depression – “Wow, women really respond to this puffed-up act? And guys spend big bucks on it and wind up with more ass than a toilet seat? And I just joined up for this? The world is sad and so am I…”

5. Acceptance – “Maybe this IS the way things really work. I guess I should give up the gender relations mythology I’ve been holding onto…hey, what do you think of these negs I came up with?”

6. Jaded - "Fvck learning all these rules. Sex isn't worth it and women aren't that fun anyway. The last thing I want to do is learn routines or the 5 stages of pickup. THere's too many websites, too much to read, and I can't remember it all. Who has all that time to go out and chat up women anyway? It's not like I see any women under 40 at work at my engineering job to practice on. Video games and porn are more fun and more available."

 

[jophil28]

I think that's what bugs me about it.
I actually envy the guys who have had some sort of epiphany here. Who wouldn't want an epiphany?

I just don't see what the big revelation is.

That you should be ****y funny? I'm always amazed at all the guys around me who aren't in the community who are constantly busting on girls. If you want to stand out in my neighborhood c&f is not the way to do it.

That you should use social proof and make her jealous? High school stuff.

That you shouldn't put her on a pedestal? You can get the same message from watching 40 Year Old Virgin.

That you should have self respect? Common sense.

That getting married is a risk? the divorce rate is common knowledge, as is the fact that women file for most divorces.

There are a lot of good tips here. But I'm not seeing the epiphany.

Zeek, guys of our age were raised to accept and embrace our male leadership. It went unchallenged and unquestioned and indeed, male superiority was the default social setting.
Many benefits, rewards and privileges accrued to us purely because we were males. Not so today.
As an example - I will never work for a female boss- it is encoded in my emotional DNA . However, Gen Y males have no such reluctance.

When I was in my twenties the social changes that were developing for women were a distant amusement for me. I also dodged most of them because Engineering disregarded those as girly silliness.
By the time I graduated college I had not had to deal with the "empowerment" of women with all its ramifications .
No HR departments as sops for whiny female empoyees .
Unlike young males today I NEVER feared any woman in the workplace, and respect for men(and self respect) flowed automatically.
In the business world, men made decisions and women took dictation and made the coffee. Nice arrangement.

Like you, I see a lot of what is preached here as stating the bloody obvious.
But a 27 year old who never had the 'old school' upbringing to set his masculine mindset in conrete needs to read and grasp these concepts over and over...perhaps for the first time in his life.

To us middle aged farts, there is no Epiphany- rather perhaps a fine tuning or an affirmation of our ingrained cultural beliefs that always drove us .

 

[Nutz]

Good topic. On a side note, what happened to the rational male forums?

 

[Boilermaker]

I think that's what bugs me about it.
I actually envy the guys who have had some sort of epiphany here. Who wouldn't want an epiphany?

I just don't see what the big revelation is.

That you should be ****y funny? I'm always amazed at all the guys around me who aren't in the community who are constantly busting on girls. If you want to stand out in my neighborhood c&f is not the way to do it.

That you should use social proof and make her jealous? High school stuff.

That you shouldn't put her on a pedestal? You can get the same message from watching 40 Year Old Virgin.

That you should have self respect? Common sense.

That getting married is a risk? the divorce rate is common knowledge, as is the fact that women file for most divorces.

There are a lot of good tips here. But I'm not seeing the epiphany.

As it happens after every paradigm shift, there will always be people who will claim the discovery is "obvious" ...

Einstein's relativity principle is so elementary that nobody would even be slightly impressed if I stated it here right now.

But it took an Einstein to spell it out.

If I complained about women to Zekko in a parallel universe where our community never existed, he would probably give me a stupid line like "who understands women anyway, son?", delving into his own oblivion on the matter shortly thereafter.

After reading tons of Rollo, Roissy, Mystery, and so forth .. , it sounds very simple to me, too. But I am not that naive to claim that I could have figured all this by myself. It's easy to be scornful AFTER everything is conveniently established and the field has matured.

You were around my age when the seduction community flourished and opened millions of men's eyes, why didn't you chip in and share your wisdom if this was so bloody obvious to you all your life?

 

[mrRuckus]

Good topic. On a side note, what happened to the rational male forums?

It's back in the mythical 1950s where everyone in the entire world lived in the suburbs, no one ever slept with the neighbor, and women had our best interests at heart.

There's never been a golden age of sosuave.

 

[zekko]

If you understand the use of the term as a metaphor, why would you then say it's stupid

Stupid is probably too strong a word. It just rubs me the wrong way.
I see the metaphor, but I think it is overstated and too overly dramatic.
To me, it conjures up images of "Look at me, I have super powers because I know something you don't know".

A lot of people don't like the term alpha. I don't mind the term alpha, at least it's based on an actual thing. People don't like the term alpha because it's overused. I think the problem with the term alpha is that it's used incorrectly. An alpha is a leader or the physically dominating male. Guys here use it to describe any confident guy, or a guy who does what he wants, or a guy who isn't afraid to talk to women.

To us middle aged farts, there is no Epiphany- rather perhaps a fine tuning or an affirmation of our ingrained cultural beliefs that always drove us

Interesting. I had thought the reason there was no epiphany for me was because of my age, because I had a lifetime of experience with women. What could surprise me? You're saying it's because we were actually raised in a different environment - a more male friendly culture. That may well have something to do with it.

As it happens after every paradigm shift, there will always be people who will claim the discovery is "obvious"

You're putting words in my mouth. I never said everything that is taught here is "obvious", although a lot of it is. As I said, there are a lot of useful tips here. I just don't think anything here reaches the level of a revelation or an epiphany. There are very few concepts I've found in the pickup community that I haven't heard or read somewhere else.

You were around my age when the seduction community flourished and opened millions of men's eyes, why didn't you chip in and share your wisdom if this was so bloody obvious to you all your life?

I don't think I even had a computer when I was 25. I had a word processor.

The point is I came here when I was 48, I think. Too late for it too have that big of an impact on me. I wish I would have come here when I was 25, I'm sure it would have made a bigger difference for me. It probably would have saved me from learning a lot of these lessons by making my own mistakes.

And at 25 I had nowhere near the value as a man that I have now. I was still working on it. And I didn't have a forum or the internet to help me along. If you didn't have this forum, Boilermaker, I doubt very much that you would be a blind lost puppy. When you are in your 20s, you work on improving yourself, and you learn about life. I think that's what your 20s are all about.

Honestly, I don't really consider myself part of the seduction community anyway. I just like this message board and find the subject matter interesting. I don't think I've ever tried to present myself as some sort of super stud. I don't even have any aspirations to be a pickup artist.
I have a girlfriend that I've lived with for eight years, who I am very happy with. I'm not looking to become some sort of pimp. I just have nearly a full lifetime worth of experience with women, that's where my insight comes from.

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

I think the terminology of the 'community' throws a people off sometimes. Alpha, ONEitis, the Matrix, AFC, are all for lack of a better term. They serve the purpose of identifying concepts.

For myself, unplugging came as a slow process. For the better part of my teen years I bought into all the feminized crap everyone is so familiar with. "Just be yourself", respect women, we're all equal in gender; basically the same sh!t we've been going over for years. I got laid at 17, but more because of my looks and luck than any natural ability. And predictably I got ONEitis for the girl I first banged. Moved away from home and followed her to college only in order to facilitate our continued ƒucking.

After a year of that and her cheating on me I lived the life of a semi-pro musician in Hollywood for the better part of my 20s. I got laid like crazy. I was a kid in a candy store and I figured out some rudiments of hooking up, but again I was still an AFC inside. I just did what came natural for me, but then I met up with my first certifiable BPD and the whole world collapsed. I'd had 2 STRs before her, but she was the ONE. Hot as hell, crazy in bed and just as crazy out of it. I totally got trapped in her neurosis and became someone completely different. Playing in bands was out of the question, she was far too jealous of other women. I didn't realize it at the time but it was truly the pit of misery for me.

However, this 4 year episode is what took me to the edge and at the end of it I began to see how things were and everything that built up to it. Remember there was no internet, or Tom Leykis, I did come across "Why Men Are the Way They Are" by Dr. Warren Farrell. I thought for sure it was some crap like Men are from Mars, but I was surprised by all of his observations. I still have this book. It helped me come to terms with what a tool my father was with women and how I got a lot of that passed on to me.

That was a tough pill to swallow. No one was trying to convert me to some new masculine ideal, I had to come to it on my own. Every male friend I had then was appalled by what I was coming up with about women. I had them call me a chauvinist, or some neandethal 1950s throw back - and all I was doing was asking questions. I most certainly didn't want to offend the women I wanted to bang, so you kind of keep it under your hat, but I wasn't ignoring what I saw. After I got back into college it was this time I decided to take a 2nd major of behavioral psychology. Not because I had any real aspirations to become a psychologist, but because I wanted to study personality in how it applies to gender.

I took a LOT of heat in my thesis papers for my observations, but it only made me question the whole Matrix that much more. It was about this time I came across SS. There are actually some very early post from me while I was finishing my degrees where I bounced ideas off the community here.

I don't think I really had a come to Jesus moment in my unplugging. Sure, I went through some evil sh!t in my 20's and that was certainly the catalyst, but I never really had an epiphany. Getting married to a woman who really expected me to be a strong masculine man also helped. I even tried to play the equal-is-equal deal with Mrs. Tomassi; she wouldn't have it. She has said "you're in charge, you decide" so I picked up the mantle and ran with it. She's better for it and so is our daughter. All of that certainly contributed to my unplugging.

 

[zekko]

For myself, unplugging came as a slow process.

Nice to hear your story. I haven't been here as long as some people so I haven't heard it before. When you don't have a forum like this around, learning is a long slow process. Really, I was blessed by all my failures, because that's really where you learn.

I think this makes me realize why I'm not fond of the matrix analogy. I tend to think of my journey of learning as more of a process of plugging in rather than unplugging. Plugging in to life and how it works, reality, potential, and masculinity.

 

[Nutz]

It's back in the mythical 1950s where everyone in the entire world lived in the suburbs, no one ever slept with the neighbor, and women had our best interests at heart.

There's never been a golden age of sosuave.

Huh?

I'd still like to know what happened. Was the site yanked offline, did he not pay the hosting bill, or what?

 

[KarmaSutra]

My Moment of Clarity came from you, Rollo, with your old sig:

"If you're not fvcking her, you're her girlfriend."

Changed my entire world more than anything Sartre, Jesus, Buddha, even Crowley has said. Nothing's made my thought process switch up more than this.

Seven years of rampant poon and ascendancy since.

 

[Jitterbug]

May I add an extra stage?

6. Evangelism - "I gotta tell all my bros and every anonymous guy on the Internet I run into about The Real Game!"

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

I'm here to help.

Heheh,..

 

[Slickster]

I was lucky.

I unplugged as I slid out of the womb and the hot female doctor picked me up and cut the umbilical cord.

She slapped my a$$ and I screamed for more. She held me in her arms and looked down on me with those "deer in the headlight" eyes. She was definitely liking what she was seeing. I stared into those eyes and waited until she looked away first.

Some other nurses gathered around and started trying to get my attention too. I noticed the IOI's right away and decided to be a challenge and play hard to get. I started writhing and looking around room trying to appear disinterested. It worked because all they did was fawn over me more and more.

Before they handed me over to my Mom I managed to kino several of the nurses and number closed the hot doctor.

Despite not knowing what a phone or even a number was, this early experience gave me the ego boost and confidence I needed to start approaching and dating the young hotties at kindergarten.

No 5 steps for me it all just happened naturally.

 

[Nutz]

From http://forum.theattractionvault.com/showthread.php?tid=4068

Hoobie discussed the stages you go through from AFC to PUA, in his Transformations talk. He said all top guys are in agreement. See if these sound familiar:

1. Initial exposure to game theory, a time of excitement.
2. Going out and practice, awkward and getting blown out. Adopt routines, tactics and techniques. What you do isn't who you are. (Hoobie didn't get a # for 11 months in).
3. Consistently gaining attraction and # closes.
4. Occasional dates, a lot of flakes. Frustrating.
5. The plateau. Frustration and disillusionment. A year or two in. Excitement fades.
6. Dropping 'game' and developing your lifestyle. Usually 18 months in.
7. Gain mastery and insight, become more of a man. Girls are actually attracted to who you are.
8. Intelligently applying tactics, routines and techniques to get consistent results.
9. Doing what makes you happy. LTRs, FBs, 3somes, etc.

 

[jophil28]

I was lucky.

I unplugged as I slid out of the womb and the hot female doctor picked me up and cut the umbilical cord.

She slapped my a$$ and I screamed for more. She held me in her arms and looked down on me with those "deer in the headlight" eyes. She was definitely liking what she was seeing. I stared into those eyes and waited until she looked away first.

Some other nurses gathered around and started trying to get my attention too. I noticed the IOI's right away and decided to be a challenge and play hard to get. I started writhing and looking around room trying to appear disinterested. It worked because all they did was fawn over me more and more.

Before they handed me over to my Mom I managed to kino several of the nurses and number closed the hot doctor.

Despite not knowing what a phone or even a number was, this early experience gave me the ego boost and confidence I needed to start approaching and dating the young hotties at kindergarten.

No 5 steps for me it all just happened naturally.

Ha ha...nice.

 

[Kailex]

I began unplugging during my last LTR some time ago.
Before and during my time here, I was hitting the last stages.

It wasn't until Rollo said to me that Monogamy was the last resort, not the goal...

That hit the acceptance stage.

Everything has changed since and I've never looked back.

 

[samspade]

Getting married to a woman who really expected me to be a strong masculine man also helped. I even tried to play the equal-is-equal deal with Mrs. Tomassi; she wouldn't have it. She has said "you're in charge, you decide" so I picked up the mantle and ran with it. She's better for it and so is our daughter. All of that certainly contributed to my unplugging.

This is such a huge factor, it's hard to understate. And it ties into why spinning plates, and qualifying (more DJ terms, I know) are so important. Not to mention weeding out the bad ones.

If women were as analytical and systematic as me are, who knows, maybe they'd have sites where they discuss how to "unplug," how to shed masculine mannerisms, how to be more submissive, and what not. They used to call it Finishing School - a curriculum to emphasize femininity as a means of charm and attraction. Most Western women have lumped the sexual marketplace in with the rest of society and rejected classic femininity wholesale, because it's not "empowering." This is why today we have so many bitter females who poorly mimic the feminine ideal without really ascribing to it - kind of like the AFC man who hasn't totally bought into game.

Your wife, on the other hand, sounds like she plays the part naturally and happily, and I mean that in the most flattering way possible. Deep down all women want their men to be in charge. To what degree they suppress or contradict this desire affects their attractiveness. Problem is, there is right now an abundance of betas all too willing to play along with the charade that men and women are "equals" in relationships.

 

[frivolousz21]

I read an article this morning about the 5 stages of grief and how they apply to coming into acceptance of a previously rejected truth. I was curious about how this might apply to an AFC coming to grips with unplugging from the Matrix, so I did a bit of searching and what did I find on my blog roll search but this:

1. Denial – “These game guys are a bunch of clowns, there’s no way this works on women. Women aren't stupid. What a bunch of misogynists.”

2. Anger – “This is ridiculous! Why should I have to jump through all these hoops for women? I just want to be myself. Why couldn’t I have been a natural alpha? I blame my parents/siblings/teachers/God/liberals/feminists/media/society”

3. Bargaining – “Well maybe it does have some good points…but, forget the hot girls, I’ll give it a try if it can help me get around the bases with a plain Jane. Do I have to wear the fuzzy hat and black nail polish?”

4. Depression – “Wow, women really respond to this puffed-up act? And guys spend big bucks on it and wind up with more ass than a toilet seat? And I just joined up for this? The world is sad and so am I…”

5. Acceptance – “Maybe this IS the way things really work. I guess I should give up the gender relations mythology I’ve been holding onto…hey, what do you think of these negs I came up with?”


I get a ton of PMs from members, and read threads about guys with friends or relatives in, or just getting over, horrible relationships and how they've tried to unplug them only to run into stiff resistance. Looking at this process to acceptance it's no wonder why.

So my discussion question for today is this; how did you unplug? Was there some moment of clarity that opened your eyes? Did you go through a process like the one described here? Are you maybe still struggling with a certain phase?

I mostly struggled with accepting how dominate I can be as a man. So I guess it was confidence issues for me. I finally realized in every walk of life outside of my closes male friends I was always designated as leader and pack leader, when I let go and went down to ****, things around me collapse. When I rise things around me explode in growth.

Men can do great things will unplugging

 

[zekko]

I mostly struggled with accepting how dominate I can be as a man. So I guess it was confidence issues for me. I finally realized in every walk of life outside of my closes male friends I was always designated as leader and pack leader, when I let go and went down to ****, things around me collapse. When I rise things around me explode in growth.

Men can do great things will unplugging

Now being confident = "unplugging from the matrix"?
I told you this term was overused.

 

[Jitterbug]

Get over it, old man. That's how we young blokes talk these days!