Hello Friend,

If this is your first visit to SoSuave, I would advise you to START HERE.

It will be the most efficient use of your time.

And you will learn everything you need to know to become a huge success with women.

Thank you for visiting and have a great day!

Life, Love & The Monogamy Trap

Rollo Tomassi

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This is a cut & paste from a personal consult. Posted with permission.

Hi Rollo,

my name is Akash and I am big fan of your posts. They are always lucid, logical, and insightful.

I discovered the community about 5 months ago after yet another failed relationship characterized by highly AFC behaviour on my part. I ended it with a tremendous amount of guilt as I felt that because she was a "good person" I ought to have made it work even though I wasn't in love with her. Since then I have attended a JM workshop. I am 27 years old.

Based on your posts I would really appreciate your advice on two issues:
(1) how to make the best use of my impending return to school in May for a second undergraduate degree and;
(2) how to overcome the cognitive dissonance I feel about pursuing women outside the confines of a committed relationship as I still suffer from social conditioning that tells me I will hurt women by pursuing primarily sexual relationships with them and so it is immoral to do so.

If you would like to post a reply on the forum, rather than by a PM, for the benefit of others that is fine with me. I wanted to direct these queries to you though as I believe I could benefit from your worldy wise opinion.

Sincerely look forward to hearing from you.

Best,
Akash


Akash,

First off, thanks for the props. I don’t post what I do for money or to sell advice or books or DVDs. I do it because I think it ought to be free in the first place, as I feel that men should already have been taught what I profess from positive masculine role models. Unfortunately these models are few and far between these days. So I’m always appreciative of accolades.

I’ll give you a run down of what I can gather from your initial post, but understand that what you’ve given me here is pretty limited as far as information is concerned. I can only assume certain things from the very brief description of your life so take what I write with that in mind. In the future give me a better account of what your AFC behaviors were, how your relationships have ended, family background, where you live, why you’re pursuing a second degree, etc. I can be more accurate and avoid assumptions this way.

To begin with, if you’ve only been involved in the “community” for the past 5 months so the first thing I’m going to tell you is that it takes time to mold your personality and unlearn mental schemas you’ve become conditioned to consider integral parts of your current personality. One of the biggest obstacles most men have with accepting the fundaments of a positive masculine mindset is the attitude that personality is static and uncontrollable by them. A lot of this “that’s just how I am” mentality comes from this basic conditioning and needs to be addressed from the outset since this almost universally is an ego-investment on the part of a guy who’s probably emotionally distressed, confused and/or frustrated.

Understand now that personality is ultimately what YOU determine it to be. This isn’t to say that external factors don’t influence personality; indeed these variables and outside influences are exactly the reason men such as yourself do seek out the community. However, it is you who determine what is comfortable for you and what will constitute the traits that makes your personality your own. You are most definitely not a blank slate, but you have the capacity to erase parts you don’t like or are unusable and rewrite new parts that you like and prove efficient.


Based on your posts I would really appreciate your advice on two issues:
(1) how to make the best use of my impending return to school in May for a second undergraduate degree

This all depends on what your own personal goals are. The best use you can make of this time is to devote yourself completely to achieving the purpose for which you decided to pursue a second degree in the first place. I can only assume you are working for this degree with a set outcome in mind, but is this what you truly want? I ask this because I know far too many men who’ve altered the course of their lives to better accommodate the women in their lives or to facilitate their insecurities and fear of rejection. It’s not an unfamiliar story to me to hear of how a guy opted for a certain university or a career path because he’d convinced himself that it would sustain a relationship that he was fearful of loosing or he felt was his “responsibility as a man” to be supportive of ‘her’ ambitions at the sacrifice of his own. The conclusion of this scenario, more often than not, ends with a bitter man, mad at himself with the long term results of his choices after the woman he’d strived so long to accommodate leaves him for another man who had held fast to his own identity and ambition – which is exactly what makes him attractive.

I’m not sure how or if this fits into your conditions, but let it serve as an illustration for reclaiming and remolding your own personality. Only you have the hindsight to assess why you made certain decisions in your life. I’m only asking you to be as brutally critical of your true motivations for making them. Maybe it’s time you review why you decided to pursue a second degree?

(2) how to overcome the cognitive dissonance I feel about pursuing women outside the confines of a committed relationship as I still suffer from social conditioning that tells me I will hurt women by pursuing primarily sexual relationships with them and so it is immoral to do so.

Akash, any reasonably attractive woman knows you’d like to have sex with her. It’s a primal, chemical instinct and to be bluntly honest, there’s nothing wrong with it. In certain Muslim sects men are allowed to take “temporary” wives for a set period of time in addition to their “permanent” wives so long as they support them financially. Some Mormons practice open polygamy in a similar fashion. Some men marry and divorce multiple times (and support them congruously). All of these practices are considered, to a greater or lesser degree, moral. But the dissonance occurs when the rationalizations for a behavior conflict with the motivations for it and the associative psycho-social stigmas that get attached to it. Sorry for the $10 words here, but your feelings of guilt or hesitancy in a desire to explore multiple relationships is a calculated result of a very effective social conditioning with a latent purpose meant to curb a natural impulse.

Recognizing this is the first step to progressing beyond it and actually using it (responsibly) to your own advantage. As men, our biological impetus is to have unlimited access to unlimited sexuality with females bearing the best physical attributes. This is a rudimentary fact and on some level of consciousness both men and women understand this. No amount of proselytizing or social conditioning will erase what God and evolution hard-coded into our collective bio-psychological desires and behaviors. Admittedly, social conventions have historically made a good run at limiting this drive, but it can never (nor should it ever) purge this, because in essence it is a survival-ensuring attribute for us.

That said, as a religious man myself, I cannot deny the utility in the latent purpose of absolute monogamy. No other method proves more valuable in parental investment and developing a strong masculine and feminine psyche in a person than that of a committed, opposite sex, two-parent family. I feel it’s necessary to add here that I am thoroughly unconvinced that gender identity is exclusively a set of learned behaviors as many in the mainstream would try to convince us of. There is simply too much biological evidence and the resulting psychological/behavioral response to gender differences to accept this, making it vitally important that a child (and later a healthy adult) be taught a healthy appreciation for both the masculine and feminine influences in their psyches. I certainly would never condone infidelity based on just this principle alone since it seems the most beneficial for healthy adults. It’s when this healthy monogamy becomes clouded by infantile, emotionality and insecure romanticisms with the resulting expectations that are derived by them that it becomes necessary for a man to cultivate an attitude of being the PRIZE and thus broadening his selection of opportunities for monogamy to his greatest advantage prior to committing to it. In other words, if you are essentially sacrificing your capacity to pursue your biological imperative (unlimited access to unlimited sexuality), pragmatically, you’ll want to choose a partner of the highest quality from the broadest pool you are capable of attracting.

The downside of this proposition is twofold. First, your ability to attract a sizable pool of quality ‘applicants’ is limited by factors you immediately have available. At 37, if all goes well, you’ll be more financially stable and mature than you are at 27. The 37 year old Akash will, in theory, be more attractive to a long term prospect than the 27 year old Akash. Secondly, women’s sexual value decreases as they age, meaning there is no guarantee that your beautiful, vivacious, 27 year old bride will remain so at 37. In fact the odds are she wont.
 

Rollo Tomassi

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Continued,..

All of this makes betting your biological imperative on monogamy critically important and thus deserving of the widest possible selection. Men literally live and die according to their options, so it stands to reason they ought to entertain a prolonged period in their lives where they are open to exploring the most options they have access to while concurrently developing and improving themselves prior to making a commitment of this magnitude. And this is precisely where most men fail. They buy into and internalize psychological social contrivances (i.e. ONEitis) that are little more than effective means of inculcating a self-expectation of accountability and liability to make this commitment irrespective of maturity level or personal success (not simply financial success). The saddest ones, the AFC ones are the pitiable men who carry these contrivances into marriage and even old age without ever understanding that they had more potential which they squandered due to an inability to be selective.

So where does this leave you? You have 2 paths as I see it. You can sarge and explore your options with MLTRs and, should you decide to become sexually involved, do so while maintaining non-exclusivity with any of them. Put off and unlearn the expectations you’ve been conditioned to accept through (feminine beneficent) social contrivances and truly explore your opportunities while bettering your own conditions in anticipation for becoming monogamous at some later point. Or, you can remain in your sense of moral doctrine (no shame in this) and still non-exclusively date and explore your options while you continue to better yourself with the caveat that you know you’ll be limiting your depth of experience. I wont denigrate a decision to opt for this, but far too few religious men have the perseverance to stay objective in their decision to ‘hold out’ and overlook major character flaws in women they’d like to be their spouse in a furious rush to marry them and get to “the sex part.” Better to fall short in conviction than make hurried decisions that will alter your life.

And perhaps this isn’t even what you’re driving at? I don’t know if it’s a religious conviction or an internalized social contrivance that passes for one that’s the cause of your hesitancy, but isn’t it interesting that both are so closely associated? I know devout atheists who still believe in the fallacy of the ONE or the soulmate myth. Most women (and far too many men) look at me as if I’d denied the existence of God when I elaborate on why I think their eHarmony, induced fantasy of a soulmate is hogwash and psychologically damaging on a social scale.

Regardless, whatever your reasons, always put yourself on a pedestal, never a woman. Women should only ever be a compliment to a man’s life, never the focus of it. When you start living for a woman you become that woman. Never again compromise your own identity to receive the ever-changing approval she grants you. You have to be the PRIZE at all times, not just while you’re single. In fact, it’s imperative that you remain so into an LTR. My suggestion to you is not to even entertain the idea of monogamy until you are established in your career for 2 years, after your college is complete. Play the field, do whatever, but do not commit even to a girlfriend. Rather make a commitment to yourself, promise yourself you wont allow yourself to let emotionality and conditioned expectations of monogamy dictate what your goals will be or how you’ll achieve them. It’s called enlightened self-interest; you cannot help anyone until you’ve first helped yourself.

Rollo
 

Bourne

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One of the finest posts I have read.

Thanks for sharing and thanks for the guy who asked this, allowed to share.
 

driver55

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Wow

Like the title says...incredible insight from limited information. I commend your decision to provide free advice. Thank You.
 

MacAvoy

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Rollo Tomassi said:
This is a cut & paste from a personal consult. Posted with permission.

Hi Rollo,

my name is AFC and I am big fan of your posts. They are always lucid, logical, and insightful.

Based on your posts I would really appreciate your advice on two issues:
(1) how to turn my life around and make me Hugh Hefner overnight
(2) how to send you all my money because your a saviour sent from heavon

If you would like to post a reply on the forum, rather than by a PM, so that you could use it as a cheesy marketing tool, oops I mean for the benefit of others that is fine with me. I wanted to direct these queries to you though as I believe I could benefit from your worldy wise opinion.

Best,
AFC till you saved me
Are you adopting David D's marketing techniques? :rolleyes:
 

MacAvoy

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OOPS I guess I should have read this first.

Rollo Tomassi said:
First off, thanks for the props. I don’t post what I do for money or to sell advice or books or DVDs. I do it because I think it ought to be free in the first place, as I feel that men should already have been taught what I profess from positive masculine role models. Unfortunately these models are few and far between these days. So I’m always appreciative of accolades.
Oh well just tryin to have some fun on an otherwise quiet Saturday afternoon. Thats it, I'm out of here, off to the mall for a couple cold approaches.
 

djbr

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bump
 

TheHumanist

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That's one hell of a way to view it... I guess traps aren't always like stepping on a bear trap as long you are aware and went in willingly as you did.

Edit: I meant to say "aren't" not are always
 
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grinder

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TheHumanist said:
That's one hell of a way to view it... I guess traps are always like stepping on a bear trap as long you are aware and went in willingly as you did.
Sometimes in a man’s life he is confronted with choices, paths, if you will, which, if correctly ascertained, carry with them certain potentialities, that require an informed decision knowing that certain costs, compromises, and sacrifices must be made to achieve the greater good.

Choosing to serve for one’s country and being called to war: choosing Harvard over the local community college: Marriage, and, of course, choosing to have a child are examples of these.

Once the decision is made and the course is set, one could determine this to be a trap, or rather, a path not easily retraced, a disentanglement of significant cost.

That’s what makes it interesting.
 

Luminescence

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Rollo Tomassi said:
Understand now that personality is ultimately what YOU determine it to be. This isn’t to say that external factors don’t influence personality; indeed these variables and outside influences are exactly the reason men such as yourself do seek out the community. However, it is you who determine what is comfortable for you and what will constitute the traits that makes your personality your own. You are most definitely not a blank slate, but you have the capacity to erase parts you don’t like or are unusable and rewrite new parts that you like and prove efficient.
Exactly .... it is often said that a genes largely control an individuals expression of persona (while assuming that genes are some final 'fixed' element of identity), but research is starting to show that even genes are not nearly as 'fixed' as was previously thought. Gene expression has actually been shown to change in response to lifestyle and environmental changes.
 

DJDamage

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This whole talk about trap reminds me of that scene from the movie knocked up:

PETE
Isn’t it weird, though, when you have
a kid and all your dreams and hopes go
right out the window.

DEBBIE
What changed for you? What went out
the window? You do everything exactly
the same.

PETE
No, I love what I’m doing. But say
before you’re married with children
you want to live in India for a year.
You can do it.

DEBBIE
You want to go to India? Go to India!
Seriously.

PETE
Do you want to go to India?

DEBBIE
No. You can go.
 

azanon

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That said, as a religious man myself, I cannot deny the utility in the latent purpose of absolute monogamy.
The benefits of monogamy have exactly and precisely nothing to do with either God or religion. Even a journeyman biologist is quite familiar with the parental care vs. numbers game strategy of rearing young. We're not the only animal, including not the only primate, that uses parental care strategy because, as you said, it works best for our species. We know this though because of our biology and genetics. There is simply no reason at all to inject either religion or God into it. If you want to though, by all means do it. Just don't be completely mistaken in thinking it's necessary in any way to explain it.

Hell, even some birds are monogamous, but I suspect they don't practice any religion or believe in God.
 

Rollo Tomassi

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I think maybe I should qualify that last response a bit more. From the perspective of marriage being a 'trap', I mean that in the sense that commitment to anything is really a trap. If you serve in the military that commitment to duty is a trap until such time comes that you're free of it. Commitment to anything limits your options. Obviously being married means you faithfully limit yourself only to your wife, but I think that people - particularly younger people - don't realize that they limit their options in many ways they never really thought about.

Remember, I have a great marriage, I love my wife and daughter more than the world, but I fully realize there are certain things I won't be able to participate in or grow from because of that commitment.
 

jophil28

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Rollo Tomassi said:
Remember, I have a great marriage, I love my wife and daughter more than the world, but I fully realize there are certain things I won't be able to participate in or grow from because of that commitment.
Hey ! That's precisely what a 'quality man ' would say. No shyt, no myth...:D
 

synergy1

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Rollo Tomassi said:
Remember, I have a great marriage, I love my wife and daughter more than the world, but I fully realize there are certain things I won't be able to participate in or grow from because of that commitment.
Despite all the anti-marriage stuff we read on these forums, I believe this single point describes what turns me off to marriage for the time being. I characterize myself as a fairly ambitious person, so coming to the realization that I will not be able to pursue a particular venture is a difficult reality to face. I lost my job in may, and since than have found a new venture which I must relocate in a few weeks. If I was in a marriage, this would be difficult or impossible depending if I had kids or not. There is a lot of risk, and it will take a few years before we become truly profitable; I sincerely doubt a wife would be keen on moving, quitting her job and watching me take a [temporary] pay cut.

..as single guy, I can do this easily. At worst, if this doesn't work out , than I can relocate to another part of the country without a problem.

There might come a time in life when I am content with what I have done, and am comfortable where I am, but that time has not yet come. The sacrifices of commitment are still too much for me to undertake. I am curious how others come to this point..
 

Luthor Rex

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Rollo Tomassi said:
Men literally live and die according to their options, so it stands to reason they ought to entertain a prolonged period in their lives where they are open to exploring the most options they have access to while concurrently developing and improving themselves prior to making a commitment of this magnitude.
I think I understand what you are getting at here and I think it could be said another way: Build yourself up to the highest possible market value you can, and only then should you SELL.
 

Rollo Tomassi

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A truly powerful Man jealously guards his most precious resources; his independence and his ability to maneuver. In other words his options and his ability to exercise them. True power isn't controlling others, but the degree to which you control the course of your own life and your own choices. Committment to anything ALWAYS limits this. When you step through one door, a hundred more close behind you.

Life doesn't get easier. It only increases and compounds in complexity as we move into more maturity. I once read an interview with Gene Simmons where he described how incredibly minute the time a man has in an average day when you contrast the time that is demanded and expected of him for his responsibilities versus actual 'free time' where he can pursue leisure, a passion or self-betterment. It only gets shorter exponentially as he ages, gets married, becomes a father, deals with aging parents, career advancement, etc. And the more he protests this situation, the more he resists it, the more he's called 'selfish', a prick, irresponsible, etc.

Romantic love isn't the trap, it's the bait.
 

iqqi

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Be sure to think for yourselves

Most things in life are "traps." University, careers, laws that keep you an inmate, I mean citizen, in one country, where you need a piece of paper to allow you in another for a small amount of time.

Love, relationships, and monogamy are just another choice in life, that is up to a person to make for themselves. It is only a trap when you choose it based on what someone else is saying you should do... and that includes if you choose NOT to do so. Then you are trapped in a "matrix" that tells you relationships and monogamy is always wrong and a trap... when maybe that is what you want and makes your life feel more complete.

There are men who started families with a woman they desired, whom they courted and sought out, and everything worked wonderfully. They had children, and the entire family traveled the world for years at a time.

Think for yourself, think outside of any boxes, and the world and all of it's possibilities open up for you. Including a happy marriage, and family, if that is what you want.

Think for YOUrself. You are not just biology, evolution, or cells.
 
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Donjuandicarlo said:
I see, interesting stuff here but if love, life and monogamy are trap;
why are you married ?

I mean there will always be better prospects out there, you know.

Do you consider your wife and your daughter as a trap ?

Rollo Tomassi said:
Whoa! You have b*lls as big as church bells to admit that. It's inspiring to see you being a man but at the same time it makes one of the most highly regarded posters of this board not taking his own great advice (serious on it being great advice) look a little questionable. No offense, just a quick comment to your eye opening one word post.

PS - Make sure your wife doesn't read this thread :D
 
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