How To Handle Femmes Fatales Part 2

Today I will continue building on yesterday’s post and discuss how to defend yourself against the next femme fatale in Clio’s list. (As per M. Blowhard’s suggestion, I’ve split up the posts for easier reading.)

The Eternal Ingenue

She can be distinguished from the Waif, however, by the fact that where the Waif is often silent, and usually still, the Eternal Ingenue is in continual, graceful, coltish motion. Nor is she surrounded by an aura of doom-laden unhappiness. She talks a lot. She laughs a good deal. She is above all else, animated. Prancing, gambolling, frolicking like a puppy or a pony, she is often described as “charming” or “enchanting.”

When guys talk about being attracted to an ethereal “girlishness” in women, they are thinking of ingenues from their pasts. Being a man is tough — it requires strength, stoicism, and seriousness of purpose. We are drawn to the opposite in women, yang to yin, and so the ingenue — the antithesis of the hardened alpha male — captures our imagination like no other woman can. Of the four femme fatales Clio wrote of, the Eternal Ingenue comes closest to embodying the essence of the perfect woman. And, unfortunately, she is also the most diffcult to tame.

What makes an ordinary Ingenue into a femme fatale, one who goes through many men and breaks their hearts, is that this is a woman “in love with love,” who has a dream-image of the perfect love, and perfect lover, in her mind, and is perpetually seeking the one man who can make her feel as she wants to feel.

Perfection is the enemy of settling. Eternal Ingenues run a risk of growing older alone. They won’t be cougars — they’re too feminine, cute and coy for that — but they are the most likely to end up cat ladies babbling to themselves about their potted marigolds. She can avoid this fate by being more hard-headed, but that has its cost. Cultivation of her pragmatic side will weaken her otherworldy whimsical side, which is the big generator of her power.

An element of the Ingenue’s search for the perfect love is that she must convince herself that all her previous loves were wrong or bad or not “real” love at all, so they didn’t count, because, you see, for her the only perfect love is first love. As a result of all this self-deception, she is able to seem virginal even when she is not.

This falls right into line with one of my maxims.

Maxim #7: The sweeter and more innocent a girl seems, the greater the likelihood she has been in a gangbang.

Corollary: Always assume she is a whore. It helps kick the legs out from under the pedestal you will be tempted to put her on, and it is more often than not true.

You really want to be wary of any woman who overly romaticizes her quest for love. She is probably what Clio described: A woman who will pick you apart for minor faults in the most gratingly passive-aggressive way possible, and finally leave you on the flimsiest pretext, often bounding straight into the arms of another man without even a pause for common courtesy.

This kind of woman is often a natural “daddy’s girl,” though her father may have been rather weak, but one who either lost her father early, or has had to share him with other women (her mother, her sisters, a step-mother), and wants him all to herself. She’ll put her trust in a handful of other women, but they are often much older than she is. […]

Having dated a number of Eternal Ingenues myself, I can say this rings true. They either came from divorced families with fathers who bought their love and loyalty, or they had a caring beta father heading an all-female family who had to divide his love between women. You’ll know if you are dating a potential Ingenue if you meet her girlfriends and they are all overprotective and annoyingly sassy cougars-in-training. The Eternal Ingenue HATES competition from attractive girls her own age.

The Ingenue doesn’t necessarily refuse to be responsible or adult. She simply maintains an air of girlish sweetness and innocence through middle and old age. […]

Unlike Waifs, Eternal Ingenues can take care of themselves. Which makes them more difficult prey.

…the waif’s childlike qualities may make a man feel protective: they do not make him feel fatherly. The whole point of the Ingenue is that she brings out this feeling in men. She makes them want to initiate her into the world, but gently, in a fatherly way, with books and talk and advice.

Maybe one of the reasons I date so many Eternal Ingenues is that I date so many younger women. The two go hand in hand. But I’m not fatherly in the least. Books and talk and advice are beta. The only thing I initiate them into is a world of sexual depravity and soul-rending love addiction.

Men: The Eternal Ingenue is extremely alluring as a sexual conquest. You may bed her, but winning her over is an entirely separate challenge. Because you are constantly being compared in her mind to her imaginary “perfect first love” you will be shit tested until the cougars come home. Because there will be so much competition from other men for her attentions, you will be subjected to an endless stream of capricious disloyalty from her, if not outright cheating. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been dating her — she will be the one keeping you up at night wondering if she’s tonguing down some random dude on the steps of the National Cathedral at 3 AM, and the odds are she will be. And, as a charming but inveterate liar, she will be the best at hiding her whorish soul from you.

If you want to break her will, you must, first and foremost, never get thrown back on your heels. If she puts you on the defensive, consider yourself done. This means being acutely aware of her shit tests, and passing them with flying colors. Hone your cocky funny skills to perfection, and parry EVERYTHING she throws your way with the amused mastery of a Jedi player. Example:

Her: “Oh GOD, your taste in music is SO lame. You never play anything I like.”

You: “I didn’t know you were the music czar. I think I’ll just call you ITunes from now on. Hey, ITunes, make me a sandwich!”

Next, be vigilant about your encroaching neediness. Oh Satan below, do Ingenues despise needy men. It will take a lot of willpower, but you should occasionally cancel dates on her and, when sex is imminent, find some excuse to walk away, leaving her horny and unsatisfied. Ingenues love the father figure (are fathers needy? no), so play up those strengths — be her authority, lead, slap her when necessary, playfully dismiss her juvenile provocations, and always be prepared to lay down the law. This last will often mean walking away from her never looking back.

Don’t feel guilty about dating around on an Ingenue. Her loyalty is razor thin, so your virtue will gain you nothing. In fact, an Ingenue will love you more if she suspects you are still playing the field. She needs the challenge, like she relished the challenge of winning her father’s affections away from her sister.

Like the Waif, the Ingenue eight balls her emotional highs from the act of chasing men. She does not suffer long men who chase her — this fleeting wisp of a woman. Of all the femme fatales, she yearns to seek your approval the most and wants to actually win it the least. Unlike the Amazonian Alpha, whom I will discuss tomorrow, the Ingenue can’t tolerate heavy-handed qualifying early on, but she needs to be qualified on a continual basis with a subtler touch. You always have to judge her, without being judgmental. This is a fine art.

Her: “I bought this new dress today. What do you think?”

You: “Nice. But I’m surprised you’re going in that direction. It seems… unique.”

Finally, the most important advice: Because Eternal Ingenues are “in love with love” you should withhold announcing your love for her as long as humanly possible. An old Russian saying: Once a woman captures your heart she loses interest. This is doubly true for the Ingenue. What she doesn’t know, or doesn’t want to know, is that there never was a perfect love in her life, and there never will be, at least not by the impossible standards to which she has elevated the concept. If you lavish her with your love she will find it easier to evaluate her fantasy of love against what you are giving her. You will invariably come up short. So keep her guessing, keep her in the dark, and slowly over time she’ll fill in the blanks and begin imagining that YOUR love is the love she’s been waiting for.