A male reader asks:
First off i would like to say thanks to you, for such an amazing blog, and such an amazing information resource. I’m a 22 yo virgin beta, but thanks to your website i decided to change.. Over the last 4 months i lost 49 pounds, so im getting the physical aspect of myself fixed. But there’s a issue i would want help on….is that im a complete total beta, and i’ve been struggling to assert myself as a “almost-alpha” or look alpha-ish. I have a very small circle of friends, mostly job friends, and my beta self is already settled with them. I wonder if the problem is me not acting like a real alpha would, or if i should look to new girls and stuff.
Loyalty to friends should not be reneged carelessly. Loyalty is, for good or ill, one of the more prominent virtues that delineates the world of men from the world of women. As a sex, women simply don’t place as much value on loyalty, so as a man you had better have a good reason for discarding it.
One of those good reasons is when friends, by dint of their familiarity with you, their own stations in life, and their expectations of your behavior, stifle your development into alpha manhood. If a bunch of job friends, man or woman, know you only as The Beta, then you’ll find it difficult to complete your transformation to a better man while in their company. Their assumptions will hold you back, their inflexibility will hamper acceptance of your new self-image, their envy will sabotage your efforts.
If your friends are betas, your progression to alphatude will be seen as a threat to group cohesion. If your friends are alphas, their instinctual hierarchical dominance displays will undermine your progress (and this need not be intentional). Being immersed in the dynamics of your social circle for so long, you will find it harder to jettison your beta baggage.
In such a circumstance where you are actively reformulating your very essence and character to be more desirable to women and persuasive with men, you are well-advised to sever attachments to friends and girls acquainted with your sad sack prior self. Their mere presence, and the beta memories you have accumulated while sharing their company, will act as ballast on your old skin, pinning you down as you try to shed it. Don’t underestimate the power of unappealing memories and the ability of friends to anchor those memories in the physical world.
To complete your journey to the alpha side, you will likely have to turn your back on the beta alliance. This means a necessary distancing from old friends, and a search for new friends who only know you as you are now, and whose conditioned expectations will thus naturally align with your goals, reinforcing your improvement.
The caveat to the above should be when your friends understand your purpose, and help you to achieve it. But a friend like that is rarer than most think. A true friend, lifting you up every step of the way, is a gift not to be squandered.
Past friendship/relationship dynamics can be a really hard straightjacket to escape from.
Beta friends will be like crabs in a barrel, pulling you down as you try to get out.
Actually, though, times like this provide you a good chance at seeing who is relaly a good friend of yours. People that are taking more than they are giving will quickly question you and your motives, seeking to quash whatever ambitions you have.
Unsurprisingly, this dynamic also comes into play when you try and go after chicks you knew before, when you were a chump.
http://flyfreshandyoung.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/the-futility-of-trying-to-bang-pre-red-pill-girls/
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I cannot agree more with FFY here. Research the psychological concept of “self-fulfilling prophecy.” Seriously. Any person who is not happy to see you change and/or will not allow you to improve (i.e. insists on continuing to treat you the same old way) should be excised like the cancer that they are. If they are a friend, let them know what they are doing, and that it is unacceptable. Give them up to two ‘unconscious backsliding’ chances where you have to remind them that it is unacceptable, and then move on from anyone who is just paying lip service.
With Game, you will improve more in a shorter time by eliminating negative behaviors first and than emulating positives. Likewise, with both personal and business relationships you will improve more, faster by eliminating negative people first. They don’t call them millstones for nothing.
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But perhaps you can make it only a temporary break. If you can go and change yourself perhaps you can then bring your beta friends with you. But always make sure you look out for yourself first.
As for women, you will likely always feel inadequate around the women you lusted after when you had no chance. Thus, even when you change yourself for the better so that you should have a chance, guess what? You still don’t have a chance.
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“As for women, you will likely always feel inadequate around the women you lusted after when you had no chance. Thus, even when you change yourself for the better so that you should have a chance, guess what? You still don’t have a chance.”
I disagree. It can be a validating experience to encounter women who rejected you in prior, less confident times.
Women who spurned you as a teenager or young man will find themselves in awkward, stumbling, confused appreciation of your later versions, if you have properly developed yourself.
You should not miss the chance to watch women you once knew, and have encountered again, slowly realize what has happened in the years since you last met. They uncomfortably move from that place of presumed superiority they held before to a position of obvious inferiority. A few feeble attempts by them to remind you of the guy you once were is certain. Just another shit test, to be dsimissed without comment.
The best part is you never, ever make mention of what has happened in regards to the social positioning. The women, however, are nonetheless aware of it like an alarm clock screaming at them in the morning.
And never tell them you once had a crush on them. (They know.) In fact, just the opposite: you act as though you have forgotten you ever felt any attraction towards them. You barely recall them, is the message you project. And you act bored by their later, older self.
Why? Because it is true. Or it should be. You are not 17/25/whatever any longer. Don’t act like it.
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Ditto.
Taking care of “old business” by bedding a past crush was a tremendously liberating experience for me. Especially when she’s now a “married” lesbian, although her butch partner could probably kick my ass.
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Haven’t had this problem so far. The few girls I know who I used to hang out with are more “damnnnnnnn” now than they have ever been before.
Met up with one, literally explained the concept of kino to her while I was doing. I thought she was going to jump right there on the bar table.
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In my experience, it is imperitive that old ties are either altered for the better, or severed.
I went through a particularly bad breakup in college, a messy dramatic situation full of sex lies and scandal (what a blast that was, makes me nostalgic). In the aftermath of it, I looked back at all the women in my life, the endless litany of friendzoning and blue balls and resolved myself to go back, one by one, and make these women face me and acknowledge what I desired from them.
One by one I went out with every girl who had friendzoned me, got drunk with them and made my desires explicitly clear without shame or regret: I was rejected by every single one of them.
Of course I was; I was not alpha in the slightest, ill equipped to do much of anything. But the key was I made my intentions fucking clear, forced these snotty SWPL brats to see me for what I was, a man with desires, desires that involved bending them over, not listening to them cry about their BFs. Once it was clear they were uninterested, I scoured them from my life by every means necessary. It was an amazing feeling, to know that I made these parasitic creatures uncomfortable, to know that they couldnt use me any more or misrepresent my desires.
For me that catharsis was necessary. If those around you are holding you back, or if you are burdened with unfinished business, take care of it and then march forward. All you stand to lose is baggage.
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Do you people have any good strategies for getting warmed up for a date?
I haven’t really been that social lately, and I’d rather not screw this up by being unnaturally stiff and nervous. Still, I can easily kick ass if I just get into the right warmed up state.
Squat 5RM and talk to strangers?
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Others have noted that a good workout is a big help. Gets the blood flowing, cranks up testosterone production, etc. You’ll presumably take a shower afterward, and feeling fresh and clean is always a big confidence builder. Don’t over-exercise though, maybe do half of a normal workout.
Try to talk to people throughout the day. Say hello to your friends and co-workers and see what they’re up to. Call someone on the phone and chat for a few minutes. I’ll even call my dad sometimes before I go out.
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That’s some great advice, thanks.
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Learn to dance numbnuts. Also limit your initial “dates” to around an hour. No movies. No dinners.
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THIS!!!!
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Outstanding post, one of your best yet, explains why I continue to love this blog so much. I’m now 38 and was the abused beta at high school – I was very badly treated at high school. Funny, as soon as I left, I determined:-
(1) never to take shit from people again (and I haven’t);
(2) to sever all ties with high school, including teachers and friends (which is hard in a city as incestuous as Dublin but, there you go).
You write:-
“don’t underestimate the power of unappealing memories”.
Indeed. Only in 2011 did I realise that the bullying and abuse I got for six years of high school had left me with genuine PTSD. Reading your post makes me realise that my INSISTENCE, at the age of 17, on severing ALL ties with high school was my alpha instinct reasserting itself after the trauma.
There was a teacher from the school who, looking back, was the staffroom omega by any long shot – a pious catholic, never married, never left the family home, never got laid, never learnt to drive, devoted his whole life to the school, spent all his time in the school, unable for the company of adult men, preferred the company of adolescent boys, died in 2011 of undetected diabetes and overwork – * vomits * – a pathetic excuse for a man.
In 1998, seven years after I had left school, he wrote to me to “invite” me to attend a reunion of his form (of which I was a member for the whole six years – * vomits again *), to buy a commercial item of the school and to attend a musical he had directed for the school (he put on three productions a year for the school, all shitty mediocre musicals etc, as well as being a full-time teacher).
I wrote him a polite one sentence letter telling him to exclude me from his mailing list.
He went ballistic in that typically harrumphing angry-beta way. He wrote me a rambling, narcissistic letter in which he only lauded his own perceived greatness (very telling) and – wait for it! – “invited” me to come to the school to “discuss” my position. Yes! Viva Beta! Let’s “talk it over”.
I wrote him a slightly longer letter – still polite – telling him that my position was final.
He wrote again two years later. ONEITIS.
Looking back I can see that I had the entirely consistent natural instinct of an alpha from start to finish – a natural alpha as you call it – terse, aloof, setting my own terms.
Betas / omegas (and I am still undecided about whether this sad article was lowest beta or middling omega) erupt with fury when confronted by natural alpha-dom!
And, yes, getting back to the point of the post – I was right to cast away the things of my youth and I have never once regretted it.
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Did it ever occur to you he was gay and in the closet?
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Oh come on! It’s Ireland!
Does a bear shit in the woods?
Of course he was gay! We all used to “joke” about him wanting to marry us (he’d invite select ground of the older lads to his house for dinner!!)
To this day he’s still referred to (by the non-groomed ones) as “that paedo
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I think this is the “misery loves company” situation. When you break out of beta mode, your so-called friends often feel threatened.
They often offer bad advice on women. Much of this is from a jealousy or envy.
It’s not unlike someone in a company quits to take a better job, those left behind often have what amounts to a “survivors’ guilt” that they didn’t go for it.
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This is one of the basic and core tenants of the whole think and grow rich Napoleon Hill philosophy. You can’t become wealthy if all your friends are poor. They will only grow jealous and try and pull you back like crabs in a barrel. THis is “old school” game at its best.
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What should do with my parents and relatives?
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https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/game-is-universal/
Game them!
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You youngsters are doing a good thing in making the needed changes. The difficulty is that you somehow seem to think that a few months or years of a changed attitude has armored you against falling back to old patterns. You need much more experience.
More importantly, it has to be a real change, to the point where your frame is not something you consciously control, but instead it is solidly built on certainty. Unshakeable. Thinking that one year of the new ways have changed you to that point is pretty naive.
Don’t be so impatient.
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Can someone talk more about how an alpha can hang with other alphas as I can’t really wrap my head around it? The definitive trait of the alpha is the need to dominate, yet only one man per group can dominate, so if you’re an alpha, you can’t hang with other alphas. (Actually, I suppose the notion I have is that no one IS an alpha or beta, independent of context, but each becomes an alpha or beta depending on the company. You may be a big swinging dick at your company but if I stick you in a room with George Clooney, you’re a beta.)
Or, when we’re saying that you need to abandon betas and hang with alphas, are we simply talking about hanging with men who are alphas to women, men who may submit in some cases to other men but will not make themselves unattractive to women by submitting to them?
Also, do you need to go out with friends who, without being so beta as to be unattractive to women, are not so alpha that they dominate you or is the object to roll with the best possible crowd you can, even if you’re not the star, like the guys in Entourage?
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Alphas who hang out together tend to be like starters on a pro basketball team – each player has a different role that complements the other players.
That is, two point guards cannot hang out together, because they’ll get into each other’s hair, but a small forward and a center can coexist just fine, because they bring different strengths to the table.
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Game recognize Game. Most alphas, once they have sussed out the authenticity of the other thru fitness testing, are pretty cool to each other. There’s an unspoken agreement that they will not try and jockey for position against each other as long as there is a greater benefit to sticking together, like to pull more chicks. Also, as you mentioned, being the top dog is context dependent. Your bro might have only got 5 hours of sleep the night before and you can easily socially dominate him, but the past weekend he was in top form and you felt like the beta.
Lots of examples of alphas relating to each other in movies and tv. You ever been in a Turkish prison? Ever watch gladiator films?
No check out Jersey Shore to see how the douche du jours do it. They are always spatting like bitches but they blow it off quick cause it’s bros before hos.
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Are you talking about game alphas, one who is an alpha in leading men, or an alpha in their career? These can be independant variables.
My experience with men who are alphas among other men is that it isn’t a problem and in fact can be a big plus as long as your field of expertise is different. The group I hang around with currently are all business owners and exhibit alpha traits. But we are all in different fields.
When it comes to leaders in my career/interests I personally get along best with someone who I can respect. Someone who is very knowledgeable and skilled in their career. We may not agree and can even get into some intense arguments but these are usually fun for all sides overall. Though thinking about it the friends who fall into that category I do not see as often.
I can’t speak about “other” alphas in a game setting as I am not one. Or lesser alpha/greater beta at best. So my response is the hackles start rising and my hand starts feeling around for a large rock. From my personal responses in the other area I would guess that if I was more confident in myself in this area I would have less of a problem.
BTW – I would never suggest to a man to abandon his friends. Especially over women.
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Ur giving to too much thought and worry. First of all, relax.
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I recommend you research actors and high status and low status behavior. 2 alphas can be equal by constantly playing status games with each other. Thats what happens when two people agree to be friends, they essentially give each other permission to constantly play status games with each other. An example is 2 friends playfully making fun of each other.
Friend 1: Would you like some tea bitch?
Friend 2: No thank u cock sucker
By constantly engaging in status behaviors with each other two people become somewhat equal in status. Its called the seesaw principle I think. This is why failure to respond to your friends status games can result in the friendship ending. The friendship starts to become one of master and slave instead of equality. So there is no reason you cant hang out with another alpha if youre alpha yourself. You don’t have to bow down, submit or answer to anyone who isnt in a real position of power over you such as your manager. If you find that your a beta who submits in the presence of a alpha its only because you failed to adequately respond to the status games people play.
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I’m in a situation similar to this guy. I am 20 years old, quite beta, virgin, and surrounded by a small group of beta friends. My friends and I have had discussions about becoming more alpha, or as they call it, more “douchebaggy” or “assholish”. IDK if they follow game theories and concepts(I doubt that they do) but they are astute enough to notice and understand that alpha types are the ones who get consistently laid. Each of us in this group have tried to go more alpha, but each, including me, have been shot down and humiliated by the rest of the group as they try to do it. I’m really thinking about making the move to separate myself from this group. I can’t do it now as I have some financial and academic things I have to get straightened out in my life, but going into next semester (Fall 2012), and after a Summer of self-improvement, I might have to cut myself off. One thing I’m worried about is how difficult it will be to meet new people going into my junior year, when people’s groups are already pretty well defined.
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“Each of us in this group have tried to go more alpha, but each, including me, have been shot down and humiliated by the rest of the group as they try to do it.”
This is not at all healthy. Sounds like they are all too afraid of change. I had friends like this is middle-school and it never got better till I moved on to high school. Don’t wait till next semester to ween yourself off them. Do it now. The longer you wait, the longer the old beta ways will be ingrained in you.
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If you become good enough, Matt, you can drag your sorry former friends (emphasis on the “former,” whether you acknowledge that fact or not) with you into alphatude. Alas, that’s probably not in the cards in a typical college timeframe.
First things first: concentrate on self-improvement to the exclusion of all influences that hold you back.
It’s like when you went away for college. You made new friends, and the high school pals faded to the degree to which they haven’t kept up with your improvement. It’s nothing personal. Former bonds just cannot be maintained along unparallel paths. Same with your semi-conscious buddies of the moment: their behavior makes them appear satisfied being rungs on your ladder. Step on them and advance.
There are no half-measures. There is no dipping your toe in to see if the water is fine. You have fought for a sliver of a beachhead. Now burn your boats. If you are “humiliated by the rest of the group as [you] try to” improve yourself, burn the group too. Their (and your?) reaction is beta cowardice masquerading as camaraderie. Teasing and humiliation in the locker room is a time-honored rite, a genuine instrument of improvement. But it must push a fellow teammate toward advancement rather than distract the group from a teaser’s own flaws.
Especially at your age, the trial and error must produce ultimate development rather than discouragement. Because, alpha though any 20-year-old may be, he is still barely out of teenage years and mom’s house, with nearly a decade to go before he peaks. Your successes now are not nearly as important as your failures and how such lessons alter your trajectory. You will reap the harvest in years, not next Saturday at O’Malley’s. Until then, fuck em all. Make your mistakes with aplomb and move on to the next error.
“One thing I’m worried about is how difficult it will be to meet new people going into my junior year, when people’s groups are already pretty well defined.”
You are worried about trifles when you should set your mind on being the definer. You are alpha, you define the pack, you don’t sniff the assholes on the periphery of other “people’s [well-defined] groups.” Such “definition” is beyond your immediate powers, but developing those powers is your primary task. Junior year of college is the perfect time to experiment with which methods do and do not contribute to your primary task.
Well done so far. You appear to have a clue. Now get all the clues. Boys your age are the most useless, most vexing, most insufferable people on the planet — or they are men, and the pride of the human race. They are the zoned-out pothead who mistakes own flatulence for insight, or they are the disciplined killer Marine at the height of his powers. They spin foosball rods, or they pilot nuclear submarines. They play ultimate frisbee on the quad, or they plant the seeds of empire. They lazily land a handful of easy twats out of inertia, or they power-up their universal twat magnet. Your decline or your ascent begins here, with your choices now, and you appear to be choosing well. Godspeed.
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Thank you for your phenomenal and truly inspirational reply.
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I like this. I like this alot.
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Earlier I had posted that one should never abandon one’s friends. But I wasn’t thinking of your case.
Most people go through this stage. You have “the group”. The guys you’ve been hanging around with forever. Then one day you notice that all they do is sit around and talk about what they did 5 years ago, in college, in high school, whatever. Nobody talks about what they want to do next year, in 5 years, etc. anymore. Or if they do it is only in a making a wish manner. Not actual concrete plans that they can carry out.
In this case my experience is that the best thing to do is to cut them off. You can do it gently, just stop hanging around as much, but you need to meet new people in order to continue growing. In the future you’ll find that some of them will also reach this level of understanding and you’ll start hanging out again.
Reaching and understanding this stage is one of the main signs that you are truly an adult. Well, that and using the phrase “these kids nowadays.”
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No need to explicitly sever ties with your old friends.
Just stop hanging out with them.
Stop initiating contact, and politely turn them down when they try to schedule stuff.
Part of self improvement is going out and doing stuff. You should have enough on your plate that there should be a ready excuse why you cannot visit with them, even if it’s a “tired from last night” or a “need to rest for tomorrow” type excuse.
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I agree with this. This post is timely as I’ve been struggling with it lately. Seems particularly when you discover game, most of your bros just won’t get it. Especially the saps in LTRs and marriages. They are a total lost cause until they get burned badly by the bitch and stumble upon game reading through the tears of an omega.
There are several stages in a man’s life where I truly believe the best thing for him is to wipe the slate clean: change cities, jobs, friends, etc. You will notice that the winners in life, the people who are always growing and accomplishing, do this frequently and never rely on just one small social set.
However what you said here is important to remember: just do it implicitly. You never know how these people will change themselves, and where they might turn up later in life. Resist the temptation to tell them off while you are all high and mighty. Don’t burn bridges unnecessarily, just ghost.
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DiamondEyes wrote: “Seems particularly when you discover game, most of your bros just won’t get it.”
Every man “gets it,” or he’s not a man. Revelation comes in waves unique to each individual, like growth spurts during puberty. The difficulty, like anything else, is leading other men along with your particular development, especially when you are green yourself. It’s too easy to think of bros as rivals rather than wingmen, too tempting to compare yourself to them and (rather catty-femininely) subconsciously sabotage, as Matt and his buds do above. The transformation is hard enough that you should go it alone before attempting the exponentially harder task of dragging friends with you. But there is nothing inevitable about their complacency. LTRs and oneitis are just the ready, feminism-compliant excuses for that complacency.
Without a pack, an alpha has no identity. Lone wolves are impressive in their own solitary way, but much less powerful than a leader of men. I return to the primary wisdom of Bob Hodges in the movie Colors:
Get over the rivalry and learn to cooperate with men. Easier said than done, but “nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love” (Reinhold Niebuhr). Right principle guided by esprit de corps overcomes all obstacles among men. Bros b4 hos 4eva.
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This applies to many areas of life. Fat people are notorious for trying to sabotage diets. Addicts will try to drag the quitter back to the habit.
You’ll have plenty of company if you choose to lead a mediocre life. If you aspire to greatness, prepare to achieve it largely alone.
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I’ve come to realize this too.
99% of people will try to steer you towards a mediocre, average life.
Unfortunately, the average life does not see its’ dreams come true.
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Money words!
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A good friend will help you move; a true friend will help you move the bodies.
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Do what retired hookers do and move. You’re reinventing yourself and its best to go somewhere its appreciated, not envied.
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You don’t have friends at work. You could spend thirty years sitting next to some guy thinking you are friends and the minute you get canned he will act like he doesn’t know you. Seek your friendships outside your job. The same applies to sex; seek your entertainment outside your job where there is no employment cost to getting scorned and rejected by females. Ignore workplace women.
As for improving your game and attitude, you are damn right it’s perceived as a big threat to everyone. You were likely hired in as a beta so don’t get uppity. If you start wearing gabardines and an executive-style hairdo the other rodents are going to get agitated, possibly to the point of cannibalism. Appear at work in other than the beta-pants you started out with and you will quickly get the rumor mill going about your new job search.
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dude, where’s the funny?
you’re not
Bringin’ The Yucks
per usual
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Ever since that “Zorro” character on the-spearhead complained that my gags were getting stale I seem to have lost my mojo.
Oh occasionally I drop by ForbesWoman and open my raincoat for them but things just aren’t the same.
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Indeed, it is an important male imperative to shed friends who do not support his highest masculine expression. Over the years, I’ve shed many a friend who balked at staring the beast (human nature) in the face.
Yet I am no worse for the wear, and in fact am much healthier and stronger emotionally. Jettisoning people who wear on you allows one to set healthy boundaries as to what is acceptable in behavior from one’s friends.
Further, the friends that do stay and stick around are then by nature and by definition, men’s men, alphas, or alphas-in-training. The camaraderie that develops over years from men working together to become better men, it’s a bond known only to men who’ve fought in war together or who have otherwise experienced intense and powerful events.
Embrace the shifting of your social circle; don’t cling, don’t lament. This is the way, with women and with all people.
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Every man I call “friend” is a friend for life. I have no ex-friends, just varying levels of trust based on varying levels of fidelity to certain principles. When the chips are down, I’m there. When they become complacent about the principle that binds us, I’m gone. Over the course of a lifetime, it brings men in line. Friends I haven’t talk to in years pick right back up where we left off with a phone call. You are more loyal to a man in your criticism of his weaknesses than you are remaining in propinquity to endure them.
Loving your friend means helping him improve. If game is the source of great improvement in your life, as most men here testify, then your friendship depends bringing him to game. Whether he is disposed to it at any given time is random and above your paygrade. But preach always.
You eventually attain a certain serenity with your friends’ development or lack thereof. Just as the idea of love is misapprehended as something like its opposite, so too is “friendship.” Friendship is the bond that transcends particular disagreement. The gaps in development are contained within a strong bond.
Read the fundamentals:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/#Fri
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysis_%28dialogue%29
It doesn’t help that we throw around the word “friend” like it’s cool, when we really mean acquaintance or fellow-traveler.
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Claps. Any other philosophical recommendations?
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Yeah.
Read “The Shark-Infested Custard” by Charles Willeford.
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Cicero wrote a tract called Laelius de Amicitia, or “(To Laelius) On Friendship.”
Allan Bloom wrote a book called Love and Friendship, which draws off various classics from the ancients to the romantics, such as Plato’s Symposium. I found Bloom’s collection to be insightful, but haven’t read it in a while.
Finally, there is this anthology by Leon and Amy Kass, Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar. Not exactly up a gamer’s alley, as it is more about courtship and marriage, but excerpts from diverse sources may be a decent entree into the theme in literature for your own independent exploration.
That’s the thing about the classics. You have to have a knack for the various idioms in which they were written, and you have to do the work. It isn’t easy reading, but the payoff is worth the effort.
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.” — Francis Bacon
I wouldn’t recommend any of this red meat if your diet solely consists of the cotton candy and gummy bears of The Mystery Method and The Game. Wouldn’t want to upset anybody’s stomachs. If you are of the mind that everybody was a “mangina” until Mystery et.al. cracked the code, then just keep moving along to the next post. Nothing to see here.
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I unintentionally got away from my old friends and associates on two different occasions, once when I moved to a different city for university, and again when I moved to the country I’m currently in. Both times it was hugely liberating. Not that I ever had too much difficulty with girls, but being amongst completely new people allowed me to speak and act with a lot more confidence because I wasn’t unconsciously influenced by any preconceptions others might have had about me.
As for the loyalty issue, you won’t fall out of contact with your true friends. You will stay friends organically if the friendships are real. This is especially true as a guy since our friendships don’t need too much maintenance. As Adam Carolla says, true friendship is like an outdoor cat – it takes care of itself:
If you feel the need to cut off certain friends, then they aren’t your true friends; your true friends won’t make you feel this way. True friends want to see you succeed. I’m not saying this as an idealist; I’m saying it as someone who has experienced it.
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I think it’s necessary to better define what a “friend” is…
Is your ‘friend’ someone who you hang out with, and grab a drink and hit on chicks?
Is your ‘friend’ your drug dealer?
Is your ‘friend’ someone who has connections to get you a better job or get you that sales account?
Is your ‘friend’ your psychologist, someone who you need for emotional support?
Is your ‘friend’ someone you play sports with?
Is your ‘friend’ someone you sit next to in school, or play video games with because he lives in your next-door apt?
Is your ‘friend’ someone you watch the football game with?
All these things must be answered before you can put a value to ‘friendship’ and determine whether to sever ties, or do whatever it is that you’re gonna do.
I find I don’t have any ‘real’ friends like I did when I was in grade school. I have a lot of casual friends who I either do activities with, employ, or feign interest in their lives because they may be useful one day.
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100% true article. Good stuff.
When you improve yourself, your real friends will support you and you’ll find out who your fake friends are. Unfortunately, you’ll also find that there were way less real friends in your social circle than you thought.
People don’t like a reality shift. That’s why AFC/Whiteknights have trouble accepting game concepts even though that new knowledge would benefit them. Once you start re-thinking one part of your beliefs, you have to start re-thinking other parts and it’s just too much of a mindfuck for most people to deal with since they had everything all nice and orderly in their minds before.
It’s much easier to say “Dude, that’s not you, why are you doing that, be yourself man, you’re being weird.” so you cave and go back to the label they’ve put on you in their heads and they can go back to knowing how the world works.
There’s also the crabs in a bucket situation. Where if your friends view you as equal to them, and then you go and improve yourself, but they haven’t, your changing yourself for the better rubs in their face that they’re lazy shits who aren’t doing that for themselves so they feel worse. What’s easier than following you on your journey and improving themselves? Getting you to give up your journey so they don’t have to feel as pathetic anymore. Entrepreneurs run into this a lot. So do people who move away from their small-town pot-head buddies to “the big city” and get good high paying jobs and then come back to visit.
Moving to a new city, or a new chapter in your life (college, new job, etc.) helps a lot with big identity changes. You’ll go back to visit your old social circle in a year or two and they won’t even recognize you. Some of them will hate the new you, and a very small number of them will accept the new you. Ditch the haters, even if you have history with them, life is too short and you can make new, better friends, who want the best for you.
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A quote I read years ago from some ancient Greek:
A true friend.
In your youth, he restrains your rashness.
In your prime, he inspires you to greater achievements.
In your old age, he is a support in your frailty.
About cutting off from old friends. As an old guy, I can say that almost every decision I made, regarding important life choices, which were comfortable and low risk, I came to regret. Those decisions I made which were stressful, and which I made under duress (choosing between several stressful alternatives) I found yielded the greatest rewards. So, be prudent, but by all means, go for it. What do you have to lose? Your current situation is most unsatisfying. You only go around once, and the ride is short. Staying in a rut is the worse thing you can do.
Of course, this brings to mind an Onion New headline a while back, to wit:
Ten Thousand People Die Each Year By Getting Out of Their Comfort Zone.
Kept a sense of humor at all times. Don’t be anybody’s tool.
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Gramps, from one old guy to another I like what you say. If your writing is elsewhere on the web give us a link, OK?
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A variant of this, if you want to really see how your current ‘friends’ really view you, is to move away for a period of time during which you grow and improve yourself, and then go back for a visit. The scales will fall from your eyes.
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Avoidant Personality Disorder.
I might have it. If not, Im close. Yet, I intellectually understand human nature, game, etc…and I have a high sex drive.
Should I just end myself? I think so.
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Does anyone also notice that migration patterns always, everywhere, go in the direction of lower social capital displacing the higher? Case in point: uglier women replacing prettier ones.
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I’ve also been in a similar situation, it seems indeed that my friends’ responses are divided into either pulling in towards beta or pushing out because I do not fit anymore or because they are intimidated. The latter seems especially weird to me, and I think it relates to what some guy posted here in reply to “Dominance Plays” a few weeks ago:
“A lot of guys who learn PUA game and our AMOG tactics go through this phase and are fucking impossible to hang out with during it. They see every interaction as a battle of alpha dominance and while those dynamics ARE always subtly going on, they’re obsessed with staying at the top of the pack even if it means other people find them obnoxious and rude. Everyone becomes an enemy, especially other guys, even friends.”
The situation is surprisingly hard to escape because the whole environment is hostile towards such changes – betas want you to stay beta with them and alphas do not wish to have their dominance threatened. Making new, non-beta friends is impossible because most people remember your old self, and severing your ties with everybody is hard because of the fear to be left alone.
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“There’s a new kid in town, everybody’s talkin’ ’bout the new kid in town…”
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“A true friend, lifting you up every step of the way, is a gift not to be squandered.”
Wiser words could not be written. But how is this any different between men and women? There are loyal women just as there are disloyal men. Its about the actual person, not their sex.
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You don’t necessarily have to be categorical about it. That is there may be a male friend or two who are willing to see you transforming and encourage you. These are more likely to be greater betas or lesser alphas than center betas. Others ditch. As for girls, ditch as friends any that aren’t a least cute, better pretty 7’s, and absolutely stop trying to flirt with girls that aren’t returning ioi’s. Stop orbiting cute and pretty girls pretty much, at least with any thought of friendship maybe leading to sex, but pretty girls who are friends can be good social proof, even if they’re only friends, as long as they’re not condescending to you. You can also sometimes let girls who are friends in on your self improvement with girls project, and get them to actively wing for you, in the sense of pretending to be sexually attracted to you, etc., just to help you out.
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“A quote I read years ago from some ancient Greek:
A true friend.
In your youth, he restrains your rashness.
In your prime, he inspires you to greater achievements.
In your old age, he is a support in your frailty.”
* A friend will bail you out of jail.
* A buddy will turn to you in the cell and say, “Man, we sure fucked up this time. . . “
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Or, put another way: “If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)
If you are clinging to old ways you are distracted, still the old you. Your transformation is a joke, play-acting, not committed to the task. “Friends” who presume the old you still applies must be purged with extreme prejudice, put on notice that you will no longer respond to your slave name.
No one in all of literature does this purgation more ruthlessly than Prince Hal, who for two uproarious plays was a consorter of thieves and drunks and pub-scum as a young man, only to turn his back on that life upon becoming the great Henry V. So fierce is the new king’s rejection of his old circles that it strikes jolly Falstaff dead:
Your dedication to the new life is indicated by how comfortable you are with your fomer self and all the elements and persons that defined that former self, even if only symbolically. Game is potent enough and the field is ripe enough for even small surface changes to create outsized results. But superficial transformation ultimately alters nothing, and you have to put your “hand to the plow” and never “look[] back”:
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Utmost respect for you guys. You used ancient Greek wisdom, Shakespeare quotes, and Bible quotes all relevant to the issue. A woman could never come close to making these kinds of connections.
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oh no? is that a new rule: only men can be smart?
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The word ‘friend’ doesn’t mean shit to me. At the end of the day, everyone is a selfish mutherfucker, biologically programmed to exploit those who are relatively weak (kind, generous, compassionate). If you won a million dollars, would you give half to your bestest ‘friend’ in the whole world? Do you think he would do it for you? keep dreaming. You got born alone, you’re gonna die alone. Your ‘friend’ will end up with your stereo too.
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Um…job “friends” are usually transitory, circumstantial – and quickly fade into unimportance.
Grow up.
Ditch them – unless you work
at a strip club.
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Sometimes you really cant escape them. If theyre youre family. I live with my dad and brother. My dad is super beta and my bro well,he’s getting there. Before i began reading the blog i never understood what was wrong with my family, my dad seemed to do things the right way,he taught us good principles. But then as i grew up,realised people took too much advantage of my dad. At work mostly. And he did things,well,that would make you want to literally vomit if you were in my shoes. Thats how bad it is. After reading the blog, its like i was in a desert and i jus found water. Refreshing! Iv been working on my game for a few months now and its been challenging with the both of them around me almost 50% of the time. You get out to the world with an alpha attitude and come back home to serious betaness. Makes the journey harder,but not impossible!
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(SORRY! PRESSED SEND TOO SOON!)
“that paedo bloke!”
I used to wonder why my friends didn’t have weird teachers like this. I hated being around him – and I am gay!!
Even thinking of him makes me cringe, so that gets back to the post!
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“Loyalty to friends should not be reneged carelessly. Loyalty is, for good or ill, one of the more prominent virtues that delineates the world of men from the world of women.”
I can’t believe I’m reading this. Prominent virtue? At the end of the day, you have to look out for #1. Loyalty is a myth. You’re in for a lifetime of “virtuous” pain if you think otherwise.
Law #2
Never put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn how to use Enemies
Be wary of friends-they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy. They also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former enemy and he will be more loyal than a friend, because he has more to prove. In fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them.
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Yeah I think CH is wrong on this one. All you have to do is read the studies on women’s biological attraction to dark triad men who are loyal to noone and will gladly stab anyone in the back to get ahead. I’m not so sure loyalty is alpha but perhaps not beta either. All I know is science backs up women love assholes who only care about themselves especially when they are ovulating. So I ask CH are you sure loyalty is something important for a man to have?
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@ sam spade
In my experience, any guy who speaks of ‘real’ friends and enduring loyalty, usually finds himself smacking those friends around every once in a while.
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[…] Chateau has published what I find to be a very relevant article about the detriment that one’s friend circle can have on one’s quest for alphadom and […]
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You have a rare opportunity – the best choice is also the easiest! You need to move to a different city – one with better economic opportunity and hotter women (a combination that usually goes hand-in-hand). You won’t be losing your old friends, but you will be able to re-invent yourself without the baggage of having those betas around.
As a former severe beta (omega?), It took two significant moves to create a new, almost unrecognizable identity. Living in the same town, it’s just too hard to escape your old social status and you’ll always have congruency problems.
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What if you didn’t have any friends to begin with?
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something very cool about this guy admitting this so nonchalantly.
-Luba
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I made the transition from betahood to alphahood quite smoothly by slowly distancing myself from the bitter betas in my social group and sticking with my close friends who were supportive of my pussy quest.
I later hung out with my beta friends to find them bland and again noticed they were resentfull of my transition, so I just stopped talking to them and sticking with those who truly were my friends.
I find however, my female friends were a hinderance in that their emotional idea of who I was is hard to shake and they woild still make me feel beta during my transition. So, I distanced them until I became the confident person I am now and they’re shocked at how different I am.
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i just moved to a new city, one with hotter women and better economic opportunities, which do go hand in hand, as has been noted. i moved from a small college town where i had moderate pussy success, but enough skeletons of failed attempts in the closet to mar my status.
i moved and its been better, but not an instant magic bullet. i’ve noticed incremental status and attitude changes, which is disheartening, because i of course want instant change like anyone else, but the small steps i’ve noticed wouldn’t have happened if i had stayed in the same place.
as for getting rid of the cancer, its worse when its family. my father is a pastor, who my mother said begged on his knees for her to marry him on no less than three separate occasions. she eventually gave in, but said she made the worst decision of her life. i am one of 9 children, i have 3 different brothers who have proposed to their gfs recently. 2 of them will not kiss or fuck their girls before wedding day. it gets harder and harder to visit, because i am one of the older children, and my younger siblings are all getting married before me. they keep looking at me like something is wrong with me. i don’t plan on getting married, and if so, not certainly anytime in the next decade. (i am 23) all i get is shit from them, so i try and keep my distance. i can’t burn these bridges, so i’ve gone ghost as has been stated above. i think having a shitty social circle is a blessing in disguise, because there’s nothing i’d rather be more than a sexual god to women as i approach my 30s. having bullshit in your past makes you that much more determined to make it happen
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“The caveat to the above should be when your friends understand your purpose, and help you to achieve it. But a friend like that is rarer than most think. A true friend, lifting you up every step of the way, is a gift not to be squandered.”
Being one of these people is more important then anything else at the end of the day. The girls will come with the qualities required to maintain this state.
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I have to disagree on what you say about abandoning friends. Although some females can definitely be catty and not particularly loyal, I’ve found that there are just as many who stick together through thick and thin. I’ve had a group of close friends that have stuck together since middle school, while my boyfriend’s old group of friends all let jobs get in the way of keeping in touch.
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@gaius
You must be from a small town if you’re only 23 and your younger siblings are already getting married. That is definitely NOT the trend in the rest of the nation.
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Leave and join the Army. You’ll be reinvented. Plus, plenty of pussy for hardcore soldiers.
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[…] “The Austrian Gets Stalked“, “Death By Scooter”Heartiste – “Abandoning Friends Who Know You as You Were“, “Why, and When, Women Cheat”Danger & Play – “Lifestyle v. […]
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[…] Abandoning Friends Who Know You As You Were (heartiste.wordpress.com) Mr Progress says Share this!Share on TumblrLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. This entry was posted in Comedy, List, Satire and tagged Alpha, Jeremy Lin, Kristen Bell, People, Relationships, Social status by Mr Progress. Bookmark the permalink. […]
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