How Game Changes For The Mature Player

The biggest change you can expect as an older player gaming girls is this:

Don’t expect approach invitations.

Because of the economics of the sexual market, (which mechanism is amplified in the anonymous urban steambaths), as you get older than the average age of the competition in the typical bar scene you are going to have to mentally adjust to receiving fewer flirtatious looks from girls. You won’t be able to rely on female approach invitations (AIs) — in the form of shy glances, licked lips, coy smiles, or even bold icebreakers — as often as you did when you were not more than five to ten years older than the girls you were fucking.

This does not mean your days of pickup are over.

All it means is that you will have to be bolder in approaching girls who haven’t given you signals to approach them. Ironically, this could very well result in an explosion in your game success, because of two reasons: One, females favor the bold (and what is bolder than a man who hits on a woman like a thunderbolt from the sky?), and two, cold approaches minus the AI primer require a higher level of game skill.

Men who aren’t accustomed to approaching women without first receiving a flirty cue from them are going to be the ones stranded in confusion when they get older than the most desirable demographic of women (ages 15 – 25) that they chase. If a man habitually relies on an AI before making a move on a girl, then he will lock up in fear when forced to contemplate approaching a girl who hasn’t noticed him. No matter how good his game, all his knowledge will be useless because he won’t be able to hurdle that initial obstacle of hitting on a girl who is ice cold to his advances.

In fact, this is the primary problem I observe with the majority of men who discover game. They go to great lengths to learn incredibly effective game tactics like raising a girl’s buying temperature, coaxing her through compliance hoops, and logistically managing the pickup, only to limit their approaches — out of fear or cowardice or expedience — to girls who have given them the green light with a flirty glance. These men are not truly being tested; they are running what I call “Fuckup Avoidance Game” (FAG), which is running “good enough” game on a girl who initially cued her attraction for him and will go to bed with him as long as he doesn’t say or do anything too beta.

FAG game is great to run when you are a good looking guy in your prime, but if all you have is FAG game then expect your success to abandon you when your courage is really tested by women who aren’t making the approach easy for you. I think it’s amazing to see a Mystery in his prime running tight game and scoring threesomes with 8s and above as his feather boa tickles their faces, but my real, deep respect is reserved for those men who don’t have the crutch of flirty female AIs to help ease them into their pickup routines, and must instead rely on sheer daring and determination along with their repertoire of game skills to get the girl.

The day will come when few of your pickup attempts will be lubed with the prologue of a movie moment exchange of shy, flirty glances. When that day comes, you had better have sufficiently trained your balls to sack up for REAL cold approaches — the kind that will stop your heart if you take two seconds too long to ponder them, but will make your success that much sweeter.

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Anti-Player Counterinsurgency: Game For Women

Reproduction is a biological arms race. Did you think women would just lie down as more and more players plunder their goods? Well, yes, they would, but they will also respond with anti-player counterinsurgency tactics, because it is the subconscious algorithm of women to make it as difficult as possible for men to get up their skirts. Reader “Dr Love” pointed me to a couple of Huffington Post articles by “dating and relationship coach” Jag Carrao (only in a nation wheezing its last breaths could a person find a successful career as a dating and relationship coach) where she offers rules for women on how to successfully thwart any game that men run on them.

Since we will be seeing more of this sort of thing in the coming years from self-styled “Rules Girls”, and because I am a man of tremendous magnanimity and nobleness of spirit, I’ve decided to get a jump start and give you the tools you’ll need to fend off women’s counterinsurgencies to your game. Call it anti-anti-player game.

In her first article, Jag Carrao suggests ways for women to avoid common female dating mistakes that keep them going back again and again into the arms of badboys and assholes. (In womanspeak, “dating mistake” means anything that helps the man get the bang).

Dating Mistake #1:  Approaching Him First.

Quick Fix:  If you talked to him first or even asked him out, you can try to restore some of the feminine mystique you forfeited as the initiator by being a bit more elusive – a little less available, a little more mysterious.

Anti-Anti-Player Solution: Double down. When she waits a day to return your call, you wait two days to return hers. When she cancels a date, you cancel two. Or you cancel an even bigger, better date that she was looking forward to. A player understands that women like to maintain an air of mystery and coyness, but he also understands that the world is full of women. His abundance mentality ensures that no woman remains elusive with him for long.

Dating Mistake #2: Acting overly chummy.

Quick Fix:  Recognize that the more you talk about yourself, the less you’ll be listening and observing whether he is right for you.  Identify why you feel the need to yammer on — nervousness, low tolerance for awkward silences, desire to impress with witty banter and accomplishments – and remember that you are not there to audition, but to relax and have a good time.

Anti-Anti-Player Solution: As any reader of my blog knows by now, seduction is in large part a simple flipping of the male-female mating script. You *want* women to feel like they have to audition for your favor. If she clams up in order to get you to reveal more about yourself, continue framing the conversation in such a way that she is coaxed into dropping important details about herself. This is when the art of qualifying is put to best use.

Dating Mistake #3:  Accepting last minute dates. 

Quick Fix:  To make sure you’re his “Plan A” girl (not the “Plan B” girl he calls after his first choice turns him down), I recommend setting a firm cut-off limit after which you’re “busy” – period.

Anti-Anti-Player Solution: The seasoned player avoids any issues associated with the timing of scheduling dates by taking the girl home the night they meet. Not everyone is a seasoned player, though, so calls and arrangements will have to be made. I don’t have a problem with calling girls a few days ahead to schedule a date, as long as you don’t leave the impression that your schedule is wide open. For example, if it’s a Monday when you call her, and you schedule a date for Thursday, don’t offer another day that same week if she can’t make it happen on Thursday. Just tell her you’ll be in touch and see if you two can get together some other time, then. Ambivalence makes the heart grow fonder.

Dating Mistake #4: Jumping into a “whirlwind romance.”

Quick Fix:  You need to start pacing the relationship.   Don’t see him more than once or twice a week, don’t talk more than ten minutes on the phone, don’t open up too fast, or introduce him to your friends before he introduces you to his.  If he absolutely must see you every day, 24-hours-a-day, there’s this arrangement called marriage…..let him figure it out!

Anti-Anti-Player Solution: This one is simple. Three date rule. If she isn’t putting out — or giving clear indications that she’s well on the way to putting out — by the third date, her attraction for you isn’t strong enough for you to invest much more energy or time in her. Or she’s a repressed prude. Either way, the last thing a player wants is a woman who controls the pace of dispensing her sexual favors. If you sense she’s dragging her feet by date three, the best countertactic is to cancel date four. Any plausible excuse will work. Instill the fear of loss into her and watch as her practiced restraint melts away.

Also, any man who wants to see a girl every day, 24 hours a day, is not likely to get into any whirlwind romance because women aren’t attracted to clingy betas.

Dating Mistake #5: Wasting Time.

Quick Fix:  Know what you want – and believe you deserve it.  If you want to get married but the guy you’ve been dating for over a year still isn’t sure, set a time limit of how long you’re willing to wait then stick to it.  Once D-Day (decision day) arrives, and he’s still waffling, then move on and do not look back (if he’s ever going to know and man up to a proposal, this will be your best – and his last – chance).

Anti-Anti-Player Solution: This is good advice for women (after all, women’s dating market value is much shorter lived than men’s) but it has almost zero chance of being heeded, so the player need not worry too much about neutralizing the marriage ultimatum. When a woman loves you, and you don’t give her blatant reasons to bolt, the hardest thing in the world for her to do is to walk away from you on account of an abstract principle such as years remaining to sexual expiration. But in the rare case it does happen, remember: Marriage is no insurance against her leaving you; all it does is buy you a few extra years of arid emotional investment from a woman who is calculatingly capable of issuing, and abiding, relationship ultimatums. What *is* an insurance policy against her leaving you? Her love.

In Jag Carrao’s second article, she continues the theme of rules for women to avoid becoming a player’s next lover. Leave it to a “dating and relationship coach” to counsel the virtues of anti-pleasure.

1) The “play to lay” game. This is where he pretends to care about you more than he actually does at the beginning in order to get you into bed.

Girl’s Game Changer: In order the separate the man who actually DOES fall in love with you at first sight and CAN go the distance from the players, a woman must pace the relationship. Rules authors Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider recommend: Don’t see him more than once or twice a week for the first month or two. Don’t invite him back to your place for the first few dates, and try to hold off on sex until you’re confident he’ll stick around. Sure, a guy who’s just looking to get laid won’t put up with such “games from women.” In other words, you’ll weed out those who want only one thing.

Anti-Anti-Player Solution: You can keep a woman playing hard-to-get firmly ensconced in your rotation of regulars by making sure you have other options. Never date only one woman at a time. Always keep at least two in the kitty. A woman will find her ability to control you by pacing how frequently she delivers the goods severely compromised when you remain unruffled by her pussy machinations. Again, by flipping the seduction script and playing hard-to-get yourself, you lure the woman into chasing you. The ultimate pleasure for the player is not sex gotten, but sex given. It is especially satisfying to game a woman so well that she chases you into bed, instead of you chasing her.

2) The “spontaneity” game. At worst, this is when men try to pass off “booty calls” as spontaneous gestures of missing you and needing you.  At best, it’s just laziness, lack of organization, or taking a woman’s time and schedule for granted. Either way, it doesn’t really make a gal feel special or respected when a man calls right before he wants to see her.

Girl’s Game Changer: Ladies, if you would prefer that the men in your lives gave you more advance notice when asking you out, then STOP accepting last minute invitations!  Why not just tell him you prefer to be asked out in advance? You know, ‘cuz it’s all about communicating and being honest? BECAUSE IT WON’T WORK and it will only come across as nagging. As I said in my previous blog, I think the “three days in advance” (e.g., Wednesday for Saturday) as proposed in The Rules is reasonable.

Anti-Anti-Player Solution: Reframe your booty calls by making her feel that something is wrong with her for not being spontaneous. “I hope you’re an adventurous girl and not lame, because there’s this great sunset right now over the river that you can’t miss. Come join me, I’ve got champagne.” In general, you should refrain from booty calling all the time. She’ll quickly grow weary of them if that’s all she gets from you. Mix it up. A few scheduled dates, a few booty calls. Women love unpredictability.

3) The “good enough for now” game. This is the fun little merry-go-round in which a man creates the impression that the two of you are in a serious relationship when he’s actually stringing you along, enjoying your sexual favors and home-cooked meals, while actively looking for something better.

Girl’s Game Changer: If you’re seeing him once or twice a week, then make sure one of those dates is international date night: Saturday. Unless one/both of you are working or have family commitments on Saturdays, that’s when he gets to see you. How to get him to ask you out for Saturday? Say no to Thursday, Friday, Sunday, Monday…you get the idea. Once again, a man who is just marking time with you won’t “put up with such games” from women – which is precisely what we want! Men with lukewarm interest won’t pursue a woman who is even the slightest challenge – but not even teams of wild horses (much less a few pesky Rules) can deter the man who really, really loves you.

Anti-Anti-Player Solution: The problem with this advice is that the men women want most — alphas, cads, and assholes — are the least likely to “put up with such games” from women. So the woman who follows this “Girl’s Game Changer” rule will soon find herself missing out on the company of desirable men. Only the very hottest of women can get away with saying no to dates on any night other than Saturday night. And the man who DOES agree to a Saturday night date will, ironically, because of the perception that he had nothing better going on, become LESS attractive to the woman who adheres to such a draconian rule!

And that strikes at the inherent disconnect with a lot of these “Rules Girls” rules — the more successful women are at getting men to play by these rules, the less attractive those men become to them. So it is not only in men’s interest, but in women’s interest as well, for men to refuse to play by women’s rules.

As for the specific rule offered here, a way around it is to train your woman to have low expectations for seeing you on prime pussy hunting nights. Don’t schedule Saturday dates until at least a month has passed, and then only schedule them once or twice a month. When your woman has low expectations, it becomes a challenge to disappoint her.

4) The “break up to make up” game.  Two can certainly play at this game, but when the on-again-off-again routine starts stretching into years, vs. months, it’s women who have the most to lose, as time is our most precious, non-renewable resource.

Girl’s Game Changer: This one is so hard. As Greg Behrendt put it in He’s Just Not That Into You:

“What could be better than hearing from the man who just told you he didn’t want you in his life anymore, his sad, wistful, ‘I miss you so much’ voice on the other end of the phone? It’s validating. It’s exciting. It’s irresistible. But resist you must.”

Usually, when he breaks it off, it’s broken forever. But not always. Sometimes you’ve crowded and scared a guy, and the break up is his way of reasserting his space. So GIVE HIM SPACE. Don’t call him, don’t e-mail him. If he does call and ask to get back together, proceed with caution. He’s proven he can walk away from you once. The defensive dating techniques I recommend can protect your already bruised heart from getting brutalized once more.

Anti-Anti-Player Solution: None needed. This “rule” works to the benefit of the player. Half-assed breakups initiated by the man are a great way to spice up a sex life. You will never plunge into a wetter, wider pussy than the week after you’ve quasi-broken up with a girl and called her out of the blue to get together for drinks. It’s mean, but oh sweet jesus is it effective.

There is another common game men play – it’s actually a word game, where they pretend they have never heard of and certainly cannot pronounce such words as “marriage,” “commitment” and “children.” Deftly winning this game requires delicate skill, and deserves an entire blog on the subject. So tune in next time for “Engaged by Christmas.”

Anti-Anti-Player Solution: This is because after marriage, women have a hard time pronouncing such words as “blowjob”, “ass to mouth”, and “train station bathroom tug job”.

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The Lie Of Locking Her In

It’s a nagging crescendo in my ear. Family is saying it, friends are hinting it: When are you going to settle down? Usually the words they use are along the lines of “Is she the one? You should think about sticking it out with this one. Do you want to be alone the rest of your life? Do you think you can play the field forever?”

Yes, I think I can play the field forever.

Why do people balk at those who choose the lifestyle of the love mercenary, of the wanderlust warrior? Envy, mostly. Sincere concern, rarely. These voices — social pressure that sows self-doubt — will influence most men. Very few men have the fortitude to live the life of Oswald Hendryks Cornelius. Marriage, and probable divorce, is in the cards for most men.

Why do men bother to get married? There’s really nothing in it for them. All that marriage offers a man can be had in a loving, long term relationship. So why? These are the best reasons rationalizations I can think of:

• I have to lock her in because the snatch must flow.

As any dead-eyed married man will tell you, the sex is always hottest until that first bite of wedding cake. Sure, marriage might mean fewer extended dry spells, and a more consistent output of pussy, but the quality of that output is going to take a nosedive.

Fact: Once in a secure relationship (and nothing is more secure for a woman than marriage — the law sees to that) a woman’s sex drive plummets. If you like your girl to move around a bit in bed and actually, you know, enjoy getting jackhammered by your beefy breach, marriage will see to it that she reads a trashy romance novel and sighs with boredom while asking “you done yet, honey?” while you huff and puff your way to another anti-climactic climax.

Fact: Women pack on the pounds after getting married. What good is consistent sex if it’s with a hippo? No wonder so many married men sneak away in the middle of the night to jack off to internet porn.

Fact: Your wife’s pussy will always be the same. Yep, one year, five years, ten years — that pussy looking back at you is like an old, very old, friend — that you no longer want to have sex with. Familiarity breeds contempt. When you’ve memorized the length and location of every pube and the droop of labia draggle, you’re going to ache for fresh meat. For men, variety is the spice of life. If older men maintained the libido of their younger selves you’d see extramarital affairs shoot through the roof.

• If I don’t marry her, she’ll leave me. And then I’ll be alone.

There are two things wrong with this reasoning. One, if you don’t have the confidence to score another woman in case of a break-up, then you don’t have the confidence to keep your current girlfriend attracted to you. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Think you’ll be alone, then you will be alone, even when you’re not. Or: Fear is the mindkiller.

Two, marriage is no insurance policy against being unceremoniously dumped. Maybe it was at one time, but not anymore. A woman loses NOTHING that can compare to what you will lose if she decides to divorce you. Worse, in 2009 America there is every incentive in the world for a woman to divorce at the slightest drop in her attraction for her husband. Financial, legal, social, sometimes even sexual. The god of biomechanics does not take a holiday from reality once you slip a ring on your beloved’s finger.

• I might not do better.

Sure, but then you could lament the same thing in non-marital relationships. Look at your LTR. You might not do better. Look at your fling. You might not do better. Look at your fuckbuddy. You might not do better. Look at that old pic of your college sweetheart. You might not do better.

So… how is marriage going to save you from this fear-induced soul searching? It’s not. If anything, marriage is only going to rub your face in your testicular impotence. If your wife thinks you can’t do better, she’ll begin to treat you like women treat every man who can’t do better — shittily. Except now, she’s got the long arm of the marital law on her side, so you don’t even have the option to find out if you can do better without taking a world class ramming up the ass. As bad as dry spells are, they’re even worse when the pussy you used to tap has closed up shop and taunts you nightly from across the bed.

• She’ll stop loving me if I don’t marry her.

Assbackwards. Women don’t stop loving men for any reason except one — he turned beta. What about cheaters? Nope. Talk to women about their most cherished loves. You’ll notice something. Scorned women harbor their deepest love for the men who gutted their hearts. Not marrying her is more likely to have the opposite effect; the more you resist, the stronger her love for you.

Sure, some women do eventually leave men when it becomes clear to them that they aren’t going to propose. But that’s not the same as losing love for those men.

• She’ll never agree to a non-marital long term relationship.

You’d be surprised how quickly women will agree to your terms when you have her gina tingle on lockdown. And if she doesn’t agree? Find yourself a woman who does. The mere threat of leaving her over this issue will often be enough to bring her around to your way of thinking.

• I’ll just get married when I’m older. Late marriages have a lower divorce rate.

The reason younger marriages fail more often than marriages later in life is because younger people in their 20s have more options in the sexual market. Options = instability.

But don’t crow about the benefits of later marriages. For one, older women don’t have as many prime fertile years left in which to bear children. Two, later marriages often feel more like business propositions than ecstatic vows of love. That is not a good thing.

• I’ll live longer as a married man.

Leaving aside that this statistic may be more myth than reality, what benefit is it to you to live a few extra years shuffling along painfully in well-worn slippers and gazing longingly outside windows at youth frolicking with the joy of health and vigor? My take on getting older: It’s immortality or bust.

• It’s the right thing to do.

Right thing? I don’t give a shit. Good man? Fuck you! Go home and play with your pud. You wanna good life — don’t close! You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you cocksucker? You can’t take this, how can you take the abuse you get in divorce proceedings?

• It’s good for society.

You’re right, it is. But since when did society give a fuck about you?

• But I really love her.

Did you not really love her before you dropped to one knee?

• I want to have kids.

This might be the only halfway acceptable reason to get married. If you want the best for your kids, raising them in a broken home is not the way to do it. But even here, women have the upper hand. No matter how much you love your kids, if a divorce happens (50% chance, 70+% chance the wife initiates it) you are going to be paying child support for the new lingerie your ex-wife buys to sexually please her blogger lover.

I don’t see how any man could want kids, though. Kids are a complete fun suck. They don’t get enjoyable until ages 11-13, after they’ve evolved from bratty ingrates and before they’ve turned into brooding ingrates. If men would think long and hard about kids, they’d come to the same conclusion I did: Changing diapers or sex in the woods? The choice is clear.

To all those imploring that I settle down, I say: Don’t hold your breath. Yes, I will get older. But then, I would have gotten older in a marriage, too. Yes, there is a risk I could live out my final, rapidly deteriorating years in solitude. But then, marriage is no guarantee of a life lived loved. A signature on a dotted line and a jointly filed tax return does not protect you from living loveless and solitary. There is also the small matter of my inquisitive eye. Even when I love the girl I’m with, it seems that when I’m out I can’t help but admire another beautiful woman in the vicinity, and to desire her in the most intimate manner. I imagine scenarios flirting with her, making her smile and her eyes sparkle, her legs cross and uncross in sublimated autoeroticism. This urge of mine does not have an off switch.

I know that hedonic convergence does not magically manifest in the gleam of a gold ring. Life is a parade of worry and high wire risk, of love and loneliness, and no socially manufactured arrangement exists to insulate you from your dreaded fears. To imagine otherwise is beta.

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Cornered!

I’ve got a very important post up at men’s magazine The Spearhead for my Friday Night Game weekly series. Excerpt:

There are only three things that drain the blood faster from a man’s face than the thought of erectile dysfunction:

1. When your wife serves you divorce papers.
2. When you catch your woman fooling around with another man.
3. When your woman busts you for cheating.

The first two, luckily, haven’t happened to me, but the last one has… multiple times. And from those trials by ovarian fire I have learned a few valuable lessons. I’m here to tell you what to do — or, more precisely, what *not* to do — when your girl jabs the infidelity finger of accusation in your face.

Read about my recommendations for correctly handling a suspicious woman who (justifiably) accuses you of cheating. This is can’t miss information for the man who likes to keep a few on the side.

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Barack Obama’s Petty Peace Prize

Did Obama successfully end a war I was unaware of? Did he open an anti-American church in Chicago? Did a member of the Nobel committee get a sweetheart no-money-down deal on a Chicago penthouse?

Any “peace” prize that is awarded to Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama but not to Ronald W. Reagan, who did more for the cause of world peace than any other leader of the past 50 years by helping unshackle millions from the scourge of genocidal Communism, is not worth the froo froo parchment it’s printed on.

We are living in the Age of Great Lies. Keep calling out their bullshit. The liars are starting to get nervous.

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John Edwards Is Bringing Big Love Back

In an ABSOLUTELY SHOCKING, *GASP*, I NEVER WOULD’VE GUESSED development, chronic sleazeball liar alpha male John Edwards will admit paternity of his mistress Rielle Hunter’s bastard child, and he’s moving mistress and baby into a house in his neighborhood so he can watch over his harem take care of them.

John Edwards will move the mother of his love child into his North Carolina neighborhood so he can help raise their 18-month-old baby, the National Enquirer reported Wednesday.

The Enquirer also reported that Elizabeth Edwards, who is stricken with cancer, was furious when her husband told her of his parenting plans.

Furious, no doubt. But remember, this is the woman who stood by his side when he was apologizing so profusely for reaping the spoils of his alpha pull on women:

Edwards adamantly denied during a confessional interview with ABC News last summer that he had fathered a child with Hunter, and he said he welcomed a paternity test. His wife, Elizabeth, has said while promoting her book that she doesn’t know if her husband is the father.

Naturally, once the cancer ravages the last ounce of Elizabeth’s life force, Johnny Lawyersleaze will need a pussy replacement pronto. Having Rielle so close ensures convenience of lovemaking.

Would you buy a car from this man?:

I’d love to see recent polls of John Edwards’ favorability/approval ratings broken down by gender. Do a majority of women still give this guy the thumbs up? A significant minority? Bill Clinton certainly had the undying love of American feminists even while he was exercising his power over a 21 year old subordinate and oppressing her with the repeated thrustings of his patriarchal stogie.

This story crystallizes so many musings I’ve had. For instance, we now have proof that lying isn’t immoral, but lying while beta is. Then there’s the whole de facto polygamy angle, as amply illustrated by John Edwards’ harem building.

How to change a monogamous culture into a polygamous retroparadise in three easy steps:

1. Give single women the right to vote.
2. Let simmer for a couple of generations while betas invent stuff that severs biological constraints from hypergamous impulse.
3. Medicate sexless drones with Xbox and xHamster.

The cycle seems to go like this:

Enforced monogamy –> Emergent monogamy –> Civilization blossoms –> Emergent polygamy –> Enforced financial monogamy –> Decriminalization/Acceptance of polygamy –> Decivilization/Culling of excess betas –> Enforced monogamy (best case)/Reign of Chaos (worst case).

I believe this progression is unavoidable as long as human nature remains what it has been for millennia. Civilization has programmed self-destruction. Trying to stop or reverse this “bug” in the code is akin to redesigning the schema of evolution itself. The best you can hope for is that after the Great Culling there are enough sensible people left around to learn the lessons of past fools and to rebuild the edifice. On an individual level, for those born within the Great Culling the best answer is game if you want to make it out psychologically healthy and penilely satisfied on the other side. Or become a well-coifed Senator.

This reminds me of an admiring ode I previously wrote to John Edwards:

John Edwards’ wife lies for him knowing he was fucking and impregnating a new age whore while she lay in a hospital bed with cancer.

Somewhere in America a dutiful beta husband was just served divorce papers and subsequent financial ruin for no reason he can discern except that he didn’t excite his wife’s loins anymore.

People sometimes ask why I so deliberately and unapologetically act in my own self-interest and take what I want.
Because I know the score.
And you should too.

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Henry Louis Gates Junior

We all knew that weirdo loner kid from seventh grade. He was the strange kid who shuffled around the hallways with his head down, and always sat in the desk as far away from everyone else as possible. Sometimes bullies would pick on him, but mostly the other kids ignored him. He hardly ever spoke, and never rose his hand in class to offer an answer to a question. Nobody knew what he was thinking, and nobody cared, not even the teachers. But he nursed silent grudges, lots of them. Grudges against the popular kids he thought were always talking behind his back plotting his demise, against the cute girls who never acknowledged him, against authority figures who didn’t understand his deep deep pain. These grudges would simmer for months, building to a boil, until one day one of the cool kids accidentally bumped into him while he was standing at his locker, and he turned around in a rage, his eyes on fire, and rained blows down upon that kid, screaming obscenities at the top of his cracking voice. The outburst startled everyone who witnessed it. A teacher rushed up, dragging him away from his hapless victim lying on the floor.

Henry Louis Gates Junior is that weirdo loner kid.

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