A tragic yet perennial story hit the timeline the other day:
While it is of course obvious to outsiders this relationship is over — the girl will be sleeping with the guy if she hasn’t already — I have some understanding of this man’s stupefaction. Because 12 years ago, when I was a young padawan, I found myself in a similar situation.
At the time I was away from my girlfriend for two months, on a trip around South America. She had a “friend” — a guy who had actually approached her at a bar months prior when she was in the process of trying to get into a relationship with me. This is a long story, but suffice to say she friend-zoned him then; timing wasn’t right yet she had enough interest to keep him in orbit.
However, this guy was no fool and essentially disappeared once her and I got together; she’d invite him to our parties, but he wasn’t much interested in hanging with me around. However, once I left on this trip, all of a sudden that interest changed. He attended some get together she had, and then began inviting her out with his group of friends. Seeing as she did not have a ton of friends (I was the big socializer), she was excited to attend these weekend gatherings.
As you might expect I was not happy about this. While this was well before I had any mastery of the subject area, I had learned enough game to be good with women, and knew this guy was making a play for my girlfriend.
What was more difficult for me was reconciling the fact that she was also interested in him. Yes, her spending more and more time with him was suspicious, and implied attraction. But she was also telling me about everything going on, what they did, stories from the group. I was expecting her to be sneaky if she was cheating. I couldn’t tell: was she actually interested in him, or was she just lonely and leading him on?
As the weeks went on, and they hung out more — including on 1-1 occasions — I took more and more issue with it. But I felt impotent to deal with the situation. If I complained, she would grow cold, and then I began to really worry she would cheat.
Obviously the right answer was to move on immediately when they began seeing each other. But I was being gaslit, hard, and it was difficult to trust my undeveloped instincts.
It was also difficult at the time to conceive she could really be making a play for this guy, because it was not only something I would never do, but it flew in the face of all her prior, borderline obsessive behavior towards me. Especially given recent developments in her apparent morality. We had a very sexual relationship, but a few weeks into long-distance she abruptly stated “she had a revelation from God and couldn’t have premarital sex anymore.” She went from whore to madonna overnight. This was a master mind fuck on her end that only got me looped in more — not only was I now compelled to get her to change, I was even less likely to suspect her cheating given her newfound values.
What I didn’t realize in my youth was that the mental gymnastics and hoops a woman makes you jump through are all downstream of her level of desire towards you. I had gone from the “alpha” to the “beta” — sex was off the table with me, because she was already thinking about it with him. Of course I have no idea whether or not she “technically” cheated, but it was irrelevant as the relationship’s collapse was an inevitability. Weeks later when she came to visit me as planned, she was cold as ice; though she had taken back her abstinence, sex seemed almost obligatory on her end. I knew she no longer loved me, and on the trip I ended it.
The point of all of this? Regardless of what you want to say about reddit guy’s girlfriend, or my ex, the reality is we consented to be cheated on. We established no boundaries and essentially gave free rein for the woman to “test the waters” with another love interest.
We were fools who listened to a woman’s words not her actions. And we were too weak, too unperceptive to cut it off early and preserve our self-respect.
The question I’m sure many of you are wondering about, however, is why a woman might do this… and is there any way to stop it.
First you must understand what kind of woman does this to begin with. Because no, it is not “any” woman. It is a woman who has an undeveloped sense of self.
In my masterclass I refer to such a woman as “immature feminine.” These women are very feminine and appealing, but also very emotionally dependent on their man. They are rarely single, as they cannot be alone.
These women are extremely susceptible to male attention when their boyfriend isn’t around. They drift to wherever they get the most validation. And they are experts at Girl Game, because it is this “love bombing” and ego manipulation that gets guys to rescue them to begin with.
So the key takeaway here is that you should not date these women to begin with, especially not in a long-distance capacity. They are too weak to stay loyal when they are getting attention from another man. It is for the same reason you will rarely catch these women single; they “branch swing” from one guy to another — indeed, they usually have their next target lined up before they pull the plug.
If you do decide to “take the plunge” and date a woman like this, however, the most important thing you must do is not take her love bombing seriously. This is near impossible for the average man, as they have likely never had an attractive woman make them feel like they were hot, incredible in bed, impressive, brilliant, heroic, etc and have said woman treat him like a king. You need to understand that while some or all of what she says may be true, she has an agenda behind it: to get you to invest emotionally in her. Do this at your own peril. Because once she has your heart, she will start to pull away.
These women need lots of comfort, because they struggle with self-love. But because they struggle with self-love they will also discount the value of men who love them; an issue with desire. So tactically you have two options: smother her with affection and build her up (comfort), or pull back hard — create more distance, go after other girls so she gets obsessive about you again (desire).
Given that the modus operandi of these women is to chase, you will get much more instantaneous results with #2. And in a long distance dynamic, it is your only option. She needs to feel like she cannot have you in order to want you.
However, in the meantime, she will probably still hook up with her back-up guy just to get back at you. The most likely scenario is back and forth sexual recriminations and endless drama. Which begs the question: is this “big picture” the kind of dynamic you want anyway?
I would encourage red pill guys to not play games with stupid prizes. You may understand how to make a woman respond to you in a pavlovian manner. You may even be good at it, and be able to train her to behave in a manner pleasing to you.
But personally I am not interested in dating a dog. I want an individual. Dysfunctional attachment patterns need to be deprogrammed, not harnessed for personal advantage.
If it sounds idealistic it’s because for most people it always will be. Those caught up in the games of power will never understand what lies beyond it.
Those deeply passionate and intimate, high-trust relationships remain an option for only the rare few.
If you want to join them, apply here www.patstedman.com/application
– Pat
