I’ve been noting in my Lightning Rounds that a few experienced players have been reaching the end of their run on the hedonic treadmill and are finding the whole experience unfulfilling. Last week, I wrote of how neither hedonism nor meaningless LTR’s will leave a man fulfilled. Now it seems Frost is suffering from player burn-out as well.
Except for a few men, playerdom will never be fulfilling in the end. Shallow pleasure does not bring contentment, only momentary happiness. Meaningless sex is simply the same effect as drugs, except one step removed (or more accurately, drugs are simply artificial inducements of effects similar to that which meaningless sex will bring). As with drugs, it will not satisfy, but it will become increasingly consuming as it becomes increasingly less pleasurable.
You will have sex, feel pleasure, then have but feel slightly less pleasure, and each time you will require more sex, more kinkiness, hotter women, and yet still feel slightly less pleasure each time. Meanwhile, you never feel the contentment you seek. The hedonic treadmill continues to roll until you either die or get off.
So, why not just ride for a while and get off at the right time?
The treadmill takes its toll even after you get off. Just as a carousel rider suffers as an alpha widow, so to does the ex-player suffer from the player’s curse.
A man who limits himself to one sexual partner has, by definition, the best sexual partner of his life with whom he is having the best sex of his life. The player, not so much. Any long-term relationship he may try will always be haunted by the ghosts of better sex and more beautiful partners of time past. The more partners he had prior, the more likely and stronger the hauntings.
There is no purpose to be found in hedonism, only emptiness.
I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.
So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:7-11, ESV)
Other men go make a different, but no less mistaken, extreme. Rather than pursuing meaningless sex from multiple women, they pursue meaning in a single woman. They find their identity and purpose in loving and serving another fallen person. This is as almost as empty as the meaningless sex, and will leave a man almost as hollow in the end. How is her value more than your own?
A man’s purpose of life can not be found in women or a singular woman.
If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. For it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered. Moreover, it has not seen the sun or known anything, yet it finds rest rather than he. Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good—do not all go to the one place? (Ecclesiastes 6:3-6, ESV)
So, where can purpose be in life be found?
For this, we can turn to Genesis:
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
This is the first commandment; this is for what God made man.
Man’s purpose is to be found in filling and subduing the earth. Work was what man was created and/or evolved for. Man is meant to tame the land and to build from that which he needs and desires and to fill his tamed land with his own.
Man’s purpose is in building something greater than himself and then to create future generations to enjoy it.
Yet, there is a problem:
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17-19, ESV)
I have read this verse many times in my life, but only recently did I realize the full measure of agony contained within these words.
It is only in his work that man can find meaning, yet rather than something pleasurable, work is something difficult, bitter, and wearying.
How bitter this cup, that man’s purpose is to toil, yet his toil is naught but pain to him. To his even greater agony, when his toil is through and he surveys the work gained by through the sweat of his brow, he always knows that from dust it came and to dust it will return.
To find purpose, a man must always be working, always in bitter toil, yet know that all his work will eventually crumble in ruin.
I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 2:18-23, ESV)
What is a man to do when all is vanity? How can man continue on, when all about his is rust and decay
Here is all for man to do:
Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.
Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.
Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. (Ecclesiastes 9:7-10, ESV)
A man accepts that life is vanity; he accepts that life is toil, but he continues. He finds what joy he can, knowing joy is illusionary, while working to build, knowing that his works will fade and decay.
A man’s purpose is to continue to build and enjoy the fruits of his labour even when he can not find meaning in the building or its fruits.
The Frustration of a Single Man
So this comment appeared over at Dalrock’s. There’s a chance it might be a troll, but I thought it was worth highlighting. In full, bolding mine:
Hello. Is there an introduction board for this website? My name is Michael. I’ve been reading this website for 3 days. I’m shocked to see everything I’ve experiencing written in such a perfectly stated way. Never before have I seen a blog/media outlet so perfectly written. The writer is surely a genius. I’m amazed and relived to see so many responses. It means I’m not alone.
I’m 32 years old and have never been married. Unfortunately (or fortunately I’m not sure which anymore at this point) I have no kids. I am single and alone and not dating anyone. I live in Los Angeles. My income was $120,000.00 (net earnings after creative deductions and business taxes) in 2011. Income is projected to be $170,000.00 (net earnings after business taxes) in 2012. I’m exactly the kinds of “independent man” women claim they want. I drive a luxury car with an amazing apartment in Los Angeles directly on the beach. It’s quite a panty moistener and costs me $6,000.00 per month. I work from home because an office would cost at least another $2,000.00 month. I keep in great shape. Gym 3-4 a week + running + organic diet (I spend $700-$900.00 a month on organic foods and supplements) I was raised in a Christian “7th Heaven” (old TV show) type household. We always went to church. Strong hard working father figure was always present for me and my siblings. I went to private school, university, law school, and then started my own practice at 28 years old.
My parents met and married in college. They have been married for 39 years. And it hurts me to the core to be 32 and unmarried. Alone. Without a loving wife. I feel pain from it every single day. It’s like a sharp invisible dagger constantly stabbing at me. But perhaps I’m part of the problem listed in the graphs above. Let me explain why:
I went to the same college my parents met and married at. I was hoping to meet marry and settle down. Instead I was met with hundreds young college aged women who were NOT interested in marriage. They were interested in: 1) Partying 2) Having sex. College was 24/7 fuck fest. At first I was able to begrudgingly “socialize” in this element. What do I mean by “this element” within this context? College: Extreme social promiscuity, cheating, drama, drugs, and parties. I was an observer but NEVER a direct participant because my heart would not let me. This eventually caused me to stick out as a third wheel observer on campus. Someone who was always “not mixing” or “participating”. As a result I never enjoyed the benefits. I rarely dated. Instead I was sneered at. Cute girls flicked their fingers at me. I was used by women as a person to tell their problems to. I was passed over. I was seen as “weak “lame” and “boring”. I was ignored in the hallways, library, classes, by these women. And it didn’t help I was cash strapped broke working a minimum wage job and eating Raman noodles..
The vast majority of these young hot girls vigorously pursued college life sex like you would not believe. They had sex with a large variety of guys. What I personally call “lily padding”. These girls did anything and anyone in the name of “fun” (fun=parties, fun= sex with new people, fun= drugs, fun= raves, fun = frat party etc.
It hurt me to watch these girls go out of their way to pursue and spread their legs for complete losers. COMPLETE LOSERS. I’m talking: Hi I work in a carnival part time, I’m covered in tattoos, I have no job, I failed my minimum wage drug test and I’m in a band. These guys were losers. Some did not even go to the college! They would hop a bus stay with friends and get laid THAT NIGHT.
Many nights I could not sleep because of the girls getting fucked hard… 1,2,3,4 dorms down. The dorms were old military barracks from the 1940’s with vents through the ceilings. It was very loud. All the time. I remember how much it hurt to be rejected by one girl in particular I had my open hopeless romantic heart set on… We had allot in common. I pursued her like a complete gentlemen – and was eventually turned down. That same weekend after getting turned down I got to hear her getting fucked hard and loud in the room next door. The guy who lived there was a super scraggly unattractive heavy drug user covered in tattoos majoring in “music studies”. This girl was young hot thin beautiful in her physical prime. I never said anything. But I felt so hurt she turned me down for casual sex with a guy like that.
This guy was very open about his exploits with her and told me not to worry because practically every guy he knew fucked her. As the years passed the same thing happened again and again, and again and again, in various ways with all kinds of unrelated girls. What I mean is: I was looking for a LTR leading to marriage. I would meet trade numbers talk and “feel” a girl was a good person. Then she would do other guys. Or I would find out things like this. When this kind of thing happens to me over and over all through my life….it hurts me and makes me doubt senses. What is wrong with me that my heart is telling me she is a good person when she is clearly not?
As time went on I was labeled “husband material” by the girls on my campus. This phrase continued to plague me into my late 20′s. This label resulted in ZERO DATES all through college. I wasn’t “down with it”. I wasn’t “participating” etc (sex, drugs, parties, etc.) My heart wasn’t into it. So I wasn’t entitled to any of the benefits (having sex with young attractive girls in their prime etc.). However party guys, flash in a pan athletes, loser guys in bands, wanna be DJ’s and self-professed “club promoters” – were ALWAYS getting these girls at their youngest hottest physical prime. Basically the more of a loser the guy was… the more these women would have sex with them. Hot sorority girls flocked to Football players like a butterfly’s on a beast. It didn’t even matter if the guy was black. College athletes did not even TRY to get laid.
One night I had enough. I confronted a room of 8-10 gorgeous white girls. These girls were 18-24 years old. I asked them if they planned to get married. All seemed to say more or less – YES. I asked what their future husband would think about their behavior. I was immediately met with hostility. I was told the future husband would “never know” and “it’s none of his business”. The girls said they knew exactly what they were doing and were planning to “have their fun” (fun= partying, fun=sex, fun=going on spring break etc.) and would “settle down later”. I asked: when are you planning to settle down? They said: “It depends” and “probably around 27, 28” or “maybe sooner it depends”. I really put the girls on the spot. During our exchange they saw I was upset. They told me I should be happy because “nice guys finish first in the end”. I told them you cannot have your cake and eat it to. Then I was told by Kaylene (a young thin super sexy blonde with curves in all the right places (who BTW refused to date me even though we were friends and according to her roommate had sex with almost 30 guys in one semester ) she told me “Michael let me tell you something: not only am I going to have my cake eat it and eat it too. I’m going to have it with ice cream and sprinkles”. All of the girls laughed and smiled in agreement.
I thought things would change after college. They didn’t.
Now at 32 and successful these women are hitting me. In my mind these are the same women who rejected me. I’m not interested. The Bible says something to the effect of “don’t forsake the wife of your youth” or something like “remember your young wife”? Something like that. How am I supposed to remember something I never had? I have no history with these women. Ticking ovaries are scandalous. They will lie and say anything to get what they want. Which is: BABIES AND A LOVING HUSBAND TO PAY THEIR BILLS. Yet these women did not even give a few good years of their youth!
As a man I am very visual. God made me this way. I cannot help finding a physically beautiful woman attractive. Why did these women not at least give me a few years of their youth so I would have time to fall in love with them and permanently burn their image in my mind’s eye? I need something to remember when we are 50 and married. Yet she spent her 20’s parceling herself out to guys who gave her nothing and offers nothing to the guy who gives her everything. I’m expected to commit hard earned resources to raising children with what is ultimately a suspect woman whose history I know nothing about. A 30+ unmarried women has very high chance of having a questionable past and baggage. I believe the more men a woman has been with the less likely she is to be emotionally committed each subsequent one. When you have handed out little pieces of your heart over years to dozens of different men what is left for the husband you proclaim to truly love? What value do the words “I love you” mean when she has stared into the eyes of 10-100+ different men and said the same thing?
At 30+ women’s physical appearance has nowhere to go but DOWN. Is this what women mean by “saving the best for last”? Marrying at 30+? How can women spend trillions of dollars a year on beauty products yet at the same time claim a women’s age “shouldn’t be important” to a man? And what about children? Did they ever think their husbands might want to have children? What’s more likely to naturally produce a quicker pregnancy and healthy offspring? A fertile 24 year old in her physical prime… or a 35 year old aging womb? What if I want multiple children? At 30+ a women can easily before infertile after her first pregnancy.
As a result of everything I’ve seen and experienced in my life I would like to make an announcement to all the desperate 30+ year old women out there: I would rather suffocate and die then spend my hard earned income, love, trust, and substance on you. Your entitled, ageing, feminist, jaded, baggage laden and brainwashed. And if I cannot marry a women in her 20’s I REFUSE TO EVER GET MARRIED. Given my high income this should not be a problem. However I’m concerned at some point I will have to start looking overseas (Ukraine, Russia, Eastern Europe etc.). I’m not going to marry one of these 30+ ageing entitled females who clearly have an agenda of their own. I intend to get married once. Marriage is meant to be forever. I will not be a starter husband for one of these used up women. I can’t tell you the number of men I’ve known who married late and were rewarded by losing everything they spent their lives building…
The way I see it I’ve been given the following choices:
1) Marry a 30+ women.
2) Marry a women in her twenties
3) Be single and enjoy my money.
This is (barring it being a troll) the plaintive cry of a beta Christian male without game whose running head-first into his red pill awakening. He’s been trained to live a certain way, then when what he realizes the disconnect between the lies he’s been taught and reality he letting loose his anger. I kinda sympathize.
Anyhow, Michael, if you happen to see this, do either #2 or #3. Do not do #1, I’ve outlined why here.
First thing to notice: these women are actively and with foreknowledge planning to engage fraudulently marry a beta provider in their 30s. I will repeat for anyone who didn’t read the link: do not marry a women over 30 (unless you are also a new divorcee or widow and much older). There’s a reason they are in their 30′s and unmarried and it always bodes poorly for the potential success of a long-term partnership.
Now some might think it unfair to blame all women in their 30s for the actions and intention of a few, but every women in their 30s did a similar sort of calculation in their 20s of why they chose to wait to marry. They would have their fun, their career, their education, their ******, and prioritize it over their future husband and family. That was their choice; all 30-something women made the choice to prioritize something ahead of their future husband and family and can be judged for these choices.
Others might think its sexist to discount a women in her 30s for marriage. That would be incorrect. It’s about choices: males have a very clear and very well known preference for younger women (even aside from the numerous other considerations I outlined earlier). Females are free to make their own choices about their sexuality, but men are also free to make their own choices. If you don’t like that than either change your behaviour, or fuck you. Your choice.
This objection would also be sexist in itself, by trying to force female sexual preferences on males while dictating male sexuality to them.
I will join Michael here: there is no way I am wasting a drop of sweat or a single penny on an unmarried 30-something; they simply are not worth it. I would rather go without.
They made their choice to deprive their future husband of their prime, sexiest, and most fertile years and, in many cases, chose to gave them to losers, cads, and assholes. They willingly squandered their youth, beauty, charm, sexuality, and fertility. Having made that selfish choice, it is very simple to say they are not worth marrying. They have put their own happiness above that of the person they will later profess to loving. Someone who puts themselves before their marriage partner, is not a good marriage partner.
It is far better to be alone than to be stuck with one of these women.
If that offends you as a women, too bad.
Instead of being offended, you should ask yourself why you choose to deprive your future husband (who you supposedly love) of your most youthful years, your most fertile years, your years where your beauty and sexiness were at your height. What was more important than offering this gift to the person you are professing to love before any other?
Again, I’m not trying to control women’s sexuality here. Women are free to make whatever choice they want, but so am I and so is every other male.
So, males, make the right choice: no rings for 30+ women.
23 comments | tags: Comment, Family, Marriage, Sex, Wife | posted in Manosphere, Relationships, Sex/Gender