"The [male] feminist"

"The [male] feminist" is solid reading about a guy who needs a dad or uncle or male cousin to take him aside and tell him to stop being a p***y. Much of what we perceive as social or gender dysfunction is actually, at its heart, family dysfunction and disintegration, and, because of families are smaller and more fractured than they used to be, we don't know how to become adults, which usually also means "how to become a man" or "how to become a woman." "The [male] feminist" is most notable for the absence in it, because there's no mention of this guy's father or uncle. Where are they? Does his uncle not exist? why not?

There used to be a guy who kept a blog named Goldmund, for example, who, whatever his flaws, talked a lot about his older male relatives and how they influenced his development. Unfortunately his blog has been effectively abandoned... but he's one of the few guys I've seen talk seriously about family and family influence. A lot of "how to be a man" and "how to be a woman" are best conveyed by aunts, uncles, older cousins, those relationships. Default_friend tweeted the other day that she learns a lot from her mom and grandma (can't find the tweet at the moment), which may help explain why she thinks modern feminism is re/tarded. Camille Paglia writes about the same in her books and essays, about the vital role extended family play in development.

Who or what replaces family? Schools, bureaucracies, ideologies. Except none of those replacements work, it's like trying to live off McDonald's and fast food: even if you're technically alive, you're barely living. In "The [male] feminist," the guy absorbs an ideology pitched by power-hungry bureaucrats. The story is exaggerated for effect, I understand that, but normal guys, as they get older, they understand how to discard bullshit that doesn't work. Even the pathetic snake guys who embrace "I am a feminist" as a way to get laid in high school or college, almost always quit at some point. You get old enough to see an ideology doesn't work, you quit it. The most interesting part of many stories isn't what's in them, but what's missing.

Chicks aren't attracted to vulnerability, and the story's narrator goes around with his belly exposed to every chick he runs into. Chicks like guys they can be vulnerable with, but not guys who are vulnerable. Or the guy is vulnerable is a minor way, like, "I am afraid of heights." Or maybe, "My ex was super hot but also hurt me badly." Your hot ex (social proof) hurt you, and now I, a lady, can heal you with my magic pussy? That's minor vulnerability. Major vulnerability is something like outright incompetence. Competence is attractive to women, which is why effective men work so hard to develop it.

Lots of red pill guys get that masculinity is earned, not given, and that's why so many primitive tribes have intense male initiation rituals. Femininity is given, not earned, just by going through puberty. That power must be learned to be wielded well, to be sure, but it's there by showing up... something the male feminist in the story misses.

I don't remember how the exact conversation went, but Short Dancer admitted that she slept with an incompetent guy her age (who I knew slightly) right before I started f**king her. The guy got her by virtue of proximity and luck, but he lacked masculinity identity and had no one, from what I can tell, to teach him about it. Then I got with Short Dancer, who was diplomatic, but also basically said that he lacked adequate aggression and masculinity. I thought the guy was okay, and if I'd been able to see a way to help him I would have, but, due to some other circumstances, there was no real way to do so. Maybe losing Short Dancer to an older, more masculine guy taught him something important. He seemed like a guy who might identify as a male feminist, although I never heard him actually do so.

Basically, the inept younger guy needed this,

At lunch one day, two of his male coworkers offer unsolicited dating advice, relishing the chance to showboat their sexual proficiencies. He’s too honest and available, not aggressive enough—friend-zone shit, they say unironically. Just don’t be a fucking pussy is all! You gotta challenge them, be a puzzle for them to work out, that’s just how girls’ brains work, it’s evolution. They offer grotesquely specific advice about eye contact and hair touching. Learn palmistry, they say, bitches love getting their palms read.

"Proficiencies." What proficiencies does the narrator have? What's this guy's major? Is it something useful, or history or some shit? His bros are trying to help him be a guy, and he's ignoring it. They know more about "how girls' brains work" than most university professors, I will add. Some high school teachers, especially gym teachers and wrestling coaches, know how girls' brains work, too. In middle school I had a gym teacher, a former marine if I remember correctly, maybe army, who all the cool guys worshipped. The gym teacher wasn't mean or anything, but he was very low bullshit, and I was a stupid kid who only really wanted to do one sport and was lazy in some ways. Still, his example is memorable, even now, many years later. A lot of the male teachers I met seemed like the male feminist. I could tell something was wrong with them, even if I didn't know what.

"My entire life I’ve been nothing but useful to everyone else, especially women, so selfless that my entire self will evaporate without residue." This guy misunderstands what "useful" means. "Useful" is fixing the toilet, the bike, the microwave, when it's broken. "Useful" means you have users for your product, means you're getting paid for something. This guy is useless, because he never builds anything of value. Having opinions is not valuable. Doing things is valuable. What skill does this guy have that no one else does? If he has no skills like that, then he's useless. He doesn't even understand the "develop the skills women like" skill.

You know what women really really like? Passion. Drama. Excitement. Adventure. You know what this guy is?  A wet, limp noodle. Prominent "feminists" and feminist writers are overwhelmingly desiccated, damaged people. They don't speak for most women. Few things are less passionate than a guy who is autistically obsessed with passion-killing clarity.

In life, you get out what you put in. Like most guys, this guy gets (or doesn't get) chicks consistent with the quality of his overall being. Super sporty/fit people get with other super sporty/fit people. Nerds get with nerds. Stoners meet the same. People find their image match. Want to get better mating opportunities? You gotta change who you are. Which is painful, I get it. There's no real sustainable alternative I'm aware of, though.

I don't want to use the word "pathetic" because it's so obvious. Plus, I see bits of this guy in me, when I was younger, so maybe that's why I'm having the reaction to him.

Someone whose main identity feature is their race or feminism or whatever isn't worth being around. Those things should be the least interesting aspects of you and your identity. The most interesting things should be like "cryptocurrency developer" or "teaches programming skills" or "carpenter" or "sex club maniac." Okay, that last one is a stretch. Immutable characteristics are 100 times less interesting than what you do. What you do is who you are. See the problem with the guy from the story? He... goes to marches, and talks to chicks about their problems. I am the problem chicks talk about. Trust me, it's much more fun. Women want a guy who "just gets it." A guy who "just gets it," is not identifying as a male feminist.

Normal people also learn not to take a lot of what others said literally or seriously. Speech is often a sport that's about signaling a person's underlying characteristics, or about building coalitions, rather than about saying true things. Science works because it's a meta process that gets around those things. Business works because if your product or service doesn't work, the business fails. Sex works, because a man getting inside a woman is costly for the woman, and thus real. A lot of talk is cheap, you know? Your grandma and grandpa probably told you talk is cheap. Ideology is (usually) cheap talk with a bunch of extra fancy words, plus maybe some underemployed professors. The guy in this story seems to buy into feminism, at the expense of reality. What really matters over the long term is the quality of a person's relationships and skills and, ultimately, family. This guy doesn't have real relationships because he's a eunuch, not a man. He doesn't say anything about his skills even though we hear about work. He doesn't have older male relatives to encourage him not to be a b***h, and he doesn't understand what women actually want, so he never starts a family of his own. He stupidly, takes what a handful of chicks say seriously, instead of noticing who those chicks hook up with... those are the guys you should try to mimic. Trying to mimic a chick as a guy is a recipe for failure. The gender identity crisis is not what the left wingers think it is.