1993: On the way to pick up your little brother from his “whack” basketball practice, you spot a girl at a local bus stop who goes to your high school. You recognize her as Melissa, one of the dancing “song girls” for the varsity football team. Like you, she’s a sophomore. She’s thin–even skinny–but with a nice girly figure. Her hair is teased up to the sky, her nails are painted, and her eye makeup is on perfect. She must have taken an hour to get ready in the morning. She’s carrying a three-ring binder and a textbook covered in a re-purposed brown-paper bag, which she’s hugging tightly against her chest. You play dumb, like you only kind-of recognize her, but you know her (and her looks) well.
2013: On the way home from school, you pass the Starbucks–like you always do–when you see a cute girl from your school coming out of there with one her friends. They’re both wearing loose sweatpants, with your high school’s name emblazoned on the side, and tucked into one of those pairs of Ugg Boots all the girls are wearing these days. You immediately recognize her as Melissa, since she’s one of the girls you’ve been eyeing from a distance since middle school, and is one of the most popular girls in the tenth grade. Not only that, she’s co-president of your school’s “Young Activist Task Force,” which made waves in the school paper last year for their stunts at their annual “body-image workshop.” She and her fat friend are both carrying Starbucks milkshakes in one hand and looking down at their iPhones in their other hand.
1993: You crush down your nearly paralyzing nervousness to talk to her. “Hey, I recognize you. You go to Grant High School, right?” Your voice cracks a little, but you plug along.
2013: Unsure about how to get your girl’s attention–and not wanting to interrupt whatever important thing she’s doing on her phone–you let the two girls walk ahead before dipping into a side street a block later.
1993: Melissa’s icy at first, responding to your question with the most tepid of yeses. But, with her bus nowhere in sight, and nothing to hide behind, she’s forced to field your weak game. You can see the anticipatory boredom in her face.
2013: You rush home, drop your bag without opening it, and boot up your computer. You load up Facebook, pull up Melissa’s page, and send her a friend request. You’ve been waiting for an excuse to add her, and this is perfect. You follow it up with a message that says, “Hope you enjoyed that frap today. ;)”
1993: You’ve picked up speed. After some stumbling in the beginning, you gained traction by bringing up music and dancing–which you pretended to not know she was into. Now you’ve realized that you have the same teacher for one class, at different times of the day. She’s laughing hysterically at your spot-on impersonation of Mr. Peterson and his infamous facial tick.
2013: You check your page three times that night, but no response. She’s probably busy. Or she set her phone down for a while.
1993: Melissa points out her approaching bus in the distance. Realizing that you’re running out of time, your voice trembles again as you say, “we should hang out some time.” When she smiles and gives you a sincere-sounding “yeah” in response, you ask for her phone number. She writes it down in big, girly bubble-writing on a piece of notebook paper, tears it off, and hands it to you. As she gets on the bus, you gingerly put the golden ticket in your wallet, having tried to memorize the number in case you smudge the magenta-colored ink with your body heat, drop your wallet, or get robbed on the way home. You’re so charged up, you actually run to your destination.
2013: Three days later, Melissa accepts your Facebook friend request. You’re relieved, but wonder why she didn’t respond to your message. You scroll through all 353 of the pictures in her profile and save your favorites in a folder on your hard drive. You masturbate to the ones from her recent beach trip.
1993: You’re scared shitless because it’s been a couple of days and you still haven’t called. You finally decide to bite the bullet that night. You tell your mom and dad that you’re going to make a call and ask them not to pick up the phone for the next few minutes, which prompts some annoying cutesy noises from your mom and an Arsenio-Hall fist pump from your dad. You then cover your bases by threatening your little brother with violence if he should so much as look at you while you’re on your call. You opt for the kitchen phone, since there’s more privacy there than in the living room. You dial the seven digits.
2013: Since your first angle didn’t work, you decide to try the side-door approach. You reason that commenting on one of her pictures or status updates should prompt the desired effect. But, no sooner had you started to look for the right place for your comment than you started to notice that all of her pictures have a long trail of comments from “random” dudes–most of them annoying compliments. You click through to their pages and see that she’s in a some of their pictures—at parties, out-and-about, or at school events. Is she “with” one of these guys? Who are they? What the fuck? You’re at a loss.
1993: A man’s voice picks up the phone. You immediately switch into adult phone-manner, which you were taught by your parents. “Good evening sir, is Melissa home?” You expected that to work, but he tells you Melissa is about to eat dinner and needs to finish her homework. You’re about to give up, but decide to double down, “Oh, I understand. I’m just calling about some school things. We’ll only be five minutes, I promise.” At your respectful tone, the old man softens up, despite his suspicions of your ulterior motive. He asks for your name and calls out,“Melissa, phone!”
2013: After having all but given up on Facebook, you strike gold a few days later. You get an invitation from her to one of her club’s activist events. You decide to go.
1993: You and Melissa have a surprisingly comfortable phone conversation. Gone is the iciness from the bus stop. You talk for about 20 minutes before before you start hearing her dad’s voice in the background. Before she gets off the phone, you roll the dice again and suggest you should hang out after school later in the week. She agrees.
2013: You get to the event late, but just in time to hear Melissa shouting a speech about “gender norms” and “female sexuality” and “rape culture” to her club, which is composed of fat girls, nerdy-looking hipsters, and a smattering of odd-balls. There are novelty cupcakes and other refreshments in the back. You figure you’ll get your chance to move in during the social part of the event.
1993: Your date with Melissa goes perfectly. You meet by the main gate after school and decide to go to a cool ice-cream place a few blocks away. After that, you go on a long walk along some of the quiet side-streets in the neighborhood, talking and laughing the whole way. At a certain point, with your fear completely evaporated, you decide to kiss her. As you move in, you can see she’s now the nervous one. It’s a magical moment you’ll never forget. You sleep like a baby that night, knowing you have her.
2013: After the rally, you make a beeline to the refreshments table, figuring everyone will funnel into that area. You plan on loitering there till Melissa swings through and then chatting her up. When she finally does show up, she’s surrounded by three of the hipster boys from the audience, boxing out any would-be interlopers like a presidential security detail. You recognize at least one of them from her Facebook wall. For the rest of the night, they never leave her side. You can’t tell how well she knows them, but she seems to enjoy being the center of their attention. The rest of the fat girls in the room talk amongst themselves. A few try to talk to you, but you deflect them deftly. Eventually, you concede defeat for the night and talk to a couple of them near the empty cupcake boxes. “How do you know Melissa?,” one of them asks. “Oh, we’re friends.”
Read More: American Girls Have No Game
Nice post ! Hipsters are really the scum of earth.
Hate hipsters.
I, too, get the sense that even within the confines of my life to date, things have changed, and boys have changed—it seems difficult now to relate to my teenage cousins the way I related to my uncles when I was that age. I wish there were some way to confirm that this isn’t mere nostalgia.
It’s true. Once someone has turned beta orbitter/hipsters, there is no way a normal man can relate to him anymore. It’s like he sold his soul to the devil for the price of a pity fuck every year.
Great post. These orbiters are something man. You didn’t mention them in the 1993 version of your article. You’re not implying there weren’t orbiters in ’93, right?
This is true. That is, if you really consider orbiters “options.” I’ve always seen them more as a young lady’s insurance policy.
they are not even sexual beings to her, they are social / status providers and that is all. but when all other streams dry up they end up being the only option for companionship left.
Aye. They’re like handbag dogs. Tragic circumstance for all involved.
Graduated college in ’92. Where I went to school, there was a very high percentage of bangable chicks, even in STEM (although much higher in edu/psych).
Here’s the way it would go down in Engineering classes.
First day of semester in a new class. Bangable chick walks in (80% male in STEM back then) and every head locks onto her.
She sits down. Orbiters settle down in desks around her. She never needs to worry about her homework, projects, or studying for a test.
She had plenty of options right there in class. White knights galore.
Not to mention the normal avenues such as campus bars, keg parties, football tailgating etc.
Good looking women have always had plentiful options.
A post illustrating the decline of western culture? I think so. Deftly executed. Kudos.
Yeah, hopefully the trend is long gone by 2023, and not the same trend until 2033. By then, it might read something like:
2033-“I tried not to stare directly into Melissa’s eyes as she was chauffeured to school in her government funded police car; …..OH SHIT! Too late, she saw me looking twenty feet towards her general direction while cowering in total emascualted fear…Now I am going to get ass raped for sure like dear old dad did in 2023!?
Stop it. You’re scaring me.
Reminds me of the movie 1984. lolol, the thought police
Book. The book 1984.
Beautiful :,)
Yup that was the 90s to a tee.
Amazing to think how downhill things have gone in 20 years.
Yeah, and when I was in high school in 93 I thought the girls were bitches. Now I understand why so many of our young men commit suicide! Speaking of which, times they are a changing: http://www.avoiceformen.com/updates/news-updates/news-release-dv-is-not-men-only/
Unfortunately just because an MRA post something on his blog doesn’t mean times are a changing, sorry.
Glory days well they’ll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl’s eye
Glory days, glory days
You should write a song. That’s got a good ring to it.
Funny thing of course: if 2013 guy ACTUALLY DOES now what 1993 guy did – weak as his game might be judged by today’s PUA standards – he stands a 1000% better chance of getting a date with Melissa than he would using the poor beta Facebook-stalk and group-puke.
Very poignant.
I think I hear a John Cougar Mellencamp song in the background? Something about holding hands meant something? LOL
Now, being talked to by electronic message on Facebook constitutes masturbatory condensation? Ouch, how far our boys have fallen. The same girl who twenty years ago would actually hang out with you, is now wondering if your a rapist?
Now I hear Bob Dillon.
Bob Dylan, his name is Bob Dylan. There was a certain charm to the home phone era
Robert Zimmerman, his name is Robert Zimmerman.
This brought back a flood of memory’s, I remeber dreading the father picking up the phone haha. 90’s kids were the last generation of real human interaction before the texting and “everything is electronic age”
Disturbingly accurate.
Overbearing moral niceness demanded by so many westerners is directly harmful to boys. Male traits of outward projection, to take, to obtain, to build, to conquer is what gave us civilization. Not sitting around talking about who’s feelings might get hurt.
So when I hear yuppie white parents say “Boys aren’t under attack, we just need to raise them to be loving and compassionate!”, it’s hard not to laugh at the clueless irony.
Also, don’t date activists.
I’ve made it a personal goal to avoid “gay activists”, who are really full fledged leftists thinking with their feelings and bitching all day about stuff that doesn’t even have anything to do with gays. These types always have the puritanical, intolerant mentality, and it’ll eventually cause problems in your relationship.
2093 – “Walking near Starbucks, I tried to see if it was Melissa the one that appeared in the distance. I just could not be sure because all of them were wearing burkas and it is hard to tell unless you see her face. I have made the decision to let my family members know about my feelings towards her. This way, they will talk to her family on my behalf and, if God wants, both families will reach a positive agreement.”
I am very afraid of this future :/
Why? You will be dead.
hahahaha THIS. this is going to happen probably.
that and some “vintage” robot porn.
Thank you stupid “information” society and all its techno crap, especially cell phones.
brilliant… unfortunately
Brutal takedown of the orbiter. Lots of juicy hate facts in this article.
1993- Melissa lets you spend some money on her for a few dates, never letting you get much past first base, and then a month later your best friend sees the class drug dealer fingering her and grabbing her chest under the stairwell.
2013- Melissa lets you spend some money on her for a few dates but she doesn’t acknowledge your flirty Facebook messages or let you get much past first base. And then a month later the class drug dealer posts pictures of a wild party with a extremely scantily-clad Melissa and her hottest friend under each arm. After you get angry with her, Melissa tells every girl who will listen that you tried to rape her, you get beaten up by white knights, and no girl will talk to you for the rest of your high school career.
…yyyyyyep. Right on the money. Its a tough market out there.
Superb article. very well written indeed. halfway through i actually turned off my music so that i could focus. as a 34 year old single male, both depictions rang true. and the 1993 anecdotes reminded me of the simple yet endearing “art of love” (to borrow from ovid) that many of us experienced. i pity the present generation of young american men who shall not have these experiences.
I wasn’t quite clear on this. At first I thought that the characters had aged 20 years and our hero was about to try again with a 36-year old Melissa. Then I realized that this is what a 16-year old would have to go through now.
Something like that once happened to me. I had my eye on a girl back in college in the northeast, but didn’t know how to approach cold because I didn’t know her or anyone who did.
Several years later drove past her while she was waiting at a bus stop in the midwest city where I lived and attended grad school. I quickly turned the corner, parked and walked back while trying to figure out how to do this and not blow my second chance.
I asked her “Aren’t you from ____?” She smiled slyly (having recognized me too). I got her phone number, we had coffee, but nothing further happened. Oh well, at least I never had to wonder about what might have been . . .
Rule #1: Get rid of your Facebook. Or at least unfriend any girls you intend to bang.
Rule #2: See Rule #1.
Rule #3: See Rule #1.
LOL, go home and jack off to her picture. I guess in the future, you’ll go home and program her face into your virtual reality machine and have sex with her in VR, and after ejaculating, lose any interest in pursueing her in real life.
The advancement of new technologies like VR and eventually Female Robots will be the force that stops feminism dead in it’s tracks. If you guys are serious about stopping feminism, you ought to start investing in those new technologies NOW.
facebook is the cancer of the internet….
when you ask yourself: how would a great man acknowledge or show appreciation for something? ‘liking’ something on facebook just seems so weak
i grew up in the late 80s early 90s, and it sucked….
a landline phone call was expensive !!!
cell phones didn’t exist
the only thing you had to get information was the crappy local library and the yellow pages
you had to spend a bunch of money on magazines every month to find out what bands were playing
electronic music barely existed, it was all heavy metal or madonna pop
the fashion sucked
the night clubs sucked
possession of weed was a massive criminal offense
if you wanted to drive somewhere you had to use a paper map to figure out where to go
all you could do on a $10,000 computer if you could even find one was type your name and you had to know DOS to do it
email didn’t exist
if you didn’t go to university and do some boring course plan B involved some serious manual labor
a plane ticket just to fly one hour cost today’s equivalent of about $700
there were way fewer imported goods
you could barely keep in touch with people from the next town, never mind another country
mail was a real option and that could take a week or more each way
the cars were dreadful, no features or comfort unless you spent a fortune
and on and on the list goes
remember that girls only started waxing their pussies a few years ago…. the big bush was perfectly normal
a BJ was positively exotic and anal unheard of
Who cares about all that? I remember those times too and the bottom line is that girls were less likely to be obese, more feminine, and more likely to fall for a cold approach.
Communication is definitely better now, but I have no problem with big bushes, and I’m pretty sure blowjobs were not exotic in the 90’s.
i never had a girl actively offer me her ass until internet porn educated and made them compete… and i remember practically getting dumped when i asked my girl friend to clean shave it…. bush is or chimpanzees…. euw….
I rather deal with all those issues in exchange for girls not obsessed with iPhone/Facebook/Twitter and surrounded by beta orbiters.
Dude,it wasn’t that bad. You must have been really socially awkward.
socially awkward no… i remember one night going out and having all three of my girlfriends dotted around the club and trying to pay all of them attention without them finding out about each other…. try that now with facebook….
but still….. the lack of technology caused real lack of opportunity, especially in business and money making… the internet leveled the field to make money…. it’s a shame the chicks moved in with their smart ass phones and facebook.. that’s all…but life it much better now than it was then….
As Bruce Willis said in Die Hard 2: Progress Peaked With Frozen Pizza
Yeah, but we had Disco, and Leisure Suits, Boom Boxes, and Mr.Microphone. Plus, the “braless look” and “Hot Pants” were all the rage and women didn’t have their faces glued to their cell phones. There were only 3 TV channels and MTV hadn’t been invented yet. Men’s magazines were practical and informative, and also easy to lay out for a jack-off session instead of surfing through limitless porn opportunities. In fact, you had to go to an “art” theater in a dismal part of town to watch porn films along with a bunch of winos jerking off into their hats. The Three Stooges were a common cultural bridge between all men. Fashions and kitchen appliances were outlandish and had eye-catching earth and sunset-tones, such as orange velvet trousers and vivid printed floral shirts. And nothing like being sat down in the kitchen for a serious talk with Pops about your recent behavior while you are tripping on acid. Nobody except Arnold Schwarzenegger was buff. Not even the action heroes or porn stars. Just look at a skinny Christopher Walken in “The Dogs of War”. Black men had “afros”; I once went to a “Weather Report” concert and the guy in front of me had an afro so big I couldn’t see the stage. Jazz-rock was a big deal also. Seems laffable now but it was serious stuff back then. One could find a job without much effort. Failing that you could go in the Army. Cars prior to 1973 were cartoon land-yachts. In the early 70s the ghetto scene featured “Brohams” with Mickey Mouse sidewalls. You punks don’t know what you are missing.
2193 – the auto bot milking unit pumped sperm out of me for the 10th time today day. I haven’t been let out of the cage in 6 months, and I just caught sight of Melissa’s finger nails as she slid the food under the door. I wonder how many kid’s I’ve sired now, I hear there are hardly any males left, but they are barely mine since the sperms are all re-engineered before the girls use them to fertilise.
I was graduated from college waaaay back in 1991, and I can honestly say you NAILED IT! Throughout my entire high school and college career I never knew one single person with a cell phone; nobody had an internet connection until around ’94 or ’95, and then it was mostly useless anyway, until AOL instant messaging started to gain traction, and slowly people started using e-mail more, and . . . well, you know the rest.
It’s amazing how these two technological innovations have completely changed social dynamics in such a relatively short time, and I’m hard-pressed to say it’s for the better. People are meant to interact with people, directly, and not via some techno-proxy. You could never get away with some of the b.s. and games people play today back when you had to interact face-to-face.
Nice job, thanks for this. We can never turn back the clock and return to “simpler times,” and honestly, we wouldn’t want to. Nostalgia has always been around, every generation has, in some way, pined for the “simpler times” of the previous generation. Technology and progress have their place, and they’re good . . . but only if we assert our dominance as human beings. Technology should work for US, not the other way around.
I implore my friends and colleagues, especially those younger than myself, to never forget that you master the machine, the machine doesn’t master you. Never forsake real human contact for technology, never allow yourself to believe that Facebook and text messaging are a replacement for real socialization. They are not, and if they are impeding your progress, ditch them. They can enhance real socialization if used judiciously, otherwise, they are barriers.
Our “hero” in this story could have done things very differently, and SHOULD have, starting at the beginning — here’s his mistake right here: “Unsure about how to get your girl’s attention–and not wanting to interrupt whatever important thing she’s doing on her phone–you let the two girls walk . . .”
THERE IS THE MISTAKE. Allowing yourself to believe, even for a nanosecond, that some stupid iphone is more important than YOU. Allowing yourself to believe, and likely project to the girl, that ANYTHING on her phone is going to be more enjoyable and rewarding to her than the opportunity to look a real human being in the face and interact in real time. Don’t believe this. Don’t ever believe this. Don’t allow yourself to project this false belief, and by God, don’t ever accept that attitude from anybody.
That stupid phone is just like millions of others, it was made in a Chinese factory by underpaid labor and sold for a ridiculous mark-up. YOU are priceless, and unique, and irreplaceable. Believe it. Live it. Project it. Walk right up and open that set, son. Walk right up like it’s 1993 again, and don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t.
Things like facebook and smart phones are supposed to make it easier to socialize in theory, but in reality they have become just another tool for girls to chase alphas and weed out the lesser men.
The best explanation I can think of for this would be that the convenience of dating the nice guy who lives down the street or sits next to them in class is no longer necessary. Now they can spend the whole day sexting on the iphone with their fuck buddy while having no need to endure the advances of those who might be around them in the real world,
Thanks man. I needed it
kill your facebook, men. kill it with fire.
This is a great post for one very important and scary reason. The problem with the stereotypical boy-meets-girl of 2013 lies just as much with the female you’ve described as the behaviour of the boy at hand. The beast that is ‘2013 Melissa’ wouldn’t be what she is without the enablers of the like you have described. These young guys of today need to get their heads out of the sand and be MEN. A feat easier said than done in the feminism infested culture we live in – but something that should be taken head on none-the-less. Call me an optimist – but I don’t think it’s too late.
Calling the girls home phone was still standard in 2003 when I was 13
The 1993 guy and the 2013 guy in this story have different levels of game. The 2013 guy wouldn’t have had the confidence to call Melissa like the 1993 guy did. 2013 guy did the facebook-friend and group-stalk thing because it involved no risk. 1993 guy on the other hand took a risk when he approached Melissa, asked for her number, and called her.
the contrast between the behaviors a decade apart are huge. in both the girls and boys behavior.
the old way wasnt necessarily easier. it was more risk more reward. there were no excuses, no cop outs. nobody had a screwed up sense of self worth.
it was more organic. i think thats what really appeals to people. not that it was easier, but that people were still people and still interacted like human beings. i think that real, tangible novelty in the way interactions went about is what men really miss. most of mens complaints arent really about finding a pussy paradise, easy women. sure we want those things. but what we really complain about is the constant cell phone use, facebook, barrage of bitch boy attention that saturates the air. when it comes down to it we are complaining because we really want a real, organic interaction with ladies.
Dude, I have to say, if that pic at the top is The Melissa, she’s plain as shit.
Wtf are you talking about. She was cute, not Clarissa Darling or Winnie Cooper cute, but still cute.
Brilliant post Tuthmosis!
Even the Swedish Army tries to inform their recruits that a Facebook-account is not a good thing to have. It’s just plain stupid to lay out all of your life on the internet to all that the people you know but more importantly the company itself. Like Stasi in DDR but you do provide the information about yourself to them instead.
This is the same Army that allowes one of our country’s biggest threat Russia to fly military planes over our borders.
Anyway, both of them are weak in game and in confidence but atleast weak people had a shot at skinny, average looking back in the days were traditions and the social bonds between people were stronger.
But the future looks bright fellas, there is a new dawn upon us as it seems the critical point of men has soon been reached.
weird my name is Melissa and I was born in 1993 🙂
Screw Facebook. Man up and women take notice. Call out the oribiters and hipsters for the dbags they are. If all esle fails, forget highschool. College is a better game.
Shit man you have a thing for good writing. Ive read half of your posts and your writing is fun to read.
this is interesting and sad at the same time. great post. sort of paradoxical that technology makes it both easier, and more difficult, to meet/talk to people.
This is so pathetic. The 1993 example is still totally viable, and that’s how pretty much all mature people date these days. Just because you’ve got no game and you’re too afraid to actually go talk to someone when she’s not alone doesn’t mean that dating is being ruined by feminism or whatever point you’re trying to make.
I don’t think the article was about you honey. I think it was more about technology
This is one of the great posts on the blog. It’s a pretty good description of the relative times but with this caveat:
The old fashioned “game” of the shy man approaching the cute girl and then stumbling through to a kiss created about 10 nights alone for every one that worked. Those 9 girls were referred to as “teases”. They liked men hitting on them and would waste their time. It’s why men flocked to social media back in the days before anyone knew what that term meant. “Game” was never good and it produced the slut/bitch dichotomy we’re stuck with today.
Having lived and traveled overseas, most foreign women (and even foreign men) don’t play game as we know it. People talk like adults and if a man is interested in a woman he doesn’t say so but probes by seeing if she’s hostile or hints at being married or dating someone. Women often even are friendly and talk with men without fear of being glommed on by a beta-loser. They just seem more like adults over there while the timeline comparison between high schoolers seems appropriate here. High schoolers are immature. This is expected. But this kind of behavior carries over from middle school, into high school, and then beyond in the states. I hate to use this term, but Americans appear to be socially retarded and this goes beyond dating.
I’ll go out to lunch with co-workers and inevitably they’ll start talking about a project or work or maybe sports but beyond that, they’re as interesting as rocks or at least don’t know how to express their interests. They lack basic manners in how to treat people in terms of saying good morning, making small talk, and complimenting people (men or women) on their appearance.
Perhaps it’s chicken and egg how this happened, but it was the states that came up with the idea of being charged with sexual harassment for telling a woman she’s pretty. NO woman I know of overseas would want to file a complaint for being called pretty unless the guy had been glomming at her desk for 3 hours straight and not allowing her to work. And even then, they’d simply say point blank they’re not interested and tell him to bug off. But American women play a passive aggressive game and men here eat it up. This goes even for the author of this article who plays along with gamey women. Yes, it often works but it makes the problem worse just as the social media era has accelerated apathy in women towards men.
I remember back in the 90’s just chatting up women, any women, to keep in practice. Granted, this was in Philly one of the rudest cities on the planet, but it was hell. They took delight in blowing you off. I moved to a nicer city later (in the south) and it’s considerably easier just to talk to people, men and women. But sure, one aspect of game is accepting that even if you have social skills, others don’t and that means part of social skills is quietly teaching others to have them by example.