People ask me when I ‘took the red pill’ (as much as I dislike that phrase). Was it when my girlfriend of five years cheated on me with two guys from the restaurant where she worked? Was it when my stepmother divorced my father for another man after twenty years of marriage? Or was it when I got deep into game in London and saw first hand the way women (and men) behave when they think no-one else is looking?

While many experiences throughout my life that have chipped away at what you might call a ‘Disneyfied’ view of relationships, the point at which I truly woke up to the fact that all was not as it seemed was when I became conscious of the fact that relationships always seem to degrade in the same way.

Clarissa

Clarissa was a nurse, a hot little thing with long blonde hair, a pretty face and ripe melons for breasts. I met her in the club where I was working. I didn’t have any game at all back then. I lucked out with her, really. I dressed differently than other guys and (due to overdosing on antidepressant medication at the time) I was kind of cocky. She liked that.

So began a six-month mini-affair. At first, I might as well have been Jesus reborn. She literally worshiped me. It was like I could do no wrong. The sex was passionate and afterwards she’d stroke my hair as we fell asleep in each others arms.

Then, after about a month, I made my first big mistake which was moving in with her. Well, to be fair I didn’t strictly ‘move in’, since I still had my own place, a room in a shared house elsewhere, but for all intents and purposes, Clarissa and I shacked up together. I’d sleep at her place every night, and slowly, over time, I began moving more and more of my stuff in.

In my defense, I should point out that this was all at her request. I may have been naive, but even then I was aware of what is actually a mainstream meme anyway—that you shouldn’t begin cohabiting too soon after you meet. But Clarissa was adamant. ‘I want you here with me.’ ‘I can’t bear to be apart from you.’ ‘Don’t you want to be with me all the time too?’

It proved impossible to resist these pleas from a woman who appeared totally enamoured with me. But after a couple of months things started to shift. At first the changes were barely perceptible. Later they became a maelstrom.

First, the sex became less frequent. After a while it died off almost altogether. With it, I also witnessed the demise of Clarissa’s formerly sweet nature. Whereas once I could do no wrong, now she would nag me over stupid things.

To try to appease her I took on more and more of the household chores, but nothing was ever enough. Now she became more and more illogical in her arguments. Suddenly I was to blame for everything in her life, even things like her happiness at work, which had nothing to do with me. “If only you were more like this,” she’d say. “Then things would be different.”

It wasn’t long before we split up. She went out with friends one night and—I believe—got it on with another guy. This was right before Christmas, and during that season of goodwill (for everyone else) she unceremoniously threw me out of her flat.

Devastated, I crawled back to the cold, lifeless room that I’d vacated for her only a few short months ago, and proceeded to drink my way through to new year. She might have deserted me, but whiskey would never let me down.

Of course, I was incredibly green at that point and not game-savvy at all. In fact, you could take this article, print it off, and pin it up on the wall as an instruction guide for what not to do in a relationship. Still, even as I got more clued-up in my dealings with women, I observed this pattern repeating itself time and again.

As I became more ‘alpha’ and outcome-dependent, and as I began to experience greater sexual abundance, the pattern slowed down somewhat. Perhaps I would spend longer in the ‘pink cloud’ early stages with a girl before things turning sour. But even in my most successful relationships, I continued to observe the same overall arc, essentially an inversion of the ‘hero’s journey’. At first, I was the hero. By the end, I was a loser who she wouldn’t deign to throw a single coin at were I a beggar in the gutter at her feet.

As a younger man it was very easy for me to blame myself, and indeed, by putting the principles of game into practice (most notably outcome-independence, pre-selection, abundance mentality, dread game, jealousy plotlines, plate spinning and a willingness to walk away), I have largely mitigated the negative effects of this cycle in more recent times.

But with the rise of the internet came the opportunity for thousands of men to share their relationship experiences anonymously with one another. And as I started to delve into these, I realised that I was far from alone.

Betaisation

The book that really connected all the dots for me was Practical Female Psychology (For The Practical Man) by Joseph W. South and David Clare Franco. In it, the authors describe in great detail what they call the ‘betaization process’ whereby women, through their innate need for security, effectively make men domesticated cucks.

Ironically, rather than make these same women more favourable to their men, it actually kills their sexual desire for them (along with any affection that accompanies this).

Therein lies a terrible paradox. While men as well as women crave the perceived security and warmth that a committed relationship brings, in drawing ever closer to one another we sacrifice that sexual spark that made such intimacy viable in the first place.

This is why so many marriages fail. People get bored. Men who acquiesce to too many of their wives’ demands end up emasculated and unattractive to them. Women want that initial spark back, but they can’t get it with the man in the kitchen with the apron on, so they have to go elsewhere.

We see this sad story played out every single day, millions, probably billions of times across the world.

You might say “Ah, but I’m alpha. I’ll game my wife and none of that will happen to me.” Well, good luck with that. You’ll perhaps offset the worst effects of betaization for a little longer than the average frustrated chump, but there is a deadly inevitability to the cycle.

Because remember, as soon as you’ve put that ring on her finger, as soon as you’ve moved in together, you’ve already conceded to her. You are already playing within her frame. Learn game and proceed with caution.

For a compilation of all Troy’s best game writing, advice and techniques from the last four years buy his new book How To Get Hot Girls Into Bed.

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