Warning: An essay approaches! The following are my thoughts on relationships from an economic perspective, presented in the format of a short article.
In matters that involve relationships, feelings often creep in and it becomes impossible to make objective decisions based on the facts. We all know a guy who is completely whipped, who exists in a clearly destructive relationship that is hampering his development as a man. Despite the advice of his peers, he will continue to stay in that relationship until it blows up in his face. All the while, he'll reason that others simply do not understand the problem as well as he does, and that he alone is capable of determining the best course of action, unaware of the fact that he is performing the relationship equivalent of doing 80 mph in a car with a blown tire down a winding highway with his eyes closed. He gets bogged down in the specifics of navigating the road, whereas any dumbass watching can figure out that he needs to stop the fucking car and get out. While this can be humorous when it happens to an acquiantance, it becomes less so when a close friend or family get involved in this situation. Even more dire, you may find yourself in a relationship much like this, without even realizing that it's happened. One of the most powerful methods a female has of disarming you in preparation for your financial and emotional destruction is her ability to lead you away from logic and reason, guiding you to a land of "feeeeeeelings", where subjectivity rules supreme. I hope to arm you with an effective counter by providing a logical assessment of the value of a relationship over time, with the intent that you should read it if you ever find yourself or a loved one in a relationship that is harmful, and snap out of the delusion that a relationship is worth more than its weight in happiness.
In the beginning of a relationship, you are effectively trading your attention and energy for sexual relations and female companionship. Realize that a woman draws value from your attention and energy as a high value male, and that you, as a man, do not truly seize value from mere attention. A female must perform both sexually and domestically for you to receive fair payment for your valuable resources. She must be joyful to be around and sexually stimulating. However, to her, negative attention is as valuable as positive attention.
If you are not a bitch, you will succeed in making a fair deal, and will not accept one that is ridiculous. The pitfall of the blue pill man is that he will provide attention and energy (energy often takes the form of money) in exchange for nothing. He is incapable of realizing that a transaction is taking place, as he does not value his own attention. However, this isn't a blue pill-bashing article, so I'll assume you're aware of this transaction at the onset of a relationship.
Lured by the promise of consistent, new sex, you may find yourself dating monogamously or having a "main girl". This deal is attractive because it minimizes your costs and gives you the greatest return-on-investment (ROI) for your time/energy/attention. However, you must realize that from a female perspective, your attention will slowly become less valuable. She will begin to sink her claws in, attempting to extract greater amounts of resources. Your first date with her, a drink at a bar before a trip home for the bang, was initially sufficient as a trade for sex. However, she will soon start suggesting movie dates, dinner dates, and more expensive drinking expeditions. These have both a greater time (thus attention) and monetary (thus energy) investment from you. However, she views this as correct in her eyes, as your attention has depreciated and she requires more of it for continued sex and good behavior. If she is unable to extract attention in this manner, she may start to lash out, starting arguments and demanding that you "define the relationship" and insisting that you "don't make her feel special". In a relationship, the typical man may either acquisce to her demands or will become angry, not understanding what is wrong. Either of these result in her receiving increased attention and will satisfy her temporarily, until your attention depreciates yet again.
The relationship arms race has thus begun. Played over millions of times in relationships all over the country, women will start requiring greater gestures of attention and energy in return for providing sex and good behavior. Soon, you will find yourself taking the female on a trip with you, or lavishing her with gifts and "anniversary dates" at great expense to your own time and energy. Although her sexual assets have depreciated to you as well, she will demand you provide the same value for them, ignoring the transactional nature of all relationships.
Oftentimes, this culminates in a giant display of attention and energy known as a "wedding", which comes with an expensive ring and a honeymoon vacation. Of course, she will reward this nuclear bomb of attention with a significant amount of sex, but after the honeymoon this often dries up. You have used your trump card, and she gratefully accepted it, but now you have no cards to play. You can never outdo your ultimate display of fealty to her, and thus, frustrated, she will begin to withdraw sexually and treat you with less respect. After all, since you are no longer providing wedding-level attention for her sex, you don't deserve wedding-level sex in her eyes. Often she will begin to nag and bicker, hoping to get a rise out of you and goad you into blasting her with negative attention. Notice, of course, that following these fights you will have fantastic sex, in keeping with the transaction of attention for sex. Eventually, having been given constant prompts from her bitchy divorced friends and thirst dudes to go trade her sex elsewhere, she will decide that your attention is no longer valuable enough to her for her to stay around. Of course, she'll also take half your shit on the way out, to collect on sexual fees unpaid.
A woman is merely a good bargainer, and you cannot fault her for this. She's not interested in a fair trade any more than you are. She wants valuable attention for her sex, and if (when) her sexual value depreciates, she will do her utmost to hide this and insist on the same price. There are only two ways around this, and since this article is obviously economically influenced, I will continue with the theme: You can either work to increase your percieved value, through becoming a better man and forcing her to feel that she must consistently compete with other women for your attention, and you can diversify like any good asset managed. Thus, if one of your investments collapses, you have not bet your entire sex life on a single woman. These of course boil down to relationship game and plate-spinning, and I will not suggest a path for you.
Either way, it is vital for you to examine the transactional nature of all of your relationships with women, so that you can determine which are providing a good ROI and eliminate those that are not. If you are not receiving sufficient happiness in exchange for your time and attention, then you should discontinue allocating assets to that entity. By insisting on objective results, you will avoid the common pitfalls of the modern couple and become fulfilled in your interpersonal life. Personally, I'd suggest quarterly reviews of your women, but somehow I don't think they'd appreciate the idea.
In matters that involve relationships, feelings often creep in and it becomes impossible to make objective decisions based on the facts. We all know a guy who is completely whipped, who exists in a clearly destructive relationship that is hampering his development as a man. Despite the advice of his peers, he will continue to stay in that relationship until it blows up in his face. All the while, he'll reason that others simply do not understand the problem as well as he does, and that he alone is capable of determining the best course of action, unaware of the fact that he is performing the relationship equivalent of doing 80 mph in a car with a blown tire down a winding highway with his eyes closed. He gets bogged down in the specifics of navigating the road, whereas any dumbass watching can figure out that he needs to stop the fucking car and get out. While this can be humorous when it happens to an acquiantance, it becomes less so when a close friend or family get involved in this situation. Even more dire, you may find yourself in a relationship much like this, without even realizing that it's happened. One of the most powerful methods a female has of disarming you in preparation for your financial and emotional destruction is her ability to lead you away from logic and reason, guiding you to a land of "feeeeeeelings", where subjectivity rules supreme. I hope to arm you with an effective counter by providing a logical assessment of the value of a relationship over time, with the intent that you should read it if you ever find yourself or a loved one in a relationship that is harmful, and snap out of the delusion that a relationship is worth more than its weight in happiness.
In the beginning of a relationship, you are effectively trading your attention and energy for sexual relations and female companionship. Realize that a woman draws value from your attention and energy as a high value male, and that you, as a man, do not truly seize value from mere attention. A female must perform both sexually and domestically for you to receive fair payment for your valuable resources. She must be joyful to be around and sexually stimulating. However, to her, negative attention is as valuable as positive attention.
If you are not a bitch, you will succeed in making a fair deal, and will not accept one that is ridiculous. The pitfall of the blue pill man is that he will provide attention and energy (energy often takes the form of money) in exchange for nothing. He is incapable of realizing that a transaction is taking place, as he does not value his own attention. However, this isn't a blue pill-bashing article, so I'll assume you're aware of this transaction at the onset of a relationship.
Lured by the promise of consistent, new sex, you may find yourself dating monogamously or having a "main girl". This deal is attractive because it minimizes your costs and gives you the greatest return-on-investment (ROI) for your time/energy/attention. However, you must realize that from a female perspective, your attention will slowly become less valuable. She will begin to sink her claws in, attempting to extract greater amounts of resources. Your first date with her, a drink at a bar before a trip home for the bang, was initially sufficient as a trade for sex. However, she will soon start suggesting movie dates, dinner dates, and more expensive drinking expeditions. These have both a greater time (thus attention) and monetary (thus energy) investment from you. However, she views this as correct in her eyes, as your attention has depreciated and she requires more of it for continued sex and good behavior. If she is unable to extract attention in this manner, she may start to lash out, starting arguments and demanding that you "define the relationship" and insisting that you "don't make her feel special". In a relationship, the typical man may either acquisce to her demands or will become angry, not understanding what is wrong. Either of these result in her receiving increased attention and will satisfy her temporarily, until your attention depreciates yet again.
The relationship arms race has thus begun. Played over millions of times in relationships all over the country, women will start requiring greater gestures of attention and energy in return for providing sex and good behavior. Soon, you will find yourself taking the female on a trip with you, or lavishing her with gifts and "anniversary dates" at great expense to your own time and energy. Although her sexual assets have depreciated to you as well, she will demand you provide the same value for them, ignoring the transactional nature of all relationships.
Oftentimes, this culminates in a giant display of attention and energy known as a "wedding", which comes with an expensive ring and a honeymoon vacation. Of course, she will reward this nuclear bomb of attention with a significant amount of sex, but after the honeymoon this often dries up. You have used your trump card, and she gratefully accepted it, but now you have no cards to play. You can never outdo your ultimate display of fealty to her, and thus, frustrated, she will begin to withdraw sexually and treat you with less respect. After all, since you are no longer providing wedding-level attention for her sex, you don't deserve wedding-level sex in her eyes. Often she will begin to nag and bicker, hoping to get a rise out of you and goad you into blasting her with negative attention. Notice, of course, that following these fights you will have fantastic sex, in keeping with the transaction of attention for sex. Eventually, having been given constant prompts from her bitchy divorced friends and thirst dudes to go trade her sex elsewhere, she will decide that your attention is no longer valuable enough to her for her to stay around. Of course, she'll also take half your shit on the way out, to collect on sexual fees unpaid.
A woman is merely a good bargainer, and you cannot fault her for this. She's not interested in a fair trade any more than you are. She wants valuable attention for her sex, and if (when) her sexual value depreciates, she will do her utmost to hide this and insist on the same price. There are only two ways around this, and since this article is obviously economically influenced, I will continue with the theme: You can either work to increase your percieved value, through becoming a better man and forcing her to feel that she must consistently compete with other women for your attention, and you can diversify like any good asset managed. Thus, if one of your investments collapses, you have not bet your entire sex life on a single woman. These of course boil down to relationship game and plate-spinning, and I will not suggest a path for you.
Either way, it is vital for you to examine the transactional nature of all of your relationships with women, so that you can determine which are providing a good ROI and eliminate those that are not. If you are not receiving sufficient happiness in exchange for your time and attention, then you should discontinue allocating assets to that entity. By insisting on objective results, you will avoid the common pitfalls of the modern couple and become fulfilled in your interpersonal life. Personally, I'd suggest quarterly reviews of your women, but somehow I don't think they'd appreciate the idea.