Adding some information from the daughter of a pre-Boomer Christian Alpha. Although Clown-world is the territory now, men and women are building communities that reject it. It's useful to know what is possible.
Dad was the star quarterback, tall, handsome and popular. So loads of opportunity from the teen-age years on. Can't say if any were taken in his 20s. Can't speak to that. But in high school some losers tried to mock him and his crew as "goody-two shoes", for not screwing around, getting wild, and instead living clean, sober lives. What happened? By senior year the informal "two shoes" gang was the one every guy wanted to be in, and all the cheerleaders wanted to date them.
Two of his best friends and bravos went on to be a Hollywood star and co-founder of a successful company, respectively. Dad chose "leader of men" deliberately and succeeded in the military. Naturally, when he was finally ready to marry, he nabbed the hot young stewardess out from under the guy currently courting her. A side note: the first date was a logistics nightmare, and they ended up back at mom's parents' house. Mom cooked him a good breakfast and sent him back to base. Dad got the admiring assumption about his "hot stewardess date" and she found out later that he had shut them down hard.
And yet, I can confirm Mrs. Butterchurn's dread game: Mom would, despite all the evidence that Dad's personal honor was through the roof, get nightmares about him bringing home a second wife. Years later she figured out those dreams were about his command, and his men. Our family were always taken care of, he was the spiritual leader of our home, and yet over one six year period he was physically present less than two years. Mom had to be the perfect XO which meant taking on some of those teaching and leadership tasks for her kids that a Bravo or Delta husband would handle. Quality time is an emergent property of quantity time.
If Thackery (or the Crow for you Millennials) was correct and "“Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children," "Father" is how they understand Him once they're children and teens. All my dad's son-in-laws (two Deltas, one Bravo) admired, trusted, and respected him, as did his father-in-law. Dad was the model of honor and rectitude, he lived up to *his* father's rule "Work hard, seek knowledge, and uphold absolute standards of excellence".
On the other hand, none of his daughters went looking for Alphas. We all wanted to live with men who would put us a higher in their priorities perhaps. And we miss him dreadfully. His son-in-laws in particular. So it's possible that we girls weren't in the running for Alphas, but were pulling above our weight simply because we had the Dad we did.
My twin sister has always dated Alphas and is currently married to one. She is aware of the status, but I'm not sure she is aware of the infidelity issue. She's not a stupid person, but perhaps blinded by her own confidence ("who would ever cheat on ME?"). Her most serious boyfriend in college made a serious pass at me like a week before graduation that took me completely off-gaurd since he was currently dating my sister. Her current husband did a similar thing when I was visiting them a few years ago and it was equally un-settling. I've never told her about it because I know it would damage our relationship. I didn't understand it at the time, but now recognizing the status thing I'm sure they were just used to having women say yes to them. I obviously didn't because me and my twin are extremely close and I would never do that to her.
Her husband is older, about 16 years older that us, but extremely charismatic, well liked at work, and cares deeply about his employees. He's extremely likeable and well known in the community. I am always skeptical of his faithfulness though so that tends to shade my opinion of him now unfortunately.
I think you’re wise to avoid harming your relationship with your sister by steering clear of the fidelity issue.
Not to say whether your sister is one of them or not, but there are a subset of women who will tolerate sexual infidelity so long as the man isn’t threatening the family unit’s cohesion with it (using condoms - so no diseases or children with other women). In my experience at least some wives of alphas will tolerate “dalliances” but not an “affair.”
I never pursued a romantic or attempted a platonic relationship with an alpha, that was by choice. The men in my family are Gamma's, no examples there. I married into a family where men act like men, thank God, my Father in Law is a highly accomplished bravo. Looking back with an understanding of the SSH, I avoided Alphas for specific reasons. I apologize as my personal experience is somewhat adjacent to the requested input from us ladies, but it should hold some relevance. So!
Reasons why I deliberately avoided Alphas.
-The monogamy problem. I wanted a man to match my level of commitment in marriage. Alphas are much less likely to do this at any level of a relationship. The stress and worry that brings is not healthy.
-Waiting for marriage. I waited and so did my husband. A deliberate choice for both of us, believe me we both had options, just not the right option until each other. Alphas have options, opportunity, and ego to satisfy along with their sex drive. They just seemed like they'd try and pressure me into sex, that would have ended the relationship.
-Alphas in my observation are very social, engaging constantly to maintain rank. An alpha may want arm candy to show status or a homebody out of the way of his escapades. He may flip-flop. I'm an introvert, that would be exhausting.
-Alphas tend to be overtly dominant towards women, regardless of the necessity for it. I think they tend to either seek a woman with a female equivalent dominant personality, basically the crazy hot chick stereotype, high drive, a challenge to handle, unachievable for lesser ranked men. Or on the other end, a notably submissive and compliant woman, still very attractive, but will cave to their will and be more passive towards cheating for example. Neither dynamic would suit my personality.
What I was looking to avoid aside, what was I actually looking for? I learned about the SSH a few years before meeting my husband. I realized I was seeking a solid Bravo, Sigma also sounded ideal to me but I understood it was rare. Higher ranking and more dominant than a Delta, but less so than Alpha. A better balance as a husband to me than any other rank. So, did I marry a Bravo?
Kind of...Maybe not.
My husband likes to function as a Bravo. As he says, "I am the second born son," but if the Bravo role is already filled, he'll go do his own thing...Then usually find himself in a leadership role on an island of misfit toys as he accidentally accumulates a following. His last boss wanted to gear him up to run the company as he neared retirement, he was 22 and worked there about five months when they had that discussion. Another boss before that quite literally offered his daughter to him. Fortunately for me he declined!
So, he is often mistaken for an Alpha and made a leader, yet has no interest in that. If the hierarchy does not have his desired Bravo role open, he'll ultimately see himself out. We also have some mutual friends, a solid Alpha and Omega, who both see Omega traits in him aside from his preference and obvious skill as a Bravo. I do find it funny and mildly insulting when they suggest Omega. Like hellooooo I'm RIGHT HERE. Since when does an Omega pull any woman let alone an attractive one? Am I fat dumb and ugly all of a sudden? So what's going on?
Welp...I think I married a Unicorn. I mean Sigma. We do quite well together. Now If only I wasn't the only one convinced he might be a Sigma?... We joke there's really only one Sigma and that's Vox himself. Gamma's run around claiming to be Sigma so often it's become gay for any man besides Vox to say that of himself. But as his wife, I'm pretty convinced.
And that's the story of how I dodged Alphas, sought Bravos, and kinda sorta maybe possibly married a Sigma.
I don't have much experience with what they follow up with after rejecting them, I would not linger and create more opportunity, but nothing negative to note. They tend to just move past it with the same charismatic smile they started with. They shoot their shot at a woman they don't know, they get it. I didn't go to bars so I can only assume they're probably more pushy with a few drinks in their system as most men are. Alphas are much less likely to painfully pursue a woman like a Gamma would, creating distance prevented having to go through that.
In my experience there's some measure of amplifying the request. Pour on the charm, give the Danger Eyes + Winning Smile, in one case scoop me off my feet in an "over the threshold" carry... a gesture or two to test the limits of the No. If the amplification is unsuccessful they accept with good grace, but try it on just a little bit every time you encounter them socially thereafter. You sort of end up with a jovial Bon Vivant buddy for life.
From what I've seen, usually like water off a duck's back. Some develop the -itis for certain girls and exhibit some remarkably Gamma behaviors regarding them, though.
I suspect I was raised by an alpha father. He may not be textbook alpha, but he was the beloved class clown. An artistic fellow who began his DJ career at 16. Hispanic alphas are more “machismo” in nature as opposed to football QB. My dad was a bad boy in high school who always had the gift of gab to get him out of any trouble. My maternal grandmother called him “the Fonz” and it stuck.
Strangers often say he looks like the most interesting man in the world from the Dos Equis commercial. My friends in high school thought I had the coolest dad. Some even had a crush on him. When he DJ’d a couple events for the school, I became a Heather for the time being.
His work:
He joined the navy at 18 where he was likely a situational delta. Then joined the NYPD and became a detective in VICE. Retired as a detective. Then he became a flight attendant. He objectively describes the appearance of the women he works with and had trouble being faithful in the beginning.
His alpha characteristics can be seen most in his side gig. He has a successful DJ/MC business and gets a lot of his clients just by his “look”. He would take me to work with him and guide me towards event photography to encourage my entrepreneurial spirit. Women always approached him at parties, which would often piss him off. Other DJ’s call him to be the MC at their events. He’s got a special look and always maintains his ‘hipsteresque’ beard and style.
Alphas impact on his family:
Yes there was some entertaining of other women; on multiple occasions spanning a decade. This left his wife and 2 daughters with some emotional baggage. But like wine, my parent’s marriage got better with age. They began leading marriage small groups and he volunteers with Family Life to help keep marriages together. As the younger sibling I was lucky enough to have a great dad but my sister suffered the tumultuous beginning of their marriage. She still resents him and now her husband does too. She ended up divorcing an alpha to marry a gamma and gained more than a few pounds. In contrast, I broke up with a suicidal gamma to marry a bravo and birthed the first 2 grandsons of the new generation by 25.
Hope this added some value, I see my dad as a man who conquered his negative alpha traits for the greater good and uses the positive traits to really help people.
Thanks, I think the biggest takeaway is that there are blue collar alphas and white collar alphas. With socioeconomic and racial factors considered, we can begin to see the big fish in small ponds.
In a mono-ethnic society, most of the blue-collar vs white-collar alpha is the effect of IQ; the higher social ranked ones generally are smarter. In the rare instance of smart (or super-charismatic) blue-collar alpha, they generally quickly transition into upper society, or become revolutionaries.
Alpha is my middle of 3 boys. Eldest son is a gamma, youngest son is Bravo to Alpha's alpha, but he might be an emerging Sigma in his own peer group. It's too soon to tell, he's young yet.
Other than Husband, Alpha is the only one in the family who can deal with my gamma son with any sort of composure. Alpha even makes sure to include him in gatherings (epic forest parties, for example) where Gamma would never otherwise be invited.
He was a beautiful baby, a handsome and charming child and now in his early 20s is the stereotypical alpha male. 6'4, handsome, chiseled jaw, at college on an athletic scholarship, chased by girls, sought after by guy-groupies. Life of the party, leader of the pack, blah blah blah. Fortunately he has a kind heart and a sweetness to him that outweighs the dark triad traits. As a small child it was incredibly hard to discipline him, partly because he was so handsome and charming it was often hard to keep a stern demeanour and not melt from the cuteness, but also because other women in the vicinity -- my mother being the worst culprit -- would start dishing it up to me for being "mean" to him. (I was a pigtailed-and-beribboned baby of the family in my childhood so I'd already cornered the market on getting away with murder and didn't want my boy to grow up spoilt like I was. Reining him in was HARD).
Women of all ages fall at his feet and have since he was about 14 y.o (6 ft 1 and looked around 19 at the time) and I've been trying to teach him all his life to use this power for good, not evil. That he's going to have girls throwing themselves at him but that he needs to be kind, not cruel, in giving them the heave-ho where appropriate. To be gentlemanly and honourable rather than a cad. During the quarantines he was working at the local grocery store. The store owner had him on the door as a bouncer because the crowds were unruly. Local moms and grannies would regularly show up with hand-knit socks and homemade cookies as gifts for him when they arrived to do the weekly shop.
I think the most interesting thing is watching the Alpha-Alpha dynamic between him and his dad, as they work toward figuring out which one of them is the Apex Alpha in our family circle. It's touch and go at the moment. So far Alpha-Son has handled Alpha-Dad with respect and gentleness, so it will likely be more of a passing of the torch than a battle. Raising him has been a real trip.
I think there are a few things at play. Gamma is the 2nd of five children. He's emotionally fragile, willowy, socially and physically awkward. Eldest daughter doted on him and treated him like the special-est of special boys. Then came three more children, all beautiful, bright, athletic... All the things he isn't.
Anything Eldest achieved, Gamma was able to attribute it to the fact that she was older and therefore more capable. But when his 3 younger siblings proved to also be more capable (and better looking, and smarter, and more popular, and not socially or physically awkward at all) it undercut his delusion bubble. Gamma-Son is unwilling -- maybe unable -- to face reality, so he buries himself further and further in his delusions of grandeur. It's heartbreaking, but there's nothing I can do to fix him. Believe me, I've tried everything. All I can do is keep praying that someday the truth will find him and he will welcome it.
I look back at my younger self and think nobody would have believed in that kid. I was somewhere between Omega and Gamma.
Four instincts helped me make changes:
(1) A love for truth. My father, a partly recovered Gamma, was not equipped to teach me how to be a high value man. But he taught me to tell the truth and to think the truth. This also is what first attracted me to Vox's work.
(2) A love for beauty. All beauty, but especially the beauty of women fascinated me from a very young age. This, combined with (1), was enough to show me that my behavior was not going to achieve my goals, and changes had to be made.
(3) A strong sense of disgust, and a strong fear of being disgusting. That latter is definitely an Omega trait. It has been the negative reinforcement that drives me to work out, take care of my skin, dress well, and speak courteously.
(4) A permanent and unshakable belief that I can always reinvent myself. I have spent years now developing my natural gifts, and I am excited for where the journey will take me. I wish the same for your son.
I never dipped to Omega, but I was flirting hard with Gamma for a long time. That list seems quite right, and it very well reflects God and His gifts to us.
Truth, beauty, rectitude, and His promise that all things are possible.
Awkward to the point of off putting. Many guys can't stand him and most girls describe him as creepy. His primary delusion is the secret king. He's the best, the smartest and the best looking. The clash with reality causes him to fail over and over again, but he can't face it so he purges it from memory. My other children call it "resetting to factory defaults". The unpalatable truth gets flushed, so he doesn't learn from it or improve himself.
My mind keeps coming back to this (the sperg curse) and I wonder if your son lacks the conceptual framework for body language. It would explain a lot of the social and physical awkwardness and his inability to learn from social situations. A book explaining body language might allow him to make progress. I found "The Definitive Book of Body Language" to be quite helpful when I was trying to improve my social skills.
My son's core problem is that he refuses to acknowledge reality. He can't handle that he doesn't know something, which renders him incapable of learning. It really is psychic fragility more so than anything else. He lies to himself and wants the rest of the world to collude with his lies. (A bit like trannies wanting everyone else to pretend along with them) Until he is willing to accept the truth he can't change anything.
Women monkeybranch in the hope of getting an Alpha's attention for long enough for him to set them up for life. I am thinking of a phone recording of Mel Gibson upset with his second wife for precisely these reasons: he had set her up with her piano playing, and then she (in effect) dumped him. It is a perilous game, which (in truth) women usually win, if they can get the Alpha to marry them. When he (inevitably) cheats, they collect alimony.
As a 10 with my alpha for 20 years, the SSH and SG has been enlightening. I read a comment on the monkeybranching thread that discussed the only people that seem happily married still after years and years are the high SSH couples that got together when young. Since I identified with this comment, I wanted to share with my husband. When I brought up the concept of monkeybranching, he cut me off and stated that “it’s a good thing I moved you to ‘small town’ when we were young so you couldn’t monkeybranch away from me.” I was annoyed that he missed my point and instead focused on my capacity to leave him. However, I thought that his reaction was telling in his view of me and my value.
As for how he interacts with the world, he attracts “guy groupies” in every space he regularly inhabits, including professional football players at his gym which are typically viewed as high SSH themselves. I have always found these men pathetic and been annoyed with how he garners this bubble of “yes men.” Over the years, I have accepted that men are different from women, prefer a hierarchy, and want a leader. Thus, they are happy to submit to an acknowledged leader. I equate it to dogs who find comfort in a strong master.
Being a 10, do you feel that your beauty is intimidating to men, more than the beauty of other less geometrically perfect girls? Or is there no real difference?
Before you were married, did you have more or fewer suitors than the 7s and 8s you knew?
For your first two questions, the saying, “Is a fish aware it’s swimming I water?” resonates. Since this is my baseline, I find it hard to truly gauge. However, in the twenty years I have been with my husband, I can count on a single hand the number of times a man has approached me in a courting manner. Thus, Vox’s post on the invisibility of 10s does ring true for my personal experience. My husband finds this inconceivable and attributes it to my obliviousness. He says when we are out, he catches men look at me and will stare them down until they look away. When I am out by myself, I am never approached.
When I was younger, I felt pursued by a comparable number of men to my friends. However, the caliber of male that showed interest in me was always the alpha of a group. I was also “perpetually attached” in my youth, and the night I met my husband, he asked me to be his girlfriend within six hours and his wife after five days.
The "guy goupie" thing happens when, at a certain level of athleticism and social ability, you've outgrown friends who haven't or can't keep up and want a new set of guy friends who understand your current station in life, so when the rare alpha shows up, who's on your same level with similar interests, you latch on.
I'm no pro footballer, so I'm not at your level, but even I've gotten to the point where it's easier to meet attractive women than it is to meet men at my social level. I'm sure the pro footballers have it worse.
From a male perspective, I can understand an appreciation for submitting to a true alpha, especially after feeling like you have outgrown peers.
From a female perspective, I find this tendency pathetic. I cannot respect a man that would submit to another man. Thus, in the 20 years of our being together, I have truly only encountered two men who have even piqued my attraction but never more than a passing thought of “oh, he’s attractive,” and each time I told my husband that I saw someone I thought was attractive today. I do so to reinforce that I am honest when I say that I do not want to leave him, that I find him attractive still, and I really do not find other men attractive - at all.
Following orders and respecting the hierarchy isn't the same as submission, at least not submission of the whole being. Rather it's practical and focused on results. It's lambdas who are about power and submission I think. Perhaps that's why you can't respect it?
In a similar vein I find it hard to respect men who are ruled by their wives at home (i.e. just about all of them)
I will also add that in our relationship I get the say in 90% of things. Mostly because he is apathetic towards them and finds those things trivial and inconsequential. For the remaining 10% though, no amount of effort or convincing on my part would sway him. At times I have tried to no avail. Only time and his own personal experience convinced him otherwise. Therefore, from the outside, it may appear proportionally like I am “running the show,” but in reality, I only get the say for the things that don’t matter.
I agree there is a distinction between respecting the hierarchy and submission of the person. Tolerating an unnatural position in the hierarchy is understandable. Submitting to someone you view as superior is another. The former is an integral structure to any functioning system. The latter is an acknowledgment of your inferiority. I can accept there were moments in my husband’s early years where he was not the situational alpha, and that did not decrease his attractiveness to me. However, it was also viewed more as a temporary station and not inherent to his nature. Therefore, while situationally throughout the years, he has not always been the alpha, he has never submitted himself to someone else’s superiority. I even asked him one time if there was ever anyone he has met that he felt was his superior, and he said, “No. There are men I have respected, but never anyone that I ever felt was better than me.”
As for how he tolerated not being a situational alpha, not well. He never respected someone’s position for the sake of it, and this willingness to usurp authority from someone he perceived as inferior was inconsistently rewarded or punished. In one instance, his superior was fired, and he was given the man’s position. Other times, he was the one removed. It hasn’t truly been until he opened his own company that he has thrived. Now there is no question of his authority, he doesn’t have to tolerate others vying for position, nor deal with the inherent jealousy of other men.
Similar to Butterchurn’s post about her husband’s ability to reign in gammas, my husband is also adept at getting them to fall in line. However, like primates who are not able to outright defeat the alpha male in battle, they will sneakily take opportunities to undermine him. This inability to identify men who show loyalty to his face but cut him down at the first opportunity has been a huge blind spot for him. Each time he is surprised and disappointed. He believed there was an authentic connection, not realizing it was his position they respected but also resented. They were too weak to confront him outrightly so they used the only means possible, underhanded tactics and sneak attacks.
As for your comment on finding men who are run by their wives hard to respect, I agree. I will also state that there has never been a question of who is the authority in our relationship. I have always respected my husband. I would not be with him otherwise. Before him, every male submitted to me. It wasn’t until I met my husband that I finally found someone who could lead me, and his strong authority provided me comfort then and continues to do so now.
"I cannot respect a man that would submit to another man."
Thanks for sharing that. Really illustrates how differently men and women operate.
Men expect submission in a hierarchy and are quite willing to enforce it as a group. Men who serve their role get respect, even if at the bottom of the group.
Sigmas who get drummed out of groups are basically kicked out for not submitting, but that won't matter to the women.
I dated 1 for about a year in my twenties and my best friend pretty much could have anyone she wanted, so there were a few alphas. My guess is some of these "Alpha Widows" are very willing widows. I remember my bestie & trying to figure out the "dont take No" stuff & probably erroneously attributing to a mother who never said no. There seems to be a lot of abortion in the Alpha history (which can take some time to figure out because they hide it). Also an intense preoccupation with money, which can get tedious after awhile. Fortunately neither one of us married one because I'm sure it would have crashed & burned by now. Currently we both see Alpha's as like "fools gold" maybe because were thinking of daughters, nieces, etc ---- so far a few are listening !
Just realized my comments were vague. To elaborate on the money / tedious comment I will tell how it ended. I had a death in the family and it was the second freak accidental death in my immediate family - to say I was undone is an understatement -- Anyways even with this he managed to insert business & money talk before & after funeral. I lost respect & thought this is not someone I can do life with & broke up w him -- or who knows, since I was grieving at that point & not going to be "fun" maybe this was his way of breaking up with me.
When you say he was trying to insert business and money talk -- was he offering to help people manage financial affairs, or something else? Were there some kind of selfish motives on his part?
It was not to help anyone. Money & making more of it were constant topics but it just stuck out as weird during this time -- part of it was to let me know how much he was "sacrificing" being away from his ventures & vacations for a few days. I dont know all the motivations -- just glad that God made the writing on the wall very clear.
With a thumbs-up from Vox for daughters of Alpha fathers, I’ll bite.
My dad is a high performing Alpha who was at the top of his field for decades. Very handsome, stunningly smart. Overwhelmingly charismatic, even when he’s being a dick. He loves life in the fast lane, in a fashion that makes it clear Wolf of Wall Street may as well have been a documentary. I know that the midget tossing scene is real, because he was in an adjacent industry and I remember him laughing to my mom about what the crazy guys over on Wall Street were doing for their annual meeting. His parallel industry had just as much booze, cocaine, and women. He thrived in it. His biggest regret in life is that he can’t be young again to do it all over. He made tens of millions for himself (Mostly for his ex-wives. He doesn’t care. “I want her to be safe. I can always make more money.) And billions, with a b, for his shareholders.
He and my mom met in high school. And were the stereotypical gorgeous, “all the men want to be him and the women want to do him/be her”, alpha couple. They are from an ethnic group that is unusually short (I have Nordic ad mixture from my mom and am taller than Dad), so he couldn’t compete in football or basketball, and instead became the regional men’s gymnastics champion. My mom was a chaste Barbie, model level gorgeous, total femme fatale. Modeled professionally but hit a ceiling, due to ethnicity and shortness. Probably also being monogamous with her alpha boyfriend and not putting out to get to the next level.
They both love being the center of attention in a room, command it effortlessly, and recall their college years together as the best time of their life. They are BOTH very high in dark triad features. And should not have had children. Not in an “I’d rather be dead” sort of way, but in a children pulled them apart and ruined their marriage.
When he was home, which wasn’t often, Dad was jealous of the attention mom gave the kids. He wanted her attention to himself like he had had for a decade, and like he got from everywhere else in the world. In turn, she was angry that he was still out partying, living the high life, excelling beyond belief in his career, fraternizing with other women, while she was stuck at home with us.
They were an equal match for stubbornness. As Vox describes, he did and does respect her when she say no to him, and when they went head to head it was epic. Despite the respect, he still does whatever he wants anyway including: moving the family thousands of miles without consulting her by selling the house and taking a next-level job without discussing it with her, spending upwards of $400,000 on booze/drugs/women that was missing from the forensic accounting in the divorce, any number of affairs that he swears he never had, and disappearing on business for days or weeks at a time without telling her where he was going or why.
He stills likes to drink and party as a senior citizen, and when asked about it he’s just like “yeah, yeah, I know the science. The 12-steps, everything. But I just don’t care enough to be sober. It’s not fun.” He has had zero consequences for his drug and alcohol abuse, except my mom divorcing him, but she only did it to protect her share of the assets in case he killed someone drunk driving in his very expensive cars. They live separately now, but still sleep together and present as a married couple in their retirement town. When he lost his license due to excessive DUIs, he just got an Uber driver to become his professional driver. For years.
One of his favorite work stories is how his secretary would keep a coin jar on her desk and charge him 50 cents whenever he swore at somebody. One day he had such a cluster fuck to untangle from his subordinates’ screw up that as he stormed past her desk, he shoved a $100 bill into the jar. In life, court, etc. Fines just set the amount of fuck-you money you need on hand to be able to do what you want and not have people waste your time about it. I’m seen him deal with finder benders by pulling $2000 in cash out of his wallet, handing it to the other driver, and leaving.
As a father, he largely wasn’t around because his work and the social life it required was paramount. Sometimes he would come home drunk or high on coke after a big event, but he mostly stayed at his apartment near work when that happened. Presumably with other women. My younger siblings literally could not keep up with him, in terms of temperament or health, or with the volatility of the fights between two dark triad parents. And though we were boundlessly provided for in material terms, my siblings had little or no emotional involvement with him.
I happened to excel at one of his favorite hobbies, and got substantial one-on-one time with him doing that hobby together, which could not be done with drugs or alcohol. I truly got the best of him of any of the kids in the family. It was wonderful to both have his full attention and feel so special to him for the decade or so we shared that. I’m still the apple of his eye…when he bothers to spend time with me, which is like a long weekend, twice a year. He’s fantastic at getting emergency things done, or having his secretary do it If and whenever I was in a pinch (before I was married and had a consistent and reliable husband - thank God!), Dad never failed to follow through when I’ve asked for material help. But any level of emotional support, understanding, sympathy, loyalty, consistency, constancy etc. seems to have been reserved for his work Bravos.
He’s very sure he was an excellent father because we had a good time together and I went to great schools and landed a well educated husband.
After my mom, Dad married again to a woman his age, very clearly for access to a higher level of social influence that, due to his cultural background, he would not have been able to enter into otherwise. He started a whole new life with her and her children, and, except for paying for schooling, left me and my sister largely in the dust. When I ask him about it he says he “tried to include us but we were busy.” They later divorced, once he had made the connections he needed.
I later found out he had had a third marriage and divorce, with the woman my mom most suspected him of having an affair with. But he doesn’t count it because it was just a quick drive through thing in Vegas, and she didn’t take any of his money when they split.
He recently asked my husband if my husband was banging one of his (husband’s) coworkers on the side. And my husband was utterly outraged, how-dare you-make-such-an-accusation-against-me-in-my-own-home furious. I had to explain to my husband that he had missed the opportunity for male camaraderie with his father-in-law and that the correct answer would have been “well, Light on the Shore doesn’t know, and I swear to you she never will… I would never leave the family for a side piece … but….”
Not all alphas, probably not most, are of the life-in-the-fast lane variety. I’ll post seaparately on my husband, who is a much more sedate natural leader. But in my professional opinion as the daughter of this type of Alpha, the best thing for their kids would be to be sent to boarding school. Near enough to home that the kids can enjoy the occasional event and trip that gives them their Dad’s scare undivided attention, but allows them to form father figure relationships with Beta and Delta teachers and coaches. Mom can then focus most of her time and energy on Dad and advancing whatever it is he is out to achieve in the world.
I know one family with similar parents to mine, who dealt with al this by having full time nanny care for their four kids. Daytime, nighttime, and weekend nannies. The kids cried a lot growing up that their parents were never at parent teacher night or sports events or whatever. But as adults they are closer with their alpha-duo parents than I or any of my siblings are with ours.
I recently watched High Society (1956). I thought it was unrealistic that Grace Kelly's father was still good friends with her ex-husband Bing Crosby, after he had cheated on his daughter. But maybe that was more realistic than I thought!
FIL is an Alpha. Been living under the same roof for almost a year. Even though he's in his mid-50's, women 30+ are constantly vying for his attention. He has a good ring of dependable deltas that work for him, though when issues arise he will bend over backwards to help them out and be there for them. What weighs most heavily on his heart as the leader is making sure every household under him is able to make ends meet and thrive. He always, always, always! has a woman he is talking to/dating/etc. Has been divorced 3 times. To my knowledge, he's never had a true bravo, and this has really hurt his Alpha personality. He's been trying to groom his son into a Bravo (who's a sigma) and this dynamic is usually comical, unless it's something Alpha is done discussing. then it's like a mini-war.
In Vox's first post, he mentions women to the Alpha are as something there for his gratification and use. This is true, tho not as heartless as it may sound. I am here to watch over his granddaughter, keep his son happy, and make him endless honey scones. His dog is here for him to have a best friend ( but I'm the one who feeds and mostly does the daily care of it) His house is for him to relax in, and his business is for him to work at and live on. Since he's at the top, he knows he is supported by those under him, and a good Alpha takes care of his base. Is he ever here? Sometimes, when he's exhausted. But he's usually out, running errands, meeting people, fixing odd end things for his business.
If I had met him when we were both 20, would I have dated him? He was definitely attractive, but Probably not, bc the "drama-scent" that Alphas exude makes me wary. I would have wanted him as a friend tho, and would have made the guy I was with be in his circle, bc he is charismatic, genuine, fun, and takes care of those around him.
The "drama-scent" is something you pick up only after being friends with an alpha for at least a year and seen him go through the drama first hand, to know what it's like.
You picked it up because of your FIL, but most women don't have this experience, so they don't have a defense against his charisma.
No, I've had that since I was 15. I had a lot of Alpha friends in high school, (they were off-market and so was I,) but school was effortless for me and my mom was a teacher, so I was always a friend to help them. They talked a lot about things, not to me, but easily overheard, and I decided I was not about that life. I was dating a Delta, and I have always been drama and conflict avoidant.
I’ve had a couple Alpha bosses, usually at small to midsize companies. At large ones my bosses were nearly always deltas or gammas.
The good thing is when they are high energy and build an ethos of performance. Bad thing is the drama when they have an affair with an employee or the wife of another owner. Or run into big woman customer who knows his wife when out with his side chick. She doesn’t renew the contract. Then, big customer 2 doesn’t renew because #1 didn’t. Company folds.
Or the “do what I say” thing. Not in the contract? Just do it because I say so. Then the inevitable misery happens.
I’ve stroked a few alphas fur backwards more than once.
What does this paragraph instruct the reader to do?
"However, this post is not for men to post their experiences and opinions of Alphas, but for the women. Men, regardless of where you are on the SSH, please limit yourselves to commenting upon the women’s experiences."
I think this is partly to do with internet culture.
Many people assume that the mere existence of a comment section means whatever they have to say is welcome. Even if there is no other reason to believe it
My first husband may have been an Alpha, maybe a Sigma, not sure. He was very tall, but wore glasses and had a slight stutter as a teen before we married. As he grew into his twenties women far and near dropped their panties upon meeting him (I found out later). He was chronically unfaithful and I believe paid for several abortions during our marriage. He made a lot of money and spent a lot of money. He divorced me for a younger woman when I was 26 (!) saying I was too fat now that I had a baby and because I didn't care about his money, which was all true. I never was able to lose all the baby fat although I got with 10 pounds. I am trying to be honest here, and before some twerp hops on with a comment, we also had frequent sex. I hope that isn't TMI but there seems to be this idea here that sex with an Alpha is the best but it's not. I was not an Alpha widow and never mourned him emotionally or sexually, but our daughter suffered because he threw her aside too. We were not emotionally or sexually close in the way my Delta husband and I are. There was no discussion about anything, it was his way or the highway. The end. A woman married to an Alpha makes a bargain for her children. She is not there for the great sex. She is there for status, not just for herself but for her children. Oh, and her whole family! My poor mother was the real Alpha widow - she never got over the divorce. I don't think I could have saved my first marriage, though, even if I had stayed skinny. He ended up with a third wife who mistreated him terribly when he became incapacitated before his death. His daughters from his second wife hated him. His third wife spent every cent he had so none of his daughters got anything. I have a soft spot for his memory because he was a virgin when I met him and he was the father of my beautiful daughter.
Sounds a lot like some stories I heard of my great-great-grandfather. He used it to swindle and con his way across America, spawning broken families wherever he went.
It was an unhappy marriage by every metric that left me disillusioned, with a sour view of other women's mercenary tendencies. So just as some guys here feel any degree of obesity is non-negotiable, as is their right, my takeaway was fidelity.
Part 2: He also has a knack for reining in Gammas. Back in the day my SIL was dating a guy named Lawrence (he pronounced it Law-RAUNCE). A theatre-type guy. Husband started calling him Larry Baby, while making finger guns at him. Husband's football team friends picked up on it and he became Larry-Baby-with-finger-guns at every social gathering. Gamma put up with it with (for a gamma) good grace, because he was invited to all the "cool kids" parties. If he pitched a fit, Law-RAUNCE would have been banished immediately. The gamma reined in his worst behaviour as a result.
It’s a good illustration that gammas are part of the hierarchy. Right down to an established place in the micro-society. People expect him to be there. They’d ask after him if he wasn’t. It’s just that gammas are low status, and when they accept that, they’re included.
Thanks to all the ladies who posted their stories. Fascinating.
Adding some information from the daughter of a pre-Boomer Christian Alpha. Although Clown-world is the territory now, men and women are building communities that reject it. It's useful to know what is possible.
Dad was the star quarterback, tall, handsome and popular. So loads of opportunity from the teen-age years on. Can't say if any were taken in his 20s. Can't speak to that. But in high school some losers tried to mock him and his crew as "goody-two shoes", for not screwing around, getting wild, and instead living clean, sober lives. What happened? By senior year the informal "two shoes" gang was the one every guy wanted to be in, and all the cheerleaders wanted to date them.
Two of his best friends and bravos went on to be a Hollywood star and co-founder of a successful company, respectively. Dad chose "leader of men" deliberately and succeeded in the military. Naturally, when he was finally ready to marry, he nabbed the hot young stewardess out from under the guy currently courting her. A side note: the first date was a logistics nightmare, and they ended up back at mom's parents' house. Mom cooked him a good breakfast and sent him back to base. Dad got the admiring assumption about his "hot stewardess date" and she found out later that he had shut them down hard.
And yet, I can confirm Mrs. Butterchurn's dread game: Mom would, despite all the evidence that Dad's personal honor was through the roof, get nightmares about him bringing home a second wife. Years later she figured out those dreams were about his command, and his men. Our family were always taken care of, he was the spiritual leader of our home, and yet over one six year period he was physically present less than two years. Mom had to be the perfect XO which meant taking on some of those teaching and leadership tasks for her kids that a Bravo or Delta husband would handle. Quality time is an emergent property of quantity time.
If Thackery (or the Crow for you Millennials) was correct and "“Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children," "Father" is how they understand Him once they're children and teens. All my dad's son-in-laws (two Deltas, one Bravo) admired, trusted, and respected him, as did his father-in-law. Dad was the model of honor and rectitude, he lived up to *his* father's rule "Work hard, seek knowledge, and uphold absolute standards of excellence".
On the other hand, none of his daughters went looking for Alphas. We all wanted to live with men who would put us a higher in their priorities perhaps. And we miss him dreadfully. His son-in-laws in particular. So it's possible that we girls weren't in the running for Alphas, but were pulling above our weight simply because we had the Dad we did.
My twin sister has always dated Alphas and is currently married to one. She is aware of the status, but I'm not sure she is aware of the infidelity issue. She's not a stupid person, but perhaps blinded by her own confidence ("who would ever cheat on ME?"). Her most serious boyfriend in college made a serious pass at me like a week before graduation that took me completely off-gaurd since he was currently dating my sister. Her current husband did a similar thing when I was visiting them a few years ago and it was equally un-settling. I've never told her about it because I know it would damage our relationship. I didn't understand it at the time, but now recognizing the status thing I'm sure they were just used to having women say yes to them. I obviously didn't because me and my twin are extremely close and I would never do that to her.
Her husband is older, about 16 years older that us, but extremely charismatic, well liked at work, and cares deeply about his employees. He's extremely likeable and well known in the community. I am always skeptical of his faithfulness though so that tends to shade my opinion of him now unfortunately.
FWIW as the daughter of an alpha,
I think you’re wise to avoid harming your relationship with your sister by steering clear of the fidelity issue.
Not to say whether your sister is one of them or not, but there are a subset of women who will tolerate sexual infidelity so long as the man isn’t threatening the family unit’s cohesion with it (using condoms - so no diseases or children with other women). In my experience at least some wives of alphas will tolerate “dalliances” but not an “affair.”
Thank you for saying that. Truly.
I never pursued a romantic or attempted a platonic relationship with an alpha, that was by choice. The men in my family are Gamma's, no examples there. I married into a family where men act like men, thank God, my Father in Law is a highly accomplished bravo. Looking back with an understanding of the SSH, I avoided Alphas for specific reasons. I apologize as my personal experience is somewhat adjacent to the requested input from us ladies, but it should hold some relevance. So!
Reasons why I deliberately avoided Alphas.
-The monogamy problem. I wanted a man to match my level of commitment in marriage. Alphas are much less likely to do this at any level of a relationship. The stress and worry that brings is not healthy.
-Waiting for marriage. I waited and so did my husband. A deliberate choice for both of us, believe me we both had options, just not the right option until each other. Alphas have options, opportunity, and ego to satisfy along with their sex drive. They just seemed like they'd try and pressure me into sex, that would have ended the relationship.
-Alphas in my observation are very social, engaging constantly to maintain rank. An alpha may want arm candy to show status or a homebody out of the way of his escapades. He may flip-flop. I'm an introvert, that would be exhausting.
-Alphas tend to be overtly dominant towards women, regardless of the necessity for it. I think they tend to either seek a woman with a female equivalent dominant personality, basically the crazy hot chick stereotype, high drive, a challenge to handle, unachievable for lesser ranked men. Or on the other end, a notably submissive and compliant woman, still very attractive, but will cave to their will and be more passive towards cheating for example. Neither dynamic would suit my personality.
What I was looking to avoid aside, what was I actually looking for? I learned about the SSH a few years before meeting my husband. I realized I was seeking a solid Bravo, Sigma also sounded ideal to me but I understood it was rare. Higher ranking and more dominant than a Delta, but less so than Alpha. A better balance as a husband to me than any other rank. So, did I marry a Bravo?
Kind of...Maybe not.
My husband likes to function as a Bravo. As he says, "I am the second born son," but if the Bravo role is already filled, he'll go do his own thing...Then usually find himself in a leadership role on an island of misfit toys as he accidentally accumulates a following. His last boss wanted to gear him up to run the company as he neared retirement, he was 22 and worked there about five months when they had that discussion. Another boss before that quite literally offered his daughter to him. Fortunately for me he declined!
So, he is often mistaken for an Alpha and made a leader, yet has no interest in that. If the hierarchy does not have his desired Bravo role open, he'll ultimately see himself out. We also have some mutual friends, a solid Alpha and Omega, who both see Omega traits in him aside from his preference and obvious skill as a Bravo. I do find it funny and mildly insulting when they suggest Omega. Like hellooooo I'm RIGHT HERE. Since when does an Omega pull any woman let alone an attractive one? Am I fat dumb and ugly all of a sudden? So what's going on?
Welp...I think I married a Unicorn. I mean Sigma. We do quite well together. Now If only I wasn't the only one convinced he might be a Sigma?... We joke there's really only one Sigma and that's Vox himself. Gamma's run around claiming to be Sigma so often it's become gay for any man besides Vox to say that of himself. But as his wife, I'm pretty convinced.
And that's the story of how I dodged Alphas, sought Bravos, and kinda sorta maybe possibly married a Sigma.
The end!
Vox mentioned that alphas respect people who say 'no' to them. How do alphas react to single women who turn them down?
They move on pleasantly without butt-hurt or rancor leaving all around feeling better for the experience.
And with perhaps a twinge of regret.
They’ve learned if the attraction isn’t there immediately, the ROI is very low.
And because they know only abundance, they take their investment to greener fields.
I don't have much experience with what they follow up with after rejecting them, I would not linger and create more opportunity, but nothing negative to note. They tend to just move past it with the same charismatic smile they started with. They shoot their shot at a woman they don't know, they get it. I didn't go to bars so I can only assume they're probably more pushy with a few drinks in their system as most men are. Alphas are much less likely to painfully pursue a woman like a Gamma would, creating distance prevented having to go through that.
In my experience there's some measure of amplifying the request. Pour on the charm, give the Danger Eyes + Winning Smile, in one case scoop me off my feet in an "over the threshold" carry... a gesture or two to test the limits of the No. If the amplification is unsuccessful they accept with good grace, but try it on just a little bit every time you encounter them socially thereafter. You sort of end up with a jovial Bon Vivant buddy for life.
From what I've seen, usually like water off a duck's back. Some develop the -itis for certain girls and exhibit some remarkably Gamma behaviors regarding them, though.
Here goes nothing!
How others perceive him:
I suspect I was raised by an alpha father. He may not be textbook alpha, but he was the beloved class clown. An artistic fellow who began his DJ career at 16. Hispanic alphas are more “machismo” in nature as opposed to football QB. My dad was a bad boy in high school who always had the gift of gab to get him out of any trouble. My maternal grandmother called him “the Fonz” and it stuck.
Strangers often say he looks like the most interesting man in the world from the Dos Equis commercial. My friends in high school thought I had the coolest dad. Some even had a crush on him. When he DJ’d a couple events for the school, I became a Heather for the time being.
His work:
He joined the navy at 18 where he was likely a situational delta. Then joined the NYPD and became a detective in VICE. Retired as a detective. Then he became a flight attendant. He objectively describes the appearance of the women he works with and had trouble being faithful in the beginning.
His alpha characteristics can be seen most in his side gig. He has a successful DJ/MC business and gets a lot of his clients just by his “look”. He would take me to work with him and guide me towards event photography to encourage my entrepreneurial spirit. Women always approached him at parties, which would often piss him off. Other DJ’s call him to be the MC at their events. He’s got a special look and always maintains his ‘hipsteresque’ beard and style.
Alphas impact on his family:
Yes there was some entertaining of other women; on multiple occasions spanning a decade. This left his wife and 2 daughters with some emotional baggage. But like wine, my parent’s marriage got better with age. They began leading marriage small groups and he volunteers with Family Life to help keep marriages together. As the younger sibling I was lucky enough to have a great dad but my sister suffered the tumultuous beginning of their marriage. She still resents him and now her husband does too. She ended up divorcing an alpha to marry a gamma and gained more than a few pounds. In contrast, I broke up with a suicidal gamma to marry a bravo and birthed the first 2 grandsons of the new generation by 25.
Hope this added some value, I see my dad as a man who conquered his negative alpha traits for the greater good and uses the positive traits to really help people.
Interesting observations here about ethnicity effects on multiracial SSH.
Thanks, I think the biggest takeaway is that there are blue collar alphas and white collar alphas. With socioeconomic and racial factors considered, we can begin to see the big fish in small ponds.
In a mono-ethnic society, most of the blue-collar vs white-collar alpha is the effect of IQ; the higher social ranked ones generally are smarter. In the rare instance of smart (or super-charismatic) blue-collar alpha, they generally quickly transition into upper society, or become revolutionaries.
Part 3: Mother of an Alpha Son
Alpha is my middle of 3 boys. Eldest son is a gamma, youngest son is Bravo to Alpha's alpha, but he might be an emerging Sigma in his own peer group. It's too soon to tell, he's young yet.
Other than Husband, Alpha is the only one in the family who can deal with my gamma son with any sort of composure. Alpha even makes sure to include him in gatherings (epic forest parties, for example) where Gamma would never otherwise be invited.
He was a beautiful baby, a handsome and charming child and now in his early 20s is the stereotypical alpha male. 6'4, handsome, chiseled jaw, at college on an athletic scholarship, chased by girls, sought after by guy-groupies. Life of the party, leader of the pack, blah blah blah. Fortunately he has a kind heart and a sweetness to him that outweighs the dark triad traits. As a small child it was incredibly hard to discipline him, partly because he was so handsome and charming it was often hard to keep a stern demeanour and not melt from the cuteness, but also because other women in the vicinity -- my mother being the worst culprit -- would start dishing it up to me for being "mean" to him. (I was a pigtailed-and-beribboned baby of the family in my childhood so I'd already cornered the market on getting away with murder and didn't want my boy to grow up spoilt like I was. Reining him in was HARD).
Women of all ages fall at his feet and have since he was about 14 y.o (6 ft 1 and looked around 19 at the time) and I've been trying to teach him all his life to use this power for good, not evil. That he's going to have girls throwing themselves at him but that he needs to be kind, not cruel, in giving them the heave-ho where appropriate. To be gentlemanly and honourable rather than a cad. During the quarantines he was working at the local grocery store. The store owner had him on the door as a bouncer because the crowds were unruly. Local moms and grannies would regularly show up with hand-knit socks and homemade cookies as gifts for him when they arrived to do the weekly shop.
I think the most interesting thing is watching the Alpha-Alpha dynamic between him and his dad, as they work toward figuring out which one of them is the Apex Alpha in our family circle. It's touch and go at the moment. So far Alpha-Son has handled Alpha-Dad with respect and gentleness, so it will likely be more of a passing of the torch than a battle. Raising him has been a real trip.
“Women of all ages fall at his feet and have since he was about 14 y.o”
That’s the differentiator between alpha/sigma and everyone else.
Then assess their performance within a hierarchy and you can begin to predict behavior.
What's your take on why eldest is gamma?
I think there are a few things at play. Gamma is the 2nd of five children. He's emotionally fragile, willowy, socially and physically awkward. Eldest daughter doted on him and treated him like the special-est of special boys. Then came three more children, all beautiful, bright, athletic... All the things he isn't.
Anything Eldest achieved, Gamma was able to attribute it to the fact that she was older and therefore more capable. But when his 3 younger siblings proved to also be more capable (and better looking, and smarter, and more popular, and not socially or physically awkward at all) it undercut his delusion bubble. Gamma-Son is unwilling -- maybe unable -- to face reality, so he buries himself further and further in his delusions of grandeur. It's heartbreaking, but there's nothing I can do to fix him. Believe me, I've tried everything. All I can do is keep praying that someday the truth will find him and he will welcome it.
I look back at my younger self and think nobody would have believed in that kid. I was somewhere between Omega and Gamma.
Four instincts helped me make changes:
(1) A love for truth. My father, a partly recovered Gamma, was not equipped to teach me how to be a high value man. But he taught me to tell the truth and to think the truth. This also is what first attracted me to Vox's work.
(2) A love for beauty. All beauty, but especially the beauty of women fascinated me from a very young age. This, combined with (1), was enough to show me that my behavior was not going to achieve my goals, and changes had to be made.
(3) A strong sense of disgust, and a strong fear of being disgusting. That latter is definitely an Omega trait. It has been the negative reinforcement that drives me to work out, take care of my skin, dress well, and speak courteously.
(4) A permanent and unshakable belief that I can always reinvent myself. I have spent years now developing my natural gifts, and I am excited for where the journey will take me. I wish the same for your son.
I never dipped to Omega, but I was flirting hard with Gamma for a long time. That list seems quite right, and it very well reflects God and His gifts to us.
Truth, beauty, rectitude, and His promise that all things are possible.
Sounds rough, especially given the siblings. How awkward is he socially and what type of delusions does he suffer? If you don't mind my asking.
Awkward to the point of off putting. Many guys can't stand him and most girls describe him as creepy. His primary delusion is the secret king. He's the best, the smartest and the best looking. The clash with reality causes him to fail over and over again, but he can't face it so he purges it from memory. My other children call it "resetting to factory defaults". The unpalatable truth gets flushed, so he doesn't learn from it or improve himself.
My mind keeps coming back to this (the sperg curse) and I wonder if your son lacks the conceptual framework for body language. It would explain a lot of the social and physical awkwardness and his inability to learn from social situations. A book explaining body language might allow him to make progress. I found "The Definitive Book of Body Language" to be quite helpful when I was trying to improve my social skills.
My son's core problem is that he refuses to acknowledge reality. He can't handle that he doesn't know something, which renders him incapable of learning. It really is psychic fragility more so than anything else. He lies to himself and wants the rest of the world to collude with his lies. (A bit like trannies wanting everyone else to pretend along with them) Until he is willing to accept the truth he can't change anything.
Women monkeybranch in the hope of getting an Alpha's attention for long enough for him to set them up for life. I am thinking of a phone recording of Mel Gibson upset with his second wife for precisely these reasons: he had set her up with her piano playing, and then she (in effect) dumped him. It is a perilous game, which (in truth) women usually win, if they can get the Alpha to marry them. When he (inevitably) cheats, they collect alimony.
As a 10 with my alpha for 20 years, the SSH and SG has been enlightening. I read a comment on the monkeybranching thread that discussed the only people that seem happily married still after years and years are the high SSH couples that got together when young. Since I identified with this comment, I wanted to share with my husband. When I brought up the concept of monkeybranching, he cut me off and stated that “it’s a good thing I moved you to ‘small town’ when we were young so you couldn’t monkeybranch away from me.” I was annoyed that he missed my point and instead focused on my capacity to leave him. However, I thought that his reaction was telling in his view of me and my value.
As for how he interacts with the world, he attracts “guy groupies” in every space he regularly inhabits, including professional football players at his gym which are typically viewed as high SSH themselves. I have always found these men pathetic and been annoyed with how he garners this bubble of “yes men.” Over the years, I have accepted that men are different from women, prefer a hierarchy, and want a leader. Thus, they are happy to submit to an acknowledged leader. I equate it to dogs who find comfort in a strong master.
Being a 10, do you feel that your beauty is intimidating to men, more than the beauty of other less geometrically perfect girls? Or is there no real difference?
Before you were married, did you have more or fewer suitors than the 7s and 8s you knew?
For your first two questions, the saying, “Is a fish aware it’s swimming I water?” resonates. Since this is my baseline, I find it hard to truly gauge. However, in the twenty years I have been with my husband, I can count on a single hand the number of times a man has approached me in a courting manner. Thus, Vox’s post on the invisibility of 10s does ring true for my personal experience. My husband finds this inconceivable and attributes it to my obliviousness. He says when we are out, he catches men look at me and will stare them down until they look away. When I am out by myself, I am never approached.
When I was younger, I felt pursued by a comparable number of men to my friends. However, the caliber of male that showed interest in me was always the alpha of a group. I was also “perpetually attached” in my youth, and the night I met my husband, he asked me to be his girlfriend within six hours and his wife after five days.
Sounds like your husband is a very wise and and a very lucky man. But as Vox would say, he made his own luck.
So what does your alpha do for work 10?
He was a “hero” when we were younger and now runs his own company in a highly niche, male industry. His company essentially saves the “heroes.”
The "guy goupie" thing happens when, at a certain level of athleticism and social ability, you've outgrown friends who haven't or can't keep up and want a new set of guy friends who understand your current station in life, so when the rare alpha shows up, who's on your same level with similar interests, you latch on.
I'm no pro footballer, so I'm not at your level, but even I've gotten to the point where it's easier to meet attractive women than it is to meet men at my social level. I'm sure the pro footballers have it worse.
From a male perspective, I can understand an appreciation for submitting to a true alpha, especially after feeling like you have outgrown peers.
From a female perspective, I find this tendency pathetic. I cannot respect a man that would submit to another man. Thus, in the 20 years of our being together, I have truly only encountered two men who have even piqued my attraction but never more than a passing thought of “oh, he’s attractive,” and each time I told my husband that I saw someone I thought was attractive today. I do so to reinforce that I am honest when I say that I do not want to leave him, that I find him attractive still, and I really do not find other men attractive - at all.
Following orders and respecting the hierarchy isn't the same as submission, at least not submission of the whole being. Rather it's practical and focused on results. It's lambdas who are about power and submission I think. Perhaps that's why you can't respect it?
In a similar vein I find it hard to respect men who are ruled by their wives at home (i.e. just about all of them)
I will also add that in our relationship I get the say in 90% of things. Mostly because he is apathetic towards them and finds those things trivial and inconsequential. For the remaining 10% though, no amount of effort or convincing on my part would sway him. At times I have tried to no avail. Only time and his own personal experience convinced him otherwise. Therefore, from the outside, it may appear proportionally like I am “running the show,” but in reality, I only get the say for the things that don’t matter.
I agree there is a distinction between respecting the hierarchy and submission of the person. Tolerating an unnatural position in the hierarchy is understandable. Submitting to someone you view as superior is another. The former is an integral structure to any functioning system. The latter is an acknowledgment of your inferiority. I can accept there were moments in my husband’s early years where he was not the situational alpha, and that did not decrease his attractiveness to me. However, it was also viewed more as a temporary station and not inherent to his nature. Therefore, while situationally throughout the years, he has not always been the alpha, he has never submitted himself to someone else’s superiority. I even asked him one time if there was ever anyone he has met that he felt was his superior, and he said, “No. There are men I have respected, but never anyone that I ever felt was better than me.”
As for how he tolerated not being a situational alpha, not well. He never respected someone’s position for the sake of it, and this willingness to usurp authority from someone he perceived as inferior was inconsistently rewarded or punished. In one instance, his superior was fired, and he was given the man’s position. Other times, he was the one removed. It hasn’t truly been until he opened his own company that he has thrived. Now there is no question of his authority, he doesn’t have to tolerate others vying for position, nor deal with the inherent jealousy of other men.
Similar to Butterchurn’s post about her husband’s ability to reign in gammas, my husband is also adept at getting them to fall in line. However, like primates who are not able to outright defeat the alpha male in battle, they will sneakily take opportunities to undermine him. This inability to identify men who show loyalty to his face but cut him down at the first opportunity has been a huge blind spot for him. Each time he is surprised and disappointed. He believed there was an authentic connection, not realizing it was his position they respected but also resented. They were too weak to confront him outrightly so they used the only means possible, underhanded tactics and sneak attacks.
As for your comment on finding men who are run by their wives hard to respect, I agree. I will also state that there has never been a question of who is the authority in our relationship. I have always respected my husband. I would not be with him otherwise. Before him, every male submitted to me. It wasn’t until I met my husband that I finally found someone who could lead me, and his strong authority provided me comfort then and continues to do so now.
"I cannot respect a man that would submit to another man."
Thanks for sharing that. Really illustrates how differently men and women operate.
Men expect submission in a hierarchy and are quite willing to enforce it as a group. Men who serve their role get respect, even if at the bottom of the group.
Sigmas who get drummed out of groups are basically kicked out for not submitting, but that won't matter to the women.
Very fitting for a 10, if other men don't think they're top dog, why would you?
🤯 Great point! Hard to imagine her POV abou a necessary aspect of hierarchy, but that makes perfect sense.
I dated 1 for about a year in my twenties and my best friend pretty much could have anyone she wanted, so there were a few alphas. My guess is some of these "Alpha Widows" are very willing widows. I remember my bestie & trying to figure out the "dont take No" stuff & probably erroneously attributing to a mother who never said no. There seems to be a lot of abortion in the Alpha history (which can take some time to figure out because they hide it). Also an intense preoccupation with money, which can get tedious after awhile. Fortunately neither one of us married one because I'm sure it would have crashed & burned by now. Currently we both see Alpha's as like "fools gold" maybe because were thinking of daughters, nieces, etc ---- so far a few are listening !
Just realized my comments were vague. To elaborate on the money / tedious comment I will tell how it ended. I had a death in the family and it was the second freak accidental death in my immediate family - to say I was undone is an understatement -- Anyways even with this he managed to insert business & money talk before & after funeral. I lost respect & thought this is not someone I can do life with & broke up w him -- or who knows, since I was grieving at that point & not going to be "fun" maybe this was his way of breaking up with me.
When you say he was trying to insert business and money talk -- was he offering to help people manage financial affairs, or something else? Were there some kind of selfish motives on his part?
It was not to help anyone. Money & making more of it were constant topics but it just stuck out as weird during this time -- part of it was to let me know how much he was "sacrificing" being away from his ventures & vacations for a few days. I dont know all the motivations -- just glad that God made the writing on the wall very clear.
I'm pretty sure my dad was an Alpha. Tl;dr: yeah, pretty sure.
https://fencingbearatprayer.blogspot.com/2016/01/chivalry-our-lords-style-ca-ad-33.html
With a thumbs-up from Vox for daughters of Alpha fathers, I’ll bite.
My dad is a high performing Alpha who was at the top of his field for decades. Very handsome, stunningly smart. Overwhelmingly charismatic, even when he’s being a dick. He loves life in the fast lane, in a fashion that makes it clear Wolf of Wall Street may as well have been a documentary. I know that the midget tossing scene is real, because he was in an adjacent industry and I remember him laughing to my mom about what the crazy guys over on Wall Street were doing for their annual meeting. His parallel industry had just as much booze, cocaine, and women. He thrived in it. His biggest regret in life is that he can’t be young again to do it all over. He made tens of millions for himself (Mostly for his ex-wives. He doesn’t care. “I want her to be safe. I can always make more money.) And billions, with a b, for his shareholders.
He and my mom met in high school. And were the stereotypical gorgeous, “all the men want to be him and the women want to do him/be her”, alpha couple. They are from an ethnic group that is unusually short (I have Nordic ad mixture from my mom and am taller than Dad), so he couldn’t compete in football or basketball, and instead became the regional men’s gymnastics champion. My mom was a chaste Barbie, model level gorgeous, total femme fatale. Modeled professionally but hit a ceiling, due to ethnicity and shortness. Probably also being monogamous with her alpha boyfriend and not putting out to get to the next level.
They both love being the center of attention in a room, command it effortlessly, and recall their college years together as the best time of their life. They are BOTH very high in dark triad features. And should not have had children. Not in an “I’d rather be dead” sort of way, but in a children pulled them apart and ruined their marriage.
When he was home, which wasn’t often, Dad was jealous of the attention mom gave the kids. He wanted her attention to himself like he had had for a decade, and like he got from everywhere else in the world. In turn, she was angry that he was still out partying, living the high life, excelling beyond belief in his career, fraternizing with other women, while she was stuck at home with us.
They were an equal match for stubbornness. As Vox describes, he did and does respect her when she say no to him, and when they went head to head it was epic. Despite the respect, he still does whatever he wants anyway including: moving the family thousands of miles without consulting her by selling the house and taking a next-level job without discussing it with her, spending upwards of $400,000 on booze/drugs/women that was missing from the forensic accounting in the divorce, any number of affairs that he swears he never had, and disappearing on business for days or weeks at a time without telling her where he was going or why.
He stills likes to drink and party as a senior citizen, and when asked about it he’s just like “yeah, yeah, I know the science. The 12-steps, everything. But I just don’t care enough to be sober. It’s not fun.” He has had zero consequences for his drug and alcohol abuse, except my mom divorcing him, but she only did it to protect her share of the assets in case he killed someone drunk driving in his very expensive cars. They live separately now, but still sleep together and present as a married couple in their retirement town. When he lost his license due to excessive DUIs, he just got an Uber driver to become his professional driver. For years.
One of his favorite work stories is how his secretary would keep a coin jar on her desk and charge him 50 cents whenever he swore at somebody. One day he had such a cluster fuck to untangle from his subordinates’ screw up that as he stormed past her desk, he shoved a $100 bill into the jar. In life, court, etc. Fines just set the amount of fuck-you money you need on hand to be able to do what you want and not have people waste your time about it. I’m seen him deal with finder benders by pulling $2000 in cash out of his wallet, handing it to the other driver, and leaving.
As a father, he largely wasn’t around because his work and the social life it required was paramount. Sometimes he would come home drunk or high on coke after a big event, but he mostly stayed at his apartment near work when that happened. Presumably with other women. My younger siblings literally could not keep up with him, in terms of temperament or health, or with the volatility of the fights between two dark triad parents. And though we were boundlessly provided for in material terms, my siblings had little or no emotional involvement with him.
I happened to excel at one of his favorite hobbies, and got substantial one-on-one time with him doing that hobby together, which could not be done with drugs or alcohol. I truly got the best of him of any of the kids in the family. It was wonderful to both have his full attention and feel so special to him for the decade or so we shared that. I’m still the apple of his eye…when he bothers to spend time with me, which is like a long weekend, twice a year. He’s fantastic at getting emergency things done, or having his secretary do it If and whenever I was in a pinch (before I was married and had a consistent and reliable husband - thank God!), Dad never failed to follow through when I’ve asked for material help. But any level of emotional support, understanding, sympathy, loyalty, consistency, constancy etc. seems to have been reserved for his work Bravos.
He’s very sure he was an excellent father because we had a good time together and I went to great schools and landed a well educated husband.
After my mom, Dad married again to a woman his age, very clearly for access to a higher level of social influence that, due to his cultural background, he would not have been able to enter into otherwise. He started a whole new life with her and her children, and, except for paying for schooling, left me and my sister largely in the dust. When I ask him about it he says he “tried to include us but we were busy.” They later divorced, once he had made the connections he needed.
I later found out he had had a third marriage and divorce, with the woman my mom most suspected him of having an affair with. But he doesn’t count it because it was just a quick drive through thing in Vegas, and she didn’t take any of his money when they split.
He recently asked my husband if my husband was banging one of his (husband’s) coworkers on the side. And my husband was utterly outraged, how-dare you-make-such-an-accusation-against-me-in-my-own-home furious. I had to explain to my husband that he had missed the opportunity for male camaraderie with his father-in-law and that the correct answer would have been “well, Light on the Shore doesn’t know, and I swear to you she never will… I would never leave the family for a side piece … but….”
Not all alphas, probably not most, are of the life-in-the-fast lane variety. I’ll post seaparately on my husband, who is a much more sedate natural leader. But in my professional opinion as the daughter of this type of Alpha, the best thing for their kids would be to be sent to boarding school. Near enough to home that the kids can enjoy the occasional event and trip that gives them their Dad’s scare undivided attention, but allows them to form father figure relationships with Beta and Delta teachers and coaches. Mom can then focus most of her time and energy on Dad and advancing whatever it is he is out to achieve in the world.
I know one family with similar parents to mine, who dealt with al this by having full time nanny care for their four kids. Daytime, nighttime, and weekend nannies. The kids cried a lot growing up that their parents were never at parent teacher night or sports events or whatever. But as adults they are closer with their alpha-duo parents than I or any of my siblings are with ours.
This is insightful.
Most people cannot describe family as objectively as is done here. Thank you
This is exactly what Chateau Heartiste called a "Hell-Raiser Alpha". I think the actor Erroll Flynn was his example.
Thank you for that. Spouse and I laughed bitter sweet. FIL. He's larger than life. Light on the Shore and the Dark Triad. You've done well.
You're right. Your dad was on the higher end of "alpha" and not your average one.
epic gamma wall of text
Women cannot be gammas. Gammas are judged to be so in part because of how similar they are to women in some ways.
You really need to stop pretending you understand anything about this stuff.
That sort of reaction is why women don't like you.
That's a woman providing information requested by Vox in the blog post. You don't understand the concept of Gamma at all.
let me rephrase. If meat and 2 vedge would be a gamma.
Men and women are not the same. You cannot just stick a dick on it and call it a man.
If light on the shore had been a man, he would be a completely different person would would speak, write, and act all together differently.
Every time you are tempted to ascribe gamma traits to a woman, just remember "she is not a man".
LURK MOAR.
No it wouldn't. You don't understand the concept
thanks gams
Poast physique shit head
I recently watched High Society (1956). I thought it was unrealistic that Grace Kelly's father was still good friends with her ex-husband Bing Crosby, after he had cheated on his daughter. But maybe that was more realistic than I thought!
FIL is an Alpha. Been living under the same roof for almost a year. Even though he's in his mid-50's, women 30+ are constantly vying for his attention. He has a good ring of dependable deltas that work for him, though when issues arise he will bend over backwards to help them out and be there for them. What weighs most heavily on his heart as the leader is making sure every household under him is able to make ends meet and thrive. He always, always, always! has a woman he is talking to/dating/etc. Has been divorced 3 times. To my knowledge, he's never had a true bravo, and this has really hurt his Alpha personality. He's been trying to groom his son into a Bravo (who's a sigma) and this dynamic is usually comical, unless it's something Alpha is done discussing. then it's like a mini-war.
In Vox's first post, he mentions women to the Alpha are as something there for his gratification and use. This is true, tho not as heartless as it may sound. I am here to watch over his granddaughter, keep his son happy, and make him endless honey scones. His dog is here for him to have a best friend ( but I'm the one who feeds and mostly does the daily care of it) His house is for him to relax in, and his business is for him to work at and live on. Since he's at the top, he knows he is supported by those under him, and a good Alpha takes care of his base. Is he ever here? Sometimes, when he's exhausted. But he's usually out, running errands, meeting people, fixing odd end things for his business.
If I had met him when we were both 20, would I have dated him? He was definitely attractive, but Probably not, bc the "drama-scent" that Alphas exude makes me wary. I would have wanted him as a friend tho, and would have made the guy I was with be in his circle, bc he is charismatic, genuine, fun, and takes care of those around him.
The "drama-scent" is something you pick up only after being friends with an alpha for at least a year and seen him go through the drama first hand, to know what it's like.
You picked it up because of your FIL, but most women don't have this experience, so they don't have a defense against his charisma.
Not exactly. I was always allergic to alpha energy despite not have much experience with it.
No, I've had that since I was 15. I had a lot of Alpha friends in high school, (they were off-market and so was I,) but school was effortless for me and my mom was a teacher, so I was always a friend to help them. They talked a lot about things, not to me, but easily overheard, and I decided I was not about that life. I was dating a Delta, and I have always been drama and conflict avoidant.
Good NCOs and XOs really are hard to come by.
I'm dumb, what do those stand for?
Jobs that Bravos fill.
To be fair, I also had to google "FIL"
NCO - Non-Commissioned Officer
XO - Executive Officer (typically Navy); a second in command
The Army uses the XO term, too, up through battalion level. After that the position becomes deputy commander, generally.
I’ve had a couple Alpha bosses, usually at small to midsize companies. At large ones my bosses were nearly always deltas or gammas.
The good thing is when they are high energy and build an ethos of performance. Bad thing is the drama when they have an affair with an employee or the wife of another owner. Or run into big woman customer who knows his wife when out with his side chick. She doesn’t renew the contract. Then, big customer 2 doesn’t renew because #1 didn’t. Company folds.
Or the “do what I say” thing. Not in the contract? Just do it because I say so. Then the inevitable misery happens.
I’ve stroked a few alphas fur backwards more than once.
Pop Quiz (Reading Comprehension, 2 points)
What does this paragraph instruct the reader to do?
"However, this post is not for men to post their experiences and opinions of Alphas, but for the women. Men, regardless of where you are on the SSH, please limit yourselves to commenting upon the women’s experiences."
https://ibb.co/5BvJ6gh
I shouldn't have to do this twice. Why is this happening?
I think this is partly to do with internet culture.
Many people assume that the mere existence of a comment section means whatever they have to say is welcome. Even if there is no other reason to believe it
I think you might have some Bravo instincts
...just a tiny bit 😀
But I always enjoy when MotA does the inevitably necessary job in these posts.
My first husband may have been an Alpha, maybe a Sigma, not sure. He was very tall, but wore glasses and had a slight stutter as a teen before we married. As he grew into his twenties women far and near dropped their panties upon meeting him (I found out later). He was chronically unfaithful and I believe paid for several abortions during our marriage. He made a lot of money and spent a lot of money. He divorced me for a younger woman when I was 26 (!) saying I was too fat now that I had a baby and because I didn't care about his money, which was all true. I never was able to lose all the baby fat although I got with 10 pounds. I am trying to be honest here, and before some twerp hops on with a comment, we also had frequent sex. I hope that isn't TMI but there seems to be this idea here that sex with an Alpha is the best but it's not. I was not an Alpha widow and never mourned him emotionally or sexually, but our daughter suffered because he threw her aside too. We were not emotionally or sexually close in the way my Delta husband and I are. There was no discussion about anything, it was his way or the highway. The end. A woman married to an Alpha makes a bargain for her children. She is not there for the great sex. She is there for status, not just for herself but for her children. Oh, and her whole family! My poor mother was the real Alpha widow - she never got over the divorce. I don't think I could have saved my first marriage, though, even if I had stayed skinny. He ended up with a third wife who mistreated him terribly when he became incapacitated before his death. His daughters from his second wife hated him. His third wife spent every cent he had so none of his daughters got anything. I have a soft spot for his memory because he was a virgin when I met him and he was the father of my beautiful daughter.
Sounds a lot like some stories I heard of my great-great-grandfather. He used it to swindle and con his way across America, spawning broken families wherever he went.
Sounds like my grandfather.
You took it well. Funny that the SSH view makes me understand divorce better.
It was an unhappy marriage by every metric that left me disillusioned, with a sour view of other women's mercenary tendencies. So just as some guys here feel any degree of obesity is non-negotiable, as is their right, my takeaway was fidelity.
Thank you for your honesty and for sharing this.
Wondering how other men responded to your ex-husband. Was he an Alpha among men, or just very attractive to other women?
Yes, he attracted a circle of lower status male friends too. Caveat: He was small-town doctor, so this was small-scale Alpha.
Woman may be reluctant to pine over their former relationship with an alpha because they still think of him today.
The virtue of Silence is the positive habit when you only speak when it is necessary for the greater good.
https://ibb.co/5BvJ6gh
Thanks for the belly laugh this morning.
Dude I burst out laughing!
It’s like a sickness.
It's a disease of the soul. May God heal us.
Part 2: He also has a knack for reining in Gammas. Back in the day my SIL was dating a guy named Lawrence (he pronounced it Law-RAUNCE). A theatre-type guy. Husband started calling him Larry Baby, while making finger guns at him. Husband's football team friends picked up on it and he became Larry-Baby-with-finger-guns at every social gathering. Gamma put up with it with (for a gamma) good grace, because he was invited to all the "cool kids" parties. If he pitched a fit, Law-RAUNCE would have been banished immediately. The gamma reined in his worst behaviour as a result.
Law-RAUNCE is so funny.
Now I want to go find that Kids In The Hall sketch with "Daryl -- pronounced Da-RILL"
It’s a good illustration that gammas are part of the hierarchy. Right down to an established place in the micro-society. People expect him to be there. They’d ask after him if he wasn’t. It’s just that gammas are low status, and when they accept that, they’re included.