Ask the Sigma: Three Questions
A Gamma poses three questions, all about himself, naturally
A self-identified Gamma has a few questions for the Sigma:
What women are Gammas to pursue - Gammas suck, they overshoot, but what are the women they are to pursue
Dissonance between body and status - I'm quite muscular, especially after I started construction site work, I can attract women by my body but once I start speaking it just breaks, as you've noticed by my overuse of I, I am a case of Gamma being fit and yet not improving in other areas.
How to get some actual interests - I know this one sounds retarted, I just find everything to be boring, as in I can't really enjoy my free time. Is this symptom of Gammatude as well?
Regarding Question 1, I answer: Do not pursue a woman unless she sends you a clear signal of potential interest. Does she look down and smile when she’s talking to you? Does she play with her hair? Does she shoot you sidelong glances or does she completely ignore you? Does she laugh a little too hard at your witty movie quotes, does she respond with an answering quote, or does she leave it lying there as a conversational dead end. Try to grasp the concept that you cannot generate attraction and interest in a woman who doesn’t already possess it.
Also, aim at least two points lower than you customarily do. Learn to look for what is right in a woman and focus on that in an attempt to qualify her rather than in what is wrong in an attempt to disqualify her. One thing I sometimes find both amusing and informative when stuck in public with nothing to do but people-watch is to observe the sort of women I don’t usually tend to even notice and attempt to see determine aspect might have attracted their partners. In all but the ugliest, most obese woman, one can usually find something attractive that must have been appealing to their paramour.
Regarding Question 2, I answer: Physical is only the first step. Until you have successfully followed the other three steps of Graduating Gamma, you can’t expect reliable Delta-level results. The good thing is that you now know that improvement is possible, you simply need to apply it to other areas. Try omitting the word “I” from your conversations with women. Focus relentlessly on them, without making any attempt whatsoever to impress them. When they ask you questions about yourself, answer honestly, but as simply and shortly as possible, without any explanatory tangents or self-aggrandizing examples. Remember, you’re trying to fix an observed problem here, so err on the side of doing the opposite of what you’ve been doing.
Anyhow, the fact that bodybuilding is an element, not a end state, is so well-known that it’s been officially memed by no less an authority than Stonetoss himself. The ladies do love a man in great shape, but most of them want more than just that.
Regarding Question 3, I answer: Try more things outside what I suspect is your very narrow range of activities. There is more to life than passively watching what passes for Hollywood entertainment. Read a book. Attend a concert. Go to an author’s book launch or book signing. See a play. Landscape your garden. Hunt an animal. Build a model plane or build a deck. Boredom is the inevitable result of either a) insufficient stimulus or b) insufficient imagination. Both are easily cured, but require battling the human tendency toward sloth and inertia.
One of the most pro-social things my friends and I ever did was to each buy a pair of season tickets to the best theater in Minneapolis, the Guthrie. Doing so forced us to break our usual routine, so once a month or so we’d all have to find dates, get decked out, go to dinner downtown, and experience a little culture. Not only did everyone enjoy it, but it created lifelong interests in the arts in some who never previously had any interest in them. And if you ever get the chance to see The Play’s The Thing, absolutely seize it without hesitation. I’ve seldom seen so many people laugh so hard; my date actually wet herself.
Above all, force yourself to be honest with yourself and others.
Bonus comment from another reader: There must be a way to show kindness and avoid judging someone we may suspect is a Gamma male...
Regarding this suggestion, I answer: Go for it. Do it, and let us know how it works out for you.
One of my best friends in college was an alpha, albeit only slightly above average in looks. Yet, he literally dated every one of the most attractive women over our 4 years. I recall wondering how the hell he was pulling this off, each time he told us of a new conquest. So I started going with him during our free time when he would visit one.
He would sit with women for hours on end. The conversations would always go the way Vox eludes to above:
- They would ask him a question about himself, he would answer it quickly and succinctly.
- He would change the subject and counter with a question about them, and dig deep down on every topic by asking more questions before they could ask another about him.
- It was quite literally... "Tell me more about that... " or using the child's favorite repeater phrase of "Why?" --> "Ok, but why?"
He generally refused to answer questions about himself, or let the topic be about him for more than a few minutes. The women would leave the interactions thinking they had just had one of the best male conversations of their lives (which was probably true).
At first, I remember feeling like it was a lot of work, and that it was kind of manipulating on his part. Then I realized the truth...
He was actually genuinely interested in everything, and always wanted to learn more from whomever he was talking to. That is what made him a favorite friend among men as well.
A good lesson for both men and women. If you spend time in conversations just waiting to say your thing, that boredom you feel is most likely narcissism.
'Kindness' to the gamma male is typically misapplied in that it almost never motivates them to change but it almost always enables them to be a greater nuisance. This is how women think and it's one of the greatest flaws in female leadership - they overly criticize high status males and overly accommodate low status males. The results of this hierarchical inversion is well documented in corporate cancer.
Mercy is a better application. Do not tolerate misbehavior but do not become vindictive.