The Right Time is Now
Both men and women need to stop deceiving themselves about their options
A woman laments her decision to prioritize her career:
I was doom scrolling and saw wedding anniversary pictures from some old friends, a couple of whom were guys who were madly in love with me. Or at least that's what they told me. I'm talking about from like my early twenties, when we all had just finished university and stepping out into the world. They confessed about having harboured this love for me for years before they gathered the courage to tell me. And when I rejected them, one took it harder than the others and called me a heartbreaker because I let him down. Ouch.
There was no malice from my side though? I never even knew they liked me! None of them gave any indication over the years we studied together. And I didn't date any of them when they asked either because I was hyper focused on my new job and possibly pursuing a postgraduate degree. Most importantly, I believed that everyone deserved to date someone that actually wanted to date them.
Fast forward to today, I turned 30 earlier this year. And it's not the age in particular that's making me feel weird things - it's everyone around me. My family is looking at me like I'm a lost cause because I'm still single. All my friends are now in long term relationships and have generally deprioritised me from their lives. Not all of them, but a lot of them.
What I don't get though, is that they all talk to me in this patronising manner about being more open to love and how I will find love when I least expect it and how the universe has a plan. Like, okay, I'm not walking around avoiding men or turning down dates. It just hasn't happened, and I don't particularly have as much control over these things as people make it out to be.
Is my love life the way I imagined it would be? No, of course not. Does that take away the fact that I've made a life for myself with no real support and kinda fending for myself out here in the real world? Why am I only seen as the one thing I don't have (which I don't even have much control over!) and not as all the things that I am already? I thought stuff happens when it happens and I shouldn't worry about it? So why am I constantly feeling terribly about myself then?
Both women and low-ranking men share a common belief in their own helplessness. Everything simply happens to them; they take no responsibility for their own decisions or the consequences of their own actions.
The incoherence of this woman’s position is informative. She claims to have simultaneously managed to a) be unaware of men liking her, b) reject all of them when they directly pursued her, c) prioritize her new job and a degree she didn’t even pursue, and d) believe she hasn’t been rejecting men.
Of course, the SSH-aware will understand what’s going on here. The key, of course, is found in this phrase: “Most importantly, I believed that everyone deserved to date someone that actually wanted to date them.”
Translation: Most importantly, I believed these old friends who were interested in me were of insufficiently high-rank to attract me.
For some reason, women seem to believe it is charming or virtuous to pretend to be obtuse about their male friends who are obviously interested in them. This is, of course, partly the fault of the Deltas and Gammas who permit the women to feign obtuseness by refusing to clarify the matter. Ironically, one of the few ways men and women can have a true and honest friendship is if the man openly pursues the woman, is definitively rejected, but genuinely accepts the rejection as well as friendship in lieu of a relationship.
If a man’s ego can handle the rejection, a pretty female friend can be the best wingman you can possibly imagine. There is no higher social proof for a man than a very hot woman who is genuinely and openly fond of him. This is another area where Delta and lower-rank men tend to sabotage themselves, as nothing drives away women faster than the stink of bitterness.
Just because a woman isn’t interested in you doesn’t mean she can’t be a real asset for you. But she’ll never be an asset unless you make the move, get rejected, and genuinely accept the rejection for good.
In any event, just as men need to be more realistic about their own attractiveness, women need to be more realistic about maximizing their attractiveness over time. This woman has clearly failed to realize that she was more attractive to men in her early 20s than she is at 30, or that she will be less attractive at 40 than she is at 30. Which means that she has to adjust her expectations accordingly.
Time flies. Make the most of it, because you’ll never have any more than you do today. And speaking only for myself, I found the woman’s idea of being “hyper-focused” on something she didn’t actually do at all to be more than a little amusing. People like this merit zero sympathy.
Resentment of youth is hatred of innocence. It is probably the greatest evil. If you are a young woman, be careful of what older women tell you. They almost can't help but lie to you as it's deeply ingrained for our sex to compete with and contain beauty in all its forms. Growing up, there was no shortage of women to tell me that I should focus on my schooling, and sometimes this was under the guise of religious virtue that one 'should wait until marriage.' (If you want to be afraid of something, be fearful of your grandchildren being murdered rather than be hysterical about 'teen pregnancy'.) As I aged, these were the quickest to snort a derisive comment about being single, etc. Trust no b*tch, as the saying goes. If you are raising a daughter and concerned about honor, teach her to date and rate for marriage, and learn the concept of marital chastity so that they don't become overly fearful of a 'controlling man' or 'having their own money' and can instead focus on maximizing their appeal to attract the best partner. Let them use makeup, glam up, and guide them in school but do not raise them like boys and bully them into competing with men. As I turned 35 this month, I reflect on how to age with some dignity I think of how many formative years could have been better spent learning the art of courtship. While I believe I wised up to the lies of culture early on (I abandoned most of the delusions of hookup culture by 22 and never took to it fully), even as late as 27-28 women were telling me I had plenty of time, but I knew it was a lie. And though I dated with intention since 24, the men I attracted were mostly gammas because I had to fight my natural feminine solipsism while breaking out of the delusion I had about career/money/marriage/etc. I am grateful to VD and BB for saving my life because I would have married an abusive gamma if not for the brutal honesty of SSH. I've found the healthiest dynamic in my life because I've abandoned all of the advice from women who had no intention of seeing me happy, and I was very honest with myself about my part in previous misadventures. I believe this guidance should start as young as 8 or 10 (mind you not the mechanics maybe) and be reinforced as a valuable if not virtuous pursuit. I have encouraged women in their 20s to prioritize dating and have minimally contributed to a few finding happiness. It's wonderful to see the baby that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't encouraged love. If you have a marriage (happy or not), glorify it. If you have children, teach them to fail fast when searching for love. Plant seeds for God to water.
There seems to be an abundance of thirty-something single women who are complaining.
They fell into the trap of women ascending to the heights of the boardroom and have forgotten that historically, women got that prestige by marrying a hard-working man and being seen in public as devoted wives and mothers.