Pinterest and Disinterest

I think we have a new first date question…

“Do you like Pinterest?” is a lot more subtle than “So…. are you Borderline Personality Disorder?”

‘Pinterest stress’ afflicts nearly half of moms, survey says.

In our exclusive TODAY Moms survey of 7,000 U.S. mothers, 42 percent said that they sometimes suffer from Pinterest stress – the worry that they’re not crafty or creative enough. Symptoms include staying up until 3 a.m. clicking through photos of exquisite hand-made birthday party favors even though you’ll end up buying yours at the dollar store, or sobbing quietly into a burnt mess of expensive ingredients that were supposed to be adorable bunny cookies for the school bake sale.

and…

Aiming for magazine- or Pinterest-worthy perfection all the time is an impossible goal for anyone, especially when you’ve got kids. And striving for perfection is a major source of stress for moms: One in four mothers told our TODAY Moms survey that the pressure they put on themselves to be perfect is a top cause of stress, and 75 percent report that the pressure they put on themselves is worse than any pressure or judgment they get from other moms. The result? Our average stress level is 8.5 out of 10, the survey says.

Anyway…

If that’s your wife, tell her to knock off the art department that only the mean girls in her head care about. Suggest she’d be better off lying on her back, letting you check in to the phallus palace and then she could take a nap.

In other news…

But that’s not all. In a press release published Tuesday, [Ashley Madison] also revealed that they typically see the highest spike in female signups on the day after Mother’s Day. In 2012, they saw a whopping 439 percent increase on that day as compared to a typical Monday.

“Mother’s Day tends to magnify the flaws, leads to questions about the choices you have made, and ultimately fosters conclusions around doing something different for yourself,” explains Ashley Madison founder and CEO Noel Biderman. “This latter choice tends to be the genesis of many women’s journey into an affair.”

So…

Maybe you could step up and burn the bunny cookies for her this weekend, or cook dinner or something. Meh it’s Mothers Day, there’s a little more expectation of Beta love. Some dinner suggestions… roast chickensides dishes.   If you’re buying her flowers… buy her a Just Add Ice Orchid. I got Jennifer one last September and it’s still alive! She loves it.

Sometimes a little extra effort saves you a ton of angst and trouble later on. You don’t want to be starting over asking questions about Pinterest as a screening tool because you couldn’t pass Loyalty Testing 101.

Just remember to keep the Alpha goodness in place. Have fun with it. Don’t skip your workout for any of this.

(Disclaimer: I have no idea what Pinterest is. I think it’s like a Special Olympics version of Facebook)

Female Isolation Anxiety

Louis .C.K routine…

I think he somewhat overstates, but the takeaway is that women really do have a finely tuned radar as to whether or not they will ever let themselves be isolated with you. I don’t mean “at the movies on a date”, or “at a restaurant”, there’s other people in those locations. I mean really alone, alone. As in just you and her.

Men experience Approach Anxiety walking up to the girl, women experience Isolation Anxiety going off with the guy alone. It’s the same physiological process of fight or flight kicking in. Men are programmed to prep for a physical conflict with another man when they approach a girl. It’s not her he’s worried about, it’s her boyfriend / husband / thug that’s that problem.

What women worry about is the guy turning into a thug-bastard-man-bear-pig when they they finally let themselves be alone with him. As a result, they have an extremely high co-relation between being sexually attracted to someone and allowing themselves to be truly isolated with them. That way if the worst happens, at least it was with a male they found attractive i.e. high value. Please don’t take the mental leap between hearing me explain the factors at work and taking that as a mandate for violating consent.

What I’m saying is that if you’re a guy, if you’re with a woman who is actively displaying interest in being alone with you, even if it’s cloaked in some other activity that you’d really be doing together… she’s into you in a big way.

Then if she’s into you… you don’t have to try hard to be something or someone you’re not. She’s already got that mental “yes” inside her head giving you approval to escalate things further with her. So have fun, enjoy the date and make some moves on her with a crooked smile. She’s expecting you to.

Covert Contracts vs. The Princess Fiona Plan

From the forum…

Matt266:  So @Athol_Kay talks about Shrek, Donkey Princess Fiona Plan in the book.  One thing I don’t understand is he says that Jennifer gets Princess Fiona preference, fine.  But then he goes on to say, if I rescue the princess I bang the princess.  Isn’t this a covert contract? ie. if I do this for wife then she gives me sex.

Please set me straight, just trying to learn!

Athol: Okay… so the original Shrek-Fiona-Donkey post is here. The TL:DR version being, I’m framing myself as Shrek, and making the women in my life fall in either the Princess Fiona or Donkey categories. I willingly do a lot of nice stuff for a Princess Fiona, but we also have an intense sexual connection, and Donkeys I don’t have a sexual relationship with… and they are their own beasts of burden.

Jennifer is the only woman in my life on the Princess Fiona Plan. I’d usually make some kind of joke about her frowning on other women or something after saying something like that, but it actually felt oddly peaceful to say that. Huh.

Anyway…

A covert contract would be where you decided to do a whole bunch of nice stuff for a woman, and then had an unstated expectation of sexual payment for services rendered. Typically sexual payment doesn’t happen anyway and then you get mad because you did all this stuff and didn’t get paid… which isn’t fair!  Meanwhile she thinks it isn’t fair that you suddenly sprung your cock into the mix like a bill collector.

What I’m doing with Shrek-Fiona-Donkey is making an overt contract.  Jennifer and I both understand and agree to the arrangement. I do X and I get Y. She gives Y and she gets X. It’s a fair exchange.

A covert contract is like when you stop at a red light and some homeless guy with a bucket and sponge starts washing your windshield, then holds out his hand for money.

An overt contract is like when you go to the car wash and pay for a car wash.

So the point of Princess Fiona vs. Donkey is to clarify in your mind, what your relationship is.

(1) A sexual relationship in which you’re all in.

(2) A non-sexual relationship in which you’re not assuming any special services.

I just clear it up ahead of time what it is going to be. There’s no point wasting your entire Saturday helping a girl you’re interested in, only to discover she has no interest in you beyond your labor assistance. If you’re going to end up masturbating no matter what… well you may as well just enjoy Saturday doing what you want to do.

The Best Revenge Is Living Well

Reader: I’m ashamed to admit that my ex and his wife were on national television recently, and they both looked pretty bad, and the fact that they looked bad made me really, really happy.

They were on a national news human interest feature.  I thought my ex’s wife (I call her my wife-in-law) looked awful.  She looked chubby and tired and puffy and she didn’t smile once. My ex looked grubby and sloppy and not attractive at all.

I have been trying to cultivate a general attitude of acceptance and contentment.  It bothers me a little bit that it made me really, really happy to see them both looking bad on national tv.

Athol:  Nah just enjoy it. Everyone loves to discover they were the winning ticket. The best revenge is living well. If you run your MAP you’ll end up looking great over the long term and leave them behind in your dust. It’s perfectly fine to use a little “fuck you” as motivation once in a while too. It seems better at getting that one last rep done with the heavy weights compared to thoughts of butterlies and inner peace.

I remember having one of those friend of a friend suggestions on Facebook a while back.  *Pop* and there’s a photo of ultra-crush-from-way-back staring at me on the computer. She hasn’t aged well. I’m not saying she needs a paper bag over her head or anything like that, I’m just saying @Jen_Kay uses the stair climber machines at the gym. That’s all I’m saying.

It’s a really good feeling. LMAO it’s sooooo good.

 

Fixing Flat Tires and Relationship Game

It’s 2013 and women no longer need to be frankly insulted by offers of being rescued from anything by men. Like a fish needs a bicycle and all that.  I-don’t-really-need-a-man-for-anything-when-I-have-my-vibrator-my-chocolate-and-all-these-adorable-cats. So I exaggerate a little, but in truth, many women actually find white knights a tad creepy

Hmmmm…

But can she get the lug-nuts off a flat tire?

Well to be honest, some women can and it’s no issue to them at all to change a tire. But there is a pure strength element to it and some women just can’t. Which then forces them to call someone else who can. That boils down to…

(1)  You.

(2)  AAA or some other car service outfit.

(3) That other guy that wants to fuck her.

Those answers are ranked in the order of your best interest. If your woman has to be saved, you should be the guy doing it. You don’t want to frame some other guy as the rescue hero for her. You should consider that if you can’t fix her problem, and she has to call some other guy in, you’ve green lit setting her up on a first date experience where he’s going to game the hell out of her.

Bad things may follow after that.

So anyway… if you don’t know how to change a tire… watch the video and at least spend 15 minutes of your time having a practice run through changing a tire before you need to put the skills to use.

Also in worst case scenario where she has both a flat tire AND a flat spare… usually the spare isn’t punctured, just very low on air. So just toss it in your car and fill it at any gas station with an air compressor. (Always have a couple bucks in quarters in your car.)    Or at the very least, park her car somewhere safe and drive away with one of the flats in your car.

And remember to act like it’s no big deal. Climbing the highest tower, slaying the dragon, not much to tell really. Just the Princess Fiona Plan on a  normal Tuesday. Quid pro quo and all that.

Also…. if you’re a girl and you want to Game a certain guy into rescuing you and all the wonderful isolation and one on one time that entails (not to mention the social obligation you can impose on yourself to invite him over to your place for a nice dinner, wine and a remarkably improved likelihood of coitus), you just park at the side of the road and call him up and say you have a flat tire. Sound mildly frustrated, but not too much. If he says he’ll come, coo to him with praise and gratitude. Then get out of the car, unscrew the little black cap off the tire valve and using your car keys, depress the little pin in the center of the value and let the air out of the tire until it looks properly flat. Then await rescue…

 Pick a day he’s not working of course. If he’s into you, he’ll come.

 

Married Game and Diminishing Returns

LongTimeReader: Do diminishing returns set in? Because after all, you’re supposed to be “mixing it up”: So just being fit and staying fit, while a necessary, will over time lose some of its previous attraction as it becomes the “new normal”.

Athol:  Adaptation is a problem. I’ve worked with some rather severely limited patients in the 25-40 IQ range and they all learn routines and get used to them quickly. I also have a cat that seems to have learned to meow loudly at 615am on week days for treats, and at 930am on weekends. So just imagine how quickly regular adults learn routines.

The good news is that things like fitness are structural in nature. They are “always on” and will always have a net positive effect. Having a good job/income is always a net positive too. There’s nothing you can do for them other than keep them up to speed.

What you can change… and should change up once in a while… is the other stuff. Don’t have sex in the same position every night. Don’t go to the same restaurant every night. Don’t vacation in the same place every year. Don’t bring home the same flowers every time. Don’t have one favorite shirt.

Variety is the spice of wife.

If you’re working out in the gym, doing the same thing over and over and over does result in diminishing returns. But switching your exercise to something new gets you results. Then later you can head back and do the first thing again. The idea is that you confuse your muscles and avoid them adapting to your exercise. So there is sort of an emotional equivalent of muscle confusion that gets you emotional gains in your relationship too.

Things like your job, fitness, health, house etc, are all structural in nature and yeah some of it is boring as hell to do, but you gotta. This is the “chicken” part of “everything tastes like chicken”.

But the things like playful teasing, surprises, Sexy Moves yada yada yada, are all temporary in nature and are like different spices. Those you should mix up once in a while, because you can and it’s more interesting that way. You can serve chicken a hundred different ways and it’s better for it. Just mix it up (Chicken Monkey Duck)

Though you can’t spice up a rotting chicken so it’s tasty.

Brazilian Waxing Jennifer

So we tried the whole Brazilian Waxing thing on Jennifer a while back. Except being a penny pincher, she bought a bunch of wax strips and I got to do the honors of yanking all her hairs out.

So warm the wax strips between my hands a little, unpeel one and lay it across her and gently press it into her hair.

Athol: Ready?

Jennifer: [Eyes shut]  Yes…

BBBBBBBBBrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiippppppp!!!!!!!!!

Based on the time delay between me pulling the first wax strip off, and her red faced cursing, it takes exactly 0.137 seconds for the sensation of pain to travel from her vayjay area to her brain.

The first strip did take a rather decent amount of hair off her, but like a parachute jump, once started you kinda have to continue with the plan…

Athol: Continue?

Jennifer: Ugh…. yes…

BBBBBbbbbbrrrrriiiiippppp!!

Bbbbbrrrrrriippppp!!!

Brip! Brip! Brip!

Athol: You okay?

Jennifer: Fuck you.

Athol: I can stop.

Jennifer: How much left?

Athol: About two-thirds of the way through.

Jennifer: Ugh…. Just finish it.

Briiiippppp!

Brippp.

Brippppp!

Brip. Brip. Brip. Brip. Brip. Brip. Brip. Brip. Brip.

Brip? Brip.

Jennifer: Please tell me we’re done.

Athol: We’re done.

Brip.

Jennifer:

Anyway, suffice to say nothing else involving Jennifer and her magic triangle happened for the rest of the evening.

And….

…well…

…ahh…

…as it turns out, apparently I much prefer how she looks with hair than without.

Beta Orbiting Peek-A-Boo-Boo

With babies, playing peek-a-boo is a classic game. It both delights them and teaches them an important cognitive skill. Just because you can’t see something, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Mommy is there and then mommy is gone… and peek-a-boo! Mommy is right back! Yay! And mommy is gone again… peek-a-boo! OMG she’s back! Wow. And she’s gone again… peek-a-boo! Oh this is hysterical, mommy you’re a wizardly genius! Dinner and a show.

Once the kids get mobile, the game gets a little more serious. Because mommy can completely disappear from one room, and be in another room. Which is fine for a minute or two, because there’s just something about this squeaky toy hammer that enthralls me. It causes no injury whatsoever, but my brother Thomas seems enraged by it hitting him. Why is that?

And…

OMG it’s been a full three minutes. Where’s mommy? Something terrible must have happened to her. She’s not in the kitchen. She’s not in the bedroom. Shit. Mommy…. She’s not in the bathroom either… oh! Oh! There’s mommy! She’s in the laundry. Hi mommy. Watcha doin’? Hi. What’s all this stuff? Can I help? Hi. Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me. Oh mommy your kisses are magical! Anyway, there’s something in my pants I need you to attend to.

So….

Fast forward say thirty odd years….

OMG it’s been a full three minutes. Where’s wifey? Something terrible must have happened to her. She’s not in the kitchen. She’s not in the bedroom. Shit. Wifey…. She’s not in the bathroom either… oh! Oh! There’s wifey! She’s in the laundry. Hi wifey. Watcha doin’? Hi. What’s all this stuff? Can I help? Hi. Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me. Oh wifey your kisses are magical! Anyway, there’s something in my pants I need you to attend to.

So stop it. Stop chasing your wife through the house like a toddler. She’ll be right back. Just because you can’t see her, doesn’t mean she doesn’t exist.

STOP IT. JUST DON’T DO IT.

Sure if you hear some sort of cascading crash and her anguished cries for help… go check on that. Likewise if more than half an hour has elapsed… it’s fine to lay eyes on her. Just don’t chase her through the house.

This is how your wife experiences endlessly seeking her out…

Also…

You are not goddamn Barney the Dinosaur. Not every single incidental passing in the hallway needs to involve cuddly-wuddly hug, kisses and gushing demands of verbal commitment.

STOP IT. JUST DON’T DO IT. IT MAKES HER VAGINA SEAL ITSELF SHUT.

If you’ve been running about your house like Virginity Pledge Care Bear and need a good rule of thumb for displays of affection to get yourself under better control, use the ye olde Roissy Golden Ratio approach. For every three instances of her initiating the display of affection, you should initiate two times.

Ideally your two times should involve things like kissing the back of her neck, lightly dry humping her ass, deep kisses where you lightly touch her face or gently pull her hair.

Anyway…

Ugh…

I need a palate cleanser.

Life After The MAP?

I was asked what happens after you run the MAP and all is basically well between the couple. Can you ever go back to relaxing and being Blue Pill?

 

Athol:  I think a subtle misunderstanding you have is that Blue Pill = soft/love  and Red Pill = hard/harsh

It’s more Blue Pill = unconscious relating    and Red Pill = conscious relating.

You can be 100% Blue Pill and do everything right… it’s just that you’re doing it unwittingly. What tends to happen in relationships though is we just start letting it slide and become more and more Betaized. At some point we go off the rails and wind up in a bad place looking for answers.

Part of what makes MMSL/Game work is that once you explain a concept, most people go, “Oh yeah, I already knew that.”  You’re bringing unconscious wisdom of the Body Agenda into the realm of the Neo-Cortex. You already know what the Body Agenda knows, you just don’t know it consciously, because consciousness is up in the lair of the hamster… the Neo-Cortex.

The MAP is really about increasing your energy level, because high energy levels are attractive. Sex Rank = Energy. This is why people experience positive growth in all sorts of other unexpected ways when they run the MAP. People try and fix their sex life, but get promoted at work because they ran the MAP. They lose weight, dress better, things happen they had no expectation of. Stuff like that happens so often I’ve just come to expect some random +1 somewhere else in people’s lives.

It’s also why some relationships fail because of the MAP. One half of the couple becomes stronger, hotter and has a higher energy frequency, while the other is determined to stay depressive, unchanged, angry, bitter and low energy frequency. At some point it’s like someone reversed the polarity on the relationship magnets and instead of being pulled together, they are pushed apart. The MAP tends to bring relationships to a resolution point. Usually it’s a happier relationship, but not always. That’s being said, some of the successes I’m most proud of are where someone finally said enough was enough and they moved on.

In a sense, what I’m talking about is taking the knowledge of science, everything that we know about human nature and asking the question, “How then do we live?” which is essentially a typically religious question. MMSL is my answer. In terms of “what now”, I think the answer is more than just “keep the MAP ticking over”, though that is part of it. It’s also about living a life of meaning and significance and not so much lifting up those around you, but showing them how they can climb up for themselves too. It’s about being someone who exerts a positive energy into the world.

Coffee and Croissant with Miss Communication

One of my favorite Star Trek scenes.

Picard and Beverley Crusher get captured and have devices attached to their brain stems by their captors. They eventually escape but there’s an interesting side effect in that the devices create a telepathic link between them. Most of the episode is devoted to the interplay between the two of them who already have a deep relationship  together, but are still miscommunicating because they like each other. They still have some strong defensive walls up to save face with others, despite being invested enough to meet for breakfast every morning. The private breakfast being an important part of their routine together and Beverley puts some effort into being creative with the food to please her Captain.

Riker is of course the actual First Officer of the Enterprise, but there’s no question that Beverley Crusher is the wife-like emotionally intimate “First Officer” to Picard.

(EDIT:  I’m fighting the YouTube.  Link to the video is here.)

There’s always the danger of miscommunication in marriage, leading to both of you being unhappy trying to please the other.

Just say what the hell you want. Stop being so damn polite.

Anyway…

What’s your coffee and croissant moment?