It Will All End in Tears

Christmas is a time for couples: ice skating, mulled wine, mistletoe, etc, but while Daygamers take the winter off to shack up with a girl who they plan to shake off come spring, the unenlightened set their festive hooks further into their partners, looking forward to the year ahead.

One unfortunate side-effect of the red pill is that you begin to analyses everyone else’s relationships and often you’ll come to a very depressing conclusion to their chosen path. That reminds me of something my Dad would do when I was growing up. He would notice I was running about too maniacally and loudly pronounce that “this is all going to end in tears”. Lo and behold, I’d hurt myself somehow, and emit such a wail to wake the dead.

And that’s what people are like in new relationships. They’ve got all that new relationship energy. The oxytocin making them spritely and optimistic, which is part of why it exists in the first place. They are, in analogous terms, the spastic child (a la myself) destined for the fall, but in this case it’s not worth trying to explain why things will not turn out as they hope.

I was like that once, arrogantly proclaiming that I was above nature, and above the honeymoon period. This is something I see when I look at my colleagues. One of them spending hundreds of pounds on gifts for a girl he’s been dating for five months (which he bought from Harrods after I explained he could exactly the same product from Amazon…). He literally at one point described her as “perfect” which set off some proper alarm bells in my head. The other is a guy who’s married with kids, who was trawling the internet looking for rings to buy her. Both great guys whose company I enjoy but poor predictors of future behaviour.

What they both don’t understand is that a) they’re amping up gift inflation because the girl will always look for higher signs of resource investment as the relationship progresses, and b) they’re signalling their continued suitability as a mate by spending money. Money is their signal for value, and so no wonder she’ll judge their worth based on their earnings.

What are the lessons we can draw from this as non-mongamites? Obviously, keep the cost of any gift low; I really enjoyed Krauser’s idea of giving a girl a “Little Miss” book. I imagine anything which playfully teases her would be a good gift.

I don’t get my regulars gifts for Christmas or their birthdays, but I will send them a flirty message on that day wishing them well. It doesn’t seem like much but I personally don’t message them unless it’s to organise meeting up. Scarcity equals value.

But if she was an MLTR, my best idea would be to seduce her again. This was mentioned in the Practical Female Psychology book (see the recommended reading page) and would involve taking her on a date like your first one, but since you know each other better you can give her a good rogering in the bathroom. Merry Christmas 😉

Yours unfaithfully,

Thomas Crown