Jealousy

One of the main reasons why I started this blog was to mull over my thoughts. Writing is thinking. By writing, I understand the world better. Writing this has given me a lot of perspective, not just for current events but also for how the LDM founders might think about myself. I sent it to the man himself before posting to be sure he was okay with its publication.

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Recently, V started Daygame. He’s been a friend of mine since we studied together at university. He’s a serial monogamist, but has decided to try and be single for a while. Ever since I’ve known him, he’s monkey branched from relationship to relationship and had a few illicit encounters to boot. That means that before even starting Daygame, he had a notch count around 24; quite a respectable number. This came from a combination of girlfriends, girls he met online, girls from his social circle, and girls from nightclubs. Compared to the average guy, he’s a ladies’ man.

V has attraction sorted out. I think that from having a large female friend group growing up, he learned what to say to make groups of girls laugh. He developed a larger than life personality and also has a great sardonic sense of humour. When he Daygames and I watch his sets, they always look like they are having a good time. In fact, this is one of his main exasperations: using too much attraction. It’s ironic that as a beginner he is having this problem. His problem is not enough comfort.

V was as a Daygame voyeur for a long time; I would relay my stories to him and he would live vicariously. We both have high narcissism, and we theorised that I had become his false idealised self. I was the player he only dreamed of being. But when he broke up with his most recent girlfriend, he decided to give Daygame a proper go. However, he was missing a key trait: conscientiousness. He didn’t have the ability to create a plan and follow it religiously through the hard times. This is the area where I shine, and where I’ve helped him the most: in actually getting him out there.

So far his stats are: 81 approaches, 20 numbers, 7 dates, and three lays. As you can see, he is doing amazingly well so far compared to nearly every other guy. He doesn’t have any special advantages or disadvantages. No deformities. No style issues. Not Asian. Average looks. Average height. So no one could level the “he’s just tall and good looking” finger at him. V is a case study in what can be achieved with the LDM.

I think what puts V above other beginners is his experience being around women. And not just in a friendly context, but in one where he is trying to fuck them. It allows him to be calm in set, way beyond someone of his limited experience. Okay, in his first five approaches he was nervous, and his first approach of each session really is the worst one. Also, he’s only ever gone out with me; I’m sure he would be more nervous during a solo session, but that will be overcome in time.

One of the first things we noticed was that when I chose the sets for him, they went better. In fact, from the three lays he’s got so far all were pointed out for him. Two by myself, and the other by a mutual Daygamer friend of ours. On the sets he chose, he seemed to get blown out more often. We theorised that his body wants to pick sets which will blow him out quickly. That way he reaches ten sets quicker. When someone else picks out sets for him, he’s forced into ones which might go well.

But it throws something into a harsh light: my jealousy. I picked that set, it should be me fucking her. Then just before he goes into set, he asks me for a stack. I gave him the initial words to say, that laugh should be for me. He’s still at the stage where he sends me line by line accounts of his text exchanges. You see where I’m going with this. I sometimes feel that I’m pulling the strings but getting none of the good stuff.

Often he will return to me and relay how the set went in excruciating detail. You know when people are just starting Daygame and they want to give you a sentence by sentence recap of the set? They tell you the stack they used, the teases, if she invested, how she hooked, and her whole life story. I wrote about this in my Daygame hormones series. When someone starts Daygame they get a release of endorphins because of the pain of breaking social rules. It makes them feel euphoric. I’ll nod through the description, but keep a positive face and tone because I don’t want to pooh-pooh him. I did exactly the same thing when I started. To be honest, I’m sure the set went very well. I’m not fighting an urge to rain on his parade; to correct him and tell him that actually what he got were false positives, because that would be false. It’s just that I think about the good sets as sets which should have been mine.

I see this jealousy coming from two places. The first is an explicit biological one: my body sees what’s going on and I feel that my social/sexual standing is being threatened. I get an urge to get more girls to reset things to the status quo. As I wrote here, jealousy can be a big motivator for me. Then there’s the self-esteem point of view: what does he have that I don’t? I’m not a neurotic person normally but this has got me thinking. I want to identify his strengths so that I can either copy them or dismiss them.

Of course, this is bad for my mental health. How should I deal with it? Well, first I could re-frame it to try to defend my ego. I could say that his success is dependent on me, as if his lays were mine by proxy. For starters, without me, he either wouldn’t have heard of Daygame, or at least wouldn’t have gone out and started it. Let alone stuck to it. But on the other hand, the most I can ever tell him to say in set is the stack. I can only give body language cues to him before he goes in; I can’t update them in real-time. Then there are the dates where I have no input at all; he’s doing them all himself. Any in-depth analysis is done after the fact so my importance in the process depends on how much that initial advice is having on his results. But Lewis Hamilton still has to drive the F1 car, so I don’t think re-framing is the correct choice.

Another alternative, a slightly healthier one, is to say that the r/K wilderness is on the horizon. In my first 400 sets, I got seven lays (and 90% of those were done alone). Maybe he’s running a bait and switch with his microbehaviours. But that’s impossible to prove, just like when someone calls you a racist for microaggressions. This approach is only slightly healthier, because it’s reframing his results as natural for an enthusiastic beginner, but it is still dismissing them as being unrelated to skill. It’s also a threat: “you might be doing well now but wait until you go more r, then the results will temporarily dry up”.

So what is the best alternative? Face it head on. Do what we’ve been doing in set and call out the elephant in the room. I think when it comes to wings, it’s like being in a LTR: get the problems out there as quickly as possible. Your relationship with a wing needs to be antifragile, so that when bad things come along, the pressure gets let out quickly and in fact strengthens it. It doesn’t build to a point where the release breaks the friendship. Once it’s out in the open you can discuss the topic and negotiate.

We’ve discussed the topic of sharing while walking around recently. About how sharing a problem, or a negative emotion, genuinely makes you feel better. I started to think about how people used to go and confess at church. I imagine that was very beneficial for society because people got their negative feelings out there and neutralised them. So what we’ve done, just a couple of times so far, when we (mainly I) feel jealous is to say it openly. It’s amazing what it has done to help my state of mind.

Yours unfaithfully,

Thomas Crown