Game vs being a man...

Game is an interesting concept. The various aspects of it suffer from conflation and poor categorization. I will discuss this at length in subsequent posts, but that is not my purpose tonight. Tonight I would like to discuss the notion of game vs simply being a man who understands the consequences of not behaving like one.

Rather than rewriting the world, I would like to direct you to this comment and to this reply.  Badger, the author of the reply, has many solid observations in many comments on Dalrock's site about game and its impact on male/female relations. But in his reply to this comment he misses my point.

Game is well named. It is a dance where a man spins a woman in a way to control or influence her feelings and reactions. I offered that comment as an example of how a man handles a situation, not how a man games a woman. Badger called it classic game. It was not a game. It was not to control a woman. The woman in that scenario is a very real person, who I love and for whom I have a deep and abiding respect. However, when I took issue with her behavior, it was not to "game" her. I offered her a choice. The choice to decide if she wanted to be with me, in a relationship based in respect and value, or to move on. I was prepared for either decision. It may seem a small thing. It may seem that refusing to be a coat rack on a hot, tiring, afternoon, when so many other time driven items are on the plate, is trivial. But it is not a small thing. Two adults, sharing what they claim is a singularly important relationship, may not take each other for granted. They may not put any common schedule item ahead of each other. That is the first step in devaluing their relationship.

The scenario described in my comment was to illustrate a situation in which a man is willing to lose a woman that he loves, values, and whose life he choses to share, rather than being taken for granted. Not because he is insecure, but because he has learned that, in a relationship, regardless of plumbing, both people must be careful to value each other. What Badger saw as game and dismissed as a ploy, was a man demanding recognition of a relationship. A man who was prepared, should things go badly, to walk away. A man reminding the love of his life that she had a responsibility to both of them. It was not game, it was about a man demanding the respect due a man. It was also about a man who gives the woman in his life the respect due her.

It's about doing the hard thing sometimes. Over a small thing, with the potential to have a large negative outcome, so that you don't get to the place of having the same choice over a big thing. It's about self respect. Expected and granted. It's about adulthood. It's about reminding each other what you both value when the issue is small. It's about re-enforcing mutual respect. One thing is it not is a "game'.

This is the essence of my "problem" with game. Men should learn again how to be men; How to stand alone; How to hold to the values and challenges of manhood. If they come back to that essential aspect of manhood, they won't need to learn "game". The behavioral aspects of game that draws a woman to them will be an essential part of them.

Why another blog...

I have been blogging for a few years about various things. A few months ago I bumped into the Manosphere. My other blog serves a different purpose, so I have started a second blog here, whose purpose is to investigate "Game" as applied to adult relationships, marriage, and, in a generic sense, manhood.


There are a number of blogs that have convinced me to open this particular conversation two of the most prominent are Dalrock and Roissy. Both of these gentlemen have raised the entire discussion about male female relationships. I have a great deal of respect for both of them. Each serves a different purpose. You should go read them, because my summary of their goals will be, by definition inadequate. Still to lay the ground work I summarize them this way:

Dalrock believes that marriage is under attack from many sources and strives to teach men and women to see through the fallacies of the divorce industry and to realize the women are not well served by divorce.

Roissy, has a more direct  goal: to teach men how to deal with the feminist attacks on males so that they are able to attract and enjoy the company of women, without getting caught in the shaming and other tactics that feminism teaches women inflict on men.

I have commented, sometimes extensively on both of these gentlemen's blogs, but I find that I need a separate forum to explore foundational issues that are not well addressed in comments to specific posts. I will post here occasionally as needed to elaborate on topics that these gentlemen raise.