When "alpha" isn't

Manly Thor's Day Special
We have a newspaper here in Canada called the Globe and Mail. It's not a very good paper—there are no good papers in Canada—but it has good parts. One of the good parts in this paper is the weekly fashion advice column from Russell Smith.

Here is last week's question:

I’m confused about what men really think of lingerie. The only time I ever put it on for someone, the guy I was dating laughed and said it was pointless since it was going to come off anyway. Do most men feel this way?

Are you getting a feeling about this guy? Yeah and you, me and Mr. Smith are getting the same feeling. Here's what he wants to do:

Wow. I want to slap that guy. I want to take away his guy licence. I want to ban him from all future contact with women.

Mr. Russell Smith is kinder and gentler than I am. Here is what I have in mind for that guy:



Back to Mr. Russell Smith:

He was trying to make you insecure because it gives him power over you. 

That's right. And if you've read any of the PUA (pick up artist) literature that strategy should look familiar. I doubt the PUA guys would use it in this particular instance as I suspect most of them would want a woman to wear lingerie. But it's the same move, gain power over her by cutting her down.

And I have to be honest, it works. Not every time but often enough that, if you really devote yourself to it, you'll get laid often enough to make it worth your while if that is what you really want.

And women have no clue how well it works. The woman who swears up and down that none of this crap will work on her will fall for it. And it isn't that hard to figure out how to identify the sort of woman it will work on pretty consistently. Here's a hint on how to do it from Mad Men:

Peggy: Say something to her. Make her feel beautiful. You know, the confidence that comes with beauty.
Ken: Peggy, a woman who looks like that will never sound confident because she never is confident.

 Ken's right, a woman whose sense of self worth derives from her beauty can always be cut down and she will respond by trying harder to please you. Been there, done her.

But you don't want to do that sort of thing right? Well, except maybe once or twice in your youth? That it works isn't good enough right? The right answer should already have occurred to you by now. If it hasn't, I have bad news for you: you're a narcissist.

The PUA community talk about alphas and betas in a way that is specific to themselves. That's a polite way of saying they don't know what the words mean. PUAs think the words mean "guys who get it" and "guys who don't get it". Getting it for them means being so clever to "know" that there are no moral rules so whatever you can get away with is okay.

Here's the thing: there is only one alpha in any group. Alpha is not a measure of worth. Alpha is not a comfortable or secure position to be in. Alpha is always temporary. Who is alpha tends to get sorted out the same way that Mr. Edison found the right material for the filament of his electric light bulb.

And then you die.

Here is another thing: Women are special; they are God's greatest creation. Any man who is a man will figure that out by his early twenties. If not ... see the video above.

Back to Mr. Smith:

... the beauty of the coyly covered and exposed female form and by the frisson of recognition that comes from years of exposure to the whole fetishistic myth of the secrecy, intimacy and luxury of female undergarments, but also by the head-spinning idea that a woman might want to present herself like this for us ... that she would go out of her way to dress herself in a deliberately erotic way ... is so romantic and ego-inflating for us that it is closely bound with the idea of love itself.