I bought my Christmas tree two days before Christmas. We didn't decorate it until Christmas Day.
I did all of my Christmas gift shopping on Christmas day -- thanks to secular big-box corporation department stores who's only god is the almighty $$ who were open all day on the 25th.
Instead, I've been helping to sort through the belongings of my friend...and read through almost ten years worth of hand written journal entries and letters documenting his despair, depression and angst. Interspersed amongst his writings, were occasional letters written by his ex-wife and his ex-girlfriends.
The one thing I can say is a common theme on this whole clusterfuck of a tragedy is the notion that all parties involved sought to have everything, and in the end, ended up with nothing but heartache and pain.
My friend was a player before I even knew what that term meant, or even heard of the internet and the entire world of "pickup artists" found online in 2010. He was the guy that always had multiple girlfriends, and he cheated on them all. He was the epitome of a bad boy, rock & roll-lifestyle player. Sex, drugs and rock & roll were his credo, and he lived it to the bitter end.
It was the basis for the beginning of our friendship when I was a young man. He was the older influence...the big brother I never had. He introduced me to the world of hedonism full tilt, and I embraced it in my youth. He was the guy my friends and I all looked up to, because he had a way with the ladies, and we all wanted to be like him in that regard.
Yet, as I grew older, I saw the inevitable dead end such a lifestyle ended up, and changed my path in life to avoid a similar fate. I quit doing drugs and resisted cheating on my girlfriends. I tried to get him to do the same...but he ignored my counsel. Afterall, I was just the little brother who didn't know what he was talking about. He could handle it, he knew what he was doing.
I saw him break many women's hearts...and invariably break his own in the process.
You see, he was a natural player...but a romantic at heart who endlessly searched for his "soul mate." When he managed to score a woman who he decided was "the one" he would invert the alpha player script and go into full-blown, needy beta-sap mode. All of his writings are rife with poetry, love songs and letters to his ex wife and ex-girlfriends...all the women who I can plainly discern, were attracted to the bad boy alpha, than disgusted and turned off by the needy, dependent pedestalizing beta he turned into once he decided she "was the one." The quest for a soul mate caused him to pedestalize any woman he got into a LTR with.
In reading years worth of his writings, I found a pattern to all of his failed relationships. His alpha personality traits involved in seducing women were highly attractive to the women when they first began their relationships. But he eventually fell into a little-boy-dependent on his mommy relationship, killing the 'gina tingles and killing any respect they had for him. Then they would stop having sex with him...so he'd eventually go out and seek casual sex with druggie sluts to relive his blue balls.
You cannot be a PUA and a Father-Husband Patriarch at the same time...living a double life in which lies and dishonesty are required to try and maintain the facade of a "normal" home life while trying to live the sex, drugs, rock and roll nightlife while the wife or girlfriend is at home with the children.
He tried to have it all...and in the end, he lost it all.
Conversely, the women who entered into these relationships knew damn well he was a player. They tried to turn a bad boy player who gave them 'gina tingles into a monogamous husband provider.
They too tried to have it all. His ex-wife was -- no, IS -- a good woman. But her rationalization hamster and basic female solipsism made her rationalize and justify his past transgressions time and time again. Despite the years of lying and cheating, she married him and had children with him, despite his serial cheating and lying to her while they were dating.
She tried to make a player into a husband and father. Eventually, she woke up to the fact that no matter what she did, she was not going to change him. She left him, and I don't blame her for it one bit. He treated her like crap, and she took it for years. But even though a good woman can delude herself into staying in an LTR that is fundamentally dishonest and abusive, once the 'gina tingles are gone, she will eventually ignore the rationalization hamster and leave.
After she left, what followed was years of one night stands, booty calls and friends with benefits combined with multiple failed LTR's with various girlfriends.
But the biggest mistake he made was trying to turn a druggie whore ex-con into a housewife. She moved in with him and they had a couple of kids...and, like all of his previous LTRs, she left him when he became needy and dependent, and she lost her attraction to him, and he cheated, and she found out....
She was hurt. And she wanted to return that hurt the best way she knew how - parental alienation combined with court ordered child support and violating his visitations. He hurt her, so she used their kids as a weapon to hurt him back. He had to pay for his children, yet he couldn't even speak with them. He got laid off of work, but his child support obligations were decided by imputed income.
He no longer saw the point in living. So he became just another statistic.
The biggest lie our Brave New World Order preaches today that leads people astray, is this notion that not only can you have it all...but that you DESERVE to have it all.
This instilled sense of entitlement is the impetus for making people lead impossible lives that end in heartache and pain.
Women, don't try to make the Player into a Father and Husband.
Men, don't try to make the Whore into a Housewife.
You cannot have it all.
18 comments:
We spend so much time trying to figure out what we want to be and so little time figuring out who we are. We buy into so many lies and falsehoods and it all ends up a mess.
Good luck.
I used to be very much like your friend. Like you, I eventually saw the emptiness and futility of that path...but I might just as easily have not.
This post should be required reading for every young person on the cusp of puberty. Perhaps it could stop some of them from starting off down that wrong road in the first place.
I know this had to be hard to write, but I'm honored to read it. Mahalo.
Very eloquent, Keoni. Kind of points out the hollowness of the PUA 'lifestyle' when it involves no growing up into a mature adult LTR. Getting as many women as you can just because you can I think does not lead to long term happiness. And neither does becoming a groveling betaboy, so I am definitely not throwing out the baby (game) with the bathwater. Sorry for the loss of your friend.
Finally someone who understands game and doesn't turn to a lowly PUA. LTR Patriarchy is the way to go!
A powerful post, my friend.
Particularly instructive is when you discuss how a guy who was faking alpha reverted to sycophantic gamma or even omega when he achieved his goal and relaxed.
Evidence that backs up your promotion of LTR game...and demonstrates that PUA game is short-sighted, short-term, selfish, and vapid.
I am sorry for the loss of your friend and the grief of his family.
The fact that one cannot have it all is so common sense that there should be no need to say it-duh!
You can't turn a player into a patriarch, or a ho into a housewife? Well... it certainly can't be imposed from the outside. The player/ho has to do it themselves, and that's a very tough thing to do.
It doesn't mean that you stop caring or trying to help them, though. It sucks, but how else can you stay human?
Good article. Wish I had known all this about ten years ago in my last year of high school. I'm sorry you had to go through all that and see the pain your friend went through. Not only is it tough losing someone you care about but it's a kick in the ass to see a side of that person you weren't aware existed.
My belated condolences. Keep up the good insight and writing.
Perhaps your most poignant commentary yet, Keoni. Sad because your pal could have had a better life but chose to ignore the pleas of others to change his ways. And unfortunately, his trail of destruction has impacted others and will probably impact more people even though he's now gone.
Be true to yourself....not always. People escape in different ways, drugs, alcohol, sex, retreat and isolation.
How many fully embrace their pain and suffering, learn from it and grow. I have tried, not fully succeeded. I have had to let a female friend go, she carries too much emotional damage and her retreat has left me drained. All the best advice going has not changed her. You can't reach and change everyone, not all are strong enough to find their path.
I'm sorry for the loss of your friend, i had a friend commit suicide many years ago. Best wishes.
Awesome post. I know in my younger years I made the mistake of trying to "save" some chick, luckily I learned from that mistake and nothing really bad came from it.
wow. powerful. makes me wonder quite a bit about the last 5 or more years of my life.
Not sure what your definition of a good woman is but I can't for the life of me see how any of them measure up. They all went for the "bad boy alpha" and all dumped him when they found out he was just another beta boy. It was them that stopped the sex and drove him out to start playing the field again.
Let's face it, unless you happen on a virgin (good luck with that past middle school, and I'm talking one that isn't just "technically" a virgin, i.e., no BJs or anal) they are all used up ho's by the time you get to them and none of them make for a good wife. The lesson that I take away from this is that there is no "soul mate" out there for you so don't even look for it and if you want to have kids and settle down then look into moving to the third world because America ain't the place to raise kids any more.
Keoni,
Stop blathering on about stuff you know nothing about. Your opinions are uniformed. You think that 10 minutes of surfing the web makes you an expert. It doesn't, It just makes you sound foolish.
Thanks for setting me straight anonymnous! I think I'll just quit blogging completely!
I look forward to it! The internent will be a cleaner place without your ass-backwards nonsense. Really, there isn't a shred of truth in anything you write.
Moving story, very well written.
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