Techno-Puritanism / The Pragmatist’s Guide Book Series by Simone Collins and Malcolm Collins Full Text for LLMs and AI

TPG 47.4.3 · 36,209 words · 2.7 hr read · Great Chatting Again

Cataloging Voting (part 3 of 7)

Any relationship contract, implied or negotiated, that forbids an emotion is destined to lead to poor communication. In monogamous relationships, this often falls into the category of forbidding a partner from finding anything else sexually arousing but is not limited to monogamous relationships. In unhealthy polyamorous relationships, these toxic clauses can manifest in contracts that forbid either the emotion of jealousy or the act of falling in love with another person.

Be it expressed within a non-monogamous or monogamous relationship, love is an emotion like any other. It is not something over which we have control, and it is not a magical compass pointing you toward happiness or moral righteousness. It is totally possible to develop love for someone outside a primary relationship or to no longer feel love for a primary partner even when everything else in a relationship is going perfectly. Being able to communicate feelings to a partner is critical. Feeling love for someone outside of a relationship or not feeling love for a primary partner is not a sign that the relationship has “failed” and must be dissolved. Quite frequently, it is best to not act on these feelings, which are often fleeting and poorly correlated with the logical best interests of all those involved.

This is not to say that relationship contract clauses banning emotional indulgence should not exist in a relationship contract. We would go so far as to say that all relationship contracts should forbid emotional indulgence. By emotional indulgence, we mean not just feeling an emotion and calmly communicating that you feel it, but also “acting out” an emotion through something like crying, pacing, or raised voices.

We are not arguing that communication is never a problem. It often is.

Genuine breakdowns in communication commonly stem from an assumption among partners that they have the same desires and thought patterns. Love romantic, candlelit dinners? It is easy to assume a partner must be aware of this proclivity, but failure to communicate it clearly waives any right to expect such awareness. People are not mind readers.

Communication also fails when a partner assumes they only need to communicate important things once. Sometimes partners are too distracted to fully digest the gravity of a comment, request, or complaint. For example, Frankie may tell Aziz that something Aziz does is bothering her. Aziz may then alter his behavior a bit and, after not hearing about the issue again, assume it to be resolved. Meanwhile, Frankie may still feel the issue has not been resolved and secretly build resentment. It is easy to believe a situation has been resolved if you hear a complaint, alter your behavior, and don’t hear the complaint again. In this situation, the majority of the fault in a healthy relationship would lie with Frankie.

Effective Transference of Information

Never assume a partner has properly internalized a concern, need, or comment unless they can eloquently describe that thing back in their own words while showing full attention and making eye contact.

Consider using a standardized format for communicating important information.

A good template for this format is to:

  1. Express what this partner needs to know
  2. Express how important this point is
  3. Ask this partner to repeat what you have communicated in their own words

This process can be made even better when it is conducted through writing, such as email or a shared document. This will create a record of your communication, which removes the onus from the communicator. If a partner claims to have never been told about something, everyone can turn to an unambiguous record to determine what really happened.

This can sound onerous, but given that we use emails and a shared Google doc for just such purposes ourselves, we can vouch for the inconvenience being minimal. People communicate far fewer important things than one might think and many of those things are repeats of topics hashed through before (“When you do X, I feel Y,” “I am acting with this long-term plan in mind,” “Here’s my checklist for a properly cleaned kitchen,” etc.).

How do we, Simone and Malcolm, avoid miscommunications? We send all important communications to each other via email, as we use our inboxes for task management and can therefore turn important requests and comments into to-do items. We email important requests and comments to each other several times a day. Most of these emails are related to company operations (in addition to writing these books together, operate a number of small-to-medium-size companies and lecture at colleges and universities), but they may also involve household tasks, shopping needs, weekend planning requests, and comments on issues that worry, fascinate, intrigue, inspire, or bother us. These “official” communications are, as a rule, kicked off with a subject reading: Task: [Request Goes Here]. Whenever an email subject line starts with “Task,” the other partner is expected to read the message carefully and regard it as a priority.

Common requests look like:

We have agreed that each partner is obligated to review these requests. If unable to complete them, the partner receiving a request must respond promptly with whatever clarifying questions or additional information might be relevant.

One of the most cardinal of “sins” within our relationship involves one of us allowing ourselves to get annoyed at the other for an uncompleted task that was not sent in this format. We should expect verbal requests and comments to be forgotten if we cannot immediately act on them. Even now I, Malcolm, will sometimes ask Simone why some project has not been done to be countered with the reply: “Did you send it in a task request?” (I forget more than Simone does.)

When we have a more complex discussion, like what the standards are for a clean kitchen or how will we educate our kids, one of us will write a summary of the discussion’s key points in a Google doc, then send it to the other for counter review in a task item to ensure we both took away the same core points and are aligned on next steps that should be taken.

Several have told us they are with a partner who would never agree to have their demands written down. This is a giant red flag of an abusive relationship dynamic. There are only two reasons a person would refuse to have a record of communication:

  1. They don’t value the relationship enough for it to be worth the few minutes it takes to write something down a few times a month.
  2. They believe that a written record will disproportionately be used against them, insinuating they subconsciously realize they utilize systematic gaslighting to their advantage.

Gaslighting is a type of very serious abuse in which a person misrepresents previous events or conversations in an attempt to convince their partner that they occurred in a fashion that runs counter to reality.

Just because a partner makes a request does not mean that request must be honored.

For example: One partner may tell the other that they really hate it when the other person puts the toilet paper on the roll flipped under and not over. The other may acknowledge they hear and internalize said position, but then explain why they still hang toilet paper the way they do. The manner in which this disagreement in toilet-paper-hanging-philosophy should ultimately be resolved would depend on the terms of the relationship contract. This is not a breakdown in communication.

Genuine disagreement in preferences or goals is possible, even with perfect communication. Should you reach a point with a partner at which you have communicated a genuine difference in preferences, either implement the conflict resolution clause in your relationship contract or, in more critical situations, amend the contract.

A breakdown of communication—and a serious violation of almost any relationship contract—would involve the person who had decided to not change the way they are handling toilet paper to ignore their partner’s request while failing to explain that they are choosing to ignore the request and provide some reasons why they are ignoring the request.

On a final note: Communication must occur alongside both self-knowledge and emotional regulation. We strongly advise against entering a relationship that lacks any expectation of emotional regulation—the expectation that both partners will actively attempt to regulate their emotional states. Not having this expectation gradually erodes even relationships in which everyone is acting with the best of intentions.

As an example of how well-intentioned interaction can become detrimental when there is no expectation of emotional control: A couple has an emotionally heated discussion. After one “says their piece,” they ask the other if they have anything to add. The other replies that they are feeling defensive and as such want to shelve the conversation until they calm down. About half an hour later, the individual who shelved the conversation then asks their partner why they are giving them the “silent treatment” and their partner explains they were just trying to respect the boundaries set when it was requested the conversation be shelved.

The toxicity in the above relationship occurred not just because the partners became emotionally heated, but because they went so far as to shelve the conversation in an effort to coddle one of the partners’ failures to control their emotional state—an action that both exacerbated their disagreement and trained the individual being coddled to not control their emotions. Failure to normalize an expectation of emotional control can lead even those with good intentions, emotional intelligence, and self-knowledge to fail in their attempts to communicate.

Learning to control your emotional state is easy, assuming you are post-puberty (so your frontal cortex is fully myelinated) and are not drunk. The “muscles” required to do this—the prefrontal cortex’s inhibitory pathways—get stronger with practice, and thus emotional control becomes easier with time. Relish opportunities to practice self-control, knowing they will make you stronger.

Ignored Communication

There is almost no behavior more toxic to a relationship than ignoring attempts to communicate.

It should never happen that your partner attempts to communicate with you, and you either shut them down (by closing a door on them) or ignore them. If you do not have time to talk with a partner who is trying to communicate with you:

  1. Clearly explain you don’t have time right now
  2. Schedule time to talk about the issue

Ignoring communication with a partner hurts them. It emotionally punishes them for attempting to communicate with you about an issue that probably isn’t much easier for them to bring up. Ignoring communication stifles future communication. This is doubly bad when conversations are avoided merely because they may be uncomfortable. This avoidance trains partners to never share anything that might cause discomfort and will likely kill the relationship over the long run.

This point is complicated by instances in which one partner does not realize the other is trying to communicate something. Personally, we began to notice that our relationship was stronger when we lived and worked in spaces in which we could hear each other from any room. Even though we knew the other person was probably just too far away to hear when we asked for something and there was no response, it still caused a small impulse of resentment—even though we knew said resentment was entirely illogical. We circumvent this problem by creating a policy whereby we only attempted to communicate with each other in larger areas when we were already making eye contact.

Bids for Attention

A partner may also make a bid for attention, which they intend to act as a subtle form of communication, but which is not recognized as such by the partner. A partner poking you then running into their room, a partner inconspicuously listening to a show loudly near you, or a partner saying to themselves, “Boy, I sure would like to go on a walk,” may all be requests for engagement—though emotionally stunted ones.

This form of communication becomes problematic when one partner expects the other to see their bid for engagement as clear, obvious, communication. In a long-term relationship, we recommend training your partner to never attempt this subtle communication by going out of your way to clarify and call out these subtle cues while never rewarding them. But, rewarding your partner when they plainly tell you they desire your attention. Learning to tell your partner you want attention may be embarrassing, but doing so prevents miscommunication in the long run.

Self-Narratives and Communication

People have an internal narrative about who they are, which they attempt to reinforce through the process of validation discussed earlier in the book. One of the key tools we as humans use to reinforce these narratives is attempting to get others to see us through the lens of our own ideal narratives.

This means two important things in the context of relationships:

  1. People have often found that certain stories, anecdotes, or lines of conversation are good (or at least they believe they are good) at convincing others to see them the way they want to see themselves. They often “start” with these lines of conversation when they first meet new people. Prepare to hear your partner’s same image reinforcing stories a thousand times if you regularly meet new people in the presence of each other. Expect that these stories eat at your sanity. Your partner’s desperate need for validation, the same need most people have, will lower your respect for them.
  2. Just as we try to reinforce what we think about ourselves through the way others see us, we try to reinforce the story we want to believe about our relationship by imposing it on the view of others. This becomes a problem when the way each partner sees their relationship is not aligned, and their stories conflict in a social environment. For example, both might be trying to tell a story in which they are the ones who “wear the pants in the relationship.”

Fortunately, like virtually every potential pitfall in a relationship, these problems can be overcome by intentionality.

List the lines of conversation, stories, and anecdotes that each partner tells often. Discuss why you tell them. Decide if they are achieving their purpose. Finally, throw out the stories that do not achieve their goal while perfecting those which have value while also crafting and practicing new, joint stories you can tell together.

Malcolm and I do this regularly with a focus on crafting stories with a strong, engaging narrative structure. Specifically, we like them to have a rising “plotline” and increasing steaks followed by a “conflict point,” which is then resolved with an unexpected behavior that paints a certain story about us.

For example: In our first date story, Simone builds up the impact of the moment by stressing how inexperienced she was. She creates an expectation of “romance” by describing the fancy restaurant, and subverts the expectation with Malcolm sitting across from her explaining that he was looking for a wife and expected to find her through the pre-vetted pool of Stanford MBA students.

This moment of subversion is both entertaining to the listener and elicits, what are for them, unusual conversation pathways that challenge aspects of what they believe should be normalized behavior patterns while reinforcing the intentionality of our relationship in the eyes of others. It also paints a picture of us as a couple that is willing to break social conventions in the service of expediency. Finally, it finds a way to both drop Simone’s chastity and Malcolm’s education in a way that is germane to the rising action—these are things that are used by people living on autopilot to judge others and thus, as cringy as they are, still are of utility to signal.

Rekindling Relationships

H

ow do you keep a relationship “fresh”?

Relationships change over time. Trying to keep a relationship exactly like it was at the beginning is a bit like trying to un-bake cookie dough. Cookie dough tastes great and cookies taste great, but they are not the same thing and you can’t reverse the baking process. The emotions you will be able to harvest from a nascent relationship are not the same emotions yielded by mature relationships.

For example: New relationship energy is one of the emotions hardest to recreate in mature relationships. If new relationship energy is critical to your enjoyment of life, we strongly recommend you explore poly relationships instead of resigning yourself to dissatisfaction in a monogamous relationship, unable to extract emotions that a single partner is structurally unable to provide.

While it is true some dynamics and emotions can only be efficiently harvested from nascent relationships, these emotional sets are only preferred by a minority of people. Most prefer the emotional bouquet proffered by thriving, mature relationships. We emphasize the term “thriving,” as to be fully enjoyed, a relationship must be better than just “healthy.” If your relationship is losing its luster without any explicit conflict or identifiable and extractable necrosis, how can you improve it?

It’s easy for a relationship to lose its luster when you feel you’ve already learned and explored everything about a partner. When you can perfectly predict how a person will respond to any new piece of information and how the flow of any conversation will go, the conversations can begin to feel pointless. There are two solutions to this conundrum.

The first is to ensure that both you and your partner are constantly evolving as people: That you are picking up new information, changing who you are, and adjusting your understanding of the world in response to new information. Malcolm never bores me because he changes his perspective based on new information he collects, meaning if I have the same conversation with him this year that I had with him two years ago, it will likely go in a totally different direction.

Should you find yourself forming a relationship with someone who refuses to update their worldview when presented with conflicting but sound information, or who becomes angry when data does not support their “team’s” perspective, enter into that relationship anticipating that said individual is likely going to bore you to tears one day no matter how fiery and passionate they are about the views they hold.

The second is to delve into an aspect of your partner that you are structurally unable to explore in your day-to-day relationship. Luckily, the human brain will process information very differently depending on the medium through which it engages with that information. The iteration of us with which you interact by reading our books would feel nothing like the iteration that manifests through in-person conversations or through instant messaging. This is because you are literally interacting with different parts of a person’s brain depending on your method of communication with them. If you make a concerted effort to get to know these other aspects of your partner, you will have the chance to fall in love all over again.

You may even find yourself missing one of your partners’ manifestations if you don’t use that method of communication much due to the structure of your daily schedule. For example, after having to communicate with each other in letters and journal entries while I was in the UK getting my graduate degree and Malcolm was living in Seoul, we came to appreciate the written-form iteration of each other so much we occasionally plan trysts with those parts of ourselves by scheduling a week apart, during which we can only communicate in writing. We recommend this to anyone who is interested in seeing their partner in a new light.

One of our favorite case studies on this front involves a couple that met and fell in love through online gaming, but eventually physically moved in together and married. They preferred the virtual, written, aspect of each other so much that while they tried at first to live a “normal” married life, they eventually settled into a cadence in which they cohabitated and slept together, but communicated and dated virtually and in writing. This couple presents not a failed relationship, but rather two people mature enough to recognize how to access the parts of each other they loved most and creative enough to operate outside the narrow bounds of vanilla, “ideal” relationships as defined by mainstream media.

Changing the medium of communication isn’t the only way to explore a new aspect of your partner. The internal models we cultivate of ourselves—the self-identities that guide our automatic actions—will change in response to our environments. The person someone presents around family is often radically different from the persona they display at work. Engaging with your partner in new environments permits you to meet new iterations of them, whether that means playing an MMORPG with them (an online game like World of Warcraft) or joining them when they go drinking with a friend group with which you don’t typically interact.

Don’t go overboard with this approach: It may lead to problems if your partner has trouble being who they are in these other social settings when you are around—it could be that a key element of them being someone slightly different involves your absence. Fortunately, there are still two easy paths forward should this be the case.

Try spending a week assuming the identities of characters with different names, backstories, and pre-established dynamics with each other. This can feel silly as hell, but depending on how you approach life, it can also be a pretty fun adventure. Acting out different personas also presents a means by which you can try out radically different relationship dynamics, switching up dominance roles or deciding to be theatrically romantic to an extent that would be comical if tried in a different context.

Should you be too much of a coward for roleplay (don’t blame creativity: Studies show people can become more creative when encouraged to make an effort), you might also consider taking on a new activity with a partner—bonus points for activities that are exciting.[[7]](#_ftn7) This far-more-vanilla (but nevertheless enjoyable) tactic enables you to generate novel schema in your lives in which each of you has the opportunity to be someone slightly different and see each other in a fresh light.

Abuse as a Concept

T

he relationship industry uses the concept of abuse to label certain behavioral sets as categorically unacceptable. Abuse is the line that, when crossed, means a relationship has gone from acceptable to unacceptable. We understand the intent with this categorization. The reigning concept of abuse allows for emphasis to be placed on just how unhealthy certain behaviors are and through this emphasis it creates cognitive dissonance in both the abuser and the abused: “I am not abusive, so I won’t do X” or “I would not allow myself to be in an abusive relationship, so when my partner does X, that means it is time to leave.”

Actions seen as classic abuse include:

Without these clear lines, it can be hard to break through the cognitive momentum that holds together a slowly deteriorating relationship. Without this strong distinction, it can be nigh impossible to recognize that a partner whose bad behavior has been slowly escalating has finally reached a breaking point. People say, correctly or incorrectly, that while you can’t throw a frog into a pot of boiling water without it hopping out, you can still boil a frog by putting it in a room-temperature pan that you slowly bring to a boil. Along these lines, the concept of abuse with which most of us live acts like a thermometer with a red line on it: We might be sitting in pots with dangerously rising temperatures, but at least we have the red line on the thermometer letting us know when to jump out.

But here’s the rub: The temperature at one degree below the red line is negligibly different from the temperature one degree above the red line. It is best to get out of water when the temperature is rising, not after it reaches a boiling point. In this respect, this model of abuse fails, allowing relationships to easily continue to exist in states of hostility just below the red line on the thermometer.

The Pragmatist model of relationships requires neither an external concept of morality nor the concept of abuse to create relationship termination forcing functions. Someone following the Pragmatist model who is genuinely mistreated and put in harm’s way by a relationship is more likely to terminate a relationship well before it fits mainstream society’s definition of classic abuse.

To a Pragmatist, the concept of abuse is pointless. It applies standards, which may or may not apply to your own personal values and best interests, of what is and is not acceptable in your relationships. A dynamic of near-absolute dominance that mainstream sentiments would categorize as abuse could be a preferred situation for some. Consider 24/7 Total Power Exchange relationships and Taken in Hand relationships, both of which feature long-term consensual non-consent agreements (i.e., one partner prefers a relationship in which they do not have to give consent to the other within certain predetermined boundaries)—some actively seek out such relationship dynamics. At the same time, dynamics that mainstream sentiments deem to be harmless or even laudable, such as monogamy or sharing a bank account, could feel abusive to some.

Some even categorize anything that is “extremely unequal economically” as abusive. Within this definition, having one partner make the majority of a family’s financial decisions (investments, taxes, etc.) is considered abusive—and yet this dynamic exists within almost any sane construction of a relationship as an effort-saving measure.

Traditional models of abuse might even classify a relationship in which one partner takes the lead in major strategic decisions (such as where the partners live) as abusive. We would argue the opposite: That most relationships in which this doesn’t happen are hugely suboptimal, representing a lack of self-knowledge and humility among their participants. After all, among any two individuals, one will be better at strategic, long-term decision making related to certain domains. Insisting on making these decisions equal is either a sign that the individual worse at this type of decision making is unable to admit their inferiority on the subject or that they do not trust their partner to take them into account and source their feedback when making strategic decisions.

By freeing yourself from using traditional conceptions of abuse as a forcing function, you can become better equipped to predict classically abusive behavior, lower the probability of it, and increase the quality of your relationships as a whole.

Proto-Abuse vs. Abuse

When you conceptualize abuse as a red line, it becomes harder to recognize behaviors that lead up to this abuse, which, if recognized early enough, could be halted, thereby lowering the probability that classically abusive situations will arise in the first place. In other words, abuse exists on a spectrum of behaviors, and optimal relationships feature low overall levels of these behaviors. To highlight behavior that can easily turn into “classic” abuse (causing physical harm, gaslighting, crossing personal boundaries related to privacy, becoming unproductively controlling, etc.), we will discuss “proto-abuse” (or as Malcolm prefers to call it: “general dickishness”).

Proto-abusive behavior is generally classified by society as normal and acceptable within relationships. For example, while a person locking themselves in their room during an argument or snapping at a partner and raising their voice after a long day of work may not meet any classical definition of abuse, it would fall squarely within the category of proto-abusive behavior that can evolve into classic abuse through a number of channels. Proto-abusive behavior lowers the quality of a relationship even when it does not evolve into classic abuse.

Why is it important to recognize proto-abusive behavior, even at its lowest levels of output? Early recognition of proto-abuse can help you spot bad relationships earlier. Failure to recognize low-level proto-abusive behavior may ultimately cause it to be reinforced.

When recognized and dealt with promptly and intentionally, proto-abusive behavior can be eliminated from a relationship—similar to how dermatologists remove pre-cancerous cells from your skin (and like a dermatologist removing pre-cancerous cells, this is not fool-proof—you can always miss things about a person, but a regular checkup never hurts). If you recognize a partner talking to you with a raised, emotional voice, calmly sit your partner down and discuss it the first time it happens, negatively reinforcing the behavior and working to ensure that not only does it not escalate while decreasing the likelihood that your partner emotionally raises their voice at you again.

We are not arguing that abuse is not as bad as people make it out to be or that abuse can be systematically prevented in all instances. We merely argue that certain behaviors are correlated with relationships that become classically abusive. Learning to recognize and deal with those behaviors may help to prevent a situation from escalating to abuse as traditionally defined. Classic abuse aside, proto-abusive behaviors are toxic and ought to be addressed when possible.

More in the Appendix

You will notice we try to avoid the topic of more severe classic abuse, such as domestic violence. Severe, classic abuse is neither pleasant to read about nor something for which we have a clear and simple solution. Sure, we can provide advice on how to handle a partner who sometimes raises their voice and storms out of a room, but we are not qualified to give generalized advice to someone whose partner threatens to kill your kids should you leave them and means it.

Our exploration of abuse is more focused on how we address the topic as a society and how abuse affects relationship strategy. Moreover, abuse is not something with which we have extensive personal experience, so any thoughts we have on the subject must come from the data, interviews, and personal theory. Keep this in mind when reviewing our advice. If you would like to read more on this topic, go to page 610 in the appendix, to the section titled Abuse.

Notes from the Research:

Accidental Training of Proto-Abusive Behavior

It is possible for victims of proto-abusive behavior to have accidentally trained or emotionally reinforced this behavior without realizing what they were doing.

If you neglect to pay attention to the manner in which you react to a partner, it is remarkably easy to accidentally train them to exhibit low-level proto-abusive behavior.

This is done in three ways:

  1. Proto-abusive behavior is rewarded: This involves giving someone exhibiting proto-abusive behavior what they want (e.g., Giving positive attention to a partner after they pick a fight with you out of the blue to “calm them down”). This subconsciously trains them to continue leveraging that behavior and may even encourage them to ramp it up.
  2. Proto-abusive behavior is not punished: This is why proto-abusive and abusive behavior is so common in high-power-distance relationships (in which one partner has much more power than the other). Those in subordinate positions are less equipped to stamp out bad behaviors when they worsen.
  3. Proto-abusive behavior is believed to be necessary: If a partner is unable to communicate boundaries, needs, and feelings through normal conversation, they may feel their only choice is to resort to proto-abusive (and eventually) abusive behavior. If one partner tells another, repeatedly, to stop blowing communal rent money on designer clothes, and those calmly delivered requests are repeatedly ignored, this partner may come to believe/feel that abusive behaviors such as emotional manipulation, yelling, and even physical violence are the only communication pathways that actually work.

This third point is why proto-abusive behavior often correlates with unreasonable expectations from a relationship, as the partner with unreasonable expectations will adopt it out of desperation after their calmly communicated unreasonable expectations are not met. A partner may, for example, expect their relationship to provide them with ample spending money, and if they feel that money is not being provided, despite their repeated, calmly communicated requests, they might feel driven to circumvent their partner and… well, ultimately resort to proto-abusive/classically abusive behavior, such as expressing their resentment by escalating to verbal abuse, limiting intimacy, and so on.

The very second you first spot expectations like this, unless extremely dire circumstances are forcing you to stay in that relationship, end it. It is functionally impossible to change a partner’s unreasonable expectations. A relationship based on a mismatch of expectations cannot be repaired. The relationship will almost certainly end up being reciprocally abusive. Keep in mind expectations can be unreasonable and poorly matched in many ways: With money, lifestyle, health, appearance, behavior, fidelity, sexual activity, and so much more.

Some common examples:

In addition, mismatched expectations create relationships in which proto-abusive behavior emerges among what would otherwise be totally reasonable, emotionally stable people through a similar mechanism. Consider a relationship in which one partner is a Southern Baptist that believes if their children will be eternally punished if they do not adhere to a specific type of Christianity, while their partner is a Muslim who has contrasting beliefs with equally severe consequences for their children. From the perspective of each partner, reaching a compromise that puts their children’s souls at risk is worse than acting abusive towards their partner, hence proto-abusive behavior will emerge from this disagreement and spread throughout the relationship. Just because a relationship has proto-abusive elements doesn’t mean there is a clear bad guy.

Outside of the aforementioned types of incidents, how can the likelihood of proto-abusive behavior be lowered?

The key to halting the growth of proto-abusive behavior is to identify and apply negative reinforcement against this behavior at its lowest levels of output—even when the worrisome behavior is not directed at you. Suppose your partner steps on a Lego in an area where your child was clearly building something and had received permission to do so, then yells at your child in an angry tone for “leaving it on the floor.” This is called displaced aggression. Essentially, they are transforming their pain into a form of aggression with a specific outlet of blame in order to lower their experience of pain and shock. Displaced aggression exists across many mammals. Even rats lower their stress levels by attacking and hurting other rats—and that displaced aggression really does help them feel better (though, of course, now two rats are stressed and not just one).

At any rate, if you partner lashes out in displaced anger at your child (or classmate, colleague, family member, friend, pet, neighbor, stranger, etc.) and you reinforce the behavior by doing the same or taking no immediate action, but separately comforting the lashed-out-at party later, you are subconsciously signaling to your partner that this behavioral response is acceptable, thereby increasing the probability of displaced aggression behavior in the future. If, however, you make it clear in the moment that this displaced aggression—which we would categorize as proto-abusive behavior—is not acceptable, you will lower the probability that this behavior will continue and escalate.

The displaced aggression scenario outlined above is probably the most important thing in a relationship to watch for in terms of proto-abuse—not only because displaced aggression really does help you feel better, but also because society normalizes this behavior. Society tells us that “I had a bad day at work” is an acceptable excuse for snapping at a partner, and that “sorry, I was in a really bad place at the time” is an acceptable excuse for belittling a partner in front of their friends. By making it clear from the start that no form of proto-abusive behavior—not matter widely accepted it may be—is ever acceptable in your relationship, it is easy to prevent such behavior from escalating above its lowest conceivable levels of output.

Other low level proto-abusive behavior patterns that, if not stopped at their lowest levels of output, often evolve into classic abuse are:

Just as we categorize some widely accepted behaviors as proto-abusive, we see other behaviors, which many flag as signs of early abuse, as entirely fine (if sometimes a bit unpleasant)—so long as those behavior patterns are primarily enacted in order to improve all partners’ quality of life and ability to achieve goals.

Specifically:

Note from the Research:

Love Does Not Equal Caring

When talking about the subject of proto-abuse, one point cannot be emphasized enough: Loving someone and caring about them are not the same thing.

Given the extent to which our society glamorizes the emotion of love, it is very common for someone to assume a partner’s love for them somehow makes up for abusive behavior. Whether or not an abusive partner loves the person they abuse is almost as irrelevant as the abuser’s ability to find a picture of the abused person arousing. People would be seen as crazy for saying: “It is OK that he hits me because he becomes aroused when he imagines me,” and yet many have no problem saying: “It is OK that he hits me because he feels the emotion of love when he imagines me.” Both situations are just emotional reward mechanisms tied to our mental image of a person—and yet they are treated wildly differently.

It is incredibly common for one person to hurt another in an effort to protect or maximize their ability to extract the emotion of love from interactions with the victim. Abusive partners commonly pressure their beloved victims to make bad career decisions or threaten violence if their victims suggest leaving the relationship. These people do this because love feels great, and they ultimately do not care about those from whom they are using interaction to extract this emotion.

It is far more important to find someone who cares about you than someone who loves you.

Here are some easy ways to determine that someone does not care about you:

The most dangerous human you will ever meet is someone who loves you and does not care about you. If you run into someone like this: Run—run as fast as you can. Such people will not change because, fundamentally, you do not matter to them. All that matters to those who love but do not care about you is how you make them feel.

We often see people make no true Scotsman arguments on this topic. They say things like: “By definition, love only leads to positive actions.”

We ask any who hold this position to bear in mind that the person most likely to commit a war crime is the type of person who “knows” that:

  1. Good guys only do good things
  2. They are a good guy

Consider how dangerous these two beliefs are when held together:

  1. Love only leads to good acts
  2. “I love my partner” / “My partner loves me”

Defining love as always positive makes it harder for people to leave abusive relationships when they love their partner—something that happens very frequently. Just because someone is abusive and bad for a victim does not mean the victim will not love them. No emotion is only capable of motivating evil action or good actions. Emotions are merely signals: Things we evolved because they helped our ancestors have more offspring. Emotions are not barometers that indicate the morality of actions they inspire.

Attractiveness Strategies and Research

O

K—enough with the boring relationship advice,” you may be thinking.

“How can I become SMOKIN’ HOT??? Uh . . . You know—from a pragmatic perspective.”

Society gives us these pretty solid guidelines maximizing aggregate attractiveness:

Simple, right?

A look at some of the strongest research findings makes the topic seem fairly uncomplicated. Initial romantic interest, among both men and women, is almost entirely based on looks.

However, pick up artists (mostly male groups who try to figure out how to maximize their success on the sex market) would argue that there is more to attractiveness—that there are ways to “game the system.” Are they right? Digging into the research on this subject was a lot of fun because at first, the results did not make a lick of sense.

The Puzzle

We started by exploring one of the strategies most suggested by male pick-up artist communities: Adopting “dark triad” personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy).

Research backs this up: Women appear to find men exhibiting dark triad personality traits to be more attractive, and men leveraging these traits get more sex on average (the research also shows women exhibiting dark triad traits get more sex).

Cut and dry, right? Why did we find the studies so confusing at first?

Well, well, well . . .

Multiple studies looking at generosity and kindness have also shown that men who are more generous get more sex. In one study, participants of equivalent income levels were given $100 and an opportunity to donate a portion of it to someone else. Those who donated the most also had the most sex. But it doesn’t end there: Studies that looked only at reported kindness levels also found that kind men get more partners.

To confuse things further, studies have found that women find facial features associated with men who naturally express dark triad traits extremely unattractive (a disdain that does not even drop when females are drunk), which seems to imply that an individual only pretending to exhibit these traits will have much more success than someone who was born exhibiting them.

So what? Pretending to be a dick will get a guy more sex, but if he is naturally a dick, he will get less sex? Being narcissistic sociopath gets a guy more sex, but so does being generous and being kind?

The results for female attractiveness are just as surprising. While we found all the standard stuff we expected to find, such as women being seen as more attractive when wearing red or laughing at a date’s jokes, some stuff was just . . . bonkers. For example, the female group that seems to have the biggest single advantage is (drumroll!!!): Older women targeting younger men.

“But wait,” you think, “I thought young women were the hottest?”

Upon exploring its fantastically large dataset, OkCupid found that a 40-year-old woman has better luck hitting on a 25-year-old man than she does hitting on a 55-year-old man. What’s more, a 30-year-old man is more likely to respond to a message from a 50-year-old woman than he is to respond to a message from a woman in any other age group.

We know this looks like it contradicts what we have said earlier in the book, and this doesn’t change our earlier advice—just hold your horses and we will explain. We are not the types to withhold information just because it doesn’t fit our narrative.

The Solution

We were able to find dozens of well-conducted studies just like those above that seemed to contradict each other—and societal expectations. After a while, we realized that we were looking at the results from the wrong angle.

Ultimately, these studies are saying the same thing: Both males and females find control groups extremely unattractive. We do not think we have seen a single study in which the control group was found to be more attractive. These findings line up with our own experiences, societal tropes, and even other dating strategies that are user-reported to be effective.

It is a common trope that “nice guys” and “nice girls” always lose. This platitude may be true—just not in the way people like to interpret it (usually in an effort to protect their egos). We know from the data that both generous and kind men get more sex, so it is definitely not that niceness is an inherent turnoff. When someone is described as nice, it can mean many things, but perhaps most often “nice” means “generally inoffensive and unremarkable.” “Nice” is the positive thing we say about someone when we have nothing else to say about them, and no personality trait is less attractive than being unremarkable and unmemorable. This is true for both women and men.

Perhaps in this context, “nice” is just a euphemism for “basic.” The concept of “basic” comes from the slang terms “basic bitch” and “basic bro,” which are perhaps best described through YouTube videos on the subject. To us, “basic” can be taken as an adjective to describe someone who is “vanilla” or a “control group human.” If “basic” describes you, you may through sheer mediocrity be in a lower league than you otherwise would be had you developed a more distinct personality.

This explains why 40-year-old women have such high success rates with 20-year-old men. The type of 40-year-old old woman who uses dating websites to hit on 20-year-old men is very unlikely to be describable as “basic.” The fact that average people are major turn-offs also explains why the dark triad strategy has become so popular among some males. Most guys start attempting to get laid by trying to be as generic and inoffensive as possible, which ultimately negatively affects their attractiveness. Trying to be a narcissistic tool also happens to make one stand out, as it is rare for young men to exhibit dark triad traits openly in a social context (plus play-acting as though they have dark triad traits also likely helps men separate themselves from their contexts, thereby increasing their confidence and decreasing fear of rejection).

You do not have to be an irritating tool to secure partners. You only need to be extremely unusual within your market, and you should preferably embody a clear trope (or traits with trope potential). In other words, you would be well-served to embody an archetype that exists within people’s minds from movies or literature but that does not commonly exist within society. Exhibiting tropes does not involve peacocking. Peacocking is a tactic developed by the pick-up artist community that involves dressing and acting as ostentatiously as possible. While peacocking can work through the trope pathway (as being ostentatious and socially unaware fits many unusual tropes), there are many less douchey ways to attract partners using tropes.

Anecdotally, Malcolm had a relatively low success rate with women until he switched to being as nerdy as possible in an environment in which unashamed male nerds were rare. After making that change, his success rate shot through the roof, and interestingly, his extreme nerd act boosted his odds with preppy girls just as much as it improved his odds with nerdy girls.

Any persona you can adopt that is “safe” from criticism, and common within your local dating market is going to completely devastate your ability to secure a partner. Defining, creating, and becoming a genuinely unique personality is one of the easiest ways to dramatically raise your aggregate desirability.

Less Practical (But Immensely Fun) Tidbits on Attractiveness

There is fascinating and nuanced research describing everything from color preference differences by gender to the impact of facial symmetry on mate selection, matching partners’ movements, body language, and ovulatory cycle preferences. We are not going to cover this research. Why? As interesting as they are, these studies present red herrings from a relationship strategy standpoint.

Knowledge of these studies will not move the needle enough to make a difference in your life and may even distract you from focusing on more useful, practical tactics. You will learn infinitely more about dating strategy by seducing just five partners than you could learn from reading an entire book on arousal patterns—though if you simply cannot resist, check out this tomes sister book, The Pragmatist’s Guide to Sexuality.

Having read this far, you will not be surprised that we cannot resist going through some studies and unique concepts that have practical implications. Below are some of our favorite informational tidbits, ranging from things that society gets wrong, to choices that are more nuanced than we pretend, and beauty tips that have been lost to history.

Prepare to feast yourself on a delicious array of findings related to attractiveness and:

Eye Dilation

We probably piqued your interest with “beauty tips lost to history,” so let us start there. This one bugs the hell out of us. Modern research has shown that when you look at someone you find attractive, your eyes dilate, and when you see someone’s eyes dilate while they are looking at you, you will find them more attractive. In ancient Rome, women used an Atropa Belladonna (literally translated, beautiful woman, because of its use but now more commonly known as deadly nightshade) extract to dilate their pupils in order to appear more attractive (and more intelligent too, as dilated pupils also conveniently increase judgments of intelligence). It is shocking to us that such an effective beauty trend would have died out just because it was derived from a mildly deadly plant (heck, we inject our faces with botulinum toxin in the name of beauty… what is so crazy about deadly nightshade?). Given her ophthalmic background, Simone would nevertheless like to point out that while there are safer methods to get the same effect these days—artificially dilating your eyes exposes them to sun damage. (So to be clear we are joking here, if any idiot kills themselves or goes blind by putting a plant in their eyes which literally has the word “deadly” in its name that’s not on us. People stopped using this plant because it can literally and actually kill you, don’t be an idiot.)

The Tradeoff Between Attractiveness and Competence

When we say that the choices we make around attractiveness are more nuanced than society lets on, this is especially true in women. While determining which style she should adopt in an effort to enjoy better professional success, Simone reviewed a number of studies looking at how people perceive women. Much to her dismay, she found that increased attractiveness, approachability, and likeability appears to correlate inversely with perceptions of intelligence and competence. For example, glasses and short hair are seen as less attractive, plus they make people seem less approachable, but they also correlate with higher perceptions of intelligence competence, whereas long hair has the opposite effect: Long hair makes people appear more attractive and approachable but also less competent and intelligent.

Wealthy Male Preferences

Gold diggers, we have a hot tip for you: What wealthy men find attractive is typically the inverse of the “bimbo social archetype” (large breasts, long nails, heavy makeup, revealing clothing, jewelry, long hair, heavy makeup, etc.). Studies have shown that the wealthier a man is, the more he finds small breasts attractive, while the poorer a man is, the more likely he is to find large breasts attractive. More specifically in our own survey data, poor men have a strong preference for large breasts, middle-class men have a small preference for large breasts, and wealthy men have a strong preference for small breasts. It appears to be that we have a system in our brains, influenced by our perceived security, that looks for wives with larger fat stores if times are lean. Why do we say that? Men also prefer larger breasts when they are hungry, and other studies show men prefer fatter women when they are stressed. All of this is in the aggregate of course—many individual wealthy men prefer large breasts.

Wealthy men also appear to have a strong preference for androgynous characteristics. While the financially insecure may be optimizing for the survivability of their partners (through fat stores), the financially secure may be optimizing for the number of kids they can still get out of their partners (youth), which is often signaled by androgyny. There may be more at play, however: A man who feels insecure about his position in the world may have a much stronger preference for a woman showing heavily gendered traits who would reinforce his position as the masculine breadwinner. A man craving masculine validation would find the “bimbo social archetype” very attractive indeed, whereas a man who feels more secure about his place in the world is more likely to look for traits in a female partner that are more commonly associated with strength, intelligence, and practicality.

Now that we think about it, every major male fashion trend that started among less financially secure communities that we can think of emphasizes masculinity (consider blue jeans, hip hop style, and gang-inspired styles), whereas most fashion trends that started among wealthier groups (aside from those that merely copied martial styles) emphasize more feminine/androgynous traits in men (think of the dandies of the Regency era or emo styles for something more modern).

Moreover, society features heavily ingrained tropes emphasizing that poorer men (e.g., construction workers) are more masculine while wealthier men (e.g., heirs) are more effeminate. Perhaps these patterns, along with the trends described above, are two pieces of a puzzle that we have not yet put together—the answer is on the tips of our tongues. It cannot be as simple as wealthy men just feeling more secure in their sexuality; there must be something bigger going on here. We would say it might be a downregulation of testosterone among men once their bodies decide they do not “need it” to secure mates, making the ideal of the social archetype of the ideal wealthy man less masculine, but we know that unemployment causes a lowering of testosterone, as does feeling like your position in society is lower, so the inverse is happening. What could it be???

The Difficult Male Market

While women may feel as though they are subjected to unreasonable standards of beauty, men are actually much more likely to be rated as unattractive. A whopping 80% of men are rated as having below-average attractiveness by women (contrast this with men who only see 50% of women as below-average attractiveness), this really sucks seeing as women will score men’s personalities as consummate with their looks (back when OkCupid had separate scoring metrics for looks and personality, it found that people almost always had the same score for each). Companies like DateHookup found similar results. This troublesome connection between perceived personality and attractiveness is caused by something called the halo effect, which affects perceptions of both men and women, but affects men more negatively, as women on average rate much higher on attractiveness than men do. Fortunately, studies make it clear all is not lost: Men can improve their attractiveness by maintaining good hygiene and building muscle.

Ethnicity

There’s no dancing around the fact that ethnicity/race significantly influences partner choice. We debated including this section because talking about racism is always a potential minefield but decided that ignoring it and pretending it has no effect dating is infinitely worse. (Note: While we took our data from a few sources for this section, most of it comes from an analysis of around a million OkCupid users in the USA from way back in 2009. So the data primarily is looking at who messages who on dating apps and how likely they were to write back when messaged.)

If you are a man, being anything other than white, Pacific Islander, or Native American significantly negatively affects how likely women are to respond to your online advances. In OkCupid’s dataset, women were far more racially motivated in their dating practices than men.

If you are a female, men will reply to your advances at about equal rates regardless of your ethnicity—unless you are a Black female, in which case they are less likely to by a fairly large margin. Even Black males were less likely to respond to a message from a Black female than a female of any other ethnicity—similarly, Black females were less likely to respond to Black males than they were to any other ethnicity (again, this is all according to these old OkCupid results so there may have been some selection bias in the data set).[[8]](#_ftn8) What makes this even more striking is that despite replying to them at lower rates, Black women found Black men more attractive than other ethnicities (according to an OkCupid rating of attractiveness from a similar time).

Some other interesting things to note:

Let’s be clear—there is no such thing as an “inherently hot” ethnicity. Instead, these preferences are a product of socialization and societal racism. How can we say that so confidently? Were certain ethnicities inherently more attractive, we would not expect only one ethnicity to prefer mates of other ethnicities. Even if only one ethnicity preferred mates of other ethnicities, it would just be way too much of a coincidence if this group also happened to face the most prejudice within our society. As to why Black Americans message other Black Americans back at lower rates: Large scale systematic racism in America and the effects it can have on internalized racism aligns with other famous studies, such as Dr. Kenneth Clark’s “doll experiment,” in which Black toddlers were found to preferentially chose white dolls to play with back in the 1940s. It is just sad to see this bias so alive and well within today’s dating markets. We suppose it is not a surprise to most Americans that prejudice is prevalent enough in our country to significantly influence dating preferences.

All that said, if socialization is the mechanism of action, we would be keen to know why women appear to be socialized differently than men in this instance. Why are women showing a racist predilection against all non-whites, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans, whereas men only show a strong racist predilection against Blacks? These preferences may be driven by the manner in which our culture associates the concept of masculinity or femininity with certain ethnicities. Alternatively these preferences could be tied to a trend we noticed in the studies we conducted for The Pragmatist’s Guide to Sexuality. Female participants in our research reported consuming less erotic art featuring disadvantaged groups—specifically material featuring overweight individuals of the opposite gender (f2%, m21%), older individuals (f34%, m48%), or poor people of the opposite gender (f18%, m23%). Your first thought may be that women merely consume less diverse sexual material, but when romance novels and erotic fanfiction is included in the data set, such is not the case. We can only speculate on why this pattern exists (and is, confusingly, not observed in the consumption of interracial porn (f35%, m36%)).

Stoicism

Stoicism has become a popular philosophy among online groups tangential to the pick-up artist world, such as the Red Pill community. We find this ironic, as while research does show stoicism helps in securing long-term female partners, it also suggests that stoicism doesn’t help in obtaining sex.

Specifically, one study that had men signal stoicism by working despite being in poor health found that women find stoic partners more attractive, but only as potential long-term partners. Stoicism in this study did not appear to affect short-term attractiveness ratings.

Intelligence Differentials

Studies show that men prefer women who are less intelligent than they are. Some researchers have hypothesized that this is due to an assumption that such women would be more financially dependent on their partners (i.e., will be unemployed) and thus will have more time to raise a family and run a household.

We think it is much more likely that the team didn’t properly control for the wealth of its participants and that if it were to only look at wealthy men, interest in a relatively less intelligent female partner would be far weaker. According to the data we collected as research for The Pragmatist’s Guide to Sexuality, wealthy men do indeed prefer intelligent women. Preference for lower female intelligence could also reflect societal constructs that devalue relationships in which the female partner is “better” than the male partner.

Smells

While there are all sorts of interesting studies exploring smell and attraction, one of the most famous findings is that females prefer the smell of shirts worn by men with symmetrical faces (another trait tied to attractiveness) and the more fertile the women were at the time of the study, the more they preferred those shirts. This is one of those effects that is backed up by a cluster of research and healthy replication.

The Closing Time Effect

The Closing Time Effect refers to the phenomenon in which individuals begin to perceive the opposite gender as being more attractive as it gets later into the night. Further studies on this dynamic have nailed it down a bit more: The Closing Time Effect only works on pictures of the opposite gender. The effect does not appear among people in relationships, nor is it caused by alcohol. The effect is stronger in males and appears to make pictures of attractive people more attractive while making pictures of ugly people even less attractive. This effect means that if you are hot, your odds may improve later in the night, but if you are unattractive, your odds may decrease later in the night.

Heavy Breathing Sounds

If you put headphones on someone’s head that are playing heavy breathing sounds, they will (on average) rate individuals they are looking at to be more attractive. We are frankly not sure how to use heavy breathing sounds to boost perceived attractiveness outside of chatting someone up while they happen to be listening to audio with heavy breathing sounds, but what this finding might suggest is that relaxed, more focused states increase perceived attractiveness. It could be that heavy breathing sounds compelled research participants to focus on their own breaths and begin relaxing. (Now I am giggling imagining someone reading this book and walking up their crush breathing heavily while asking them out.)

Personality Traits Tied to Looks

Studies have shown certain personality traits to be associated with facial “looks” (a study participant can guess certain elements of a person’s personality at a rate above chance just by looking at pictures of their face). People find faces to be more attractive if they also find the personality set a stranger would associate with those faces to be more attractive. For example, if you are attracted to nerdy personalities, you will also be more attracted to those with nerdy-looking faces.

This might seem obvious, but it has pretty severe implications for people attempting to maximize their own attractiveness. Specifically, those born with facial features associated with a specific trope will be somewhat locked into “playing that trope,” assuming they want to maximize how hot others find them in aggregate (as opposed to appealing to a specific individual). We wonder if this could also be applied to makeup tutorials. People might be able to better target specific individuals by emphasizing facial features associated with personalities they like.

The Pratfall Effect

We love this one: The Pratfall Effect describes how people find high-value partners who make mistakes to be more attractive. If you are super clumsy but not otherwise high value and attractive, put back that bottle of champagne—this effect only works for people who are perceived to be otherwise attractive and competent.

For example, if a hot Stanford post-grad trips, your average person will find him/her more attractive, while if an attractive hobo trips, your average person will think less of him/her (observers also think less of people they rate as having middling value). In both cases, the effect is increased if someone berates them for their screw up (e.g., the observer will think even more of the Stanford post-grad and even less of the hobo if they see them trip and subsequently see them being berated).

This effect is much stronger in the way men perceive female attractiveness than in the way females perceive male attractiveness. This must contribute to the perpetual archetype of the clumsy female scientist sex interest. At any rate, this would be a great trope to play up when dating—if you can pull it off.

The Kawaii Effect

There is an emotional state for which no English word exists that is useful to understand in order to fully take advantage of the way our partners emotionally process time spent together. The closest English words we have for this emotional state are “squee” or “cute”—but each of these words is often used in other circumstances, making them not really useful here. The most accurate word describing it is “kawaii,” which is Japanese for lovable/cute/adorable.

When you have a strong emotional attachment to someone, things they do that are slightly unusual and quirky—but characteristic of them—create a very strong, short burst of positive emotional reaction. TV shows will often attempt to tap into this by granting a few token “quirks” to characters, like having them put their hands to their chin when saying something, sitting in a weird way, playing with scissors, or talking in an odd pattern.

The interesting thing about this emotional reaction is that it inverts when a relationship is going poorly or, in the case of media, if you do not find a character endearing. Things that elicit this squee reaction when you have a strong romantic attachment to someone will elicit an equally strong negative reaction that feels like annoyed disdain.

This effect is one of the core reasons why it is difficult to turn a negative relationship positive. Each day around someone you hate makes you hate them more. However, this dynamic also gives you an easy way to maximize the positive emotional state felt by people who like you.

Protean Signals

Proteans are subtle, subconscious flirting signals. A classic example would involve a woman touching her hair when first meeting a man. Before regarding these signals as surefire signs of interest, consider that one study observed that (in general) women tend to exhibit these behaviors when they first interact with a stranger, and that these signals only become indicative of true attraction after a prolonged period of interaction.

Still, if you really want to try to learn these and related nuanced signals of interest, such as behavior mirroring, go for it. We will only mention them as an area of potential further research for you, as we believe they are too subtle and not statistically relevant enough to be genuinely effective in seduction play.

Friends and Groups

This classic tactic is statistically proven to work: If you surround yourself with less attractive people, you will look more attractive. Another related effect, “the cheerleader effect,” causes people to see individuals as more attractive when part of a group.

Use of Metaphoric Language

Women find men more physically attractive after the men have paid a compliment, either to the female’s possessions or appearance, using metaphoric language (as opposed to literal language). In other words, it makes a man more attractive to say: “You have the elegance of a ballerina” but not: “You look elegant.”

The positive effect of metaphoric compliments appears to be stronger when the compliment is paid to a woman’s appearance as opposed to her possessions. Interestingly, compliments on appearance using novel metaphors were preferred by women in a relationship during the fertile phase, but by single women during the luteal phase (when a woman is infertile). In The Pragmatist’s Guide to Sexuality, we discuss how a woman’s ovulatory cycle affects her arousal patterns and what we might be able to learn about early human mating habits from this in detail.

Waist-to-Hip and Chest-To-Waist Ratios

A woman’s waist-to-hip ratio and a man’s chest-to-waist ratio, with a lower ratio being better in both cases, is a key determinant of attractiveness. You can, therefore, make a significant positive impact on your attractiveness by altering these ratios, either through clothing, weight loss, and/or strategic muscle development.

Notes from the Research:

Motivating Yourself

T

he hardest part of securing a mate, be it for sex or a long-term relationship, is working up the motivation required to get out there and reach out to people when every single interaction you initiate bears a risk of rejection and thus to some extent invalidation of your self-worth. This invalidation of one’s self-worth is incredibly painful and yet an inevitable part of dating. There are a number of mechanisms that make putting yourself on various markets easier, which we will explore in-depth below.

Realistic Expectation Setting

One reason why rejection hurts people so much is that they have totally delusional expectations regarding how much dating is actually required to secure a high-value partner. We have met many women in their thirties who want to find a husband and complain about not finding a good partner—and yet they only go on one date every couple of weeks. This is akin to someone sending out one job application every couple of weeks and not understanding why they are still unemployed.

Even crazier, we have heard some claim that they tried active dating—dating in which they hunted for partners and initiated interactions, typically on online dating websites—but stopped because they had a few bad experiences and are now just waiting for someone to find them randomly. This is akin to giving up on a job search after a few bad interviews, concluding that the “right” / good boss will scout them randomly. Sure, such instances are possible, but we would hardly bet our entire futures on the initiative of a complete stranger who may or may not have means of discovering us.

Dating with the intention of finding a well-matched, healthy, long-term relationship is not naturally fun. This sort of dating is a job. Dating just enough to find the experience of dating itself pleasant is like being a professional author who only writes when they fancy writing—rather than to meet a deadline for publishing a book. Sure, dating—and writing—are sometimes loads of fun, but if you really plan to complete a complex project, be it finding the right partner for your entire life or finishing a book, you must come to terms with the fact that sometimes, you simply must push through.

If you are looking for a high-quality, long-term relationship, aim to go on at least four dates a week and expect the search to last for (at least) two years. Before meeting Simone, Malcolm went on five dates a week for three years. If that sounds difficult, improve your time management skills. Learn how to manage back-to-back dates. Carefully budget and schedule your time. Manage partners with a CRM system (we personally use Streak; it works with Gmail and offers a powerful free version that integrates directly into your inbox). We inhabit the 21st century and must play by its rules to win. If you want to find the best possible match in your geographic region, you must process people at scale with the assistance of technology.

Don’t expect to fish for a partner; hunt for one. If you must fish, do so with dynamite.

Speedy rejection of suboptimal candidates plays a critical role in helping you achieve the level of throughput necessary to find an optimal partner. Don’t waste a third date on a prospect that you know to not be marriage material if your goal is to find a husband or wife.

If you are a male looking for sex, expect a one-in-one-hundred payout when you are inexperienced (i.e., for every 100 targets contacted, you should expect rejection from 99). Once you become experienced, you can easily get this number down to one in four, which is about the success rate an inexperienced woman looking for sex should expect.

If you are a woman targeting women, note that your success rate will drop to nearer to that of a man targeting a woman with the same experience but till a bit better (25 failures for every one success). With time, this success rate will slowly ramp up, hopefully easing into one-in-four odds. (This often comes as a shock to women who try the poly scene if they are used to only dating men.)

If you cannot deal with the fact that regular sex with new (unpaid) partners will require thousands of rejections, work on your self-esteem before you burden the sex market with your emotional baggage.

Leveraging Point-Based Motivational Systems

Simone used two point-based systems while dating to make the disagreeable process somewhat more palatable. One point-based system leveraged competition with peers to motivate her to get out and date; the other helped her cull suboptimal candidates.

For the first, Simone created a scoreboard at her workplace in which she and other single-and-dating colleagues marked and tallied up points (won for various dating achievements such as a first date, a date lasting longer than four hours, a second date, etc.) and competed to get the highest score. While Simone rarely wanted to head out on a date, she did want to win, so in many cases that scoreboard made all the difference.

Point-based systems designed for dating motivation should be tailored to reward you for finding what you are looking for; however, they also need to reward you for the negative inevitabilities of dating. You should win points for rejection, particularly bad dates, and dumping someone just as much you should win points for scoring a second date with someone you really like. These systems will make the negative aspects of dating sting less and thus encourage you to expose yourself to rejection in ways you would never otherwise consider.

The points-based system Simone used to determine whether someone was or was not worth a second date involved five questions, each of which would be given a score of 1-10:

Anyone scoring above 35 out of 50 is a viable candidate. Anyone scoring under 20 is a clear “next.” People who yield middling scores might be worth further investigation, but only with an extremely critical eye.

You may decide to use different criteria. The important thing is that you carefully, intentionally, and consciously evaluate each target and drop those that are clearly not worth your time. When you hesitate to pass over a sub-optimal match, perhaps not wanting to hurt someone and/or their feelings, keep in mind that by failing to reject someone in an act of cowardice, you are not only wasting your own very limited time but also wasting theirs.

Leveraging Social Reinforcement

If you still struggle to go out and meet people but know you need to, focus on social reinforcement strategies. You may, for example, agree to report your progress to a friend every week (or hire someone on Upwork to demand weekly reports). Tell this person your goals and promise to call them once a week to report in on your progress towards achieving them. Even though this person may be a total stranger, your promised action (combined with how stupid you would feel paying a stranger for nothing, should you decide to hire someone) will create enough cognitive dissonance to get even the most gigantic coward out on the market (we say this having been terrible dating cowards when we first started on our individual quests).

Getting Back On the Market

So you got dumped. So you are going through a divorce. So your partner died. You loved this person and they were a huge part of your identity. How long is it appropriate for you to stay off the market?

Most relationship advisors treat people going through these tough times with kid gloves, recommending time for grief and other emotional indulgences. Pragmatists acknowledge that emotions can present important signals that should be felt and acknowledged. Pragmatists also accept that emotions result from scars on our cognition left by evolutionary pressures that may not align with our goals. Emotions should never be in the driver’s seat of your mind. Using emotions to justify strategically poor actions is the height of narcissistic degeneracy. Keep our perspective and biases in mind while digesting our advice.

With that said, the best time to get back on the market is fairly obvious: You should stay off the market no longer than the minimum socially acceptable length of time within your societal context.

Gauge what your peers would accept as a respectable cooling off or mourning period (ignoring, of course, the one stick-in-the-mud who insists you should live in mourning forever) and mark the end of this period in your calendar. The day your mourning period ends is the day your new dating campaign should launch.

Plan your dating campaign in private while waiting for its official launch date. Prepare your dating profile content and photos if online dating will be part of your strategy (though do not bring it live). Should you turn to a matchmaking service for help, pour over reviews and pull a few anonymous quotes so that you can engage the service the moment it is appropriate. Get in shape. Focus on bringing yourself to a state of tip-top mental and physical health. Refresh your wardrobe. Binge on YouTube videos offering male or female grooming tips to see if your hygiene and preening habits need a refresh. Consider organizing a party or celebration on your campaign’s launch date to make things fun (if you are embarrassed, you don’t have to tell friends why you are celebrating).

If you have trouble moving past the loss of a partner, it is likely because you incorporated a relationship with them into your self-image. This is not something that will change on its own; you must actively change your self-image to release this person’s hold on you. Chapter three of The Pragmatist’s Guide to Life addresses this topic in detail. Do not waste your life consumed with negative emotions that lead to inaction—this is not what a dead partner would want for your life, assuming they were worthy of your devotion in the first place. Endlessly mourning a lost partner will only extend the negative emotions associated with the loss of this partner.

Breakups: A Guide

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n ability to break up with suboptimal partners early plays a crucial role in the process of finding a good lifelong partner. While there are many societal conventions about the best way to break up with someone, these only matter in so far as they apply to any negative, stigma-related blowback you may get for breaking these social conventions (being villainized by breaking up with someone via text, for example).

Pragmatically speaking, there are only three factors to consider when selecting a breakup method:

  1. How and for how long will the breakup affect your partner
  2. How and for how long will the breakup affect you
  3. Whether the method you are choosing will be so emotionally difficult to execute that it will significantly delay the breakup (even a cruel but easy method, like ghosting a partner, is better than staying in a bad relationship you know you plan to end because you cannot bear the emotional pain of breaking up through a conversation)

Your goal when choosing a breakup method should be to leverage knowledge of you and your partner to choose the method that minimizes suffering and maximizes the recovery speed of all partners involved.

High Taxation Breakup Methods

High-taxation breakup methods are best for those with a strong, healthy relationship, a partner they care about, and a high level of emotional self-control.

These methods include:

In The Public Breakup, you take your partner to a public place because you fear they may freak out or try to forcibly extend the length of the conversation. Focus on public places tied to fairly short sitting times, so you won’t have to stay at for a long time to finish the breakup. For example, you may take your partner to a coffee shop where payment for drinks is made upfront instead of a restaurant that typically serves five-course meals. Also consider public places that evoke emotions likely to prevent your partner from fully engaging in the breakup as it is happening (such as a rollercoaster ride), which can take the emotional edge off things… or make the situation worse, depending on their personality.

The Let’s Stay Friends Breakup is the “best-case scenario” breakup and the default choice for anyone who is emotionally mature and cares about you. A good breakup—like a good firing—is one that the person should see coming from a mile away. A good breakup will not spring out of nowhere.

In this method, during normal hangout time (e.g., going grocery shopping, cooking dinner, etc.) you casually tell your partner that you do not think there is a future together, but that you like them as a person, and that you want to end the sexual aspect of your relationship, but are happy to help them secure their next partner. Yes, this might sound weird, but nothing does a better job of lowering the resentment of a breakup than quickly and successfully setting an ex up with someone new. Securing an immediate rebound for your exes has the side benefit of preventing them from obsessing over you.

If you are afraid that the person will not stay friends with you after the breakup (or vice versa) your fear may have a strong foundation. The reality is many people only take the time necessary to maintain the burden of friendship with someone because they get an externality from the interaction like sex or status. If you don’t stay friends without the externality added, you almost certainly would have made terrible long-term partners so it is odd that this fear could prevent a breakup.

The Slow Ghost Breakup is the best breakup method for partners with whom you are not particularly close to, but with whom you occasionally have sex. Such breakups involve slowly increasing the time between any rendezvous (maybe delay one for a couple weeks, then push the next back a couple weeks, and finally just call it off). The Slow Ghost Breakup method is nice because it allows you to dump a partner without their actually realizing what is happening or feeling like they are definitely being dumped until long after the dumping really happened, which significantly blunts the emotional impact (depending on the ex’s personality and level of obsession with you).

A slow ghost is totally different from ghosting someone. In a slow ghost, the target rarely is that close to you to begin with and becomes acclimated to only hearing from you maybe once a month before you cut off communication entirely. Ghosting involves quitting, cold turkey, someone you are seeing a few times a week—the emotional impact of the two is not remotely comparable.

Low-Taxation Breakup Methods

These breakup methods are best utilized in three scenarios:

  1. You find yourself delaying the breakup because you lack the emotional maturity and willpower necessary to go through with it.
  2. You expect your partner to become violent, but quickly calm down during the breakup (if you expect a partner to become violent and hunt you down after a breakup, consult a professional before doing ANYTHING).
  3. You expect your partner to attempt to manipulate, coerce, or otherwise persuade you not to break up with them when you attempt to do so. While a partner who loves you might do this, one who cares about you never would.

A very common low-taxation method involves ghosting: Just blocking the other person and removing methods of contact, hoping they get the message. We generally advise against this method because it can be too vague—especially if your partner is a little obsessive (it can lead to their hunting in manners that are at best not fun and at worst extremely dangerous). Worse still, ghosting might lead an ex to think you are in danger or are having an emotional breakdown, which may lead them to rope in friends, family, or even the police to help. A ghosted ex would be completely justified in doing this. When someone you see on a regular basis just disappears or changes behavior patterns out of nowhere, the correct response is to try to help them. This method can be emotionally easy in the short run, but it typically causes more pain than the saved emotional weight of the breakup is worth.

Even more common among low-taxation breakup methods involves breaking up via text (or email, letter, voicemail, etc.). In this method, you deliver a clear, concise breakup to your partner in a way that does not require you to see the pain in their face or hear the hurt in their voice when they internalize the news. This method furthermore removes any serious risk of debate and is excellent if you feel like you would ultimately talk yourself out of a breakup if forced to do so through a live conversation.

Breakup Traps

There are a few things to avoid when breaking up:

  1. Do not leave any doubt about whether or not you are actually breaking up with someone.
  2. Do not say specifically why you are breaking up, especially if it is something a partner can leverage to turn your breakup into a negotiation (e.g., “you have not been nice to me lately,” can incite the response, “I am sorry; I have been stressed lately and will start being nice from now on.”) Such negotiations can turn you into the bad guy for not giving them the chance to fix their behavior after being alerted to it.
  3. Never tell someone you are leaving them for someone else (unless you are breaking up with an emotionally mature partner with whom you want to stay friends). This may cause your ex-partner’s anger to be unfairly directed at your new partner.
  4. If you genuinely plan to stay friends, set your next meeting as friends during the breakup. Should you fail to do so, it can be too emotionally taxing to set a time to meet up later, which creates tedious “it’s been so long, it would be weird now” situations.

If you are a woman and find breakups to be uniquely painful, take solace in this: Research has found that while women experience more short-term physical and emotional pain after a breakup, they tend to recover faster and more fully.

Sometimes breakups are not as clean as one would like; this is OK. One study found that 25% of participants had sex with recent exes. Counterintuitively, this ex sex did not seem to have any harmful psychological effects or increase distress about the breakup, even though you might assume that post-breakup coitus would make it difficult to get over the split.

Conclusion

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ow that you have thoroughly perused our “mental library” on relationships, had some pre-existing ideas challenged, and maybe even become a little (or extremely) offended, it is time to wrap things up. The conclusion to this book will give you a peek into our lives with an emphasis on the things that people normally do not share and examples of how a unique relationship model can be crafted using two individuals’ personal ideologies. As such, it will also give you a peek into our larger ideological agenda.

A relationship is a living manifestation of its participants’ combined beliefs and ideologies. It is impossible to discuss a long-term relationship without discussing what the partners want from their lives and why. Opening up about this kind of stuff obviously puts us in quite a vulnerable position vis a vis our readers, but we think this is a helpful exercise and appreciate your getting this far.

We have what would be called a “Goal-Oriented Relationship.” This means everything about the way we structure our relationship is designed around hacking the human condition in pursuit of a shared goal: A fight against the loss of sentience.

Humans evolved to be able to communicate ideas with other humans, test them, and move forward with the best ideas, be they philosophical, scientific, religious, or about relationships. This ability lies at the very core of sentience. It is why our consciousness exists at all. Dogs feel sadness, joy, and love, but only humans (so far as we know today) can test one idea received from another individual against those they already hold and independently and internally decide which is best.

Though humans evolved this brilliant sentience, they have yet to evolve the necessary mental capacity to prevent simple thought viruses from quickly spreading throughout populations. These viruses have existed since the first cities were founded, but now, with our increased interconnection as a species, they have amassed virulence and volume they have capable of destroying a person’s very ability to consider competing thoughts, leaving the individual nothing but a ghoulish husk stumbling through life on autopilot.

The miasma of idealism and tribalism spreading through our species’ collective consciousness is suffocating sentience—smothering people’s ability to consider new ideas. The effects of this pall upon the human condition are evident to anyone who is willing to take an honest look at the world. We are not the only ones who can see this creeping fog snuffing out sentience; we just seem to be the only ones who see it and do not presume the solution to this threat involves their own team’s memetic set, an idea that only exacerbates the problem. They tell us:

“The cure for bigotry is political correctness.”

“The cure for liberalism is conservatism.”

“The cure for religious extremism is Rationalism.”

“The cure for social justice warriorism is the Red Pill.”

We have become a society that attempts to immunize itself against memetic viruses with even more virulent strains of other viruses. Like ants infected with the mind-controlling fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, a fungus that eats their brain while leading them to climb to a high leaf to spread the deadly spores as far as possible, once a human has lost the capacity for free thought—the capacity to entertain new ideas that conflict with what they already believe—the virus that has erased their sentience compels them to broadcast itself in any way possible, whether it be via YouTube, reddit, or in a university lecture hall.

When challenged, these viruses drive their hosts, chittering husks of wasted human potential, to mindlessly attack those expressing opposing views like a shrieking zombie. The internet gives these attacks the ability to sting. Should you dare to say something that challenges any of the world’s various mental zombie hordes, you may find yourself living through an uncannily-cinematic nightmare as one of the horde spots you, shrieks, and begins the chase, thereby rallying others nearby to create a deadly mob entirely focused on your destruction.

While there is no personal benefit to be gained from fighting back against the tide, there are vast fortunes to be won by giving in and allowing one’s free will to be swept up in exchange for the validation of a powerful tribe. If you think there is some intelligent cabal of global elite that lives free of this infection, you are dead wrong. From Stanford’s Graduate School of Business to the University of Cambridge’s historic halls, invite-only venture capital events in Silicon Valley, secret societies made famous by conspiracy theorists (that we contractually can’t mention by name), secret political fundraising parties, and almost every bastion of elite culture—liberal or conservative—we have seen nobody more constrained in their thought than those who have risen highest, perhaps because they are the biggest targets and experience the greatest pressure to conform. There is no backup plan that elites have for the world. There is no association of wealthy billionaires with machinations in place to set things right. Without concerted intervention from normal people, sentience will be snuffed from existence by tribalism.

In biology, viruses can be used as vectors. You can insert DNA you want to deliver to a patient into a virus so that the virus can rewrite the way the patient’s cells work. We believe The Pragmatist Framework is the “DNA fix,” as it were, that the human brain needs to maintain sentience in the face of the unfurling mental pestilence.

Given our shared ideological vision and deep concern about humanity losing sentience, you may now better understand our chosen relationship style as well as our motivation to write these books (to promote a framework for approaching ideas and challenges that is uncorrupted by tribalism).

All this is to say that relationships can be so much more than an accessory in your life that helps you secure various baubles, be they children, career advancement, happiness, personal validation, social status, company, sex, safety, or financial security. A relationship can enable you not only to achieve feats unfathomably out of reach to individuals but also to become so much more than yourself. By using relationships to step out of a personal identity and into that of a marriage, family, clan, dynasty, or diaspora, you can transcend space and time in ways that even immortals would envy.

We would also be happy to help you build your own goal-oriented relationship. Tell us what you want from life, as well as whether you want a monogamous or non-monogamous relationship, and we will connect you with any other readers who have a similar vision and lifestyle preference (assuming we know or have been similarly contacted by a good match—it’s doubtful, but we will give it a shot because you took the time to read this far).

If you want to make our day, please take the time to write an Amazon review. Reviews make it profoundly easier for us to share this book with a larger audience. New ideas are rare, and people open themselves to attack by sharing them, so novel ideas rarely spread without help. Please help us share fresh concepts and perspectives by—through your review—granting the social validation required to open more people’s minds.

Appendix

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s most authors do, we ended up discarding about three out of every four chapters of this book’s unpublished manuscript. Some chapters and subchapters that ultimately made the cut are either relevant only to a sliver of the book’s audience or incredibly boring (but comprised of critical scaffolding behind Pragmatist relationship theory). This content was moved to the appendix and organized in the order in which it would have appeared in the book.

The first few appendices present “quick start guides” focused on specific goals or life stages (think of them as alternative intros to the book for targeted audiences that want specific questions answered). These are followed by appendices containing more detail on certain subjects addressed in the book’s main chapters.

How to “Get Laid” as a Young Adult

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he strategies that help a 40-year-old man pick up partners in a bar are not going to work for a senior in high school, and yet most of the people writing books on “how to get laid” are writing about the strategies they use and developed as adults.

Many of those reading books on sexual strategy are engaging with the idea of dating and sex for the first time. The sexual strategies optimal for a virgin with little life experience (who is likely targeting fellow romantic and sexual novices) are totally divorced from the strategies that are appropriate for a grizzled pick-up artist.

This chapter is explicitly written for individuals who are:

If you are over 25, have more sexual experience, or are targeting people much older than yourself for sex, this chapter will have zero relevance to you; turn instead to the chapter on Lures on page 23.

While dating and sex are fairly easy to obtain when you have the process down, not having perfected the process on your own in no way indicates a lack of intelligence. In fact, while studies show that intelligent people have higher libidos, studies also show they have sex at lower rates and start later in life (well, maybe, some studies have shown it is actually scholastic achievement and not intelligence that negatively correlated with time of first sexual encounter, but the two-track moderately well).

IMPORTANT: As this section is written specifically for younger individuals, we have a few upfront warnings:

  1. Understand the age-of-consent laws in your state and all neighboring states. Depending on the state, these laws can be extremely counterintuitive. In some states, a couple may be dating and legally allowed to have sex one minute, but then after the stroke of midnight on one of their birthdays, sex between them legally becomes rape, only to become legal again a few months later when the second party’s legally relevant birthday comes around. Do not screw with these laws no matter how “in love” you are with someone. We understand that every opportunity to have sex when you are young feels like a once-in-a-lifetime thing, trust us when we say there will be plenty of other opportunities and the risk often is not worth the fleeting reward.
  2. Check out the laws related to pornography in your state. In some states, you can legally have sex with your boyfriend at certain ages, but if he sends you a photo of himself naked, you can now be charged with child pornography, and he can be charged with the distribution of child pornography. At these ages, knowledge of the laws in your home state and states you have visited is almost as critical as a solid understanding of birth control and STI transmission.
  3. People will tell you to avoid crazy partners. Don’t take this warning lightly. Even if you use protection with a woman who happens to be unstable and she takes your condom from the trash and uses it to get pregnant, you are still legally 100% responsible for that baby. In the same vein, getting an effective restraining order against a guy you thought was just a pity date can be very hard and take a long time.
  4. Consent is a concept well worth understanding, but it is somewhat inherent to the strategy presented in this chapter (for obvious reasons). How you (and society, for that matter) define consent is irrelevant. What matters is how the law defines consent in your state, how your local college rules define consent, and most importantly, how your partner defines consent. Make sure you speak with any potential sexual partner about this concept. As a bonus, a philosophical discussion with someone about the topic of consent presents a great way to pick up on hints that they may be interested in you sexually—but more on that later.
  5. Exercise basic sanity when it comes to dating. Don’t get in a strangers car, don’t go to an isolated place that someone else has chosen on a first date, don’t get intoxicated around people you do not know well, don’t let someone else mix your drink, don’t give someone any picture of you they could blackmail you with, etc.
  6. If you are in this age range and thinking of trying to seduce a partner more than five years older than you . . . don’t. It doesn’t matter how relatively mature you are. If that person is responsible and mature, they will turn you down, which means you will only have a chance at success if that person is a danger to you. Dating older people at a young age filters out people who aren’t “crazy,” dangerous, or predatory.
  7. We generally don’t discuss topics to which we have nothing unique to add; hence, we won’t be discussing things like safe sex, how to have sex as a virgin, how to have anal if you haven’t tried it, how to give a blow job, etc. Suffice to say this is one of those things in life where you can’t just “wing it” from what you have seen on TV or in porn. Google how-tos on the above topics if you plan to try them, definitely Google safe sex even if you don’t plan on having sex, and if you do end up having sex use a condom.
  8. If you are a creep trying to use this section to pick up people in college or for other nefarious purposes, it won’t work. We would not publish any advice that we thought could be leveraged by older people looking to sexually engage younger or even underage individuals. The techniques discussed in this section are specifically designed for individuals who are both sexually inexperienced and still discovering who they are as a person—they will be clunky and ineffective for someone with significant life experience. They also focus on high throughput approaches, so they are way more likely to get you caught and publicly exposed.

It pains us to even remember dating in our younger years. Some of what we say about our youth could be used against us in the future. Worse, this section in general is quite sensitive as a topic, but having been there and done that without a guide, we feel the benefits of this information to others outweigh the costs associated with sharing it. A large portion of the population is going to start looking to experience sex starting around the age of 18. This is particularly true because our society ties so much of a young person’s self-worth to their ability to secure sexual partners (or at least the sexual interest of others). Allowing young adults to figure this stuff out on their own or copy techniques not appropriate for their age range is likely to lead to tragic results.

It really is crazy that we would risk our reputation by including such a potentially perilous chapter in our book, but slightly less crazy than the fact that good guides for this stuff don’t exist. We are not black and white people. We understand that putting this kind of information out in the world could lead an individual to try something sexual before they are ready. Even with that sobering fact in mind, the research is pretty clear: Pretending that people in late high school and college are not sexual beings leads to much higher rates of teen pregnancy, higher transmission of STDs, and lower psychological wellbeing.

It is all well and good to teach young guys they must respect consent, but teaching young men about consent without teaching them how to get what they want while still respecting consent will lead a portion of the population to disregard consent entirely. It is great to teach young women to demand their partners wear condoms, but should they not understand the market dynamics for men and women their age and lack crucial communication tools, many first-timers will cave when their boyfriends say they don’t like using them.

That’s one of the core tenets of Pragmatism: Accepting the world as it is. While the trend appears to decrease in lockstep with sexual education, between 40%-60% of people, have sex before they graduate high school (studies and countries yield varying results typically in that range). Failure to provide young men and women with a guide on this subject may lead some to reinvent the wheel in unpredictable ways out of desperation—or source seduction advice from sexually frustrated 30-year-old pick-up artists that really only works well for those picking up drunk chicks at bars.

What makes the sexual strategies appropriate for people at the start of their journey so different from those who are further along?

Someone in their mid-thirties attempting to seduce their preferred gender is largely playing a game of arousal. Their goal is to get someone aroused enough that this emotion overcomes their better judgment. This is categorically not the case when you are young. When both partners are still sexually inexperienced, getting someone to the point at which they are willing to sexually experiment is a game of inspiring vulnerability through the creation of a personal connection and an environment of safety and genuine trust. This is true regardless of gender or sexual orientation and explains why strategies developed by middle-aged people for middle-aged people, like those pushed by pick-up artist communities, are so clunky and dangerous for young adults to implement. Using pick-up artist strategies for sexual novices is akin to using a guide to playing soccer to a game of basketball merely because both games use balls and nets.

If you are at an age where you are just beginning to experiment with your own sexuality, many of your peers have not yet passed that threshold. Once you recognize this in an individual, they should be taken totally out of consideration without even the slightest hint of hesitation. Sexually engaging with someone who may not be ready is just not worth the risk.

This does not mean that next week the prospective partner who you wrote off because you thought they were not ready won’t make a terrible decision to move ahead with someone else before they are ready in an act of poor judgment (e.g., they were drunk and a popular classmate was hitting on them), but even if they do, that type of sexual experience is not the type with which you want to be associated. The not-quite-ready person will likely regret the experience. We can’t emphasize how much you won’t want to be a part of that terrible memory.

This caveat highlights another core deviation between sex as a youth and sex as an adult: Assuming a position in someone’s Hall of Regrettable Decisions after a drunken post-office-Christmas-party one-night stand is very different taking top billing in someone’s memories as their first sexual partner and having them regret it. That shit will haunt you for life. Many pick-up artist guides written by middle-aged men are like trail guides to a location that has since been sown with land mines that focus on all the types of pretty birds you will see on your hike If you actually care to navigate the region, first and foremost, you need a guide to how to not step on mines because those things will screw you up.

Because most seemingly eligible partners are not actually ready, securing sexual partners while young is also much more of a numbers game than it is in middle age. The game must be played far more conservatively because your hormones will be yelling at you to dash through any opening you think you might have. Just because a person doesn’t fight back, just because someone does not actively say stop, and just because you don’t “go all the way” doesn’t mean you are not raping another person. This is super hard to keep in mind when your hormones are at 130%. Sexually inexperienced people often suck at saying no and have a horrendous track record when it comes to speaking up the moment a boundary has been crossed. Any sexual strategy you implement needs to account for that.

Sexual strategies implemented while young should never feature a single target as a goal. There is no guide in the world that will teach you how to get the singer of your favorite band or that quirky girl who sits behind you in Spanish to sleep with you. Yes, there is always a possibility that things work out with that one person you have a crush on, but you are profoundly more likely to end up that creepy person who can’t pick up on the fact that this target has no interest in you.

While relationships at this age are fundamentally about finding people with whom you feel comfortable experimenting, keep in mind that it’s hard to open up to someone with weeping, popped blemishes on their face, bad smells, or overpowering perfumes emanating from their mouths/clothing/skin, or repugnant buildup on their teeth. Bathe daily. Go easy on the perfume (or skip it entirely, focusing on scent-free antiperspirants instead). Exercise daily. Practice good oral hygiene. Watch your weight. Wear clothes that fit you. (Despite what the ads tell you, perfumes and colognes statically do not help you get laid . . . well kind of. Studies show they do increase attractiveness of people wearing them both in person and in pictures, so it is not the smell that increases attractiveness but increased confidence.)

Should you have at least moderate social intelligence and cover your bases on the hygiene front, you will be in a strong strategic position, regardless of any extra hotness or popularity you may bring to the table. Should you still believe you are too objectionable for anyone to date, skip to: But Whatever I Do, Nothing Works on page 493.

Finally, we can dig into the details: You are young, you are inexperienced, and yet you are determined to have sex, and no one is going to talk you out of it. Where do you start? Step one toward becoming someone to whom others can open up involves honing your social skills and confidence in social situations to a sharp edge. You must learn to engage strangers in conversation effortlessly and without hesitation.

Engaging and Talking to People

The first ten people who turn you down won’t be turning you down for sex; they will be turning you down for a conversation because you either failed in your engagement strategy or at your “chat.” This is by far the hardest skill to master in the tree of skills that lead to sex. The easiest place to practice is through online engagement, but if you really want to push yourself, find a place with constantly cycling strangers and practice introducing yourself and engaging them in conversation (Malcolm used to do this on weekend trips to Boston, on the subway, or at a local mall).

DO NOT (we repeat: NOT) pick a familiar environment with a limited pool of people for practice (e.g., never do this with your classmates, co-workers, local hobby group, etc.).

Your goal in perfecting this skill is to get to a point at which you can walk up to a random stranger, engage them in conversation, and have that introduction and resulting conversation be smooth and compelling enough that 10% of the time this stranger is asking for your number (not the other way around). The goal is not to secure sex or a date, just to stay friends and continue chatting. Should you be practicing in an online context, try to get to 30%, as you won’t have the same drop off levels of people who sincerely have somewhere else to be.

This is emotionally hard to do. Talking to a stranger requires an enormous emotional hurdle. Learning to effortlessly clear that hurdle is the core purpose of this exercise. If you cannot clear that hurdle, remember: It is not really something you can’t do, it is something you won’t do—something you have chosen not to do because you don’t see the ultimate goal as being worth the pain. If you knew you would die in 30 minutes, if you didn’t engage someone, you would find a way to make it work. However, if someone gave you a choice between talking to a stranger and having a nail stuck through your hand, if you are anything like us, you would probably choose the nail. We get that it’s hard, whether you are willing to push through is up to you.

While sex is a good motivation to learn this skill when you are young and horny, there are far greater reasons to perfect your ability to walk up to a stranger and engage them in pleasant, interesting conversation that compels them to want to engage with you further. Perfecting this skill will make earning lots of money and advancing your career significantly easier when you grow up. The same skillset Malcolm developed to get laid at ages 18-19 was tapped to raise millions of dollars from ages 24 onward.

This is not a step that can be skipped or half completed. If you want to achieve your apparent goal (sex) or even just ever become an adult with whom people enjoy interacting, this is a step you will have to pass. Developing this skill is going to SUCK. You know how people say all you need is confidence? Ever wonder how people actually get that confidence? This is how. If you are starting with no foundation, perfecting this skill will easily take five hours of dedicated work a week for up to six months.

Escalating Conversations

Once and only once you are good at engaging strangers in conversation, experiment with transitioning to topics or activities that push past the boundaries of the conversation by broaching topics people don’t discuss with those they don’t know well. Don’t focus on anything sexual at first; your goal here is to learn how to get people to indulge in breaking social conventions with a like-minded compatriot. If you have been successful, targets will be excited to break social conventions in a safe environment around someone they like. If your conversational partner becomes at all uncomfortable, you have failed either at step one, at the transition between steps, or in your choice of social convention to break. Disengage and start again with someone new until you master this ability.

One way to easily break social conventions is by getting your target to talk about a topic that would get them ostracized from normal social groups (such as offensive views). Discussing taboo topics with someone inspires them to create a personal narrative in which they feel safe around you—otherwise, they wouldn’t expose themselves in such a way.

One skill that may take some time to master is judging what social conventions your partner is eager to break in conversations when contrasted with the social conventions you are eager to break. Discussing offensive topics with someone requires a good read of them (e.g., you can’t just engage a target on offensive views you hold; you have to engage them on socially offensive views they have hinted they hold).

Instead of focusing on taboo conversation topics (or in addition to discussing taboo ideas), you may explore taboo actions. For example, you may sneak into somewhere innocuous like school after hours, the woods at night, or an abandoned church, and have a picnic together. The effectiveness of this tactic can be increased by adding elements the target could subconsciously contextualize as romantic (like sneaking into your high school’s auditorium after hours and have a picnic in the center of the stage while setting up flickering LED lanterns around you—this also has the advantage of strongly signaling to them your ultimate intentions and gives them a choice to turn you down if they ultimately would have anyway).

Taboo actions bring with them a higher potential cost (potential injury, arrest, etc.). There is often a reason such sites are taboo, and you should expose neither your partner nor yourself to material risks. We merely mention this as an option for adolescents who already do stuff like this. (Again, we cringe so hard at decisions we made in our youth—but we have to expect you to think like we did when we were young and not like we do now.)

The method with by far the highest success rate is to coax your target into opening up about deep philosophical insecurities. Inspiring someone to talk about why they think they exist and their purpose in the world takes vulnerability and openness to a level no other method might (plus it is super safe). Despite the relative safety of deep philosophical insecurities over (1) socially offensive topics and (2) socially taboo acts, these are not things one talks about in polite society. The Pragmatist’s Guide to Life’s Step One can help you a lot with this kind of conversation.

While discussion of deep philosophical subjects presents by far the most effective of all tactics discussed, it requires more cognitive engagement and preparation. You will have to educate yourself enough to speak competently about cognitively engaging topics without leaning on fancy words or the names of famous thinkers. Should you approach this path, remember your objective is not to show how clever you are but to inspire your target to engage with their own philosophical views and think through them with you. Handle the philosophical views of your target in a non-judgmental but curious fashion that helps them recontextualize elements. Doing so reassures this person they can be comfortable being open with you.

In fact, let’s double click on that last point. When you start getting strangers to engage with you in conversation, you will subconsciously use the conversations to try to get the stranger to see you in certain ways—as smart, knowledgeable about things they don’t know about, deep, emotional, mysterious, popular in your local social circles, etc. Being able to pass the escalation stage requires quashing those instincts and instead focus on being a better canvas for your conversation partner to paint who they are—then taking that image and finding the parts of who they think they are that they are afraid to share with the world.

Flirting

Flirting comes after engaging and non-sexually escalating with a target, but before any actual sexual (or even somewhat sexy) engagement. While many books recommend looking for excuses to touch a person or brush up against them, we do not recommend this pathway—especially pre-college. Frankly, in the current cultural climate, physically touching an individual in a way that could be construed as sexual without explicit consent isn’t worth the risk. There are two strategies to work around this hazard, both of which can be implemented at any point after an individual clearly feels comfortable breaking social conventions with you.

Keep in mind that your first attempts at flirting have a near 100% chance of being socially awkward. This is why we so heavily advocate against honing these skills among your peers (rather than in totally separate social contexts, such as neighboring cities).

If you feel confident that a potential partner likes breaking social conventions with you but are not yet sure of their sexual interest, see if they are willing to wear something of yours. This could be anything from a cap to a jacket, glasses, or something you made (this strategy is more effective if whatever personal item they decide to wear is unique enough to be “iconic” to your image and easily recognizable by others as yours).

Do this through offering it to them with a statement like “you would look cute in this; try it on,” or “you look like you are getting cold” while you two are in private during a playful conversation you are clearly both enjoying (e.g., they are laughing a lot). If your target takes your personal item off immediately, it is a strong sign they are not interested. Do not push things forward. If the target leaves the personal item on, but then takes it off right before anyone who knows you both socially sees you, it is ok to move forward in being explicit about sexual topics, but do not expect a public relationship. Should your target leave your personal item on in the presence of others, it is a sign they might be interested in an eventual public relationship, as it could inadvertently signal to others that your target is already intimate with you. Your target’s choice to continue sporting your personal item around peers demonstrates how comfortable they are with having that message sent.

This strategy only works in college or high school, as those are the only times in your life where a potential dating pool and a wider acquaintance pool are going to have a huge overlap.

Anthropologically speaking, getting a sexual target to sport a personal item of yours would be classified as a mate-guarding tactic. Other classic mate-guarding tactics involve putting your arm around your partner, something we would not recommend until kissing is routine. Mate guarding behaviors are things most people do subconsciously or through cultural traditions like the exchange of wedding rings. Mate-guarding tactics are meant to signal to an individual’s social set that they are not on the market and highlight the person or people to whom they are attached. Such strategies are easily implementable by both men and women and a useful escalation technique because they can be turned down or accepted non-awkwardly (especially in comparison to a straight-up proposition) and are far less risky than skin-on-skin contact.

If you absolutely must move forward with a skin-on-skin contact escalation method, use a strategy that allows you to do so with consent. A method we used to see people leverage was to ask a target if they wanted a massage. This allowed them to ask for consent to touch a target in a plausibly non-sexual context—but to be honest, neither of us ever found a way to use this method effectively, so we can’t recommend it to others.

Another skin-on-skin escalation method that could be used—but which we do not recommend—involves finding a quiet, isolated moment to speak with the target, looking at the target, allowing a pregnant pause to develop in the conversation, putting out both hands, and asking if the target feels comfortable holding them. Should the target decline this hand-holding invitation, do not move forward. If they clasp your hands, just hold them for a moment while looking into your eyes, squeeze their hands. If the target squeezes your hands back every time you squeeze, you have a fair sign they would not object to a kiss on the mouth. Being turned down for asking to hold someone’s hand is less awkward than being turned down for a kiss. However, odd invitations to hold hands are SUPER socially awkward and not the path we would recommend—we only really mention this tactic as an alternative for those who are insistent on leveraging the non-consensual touch or kiss strategies common in older books that are way too dangerous to implement for modern adolescents.

Side note: In general, if you find yourself holding hands with someone through some other means and whenever you squeeze their hand, they squeeze back in the same pattern this is the universal sign for let’s get somewhere private and kiss. This was even true in countries Malcolm hitch hiked and did not speak the language, we have no idea why this is such a universal sign for “let’s make out,” but it appears to be. To test this, squeeze the persons hand and see if they squeeze back, if they do then squeeze their hand twice in a row and see if they give you a double squeeze back, typically this is followed either by a flirty look from them or intentionally looking away from you while starting a hand squeeze pattern of their own. If we had to guess why this works so consistently it is that somewhere deep in the “human code” hand squeeze pattern exchanging is subconsciously as intimate as making out but doesn’t carry the same social stigma.

We ultimately recommend skipping traditional verbal or tactile flirting entirely when you are interacting with people who have little experience with relationships. Flirting as a relationship escalation technique is really only appropriate for more experienced individuals, as it works in two ways.

  1. In the middle-age dating market as a way of covertly saying: “Hey, I’m down; are you down?” which is a boorish engagement strategy when someone is still figuring out their sexuality.
  2. The flirting arouses your target so much they sexually engage with you based on an in the moment arousal pattern. This is very likely to drive someone to engage with you against their own better judgment, which, as we have explained, is not a desired outcome when hooking up with other sexually inexperienced people.

Flirting can also be used just for the sake of flirting. Once you become more comfortable with the witty banter involved, flirting can be quite a fun little game. That said, we strongly recommend against this with less experienced individuals, as it can easily be misunderstood and lead to hurt feelings or worse.

Broaching the Topic of Sex or a Relationship

Only after you have gotten good enough to walk up to a stranger, engage them in light conversation, transition to deep conversation, and get them excited about breaking social boundaries with you, should you even begin to try to learn how to engage someone sexually.

If you make it to this point, well done: In addition to unlocking access to far more sex than the average person by mastering this process, you also gained a skillset that will make getting a six-figure job by your mid-twenties a realistic endeavor (and the less attractive you are, the more robust that skillset will be, so if you are not naturally attractive, lucky you). If this claim seems farfetched, consider the nature of this skillset, which features an ability to confidently walk up to a stranger, engage them in conversation they find stimulating, and inspire them to trust and want to engage more with you. This is the same skillset people use every time they raise money, bring in customers, hire employees, run for office, etc.

Make sure you actually reach this point before attempting to push forward. We cannot stress this enough: Do not rush getting to a stage with someone at which the subject of sex or a relationship is broached. Make sure you have totally perfected the other stages first. Up to this point, everything was training. You were playing with paintball guns. The moment you explicitly bring up something sexual with a target, you switch those paintballs for real bullets, entering the realm of stuff that can permanently destroy your life and reputation.

Your first goal in this exercise is to get your target comfortable talking about sex with you. Most people want to talk about their sexuality, but they have very few people in their lives with whom they can discuss it (The Pragmatist’s Guide to Sexuality will be of high utility to you here). Every exercise up to this point is meant to teach you how to become a legitimately safe outlet for someone’s intimate thoughts and secrets. Don’t betray the trust your target has built in you. If a person is hesitant to discuss these topics with you but is OK breaking other social conventions with you, CONGRATULATIONS: You just made a friend. Don’t press further. There are only two reasons this may happen; both mean “stop:”

To put it simply: Your only goal at this stage is to determine whether your target is comfortable talking about their sexuality with you, nothing more.

Moving to The Idea of Sex

Note: It is possible and fairly easy to reach this stage without ever having kissed or touched each other in an arousing fashion.

Once you have been talking about sex with your target for a meaningful period of time, you may strategically drop, in a non-threatening way, that you would be open to trying one of the things they mentioned. This works especially well if the sexual act in question is something your target thinks no partner would be interested in trying with them—hence the utility of knowing what sexual taboos they secretly fantasize about.

Getting a person to feel comfortable opening up about scandalous, philosophical, and private topics creates intimacy and allows you to move to more explicitly sexual topics like: “What weird things have turned you on in the past?”

Suggestions like: “Well, would you be interested in trying X with me? I have fantasized about that too” become far less jarring once someone has spent time talking about other forbidden-feeling topics. Sexual propositions become even less intimidating if sent in written format after discussing other scandalous subjects, as without vocal intonation or body language to read, your target can easily reject you while pretending they thought you were kidding around. If someone “misreads” a proposal to escalate a relationship as a joke, they are turning you down in a socially nice way. When someone turns you down in this manner, don’t re-frame your proposal more explicitly, as doing so will create needless social discomfort. By pretending to misread your proposal, your partner is attempting to do you a favor and maintain a platonic friendship with you. Do not sabotage this kindness.

In addition to pretending to interpret a proposition as a joke, a target’s choice to breeze on with the conversation indicates they are not interested. There is no problem with a target not being interested. In fact, if your target reacts in these ways, they are showing you respect by not drawing attention to the rejection. If you handle your rejection with grace, you will come away from this conversation very likely to get a referral to someone else who might be interested. Your former-target-turned-friend wouldn’t have made it to this point if they didn’t consider you a friend—a friend with whom they feel safe talking about sex and a friend they can trust to push boundaries. Just never cross these boundaries.

Learning how to go through these steps online before practicing in person has many fringe benefits. Rejection stings much less online, but it still stings enough to help you acclimate to the feeling and not fear it. As an added benefit, you can run multiple online “dates” simultaneously. Practicing different conversation pathways with three or four people in different chat logs on the same night increases your learning rate by 300%-400%. As an added bonus, you can go back and review chat logs to see where you made a mistake with the perspective of hindsight, which will enable you to identify and learn more nuanced patterns.

If you accept that your first thirty or so attempts to “get good” are going to end in failure, it doesn’t matter if the pool from which you are sourcing is worldwide rather than regional. Practicing with a cute guy from a rural town in Germany is fine because you are probably going to fail early on anyway. The conversation pathway you develop that gets you to the point at which someone says: “If you ever come to Germany, I would love to have sex” is the same conversation pathway that will be effective for an individual who lives 30 minutes from you. The potential leads in your geographic area are limited, whereas those in other countries are practically unlimited, which is why we don’t discourage practicing in an online setting so long as you know better than to meet strangers online in person. (Just to be clear: Meeting in person with people you’ve met online is dangerous.)

Getting References

When you are young and still engaging with other people who are new to exploring their sexuality, you will have some sexual strategies open to you that cease to work as you age. One of the most dramatic of these involves “references.” It is fairly common for a group of close friends to recommend having sex with someone when said group is still exploring their sexuality together, but very rare post-college. This is why we so strongly recommend engagement strategies designed to deepen your relationship with other people without ever pushing over the line with them. This obviously does not work with everyone; it depends on the type of friends a person has and the individual’s openness and personality, but so long as you are able to maintain positive interactions with potential partners, both those who turn you down and those with whom you sleep may refer new potential partners to you.

This is one of those areas in which applying pick-up artist techniques developed by 30-year-olds to your early sex life can be disastrous. These techniques are often developed without any worry of burning leads if they do not end in sex. This is incredibly self-destructive advice to give to someone in late adolescence.

Pick-up artists aren’t providing bad advice with malicious intent; they simply have no way to know about techniques that are effective in late adolescence. People who have no trouble getting laid in late adolescence don’t grow up finding the thought of sex with hundreds of strangers terribly appealing and certainly don’t obsess on the topic enough to write books about it or skulk around on message boards. This is why you won’t see tactics specifically useful at these ages discussed within pick-up artist communities.

For boys looking for either female or male partners, maintaining positive friendships with a target is absolutely critical, as the easiest way to gain new sexual partners is through referrals from former targets and sexual partners who know that you respect boundaries and make for an engaging friend. It is not surprising that girls (and guys) of this age range looking to experiment sexually would recommend a clean, safe, discreet, respectful guy who is honest and outside their core social circles.

The same often works for girls: If you make it clear to a guy that you are clean, safe, discrete, respectful, and looking for other partners, most young guys will enthusiastically recommend you to their friends. The downside for females is that, while a guy will rarely care if a girl goes to brag to her friends that she slept with him, girls can be sensitive if a guy brags about sleeping with them (as guys within this age range love to do). Perceived promiscuity in women carries some inconvenient societal baggage that the majority of young women would prefer not to lug around.

Young women keen to avoid promiscuous reputations among their peers should focus on targets that are clearly independent of their normal social circles. It may be safer to source male sexual partners through geographically and socially distant female friends with similar sexual tastes than it would be to source male partners directly. Such female friends will likely be aware of discrete, trustworthy males and any discovery of your efforts to court them (these other women) as friends are less likely to get you labeled as promiscuous.

To be successful at securing referrals, you need to be more than just “inoffensive” in your interactions with others but actively exciting, unique, and engaging. These are all characteristics you can develop through practice, though it takes longer for some people to cultivate these features than others. People don’t recommend vanilla ice cream to their friends. Having a specific, unique personality makes a huge difference. See the fourth chapter of The Pragmatist’s Guide to Life for more guidance on developing a compelling public persona.

As to why this pathway closes off as one ages, there appear to be two factors at play:

  1. Sex as a conversational subject loses its luster and sparkle as adults age, and the novelty wears off.
  2. The types of friend groups that share this type of information with each other largely either dissolve or become stagnant and stop interacting with new people as everyone ages.

In sum, while the opportunity lasts, it pays to be extra to ensure every potential target with whom you interact—regardless of the ultimate outcome with that particular person—walks away from the interaction satisfied with and intrigued by you. If others feel they will look good by referring you to their friends, rest assured they shall do so.

Warnings

If you have horrible hygiene, dress like a slob, or have an ass-hat personality, a 0% success rate will stay 0% no matter how many people you engage. That said, we still recommend this strategy, as if you have a minimum baseline of social intelligence, you will eventually pick up on whatever it is that turns targets off. If you don’t feel you have that minimum baseline of social intelligence, we encourage you to flip to the chapter entitled: Whatever I Do, Nothing Works on page 493.

Working to build up a large number of sexual partners is hazardous, and not just for the obvious disease-and-baby-related reasons on which you have no doubt already been briefed.

Even if you are 100% well-intentioned toward and respectful with every individual with whom you are intimate, once your number of sexual partners gets near a hundred, even a 1% failure rate to read what a person wants (and yours will be much higher) means someone will be hurt by your sexual campaign.

Even if you never step on that particular land mine and, on the aggregate, generate more positive than negative emotions in others, the interactions that will take up most of your mental capacity for decades to come are the negative ones that you think you may have caused. Trust us: Ten years from now, you will not reflect on all the awesome sex you got by sleeping around indiscriminately, but rather on all the people you may have hurt—and the higher that number goes, the more it will eat at you.

The best way to protect yourself against this risk is to either minimize your sexual partner count, or, at the very least, avoid sexual partners who react to situations in unpredictable ways (the type who will sneak into your dorm after midnight wearing edible underwear then tell you they never consented to your eating it). If you cannot predict a person’s intentions and mental state, do not expose yourself to the risks associated with courting them, no matter how thirsty you are. Even a 0.1% chance that someone will perceive your interaction as non-consensual is not worth the risk. This is why you should immediately disengage yourself from anyone who seems mentally unstable and anyone who likes to play hard to get. Consent is extremely difficult to read in these groups, which is why you should never play hard to get yourself. Smart people will merely avoid those playing hard to get. There are other fish in the sea.

If you successfully execute on this advice, you will learn two things:

  1. Sex is ultimately quite boring and routine. Sex with random people is certainly nothing to take pride in. Bragging about sex is like bragging about being able to read; the only people who do it are people who just learned to read (honestly, the same can be said for bragging about almost any category of success—people only brag about things they did not expect to get). Sometimes we feel like puberty is this magic curse placed on humans that can only be broken by realizing that neither sex nor attractiveness are really that important, but in the weaker-minded of our species (like ourselves) said realization can only happen when these two things stop being a challenge.
  2. Constantly attempting to secure new partners and maintaining multiple relationships will teach you a lot about yourself and other people. Sadly, this information comes at a cost. Learning requires failing and failing in a relationship means accidentally hurting people. If you are in a large number of relationships in your youth, you will hurt people (no matter how well-intentioned you are), and that will haunt you.

But I Hate Being Rejected!

Learning how to respond to rejection with dignity is a critical skill that does not come naturally. To start, focus on learning how to not be apprehensive about being rejected by recontextualizing each rejection as a small win (bear in mind that each new rejection helps you develop a thicker skin and each rejection symbolizes one step closer to your ultimate goal). Learning how to successfully ask for something is a breeze once you learn how to not worry about rejection in the first place.

Next, learn how to be rejected with dignity, both in general and when asking someone out. Develop a classy response to rejection that does not make things awkward—one that gives up on the hope of future sexual interaction with the other party for at least a year and does not lead you to bear ill will towards the party that rejected you.

Focus on the wide and colorful number of ways you might be rejected. A rejection may manifest as anything from your target changing the subject to a somewhat flimsy excuse. Anything other than a “yes” is a rejection.

Securing a Long-Term Relationship

E

ven more than finding a consenting sex partner, the key to securing a solid long-term relationship (or spouse, should you want to make it legal) lies in your ability to generate a large pool of leads and process them at an industrial scale. In biology, one of the most common methods for finding an antigen (a molecule that fits perfectly into another structure and thus binds to it) is called high-throughput screening. Scientists using this method test hundreds of thousands of molecules against a structure to see which variations yield the strongest connection. The simplest reliable strategy for finding a long-term partner works through a similar process, thus the term—high-throughput screening—we have given this strategy.

While “brute forcing” your way to a good long-term partner by setting up an industrial-scale processing operation within your life may be seen by some as “unromantic” or inelegant, this is not an area of your life in which you can afford to take risks. Long-term partner selection (or failure to secure a long-term partner) will have a profound impact on your life.

Choosing a bad partner is one of the single worst decisions a human can make in their lifetime. Decades can be lost to toxic partners, a series of short-term relationships that never last, or a non-committal partner just using you as a placeholder.

A favorable life partner will do more to help you achieve your goals than wealth, fancy college degrees, popularity, etc. Goodness, if you don’t have money, one of the fastest ways to become wealthy even involves securing a (wealthy) long-term partner.

Our high-throughput screening method presents the tools and mindset needed to build your own unique processing operation meant to vet whatever characteristics you decide are important in a partner. This processing operation will enable you to quickly build relationships intimate enough to harvest the personal details required to vet an individual. While reading the entire guide will provide you with the information necessary to build a processing operation customized to your needs, we will provide two template strategies—one for males, one for females—demonstrating limited examples of how the book’s general principles might play out in action.

Male Template Strategy

Your first goal should be to go through as many leads as you can, as fast as you can, while obtaining enough information on the nuances of each target’s personality, background, and motivations so that you may determine whether or not they are a good candidate.

To find a high-quality long-term relationship, assuming a worst-case scenario, expect to be processing at least five targets a week for half a decade with short interludes of dating for a few months to test the viability of serious candidates. While it won’t take everyone this long, especially for more “vanilla” people who can easily find compatible partners, you should key a length of time about that long into your life plan and not expect to start looking for a wife or husband at 32 and be married by 35.

While five dates a week may sound like a lot, both of us hit that number. A dedicated search for a long-term partner will take up about as much of your time and emotional investment as a dedicated hobby and is not the same thing as casual dating. The key challenge faced by men leveraging a high-throughput strategy involves cost: Generally, people expect men to pay for all or part of a date, which means financial planning plays a crucial role in your process. The financial burden of high-throughput dating is lighter should you be looking for another guy as a partner or should you be the type of guy who wants a progressive partner, as insisting on going Dutch can weed out bad fits on the first date (if you want a progressive partner, insisting on going Dutch will scare away more conservative individuals before having to even waste a second date on them).

How can you counteract the financial hardship? Let’s outline a strategy that may be appropriate for a cash-strapped college student:

At the beginning of a week, buy finger foods and snacks in bulk (such as nice cheeses, crackers, nuts, and drinks) and divide them into kits that get broken into for each date. Utilize these purchased-in-bulk meals to put a picnic together on the day of each date; this will vastly cut down the costs of the dates and the preparation time needed. Then use the “taboo location for picnic” strategy. To implement this taboo location strategy at scale, scout a number of safe locations and thoroughly playtest access plans for each. It is critical to clean up well and be respectful when using a strategy like this in order to maintain access to said taboo locations. If you are uncomfortable utilizing taboo locations, you can look for other small taboos to break, such as taboo times (e.g., an early morning tea with a view of the ocean).

This taboo location strategy is primarily designed to get the target to build a “partners in crime” story about your relationship—something that most people want. This framing helps targets develop a personal narrative in which you two are well matched while also acclimating a target to pushing boundaries with you.

As an added benefit, by framing targets’ interactions with you as engagements in which they expect to push boundaries, you can quickly cull those who do not want to push boundaries and save time and money on a date never had. Nevertheless, keep in mind that such a strategy could also accidentally filter many perfectly sane women who are afraid of sexual assault. You can try to fish for such concerns and, should they be present, look for alternative free locations that are more crowded (like a beach, a park, or a bluff).

During dates, focus on getting the target comfortable enough in interaction to openly divulge the information that is of the most interest in vetting someone for a potential long-term relationship. This checklist might include:

After each date, log this information into a makeshift customer-relationship management system (spreadsheets work fine), along with information on the general course of the date to ensure you do not mix up this targets’ details.

To ensure that individual relationships could be escalated through the traditional male gift-giving ritual so common in Western society without breaking the bank, look into buying large quantities of low-quality gemstones from wholesale industrial providers. Loose, poor-quality gemstones (even higher-prestige options, such as sapphires, rubies, and pearls) can easily be purchased in bulk for $25 each, but convey a much higher social value due to a general understanding about how much jewelry containing them usually costs (which is a significantly inflated price). The ritual in reference is the exchange of romantically themed gifts such as flowers, expensive chocolates, or jewelry as a sign the relationship had escalated (this is discussed further in the subchapter: Implied Contract Escalation on page 105).

Loose, low-quality, uncut gemstones come in handy with relationship escalation rituals not just because of their relative low cost when contrasted with their perceived value, but because they help the target build a narrative in which they would eventually use this early relationship gift in a marriage band. Giving these gemstones creates a scenario in which you can mine targets for nuanced information about how they expect a marriage to work far earlier in your relationship than would otherwise be realistically viable. (Just as going Dutch on meals can serve as a means to weed out more traditional women, the same can be done by leaving out the gift-giving ritual.)

The point of moving your relationship timeline forward as fast as you can and at scale is to more quickly cull bad candidates. While it may feel like rushing things, the only three aspects of a relationship you are accelerating are:

  1. Time taken to extract information used to judge whether or not to marry someone (e.g., don’t delay talking about how many kids your target wants and find out quickly if they have emotional control problems)
  2. Time taken to develop a level of comfort with the individual so that their “true underlying behavior patterns” reveal themselves
  3. Time taken to cull an individual when it is clear they are not a good candidate for a long-term relationship.

Being able to quickly enter a relationship with someone, recognize they are not an optimal match, and move on to the next candidate, increases your odds of securing an optimal long-term relationship that ultimately benefits everyone.

It is easy to decide that this whole process can be dropped by asking more questions faster; however, this isn’t this case. Some key details will not be revealed (accurately, at least) without relationship escalation. Many individuals hide their true selves, and the manner in which they plan to behave after your relationship passes certain thresholds. Mere questions on a first or second date will not shed light on these details.

Malcolm has dated plenty of women who seemed totally normal until the relationship got serious. Had Malcolm allowed these relationships to take years to reach that point, he would have never met Simone. As clinical and cruel as our methods sound, methods that reduce time spent with poorly matched partners are more humane—both for you and your various long-term relationship candidates. Be a Pragmatist. Drop the social conventions and the narratives we want to tell ourselves and focus on the true purpose of a task, which, in this case, involves finding a long-term partner and eliminating distractions that obscure the path forward.

We don’t expect you to copy the template strategy provided, but we present it as an example of how you might think through the challenges of vetting long-term relationship candidates at scale—and affordably—yourself. Your goal is to quickly and inexpensively enter a relationship and rapidly escalate to a point at which you can determine whether someone is a bad long-term match. Identify the bottlenecks you will face in this process, be they monetary or temporal, and then invent creative “out of the box” solutions to circumvent or industrialize them. It is extremely unlikely that someone in the first fifty candidates you interview will be your best possible life partner.

Female Template Strategies

If you are a female targeting males, the above section was likely frustrating, as it was written from a male perspective. What can you do to quickly gather the necessary information on a male to vet them while simultaneously making them fall for you?

Women are in a worse position when it comes to securing long-term relationships because of a conundrum unique to their gender. Women will likely run into a large number of males who pretend they are looking for a long-term relationship when they are really looking for casual sex because average quality males have more value on the long-term relationship market than on the sex market. Simply put, an average guy can get a hotter female partner if he pretends to be looking for a long-term relationship and not just sex. Men don’t have to deal with this issue, as there just aren’t a lot of women who pretend to want a long-term relationship with a man in order to secure sex from him.

Not only must you learn quickly how to determine whether an individual is a viable long-term relationship target, but you need to determine if they want a long-term relationship at all!

A core advantage you have as a woman is that it is possible to execute high-throughput dating at restaurants without breaking the bank if you are ok with manipulating social norms to your advantage by getting most of your male targets to pay or by going Dutch. On the other hand, unlike a male strategy, if you take the picnic route and save money by bringing basket snacks and meals to scenic locations, you will need to select public rather than private (and taboo) places due to the risk of sexual assault. One affordable high-throughput strategy for women involves dates at a public park/wharf/beach with a thermos filled with alcohol (to add social boundary-breaking and loosen dates’ tongues) and a snack of the target’s choice (or something that signals something about you, like a portable multi-tiered afternoon tea setup).

Note from the Research:

To quickly vet candidates while developing a sense of intimacy, we suggest philosophical, religious, or life goal-related conversation topics. If you feel uneasy when engaging in these sorts of conversation topics, we strongly suggest our first book, The Pragmatist’s Guide to Life, half of which is basically a guide to discussing and thinking about these topics in relatable vernacular.

While a topic like religion can quickly end a date and thus has a social stigma against it, it would only end a date that would have ended in a sub-optimal long-term relationship and successfully breaking said social stigma assists in building a sense of camaraderie. Remember that a “failed” date is often a win for you: A guy who thinks negatively about you because you wanted to discuss ethics or life plans instead of making out is likely a low-quality long-term relationship partner. Alas, philosophical topics alone will not fully filter out guys looking just for sex—they are more for determining whether they are a good match.

While the tactics described above are meant to bring you to a point at which you can harvest useful information from a target, they do not solve the problem of males who pretend they want long-term relationships when all they really want is sex—a problem that is exacerbated by the fact that someone who only wants sex has a motivation to lie about what they are looking for in a long-term relationship to mirror what they think you are looking for.

Thankfully, this problem lends itself to a solution. Specifically, someone who is primarily interested in sex will mirror exactly what they think you are looking for in a long-term relationship with their answers, while someone genuinely looking for a long-term relationship will be honest. Someone who clearly shares goals that deviate from your own—but that might still work with your life plans—is being honest.

It is also possible that a genuinely perfectly matched partner will mirror all of your goals and values, being so suspiciously perfect that you accidentally throw him out. Should you want to get a second opinion on a target’s seemingly too-good-to-be-true interests before tossing him aside, consider interviewing his friends and/or family, plus looking for other behavioral patterns that suggest his stated goals and values are genuine. If a target touts his financial conservatism and shares alleged desires to save up and buy a house: Check his spending (revealed through monthly rental costs of similar units in his apartment building, some back-of-the-napkin calculations of his daily food and beverage expenditures based on some days spent with him, etc.) and take a quick look at average salaries paid to the position he holds. If the math suggests he is barely living paycheck to paycheck, you can rest assured his supposed fiscal conservatism is anything but. A guy who is responsible with money will make an infinitely better long-term partner than a guy who irresponsibly treats you to nice things or who has a slightly better job.

You might also weed out those only looking for sex by gauging their interest in public relationship declaration. Being officially in a relationship—especially on a social media platform regularly used by your target—makes it extremely difficult for them to discreetly secure other partners without the other targets knowing they are with someone. Someone who only wants sex is therefore more likely to decline publicly announcing their relationship with you—at least in social contexts and on social media sites where their peers mix. The catch with this tactic is that it takes far longer to vet candidates if you use the public announcement strategy (it’s better to get to “no” well before one would even think of a public relationship).

Honestly, this predicament is grating to say the least because there are no realistically implementable, foolproof strategies for navigating it. Some women completely divorce sexual access from long-term relationship vetting, basically saying: “Look, I am going to have sex with you whether or not you are actually interested in a long-term relationship, so there is no reason to mislead me on that front,” but even this strategy would often not be effective, as guys who pretend to be looking for long-term relationships get so stuck in their ways that even when they no longer need to lie to secure sex, they still will.

The antithesis of this strategy, saying you will not have sex no matter what until marriage, is also uniquely ineffective. This is because there are many women who claim this but really seem to mean, “no sex unless I am horny on the third date or after.” Guys accustomed to sleeping around have heard this gambit a thousand times and have become trained to not believe it, whether or not the claimant is being genuine. This tactic is therefore useless at filtering these guys out, unless it is paired with enough sexless dates to convince them you are legit, and this would be too much of a time drain to be implemented at scale.

Honestly, your best bet is to parse out common stated philosophical beliefs or physical/behavioral tells indicating someone is dishonest about their long-term relationship plans. Such sleuthing pairs well with a dating conversation strategy that focuses on breaking social conventions with a target through deep philosophical conversations. Deep philosophical conversations also have the side benefit of confusing men who are implementing the above strategy and will often lead them to choke up and agree with all of your philosophical beliefs, thereby betraying their true intentions.

Securing a Husband

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s we went about our research, we came across many studies that could be considered relevant to those specifically searching for a husband. This is great news, seeing as while men are relatively easy to secure for sex, they are in high demand in long-term relationship markets. Knowledge, on this front, is power.

Age Considerations in Husband Searches

Women in their twenties would be well served by targeting men aged 28-36 with steady jobs. Most men will not commit to a long-term relationship until they have been living and working independently for at least two years. A robust 80% of men with a high school education will not seriously consider marriage until the age of 23. Men with a college education expect to get married between the ages of 28 and 33, while those with a graduate education shift that age range to 30-36. After the age of 37—and again after age 43—the probability that a man will commit to a long-term relationship (if he isn’t already in one) drops dramatically.

As they must also compete with women in their twenties, women in their thirties are at a unique disadvantage when looking for husbands. They may benefit from diving into age ranges that 20-something women would not consider at such high rates—such as men 40 years old or more. Of men over the age of 40, the only group with a high likelihood of committing to a long-term relationship are those who are divorced or widowed as well as those who are more religious. Of men over 50 getting married, 88% marry divorced women. By this age, women are wizened enough to be systematically playing the market arbitrage game, looking for men who are low value in superficial traits and high value in those they specifically care about—if you can learn to play that game in your 20s you will be able to secure a vastly better long term partner for you.

Women targeting the over-40 crowd will be well served by being laid back and kind. While younger men statistically value the women they end up marrying based on virtue, talent, or accomplishments, 62% of men who got married over the age of 40 cited “niceness” (congeniality, agreeableness, a relaxed, and low-maintenance attitude) as the primary trait that attracted them.

Helpful Husband Hunting Tactics

Leverage Peer Pressure

A target may be uniquely good husband fodder if his friends and siblings are coupling up. Men with friends and siblings who are married are more likely to get married. More specifically, 60% of newly married men had a friend who married within the last year, and men without any married male friends were found by one study to be three times more likely to say they were not likely to marry.

Pop the Question

Do not be afraid to propose marriage. If your suggestion is initially rejected, be congenial and merely mention that it means a lot to you—you may enjoy favorable results. Of men who initially rejected the marriage proposals of their eventual wives (mostly by saying they hadn’t thought about it yet or that they were not ready), one third had forgotten the event happened and the two thirds that remembered mostly did not see the event as a big deal. Of men who rejected the idea of getting married in a conversation, a large portion nevertheless proposed within four months of saying they were not ready.

Consider Moving On After 22 Months And No Engagement

Most men who do propose will do so by the 18-month mark. After 22 months, the likelihood that a man will ever propose begins to diminish—and at 3.5 years, it begins to diminish rapidly. For couples who have been together for seven years without a proposal, the odds that one will ever occur are near zero. Given women’s short windows of arbitrage (the ages during which they have a strong advantage on the market, but are also in a life position in which getting married makes sense), it is not worth dating a guy for over two years if he doesn’t propose, assuming marriage is her goal.

Some cultures seem to have internalized this dynamic and applied interesting interventions. We have heard that in some traditional Chinese towns, a man can be fined for dating a woman for an extended time without proposing then leaving her as compensation for taking up some of this window.

Make Sacrifices

Given that women are typically at a disadvantage when seeking husbands, those who make more sacrifices in order to win often see better results. Consider making sacrifices with your location, job, and hobbies.

Women who do get married are three times more likely to participate in masculine activities in which they had no real interest and twice as likely to have made lifestyle sacrifices like changing jobs or moving to meet eligible men. Perhaps surprisingly to some, women do not often secure their partners by acting overly sexual: Only seven out of 2,000 men report their wife was in a sexy outfit when they first met.

Sex and Dating in a World with Social Distancing

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s this book was being formatted for publication, COVID-19 snowballed into a global pandemic, causing worldwide lockdowns and presenting a fresh and fascinating challenge to the dating world: How should someone adapt high-throughput strategies to societies that restrict human interaction? The best approach depends on your objective.

I Want Sex and Dating

If you are looking for no-strings-attached sex with strangers, a world in which every social interaction involves heightened risk will be limiting—though not because social distancing impedes the seduction process. In fact, convincing a partner to have sex with you using the Sexual Exploration Lure through written interaction is both easier and more expedient than picking someone up at a bar or meeting someone through serendipitous social interaction. At one point, Malcolm A/B tested a number of different engagement strategies when looking for sex with high-quality partners; none came close to written interactions within instant messaging systems. No-strings-attached sex with new people is not difficult to secure in areas encouraging social distancing per se (outside of those that literally won’t allow you to leave your house).

Casual sex becomes difficult in such scenarios not because of social distancing, but because the potential consequences resulting from casual sex—be they death or long-term organ damage—filter out a portion of the population that might have otherwise been interested in one-night stands. When you filter people concerned with their own safety out of the sex market, the risk you take on when engaging with the remaining market explodes. Crazy partners can screw up your life. If you insist on no-strings-attached sex when all “responsible” people are bowing out, you are much more likely to end up with a whacked-out nutter butter.

Fortunately, our anecdotal experience indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic has not been a death knell to the sex lives of our friskier friends. In fact, many tight-knit poly communities seem to be adapting to the situation well—if a bit recklessly (too reckless for our risk tolerances).

The primary challenge faced by intimate social clusters that continue socializing during periods in which socializing bears risks is that the team is only as strong as the weakest link. If just one person in a polycule (a poly relationship network) decides to lower their guard and meet with additional people, everyone in the polycule hurts. Many poly networks we know were among the first to get COVID-19 during the pandemic. Some members of these networks were so hooked on social interaction that their idea of “self isolation” involved merely talking about being careful while nevertheless meeting and spending time in close quarters with three separate social groups in a given day. On the other hand, the few groups we know that cohabitate in isolation from members outside their group home have held up quite well. Should dangerous diseases become a part of daily life, cohabitating polycules with strict ground rules and that leverage technology to track their members may present the safest solution for individuals who have a predilection for romantic variation. (Though this would likely nullify the purpose of polyamorous relationships for many.)

I Want a Monogamous Long-Term Partner

We wish we had the luxury of dating and looking for marriage partners in an environment that required social distancing. A world unburdened by interpersonal interaction presents a transparently easier, less expensive, and more efficient dating and marriage market.

When flippantly meeting in person is an option, it becomes an expectation. Social norms demand in-person liaisons before most people become willing to open up and escalate relationships. However, when social norms can’t be met, they are bent. There are voluminous benefits from being able to date and get to know people without having to meet in person.

The ability to become acquainted through written exchanges early in a relationship minimizes time wasted before you can delve to “deep” topics—the types of topics most relevant to vetting someone as a long-term partner. Not only does communicating through typing give a person time to think through what they are about to say, but it also allows them to think in a fashion less encumbered by social signals and posturing. Anecdotally, both of us have found that people are more willing to talk about philosophically-engaging topics when they can do so in a written format—plus they’re more comfortable being explicit about sexual topics. Such increased openness makes it possible to more quickly establish compatibility with a partner when it comes to less vanilla aspects of your sexuality.

Bear in mind that written exchanges are the form most virtual dates take, so you can rest assured that socially-distanced courtship does not doom you to the endless, awkward Zoom meetings most people assume distance dating entails. Unlike awkward video calls, written correspondence can be utterly enthralling (there’s a reason why so many romances in the pre-internet era were sparked from love letters). If you have never had that feeling of becoming entranced in a written chat that had you glued to a screen, anticipating every response until you pass out from exhaustion at five in the morning, you are missing out.

We would go so far as to encourage partners in a long-term relationship to occasionally take vacations from interacting with each other physically and instead interact through instant messaging or long-form diary entries. You will be shocked how communicating through different mediums can unlock aspects of an individual’s personality that remain occluded when you limit yourself to verbal communication.

Another beneficial aspect of “forced distance” dating is that it seems to intensify and extend new relationship energy—that feeling of excitement and anticipation you get early in a relationship. This can explain why new relationship energy lasts much longer and feels more intense in long-distance relationships. We theorize that new relationship energy is a product of anticipation created by gaps in a person’s knowledge about their partner, which can feel more profound when you must operate without the convenience of in-person social cues.

Better still, not having to meet in person makes it easier to cultivate multiple relationships simultaneously, making it possible to dramatically increase your throughput of potential partners and find your optimal match more quickly. Dating through text communication creates forced pauses during which a partner has to think through what they are going to say next (assuming you are engaging in deep issues). These thoughtful pauses enable you to run multiple conversations concurrently, which in turn helps to weed out suboptimal matches as you will organically gravitate toward the most intellectually engaging exchanges. Any increase in potential partner throughput and suboptimal partner rejection decreases the length of time between now and the point at which you find that perfect match.

Finally, women are in a dramatically better position when looking for a long-term partner through a dating market that impedes the possibility of easy sex. The market dynamics of in-person dating enable men to secure higher-quality females by pretending to be interested in dating or a long-term relationship when they really only care about sex. Women are dramatically less likely to encounter these motivational impostors when dating in a world of social distancing.

How do I go about getting people to engage with me online?

While you can take the obvious route through dating websites and apps, these are not necessarily your best options. Back when Facebook let users send messages to anyone, Malcolm sourced many of his romantic partners through cold messages sent to people on Facebook. While such an approach would now require that a person of interest accepts you as a friend before you can contact them, meeting someone through Facebook is not dramatically harder than it used to be. The same can be said for sites like LinkedIn.

Meeting a new person online is no different from meeting a random person on a subway train or at a bar . . . except you know more about them than whatever their appearance and public behavior implies, so you can conduct far more thorough pre-date screening tests (deciding you can only meet someone online on dating websites is like deciding you can only meet potential partners in-person at speed dating events). As with in-person meetings, you can choose to be upfront with your intentions or ask your target to set up a call or chat time to talk about a topic of mutual interest (on a train, this might mention a book you saw someone reading, whereas on LinkedIn you might strike up an exchange about a target’s listed areas of interest).

How do you reach out to random people online without looking like a creep? Learning how to contact people online out of the blue requires practice and failure—more failure than you would endure were you to engage people through more familiar avenues. That said, once you become skilled at chatting folks up online, your success rate will be as high or higher than it is with in-person dating. Remember how awkward it was to ask people out in your teens? Well, buckle up, bucko, because you are going to have to go through that all over again—that is, if you haven’t already taken time to learn how to meet random people online earlier in your life. On a positive note, it won’t be as bad this time around because the sting of rejection hurts much less in written form and you will develop a thick skin more quickly given your ability to amass online rejections at an astoundingly higher rate.

When dating must be exclusively virtual in its early stages, more care will need to be made to prevent the relationship from escalating without having an extremely clear idea of what the person looks like, plus confidence that they are who they say they are. Most people who catfish others online do not consciously intend to mislead their victims. We all want to post pictures that paint us in the best light possible, however doing so on aggregate can obscure deal breakers from potential partners’ view. Let’s say a person has really messed up teeth. They likely are not going to not smile in pictures, leading their dates to be in for quite the surprise the first time they lean in for an in-person kiss. This kind of unintentional catfishing is something we all do to some extent.

While it helps to have access to a profile on a social network like Facebook, on which a potential partner has lots of friends (who will tag this potential partner in likely-less-flattering photos that they’ve chosen to post), the only real way to ensure everyone has an accurate view of each other is to escalate communication to video calls as soon as sexual innuendo or mentions of dating arise (though even this isn’t foolproof and can obscure common deal breakers—like a person perpetually smelling of cigarettes). No matter how into a person you are, if they avoid video calls, it is probably in your best interest to break things off immediately—the probability in such cases that a potential partner is being honest with you in this age of technology is so low as to be negligible.

Even in the scenario we are proposing, in which a global pandemic makes in-person interactions dangerous, relationships kindled online won’t stay virtual forever. Even in worlds locked down due to viral spread, there is room for safe, long-term, in-person relationships with people you trust. In such a world, it makes sense to move in together when dating gets serious. In many ways, kicking off serious dating with close cohabitation and forced isolation presents an optimal means by which you can quickly determine whether or not someone would be a good fit for a long-term relationship. Such a scenario would certainly get you to “no” faster than biweekly in-person meals at a restaurant.

Being obligated to develop new approaches to life in the face of changing world conditions should be exhilarating. The type of person who can see a changing world as an opportunity to discover and develop even more efficient strategies will consistently outperform those who classify turbulent world conditions as an excuse to indulge in procrastination.

But Whatever I Do, Nothing Works!

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f you find yourself thinking: “But whatever I do, no one wants me,” the problem is you.

If you find yourself thinking: “But everyone I date treats me poorly,” the problem is you.

If you find yourself thinking: “I am so ugly and pathetic, no one will ever want me,” then get a dog and for the love of all things wholesome, take good care of it.

If what you want is the validation that comes from being loved and wanted, then a dog will give that to you—you don’t need a human for that. Wasting another human life on something as trivial as feeding your desire to feel needed, appreciated, and loved is narcissistic in the extreme.

There are two general categories of people who just can’t seem to catch a break: People who have no chance because of factors outside their control, and people who have no chance because they are unwilling to alter who they are, however flawed and suboptimal they may be. We will address each category in turn.

People Who Just Don’t Have a Chance

We live in a world that has somehow managed to delude itself into the belief that everyone can get what they want from a relationship if they just implement the correct strategy. We accept this pleasant fantasy because we desperately want to believe in the potential for an equal society.

Humans are not born equal. Life is not like a video game in which, because you have only one point in attractiveness, your avatar has more points to spend in intelligence. Instead: looks, intelligence, height, motivation, and wealth are all highly correlated (we mean this scientifically and not subjectively—statistically speaking, hot and tall people are more intelligent and wealthier). This sucks, but it’s a statistical reality.

No matter how ugly and poor a person is, they can still get whatever they want from a relationship so long as they are smart and motivated. That said, not all people are smart and motivated. Any relationship guide claiming to be able to help unmotivated, intellectually challenged people is telling a cruel lie and doing these people an honest disservice.

Some children are born to great disadvantages. Some kids starve to death before their fifth birthday. This book isn’t going to change this reality, but at least it can avoid making the world worse by not acknowledging it. Telling people that everyone is guaranteed a satisfying relationship so long as they follow a few simple steps is as willfully ignorant as telling people that anyone can become a billionaire should they merely work hard enough. The world isn’t fair, and pretending it is only makes things worse for those who struggle the most.

If you are that guy who has sent thirty unprompted dick pics and has gotten thirty immediate rejections yet still holds out hope that dick pics are a viable sexual strategy or if you are that gal who thinks that if you just stand in the corner at enough bars for long enough, eventually your future spouse will sweep you off your feet: You simply lack the social intelligence required to engineer a successful relationship or a productive sexual strategy. All we can say is we are sorry, and the world isn’t fair.

Note from the Research:

People Who Fail Because of Who They Are

A tragically large number of individuals are unwilling to accept that their failure to secure sex, a long-term partner, or a happy relationship results from a personal character that they can—but are apparently unwilling to—change.

Every human has the potential to deserve love and happiness. But have you ever heard the phrase: “You get what you deserve”? Some people expect more love and happiness than their efforts, self-reflection, and self-control can earn.

Being the source of your own problems doesn’t necessarily indicate you are mean or ill-intentioned. We know nice people who repeatedly end up in horrible relationships, and all we can say is: “Well, it sucks, but we get why it keeps happening to that person.” If this statement shocks you, make more friends. You will eventually meet that person who, while being perfectly innocent, sees all their relationships end or turn toxic for reasons that would be obvious to them were they capable of self-reflection.

The good news is that personal failings can be fixed. If you want help on that front, read our first book: The Pragmatist’s Guide to Life. We will even give you a free digital copy if you send a short description of your last relationship to Hello@Pragmatist.Guide. The bad news is that taking the steps outlined in The Pragmatist’s Guide to Life requires sustained effort and motivation, which will be thoroughly unpleasant, assuming you are the kind of person who does not enjoy making themselves better.

Defining Human Relationships

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henever we first tackle a topic, we do our best to define it. Here is our best crack at delineating what exactly a relationship is:

A relationship forms when participants believe that through collaboration they can differentially benefit from a partnership.

Let’s break that down:

More simply put, we are all looking for the same things from a relationship: A mutually beneficial partnership with one or more people. (Well, most of us are—we suppose sociopaths don’t care if a partnership is mutually beneficial.)

Factors Affecting Desirability

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he factors that raise a person’s desirability (both aggregate and individual) can vary dramatically and are worth investigating. In this investigation, we will focus on factors that can contribute to both individual desirability and aggregate desirability, as well as how such factors can be exploited to your advantage within the marketplace.

Gold has value because the market values gold. Whether or not you individually value gold, and whether or not gold has any inherent moral, functional, or philosophical value, is irrelevant. If the price of gold is higher in Syria, this does not mean Syrians are gold-mad fiends, or all Syrians want gold; it is merely a market fact: The price of gold is higher in Syria. Such facts are worth discussing because they reveal arbitrage opportunities that can be exploited.

Our statements like: “Additional wealth increases a male’s aggregate desirability more than a female’s aggregate desirability” are therefore devoid of moral judgments or any other implications aside from what the statistics show. Please keep this in mind when reviewing seemingly harsh statements.

A quick refresher:

Physical Attractiveness

While some basic physical features indicating genetic fitness—such as facial symmetry—are universally seen as attractive, there is a wide array of deviations in which physical features are considered attractive between markets. Physical attractiveness, therefore, presents an excellent opportunity to identify and exploit arbitrage opportunities.

Suppose you are deathly pale. This would vastly decrease your aggregate physical attractiveness among a Jersey Shore subculture, but vastly increase it among a goth subculture. Thinking about aggregate desirability in this specific context makes it clear that it is often worth thinking about the tools you have at your disposal and what subcultures value those tools most. Goth aggregate desirability rank is going to be different than Western societal aggregate desirability rank even though Western society contains the goth subgroup.

In general, when we use the word aggregate desirability without a modifier, the modifier we are implying is western society, as that is the population to which most adults turn when attempting to calculate their own aggregate value for the purposes of making decisions about who is “in their league” (e.g., when trying to decide if they could do better than their current partner) and thus the rating that influences relationship stability the most.

If you have a physical trait that has little positive or negative effect on your aggregate desirability, but that is a specific, strong turn on for a small portion of the population—lots of freckles or heterochromia (having eyes of two different colors)—you can exploit this. If you secure a partner that has an attraction to this trait, it will be easier to ensure your individual desirability to that partner stays higher than your aggregate desirability.

Should you have some feature that significantly negatively impacts your aggregate desirability on a societal level, but that a few small communities find to be very attractive, you can get a leg up by targeting those communities. There are, for example, people who find severe obesity or being quadriplegic very attractive. Playing specifically into these communities can allow you access to partners of a quality that would be extremely difficult for you to find on the open market.

This tactic has two downsides:

  1. It can be very difficult to sexualize something of which you have been conditioned to be ashamed. Life will be hard if your life partner adores one of your top points of shame. To reduce that discomfort, consider re-framing your ideal self-image in a manner that embraces that feature, which you once saw as a flaw.
  2. These communities don’t filter out “creeps” as aggressively as other social groups, leading to a feeling that they attract creeps even though that isn’t really the case. It is not that creepy individuals have these proclivities more often, but that creeps are more likely to be open about their interests. People rarely voluntarily make a sexual kink community their primary social circle; thus, those that do are more likely than average to have been expelled from most other communities.

Kink Preference

Typically an individual’s kink preference only affects individual desirability because it is not broadcasted publicly. A masochist would have a higher individual desirability to a sadist, but a sadist would typically not know someone is a masochist because that isn’t the type of thing people signal publicly.

Kink preferences can affect aggregate desirability in some scenarios. A woman who likes anal or a man who loves cunnilingus may have higher aggregate desirability in some markets. The tricky thing is signaling this to the market in a way that doesn’t cause more harm than good to aggregate desirability. Kink preference, therefore, really only comes into play in the poly dating scene and within specific kink subcultures where sharing this kind of information is more normalized.

Contractual Perks or Downsides

A person may be able to raise their individual desirability with a prospective or current partner through the terms in their relationship contract (the “rules” of their relationship). Rather than written documents, these contracts are typically just a set of expectations as to the “rules” of the relationship and are talked about in detail in this book’s chapter on relationship contracts.

For example, a woman might increase her individual desirability in the eyes of a man by creating a relationship contract in which he is not out of bounds when sleeping with other women. A man might increase his desirability by creating a contract in which there is an expectation that he does all the chores. The ability to alter your relationship contract to increase your value to your partner should not be underestimated as a tool to increase relationship stability even if society rarely flags it as an option.

In rare instances in which a subculture publicly broadcasts expected relationship contract terms, one’s acceptable terms can have an impact on aggregate desirability. For example, a polyamorous couple looking for a unicorn (a single, bisexual female willing to be in a relationship in which she has lower status than the primary female) has a legendarily high aggregate desirability within polyamorous communities, as few people are interested in being that kind of third wheel and unicorns can become therefore they are in short supply. Of course, this opens the doors to significant arbitrage if you either enjoy or don’t mind the dynamics of a “unicorn” contract allowing you to secure partners well “out of your league.”

Personality + Trope

Some people have a unique predilection for certain personality types. If your partner likes your personality type, you will enjoy higher individual desirability and thus a more stable relationship.

Personality, as expressed within cultural tropes, also affects aggregate desirability. Tropes are personality archetypes we have in our collective social consciousness—a cultural shorthand for a group of personality traits. A great arbitrage play is to embody a trope that has little real-world representation but for whom a fair number of individuals harbor a strong sexual preference. When Malcolm first started dating, he attempted to embody the “preppy” trope of what girls generically considered hot—something that all the other guys were doing. Then he switched to the nerd archetype, and his difficulty in securing partners dropped dramatically. This was due to the large portion of girls finding the nerd archetype “hot” and few physically attractive guys embodying it (at least back then—this has changed dramatically in the past decade).

Mental Attributes

Mental attributes can range from innate intelligence to mental stability or a sense of humor. Preferences for different mental attributes vary across subcultures, allowing opportunities for arbitrage. Interestingly, some subcultures appear to value low intelligence in females that, because it can be easily faked by an intelligent female, leads to interesting market dynamics.

Emotional, Hormonal, and Instinctual Factors

A person’s individual desirability is often modulated by the emotional and hormonal processes they trigger in other people, intentionally or otherwise. These processes range from “love at first sight” (which is not the same emotion as love, studies show it’s closer to lust contextualized differently) to new relationship energy (NRE) and HLA (HLA is human leukocyte antigen, which has been shown to have some effect on who people find attractive, though the research on HLA does not support the massive effect some people want to pretend it has).

These factors are most relevant right at the start of a relationship and are experienced as “new relationship energy” / limerence. In longer-term relationships, these factors are experienced as love. Either way, they almost always increase your individual desirability to a specific partner with whom you have interacted physically.

Availability

An individual’s availability and willingness to emotionally and sexually engage with a partner affects both individual and aggregate desirability, but not always in ways that you would expect.

On an individual level, you can increase your desirability by making an effort to actively engage with a prospective partner on an intellectual, emotional, physical, or/and sexual level. While doing this watch for and react to “bids for attention,” be they overt (like asking to go on a walk) or covert (like silently pouting). However, having a highly available partner is not every individual’s preference—thus, you should attempt to determine an individual’s preferred relationship style before increasing your desirability in this way.

Unexpectedly decreasing availability can have a profound, deleterious effect on relationship stability. This often comes with the natural decline or increase in sexual and emotional availability common in many due to natural hormonal changes (triggered by age, relationship status, children, etc.), which instigates friction in relationships and can profoundly affect the extent to which each partner values their significant other.

Where things get weird is how availability impacts your aggregate desirability. A phenomenon called mate-choice copying causes individuals to find a target who has already been chosen by another person to be more desirable. While this phenomenon is seen in many species, it is particularly strong in humans. Studies have found that a man wearing a wedding ring will be flirted with more often than a man without one, and the presence of an attractive partner increases a man’s perceived desirability. This phenomenon is seen more in human females than in males (but it honestly hasn’t been studied much in males—we suspect it exists but is counteracted by men’s aggregate preference for chastity).

Mate-choice copying appears to be a primarily female mating tactic aimed at simplifying the assessment of a man’s suitability for long-term sexual relationships. Supporting this hypothesis, studies show that lack of experience increases copying behavior in women (e.g., a woman with less sexual experience will strongly prefer an already “taken” partner on the aggregate).

Mate-choice copying becomes a problem when it begins to snowball—males who are successful with women have an easier time with other women, which in turn makes them yet more attractive to other women. The fact that mate copying impulses are strongest among inexperienced women (this has been shown experimentally) causes the classic high-school stud conundrum, in which a few guys have an artificially inflated value in high school: A perception among the school body that all the girls like a guy causes many girls to like him more. Simultaneously, mate copying makes it much harder for a young guy who is not successful in the sexual marketplace in high school to break in.

What we perhaps find most fascinating about this behavior is that for a portion of the population, it appears to have no upper limit to how it modifies attractiveness. It is hard to say how big that portion is, as there has been no research on the subject that we are aware of. The effect can be seen when you get large groups of inexperienced women, all demonstrating interest in the same male, as is often seen with famous musicians (think an Elvis, Justin Bieber, or boy band performance). What is cool is we can trace this behavior back to even the earliest days of film in performances, like those of Frank Sinatra. The behavior is even recorded in historic texts, with the phenomenon appearing around generals and musicians going all the way back to the Renaissance.

Perhaps the stimulation caused by mate choice mirroring creates a snowball phenomenon in which each woman sees the increasing desirability rating for the male among her large group of peers and thus up modulates her affection displays in turn, leading her peers to up modulate theirs. This snowball of stimulation can literally reach such levels that people will begin screaming and crying uncontrollably then pass out.

There is no corollary phenomenon involving male groups frothing at the mouth and passing out over females, which lends credence to the experimentally supported evidence that mirroring affects females more than males (not that males won’t cheer for famous females, but there is a pretty clear distinction between this snowball phenomenon and normal crowd admiration). The fact that mate-choice copying appears more in inexperienced women also explains why the bands most frequently cause a snowball phenomenon target preteen girls (boy bands, etc.). We need to clarify here that we think the normal mechanisms meant to prevent mirroring from snowballing aren’t in place in only a small percent of the female population, but that when you expose someone to a large enough crowd of women, that small percent without the normal regulation mechanism feed off of each other.

Note from the Research:

Chastity-Promiscuity

The effects of perceived chastity on aggregate desirability vary profoundly between cultures, genders, and sexes. Among the majority of heterosexual individuals looking for long-term partners in Western cultures, a high level of chastity among women is typically seen as a positive modifier (depending on the age of the individual), and medium levels of chastity are valued among males.Some studies show the negative modifier to attractiveness associated with promiscuity is equally strong among both men and women. We expect this is the case for high promiscuity but are not sure if we “buy it” at low/medium levels, such as two or three partners.

On the other hand, promiscuity can be a positive modifier for men and women’s aggregate desirability in short-term relationship marketplaces, as it lowers the perceived investment required to achieve sexual payout. In other words, in females, chastity increases their desirability as a potential long-term partner but decreases desirability as just a sex partner due to the implied increased time investment to gain sexual payout from a chaste individual.

Chastity versus promiscuity has a sizable impact on individual desirability and may also trigger a sexual preference modifier (“I find slutty girls hot”) or a situational modifier (“I need someone who is sexually experienced to show me the ropes”). We dive into the statistics associated with chastity in some detail in the chapter on chastity, exploring how it affects societal perceptions of desirability, neurochemistry, and relationship dynamics.

Wealth

The effects of wealth on desirability are obvious, but the consequences of said effects on society may be more insidious than one would imagine at first glance. A high level of wealth modifies a male’s aggregate desirability if he can effectively signal his wealth, whereas wealth might even run a risk of reducing aggregate desirability for women in many markets (and the statistics back this up).

At a societal level, this has two important consequences:

  1. Once a man has acquired a high level of wealth, he is more likely than a woman to spend it on things that a prospective partner may see and recognize as expensive. This may help to explain why more single wealthy men buy and publicly display expensive luxury cars than single wealthy women (93.6% of Ferraris are bought by men, 84.4% of Maserati buyers are men, and 80.3% of Porsche buyers are men—even though women buy 62% of cars overall). You see this effect in cars because a car is the highest ticket item you can own that can be shown to someone without taking them back to your residence, and hence cars can signal a person’s wealth as early as the first date.
  2. A woman could increase her aggregate desirability a little were she to have half a million dollars to her name, but her wealth-based-gains pale in comparison to those made by men. To an average male, half a million dollars is everything it is to a female, but it can also be used to give him a much larger value boost in the sexual marketplace. This means that unless we can get men on average to value the wealth of female partners more and women to value wealth among male partners less, a marginal increase in wealth has more value to an average man than an average woman. This is likely a contributor to men choosing higher-paying jobs with lower work-life balance on average at a higher rate than women (leading to uncomfortable statistics, like 93% of workplace fatalities being male).

Fertility

In most cultures throughout time, fertile men and women have a higher aggregate and individual desirability (see King Henry VIII and his wives as an excellent example), but in modern Western culture, fertility is only really relevant to individual desirability in someone who wishes to produce offspring with a long-term partner. Interest in bearing and raising children also falls into the category, as a woman desperate to get pregnant often has slightly lower aggregate desirability on the casual dating market, whereas a man who really wants to start a family has slightly higher aggregate desirability on the long-term relationship market.

Physical Alteration

In modern western society, physical alteration through surgical or other interventions generally lowers aggregate desirability. That said, both present time and history are full of examples of groups who view significant physical alteration, such as tattoos, foot binding, neck extension, the use of gauges, or forehead flattening, as a means of significantly raising aggregate desirability.

Individuals who have undergone significant surgical alterations will have arbitrage opportunities if these alterations demonstrate dedication to a subculture, and the individual is hunting for a partner within said subculture. Things like tattoos and piercings can be used to demonstrate dedication to a subculture through the sacrifice of lowering one’s estimated value in mainstream society and thus raising their value within a subculture (think of a goth with significant piercings or someone in a gang covered in tattoos).

At a societal level, the negative modifier associated with physical alteration is usually tied to both the extent of the alteration and the quality of the alteration. Something like veneers or a facelift typically has a low effect. Augmented breasts typically have a medium effect. Sex reassignment surgeries typically have a profound effect. All these effects can be heavily modified by the quality of the work.

On an individual basis, the extent to which physical alteration changes attractiveness varies highly. For some people, it is a deal-breaker, while for others it is irrelevant or a positive. The attractiveness gains possible through cosmetic surgery can more than make up for any negative effect of having undergone alteration. Even on an individual level, a guy who thinks “fake” boobs are gross may prefer larger breasts enough to still prefer a surgically altered breast.

Note from the Research:

Children from Previous Partners

An individual with children from a partner to whom they are no longer attached has lower aggregate desirability across almost all cultures; however, the negative effect hits women harder than men. In contrast, having children with a partner typically significantly raises your individual desirability in that partner’s eyes (this is tied to social stigmas and the financial convenience in your partner also being the parent of a child you share).

This double whammy of lowering your value on an open market, but increasing your value to your partner has a huge effect on relationships pre- and post-kids making them much more stable—which is useful because having kids also increases stress levels, which could otherwise drive more couples to break up after having their first child. (In other words, after a couple has kids together both of their desirability to other people goes down dramatically but the logistical simplicity of staying together typically increases for both of them. These two things happening at the same time helps increase the stability of a relationship at an otherwise stressful time.)

Beliefs About the World

It would seem obvious that alignment of beliefs affects a person’s individual desirability in the eyes of a partner, but personal beliefs can also affect an individual’s aggregate desirability. To take an extremist example: A neo-Nazi has a lower aggregate desirability than someone who is not a neo-Nazi. In general, a more conservative or men’s-rights-focused worldview improves a woman’s aggregate desirability, because these beliefs are less common in women, and a more liberal and feminist view improves a man’s aggregate desirability.

Something that lowers one’s aggregate desirability on an open market but improves a person’s individual desirability when they find a match creates a very stable relationship. Were two neo-Nazis to meet each other, the rareness of that belief system and how undesirable they each are on the open market would create a relationship better than most others they could hope for. As neo-Nazis typically hang out in communities of neo-Nazis, the effect is somewhat muted as they likely judge their aggregate desirability against their social group.

Sources of Recreation

The effects of preferred hobbies and recreational activities on individual desirability are obvious. Most will gain more from a partnership with someone who enjoys doing the same things they do—though there are some who would prefer to maintain their own separate domains, and it is helpful to parse out such preferences when vetting relationship candidates.

Hobbies can heavily impact aggregate desirability. For example, a woman who likes playing first-person shooter video games and watching football or a guy who enjoys shopping may have a leg up with partners of the opposite gender. Ownership of pets also falls into this category and has a significant impact on individual and aggregate desirability; thus, pets are sometimes used in partner acquisition strategies.

Opportunity Cost

Since the generic societal relationship contract is a monogamous one, being in most relationships precludes—or at least significantly impedes—one’s ability to source other partners. If you know that you are in a place in life with a large pool of potential partners that are easy to meet (college, for instance), any relationship that eats up time you have to source within that pool will have a negative value modifier attached to it.

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