Friendship
Shark, some other reader asked about making friends, could you please do a post on this? Your book mentions the skills necessary to AMOG them, but what about to make them? I’ve read through all your past posts, and gathered that practicing social skills is a necessary aspect, but could you give some insight on the friendship dynamic itself possibly?
Friendship is an evolved concept, developing primarily because social codependency increases our chances for survival. If it did not, there would be no herding phenomena, nor a clique/pack mentality. In fact, an interesting book I once read (Death From A Distance by Paul Bingham) correlates human cooperation directly with the development of efficient methods to control conflict through coercion. In other words, the bow and arrow could police a village, the gun could police a city, and nukes could police a planet. A cynical take on human cooperation, but shit, statistics are statistics.
Although weaponry is reserved to govern macro level dynamics, the principal still stands; humans cooperate because it increases their chances for survival. This is the seed of every friendship. But we no longer live in a caveman era and with the complexities of modern society, this seemingly basic system takes a far more abstract form. Your survival instinct itself is not “Hunt, Eat, Protect;” it’s “charm my boss, level up in world of warcraft, read a book to gain knowledge,” and so forth. And following in suit, your drive to create friends is not “He will help me hunt” it’s
“He makes me think positively, I’ll ask him to sarge with me”
“She’s fun to talk to, I’ll text her”
“He’s good at football, I’ll ask him to play with me and my other friends”
“This guy just got 10 bazillion kills and -5 deaths in Call of Duty, I’ll send him a friend request”
“She’s into Lord of the Rings just like I am, maybe I’ll ask her if she wants to watch it with me”
Applying deductive reasoning then, making friends is simply a process of showing others you have some form of value. And with social adaptivity replacing physical adaptivity as the requisite for survival, displaying value ends up being a very fluid concept. You can do it in many ways, except for one. You cannot be boring. Betas are sought out as friends because everyone wants an orbiter, someone to supplicate to them. Alphas are sought out as friends because everyone wants a leader, someone with a magnetic personality. Ennui is the only sin, you can bring anything to the table besides boredom. Even if you have a depressed as fuck mentality, people will seek you out as a friend to relate to you when they’re going through their own tragic spells or break ups. But when you have an introverted and boring personality, there is nothing to attract them to you. Note this doesn’t apply to girls above the boner scale because they have value inherent within them. And if you go down the scale of boredom, all the way past even; down to ANNOYING, people will not just be uninterested in you, they will detest your presence.
At this point, an obvious question arises. Why does conflict exist at all if cooperation is the key to survival? The answer is reflective of all human agony, a metaphysical representation of both our greatest triumph and our greatest flaw. To elaborate:
Why are humans never satisfied with what they have? Why are we always unhappy and striving for more? Because EVOLUTIONARILY, it makes sense. It allows for PROGRESS. If anyone’s familiar with H.G Wells’ story, The Time Traveler, what happened millenniums into the future when humans were finally “happy” and “passive?” They became weak and pathetic. Social evolution stagnated and there was nothing PUSHING them towards the next big thing, the next big invention, the next great empire.
Why are there two sexes instead of one that could reproduce asexually? Because from a Darwinian point of view, two sexes is the key to efficiently weeding out weak genes. Imagine 10 guys and 10 girls. With hypergamy in place, perhaps only 2 of those guys would sleep with all 10 girls. This is the essence of Alpha, why only a handful of men dominate the entire secksual market. It allows for generations to rapidly calibrate better genes, skills, and adaptations (remember, SOCIAL ones in our era).
So it comes to this, why is cooperation not 100% efficient? Because conflict eradicates the weak. Conflict causes change. Conflict is necessary. Men of equally perceived secksual market value (Alpha vs Alpha or Beta vs Beta) are inclined to compete against each other for attention, power, and poosay; it ensures that women will be guaranteed the creme de la creme and society will be led be the best of the best. This is however, balanced to a certain degree with cultural stigma and taboos, to keep an equilibrium between cooperation and conflict. And thinking back to Fightclub, what was the whole point of beating the shit out of each other? To realize that our culture is ebbing too much towards cooperation, too much away from conflict, and domesticating men to the point of turning them into women with penises.
And on a final note, someone asked about friendship and virtue. The inquiry is difficult to address.
For instance, it’s much easier for a beta to say “I would never cheat” than an Alpha. Similarly, it’s much easier for someone to say “I would never date my friend’s ex” without ever being tempted audaciously enough. Imagine the following set of circumstances: What if you suddenly took to a testosterone diet and your secks drive multiplied by 3. And now imagine your friend broke up with his ex, and it’s been 2 months. She is a perfect 10 with a perfect fuckin body, she looks like Adriana Lima. Now imagine you and her are forced to spend more time with each other through some coincidence (work or school or whatnot) and she’s always wearing the tightest, most eroticized outfits you could imagine. Now imagine one day you’re at home fapping to her facebook. Mid-fap, you hear a doorbell right before you’re about to blast a jet stream of fapjuice through the window. It’s her, in the outfit pictured below. And then she says “You have to fuck me, right now.” Imagine you still say no, being virtuous and all. And then imagine she says “If you don’t fuck me, I will fuck your neighbor next door, and every other guy down this block, and then tell your friend you fucked me anyways.” Now THAT is a fuckin complication.
Virtue is reserved for those who could afford to avoid sin, or are never tempted by it. I am of the former. I have both money and women, I have never been given the right to choose integrity out of free will, no one has ever been given that right in absolute.
You say “Shark is so good, he offers all this for free!” I would reply, “I have enough money, who knows what I would do if I was single, stupid, had 3 kids, and this site was my sole source of income?”
My friend says “Shark is so good, he said no when my ex came onto him,” to which I would reply “Huh? I woulda fucked her, she was just butt ass ugly and I already fapped 6 times this morning, I wouldn’t be able to get it up.”
It’s one thing for a rich man to say “I would never steal,” and a very different thing for a poor man to say it.
But enough. Virtue is a tedious topic. I must go Fap now.
Hey shark,
I’ve been following your blog for a while now. Your blogs are very much enlightening, even for a girl.
Well… I’ll be hitting college soon and i’m improving myself with your advices here in the blog, I know that the female & male dynamics are really quite different, but I still do most of what you say nevertheless. This isn’t really related to the article above but I want to ask for your advice. Does doing these stuff help me game other people, whether it be another girl (same sex) or guys? Well, I actually have no trouble in attracting guys. Lately though, I’ve been wanting to game other girls— even if i’m also a girl. Yeah, I guess i kinda swing that way at the moment.
Some of my best friends actually tells me that they’ve noticed that there’s something about me that makes me very much appealing, especially to the same sex. (girls) At first, I had no clue— but after reading most of what you’ve wrote, I think it’s because I act and am like an alpha female in my inner core. Also, i’m not like the other girls who dress and sit pretty while batting their eyelashes, I love action and hate indecisive people. Well, can you please give me tips regarding how to improve my game as a women— towards guys and girls, but leaning on towards the girls. (I’ve been reading a lot of materials too since I really want to improve my internal and external self, all of robert greene’s book and etc) As soon as I get my credit card, I’m planning on getting your book (the black flag).
P.S — I’m not the typical feminine girl… My style is usually casual or sporty, I love videogames, reading, writing— quite tomboyish as one may say, but I do look /have feminine side, and am not butch.
(sorry for double posting, but I accidentally posted this on an old article. I was thinking you might not notice so I put it here instead.)
Hey Shark a few days ago I met a 10 the nature of how we met was quite unnatural, my family went on a trip out of state decided to have small picnic with these other families all was normal. This girl just happened to be the daughter of someone my father went to school with ,this other guy comes in and between the two of us she was more interested in my conversation than his (all that practice on my frame came in handy thanks ) so where im trying to get at…. well this car that was speeding flips over on the side of the road where we had the picnic. There were about 6 families all having this potluck and suddenly this suv flips i see my elder brother running towards the car and a transformer had blown and it was on fire me and him go first the other folks were quite scared i sprinted after him told a bunch of people to help me push the car which had pretty much caved to the side due flipping over . The woman in the car and the dog were pulled out by the emt and my brother who is a trained emt here in NY and so we got her off to the side apparently the woman lost consciousness due her ventilator not working and must have lost consciousness. The 10 in question was happy to see that i was alright when me and my brother had go
gotten out alright* my question is she attracted to me because of what had just happened or is it because of who I am and how I treated her Im taking her out this week or so and ive been having trouble sleeping due to the incident what should I do?
one of your more insightful and comical articles
Hi Shark,
Thanks for your great blog, an eye-opener if I’m allowed to use a euphemism. I’ve read every single entry and am mid-way through the Black Flag, can’t tell you enough how much of an impact you’ve had on the way I see life, the world and especially the way I see myself as a Man.
A few questions:
1 – This one is a real big one for me: is there such a thing as being able to trust your girlfriend? Or, in the end, does it just come down to the (internal) act of not caring because as an Alpha we are above it, if she does something fuck it, I’ll just dump her and find someone else. My problem with this is that I know that my girlfriend can lie really well (I stole her from her previous boyfriend by being Super Alpha; before she dumped him we were fucking around for months, she would sometimes call him and be all sweet right next to me at my apartment). I’m afraid *not* of her cheating on me but of not knowing about it and ending up living a lie like her boyfriend (i.e. not having the knowledge and the *choice* to dump her). Can a relationship that started like this last? Even if by all accounts I see myself not getting tired of her, she constantly tells me how she has never loved someone as much as me, how nobody has ever given her so much pleasure as me, how lucky she is to have me etc etc. I realise that with her my margin for beta-backsliding is very thin, but do you think this is worth it?
2 – Shark, do *you* / have you ever beta-backslid(e)? And if so, how do you deal with it when it happens? Do we benefit from a margin of error based on how Alpha you have been up until that point in the relationship (halo effect + cognitive dissonance)? Meaning if you’ve been a fucking rock with one or two explosions of anger at some shit she did, is it possible to still remain (or go back to being) the Super Alpha she craves and therefore still out-Alpha the mysterious strong guy she meets at a random girls’ night out?
Just an example to show the effect of your teachings and perhaps give some more context: last week my girlfriend shit-tested me: she was going to come over to my place on Friday evening after dinner, called me from her parents house and flaked out at 9pm. I said ok no problem, as soon as I hung up the phone I called some of my (girl) friends and went out with them until 3 am. She called me again right before I was leaving my house, was visibly not amused that I was going out for drinks with friends, asked who I was going with but didn’t say anything (how could she right?). I just told her matter-of-factly, not like I was punishing her or anything. I went out until 3am and had a great time, had girls (not my friends) coming up to me and talking to me, I was faithful because I *chose* to be. Next day my girlfriend was still grouchy, she didn’t ask questions and I told her nothing about the night out. A couple of days later she was fucking my eyeballs out.
Thanks a lot,
G.
Shark is so benevolent, he offers us this scripture for free!
Shark,
I’m in a bit of a dilemma and I would appreciate some input. To start with, I’ve never really had a problem with girls (talking to them, flirting, approaching, etc.) But recently I met this girl who has been in a relationship with some guy on and off for 2 years. I met her through a group of mutual friends. Whenever we’re all hanging out at parties or friend’s houses we really seem to hit it off. I got her number no problem and drop her a text every once in awhile. I have a really high social value among our group of friends and I would definitely consider myself the AMOG. I don’t make any one girl a priority, but something about this one is different. She’s easily classed a 9, but to me she’s a perfect 10. Whenever we converse, we end up having a lot in common whether it be tastes in music, movies, whatever. I always play the us card around her and she buys into it all the time. I even can get her to use the ‘us against the world’ kind of situations. We flirt a lot. She’s picked up several of the phrases I like saying, and uses them whenever she’s around me. Our friends even tell me that she talks about me a good deal when I’m not around. Obviously my problem at this point should be pretty clear, to me all the signs of her being attracted to me are there. I just don’t know how to transition her from her boyfriend to me.
If you could help me out, that’d be appreciated.
Ok, I won’t make this long.
There’s a girl on my bus. I’ve never really spoken to her before, but we know of each other, and we have mutual friends. Sometimes she sits next to me.
What should I say?
I should also mention… She claims she’s in love with said guy.
Shark, reading this blog has changed my life. For the better. I’ve no doubt about that.
But i’ve come to the point where I find myself so crammed up with knowledge that I over analyse everything; the fact that you’ve covered such minute details is a blessing, but also a curse. I feel that I need to take the fundamentals and take a step back from game, evo psych, social dynamics, everything. So that I dont find myself reliant on this blog, or thinking to myself whenever a slightly different scenario happens from one you’ve explained ‘I’ll just ask Shark.’ To me you’re like my guide, a father figure, but there comes a time where the student has to step out into the wicked wide world alone.. and I feel like that time is now. But before I go i’d appreciate some last words of advice.. & forgive me for asking such a cliched and compacted question, but if you were to sum up game for me, inter-gender relationships, understanding women, everything… what would you say? Just a nugget… so I can stop pondering on all the footnotes, brackets, engaging in over-analysis and re-focus myself – take the step forward and be independent.
this is unrelated to the post, but ive had this question lingering for a while: would it be accurate to say that your general philosophy is very similar to Descarte’s?
I have come across the issue that I get hit on by women, but it seems that the quality of women (or social value of them) stays within a certain range. For example, I get hit on by girl that is smart, no kids, no real mental problems, but she isnt very pretty. On the flip side I get hit on another girl that is great looking, but she is poor and has a drug problem, and isnt the brightest. Or I have noticed that I get hit on by good looking girls that are kind of old and have low socioeconomic jobs, or I get hit on by young girls that are maybe some type of professional but they are but ugly. SO, ive come to the conclusion that the social value of each of these girls is a sum of their qualities, and is a direct reflection of MY social value. So my question is, do you have some type of scale or composite chart where you can rate a girls social value and my own social value. The reason is becuase Ive been trying to gauge my own social value based on the type of women I attract, but it is only a rough estimate and its hard to know for sure where my ceiling is for my social value based on who I attract. So could you please describe some type of assessment scale tool like with different components (each of which is something like you get 0,1, or 2 points for being but ugly, moderately good looking, and very goodlooking; one the same for social skills, one for amount of wealth, etc.) This would then give you a value between 1-10 that could tell your social value as it pertains to being 0( super beta) to 10 ( a super alpha). That way it would be good to know what are the most important tangible things one could work on to make your way to being a super alpha. I have been working on a scale similar to this a year ago, but never really was sure if it a made sense. I had also made one for women. I figuired I have access to all those females with a lower ranking than myself on the scale. Anyways please let us know ad least a short list of things that move you towards super alpha.
On an unrealted note, I read the article on dissullusion,, ive come to realize a little bit more why Ive really always hated lesbians. It wasnt so much becuase of my faith, but it was becuase they are coming into a territory that I thought was only reserved for men, and that i havent even mastered myself- that is seducing women. I mean look at this, not only are women blessed with inherent sexuality, but now they are learning dominance that I though men had cornered the market on. So if girls like the ones from the post get their way, what ever there was left over from the alpha males taking, they will have picked up the rest, with nothing left over for those that are not alpha. From an evolutionary standpoint this is very distressing to males ( I guess such as myselft) that dont have the highest social or reproductive value. So how does one cope and compete with bisexual women, it almost seems like David fighting Goliath on the sexual market for the attention of women. How can a man step up his value/game to not even flintch at the sight of cute confident bisexual girl hitting on your girlfriend. Please help as that this has caused me great distress and has produced in me very very unhealthy hatred for lesbians especially bisexual women. Thanks