I discovered this book title serendipitously (actually calculated by Amazon's monitoring of my interests and activities, so a little disquieting in much the same way as when Facebook released from "inactivity" my old facebook page this past week, which frankly, I thought I had deleted years ago after downloading family pics). I found it intriguing; I requested a sample and was hooked into buying the kindle edition.

His website, therationalmale.com is mind-grabbing in its references for those of us who haven't figured out the relationship system, so to speak.

He put over a decade of findings based on observation of behaviors and debates online into words, motivated by a middle-aged woman who asked him if he could please compile everything into a book that she would give her son, a young man on the brink of solidifying a bad match for himself. He has written this hoping to give younger (and older) beta males a way to examine their path and avoid some of the mistakes which he has made himself. But I don't think you have to be a beta male to appreciate his perspective.

His research belongs to the category of the manosphere, and his approach is one of hard-core realism, refreshingly concrete and clear.

I think I'll review it in parts to give it well-deserved attention. It does not reek of "blame the woman," but does "inform the man," in ways that are relevant to both genders while still pointing out the sources of relationship misinformation in our feminized society. It also seems to squarely address my query on this site which was titled: "Things I Really Want to Know," and which a number of kind souls responded to.

The Rational Male is turning out to be a fine read and relevant for me also, three to four chapters in. He talks about specific "behaviors and the motivators for them." (1% [of kindle progress in the book, hereafter denoted simply by the percentage.])

He refers to the "Average Frustrated Chump (AFC)," a beta male, as Tomassi describes him, trying his best to find his match and get his needs met. Relating to it as a female, I suppose in some ways, I have been a beta also by not tossing out my lasso of seductivity to tie a noose around some unsuspecting male's neck, as I squeeze the life out of him in pursuit of my own materialistic agenda. This is because my old-world father trained me not to be a new-world slut. Having mating behaviors codified and the reasons for these explained in clear terms will be helpful for anyone lacking what he calls "Game-awareness," something that some women lack as well.

In his section, "Connecting the Dots," he says:

"One of the primary foundations of Game-awareness is basing your estimation of a woman upon her actions and behaviors rather than her words or implied intents. This principle is founded in behaviorism's cardinal principle—behavior is the only reliable evidence of motivation," a hard lesson for anyone who relies on words. (1%, underline mine) He also discards the "not me, not her" form of denial in which we except ourselves and our mates so that we don't suffer the loss of denial, which activates to protect ourselves from the shame of making mistakes, of admitting that our investment was misguided. He calls this the "Religion of the Soul-Mate," and it does neither gender justice. (2%)

We're all subject to mistakes, and why this must be a reason for shame (??) surely keeps us stuck where we are.

One source of this noose around the man's neck is what he calls "ONEitis," meaning the myth of the soulmate. The results of this cultural mythology however, have been paralyzing for both males and females:

"There is no ONE. This is the soul-mate myth. There are some good Ones and some bad Ones, but there is no ONE."

So dump the "western romanticized mythology," because it's either a noose or a lodestone, and it keeps you on a treadmill of ego-investment in "The feminized Disney-fication of this core concept [which] has been romanticized and commercialized to the point of it becoming a religion, even for the expressly non-religious." (3%)

"Virtually all of the distortions of the core soul-mate dynamic evolved as a controlling schema for men. When it is soul-mate women who are the primary reward for a soul-mate necessitous man, there are a lot of opportunities to consolidate that power upon. To be clear, don't think this is some fiendish plot of a fem-centric cabal socially engineering that soul-mate fear into men. Generations of men, raised to be oblivious to it, willingly and actively help perpetuate the Soul-Mate Myth." (3%)

"For women, the soul-mate represents that nigh unattainable combination of arousing Alpha dominance matched with a loyal providership for her long term security that only she can tame out of him." (4%)

"People subscribing to the myth would rather build a soul-mate, consequences be damned. So women will attempt to Build a better Beta, or tame down an Alpha, while men will attempt to turn a whore into a housewife, or vice versa.....red-pill truth..." (4%)

I agree with Tomassi that this is an acute condition.

I also believe, upon reflection, that we do not have just one red pill moment in life, but multiples. Why? Because we are imperfect human creatures who cannot fathom all of life in our first gulp of air. And if we could, our growth would surely be stunted—a maturing process unattainable, our reflections regurgitative, our life a caricature of "Groundhog Day," on physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels, but never moving past it—truly a "why bother" experience.

You can see why these insights are mind-grabbing for their relevance in such a core area of our modern lives, especially if we are not living in arranged marriages... I'm in for the read.

Clown or Hyena, It Doesn't Matter to Me