“Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.” – Wilkie Collins
Contents:
1.) Introduction
2.) Male Ignorance
3.) Insecurity: A Basis for Feminine Indignance
4.) Cause & Effect vs Solipsistic Blame Attribution
5.) The Invalidity of Female Emotion & It’s Frustrative Affectation
6.) Emotional Endurance
7.) In Closing
1.) Introduction:
You do not argue with women when you wish for them to comprehend, comply or agree. You cannot argue against woman’s feelings, only manipulate them. Argument necessitates reason, but reason is ineffectual in conflict with women. In non-political matters, where a man will yield to superior logic, a woman will not. And so man must manipulate woman’s emotions in a way that makes her cooperative, or he should not engage her at all.
If a woman is so entitled or indignant that you find yourself unable to escape her compulsion to argue, you would be wise to engage her as a Machiavellian rather than a logician. Man must remember that when lured into argument with a woman, he is at battle. The dispute at hand is Machiavellian, not rational; a game, not a civilised debate. The man who believes the argument is about mutual cooperation via the discovery of truth rather than the assuagement of the involved woman’s emotional state, operates on a doomed axiom. A man’s desire to problem solve is fundamentally incompatible with a woman’s desire for catharsis.
2.) Male Ignorance:
Men are quite wrongfully taught they should placate women’s emotions, or engage in mind-numbingly futile attempts to reason with them. To do either is to forfeit power before conflict even begins. Such strategies are losing propositions. Man should neither placate nor reason with a distressed woman. But rather, he should be charming enough to keep conflict superficial. When argument cannot be avoided, he need be Machiavellian enough to belittle her. He should not under any uncertain circumstance argue back-and-forth with any degree of seriousness, for arguing against a woman’s emotional state is as foolish as it is masochistic.
If conflict is unavoidable and reason impenetrable, all that is left is to assert dominance. This is man’s only recourse when a woman is trying to dominate him psychologically with her emotions. Once her emotions have settled, it is wise to explain your reasoning and expectations as a way of guiding the woman, should you care for her. But only outside the confines of argument, never within the heat of it. Naturally, if the woman in question is insignificant, such paternal patience is unnecessary. Aftercare is discretionary.
3.) Insecurity: A Basis for Feminine Indignance:
When an argument begins, a woman’s emotions ensure her uncooperativeness. When a woman stands on the precipice of dissatisfaction, her imperviousness to reason makes the mere concept of argument inane. The key to cooperation therefore lies in keeping her emotional state positive. Just as one would not build a dam for water in a volcano, they would be wise not to attempt reasoning with a distressed woman.
And yet a woman’s feelings are quick to sour. Even the tamest critiques and concerns can result in ill feeling, largely by merit of woman’s inability to handle such things. And so the trap of arguing with a woman is always there, should a man express himself without filtering himself. Often a man knows not how such benign comments result in such grave offence. But such unsophisticated sensitivity is intrinsic to femininity.
One would not be mistaken for thinking I am describing the insecure, rather than women per se, but then it would be disingenuous to assert that the vast majority of women are anything but insecure. So are these things traits of women, or traits of the insecure? I would say both. But then I would also assert that women are intrinsically insecure, and that many arguments take place because a woman is demanding her insecurity be assuaged in spite of the overwhelming importance of the issue at hand. Men who exhibit similar behaviours are likewise womanlike in their mental frailty.
4.) Cause & Effect vs Solipsistic Blame Attribution:
When you argue against a woman’s feelings, you enter her frame by tacitly accepting the validity of her emotion’s premise. Acknowledgement is all it takes to give the irrationality of her emotion credence, and therefore such acknowledgement should be avoided.
Much to our mutual annoyance, a woman’s feelings are typically anything but valid. You see, to a woman, whatever she feels – in spite of why she feels it – is valid. Women care not for “the why” behind their feelings, but simply the fact that they are feeling. As such, the presence of a feeling is proof enough of its validity to a woman, in a sort of infinite solipsistic loop she intuits “the feeling exists, therefore, it is valid.”
If she feels a negative feeling, regardless of the reasonableness of your position, she will blame you for it. In this manner she disregards the importance of cause and effect, because such things are irrelevant to her emotion’s solipsism. As cause and effect take place outside of the female mind, it is irrelevant to her. Solipsism cares not for abstraction.
Now while one could posit that blame qualifies as an investigation into the “why” of how she feels what she does, it really isn’t. Because the blame given is entirely arbitrary by merit of its solipsistic nature. Owing to a lack of abstraction, it is simple blame attribution and affirmation for the self-perpetuation of her emotional state. It is not investigative in the cogent sense of the word.
If she were truly interested in “the why,” she feels what she does, she would look beyond blame, analyse her actions for wrong-doing and come to a reasoned judgement on if her feelings were a reasonable or unreasonable response. If she found them to be unreasonable, she would disregard them and show interest in solving the initial issue. She would do this, rather than allow her feelings to take precedence over the issue which triggered them. Of course, this is not how women work. It is the feeling born of the issue that takes priority, not the issue itself. A minority of women can do this retroactively, but I have known not a woman who can do this in the moment. Dare I say, none can.
5.) The Invalidity of Female Emotion & It’s Frustrative Affectation:
Say a female colleague is making grave errors in her work and you give her suggestions on how to improve her technique. All too commonly, if suggestions were not given with great euphemism and diplomacy, you would cause offence. As such, you can see how easily the premise for a woman’s feelings is flawed. Because it is not difficult to offend a woman, and neither does she need a logical reason to be offended, feeling bad is offence enough. And intolerant to stress as women are, it is a laborious inadvertence that occurs with great frequency.
And so it is the woman’s nature to constantly misdirect the man away from his criticisms and concerns, and rather, to vilify him for daring to infringe on the sanctity of her emotional well-being. Where man will endeavour to make his original point, stick to the point, have the point recognised and come to an arrangement over his concern; the woman cares only about how his point made her feel, not the point itself. Man doubles down on his reasoning, provoking more negative feeling in the woman; who in turn doubles down on the importance of her emotional state.
And so the woman will neither address the point, nor give the point much thought, much to the complete torture of the well-intentioned man. Naturally, this leads to endless frustration and only serves to further alienate the two parties. Women are quick to offend, quick to anger, and slow to reason even in the absence of hostility. Indeed, it is such traits that are often the cause of hostility. Whilst man wants to pursue what he believes to be a problem that needs addressing, the only problem worthy of addressal in a woman’s mind is the maintenance of a positive emotional state. Whilst the man continues to attempt fixing the original issue, the woman becomes more annoyed her emotions are being ignored.
And so at such a crossroads, male and female nature is at odds. Man wants to pursue what he believes to be “the truth,” or “correct.” Whilst a woman wishes to maintain her emotional well-being at any cost. It is for these reasons we refer to women as “the most responsible teenager in the house.” They cannot cope with stress in the way that men can, and so they can neither reason nor argue as well as men can. Remember, one need not be the superior logician to win an argument, as the prowess in which women argue with stands testament, you merely need be the more psychologically dominant.
An upset woman will dominate the frame of an interaction by maintaining your mutual focus on an indignant investigation of her feelings; particularly, the source of her feelings. And of course, in argument, it is you who is the undisputed stimulus for her negative feelings. In this frame of mind, absolutely nothing matters to a woman other than her need to understand her feelings and receive validation of their legitimacy. I am repeating this point with great frequency, but it is important it is internalised: your point is irrelevant to her if it elicits emotional discomfort.
6.) Emotional Endurance:
A woman does not care if she is “in the wrong,” has disobeyed or betrayed, for a creature who does not excel at logic is neither cogent nor appreciative of such a thing when upset. Even at the best of times, women struggle to balance reason with emotion. That’s when they’re trying. In argument, they’re not even trying. She will not give in, solipsism sees to it that women are stubborn.
Arguments nourish women, they feed her emotionally. Bar the histrionic man, argument absolutely exhausts men. Not only that, but being the party far more privy to the realm of reason, it is likelier you will give in than it is she. Her indignance will out-endure not only your reason, but likewise, your desire to even advocate for yourself.
If you get angry, your anger will be used to immediately invalidate your disagreement whilst simultaneously validating the credibility of her histrionics. Your anger will be turned against you, you will be painted as the oppressor, and her, the victimised. You will be made to feel guilty for your anger. And then following from this premise, your anger will be used to retroactively scapegoat you for her unacceptable decorum.
The narrative put forth will be that it’s your fault she’s upset, even if it isn’t. Even if you know with your full faculty of reason that such a thing is ridiculous; women do not care.
7.) In Closing:
It is not in your interest to work against her emotions, but rather, you should work in tandem with them. Leverage her emotions, change them so that they are conducive to rather than defiant of your goals. Know how to make her feel good, and her agreement will be yours. Argue against her emotions, and no matter how grand and well articulated your point, she will never agree. Equity and reasonableness are of minor relevance to a woman’s emotional self-satisfaction. Women do not sacrifice their emotional well-being to do what is morally or reasonably right, but rather, they sacrifice what is morally or reasonably right as to fulfil their emotional needs.
By manipulating her feelings to something more beneficial to yourself, you can change her frame, or even pull her into yours. This is why when receptive, amused mastery is excellent. Arguing a woman’s emotions with reason, as is man’s predilection, is a losing proposition. For her emotions are far too visceral to be swayed by the passionlessness of reason, the heart cares not what the head thinks, and a truer thing could not be said for women.
This was an excellent post. I’ve noticed much of what u just mentioned. I simply apply certain things to get results, I guarantee that u understand
My ex-girlfriend used to complain on a daily basis that she didn’t have enough money to go out clubbing with the rest of her girlfriends, which was true, given that she used to work as a lowly shop assistant for a nutrition store chain (and she still works there, as far as I’m aware), barely earning enough money to pay the rent.
Me, being the foolish problem-solver man that I am, started devising action-plans to help her. I suggested a side-business, in the form of a nutrition blog. She was really into the whole nutrition/fitness scene, is a good writer and has an eye for web-design, so, given also the immense potential market of healthy living (all women are obsessed about how they look and most of them think they are too fat, so there’s a lot of audience), I reckoned that she could make an extra buck by writing about nutritional products and sending her audience to various online stores, thus earning a healthy commission.
I presented her my idea and, at first, she was very enthusiastic about it, salivating at the thoughts of finally enjoying the wild drunken parties she has been missing out on this whole time.
She started working on it with great optimism. However, after only 2 lousy days (where she only managed to draw half a logo), she stopped. She started avoiding talking about the subject, saying she was busy, saying she had to work overtime, yadda yadda. I kept pushing, trying to encourage her to continue, but the more I tried, the worse her mood got, and after another couple of days of arguing and pushing, she broke up with me. That was it.
She said that I had no right to tell her what to do with her life, that she was an independent woman, that she was free to choose whatever she wanted, that I was trying to oppress her and condemn her at a life of toil and work, that she didn’t need a man in her life to tell her what to do, and, because of that, we were finished. 5 days – that’s how long it took for her to go from super enthusiasm “you’re my saviour, the best guy ever” to outrageous accusations of oppression.
Her decision dumfounded me completely, and for a very long time, I couldn’t understand her reasoning, no matter how much I tried, because I was honestly motivated by my intention to help her (although, in retrospect, this was very foolish of me, considering that her biggest desire was to go out clubbing with her girlfriends…. massive red sign).
But that’s the thing. Your article is completely right. There was no reasoning behind her decision to break up with me. There were only the negative emotions associated with the toil and the hard work necessary to launch any kind of serious business. In essence, the actions of starting her own blog made her feel bad, like she actually had to work hard for it, and she wasn’t really in the mood for it, so, given that I was the one with this idea in the first place and kept insisting on it, I was the source of her bad emotions, thus unfit to be her boyfriend. How unbelievably crude and shortsighted!
I only wish I could have read you article earlier, it would have saved me many half-sleep nights of desperate explanation seeking. Good job, sir!
You got it. Her big desire was not to earn greater income through a side job. Maybe, she had it in mind for you to start taking her out to where her girlfriends were, so that they could all evaluate you, and she could see how you interacted with them, and maybe keep your wallet open so that she could pick through your cash. But you oppressed her instead, by suggesting that she gain a bit of financial independence. How icky.
Just out of curiosity, do you think you would have had the same perspective if you would have read this article when you suggested the logical idea to your GF at the time? Sometimes I think we need our own experiences in order to relate to sound advice.
You know what the difference between men and women is? Men own their emotions, women do not.
You can see this reflected in “fat acceptance.” Women will either push a political agenda requiring that everyone else not do any “fat shaming”, or else they will try (but ultimately fail) to convince themselves that fat is beautiful. You’ll notice that there are never any men pushing for “fat acceptance.”
Men know that being fat is bad. They will either exercise and diet, or else just accept that they are fat.
Perhaps another way of putting this is: women hamster, me don’t.
Time to go out and apply while enjoying the weather…
Why couldn’t I have found your blog 7 months ago. Ugh.
So on a practical level, how do we manipulate and drive her emotions to more suit our needs? How do we give her that emotional fix that gets her hooked on us?
In short:
Amused Mastery
Make her hate you, mock yourself with her (sheer IDGAF aka Patrice O’Neal game)
If anyone has different/better strategies, feel free to share them.
Communicate your value to her (subtle narcissism) and also let her know that you are not and that you’ll never be dependent on her and your relationship.
hey IM,
damn you. Damn you for being so accurate.
Been with my wife for 12 years. About 4 years ago (after our first child), we started having major issues. I was a colossal nerd when we first met, but had improved myself massively over the years, started working out, Karate, started my own business, became quite well-known in my industry and so on.
After our first child, she basically switched all focus off me and towards the child. At the same time, I was having a lot of other women hit on me because of my massively improved SMV. So we had a huge series of fights, almost broke up many times. Eventually we reconciled, moved cities, second child came along.
We’ve just had a three month window of blissful, peaceful, happy marriage. I’m making sure to play the Alpha and keep her excited, while also doing all my duties for the family like a good Beta. And then this morning, for what seemed like almost no reason, she just lost it in a shopping centre car park over something minor. I calmed it down then, but then later on it turned into a massive fight.
In between (a few hours), I read this post. And the fight turned out precisely like you described it here. Word for word.
My greatest frustration is not that your post is accurate. My greatest frustration is myself. I know the theory. I know what to do to avoid this situation. But I do not yet have the amount of control I need over myself. I need to work harder on this.
So damn you, IM — for being so accurate. And damn myself for not being able to put theory into practice yet. Let’s hope I can in future.
Keep writing. You’re changing my life. I’m sure you’re changing many others.
Damn this Red Pill is hard to swallow. Bitterest pill I have ever taken — but most needed.
If a woman is getting angry for no evident reason, and it’s to do with you (it could be something other than you and outside of your control), usually you either need to:
play with her more; or
pass more shit tests; or
make your presence a bit more scarce
Either way, the only way to deal with this sort of circumstance is to not let her emotions have any bearing upon your own. She’s looking to you for cues that her emotions are important. An emotional rise from you telegraphs that you’re taking her anger seriously, so it must be ‘real.’
The optimal strategy is usually amusement. It’s kinda funny, really, how she’s having this tantrum about nothing. You ever laugh at small children for getting into fights over silly things? Upgrade that skill. Get a loud, infectious laugh if possible. She’ll try to insist that her anger is justified, for a bit. Hold frame. If she comes after you, make a game of it. Like she’s mortally wounding you with her words, but you’re clearly joking. Soon she’ll fall into your way of seeing it.
I agree that this stuff takes guts of iron sometimes.
IM, I’m not sure if you can answer this, but you are great to talk to on reddit and I have a relevant situation: my MIL is very, very typical of women. Highly predictable, emotional, drama-prone and the likes. I am not. Your excellent post has shown me many things about how other women work. But I don’t actually know what to do with it. I now know a bit more about why she acts the way she does, but I have nothing to work with.
As a woman, I’m expected to deal well with other women. But I don’t. I am revolted by the way they turn and twist arguments and avoid confronting actual issues or doing hard work. Is there any way I can appease other women whom I encounter regularly and keep them happy whilst still not letting them get away with everything they want? I’m not sure I have any sway in their lives and this limits me.
Thank you for reading this, even if there isn’t anything you can advise.
ssw, here’s something that may help:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2015/05/29/revisiting-the-question-of-a-troublesome-mother-in-law/
The format of your blog post is awesome. Classical, not filled with images because the reader has the attention span of a teenager. Something serious at last!
This describes the unraveling of my last relationship perfectly. We got in a huge argument and I couldn’t control my anger, so I said a lot of things that offended her. But I stick to my point for hours and hours, while all she cared about were her feelings, never even bothering to consider my point of view. Eventually we both calmed down and managed to come to a mutual understanding. However this only lasted for a week, at which point she once again brought up how I hurt her feelings during that argument and how I always fail to acknowledge her emotions before saying something. Having no concept of frame, I caved into the guilt and became a weak supplicating bitch boy. Over the next week she began distancing herself both emotionally and physically, pretty much dread gamed the shit out of me. I had no idea what was going on and just doubled down on the beta supplication. This turned her off even more until she ejected me into orbiter status. All because of one argument, I went from the alpha in her life to a complete orbiter. Total 180 in a manner of a few days.
I’ve never argued with a girl since.
You’ve given a lot of theory behind the why of women’s actions and also why trying to reason with them during emotional conflict fails.
What I think would benefit the readership even more is an article that expands upon this one, and shows practical examples (perhaps with dialogue) that shows the contrast between the approach that most untrained men would do during conflict with women vs the more Machivelian approach(es). Same woman, same drama, different outcome depending on approach and reaction to her emotional drama. Also it might be beneficial to Add in a discussion as to why the approach of reasoning with a woman or justifying oneself fails, while remaining Machievelian is more likely to lead to success.
And finally what are the different Machievelian approaches that you recommend employing?
An article on a practical application of your theory I think would go a far way. Thanks for everything however!
Great article IM!
Do you write these articles from your personal experience or do you read a lot of stuff and then put it all together?
Many articles are a mixture of both, this one in particular was just RP ideas applied to experience. I haven’t really see any decent articles on arguing with women. Normally they’re just nonsense “you need to listen better!” etc.
It would be great if you can give some examples and guidelines on how to manipulate someone’s emotions like you gave in shit test encyclopedia and utilizing machiavellianism.
Btw, I created a twitter account just to follow you and Robert Greene. Love your blog!
I won’t wholly agree with you on this. Men are not “purely rational”, either. I know I am not. There’s a certain amount of psychology to be danced around regardless of gender.
But here’s the thing: we were sitting around the dinner table the other day, trying to see if we could recall the German word for “bad”. My mother said to look it up in a small German dictionary we had, whilst my father suggested I try an online translator. My mother shot back that online dictionaries can be inaccurate.This is despite the fact that my mother has never used an online dictionary.
I think that this lies at the heart of why men consider women to be “illogical”, Many women seem to think that what they say is true because because they thought it. I have found that many women seem not to be able to “guage” a hypothesis to its likely reality.
I don’t think it’s purely a question of intelligence; although I do think that intelligence helps a lot. Perhaps women are, in general, capable of less “metacognitive reasoning” than men.
What say you?
It was never my intention to assert that men are wholly rational, for truly, that is an inaccurate supposition. More that man has a heightened propensity and capacity for reason. And yes, I would agree women are less capable of metacognitive reasoning, if metacognitive reasoning means being somewhat objectively aware of the self rather than emotionally enthralled with one’s own ever swaying impulses.
Another great article. Great Work
Here’s a fine article which supports all you say…
Don’t Argue With Women: http://masculineprinciple.blogspot.ca/2015/02/dont-argue-with-women.html
This post was interesting and for the most part accurate in describing the problem but fails when it prescribes a solution…
“It is not in your interest to work against her emotions, but rather, you should work in tandem with them. Leverage her emotions, change them so that they are conducive to rather than defiant of your goals. Know how to make her feel good, and her agreement will be yours.”
You can’t work in tandem with a woman’s emotions. Because they are almost always mutually exclusive of reality. To work in tandem with a woman’s emotions, you must dismiss reality. And you must also usually condemn innocent men. If you’re a man and you subscribe, promote and exercise this approach to solving a problem with a woman’s emotions, you are a feminist or worse: a coward. The only way to deal with the problem described above is to discourage it in private, condemn it openly in public, and get rid of it. Acquiescence wastes time and resources that don’t exist and ultimately fails anyway. This is especially true when a woman is engaged in real and destructive and criminal behavior (which is normal). She is incapable of acknowledging any wrong-doing and working in tandem with her emotions only encourages her irresponsible and criminal behavior. Her behavior only gets worse and the destruction it causes only gets worse. This approach to solving the problem is how governments and feminists have turned women and children into weapons against men. Acquiescence is not a solution but exacerbates the problem. When a woman behaves like this (which is almost always), it should be punished severely and decisively from a young age. The younger the better. This kind of behavior starts before the age of five. If it persists, then the punishment must be increased. And the punishment must continue to increase until the behavior is either stopped or neutralized. This kind of behavior is the single most dangerous and destructive weapon ever invented and must be condemned as such.
I don’t have a twitter account so…
“@IllimitableMan When a woman says NAWALT she’s thinking of herself from a solipsistic/narcissistic frame of reference & applying it to the general principle”
“@IllimitableMan …usually you can circumvent the hamster by saying it doesn’t include her, all of a sudden she agrees. Hilarious”
Here is a demo from youtube
“Silver tongued fox (Milo Yiannopoulos) on Sky News”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ponpEnDoTfI&w=640&h=360%5D
so this is what happens:
her: who left the water running?
you: uh… you did, and now the bathroom is flooded.
the argument starts because of water damage, irresponsibility, etc.
you: (yelling) this is gonna cost thousands to repair! shit!
her: why are you yelling at me? (argument is being switched from water damage to her feelings)
you: (still yelling) you need to be more aware of what you’re doing… do one thing at a time!
her: you SOB… you will NOT talk to me like that! (he’s losing more)
her: i can’t believe i’m involved with someone who belittles and handles me this way! you’re a pig!!!!!
the argument has completely left the football field (water damage). you are now on the baseball field (her feelings) and you CAN’T POSSIBLY WIN now.
you: *thinking to yourself… shit, i fell for the trap again. i can’t argue against how a person feels.
you: OK we are talking about the water damage, not your feelings.
her: fuck the water damage; you hurt me. *crying more fluids than the water damage.
you: water damage… stay on topic. stop the crying.
her: you can’t tell me how to feel!!! *more crying, screaming, throwing shit.
you: water damage… stay on topic.
she quiets down… walks away.
her: i’m done with you. you hurt my feelings, and now, you’re ignoring my feelings by continuing to talk about water damage. *this is win #2 for her.
1st win: she switched it from water damage and being responsible to and argument about her feelings.
2nd win: she switched it from you TRYING TO STAY ON TOPIC to ignoring her feelings.
LOL. women are incredible.
One should read these 2 books called women’s infidelity :- http://womensinfidelity.com
We think we’ve evolved beyond the animal, but in reality that side of us hasn’t gone anywhere. We as humans have the gift in that we can tame our energies to evolve more consciously unlike the animal.
While a man must necessarily (and especially today) consciously tame his animal and energies to serve his bidding and evolve into a high value man, today’s woman doesn’t have such a need as she is no longer bound by principle or devotion or marriage or religion. The result of this is as destructive as men succumbing to addictions. Women as such have a propensity to be closer to their base instincts than men (for the reason that they are feeling first before reasoning), and now they are even more a slave of their instincts than ever.
Matters of the heart aren’t always logical or reasonable…