There are two pillars to successful game: leadership and acceptance.

Leadership

Leadership is a broader and more complex concept than just choosing where to eat dinner. The man must set the emotions of the interaction, make decisions, guide conversations, and even determine the nature of reality itself.

Why do women want leaders?

Women want leadership because of a bug in human programming. Apes in the jungle are more likely to survive if they stick together, and they are more likely to stick together if the tribe follows one alpha male. Therefore, the women and the beta males of the tribe evolved a strong, subconscious, desire to follow the alpha male and obey him, no matter what he does. Worse yet, humans feel an incredibly strong anxiety whenever they feel they may do something to upset or offend the alpha male.

This desire for leadership is a “bug” for two reasons. It makes sense for apes to follow a leader because apes are not capable of rational thought. But now that humans have the ability to think rationally, it would be better for an educated man or woman to do what is rationally correct rather than blindly follow the alpha male.

Furthermore, the desire for leadership does not include the ability to discern a “good” leader. The alpha male of an ape tribe needs only the ability to deploy violence against his enemies to be a successful leader. A successful leader in the human world, however, needs a much broader range of skills, but humans are still evolutionarily attracted to the ape alpha male, i.e., the tough guy. During presidential campaigns, pundits and talking heads endlessly debate complex policy topics, but in almost every campaign for the last 60 years, the taller and more “manlier” guy has won the presidency. Humans evolved to follow a leader, but we did not necessarily evolve to follow the best leader, but rather the person that the tribe has selected to be the leader and the one who is most successful at deploying violence and controlling resources.

As an aside, religion solved this “bug” in an interesting way: it created an imaginary alpha male known as “God” who had the ultimate power to define reality and deploy violence. By forcing people to worship God, people’s desire to follow an alpha male is satiated, so they could elect humble, reasonable leaders on earth. Democracy has “worked” in the West partly because of Judeo-Christian religions; in many Eastern cultures without an alpha male God the populace still follows dictators, tribal chiefs, kings, or other strongmen.

Defining reality

Apes evolved to follow the alpha male no matter what the rational facts about the world are. Now that human beings have evolved to be able to think rationally, however, one would think that we are less likely to follow the alpha male. That is true to an extent, but the alpha male also the power to actually define what we know as reality.

Imagine this: A newborn baby knows nothing about religion, politics, art, philosophy, or even the basics of reality. But like all humans, the baby has an inherent desire for answers to these questions to quell its existential dread and fear of the unknown. Its evolutionary biology may predispose it to certain explanations, but it is generally very malleable and will believe almost anything unless and until somebody more convincing and/or powerful convinces it of something else. Humanity’s view of reality has been crafted by the alpha males of history, and the conformist masses have relied on these individuals for the “truth” to quell their fears.

A man need not constantly redefine reality when hanging out with women, but he should be prepared, if necessary, to take any leadership position, including the ultimate leadership position of defining reality. If you make her feel like there is a “reality” that can hinder your goals, the woman will subconsciously feel like you are not the alpha male. Further, if you bend your opinions to please a woman, you become terrifyingly weak because you show that you know less about reality than she does, meaning that you are both cold and lone in this terrifying world with no guidance.

If you take leadership on the ultimate question, logically you must lead on everything else. If she challenges you on a moral question, your preferences art or food, or how you choose to live your life, you must stand your ground and make it clear that her opinion will not sway you or make you feel any anxiety about your course. Of course, if your stance on these issues is stupid she may leave and follow a more powerful alpha male that offers her more comforting answers.

Leadership, hypergamy, and confidence

Leadership is related to confidence. Confidence comes from the Latin root “con” (with) and “fidens” (faith), and means faith that you will succeed. A leader must have confidence because a person who is hindered by outside forces is not a leader.

Of course, as a practical matter, no human being can do everything. At the very least, the laws of physics, the laws of our society, and more powerful people can stop us. But a man can create the illusion of being able to do anything, and make the woman “feel” like he is the leader. Humans have a bug in their wiring, which is that we do not intuitively understand which aspects of reality are unchangeable and which are made by human beings. Throughout history, charismatic alpha males have capitalized on this bug by successfully transgressing the rules created by society, convincing their followers that they are the tribal alpha male, and therefore “tricking” their followers into believing that they can change the fundamental rules of reality itself. This is why kings and dictators are often ascribed divine or supernatural powers by their followers: the followers literally believe that their alpha male can change the fundamental laws of reality because he had previously successfully changed social rules that the followers had previously thought were unchangeable.

Understanding this immense power to change societal rules will help give you the confidence to approach women and take the lead in interactions with them. Many men are afraid to approach because it appears “creepy,” “weird,” or “socially unacceptable.” And it is true – most people see approaching strangers as violating the unwritten rules of society. But as a man who can create and redefine reality, if you approach with confidence, you can bypass her social conditioning and go straight to her emotions. Of course, most women will not let a stranger redefine reality for them, but you can create enough of a glitch in the matrix, you can get her intrigued enough to listen to you. Many men are afraid to take the lead because they have a natural impulse to reject any man trying to take a leadership position, but women do not have that same impulse. Women want a leader, and their problem is that most men do not provide that.

Leadership is similarly related to hypergamy. A woman will not want to follow a man who is beneath her. If she can defeat him in any way, intellectually, physically, or in terms of success, then she can hinder him, and if she can hinder him, then he is not a leader – she is the leader.

Women often try to hinder men to determine if the man is a leader or not. This is a “shit test.” Most men do not understand what a shit test is, so they accede power to the woman, which causes the woman to lose attraction to them. How can she view you as the leader able to change the fabric of reality itself if she can hinder you from doing what you want to do?

Most men are not leaders

Most men fail miserably at the leadership pillar. They do not understand women’s deep, primal desire for leadership even when women beg for a man to take charge. Modern feminism has also convinced men that there are no meaningful differences between men and women, so the idea that women have an emotion men do not have sounds blasphemous to most men.

Second, men do not understand that the desire for leadership is a subconscious emotion. When men see intelligent, successful, confident women with a good job, they cannot fathom her need for a leader. Nor does the woman – in her conscious brain she wants to be independent and control her own life. Her desire for a leader is a subconscious emotion that undergirds her rational thoughts. Imagine a CEO of a major company that goes to a dominatrix and acts submissively before her – he doesn’t rationally want her to control his life or make the decisions for his company, but he does have a subconscious desire to act submissively and then go back to his regular, rational life.

Men also fail at leadership because they supplicate to women because they feel scarcity. These men subconsciously believe that women in general, and attractive women in particular, are “higher value” than them, and therefore must be obeyed, followed, and submitted to. But the truth is that a high-value man who displays leadership is much more rare, and therefore valuable, than an attractive woman. I would guess that at least 30% of all women are somewhat attractive, but a much, much, smaller percentage of guys are high-value AND display leadership.

How to be a leader

You don’t become a leader by convincing others to follow you. In fact, you disqualify yourself from being a leader in the alpha male sense by asking anybody for anything.

Instead, you become a leader by simply following your mission joyfully and confidently. Pursue your mission, form relationships with good people, help others, stay healthy, and have fun. Many people have a vision of the type of life they want to live, but are crippled by their feelings of anxiety and conformity because they evolved to follow the alpha male. The alpha male, however, can live his ideal life so the better life you live, the more people will want to follow you. Because of their anxiety and conformity, most people would rather live an awesome life vicariously through the alpha male rather than actually live their own awesome life. Remember, women want you to create reality for them, but they will leave if somebody else creates a better reality.

As a corollary, you should do whatever you want rather than what you feel like you should do to be accepted. Do you want to dance? Do it. If you don’t want to dance, don’t. Do you want to sit? Sit. Are you bored? Go home. Are you at a huge party and feeling hungry? Leave and get something to eat. Is somebody being annoying or rude? Ignore them. Did somebody say something stupid? Don’t pretend what they said was smart. Do you feel like talking about dinosaurs? Talk about dinosaurs.

This will be a huge mental shift for most people and will feel counter-intuitive and “wrong” at first. Because most people see themselves as the inferior people in the tribe, they are wired to want to please others and follow the tribe in conformity. But if you break this mindset and instead do what you want to do, people will “feel” like you are the alpha male and become attracted to you.

Humans have a subconscious wavelength by which they communicate with each other, and doing what may superficially seem “selfish” oftentimes subconsciously communicates that you are the alpha male. The disconnect between rational actions and subconscious emotions explains most men’s failure at understanding women.

Acceptance

The second pillar of game is acceptance.

Humans have an intense desire to be accepted into the tribe and become resentful and angry if they are rejected. Your leadership means nothing to a woman if she is not even part of the tribe. If she does not feel accepted, she will leave and find a tribe that will accept her. For acceptance to work, a woman must view you as a high-ranking individual. A lower-ranked ape cannot “accept” a higher-ranked ape into a tribe. Acceptance is also an emotion, so the rational meaning of your actions is not important: what is important is that she feel warm, welcomed, and accepted. Your acceptance of her must escalate as the relationship escalates – at the beginning you need only smile and talk to her but as the relationship escalates you must be willing to listen to her secrets, delve into her thoughts, etc... The more of her that she feels like you “accept” the more comfortable she will feel around you.

Most of what regular people recognize as “game” is acceptance because they know nothing about leadership. Furthermore, most guys confuse acceptance with supplication, so they go out of their way to buy the girl things, do her favors, and generally demean themselves to show they “like” her. But women don’t like supplication and in fact, are turned off by it. They just want acceptance. Approaching a girl, talking to her, touching her, and calling her are all just ways of showing acceptance. That’s it. When girls say they want a “nice” guy they mean that they want the guy to make them feel accepted, not for the guy to bend over backwards supplicating to them.

As explained earlier, women’s desire for acceptance is a subconscious, irrational emotion, so I cannot describe it in words just as I cannot describe “love,” “confidence,” or “happiness” in words. Women often act in bizarre ways and go cold without explanation and they themselves cannot articulate what you did “wrong” – they just “feel” like they are no longer accepted.

I can, however, try some metaphors. She must feel like your “door” is open to her. She must feel like the “bridge” between you is solid. She must feel like the “portal” between you and her is open. Etc... These concepts are useless as mere words and only really make sense until you’ve been in a relationship with a woman and “felt” them.

Acceptance does not require grand gestures or heartfelt expressions of your “feelings” for her. It can be quickly communicated with a few simple gestures: a big smile, a warm hug, and a genuine, heartfelt tone when you speak to her. A “natural” at game will quickly make women feel accepted and comfortable, causing her to accept your leadership.

Your acceptance must be consistent. If you feel hot and cold, she will feel rejected and leave. You must constantly exude positivity, no matter what the circumstances are. If she acts badly, you should not “call her out,” instead, you should direct your attention elsewhere. Your subconscious message should be “you are still a part of the tribe, but the tribe is moving on with or without you and you must run to catch up to it.” Of course, some women are genuinely shitheads and must be rejected, but once you reject a woman, you cannot expect to “game” her after that anymore.

Dread game

An experienced red piller may ask “what about dread game? Isn’t dread game ‘rejecting’ her and making her feel like she has to get her act together to be accepted back into the tribe?” In my view, dread game is not about “rejecting” her. If you outright reject her, she will become resentful and find somebody else. Dread game is more about making her feel like she is accepted, but the tribe will move on without her if she doesn’t do her part.

Dread game is only appropriate when she is testing you to determine if you are an alpha male. Imagine the tribe moving through the desert and you and the woman are part of the tribe. The woman shows some interest in you and is talking to you. The woman, however, sees another man she thinks may be the tribal leader so she goes to talk to him. The moment the woman begins to speak to this man, however, you get up and leave and take the tribe with you. At that moment, she realizes that this whole time YOU were the tribal leader and the other man was not. She quickly realizes her mistake and runs to rejoin you. THAT is dread game. You are not rejecting her from the tribe, but you are making it clear that you are the leader and you will leave without her.

If a woman, however, is constantly testing you, she probably does not really think you are the leader of the tribe, she is on the lookout for a better leader, or she is broken and can no longer follow anybody. If that is the case, you must reject her and move on with your life.

The balancing act

I believe that balancing these two pillars is the fundamental challenge of game. A man must confidently and joyfully pursue his mission while simultaneously making the woman feel accepted as a follower. Many men either focus too much on being “alpha” and make the woman feel unwanted and unaccepted, or they focus too much on acceptance and veer into supplication and following.

People on TRP sometimes say that a man has to some “beta” things to keep his relationship going. Perhaps I have a different definition of “beta” than these guys do, but I do not think a man must do “beta” things. Instead, I think the man should emotionally invest in a woman and do things for her only to the extent that she emotionally invests in him. If a woman does things for you, it is ok to do things for her to make the relationship at least somewhat equal. I think the man should always have at least a slight edge, but you should not act unfairly or in a way that would make her resentful and angry. However, a man should not do things for a woman if she is not reciprocating.

At least in the early stages of a relationship, the man must take the lead in approaching, initiating conversations, etc..., and these actions may make a man feel “beta” because he is opening himself up to rejection. And although women like to feel like they have the “power” because they are the ones being approached, in reality women’s fear of approaching makes them the weaker ones. In human psychology, the lower-ranked individual will never want to approach the higher-ranked individual because they fear rejection. This is why many guys have approach anxiety and most women never approach at all. The man, therefore, is the powerful one because he has the courage to approach and push the interaction forward.

The alpha male must also approach because his self-esteem is more secure. Most peoples’ self-esteem is tied up in whether they are accepted by the tribe – if they are rejected by the tribe, they feel worthless because their only value is “assisting” the powerful ones of the tribe. The alpha male, however, dictates the social rules of the tribe, so his self-esteem is secure. Extending this logic into approaching, if a woman approaches a man and gets rejected her self-esteem is shattered because biologically her only value is assisting the man. Her hotness, sexual attraction, submissiveness, etc... is useless without a man to enjoy it. The alpha male, however, does not need any particular woman, so if he gets rejected his self-esteem is fine because it is not dependent on a woman’s approval. Therefore, the man must approach.

Charges of misogyny

A neutral observer may read this and think I am sexist or misogynist because of my insistence that women desire a leader. And they would have a point – many men have used the idea that women are naturally “submissive” as justification to abuse women badly and to try to control them. But I am not making the typical “women are submissive” argument. Instead, I am saying that women have an irrational impulse towards submissiveness, but that impulse only exists if the man is the alpha male and is successfully leading. A lot of men are not alpha males and cannot lead but nevertheless demand submissiveness from their women. These women obviously resist, and the men are forced to threaten or coerce the women into submissiveness. That’s bad.

Furthermore, as I have made clear, I think that women’s tendency to follow an alpha male is “bad.” A woman who can think rationally should do what is rationally best for her life rather than blindly follow some guy who gives her emotional tingles. Many women are very intelligent but make bad life choices because of their evolutionary impulses (just as men do). If I have a daughter, I will tell her that her desire for a leader is a bug that must be controlled and channeled correctly.

Finally, the desire for a leader exists in men just as in women. Most men are not alpha males and also subconsciously desire to follow some stronger, smarter man. A few select men can break out of this mental prison and become the alpha male, but it is very rare and very few men can do it for long periods of time.