Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Game in literature

Castalia House has published a new novel today, entitled An Equation of Almost Infinite Complexity. It's a good book, a funny book, and one well worth reading, but that's not what is of particular interest to me here. What I found noteworthy, in one particular section, was the way that the author, J. Mulrooney, expertly illustrates the hapless ways of the terminally clueless Delta.

The character referenced, Cooper, is not a complete loser. He's not a Gamma, he's not delusional about himself, but he is overly romantic, inclined to pursue more attractive women than his looks and status would tend to merit, and is almost completely unable to correctly read women or see them for who they truly are.

The following passage from the novel is an almost flawless portrayal of the massive difference between ALPHA interactions with women and BETA interactions with them. Dean is the Alpha, Julius is the Beta, Cooper is the Delta, and Thisbe is a very pretty woman in her early thirties who has been in a long-term relationship with Julius, but was Alpha-widowed by Dean.
The issue, Cooper gathered, was that Julius loved Thisbe but Dean was taking Thisbe away. Dean had taken Thisbe away from Julius before. Thisbe belonged with Julius, not with Dean. Thisbe thought she loved Dean, but really she loved Julius. Julius had picked up the pieces of Thisbe’s heart the last time Dean had broken them. Dean was not going to do this again.

This surprised Cooper, who was convinced that Thisbe was rather attracted to him. Just this morning he had been thinking of asking her for a date in the next week or two. He was confused. It was hard to believe that anything Julius was saying could possibly be about the same Thisbe. He became a little indignant. Thisbe shouldn’t have played with his emotions like that, leading him on as she had. It wasn’t right. How could she have had two boyfriends the entire time he had known her?

Cooper had much to think about. Besides his arrest and his run-in with the lawyer, he had been shocked at the things Dean and Julius had said about Thisbe. He had reserved a sentimental and romantic space for her in his mind that was, for the most part, as yet untainted with the cruder sort of sexual fantasy. Now it appeared that, all the time he had been dreaming of holding Thisbe’s hand while walking in the park, she had been trying out the newly expanded revised and updated with all new material edition of the Kama Sutra with both her boss and her boyfriend. Something like that might put things in a different light.

Yet it didn’t. Cooper shook himself, shrugging off his worse instincts in favor of his better. Thisbe was still Thisbe. If she had been foolish, if she had spent her time and her body on men who would never love her as he did, so what? Picking up the formula of a prayer he had learned long ago as a boy, he said to himself that it was not his place to question, but to love. This thought pleased him, and he repeated it: Not to question, but to love.
This is quintessentially Delta. Not to question, but to love. Not to judge, but to accept. The past is never prelude, because the pedestal is intact.

19 comments:

Laguna Beach Fogey said...

He had reserved a sentimental and romantic space for her in his mind that was, for the most part, as yet untainted with the cruder sort of sexual fantasy

The secret romantic safe space.

Laguna Beach Fogey said...

Did the Twitter purge affect AG commentators, too?

Rob said...

A young fellow I've come to know I think is a textbook definition of a Delta. He is madly head-over-heals in love with a chick who is totally out of his league (She's a 9, approaching escape velocity to 10.). This young lady who has found herself as the object of his unrequited feelings views him somewhere between the local idiot that everyone in town tolerates, and the muck that accumulates under one's boots after hiking through the mud. She thankfully doesn't want him hurt, but she also doesn't want him following her around.

This delta went so far as to embarrass himself and everyone else, when he went up to the young lady, AND HER BOYFRIEND at Church and "had a talk" with her boyfriend, telling him not to hurt her...

This young fellow had a chance with some other local girls who actually had some interest in him. They're not as attractive as this one girl, but they're NOT ugly. He ignored them. They don't matter to him. And even those girls were out of his league.

I and others tried EVERYTHING to get him to snap out of this. He is convinced that they will be together someday, and until then, he's going to "respect her wishes..." (No, I wish I was making this BS up.) We've tried suggesting other young women to him. No effect. We've tried to tell him "Hey, you know she sits down to take a dump like everyone else..." Nope. Nuthin'. We've tried sitting him down and outright telling him, "She's doesn't like you, she never will, and I don't blame her! You're a smelling P.O.S. She could pick a random name out of the local jail, and do better than you! She's probably on her back right now screaming in delight with her boyfriend!!" Nothing to that too...

It's like watching a horrible car crash in slow motion, and you there's nothing you can do about it.

There are some people out there who cannot be saved from even themselves.

Anonymous said...

A fellow with oneitis has it in his mind that the girl is "special." The following poit may or may not sink it with a hormode-addled teenager:

All women are interchangeable, there is nothing magical about any one girl... except — if she loves you. The love she gives you makes her "special." If she stops loving you, she is no longer special and if she never did, she never was.

PA

Anonymous said...

The lyrics to "So Cruel" by U2 describe well the bewilderment of a Delta who digs himself deeper and deeper into the mire of a physically consummated but emotionally unrequited love.

PA

dc.sunsets said...

Now I see that a lesson every young man should embrace is that there are lots of fish in the sea, and to cultivate the outcome indifference that is a basic tenet of AG. A promising girl is nothing more than that, until she proves herself more than that. The typical girl who chases jerkboys is not IMO worth the trouble...ever.

Paradoxically, I don't think alphas are all that enviable. Like rich men, they attract the entire haystack, which itself is made up of lots of throwbacks, some of them quite beautiful. Since beauty in women is (IMO) a major corrupting influence on them, the best-looking wrappers often contain ticking time bombs or venomous reptiles.

Anonymous said...

@Rob
Sometimes the only cure for that kind of thing is a major-league crash-and-burn.

I honestly think being a red-pill Delta is the best situation to be in, in fact just as good as Beta. But that, of course, means getting educated on the nature of women, not lying to yourself, and losing the tendency toward oneitis.

Laguna Beach Fogey said...

Develop an Abundance Mentality and the Playboy Mindset.

Unknown said...

Deltas are an important part of any sane society.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jed Mask said...

@Rob

Aiiyaiiyah! Yikes! Sounds very troubling... In *PRAYER* for this certain young man. Lord Jesus please help him to "come to his senses". Amen.

Aeoli Pera said...

The question for me is, where does this unbreakable romanticism come from? Why is this the default psychology for many young men when it is neither adaptive nor realistic? There would have to be a very powerful outside agent (say, a well-structured society run by adaptive realists) enabling this strongly delusional, maladaptive behavior for a long time.

So there's a big, gaping plot hole for evopsych enthusiasts. Where do Deltas come from?

Aeoli Pera said...

I suppose the obvious answer is "high-trust cultures". So where do high-trust cultures come from? I'm gonna take a leap of intuition here and say "institutional monogamy with extreme, reliable penalties for cheaters".

Anonymous said...

The question for me is, where does this unbreakable romanticism come from? Why is this the default psychology for many young men when it is neither adaptive nor realistic?

Female material dependence on her husband, along with high parental concern for the daughter are an environmnt in which this is adaptive. The "unbreakable romanticism" is two things: an evolved signaling of male fidelity to win her parents' consent, and genuine feeling of devotion to follow through on his 'signalling.'

It's a beautiful thing, when it doesn't bubble over into delusion.

PA

Anonymous said...

@Jed Mask
As I said, the young man Rob is talking about will need to completely crash and burn with his oneitis.

@Aeoli Pera
It is completely irrational. I think it is most likely to happen with young men who have little experience with women, and the broader culture influences them into this type of behavior. In addition, there's a fear factor that gets involved, especially when the girl is very attractive.

I am actually cautiously optimistic in this fellow's case, since it involves a top-shelf girl who is not brutally rejecting him as of yet, whether because he's not TOO low-ranking and/or he hasn't made his infatuation obvious to her.

But while "she thankfully doesn't want him hurt", she unfortunately will have to hurt him. She won't enjoy doing it, but it'll do him a huge favor. Chemotherapy to remove the oneitis cancer.

Once the girl does make it obvious to him that she's rejecting him and it finally sinks into his skull that she doesn't want him and it is his behavior that turned her off, after a few months to a couple of years of recovery he should become much more at ease around attractive girls.

Gulo Gulo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gulo Gulo said...

"This is quintessentially Delta. Not to question, but to love. Not to judge, but to accept. "

...and to take everything she says at face value.

The number of times where I heard " I'm not really into casual hookups" and within an hr. she's on her knees and swallowing are enough to make any astute man see right through that smokescreen.

Gulo Gulo said...

" the best-looking wrappers often contain ticking time bombs or venomous reptiles."

Surprisingly its often just the opposite.. the majority of average looking western women tend to be this way.

JCclimber said...

Rob, how on this plane of existence are you categorizing that romantic fool as a delta?

He obviously isn't playing with a full deck. He isn't an Omega or he wouldn't garner any attraction from other women. His delusions are pretty typical Gamma.

Just because he doesn't go full on Gamma yet in other areas, doesn't mean he isn't Gamma in the field of the sexual/marital marketplace. Which is pretty much the best indicator that he is a delusional Gamma.

Not humanly curable. If HE, and God, want a change, it is possible.

Don't waste your time and energy any further.

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