Delta Perspective: Being in demand

There’s no way around the fact that there are more women than men graduating college, and college educated women want college educated men. The current ratio is four women graduate for every three men.

Women aren’t looking for college educated men because the diplomas look nice in the frames above the couch, no the degree theoretically says the man has some intelligence and more importantly can earn an income. As we are rapidly finding out neither one of these things are true, but the myth is alive and well today. What’s important to take out of this is that men who can be breadwinners are still in high demand.

If you are single and wondering how you can improve your odds with women here’s the starting point:

1. Have some sort of regular job, preferably a career which earns you at least a middle class income.
2. Get to a healthy weight.
3. Don’t be a Gamma.

You don’t have to be the wealthy, tall, bodybuilder Alpha for women interested in you. Having six pack abs and a lot of game will certainly help, but it isn’t necessary. There is a crisis in relationships and sex in the Western world today, but there are millions and I mean millions of women who will still love and appreciate a regular guy who can manage to accomplish the above three things. If you aren’t having any success look at the above list and figure out how to meet the minimal requirements.

If you improve beyond the above minimum then it allows you to have a larger pool of women who will be interested in you and that can mean more success, but if you go below this the pool is almost non-existent.

Alpha Mail: Graduating Gamma report

Z fills us in on his progress:

I thought I would report back on how things have fared since I've taken the advice presented in the Graduating Gamma series.

For a while, it was easy to follow the instructions. But you find yourself backsliding often, especially after the first week or two when the enthusiasm wanes. This is going to be a lifelong battle, I think. My uncle is an alcoholic, who struggles with his addiction. I used to find it hard to believe that someone couldn't just change their behavior and walk away from the bottle. But now I understand. It's that way for Gammas, too.

The hardest part is to stop the lying. Gammas are dishonest by nature. In time, you even start to believe the lies yourself. If I can describe being Gamma in as few words as possible, it would be just that: they are addicted to lies that make them feel good. No lie, however small, is safe for the Gamma, just as liquor is not safe for the alcoholic. So this is the hardest thing for me to change.

A few weeks ago I bought a fast car, something that, once upon a time as a child I had wanted to do. It is a car that has a good following among the muscle car crowd here in America. I went to the local car show/meet with my car and hung out with those people. Most of them were Deltas doing their Delta things. They would talk about car parts, engines, paint jobs and other such things. Of course, other car brands were disparaged (that, too, seems to be a Delta thing). It was very much a man's world, and very different from the computer geek crowd I'm more used to. Even the Alphas present were very gracious and welcoming.

I made a conscious effort to keep the lying under control, and represent myself honestly, as a new person interested in learning about the cars and learning about how to work on mine as well. This was a key point in Graduating Gamma 2. I wasn't entirely successful in the former. Old habits die hard, and some small lies came out before I could stop them (it is a common Gamma failing to speak before you think).

But it was much improved from before. And, I think, a small amount of BSing is considered normal at such an event. That's not an excuse -- I must do better next time -- but it is also true. I had a lot of fun, socializing with the Deltas. Truly, if you approach things from a humble angle, they will welcome you as one of their own. The Alphas and Betas will welcome you, too. They added me to their group, gave me a membership sticker for my car, and made sure to tell me I was welcome at next month's meet. My neighbor, who is also a member, helped me work on my car a few days ago, and taught me some things about it.

That got a little bit off track, but my point is that escaping your Gamma tendencies is neither simple, nor quick, but it is rewarding. I don't know if what I did will work for other Gammas or not. But I found that picking up a masculine hobby was helpful. And truly, when I was young, this was something I wanted to do. I'm not sure when I lost track of that, or why.

But drinking beer at the local dive, hood open in the parking lot, talking about muscle cars, was more therapeutic for me than anything I've ever done before. Please convey my thanks to the original author, and accept my own appreciation.

This is exactly the sort of thing I like to see. The information here is practical. Use it. Social hierarchies are dynamic and you don't have to remain what you are for the rest of your life. Every day, take a small step towards self-improvement.

By this time next year, you might be shocked to look back and discover how far you have come. Go to the gym. Bite your tongue on the lie. Ask out the girl. But above all, get in the game.

Graduating Gamma 4

Graduating Gamma
Step Four: Mental

There is no man on the planet more intellectually dishonest than a Gamma, as even an Omega has enough self-awareness to avoid being a buffoon at social event and will instead stay at home and play computer games. Everything from a Gamma is a con or a presented image because behind that shell is a scared, miserable boy who uses whatever tools are at his disposal to build the Gamma Delusion Bubble. The Gamma Delusion Bubble shields the Gamma from somehow and some way ever being wrong about anything, as there is no being wrong about “something”, there is only being a wrong “person”. His identity is so tied up in his opinions about everything, including himself, that any slip-up is a catastrophe which must be avoided at all costs.

I don’t know

The second-most terrifying statement for a Gamma is to admit that he doesn’t know something. A Gamma constantly speaks of having knowledge in areas he most certainly does not. Being ignorant for a Gamma is being discredited as a person, so they will do what is in their power to bluff, obfuscate, and redirect people so others don’t see their ignorance. If you wish to escape the life of a Gamma you must learn the statement, “I don’t know” and use it when it is appropriate.

I must unfortunately take a moment to explain to the binary-thinking Gammas that no, you do not go from being a know-it-all to blurting out “I don’t know” at the start of nearly every conversation, feel the need to explain all of the time now about how you don’t know something, and talk about how proud you are about not to knowing things. You may laugh at this, but I know Gammas well, and there are some out there who will do this exact thing thinking they are improving their situation, until it obviously doesn’t work and they blame this post for their failures.

In simple practice you say this when needed and you honestly don’t know about the topic at hand. While at first glance it seems easy enough if you are a Gamma, it is difficult in reality. It’s challenging because typically you’ve already hung yourself on your own ignorance in a conversation by saying way more than you should have, and by the time you are challenged on a point, having to say you don’t know part of it means your entire argument might collapse. Think about this for a moment. If you are saying so much that if someone challenges a point, and by admitting that you don’t know about something in which you are pontificating about, it destroys what you are saying, where was your first error? It was bull-shitting in the first place. Stop making definitive statements about things if you can’t back them up with logic or evidence, unless it is clearly a subjective opinion of little matter.

Examples of subjective opinions of little matter: favorite color, sports teams, movies you like, the hottest actress. You don’t have to know why you have a favorite sports team or why you like green over blue, it doesn’t matter. On the other hand if you think we should use gold as a currency rather than fiat, you’d better know all about the subject before trying to tell people how the monetary system should be run. Gammas do not want to admit ignorance, they want to appear intelligent, so they overreach their arguments and then feel they can’t backtrack an inch.

Gamma in action

I got into a discussion yesterday with a gamma over at VP. The author of Graduating Gamma observed it throughout, and even offered a prediction that panned out almost precisely as he said it would. This was his summary:

G: Makes claim about a specific subject.

VD: Points out that G doesn’t know what the specific subject actually is.

G: Admits he probably doesn’t know. (Notice he didn’t concede that he didn’t know, just probably and it didn’t stop him from making shit up about it and sticking to it.) Pontificates, claims VD is avoiding an issue, and then restates the same point again (A) a slightly different way, and makes a new point (B).

Another: Try to refute point (B)

G: Calls Another’s point laughable, sticks to point (B)

VD: Demolishes point with historical example (B)

G: Claims VD is denying historical examples. Adds *yawn* snark. Accuses VD of cherry-picking examples. Asks 7 questions only tangentially related to the specific topic. Says there’s even more questions.

Another: Points out that G is missing the big picture.

G: Says he agrees with Another but asks a question trying to undermine Another’s point. Tries to expand (B) with more problems.

VD: Points out G is playing fast and loose with terms (Gamma trait) and will demolish him. Then asks yes/no question.

G: Brings up a completely and totally unrelated topic from 2011(!) which he thinks Vox was wrong about. Dodges yes/no question with qualifier.

VD: Demands the assertion from 2011 be backed up, points out the dodge, and asks again: yes/no.

G: Brings up more details about unrelated 2011 point and how G proved VD was wrong 4 years ago about something and it was “huge”. (Gammas don’t forgive or forget!) Dodges question again, asks VD what exactly is VD asking him to say.

VD: Points out G is wrong, asks another yes/no question about 2011 topic.

VD: Adds more info with relevant quotes.

VD: Responds that he’s trying to get G to simply answer a yes or no question.

G: Admits he paraphrased badly about 2011 topic. (No admittance about being wrong. Me Gamma. No wrong.) Takes three sentences to answer, finally “yes” on the first question.

VD: [At this point I pointed out that G was now denying things he'd already admitted, announced that I'm not interested in playing Pin the Gamma to His Own Words, and dropped it. - Vox]

G: In damage control now. "It's finished, that's cool. We can put it behind us, and here's why I'm still right."

Graduating Gamma author adds: It's kinda like I imagine drug addiction would be, while you are in the middle of it, you don't think that you are doing anything too wrong, or at the very least you can control it while the people around you are looking in pity and anger at your actions. If you notice [another Gamma] did the same thing, they are so scared of being ousted from the herd after an episode they blather on and try to engage on other subjects. They have the need to still be accepted.

The point I'm trying to make here, other than to try to help Gammas see how annoying their characteristically argumentative behavior is to everyone who witnesses it, is to show how readily recognizable this behavior is to others. Gammas seem to think they're being clever and devious by refusing to answer simple and straightforward answers, by hiding their obvious errors behind their own, newly made custom definitions of words, and inaccurately rephrasing the words of others. They also seem to think they're somehow getting away with it, but the fact is that they're not. Everyone sees it. And no one is fooled.

Seriously, it's now gotten to the point that I can often correctly identify a Gamma male by his use of a single phrase of five words. I'll let you all guess what it is before I let you in on it, but it is ASTONISHINGLY reliable. If someone uses this particular phrase, or some form of it, the chances are about 9 in 10 that he will very soon begin to exhibit characteristic Gamma behavior of the sort Graduating Gamma has described in detail for us.

UPDATE: Further to the point on Gamma behavior, Dr. Torch simply couldn't let it go.

Vox Day ‏@voxday
Gamma in action: a witness writes a summary after observing the characteristic behavior of a Gamma male in discourse. http://alphagameplan.blogspot.com/2015/03/gamma-in-action.html …

DrTorch ‏@TorchDr
@voxday With VD playing role of Gamma male: picks fight, loses, runs away, claims victory.

Vox Day ‏@voxday now
@TorchDr Still at it, gamma boy? Fine, we can Omega you. You're done at VP.

He can call it a win if he likes. He can call me a coward if he likes. He can do whatever he wants, but regardless, he won't be commenting at VP again. This is an important lesson in submission for the Gammas of the world. If you don't learn to submit, then you're eventually going to be destroyed when you run into the wrong Alpha or Sigma, in whatever the relevant context is. Whether that means a physical beating, a firing, or just being silenced on a blog, it's almost always a consequence that could have easily been avoided.

The observable facts are that he picked the fight. Not me. He retreated from his earlier assertion. Not me. And I did not claim victory either, for that matter. I have neither respect nor time for any commenter who insists on behaving in this manner. If you can't answer straightforward answers or admit when you're wrong, you'd better not challenge me. I don't mind being criticized or challenged, but I have no tolerance for the endless Gamma dancing as they desperately try to preserve their self-image.

Alpha Mail: Diagnosis Gamma 1

Inspired by the Graduating Gamma series, one gamma we will call GW for the sake of privacy contacted me and asked me to share my thoughts on his situation in return for supporting our sponsors at Castalia House. I agreed to his suggestion and I have his permission to post this on the blog; this the first part of what he sent me:

I won't bother with too many personal details, maybe another time. I'm [early 40s], single, never married, no children, live on own, self-employed.

Not a complete train wreck, anyhow. He's leaving it a little late, but the raw material for self-improvement is there.

Are You Gamma: Part 1

This relates to the first 7 points. Having a tendency to need to be right about something, also being forceful with needing to be right about it by getting louder or more threatening in body language.

Example 1 - In public house getting drunk, was with father at time. Something came up to do with war and pacifism, that sort of area. The guy I spoke to was ex-army although I don't think front line sort of stuff. I'm not sure exactly how it went but I think I ended up berating him over something to do with pacifism and how it didn't make sense what he was saying. There was no reason for me to get wound up I think I just wanted to impose myself on him, being right maybe is just getting someone to back down or submit to me? My father was trying to get me to calm down with body language. The guy just walked off eventually. 

This ties in with something about my relationship with my father. Through adolescence he never came down hard on me, mother tended to have most of the control in that regard. Played darts with him from 16-18 and started drinking then. Would get very drunk, have blackouts and embarrass myself. While he would talk to me about it there wasn't anything that firm. Part of the problem maybe was I was quite polite and quiet when sober, and also slight in build. I think other people in the team/pub didn't say much out of respect for my father, I think I would have got hit a few times otherwise.

Two things I remember vividly about me and my father. One was probably a darts night, after drinking, where I must have been mouthing off to him. I think I was effectively belittling him, I remember he charged up the stairs and I was on bed and he had my arms down and was in my face, "is this what you want??!!" Thats the only time I ever remember him getting really angry with me. Maybe I needed him to stand up to me, was begging for it?

Was about 12/13. Boys down road (slightly younger than me) had knocked on door and run away so I went after them. As it turned out they had kicked ball over wall but it wasn't ours. I don't remember shouting but asking them why they ran away etc. Appears they told some porkies to their parents and made out I "pummeled" them . Given I was never within ten yards of them this seems unlikely! A hour or so later their father came up, my mother answered door. I'm not exactly sure what happened from there and whether the guy was getting aggressive or not but when my father came out as well my mother told him to go upstairs in the attic!! So he did. I think the guy just went and there was no trouble, presumably my mother was fearful of it escalating into fighting. Feel terrible thinking about that because it seems such a weak think to do. To go along with what my mother said and climb up the ladder into attic and leave her there.

His gammatude is hardly difficult to understand. His paternal role model was weak and his maternal influence was strong. He has a normal male inclination for conflict-resolution through violence, but it has been inhibited by his upbringing. So, it leaks out in bizarre and inappropriate emotional outbursts. He's basically looking for a beating, not because he is some sort of masochist, but because he's never been forcibly established in the social hierarchy, and he's now locked into a pattern of turning to drink to free himself from the social inhibitions that have been instilled in him.

And, like all struggles against inhibitions, when he temporarily breaks through them, he overdoes it.

Example 2 - Playing poker at end of night in pub with pool team mates, reasonably drunk. I'd been playing poker a bit online and was starting to play well enough to win regularly. Again I'm not sure exactly what occurred but it related to a particular hand where, to me, what they did was a sub-optimal play and they shouldn't be doing it. I may have been ribbed a bit for this which maybe stoked me up more. I then started a gradual rant which involved me challenging him to 20,000 hands as over that amount of hands I know I'd win (I'm not that good heads up so may have backfired). This quickly escalated. I said something else more personal not sure what, which got him wound up and it nearly came to blows although broke up swiftly.

This was caught on pub CCTV and I saw it the week after. People joked about it and so did the guy involved who didn't seem bothered and was more concerned whether I would move on from it. I'm guessing grudge holding is classic gamma behaviour. One thing that stuck with me was that I was more bothered that the CCTV showed me backing away. It would have wrecked me if they called me a bottler or something similar. My behaviour up to that point was less embarrassing than the thought of being exposed as a weakling or cowardly.

I think I used to rant a lot when at home. Lived there till about 32. I don't remember ever being challenged particularly.

This is textbook Gamma behavior.

1. Pick an unnecessary fight by inserting your opinion where it is neither requested nor wanted.
2. Try to resolve the conflict in your favor by flooding the situation with verbal diarrhea. Gammas are like salesmen who think as long as they are talking, the customer isn't walking. But this is a short-sighted tactic, as eventually, the talking is going to end, and the longer it goes on, the less it convinces the other party.
3. Back down when the conflict turns physical.
4. Hold a grudge.
5. Deny reality.

The fifth point can be seen in this line: "My behaviour up to that point was less embarrassing than the thought of being exposed as a weakling or cowardly." He WAS exposed as being a coward. He unnecessarily picked a fight, challenged another man, and when that challenge was met, backed down.

Here is my advice regarding the first part of his email.

1. Limit himself to three drinks per evening. If he finds himself overly tempted to order a fourth, call it an early night and go home.
2. Limit himself to no more than five sentences in a row without stopping and listening to the other person. The rants have to stop. They are immature and womanish.
3. Go and apologize to the other guy. Tell him: "I'm sorry I picked a fight with you the other day. At the very least, I should have given you the chance to kick my ass after I did it. Can I buy you a drink?" That's it. No excuses, no rationalizations, nothing else. Learn how Deltas handle conflict. Learn to submit. Because then, when it's over, it's bloody well over.

Winning, redefined

LR sends a very helpful email which helps demonstrate that the Gamma delusion is considerably worse than the average non-Gamma grasps:

Being somewhat Gamma myself, I recognized something in the course of reading your posts that may be of interest to you.

Gammas think they are Alphas.

It sounds insane, but it's true. A man who knows his place and sticks to that place is usually left to his own devices. Pay tribute to those above, demand tribute from those below, and if a man should disagree with either his own or your relative position in the hierarchy, then conflict will ensue to determine who is correct. It's a simple enough formula and it occurs frequently, if not daily, during the course of a man's life. Men tend to be very diligent about ensuring the proper order of things, but once that order is established, there is an element of stability. The victor may be magnanimous to the defeated. In turn, the loser is expected to acclimate himself to his new position.

Gammas introduce instability to this hierarchy. They refuse to accept their station, nor do they propose to increase it through deeds and experience. Like women, they come to expect a certain station in life and feel wronged when it is not provided for them. A common Gamma thought would be "why should he be the leader and get all the glory for himself?"

How many individuals come to your blog saying they are this or that? Maybe they claim they are half Sigma and half Beta or some such. But this is usually a Gamma thing. Those with high SMV don't need the validation of blog comments to determine their position in life. They know it, even if they lack the words to describe it. Even many with low SMV come to understand this.

Nor is this a new phenomenon. In the course of following the advice you have relayed to us, I have read The Meditations. While extremely helpful, and I would be remiss if I did not thank you and the original poster for it, I craved more. So I read Xenophon's Anabasis, and I recommend this to other Gammas also. It is instructive in matters of hierarchy. In that, it was clear that some of the soldiers were Gammas, talking behind the backs of their betters, plotting to gain power in the manner of women. One complained about the weight of his shield, and so Xenophon took it upon himself to carry the man's shield, and yet that man was angry with Xenophon for having done so. Very Gamma. And if they had achieved power, the army would have been annihilated. Indeed, whenever they grew restless and did things on their own, those men came to ruin.

Gammas think they are Alphas, but Alphas [and Betas, and Deltas, and Sigmas - VD] know that to let a Gamma have power is to court disaster. Perhaps that knowledge wove its way into instinct over the centuries, such that the hostility is now innate. The species wishes to preserve itself and Gammas are in the way of that. They should be beaten down until they acknowledge that they are the lowest of the low, even beneath the Omegas, for at least the Omega has opted out of the regular course of human affairs. At least the Omega knows his station.

I now know, having read Anabasis, that I am unfit for leadership. This is critical knowledge for any Gamma who wishes to improve his lot. I have at last acclimated myself to my station in life. Once you know your place in the hierarchy, you may endeavor to change it, to rise as a man as you gain knowledge, experience and skill. But you have a solid basis for knowing yourself, and that is good. Gammas must be broken, their notion of Alphahood expunged, their character, such that they possess, destroyed utterly. The survival of our civilization, like that of the 10,000, depends on this.

I found this hard to credit. I mean, what planet does the Gamma have to be orbiting to understand that his lack of popularity and female companionship means that his socio-sexual status is low?

Graduating Gamma 3

Step 3: Emotional

The Gamma lives on an emotional roller coaster which goes from anxious repression to emotional outbursts which can accumulate into rage and then despair. A Gamma is effectively out of balance emotionally and which is why they are so obnoxious to people around them and especially to women.

I have a couple of ideas of why this is so, and my guess is that a Gamma was a boy who was just a little more emotionally sensitive and a bit smarter than the average boy, then experienced some combination of the following factors: a Gamma father or father figure, raised by women alone, bullied rather heavily, socially awkward and had trouble knowing how to act, overweight or possessed some other physical trait that made him overly self-conscious. I don’t think it is any one thing, but rather a combination of several influences and events beyond which slowly turns a boy who might have some tendencies towards being a Gamma into a full-blown Gamma in adulthood. If you suspect you are a Gamma you’ll probably find this list or events like this to be still painful in your memory. Take that same boy and surround him with strong, but patient men, and have him enter into a masculine profession or the military, and he’d probably turn out a Delta or a Delta with a few Gamma traits.

Swinging the pendulum

After a lifetime of Gamma reinforcement how does a man turn things around? I suggest for one month swinging the pendulum far in the opposite direction. Almost like an emotional detox, the Gamma needs to completely turn around for a time and get off the emotional roller coaster. I suggest one month of practicing the ancient philosophy of Stoicism. The first step is to get yourself a copy of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. My favorite version is by Everyman’s Library as the language has been updated, but it costs money, so there’s a free version here, and if you want a printed book they are easy to find used or are always at the local library. This is the place to start because it isn’t a philosophical abstract but instead a portrait of an Emperor and how he lives out the philosophy in his daily life. It’s also a damn good read.

As for a definition of Stoicism I’m going straight to the dictionary:
1. the endurance of pain or hardship without a display of feelings and without complaint.

From dictionary.com:
A philosophy that flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. Stoics believed that people should strictly restrain their emotions in order to attain happiness and wisdom; hence, they refused to demonstrate either joy or sorrow.

You can read more about it on Wikipedia, but for our purposes the above are sufficient. I’m sure there’s someone out there who will take umbrage with this definition and can’t wait to spam the comments with a debate about the true definition of Stoicism and their “oh so interesting” knowledge about Stoicism. Don’t do it because it doesn’t matter here and you will be missing the point. I don’t bring up Stoicism to debate its meaning or to claim it has superiority over all other philosophies or other such irrelevant topics, only that it can be a useful tool to help one graduate from Gamma.

Are you Gamma? 2 of 2

The second half of the list composed by the author of Graduating Gamma to help Gamma males identify themselves:

• You constantly throw out flippant remarks with the expectations they are always amusing, appropriate, and funny.
• When telling an anecdote to a group and someone mentions they have already heard it you go ahead and tell it again because you aren’t sure if everyone has heard it.
• You routinely quote movies, comics, and even do the funny voices in every day conversation.
• When a movie or story is brought up you explain the entire plot and all of the details regardless of if the people you are with asked for the information or even said they liked it.
• You sit out nearly all competition in a group because you always have better things to do and you’d just rather talk to your friends.
• At a group event you never voluntarily play any sport if you can avoid it.
• If you start to lose at any game you find a way to quit if you can and hope to save face by degrading the game or the other players.
• If someone defeats you at a game or competition you can’t look them in the eye afterwards and try to avoid them if possible.
• If you win at a competition you explain to your opponent all of the things they did wrong regardless if they asked for the advice.
• You have at least one good female friend and are always looking for more.
• You’ll take that 2AM call or text from a female friend who isn’t looking to meet you but rather wants emotional support.
• You focus on a single “dream woman” and spend weeks, or months planning the perfect time to ask her out.
• You think women are good and innocent creatures and the ones who do wrong have no doubt been corrupted by the men in their lives.
• Fixing a woman with a lot of problems is a noble effort and you are always ready to help.
• You let women use an old mistake or bad choice of yours indefinitely to instill guilt and get their way.
• You must justify to the woman you are with in excruciating detail all of your actions and thoughts.
• Fighting back against a violent woman you think is always wrong no matter the circumstances.
• You know you could be successful with women if you tried, but that means being a jerk or a dude-bro and you respect women too much to do that, and you want to be true to yourself.
• Feelings should routinely be shared and others should take your feelings into account when making decisions.
• You routinely lie about small, personal, matters knowing you can get away with it.
• If you see a couple arguing, your first instinct is to think the guy is wrong and you need to help the girl.
• If an attractive woman in in a bad state your interest grows, because now that she’s been taken down a notch or two you have a chance.

I would add something I've noticed whenever Gammas start talking, especially about themselves. "You babble semi-coherently and ramble on to a new and tangentially related thought before you've completed whatever it was you started talking about."

It tends to strike me as an attempt to dominate the conversation without seeking to actually engage the other's interest in much the same way women do. Only Gammas do it in public postings and in emails, so that's not necessarily it. All I know is that whenever I'm dealing with a Gamma, in any communications medium, more often than not I'm left wondering "what on Earth is he babbling on about?"

Gammas also seem to have a serious problem providing direct answers to questions. They'll answer five different questions that they think you might have asked, or should have asked, while somehow failing to answer the one question you actually asked.

Are you Gamma? 1 of 2

The author of Graduating Gamma has composed a helpful list to permit Gamma males to identify themselves:

• In the past year you can’t recall a single serious online discussion you were wrong about anything.
• In the past two years you can’t recall one discussion with any friends or family in which you were wrong about anything.
• When you are having an argument with someone and it appears you are wrong, the most common belief and defense is the other person simply doesn’t understand what you are saying.
• When discussing matters with someone and you think you are maybe, possibly being shown to be wrong you start to get snarky, crack lame jokes, and immediately try to change the subject.
• If someone holds an opinion contrary to yours, and you don’t think you have a good defense immediately to hand you start to look for unrelated ways to disqualify the other person as at least knowledgeable about the subject, and even going so far as to disqualify them as a good person or even a person at all.
• Definitions are tenuous for you and words can be redefined at leisure during a discussion. If someone quotes the dictionary and it disagrees with your definition they are arguing unfairly and the dictionary is wrong.
• When finally shown you are wrong about something it is devastating, you remember it for months or years, avoid that place or people, and consider your time there a failure as a person.
• You can’t even take a mild ribbing about anything outside of a few harmless topics from other guys, and immediately fly into a barely controlled rage and seek some sort of vengeance if you are lampooned by anyone. This isn’t upping the competition, but hatred of the other and you will avoid that person or speak badly of them.
• In contrast you’ll sit idly by as a woman openly mocks you as you are just being “nice”.
• Now that you think about it, in this last year or two you can recall several women cracking jokes at your expense, mocking you, degrading you to their friends, and otherwise holding you in low regard without any fear of consequences. 
• The thought of being at the center of a comedy roast fills you with dread.
• You think width of knowledge is more important than depth of knowledge.
• You are an expert on everything and always ready to give your opinion even when you aren’t sure—then again a Gamma is always sure of his knowledge so you probably give your opinion on most everything all of the time.
• If someone says they aren’t interested in your opinion you take it as a personal slight, they aren’t interested in you, and probably hate you as well.
• If someone tells a story you immediately have to follow up that story with one of your own, which may or may not be related to the topic, and of course is more interesting, more important and longer. If you don’t have a good story you’ll say something snarky afterwards to diminish the other story.

Graduating Gamma 2

Step Two: Spiritual

For many in the modern times the Spiritual is something to be cast off, as it only interferes with desires or perhaps even knowledge. I believe this is a mistake, especially for the Gamma who needs a firm foundation to escape his prison of dishonesty. For the secularists who are about to stop reading don’t, this isn’t a polemic against atheism or a Christian apologetic work but rather an exhortation to find one’s roots and deals with personal ethics.

I’ll lay my cards on the table and explain my position which is a very standard, Protestant, Evangelical, and orthodox one. I’m Protestant by agreeing with the Solas from the Reformation and orthodox by accepting the ancient Christian creeds, Apostles, Nicene, and Athanasian.

Know what you believe and why you believe it.

The most common error I see Gammas make in regards to spiritual and ethical matters is treating it like a game of witty comments, snark, and playing at the edges of important matters without skin in the game. The second mistake is thinking width of knowledge of spiritual matters is more important than depth. This flows directly from the Gamma’s ever-present and crippling fear of being wrong somewhere and somehow. The Gamma does not understand the deep matters behind what is going on in his own beliefs, which is ironic since most Gammas vastly overestimate their knowledge and ability in most everything.

The first step is to go deep in your current beliefs, back to the foundational documents to study and know them very well. Find the founding documents of your closest beliefs and read through them carefully. For the religious this is of course their holy book, but do you not identify in some way with a denomination, or at least a philosophy of your religion? Don’t concentrate on just the latest popular Christian book if you are Christian or Dawkins latest book if you are an atheist, go to the catechism if you are Roman Catholic, the Confessions if your denomination if you are Protestant, church history if you home church, and ancient atheist philosophy if you are completely secular just to start. People lived and died by these beliefs, find out why.

If you ascribe to their beliefs you honor the ones who came before you if you read their works carefully. Don’t skim, but rather drink in with full appreciation of their insights and the flaws. Almost certainly you are going to be surprised by some of the things you find. During this process take stock of your family’s beliefs; the faith of your parents particularly if you currently reject it. Give their beliefs a fair chance, read through those documents and not how badly your parents lived up to those ideals. This discovery can be challenging as the language can be archaic, but it’s well worth the effort.

It’s important to read the original documents and not the most recent interpretation of those documents even if they are by a favorite author. I’ve found that writers I respect a great deal can be sloppy at times or interject their own pet theories into a system, and then claim that’s what the system is all about. If you claim to believe in something, or follow an idea, you need to read the original for yourself.

If you are religious pray a great deal about what you find in humility and ask for forgiveness in being arrogant and obnoxious about your beliefs. Pray for wisdom and insight. Pray for a peaceful soul when finding troubling new truths. If you are secular dwell and contemplate what you have read. Realize you are probably not nearly as smart as you’d like to think and you need to change when the truth leads you to an inevitable conclusion.

You do this because you need depth on your beliefs, not width. You don’t need to know everything about everyone else’s beliefs; you need to know yours very well and how to defend them.

Graduating Gamma 1

Graduating Gamma
Step One: Physical

This is the easiest step to diagnose and the second most difficult to deal with. If you don’t know if you need to lose weight or get in better shape, go ahead and stop reading now, find a scale and check out how close you are to the right BMI. If you are more than eight points too high then you definitely need to lose some weight. (I’ll deal with the “BMI is bullshit!” argument later). I suggest scheduling a physical to check blood pressure and cholesterol as well, along with the regular battery of blood work tests, but if the means aren’t there to go to a doctor then head the drug store and at least check your blood pressure for free. There’s no excuse for not knowing your weight, and blood pressure. You can’t honestly approach your health without the facts so go and find out even if you are afraid of what you will find.

If you already know all of your vital health info and are in excellent physical health, and cardiovascular shape then you can skip the rest of this entire post. Congratulations on doing what few in modern society can manage and even fewer Gammas ever manage to do. Well done.

As for weight loss here’s the brutally honest facts and the secret diet plan: You must expend more calories than you consume over an extended period of time to lose excess body fat.

Of course this is much easier said than done so I will now discuss dieting. I don’t care what diet you are on to lose weight and nobody else does either. Let me repeat that: I don’t care what diet you are on and nobody else does either. The goal is to lose body fat and I’m no expert in dieting so I’ll not give one single, suggestion on what diet to choose, what I will comment on is all of the typical Gamma responses to dieting.

Excuses

The most common Gamma response to diet and exercise is a litany of excuses.

• BMI is bullshit! – Maybe it is, I don’t know, but it’s a tool that can get you in the ballpark and besides this has nothing at all to do with you being fat, a lot of things are bullshit in life, and they also have nothing to do with you being fat. Stop being hopelessly obtuse and binary in your thinking; that because BMI is flawed it in any way impacts your diet and exercise efforts. 
• I don’t have the time to go to the gym – I don’t most days either, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do something every day. You have a floor, right? Get down on it for 10 minutes and do some good stretches. If you have 20 minutes you can get out a Pilates ball and work on it. You don’t have to go to the gym; you just have to do something.
• I don’t have the money for the gym – You don’t need it to work out. Walking is still free. In a bad neighborhood or snowed in? Do some yoga, youtube videos are available. 
• It only pays off it you can be JJ Watt – More binary thinking acting as an excuse. Yes, JJ Watt can afford a cabin in the middle of Wisconsin, be a hermit, and work out all day. You can’t and this has nothing to do with you working out.
• If I worked out I’d be in great shape if I wanted to – I bet you would, but you aren’t.
• American, Western diet is bullshit, man. Like GMOs, carbs, caveman, gluten, sugar, fat, protein and stuff, man. There’s no way I can do it. –  Shut. Your. Whore. Mouth. See below.