For a few months now, Vox Day has been writing about his socio-sexual hierarchy theories at Alpha Game. It's very interesting and I truly believe that what he writes about is pretty much spot on. I don't necessarily agree with everything, but I am learning a lot.
In the Vox hierarchy, I believe that I am a Delta, and that when I was a kid, I was a Gamma. The change came in high school, when I got contact lenses and started slimming down a bit, and also went to a different high school than most of my classmates in middle school did. As Vox would put it, I starting displaying higher value (DHV) without even realizing it. But, I was far from Alpha.
I actually managed to catch Mrs. Astro by unknowingly using some PUA techniques, but that's another story.
Today, we took the family down to get haircuts. We have a friend who's a hairdresser, and it's easy to take the whole crew every 1.5-2 months to her to get our hair cut at the same time. And when the conversation came around to hair length while she was cutting my older daughter's hair, I mentioned the following from Alpha Game: Scientifically Sexy and The Hair Equivalent of Obese. All I said was that a study had shown that short hair on a woman was the equivalent in loss of attractiveness to thirty extra pounds of weight.
Ha! It was like a minor bomb went off in there. I didn't really mean for the other women to overhear me, but they did. A (heavier) lady getting her hair cut almost shoulder length was all like, "Is my hair OK?" Oh man.
Maintaining what I hoped was an alpha composure, I assured the lady that she looked great and her hair wasn't what I would consider short. Mrs. Astro was embarrassed a bit ("only -my- husband would say such a thing in a hair salon"), but I didn't even think of offering an apology for the comment. I got to watch as the ladies all considered the truth of the statement for a bit.
Later, I told Mrs. Astro that those women might think I was a jerk, but they will remember me, and perhaps they will either grow their hair out or lose a few pounds, all to the benefit of their husbands and boyfriends. You're welcome, guys.
Now, as for whether or not it's "alpha" to get your hair cut in a hair salon, I don't really care what y'all think. I'm a delta anyways.
15 comments:
Things you did wrong:
1. You were in a womens hair salon.
2. Told the women who asked you how her hair looked that it was OK. What you should have said was; "It looks great, on a bovine".
Things you did right:
1. Not apoligizing for what you said.
Things you could have done different:
1. You were in a bad place where only bad things can happen to a man, stay out of salons, unless your wife owns it (WB).
2. Inform those present that the only way to overcome the weight/hair issue is by increasing the freaky sex ratio in the relationship.
3. You could have pointed out, "I see I've embaressed my wife again, but she's so smok'n hot that I'd keep her no matter how short she cut her hair". Your first comment displayed your higher value to all the women in the room, your second comment would have reinforced your athority AND validated your wifes value in your eyes and consequently the other women as well as your kids.
If you would have done that you would have come across as such a man's man; that the lilac and rose petal water you requested after getting your hair and nails done wouldn't have made you look like a a great beared wousse. :-)
Res Ipsa
Yes, I know that my delta instincts kicked in there. I like #3; that would have been good. I was simultaneously laughing and playing out the scenarios in my head of what "I should have said".
And I like the lilac water; my cuticles have never been so soft.
"And I like the lilac water; my cuticles have never been so soft."
I read that and snorted/laughed so hard the lady in the next office came over to see if I was OK.
I always think of things that would have been better to say after the fact too. Every once in awhile I get lucky.
BTW, I have no idea how Vox has the whole sexual hiarchy thing worked out. I get the fact that Alpha's get to nail all the good looking skanks and Omega's get restraining orders to keep them away but beyond that I don't have much of a clue. I don't think I fit in the whole PUA thing. I was accepted in every group I approached but I was as much an observer as a member. If you count one girl in Jr High, on in HS, one in college, and one after college I've been turned down by 4 females that I asked out. From 16 to 22 I never had a weekend that I wanted a date but didn't have one, same for most week nights. I didn't sleep with all those women. I guess I might have if I would have thought to have pressed the issue, but my upbringing taught me that was a sin, so most of those girls stayed on a PG-13 to R rated level instead of an XXX. Which looking back was plenty sinful, and if some guy goes that far with my daughter without the benifit of a couple of years of being married to her...
"Guns don't kill people, Dad's with daughters kill people".
Res Ipsa
Res, you're a Roissy Alpha and maybe a Vox Sigma, from what I know of you. As Vox has stated several times, someone like you to whom this stuff comes naturally has trouble seeing the value in it.
I don't care so much about the sexual part of socio-sexual hierarchy, but I have gained a lot of insight into the social part.
I have often been frustrated over the years by my lack of opportunities for advancement or leadership roles. I have come to understand that perhaps these opportunities did not come to me because I wasn't sending out the social signals that indicated I was ready for them. A lot of it is natural, but I think it can be learned.
For example, there's a guy who used to be my boss who's only 3 years older than me. Yet he has climbed the ladder at work and, despite some pretty big failures that cost the company money and lost business, he still gets promoted and stuff. The guy is a natural alpha, and even if he's not the best technically, that doesn't matter. He makes people THINK that he's good by the way he handles and presents himself.
Anyway, in the last year in my new program I have tried to implement some things about the way I interact with others to make myself seem more "alpha" and I think it's working.
That's an interesting take on it. I would hate to be thought of as a Roissy Alpha. Mostly because I see Roissy as a user and discarder of people. That and I never equated sexual success as banging a long list of brainless bimbo's. Maybe that is an effect of up bringing. After all I like sex and like every other guy I could go for a little more. I've always, even when I wasn't being a Christian, thought that sexual satisfaction could be achieved with one women (albeit one with very active imagination).
As far as success in other areas of life, I've had ups and downs and right now I'm going through about a 3 year down. Whatever natural traits I have haven't turned this one around for me. A solid middle class job and salary starts looking really good after a bit of being broke and busting your butt like you're 18 all over again.
Well, Roissy's categories are limited to Alpha/Beta: either you can score or you cannot. Fairly simple. I agree with you about your assessment of him.
Vox's categories are more broad and more applicable to other areas of life than simple scoring with women.
When you say that you had a date every weekend, well, that means you were able to score, even if you did not. Basically, you had no problem with women.
If it were not for Mrs. Astro, I would not have had any dates in high school, and I hope that in the alternate universe where I went to college and was not dating her, I would have grown enough to be able to date other girls occasionally.
I guess I was a lot like Leonard in Big Bang Theory.
I don't read Roissy at all. When Vox started posting on this stuff I did go over and check out Atol. I only read Vox's game blog when he posts something titalating on his week in review. I guess I have "mine" so checking out ways to get more is silly.
"Basically, you had no problem with women."
Yeah but I never "did" anything special. If I was interested in a girl, I asked her if she wanted to go out. There were some I never asked a second time b/c I could tell they weren't interested. I suspect if I had my turn down ratio would have been higher. Also its not like I went form girl to girl. If I enjoyed someone, I'd go out with them again and see how well we liked each other. Sometimes I'd get bored with a girl and sometimes they decided they wanted someone different.
These game guys make it sound like one big panty party. I never did that. I never wanted to either. FWIW I dated a lot of average looking girls and a few babes. I'd never claim that I only did 7's or better etc. There are a lot of girls that are interesting and fun to hang out with, so I did. There were these two black girls taht I knew and we'd do stuff together, never romantic but we hung out. This other black chick asked one of them one time why she was hanging out with "whitey". She told her in a dead serious tone, that I was "bigger" than any brother she had ever seen. Of course she was making it up, but the girl she was kidding thought whe was for real. That got me some attention form the sisters for awhile. I guess that is as close to "game" as I ever got.
Res Ipsa: "...that the lilac and rose petal water you requested..."
And how is it, exactly, that you know so much about lilac and rose petal water, hmmm???
Yeah, WB, I was just making up that comment about the lilac water and my cuticles. I have no idea if the two are related at all.
Of course, I'm the one going to a hair salon for a haircut.
But then again, there's not any regular old barber shops like I went to as a kid. There's either hair salons with ladies that know what they're doing, or places like Supercuts/SportCuts/etc. where the girls may not know what they're doing. The closest to a regular old barber shop I've found is a place called Floyd's, but it's staffed by young women and they play loud music.
The best place was this old barber shop on the Drag at UT. Three chairs, three good old barbers there to cut your hair, and talk about sports or whatever.
"And how is it, exactly, that you know so much about lilac and rose petal water, hmmm???"
You recommended that I try it, that time you told me about how great it was to get a bikini wax. :-)
"Three chairs, three good old barbers there to cut your hair, and talk about sports or whatever."
We've got one place like that here, that I know about. Fred has one chair and a deer head on the wall, gun, golf and sports mags on the table. I think he charges $15 for a basic hair cut. He's gotta be in his 60's so who knows how long he'll keep doing it.
"that time you told me about how great it was to get a bikini wax. "
Ouch! Touché.
"or places like Supercuts/SportCuts/etc. where the girls may not know what they're doing."
Generally, those chain salons take kids right out of beauty school who don't yet have much/any experience outside school -- like my daughter, who is currently working at one of them. They pay bottom scale wages so they can charge lower rates, and make their money off volume instead. The girls are encouraged to work fast so customer wait times aren't so long (and coincidentally, they get more throughput); this will sometimes result in a bad cut, or even a nick.
WaterGirl refers to them as cattle barns -- herd 'em in, herd 'em out, as fast as possible. You aren't usually going to get as good a job as you would from a more experienced stylist, but you get what you pay for.
As for barbers, the major difference between them and stylists is that they are also trained/licensed to give a man a shave. Since that isn't as common nowadays with the advent of the safety razor, the old-fashioned barber shop has steadily lost patronage to the salon. Think about the last time you had a shave at a barber shop instead of doing it yourself at home; personally, I have never in my life had somebody else shave me.
Getting a barber shave has become a very elite thing. I stayed in a nice hotel in chicago once on a business trip, they had everything you could want in that place. The in house barbers charged $50 for a shave and $100 for a trim. The surprising thing was that they had guys waiting their turn.
I've never shaved with a straight razor or had someone else shave me. I'm hoping that by the time I need someone to cut my whiskers for me that I'll just die quitely in my sleep.
Res Ipsa
I had the (girl) barber at Floyd's shave my beard off a few years ago. It was nice; got a hot towel and everything. This was when I tried to start an MBA but my managers would not approve the tuition reimbursement, so I dropped out.
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