30 Oct Long Distance Relationships
Complicated topic today. Get ready to do some serious critical thinking.
Long distance relationships. Good? Bad? Workable? Not? Get ready to be pissed.
Definition of a “Long Distance Relationship”
First, as always, we need to get our definitions straight. The way I define a “long distance relationship” or “LDR” is the following:
Carrying on an extended sexual relationship with a woman who lives beyond a distance to your home easily traversed by car.
-By Caleb Jones
When I say “easily traversed by car,” I admit we get into a grey area. Every man is going to have a different opinion on what that means. For some men, a two-hour driving distance is fine. For others, four hours might be acceptable. It’s a matter of opinion.
I personally have always maintained my 50-minute rule. I refuse to open any woman who lives longer than 50 minutes away from me by car. However, if she lives 2-4 hours away by car, and she’s willing to drive to me (I will not drive to her) and she’s not expecting me to pay for her gas every time (because perhaps she has other reasons to visit my area), then that’s fine. As a matter of fact, I have a woman in my life right now who does that. She makes the trip when she can, and I don’t pay her a thing. Fine with me. Part of my 50-minute rule is that any distance beyond the 50-minute maximum is 100% her problem, not mine.
Again though, women within car distance is not what I’m talking about today. LDR in this article means that a car is not an option. In order to see each other, one of you is going to have to get onto a plane or train.
Now that we have that definition straight, let’s discuss…
Monogamous Long Distance Relationships
What is the single dumbest thing people do in relationships?
Get married without a prenup? Get serious with people they shouldn’t be serious with? Get serious too fast?
Nope. That’s all dumb, but it’s not the dumbest thing.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The single dumbest thing people do in relationships is this: Getting into a long distance relationship that is expected to be monogamous.
That’s right. Monogamous LDRs are literally the single, most stupid thing human beings do in their relationship lives. Having a serious LDR with a person for months or years and expecting that person to never be sexual with anyone else while you’re away for that long…I mean seriously, how dumb are you?
Unless you both have ridiculously low sex drives, this will never, ever, ever, ever, EVER work. At least one of you will cheat, if not both of you, guaranteed. (Unless the relationship is very short.)
By the way, it doesn’t matter if you have a good reason for the long distance.
For example, I have a lot of friends who are military guys. I respect the hell out of these guys and think they’re awesome beyond belief. However when it comes to LDRs, guys in the military are embarrassingly naive. They marry some cute, young, hot chick, then go away for 15 months. They’re in the military so they have to and they have no choice; that part is fine. What’s not fine is when they come back, they’re always shocked, shocked! that little Miss Perfect had sex with someone else while they were deployed.
Then they always lose it and pull their hair out. Drama, screaming, drama, drama. Sometimes physical violence too.
Well what the hell did you expect, dude? This happens constantly, regularly, over and over again, and I’m always amazed at how otherwise reasonably intelligent men are surprised by this. Is normal human behavior such an alien concept to you?
“Hey man, fuck you! She promised!” Yeah, yeah. Don’t be a moron. You probably “promised” too. Then why were you getting a blowjob in your tent in Iraq by that female MP? Yeah. See how this works, Mr. Hypocrite?
So that’s rule number one: Long distance relationships that are expected to be monogamous are the single dumbest thing people do. Never, ever, ever agree to a relationship like this. Human beings need sex. If it’s long distance, you should be allowed to fuck other women, AND you should not be surprised or upset if she fucks other guys while you’re gone. Don’t like that? Then either don’t do LDRs or only do open LDRs, with whatever ground rules you and her determine in advance.
Honestly, normal monogamy is stupid and destructive enough. Don’t go full-retard by making the monogamy long distance, even if you think you have a “good reason.” Jesus.
Alright, so what about LDRs that are not monogamous?
Open / Poly Long Distance Relationships
To discuss nonmonogamous LDRs, we have to be aware of our three relationship types: FB, MLTR, and OLTR, all of which are described in the glossary. The validity of an LDR depends almost entirely on the relationship type.
FB LDRs are wonderful. I highly recommend them for everyone. I have a few inconsistent FBs in a few different cities across the US, so when I visit those places often it’s fun time if schedules allow.
FB by definition is very casual, so that means you don’t care what she’s doing. You also don’t care if it’s months (or even years) between the times you see her. It also means she’s not serious enough for you to warrant spending money just to fly out to see her (or flying her to see you). All of these parameters make for a great LDR. So FB LDRs = good. Do them. Having five or six FB LDRs will make you a very happy man.
MLTR LDRs are not recommended. Yes, you can do them and yes, they are possible, but just because something is possible doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
OLTR LDRs are effectively impossible for the same reasons. (Unless you’re constructing a relationship that is very bizarre and well beyond the scope of what I normally discuss here.)
I have never had an MLTR or OLTR LDR and never will. You shouldn’t either. Here’s why:
1. It’s difficult to maintain a real connection with a woman if you can’t physically touch her on at least a semi-regular basis, meaning once a week or close to it. Phone sex, chat sex, video-Skype sex and all this other crap is complete bullshit and is only for beta males who cant get laid, at least in my opinion. If you’re going to do it because one of you is on a temporary trip for a week before they return, then that’s fine if you really want to do it. But doing this over the long haul of a relationship? Um, no.
Why do this when there are several hundred thousand other women within your age range and hotness requirements within your own town you could be having real sex with? It makes absolutely no sense and smacks of strong oneitis.
2. Any LDR with a woman beyond an FB means that someone is going to have to hop on a plane or train and travel somewhere on a regular basis. That means someone is going to have to pay for that. As the man, that “someone” is probably going to be you, and that’s bullshit.
I’ll say it again: Why pay for a woman’s plane/train tickets on a regular basis when there are women just as hot/cool/smart as her right down the street? Unless your answer is “I’m a pussy with oneitis,” then you have no rational answer to that question.
I’ve already talked about when to spend money during the seduction phase, and soon I will be making a blog post about when to spend money during a relationship. So I don’t want to get too much into this topic today. But the bottom line is that it makes no sense to spend thousands of dollars on transportation costs just to have sex with a particular woman on a regular basis. The only bizarre exception to this rule I can think of is if you are worth more than $10 million and live in some distant, remote area where there are literally no women.
3. It’s damaging to your mental state. Maintaining a serious (MLTR, OLTR, or mono) LDR over a prolonged period of time is going to increase your scarcity mentality and damage your outcome dependence. Very, very bad.
I know men like this. They have become so accustomed to serious LDRs that they start to think that “the only cool women are far away” and “the only way I can get laid are with women far away.” GROSS! I can’t begin to tell you how destructive this is to your frame, game, self-esteem, confidence, outcome independence, masculinity, and overall happiness levels. It’s terribly dangerous. If you simply limit yourself to FB LDRs only, you’ll never have this problem.
To be clear, I’m only talking about ongoing relationships here. I’m not talking about if you or your special girl goes on vacation or business trip for three weeks and then comes back. That’s perfectly fine. I am also not talking about one or two night stands you have when you travel. Those are fine too, and I’ve certainly had my share of those just like any other Alpha.
I am also not talking about those of you who live in two places. Some of you guys go back and forth between two locations, alternating every two weeks to several months. I consider these circumstances as unusual exceptions to the rule and don’t really apply that to long distance relationships as I describe above, provided you aren’t paying for plane tickets to fly yourself or her around just to see each other.
I know I’m going to get a lot of disagreement about this. Guys have gotten really good at defending long distance relationships. Some love to defend why it’s a good idea to have a serious relationship with a girl 2000 miles away and spend $600 on plane tickets every time they want to have sex with her. You guys make me cringe. Hell, it made me cringe just to type that shit. But hey, as always, it’s your life, and you need to make your own decisions. But what I said above about damaging your frame still stands. Do what you will.
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doclove
Posted at 09:35 am, 30th October 2014I fully agree with you. I was an American Soldier who served in Iraq for 15 months and later in Afghanistan for 12 months. I went to a briefing as one of 2 soldiers who were supposed to look out for soldiers who we thought wanted to commit suicide. I remember this briefing well. Seventy percent of the male soldiers who commit suicide do so not because of what they have experienced in a war zone, but because the wife or girlfriend has done one or more of the following things. 1) She is divorcing and/or leaving him. 2) She has committed adultery or cheated on him. 3) She has taken his children away from him and is going to make him pay child support especially if it is high or worse yet financially crippling child support. 4) She has depleted his bank accounts, maxed out his credit cards and/or wrecked the home they were living and he is totally responsible for fixing it. 5) She has harmed the children or allowed someone else to do so which is usually her newest and present male sexual partner and there is usually little or nothing the (military) man can do about it. You would be surprised at how many women do one, multiple, most or all of the 5 things that I listed above to their military husband or boyfriend. The thing is that men become more emotionally distraught over the loss of “romantic” and/or familial relationships while both parties are still alive than women do on average. Men are less likely to become emotionally distraught when they have to harm, maim, mutilate or kill someone else as well as become less emotionally distraught over this happening to their loved ones especially (male) military comrades than women are on average.
There was a 75% divorce rate in the U.S. Army and a 70% divorce rate in the U.S. Marine Corps. as reported to me in October 2009, a month before I deployed to Afghanistan. The U.S. Navy had a 45% divorce rate and the Air Force had a 40% divorce rate which was better than the civilian 50% divorce rate. The lecturers stated that the only reason why the Marine Corps. was lower than the Army is that the Marine Corps. units usually had 6 to 9 month deployments while the Army had 12 to 15 month deployments. They also stated that the divorce rate was higher for the Army and Marine Corps. than the Navy and Air Force because the women sensed that the wives of the former sensed that the Soldiers and Marines were more likely to head into harms way than the Navy and Air Force.
The other thing to consider besides deployments which was not mentioned in the briefing is whether the military man is in the Regular and/or active duty unit or a Federal Reserve or National Guard unit as the Regular Active duty unit is more likely to deploy overseas and even when they are home they are more likely to be in a training exercise in which they can not go home. For example, I spent 3 months training out in a field exercise rather than being in garrison off and on throughout the year as a signal soldier when I was in Korea for 3 years before coming home to the USA to change jobs, Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), to becoming a Chemical Operation Specialist then going to Iraq and returning to the USA, then going to Afghanistan and returning to the USA then getting out of the Army after 8 years. For the 15 months between Iraq and Afghanistan I spent 2 months off and on out in a field exercise instead of in garrison. I have been known to spend 28 days at a time in a field exercise. Infantry soldiers in Korea could spend 45 days out in the field at a time and up to 5 months out in the field training. One’s MOS, job, is another factor to consider on the viability of a romantic/sexual relationship.
Needless to say, even in the civilian world most men should not engage in MLTRs, more should not engage in OLTRs and the fewest of all should engage in monogamous relationships with women in my opinion. This goes double for Federal Reserve and National Guard military men and quadruple for Regular Active duty military men. Virtually all military men should only engage in FB relationships and I seriously doubt that I will change my view. I believe that most civilian men especially if they are veterans such as myself should only engage in FB relationships, but will concede that I might be wrong on this one. The military is an iconic example of why Long Distance Relationships do not work. If the owner of this site, Black Dragon, will kindly let me, I can provide many examples in short paragraph stories of this. I warn you that I will start out relatively easy and get progressively harsher in them.
Diggy
Posted at 11:13 am, 30th October 2014Yeah, doc love is right. The military wife thing always made me sad. It was accepted between my boys and I that if you meet a woman at the bar and shes married to a deployed man she will sleep with you. Sad but truth. One chick we meet at a drive bar took on three of us individually while she was um…unclean and had a two year old at home. I judged a few of my friends after that and made it a rule that these women were off my radar. Personal preference.
I dont think we need a bunch of stories man, just sad. I think most guys civilian or not understand it as truth.
anon
Posted at 12:30 pm, 30th October 2014First hand experience here. Im from England and met a pretty girl when I visited the U.S. We started dating long distance. I would fly there and she would fly here. It wasn’t until a few months in that I realised the reason she was dating long distance is because she was so bat shit crazy that she had burned through the local dating pool of her own geographical area!.
No decent woman of a high standard would bother dating so far. Lesson learned.
JoshuaTenor
Posted at 12:52 pm, 30th October 2014Amen to this. I had one long distance relationship that was onviously doomed to fail for multiple reasons. There were fun parts to it but, never again. Also I can totally agree on what Doclove said regarding the military. All true.
Tim
Posted at 02:23 pm, 30th October 2014Dated one girl that was 300 miles away…about 4.5 hour drive. Not “long distance” as far as BD says but there were issues. I’d have a weekend off, she’d EXPECT me to come see her. She was a college student and had very little money, so it was all up to me. She got so clingy that I did a soft next for about a week and she quickly found someone else to fill the void. He can have her. Never again. More than 50 miles? No thanks.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 02:43 pm, 30th October 2014I’m honestly shocked I’m getting this much agreement. A pleasant surprise.
I think that’s true the majority of the time, but the exception to the rule I have seen (and experienced) is if she lives in a teeny tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Then she might be fine. In that case, if she wants to take on 100% of the time/effort/money of travelling to see me, I’m cool with that.
(Of course she should take my usual advice and just move to somewhere better, but as always people are addicted to their own excuses.)
zylya
Posted at 03:14 pm, 30th October 2014Only really had one LDR (OLTR) and the only reason I went with it was because she was planning to live in my country and only had to go home to sort out the visa. I believe it’s fine if it’s a temporary thing, but if you’re planning on being apart as the status quo, then it’s never going to work.
Kryptokate
Posted at 11:05 pm, 30th October 2014I’m currently trying to extricate myself from an LDR and as usual, I agree with you 95% but not 100%. You are absolutely correct that monogamous LDRs are a dumb idea for anyone except for people who no one else really wants to fuck. However I do think that OLDRs might be viable for a small minority of people with different preferences than you have with respect to money.
My story: I went to Vegas to see a performer I like and had what I thought was going to be a one-night stand. He lives in LA and I live a couple hours from there by plane. Afterwards, he found me on facebook and we started chatting, then talking on the phone, and I said he could come visit me in my city if he wanted to. He came out the next weekend and we had a great time and he immediately started pressing for me to be his “girlfriend”, telling me how he was so great at being a faithful guy despite constant traveling for his job, and wanting me to not see other men. You are so right that lots of men will start falling in love and pushing for monogamy after the second time they sleep with a woman. I remained vague and non-committal but at the time, there was no one else in my life who interested me and I liked him quite a bit.
Two weeks later I flew to LA to see him for the weekend and again we had a great time and things became very high-intensity, infatuation-ey and honeymooonish. Again he pressed for monogamy. At this point I assumed that he was totally full of shit about being a “faithful” guy because (a) based on the circumstances of his job, he has a ton of sexual opportunities in every port, and (b) the fact that he slept with me three hours after we met clearly showed he had that propensity. I figured he was trying to lock me down but would continue to sleep around and be the sexual hypocrite that most of us are. Also, I really didn’t care if he slept around because (a) I liked him and had fun spending time with him, (b) he had some rare things of value to offer with respect to entre to social circles involving performers I’ve long admired that I wouldn’t otherwise have access to and enjoyed meeting, (c) our sleeping and eating schedules and energy levels were compatible and that’s important to me if I’m going to spend any time out of bed with them, and (d) what do I care what he does when I’m not around?
But this was the most important part: an LDR seemed ideal to me because it would create enforced periods of separation and therefore preserve the sexual excitement and extend the honeymoon period. Based on my experience, I agree with BD that nothing kills sexual attraction faster than living together or seeing each other all the time, and my preference is to only see a man I’m involved with on the weekends. During the week, texting is sufficient and then weekends are for sex. I’ve successfully extended relationships this way, but the problem is that as a general rule, most people won’t go for this. Men think because they like fucking me, fucking me every day would be even better and they want to hang out all the time. They never seem to understand that the more we fuck and see each other, the less interesting it will be and the less we’ll want to. It’s as if everyone is in a race with themselves to see just how quickly they can choke all the eroticism out of their relationships. No one else seems to appreciate the value of building up enough time apart to miss each other or maybe even pine for each other.
Therefore, when I’m involved with a man in my city, it becomes a constant round of arguing and negotiating where they’re trying to hang out every night and I’m making up excuses about why I can’t and we usually settle on an uneasy compromise where we’re together on the weekend and one weeknight, but I’m resentful about the weeknight and the fact that I had to make up excuses every other night, and he feels unsatisfied and neglected because we’re not together every night. (Note that I don’t want to hold off on the other nights bc I’m seeing other men but just because I want to rest, get some sleep, be comfortable, attend to my own needs, recover from work exhaustion, and ramp up for weekend sex).
Anyway, given that this is a constant problem in my relationships, I thought an LDR would be perfect because we would only see each other 2-3 times a month. I really thought it was ideal because when we weren’t together, I could focus on my work and my friends and my interests and bum around my house in my sweatpants and eat garlic and generally do whatever the hell I wanted. And then when we were together it would always be like having a high-romance, high-eroticism vacation. Also, with Skype and texting and the other technology, it really isn’t hard to stay in touch so much that there’s really not much difference than if he lived here anyway, but I wouldn’t have to deal with the requests to see each other during the week.
Also — and here’s where I think some people vary from you BD — the costs of flying to see each other were insignificant to me. We both paid our own flying costs. And I’m not rich but I make good money and have several thousand dollars of disposable income each month to do whatever I like with. The difference between you and I is that you hate spending money and love saving it, and it seems to emotionally pain you to spend money and you obsess over the dollar cost of everything. I think that’s just a temperamental thing and people vary a lot on how comfortable they are with spending/saving. From my perspective, as long as I have a good retirement account and a sizeable rainy-day account, the rest of my money is there for me to enjoy myself with fully. What else is money for? So it doesn’t pain me in the slightest to buy plane tickets once or twice a month. In fact, I really like it and find it exciting and fun to feel like I’m always going on little escapes. I’m not trying to persuade you on this point because I think it’s just a matter of personal preference, but I do think that you’re significantly more conservative with money than a lot of people (though granted, most people don’t have the luxury of having that much disposable income in the first place). So to me, the money aspect was a non-factor.
OK. So given all of the above variables, I thought I had found the perfect situation. And for three months, it was. I had an exciting, wonderful summer. However, it is (not surprisingly) ending now.
First of all, I discovered that I was wrong about him sleeping around and that he is prone to MAJOR oneitis. I won’t go into the multitude of clues as to why I’m positive he really was being monogamous but suffice it to say there were many obvious signs. Second, he increasingly started acting slavish and pathetic (again, I won’t go into details but you can fill in the blanks and if you saw his text messages I’m sure it would make you physically cringe to read). And third, at about the three-month mark I got together with some friends one night, met a super hot guy, and after a couple weeks of him pursuing me I couldn’t resist. So that’s that and now I’m in the process of trying to gently and kindly break things off with LDR guy.
So OK, so far that was a pretty predictable story and your theory is correct. But I’d like to point out that it *could* have worked out, if (a) he didn’t insist on it being monogamous, and (b) he hadn’t slowly succumbed to degrading himself and acting like my minion. The new guy I met is hotter but also way less interesting and bores me and I like LDR guy better. I’m only breaking it off with him because I don’t want to carry on a lie and he wants monogamy. So I agree with you that most of the time an LDR won’t work, but I do think it could be not just workable but desirable between two people who have high needs for time alone and independence, who have the money to spend AND don’t mind spending it, and who don’t care what the other does when they’re not around.
The stuff about military deployment is brutal and depressing. There’s a girl who works at my firm whose husband is deployed and all the men I work with flirt with her and try to pick her up, despite the fact that she is chubby and only moderately attractive. The thing is, a woman with a deployed man is even *more* attractive to guys because they view her as offering zero sexual competition. If her husband is deployed, she’s technically off the market and not looking. Yet her man is thousands of miles away and can’t kick anyone’s ass or block her vagina. So really this is the perfect opportunity for guys. If a guy is deployed, his girl is going to get 10 times the sexual advances as she would if she were single bc men think she’s not actively searching and evaluating/judging them, and not looking for a baby-daddy. And she’s going to get 1000 times the advances as she would if her man were home and other men knew they’d get their asses kicked for hitting on her. So military guys are screwed. And it’s even more fucked up because most men wouldn’t be willing to risk their lives and go fight in foreign lands in the first place if they didn’t think they were protecting and defending their woman and child(ren). Horrible.
The men in charge are effectuating the ultimate fuck-over on military guys: convincing them to go risk their necks for their supposed families and alleged glory while the dudes in charge stay home, profit off the war, and fuck their wives while they’re gone. It makes sense in a society where we are actually being attacked and have to defend ourselves or die, but that has never been the situation in the US. And it’s quite amazing that anyone can be convinced to fight a war overseas while their “commander” stays at home golfing and polishing his shoes rather than leading the battle. I’m pretty sure this is why old Mormon patriarchs have always sent their young men on two year foreign missions as well. Gotta get rid of the strongest young studs who would otherwise take the pretty girls. If 55 year old women could somehow figure out a plan to get rid of all the pretty young girls by sending them to foreign countries to get killed, perhaps they’d do the same. So I guess that’s a good example showing that as a group, men are both dumber and smarter at the extremes than women.
Sorry for the excessively long post but if a topic interests me I like to get in deep or not at all. I’d like some advice. My younger brother is a college student and he’s a tender, sweet bunnyrabbit of a guy who is head over heels in love with his girlfriend who attends another school. They drive two hours on weekends to visit each other. He’s at an engineering school that is 75% men. I’ve met her and she’s nice enough but she also has an enormous rack and she’s smart so it’s perfectly obvious what’s going to happen in this situation…he’s going to have his heart ripped out and stomped on. If she hasn’t cheated on him already she will. I’ve tried to educate him in a subtle and gentle manner to try to harden him up so I can protect him, but he’s 100% clueless. My parents don’t help because neither of them were ever sexy or socially dominant so they’re just as clueless as he is. Whenever I try to give him a dose of reality, he and my family just call me crazy and dismiss me, saying that I have an overly dark view of the world. Really I just have more experience with people and they’re all sheltered.
My concern is that I don’t want him to become either a bitter woman-hater or suicidal when reality plays out as it will rather than living up to his deluded Disney expectations. Is there anything I can do as his much older sister who lives far away, or do I just need to let it play out and let life whack him over the head? He is absolutely the stereotype of an overprotected, soft, video-game obsessed, pampered hipster and he’s completely sweet and naive. Also he used to be overweight but lost a bunch of weight right before college, so he has no previous girl experience. His girlfriend naturally runs the show and he just bumbles around after her in adoration. Rather than realizing the imminent danger posed by the fact that about 1,000 times as many people want to fuck her as want to fuck him, he just thinks he’s lucky and getting what he naturally deserves as a nice guy. I’d blame my parents for helicopter-raising such a sheltered kid but they don’t know any better. When the obvious and eventual cheating/break-up occurs, everyone will just blame it on this particular girl being crazy or the “wrong” girl rather than the perfectly predictable outcome given the system and inputs. Should I bother to keep worrying and trying to warn him or just let it play out? So far I’ve just been getting shot as the messenger. Is there any way to convince a guy of the reality before it happens to them? I’ve tried several times in my life with male friends and relatives and it has never once worked (though I’ll sometimes get a “you were right” admission in the aftermath).
Bellum
Posted at 02:11 am, 31st October 2014I’m somewhat of an expert on the woes of lDRs, having been with many foreign women on Erasmus.
A monogamous LDR can work provided it is temporary and both parties do not consider each other fungeable and have discipline. That’s pretty rare.
I’ve seen it happend with some Erasmus students.
I’ve also ‘stolen’ many women and seen many bad examples.
I do think it comes harder for women since they have the need to feel provisioned and protected, but come on…
Abstinence for a year or more isn’t such a feat, and could even be healthy just like fasting.
Those men in the military have every right to be disgusted (provided they’re not hypocrites).
Greg
Posted at 07:10 am, 31st October 2014@Kryptokate
First of all, it’s rare to see a female perspective that goes this deep and explains itself so clearly. Your brother doesn’t know how lucky he is to have access to your wisdom and goodwill. I will try and help you as best as I can.
What is obvious is you should stop using the approach you used. It makes you the enemy in everyone’s mind. His impulse to enjoy his delusion is far too strong and you are trying to rob him of his satisfaction in order to lessen his inevitable pain.
The fact is, he is not adapted to having a good sex life. He can’t really be happy like this, because he does not deserve to reproduce with mates of decent/high value. He and most around him are unaware, as the cultural programming says otherwise.
You are asking him to go against his instinct to enjoy her, which is not only very hard to do, but is it worth it? What are his other options? Having noone there? Will he start improving his reproductive abilities? I think that is the most that he can gain, as suffering hits he will be in a place where he is open to new ideas. Motivated by the suffering he may be able to integrate new perspectives and behaviors much easier than when he is content.
Wait for the disaster to strike and guide him as best you can at that point. Extend his model of the world when he is open to new ideas, not when all he wants to do is enjoy the illusion. An attitude of ‘if something happens I will be there to help’ I think is most appropriate. Then guide him gently to accepting the way women behave, and let him decide how he wants to enjoy this aspect of his existance.
Do you know where I can read other posts like yours? It’s just so eye-opning.
10x10
Posted at 09:27 am, 31st October 2014“He can’t really be happy like this, because he does not deserve to reproduce with mates of decent/high value.”
In this warped world that has had all goodness sucked from it by modern liberalism. In a non-liberal world, he would be a upper middle class engineer; a productive bedrock of civilization. He would be ensured a healthy family oriented pretty wife. Society would prosper. In this one he is raised a pathetic hipster and his girlfriend will undoubtedly chose to ride the cock carousel until her late 20s and marry a man who is not as worthy as this engineer.
Its a sick play were forced to watch. Over and over. And even Kate herself as red-pill knowledgable as she is sounds like a miserable loveless mid 30s slut. She needs all 5 weekdays to “get some sleep” and “recover from exhaustion”? WTF. Another damaged, broken American woman.
The older I get, the more hard core right wing I become. At this point even libertarianism seems utterly stupid.
Nemeroff
Posted at 10:13 am, 31st October 2014BD,
I think you are by far the most rational writer of the manosphere. There’s a lot of guys that write good stuff, but most of them sound angry or pissed off at life. Keep up the excellent work. A lot of your stuff changed my life for the better.
It’s very easy to get pussified if you work in a profession full of beta males (medicine) so thanks for all your advice.
Jack Outside the Box
Posted at 11:23 am, 31st October 2014@10X10: So you want women to be pure and virginal for you? Why don’t you move to Saudi Arabia then? In the meantime, the rest of us will continue living in sexually enlightened nations.
The Puritans are dead bro! Mourn for them. Visit their historical sites. But understand that you’re not going to get high sex drive women to start acting like prudes who don’t want their innocence taken by “dirty sex.” The “sex is icky” days are over.
Stay in your church and fuck off with your slut slaming!
@Kate: Keep doing what you’re doing. Stay liberated. Never become a prude! You rock!
Caleb Jones
Posted at 04:11 pm, 31st October 201410×10 – Please pay attention to the rules here (especially Rule Number One) and watch the ad hominem.
KryptoKate –
That’s true but you’re ignoring the original point, in that you know there are plenty of hot/smart/cool guys you would love right where you live that don’t require you to spend hundreds of dollars every time you want to see them.
Nemeroff –
Thank you. I try.
I reluctantly agree.
Most of the manosphere is based in either anger (“God damn those feminists / sluts / betas / PUA gurus / liberals / conservatives grrrr!!!”) or sadness (“Doesn’t it suck that everything sucks now? Sigh.”).
I engage in this sometimes, since there are times we need to be aware of the negatives of our world, but my focus on this blog is always to help guys better their own lives rather than get pissed off or sad about everything.
Haha. I’m pretty sure just about every profession is full of betas. 🙂
Kryptokate
Posted at 04:49 pm, 31st October 2014@ 10×10
I understand your anger though I don’t think it’s useful to either you or society. My brother *will* be an upper middle class, productive engineer and member of society. His sex/relationship life doesn’t really have anything to do with that. He just doesn’t get to have a woman who is way more sexually desirable than he is automatically assigned to him as his lifelong exclusive sexual property merely because he has a job. However, he gets to live in the safest, most prosperous, most exciting times in the history of the world, and will live longer and healthier, have more experiences, enjoy more fun, travel to more places, and have more varied sexual experiences than 99.9999999999% of all men who have ever lived, so really I don’t think you need to be so upset about his circumstances.
I get that it bothers you because for a TINY fleeting moment in human history – 100 years or so — white American guys all got their assigned sexual property just for having a job, regardless of how unpleasant, uninteresting, weak, or unattractive they were. But really that was a strange aberration and certainly has never been the norm or “natural” organization of society. It only happened because there were two world wars that killed off millions of men and destroyed all the major economies of the world so that we had no competitors left. Mid-20th-century America wasn’t the result of normal circumstances but a skewed result that occurred in a relatively competition-free environment for US white guys.
And I agree with you that the current generation has some serious social problems attributable to excessive affluence, overabundance, and instant gratification. I expect these will continue to grow. But I think we’ll figure it out. People just need to adapt and realize that almost all of our problems nowadays come from overabundance rather than scarcity, which requires a change in values, goals, and strategies for maximizing your life. Can you honestly say you don’t enjoy lots of aspects of modernity? Do you *really* want to go back to the dark ages or even the 50s? I bet you don’t really.
Last, I am definitely a mid-30s slut by your definition but I’m not at all miserable and I’m just fine with the amount of love I’ve had in my life. And yes I like to stay mentally and physically healthy and I work hard during the week, so that means I have to prioritize getting enough sleep, so what? Gotta get that beauty sleep. 🙂
Kryptokate
Posted at 05:32 pm, 31st October 2014@ Greg
You are right. He’s enjoying himself and motivated strongly to do so and there’s nothing that’s going to change that. He might be more open to alternative viewpoints after he’s had his assumptions forcibly broken down and needs to rebuild his conceptual understanding of the world. The difficulties and failures that have happened in my life have undoubtedly been the things I learned from the most, and unfamiliar, difficult circumstances will force anyone to stretch their mental muscles and expand their wisdom.
However, I do think that when something is TOO shocking and traumatic, it results not in growth but in the development of excessive emotional defenses such as bitterness and paranoia. It’s like building your muscles…a little trauma makes them bigger and stronger, but too much will cause a serious permanent injury that makes your muscle useless. Therefore I wish that the culture or his pre-existing knowledge base had at least prepared him for what is likely the inevitable outcome, just so it wouldn’t be so shocking. But I’ll take your advice and simply offer my support and sympathy if he ever needs it, that’s probably the bet I can do.
@ BD – sorry to get off-topic in this thread. Although your main point about long distance monogamy is correct, the more I think about it, the more I think monogamish/open LDRs are workable with sufficient resources. Technology really changes things. Skyping is pretty intimate and texting allows constant conversation. You are hyper rational so of course you’ve analyzed this down to the most efficient possible method and in terms of efficiency, fishing in a different pond makes no sense when your own pond is fully stocked. But most people aren’t as rational as you and get off, in a certain sense, on the romance of things that have the appearance of being random, serendipitous, and unusual, even if it’s an illusion. An LDR provides those things, and also, there’s the cognitive bias where humans are prone to valuing things that require them to invest more time and effort, even if the thing isn’t objectively better.
One question I have is whether a happy LDR can survive when one person moves to be geographically close. I’ve heard that that kills lots of them because the couple realizes that they didn’t like each other quite as much as they thought once their relationship becomes mundane and no longer consists of constant vacation sex interspersed with missing each other.
POB
Posted at 06:31 am, 1st November 2014I follow 3 simple rules regarding LDR:
1) I travel to where I wanna go, I meet some girl, we go out a couple of times and then we have sex OR she comes to where I live and we do the same;
2) The trip ends, I go back to my place and, at first, we keep contact on a semi-regular basis. As time goes by the frequency drops, until 3-6 messages A YEAR (that’s right, 3-6 times A YEAR).
3) If she’s coming to my country/town I try to open my schedule to go meet her. If I’m traveling to her town I pitch a meet 2-3 times and, if I have no response, just go meet other girls;
lazy guy
Posted at 11:36 am, 1st November 2014BD, you’ve got some high quality commenters posting here.
Congrats on creating a blog that attracts readers of this caliber.
Reading this valuable content for free just amazes me sometimes.
BD, when does your new book come out? Looking forward to it.
@ Kryptokate … I really enjoyed reading your comments. Your intelligence, attitude, and writing ability are so appealing and refreshing … so damned rare in my experience. I hope to read more from you.
anon
Posted at 11:40 am, 1st November 2014Book you say?
Please do tell more
Mountain Man
Posted at 12:10 pm, 30th November 2014Very late to this blog post, while I have the pings sent to e-mail a hectic travel schedule keeps me from total emersion.
First I cannot express completely how much I am happy to see this blog and your most valuable information in the “manosphere” I consider you the opposing battery terminal to Athol Kay’s purple pill.
I have a unique perspective, I am a business traveler, in my late 40’s, single and a former 1.0 Alpha married to a Independent/Dominant and devolved via Betaization to an AFC, reformed post divorce into something similar to your Alpha 2.0. (Hurrah!) I hit the gym two years ago after introduction to the “red pill” and have now reached “jacked” status, I worked very hard and long in the gym combined with eating “primitive” (no processed foods) to get to this point. I consider my new body my greatest achievement outside of my professional life.
All of my current relationships are LDRs, currently I have five dedicated women from ages 32 to 46 all are exclusive to me sexually and all are aware I am not monogamous. Just this week number six LSNFTE and I wish her luck. I also have been able to catch four FBs in rotation.
Because I have a route from South America to Canada I have set up a relationship in each of the areas I frequent with an MLTR in each location. Will it last, hell I don’t care! And to be honest I feel like I have the ability to continue to keep this up (I still look for new relationships on-line and day-game).
Typically I spend one to two weeks at a time with each with about four to six weeks in between.
Texting, calls, and internet video are used to keep in touch, it becomes a chore quite a handful often but the ability to have several great lovers and have great sex about five to seven times a week keeps me happy. What seemed odd at first was how happy my lovers are, one even confessed on our first date (just before we had animal wild sex) that she had not had sex in over four years and her ex husband was addicted to porn! This has been a repeating theme just a simple bit of Tantric type control and sexual domination and I have ended up the best lover for all of my lovers with just a bit of work (Tantric) and getting into great shape to improve stamina. Compared to the average man my age, I stand out like an elephant beetle amongst lady bugs.
I say thanks for your contribution to my great life, my main point is – just do it, the worst you can do is fail… and isn’t that what most of us have in our pasts?
Travelove
Posted at 03:59 pm, 20th September 2015Yeah, I just got into an LDR. Fortunately, I discovered the magic of MLTRs before I found your blog (except I didn’t really know how to manage them until I did). So yeah, I’ve been into an MLTR LDR for 3 months now. It’s been great so far, but I can imagine it will take a toll eventually. I’ve been smart enough handling it so far, and managed to integrate it into one of my personal projects – travel more across europe on free weekends. Basically we’ve been flying out to some european capital every now and then to meet.
I have, obviously, been fucking other women – 4 so far since we met, including the regular FB that I’ve kept for an year now. Had The Talk this weekend in Paris – early, I know, but whatever, nobody’s perfect. She took it well enough – a lot of indignation and crying for a couple of hours. I mantained frame, let it sink in, she accepted it. She’s coming to my hometown in 3 weeks (3rd time – I haven’t been to hers yet). Let’s see how it goes.
Having said all this, what you say in this article makes a lot of sense. I’m knee-deep in NRE and feel she’s a Special Unicorn (TM). She seems to like me a lot too and has declared some intention of moving to my country after she graduates next year. I’m fully aware that she’ll probably change her mind by then.
So yeah, this is all probably stupid anyway, but I’m new to this lifestyle and haven’t fully nailed it yet. I like the girl, but if / when this blows up, hopefully I’ll survive the fallout. Meanwhile I’m enjoying it.
Tom
Posted at 08:56 pm, 28th August 2016I know this is slightly OT but you do reference it in the beginning.
Regarding dating women that live 50 minutes away, do you do any extra screening in these cases? For example, screen her to see if she has her own place, transportation? I guess you do your research on her location and have a list of the locations you’ll pitch a date in her area, instead of driving her back to yours?
I’m just thinking logistics, especially if she’s FB material. That’s nearly 4 hours driving in a single evening if you’re taking her to your place…anyway I’m curious how you handle girls at that distance away differently than your normal formula in your books, if at all.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 09:05 pm, 28th August 2016No. I don’t screen. Ever.
Her being far away isn’t my fault, so I’m not going to incur any extra time because of this. I’d rather just find someone else closer. Which is easy.
If she lives an hour away and she expects me to pick her up and take her back, I’ll pass. I’m not spending 4 hours in a car every time I want to have sex with a FB.
1.I don’t date women who live more than 50 minutes drive from my home, period. (Unless they want to do 100% of the travel both ways, every time, but this almost never happens.)
2. For women who live 40-50 minutes away, I expect them to make the trip down at least one way.
Felipe
Posted at 07:12 am, 12th January 2017@ Kryptokate
How did that worked out for your brother? I am curious about it, since I was exactly like him and finished my relationship today.
Actually it’s so similar that I was an engineering student also dating a very attractive and smart woman.
Thanks
Jason
Posted at 07:58 pm, 4th February 2017I can understand the hope for monogamy in a ldr being far-fetched. But there is nothing destructive about monogamy in a normal relationship. If monogamy truly is dead and outdated. Why even bother being with someone. If I thought monogamy didn’t exist,i would see no reason to love one person. Cause what’s the point? I could just be single and screw all the women I wanted and not care about any of them. Everybody’s different ,but I personally could never be in love with someone that wasn’t faithful. There is no point.( In my brain…in my opinion.
Caleb Jones
Posted at 09:31 pm, 4th February 2017Jason, read some more articles on this blog and do a little more research.
Mitch17
Posted at 08:47 pm, 19th June 2017BD, just wanted to tell you thank you for your perspective on LDR. A brief backstory about me: I was married for about 9 years and my wife passed away unexpectedly. We had brought two daughters into this world and they were very young when their mother passed. I grieved, and along came a woman I met online that lived 4 hours away from me. I happen to live in an entertainment town so she happened to be traveling my way and we agreed to meet for a drink. It was cool, but I kept it real. She lived four hours away. She came back the following weekend and we went to dinner. We really got into each other but we didn’t have sex. Probably because of the availability of a place. I know I could have gotten a hotel, but I had a sitter watching my young ones while I went out. She invited to come down to visit her and things lined up for me where I was able to do that. Kids were staying with relatives for the weekend. I had finally had sex with her at her place and it was great. Soon after, she started traveling up to visit two or three times a month without me traveling. She wanted to be exclusive and I was fine with it. We dated for 3 years and it finally ended because she didn’t want to move up here and be thrust into a stepmom role. Its not like I had a lot of flexibility. I laugh now when I read this article because you say that the dumbest thing a man can do is to be in a monogamous LDR. I laugh because I 100% agree with you. Fast forward 6 months now and I have a couple in the rotation that I met online. The first one is probably an “8” and younger than me. I’m 49 and she is in her mid 40’s. She has been married three times and admits that in her profile. That doesn’t bother me one bit now as it might turn off a lot of betas. It would have bothered me probably 6 months ago. If she leaves, I will simply add another to the rotation. Thanks for your insight and I just wanted to say I enjoy reading your blog. Sorry for the length of this comment.
Rayman
Posted at 07:39 pm, 31st October 2017What do you guys think about a long distance mistress ? I am married with kids. I have boring wife, and a boring marriage and a f’ing boring sex life. I used to circulate 4 FB’s before I got married, but the tiger turned in to a pussy cat after.
I am a professor of surgery in the US, 43 yrs old. She is a professor of medicine in Europe.
I thought I was alpha. you guys know, walking in the hospital like a demi-god. Flirting with anyone but not give a f.ck. But deep down I was hiding a onenitis in my heart.
This girl was my classmate from med school we used to like each other 20 years back but got in to a fight and went our ways. I was in Europe for a vacation and we had been texting back and forth for over a year.
We finally met with some friends and had got a bit tipsy. The Mediterranean coast and the moon grew the feelings. When our friends left we hit it immediately. It was the best sex of my life, we were so compatible it was amazing. To make the matters better for me, I learned from her best friend she had two boyfriends in the past. Only two. She had an extremely conservative background. during that month I groomed her and educated her based on my needs and wants. she became totally submissive in bed. At first she would say “no that’s a sin, I will burn in hell for doing that etc” later in the month she became totally cool with everything. She would only thank god for giving her such a great sexual experience.
But everything comes to an end eventually. I learned that before we met she broke up with a guy (loser beta) after learning in fact he was married. I am sure about this because I saw the text messages telling him to fuck himself for being a liar. but loved him greatly and needed therapy to get over him. This was 4 months before we got together. This guy calls her a week before I leave and she started to change. Apparently Mofo read black dragon.
She knew that I was married but we always kept it out of our focus to prevent it from spoiling the fun.
Her friends reminded her that I was married and there was no future. before that She was to fly to US so we could stay a week in vegas this month. couple thousand dollar tickets are no issue for both of us. I was planning a weekend every other month in Europe, while she was doing the same for US. I usually speak in many international meetings so it is not an issue to take time from home.
I don’t like being home anyway just staying in this shit for the kids.
She is an extremely educated, highly intellectual woman with similar tastes. We come from the same background and speak the same language. By the same language, I mean same terminology, effortless communication and very complicated body language communication. Also did I mention the sex ?
She called me to say that she cant handle this and started crying on the phone and wanted a break up. It devastated me. The big bad boy surgeon was on his knees crying and begging. anyway she came back the next day just to break up two days later because I became clingy. She is so inexperienced in relationships she even told me “your affection and interest and sacrifice and the value you give should make me extremely happy, but for some reason it is pushing me away from you” She basically told me that I was a low beta b.tch.
I again begged to keep at least open line of communication and sent her a gold bracelet as a gift. She rejected it. She is now answering with one line texts, and I feel humiliated. My ego is destroyed. especially after being so sought after by women.
I lost my frame, and lowered my value.
I know some of you guys will tell me that having a mistress is wrong, long distance is hard etc.
For the fact, I loved her 20 years ago and thought of her very frequently during the time. I would not care much because I had many women to have sex with.
The problem now is, I fell in love with her again, this is sad. To make the matters worse, instead of making her fall in love I just wanted to live the emotions that I had set aside for many years. As the saying goes if you love some one, they will f.ck you. this is what happened.
I feel like I was the rebound, an ego booster and a sex teacher for her.
It is hard for me to get out and have sex with women. I live in a very sexually charged city, but you can not imagine the STD’s and HIV and Hep C rate in the community and the US. I cant take risks with that.
in the past when she was disrespectful I would just do NC, she would later call me, text me etc.
What do you guys think ?
Should I go in to no contact ?
AD
Posted at 06:35 pm, 22nd November 2017@Rayman:
Yes
Eric
Posted at 12:48 am, 18th January 2019A girl I am dating, is moving to different country she is willing to come back home everytime time she is on holiday and she will pay for her trip , her holiday is every 6 weeks for a week or sometimes two.
She is going away for a year to teach.
What is thoughts on maintaining a relationship based on the situation above?
The Difference Between the Alpha Male 2.0 and the Digital Nomad - Caleb Jones
Posted at 02:45 am, 12th February 2019[…] a digital nomad and you are either stuck in a monogamous relationship (the long distance kind being the worst kind of relationship there is) or you haven’t had sex in many months, using your digital nomad status as an excuse. It’s not […]