Honesty - The New Game

Everybody talks about Game, as it relates to the power struggle between men and women. For men, Game generally means how good a man is at bedding women, lot’s of them, of varying caliber and with a modicum of commitment.

Game, for women, means something entirely different. That it is easier for women to obtain sex is an undeniable evolutionary fact. Physical abnormalities notwithstanding, any woman can walk outside her door and have ten men lining up to service her, if that were her desire. But it’s not. Well, it is, if they were being truthful, but not in the sense of Gamesmanship.

Whereas for men the game begins and ends with sex, for women the game begins and ends with money, or, to be more precise, security. To what extent can a woman use the undeniable lure of her femininity to extract what she can out of a man’s wallet? Examples of this are everywhere. Envied are the women with the biggest engagement rings, the ones who are lavished with gifts and expensive handbags, foreign cars and large divorce settlements. On a more micro level, it is usually the pretty girl who is plied with free drinks at the bar that is seen as the de facto leader in her gaggle of vixens, all carefully studying her technique, marveling at the attention and affection paid to her, wondering how they can duplicate it.

Similarly, it is those that play Favreau’s Mikey to Vaughn’s Trent that sit in awe and admiration of the lothario’s ways with women that the movie Swingers so memorably captured.

Remember, though, there is nothing wrong with either of these phenomenon. Men, for their part, are hardwired to bed multiple women; whereas women are biologically drawn to things that represent stability, security and stature.

Where does it all go wrong, then? How has the swap meet of love and romance turned into the meat market of lust and infidelity? What scourges our society today that has perverted this once elegant courting ritual—where the goods and services traded are God’s will—into the sex-for-love, love-for-sex acrimony that is 21st century romance?

The big delusion pervading society today is that Game, as it understood by most, involves chicanery. Whereas Gable, Grant and Bogart understood the Art of Seduction as an exercise in salesmanship, confidence and self-mastery, today’s “Players” equate Seduction with Deception.

The reality is that honesty is, and always has been, the greatest Game of all, earning all of its students as many women and/or doting suitors as their devotion to the Game allowed.

Sadly, today that art is lost. Our heroes are sly charmers who cheat and get away with it; likewise for female man-eaters that use men like Kleenex and make off with a fat settlement.

The counterintuitive truth is that honesty, though seldom employed in today’s fuck-me-now-call-me-later society, is the most effective tool in a bachelor/bachelorette’s arsenal. If a player wants to take his game from Level 3 Lothario to Level 5 Gentleman, he must embrace the notion of emotional truth and a commitment to 100% honesty and full disclosure.

Level 3 players experience success with women and are often the envy of other men. Thing is, they often rely on primitive and self-devaluing tools like dishonesty, duplicity and, worse of all, dissembling. They wear masks, cheat on their girlfriends, pretend to be someone they’re not—all in the hopes of winning the prize they see as the woman.

Two pathologies are at work here. One, prizability. Any man who sees women as the prize they are trying to obtain is doing a disservice both to himself and the women they’re pursuing. If we operate under the premise that attraction is something that is created, not arbitrary, which is in fact the case, then denying the object of your affection the intense charge of feeling attraction for you, by prizing her, is selfish. Most Level 3 players operate under this weak mindset.

Level 5 players, alternatively, view themselves as the prize. To them, honesty with oneself, above all else, is most important. Consequently, they apply this maxim in their relationships with women as well. Are you able to get women in bed after admitting to them you don’t plan to call them in the morning? That’s Level 5 Player status. I once had a woman convinced it was her job to get better at sex so that I would stick around. And she loved me for it!

The common belief among men, Level 3 Players and below, which comprises most men out there, is that we have to lie our way into a woman’s pants. That because women generally want a commitment or some promise of security before they will sleep with you, you have to comply. There is a fundamental flaw in this logic. First that women are less horny than men and that they don’t need sex as much as we do; and second that we are automatically dismissed as potential paramours if we aren’t willing to jump through the assigned hoops or lie through our teeth in order to tell her what she wants to hear and get what we want.

Emotional honesty begins within. If you can’t be honest about who you are to yourself, you have no business in bed with anyone else, much less a relationship. When you get to that level, you will realize there is far more power, to say nothing of results, in being honest with women. Similarly for women. An authentic voice and personality can compensate for a lot in the looks department.

Well, not a lot, but you get the idea.

-al