I’d never believed any of this shit.

Not consciously anyway. I figured women were equal, they like nice guys, they want to be respected, they want you to ask their opinions. I figured romantic gestures make their hearts melt.

Of course I’d never actually done any of that lame beta-boy shit. I met my wife in a bar in Old Street while drunk. She’d wandered in with two friends, I’d wandered over and just started spouting inane gibberish at her. But I was super confident, not even vaguely interested in pulling her, and I was surrounded by friends trying to get me to follow them to the next bar.

State. Outcome independence. Social proof.

She listened, she giggled, I busted on her. And finally I allowed her to give me her number. I said I might call but I was pretty busy this week. When we finally met up I took her to a pub for a few hours until my friends arrived, then gave her a kiss and left with them. For the second date I home cooked her some cheap sushi and then fucked her.

Cocky-funny. None-neediness. Escalation.

She semi-flaked on the next date. Some bullshit about her dance class overrunning and not being able to call me till it finished. I told her I’m not taking that shit and she can either come to me on my terms tomorrow or we are done. She came, and I fucked her.

Dominance. Willingness to walk away.

A couple of months later I get my first big shit test. We are getting ready for bed and I’m tired and need to get up early. She says some bullshit, I tell her to shut up. She throws the contents of her Volvic water bottle over me. I go fucking apeshit. I roar upwards, grab the bottle, push her of the bed and shout “Get the fuck out of my house now, you fucking bitch!”. I grab her clothers (she’s bra and panties), thrust them into her arms and push her out the bedroom.

Shock and awe from the woman. She floods the room with tears, apologies, and begs to stay. Her eyes light up with horniness. I magnanamously allow her to stay, putting a towel over the wet sheets and telling her to sleep on the wet side. After twenty minutes I grab her and allow her to cuddle me. No more shit tests for seven years.

Aggression. Wildness. Enforcing boundaries.

I’m reading “The Lay Guide” (which I had to re-order on Amazon) and I’m starting to slot the pieces together. For eight years I had a perfect 10 (she was a model and professional dancer, star athlete in high school, and damn smart too) absolutely blissfully madly in love with me. And is it a coincidence that from the very beginning I’d inadvertently followed all the guiding principles of Game?

I think not.

I heard an analogy recently. A guy gives you a shovel, points to the ground and says “There be diamonds down there”. How deep would you dig? If you think he’s full of shit I’d wager you’d give up after the first few minutes. Contrarily, if you believe him you’d dig for weeks. So long as you have the certainty that the digging will eventually result in diamonds, you’ll dig.

That there is me and pick-up. I know it’s the mother lode. I just have to keep digging.

[UPDATE: I’ve left this post as originally written because it captures the type of anger and bitterness I was holding when I first got into Game. I see the same process all the time with students – the start off angry and gradually mellow out as they make progress on their inner game and start getting good responses from good women.    K]