On my way to work I like to take a leisurely stroll to the Underground station so I can get a little sun and fresh air, stretch my legs a little. I find it helps orient me to the day and negate the stress of the London rush hour. You get to see people at their most dispirited and iritable early on a Monday morning. Once such recent encounter gave me pause for thought in how certain behaviours give you a window into a person’s world.

So I approach the station around 8am and my Oyster card has expired so I proceed to the ticket machines, two of them side-by-side near the station entrance. Both are busy and a thirty-ish chubby Asian man is trying to straddle both queues (he is the only person waiting) by standing between the machines. Immediately I peg him as unsatisfied with his life as he is shuffling hurriedly and craning his neck over the other passenger’s shoulders willing them to complete their ticket purchases faster. So I know this man is passive-aggressive and unhappy with his lot in life. I have no time for people who breach the standard codes of daily life, whether they jabber on their mobile phones while at a cash register (and thus disrespect the staff) or in this case trying to hold two queues up to save time by externalising his impatience onto other passengers. I walk directly to the right-hand machine to wait. He turns to face me and says “I’m waiting for that one”.

This surprises me a little. London commuters are a timid bunch and even the passive-aggressive ones are usually so passive they won’t say anything or hold eye contact.

“OK” I reply, and move towards the left-hand machine.

“I’m queueing for both of them” he says and physically moves to block me.

“No you’re not. Choose a queue” I reply.

He whines about something but halfway through one of the women in front finishes her purchase so I move to that machine. The guy dodges in front and rushes to the machine. What a dickhead, I think, and give him a light shove as he brushes past me and then I wait for the girl infront of my machine to finish. He pipes up, something along the lines of:

Him: You just hit me

Me: No I didn’t it was a light shove as you pushed past me

Him: That’s assault. I’ll make a citizen’s arrest if you hit me again

Me: (now making my ticket purchase) I didn’t hit you and I’m not going to touch you

Him: You hit me. I’ll have you arrested. I’ll take you into custody until the police come

Me: If you touch me I’ll knock you out

Him: I am going to take your photo (starts fumbling with phone camera)

Me: No you’re not. I don’t give you permission (lightly swat his phone down, but not so hard that he drops it)

I forget the exact words but he was bleating and prattling, much longer sentences than I’ve written here. He walks off and then turns to take a photo from a distance then waits for me at the top of the platform steps so he can then prattle on next to me about how he’s going to have me arrested. Next he pretends to call the Transport Police giving them my description and agreeing a rendezvous at the next station. I’ve already back-turned him. Nothing more comes of it.

My reason for relaying this story isn’t to position myself as some kind of champion of social justice. He was a pushover gamma male showing a rare appetite for confrontation, hardly a threat even in this country of officious law enforcement that seek to harass law-abiding tax-payers rather than stop real crime. Rather, what did this incident show me about this man’s reality? My thoughts:

• He has a generally bitter view of the world where other people, and probably fate generally, are assumed to be against him. He is under attack and every now and then needs to fight back
• He will breach social convention in the grey areas (i.e. straddling two queues) in order to gain a marginal advantage. This is value-taking. I suspect he’d also not tell checkout staff if he received too much change on his groceries and likely is an inconsiderate driver
• When in a confrontation his instinct is passive-aggressive and to tell teacher. His attempt to reframe himself as the victim of a physical attack was laughable, even Premiership footballers don’t play act that obviously. Despite initiating both the circumstances of the confrontation (through his value-taking) and the explicit confrontation itself (telling me to play by his rules then jumping in front of me) and the first physical nudge and the prolonging of it (the photo and threats) he was determined to frame himself as the victim.
• His shrill references to having me arrested were just telling teacher. He is not a man who handles his own confrontations. It’s easy to play brave when you have an army behind you. There’s nothing badass about strutting infront of a (perceived) helpless victim like you’re a warrior
• The attempts to photograph me show his classic gamma traits. When people self-define as a victim they often award themselves a moral carte-blanche to ruthlessly attack their supposed-oppressors without honour or proportionality. Just look at “anti-fascist” or “anti-homophobia” demonstrators and how they try to hound normal men out of their livelihoods. This betrays the deep-seated misanthropy behind the victim identity.
• He told a blatant lie in carrying on his sham phone call. So not only does he play fast and loose with the truth but the whole charade was designed to try to worry me and ruin my day. So he was not motivated by defending himself or seeing an aggressor brought to justice. No, he was motivated by the ego payoff of trying to be a winner in a confrontation and to make me feel bad.

These are the same character traits which guarantee failure with women. It was pretty obvious looking at him that he doesn’t fuck hot girls. Much of the rage and feminised desire for indignation that led him to act out will have been driven by his sexual poverty. The lesson for my dear readers is this: Who you are, how you orient to the world, is a direct determinant of your success with women. Everything about this man and his behaviour was woman-repellant.

Guys who are knocking over hot women on the regular are chill, relaxed, pleasant men. It’s both cause and effect. They don’t seek unnecessary confrontations but when they do they handle it themselves, out in the open.

[Edit – Due to my gamma contingent not understanding the physical layout of a train station and the queueing system in place, I’ve added a photo of a similar such layout.  K.]