Zenpriest #13 - Prove to Me You Aren't a Bad Guy!

Quote: I feel that in order to prove to other women that men are not inherently evil, women have to know that not all men will dick them over. And if you intelligent men don't realize this about women, what makes you think an emotional women realizes this about men?

That is the nebulous fog which men have been chasing for decades. It is not possible to "prove" anything to someone who bases belief on emotion. Emotions change from one moment to the next, and if beliefs follow them the world becomes an eternal fog in which nothing can be accomplished.

There is something at work here that I call the "responsibility transfer." - "Prove to me you are not a bad guy." It starts from the presupposition that I have something to gain from you believing that I am not a bad guy. In the case of being falsely accused of something, there certainly is a benefit. But, in all other cases it comes down to who has more to gain or lose from which belief.

Up to this point in time, the entire game has been based on the public fiction that men want relationships with women more than women want relationships with men, and that men benefit more from those relationships than women do.

I think that 40 years ago, things were pretty much balanced, but that today men have very little to gain from having a relationship and a great deal to lose.

Take the following scenario. I, who own a house and some other properties, marry a woman who has kept more abreast of consumer culture and has basically no assets. Five years down the road, she decides that the marriage is "stifling" her, or that she "deserves more". In the meantime, she's gotten pregnant and has one kid. The marital property gets divided, and she gains half the assets accumulated from nearly 30 years of savings, without herself having to contribute anything. I lose half of everything I have worked all my life for, plus have the additional burden of monthly child-support, backed up by the threat of incarceration.

So, going back to just prior to the marriage - which belief of hers do I stand to gain more from and which one do I stand to lose more from?

If she believes I am a "good guy", one of the kind she wants to marry, I lose half my life's work - let's say 15 years of my life - plus my freedom, because I am now basically under control of the criminal justice system for child-support obligations.

If she believes I am a "bad guy", she doesn't marry me, and I save a couple of hundred thousand $$ as well as retaining my freedom. So, having her think I am a "bad guy", creates the best possible outcome for me, while having her think I am a "good guy" creates the worst possible outcome.

Now, if you emotional women cannot understand how much more it is to your advantage to view us as "good guys", I can't see any reason to shoot off my own foot to convince you otherwise.

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"Women invent rules, manipulate men to obey them, and in this way dominate men - but in no way apply the rules to themselves." -- Esther Vilar in her 1972 book The Manipulated Man

“It is an amazing thing to see in our city the wife of a shoemaker, or a butcher, or a porter dressed in silk with chains of gold at the throat, with pearls and a ring of good value… and then in contrast to see her husband cutting the meat, all smeared with cow’s blood, poorly dressed, or burdened like an ass, clothed with the stuff from which sacks are made… but whoever considers this carefully will find it reasonable, because it is necessary that the lady, even if low born and humble, be draped with such clothes for her natural excellence and dignity, and that the man [be] less adorned as if a slave, or a little ass, born to her service.” – Lucrezia Marinella of Venice, Italy, 1600, The Nobility and Excellence of Women Together With the Defects and Deficiencies of Men


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