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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 12, 2025

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Yup.

I happen to think being trustworthy will in fact help you find a good woman.

But it won't hope you attract women in general.

Which is a necessary step in most cases.

I've realized that the 'cheat code' is buying a motorcycle and getting ostentatious tattoos and at least one (1) subversive piercing. Nips, large gauges in the ears, Prince Albert, I think even nose piercings 'work' for guys these days. Its an old, OLD trick but it still works if you're willing to at least LARP the part.

This signals enough riskiness to get the initial interest going.

Meanwhile, if you're good looking AND you work as hard as you can to be perceived as 'safe' and 'reliable' you're effectively squandering that natural advantage, and you're more likely going to be defected against when she realizes there are no consequences for doing so, you won't even raise your voice to yell at her.

I watched it happen to a buddy of mine. He was the literal pinnacle of 'ideal' hubby. Successful (heir to a large regional chain of interior decor stores, pulling down six figs), charming and witty, even though he's not an Adonis, popular among his friends, takes the wife on trips, indulges her whims, but also makes sure he has time for his own (nerdy) hobbies. Not a pushover, but would never dream of striking or upsetting her. Marries a very mid but definitely cute wife. They have an expensive fairy-tale wedding, honeymoon, etc. etc.

And three years into the marriage, for no reason that I can even decipher, she just up and leaves him, he tries counseling, gives it every single try for reconciliation, and no dice. THANKFULLY it ended up being an 'uncontested' divorce with no kids (despite him being VERY CLEAR up front that he wanted kids, remember that family business he's got).

In an 'ideal' world this should never happen, he played everything 'by the rules.' And still lost.

A good woman, of course, won't do this, but if you're a safe, 'boring' type of guy then you won't have your choice of woman to even try and zero in on the 'good' ones.

If you choose a couple stats to max out, trustworthy probably shouldn't be one of them.

I've realized that the 'cheat code' is buying a motorcycle and getting ostentatious tattoos and at least one (1) subversive piercing.

In recent years, I've wondered if this will soon come full circle and being tattoo-less and piercing-less (especially the former) will become the rebellious and subversive thing to do, given their overall saturation and their increasing association with numale-adjacent caricatures. In the MMA realm, for example, I've seen Costa*, Dricus, the Russian Muslim fighters, etc. get confused praise (in the unironically "wtf I love [x]?"-type sentiment) for being tattooless in a sport where tattoos are commonplace, like a "fuck you" to mainstream Western trends and a greater signal of confidence to not hide behind ink. Although if you're a famous MMA fighter, your stats (tattoos or not) are already high.

* Costa actually has at least one tattoo, but it's hard to see so people think of him as tattooless. He's tattooless-passing, I suppose.

And three years into the marriage, for no reason that I can even decipher, she just up and leaves him, he tries counseling, gives it every single try for reconciliation, and no dice. THANKFULLY it ended up being an 'uncontested' divorce with no kids (despite him being VERY CLEAR up front that he wanted kids, remember that family business he's got).

The mainstream rejoinder would be that your buddy must had been No True Trustworthy Husband or his wife would never have left him—that he must had become lazy or neglectful after marriage-trapping her, was financially or emotionally abusive behind the scenes, or thought of her as a broodmare for the family business. He's not entitled to her as his wife and she's free to change her mind about children and the marriage after the wedding; YTA for having such a potentially abusive man-child with his nerdy hobbies and faMiLy bUsInEsS as your "buddy."

The mainstream rejoinder would be that your buddy must had been No True Trustworthy Husband or his wife would never have left him—that he must had become lazy or neglectful after marriage-trapping her, was financially or emotionally abusive behind the scenes, or thought of her as a broodmare for the family business.

Yep. But I spent a lot of time hanging out with him in a variety of circumstances and I have not gotten an INKLING that he was anything other than what he presents himself as. Never heard a whisper of an accusation of abuse.

If there was ever a paradigm of the "non-toxic" masculinity that feminists proclaim they want (I know, I know), he was it.

The biggest critique you could level against him is that he is a bit of a manchild when it came to hobbies. But he had his life completely in order otherwise, he was REALLY GOOD at his hobbies (Magic: The Gathering is one of them) and perhaps most importantly: his wife was into nerdy hobbies too!

While they were married his wife went and got her Master's Degree, so I could have ascribed their split to her getting 'overeducated' compared to him. But shortly thereafter Bro went and got his MBA so he was matching her beat for beat.

Learning what happened to them soured my last bit of optimism for forming relationships in the current era. She was a 6 at best, raised in a traditional family, had a relatively low body count (i.e. they met while she was in college, around age 21, so she hadn't had that much time to sleep around), she was a sorority girl (and not the blonde bimbo stereotype), he had tons of money, was willing to spend it on her, no red flags, and while they were together they pretty much presented as having everything they wanted. And it wasn't enough to make it even 4 years into a marriage (they dated for about 2.5 before they got engaged).

My one theory is that she watched a few of her friends go through breakups and complain about their men and got incepted with the idea that either she could do better if she left him (i.e. she married too early) or that he was going to become an abusive monster at some point and she better get out before then.

Sounds like it's a college/no-kids problem to me. Why didn't she want kids with this super financially stable, nice guy? She mustn't have really loved him. Expensive wedding is also a bad sign. Obviously you know more about this matter.

Sometimes you just roll a bad woman, I think she wasn't the right class for him. There's a certain kind of highly educated woman who just wouldn't divorce a nice guy like that due to how unseemly it would be, who acts rationally (aside from more politics/feels stuff), who's well-off but doesn't need an expensive wedding. There are gradations in the upper middleclass where you find such women. On the other hand, these are the kind who'd never settle with anyone with an MBA, the kind who looks down on investment bankers for being too stupid and greedy since everyone in the social circle is assumed to be rich. Rare, perhaps vanished breed.