Rob and Chesty had a chat last weekend. I’ve summarized it below and am spring boarding it into examples of how it applies to you, why you’re fucking up, and what you can do about it. It’s the same three questions I wrote about in Frame
Who are you
How do you know
What do you want?
Rule Zero Dad: the monologue
You know what I keep seeing in my head? That old Michael Jordan meme
"Stop it. Get some help."
Yeah. That one.
Because I see guys flailing, crying online about how they got screwed over, how they’re special. And I just wanna say, man... you’re not. And that’s okay.
I remember, back in the day, I had a motto "I ain't shit, and it's okay." That stuck. Still does. It became kind of a slogan.
See, that’s the thing. whatever you’re feeling? However hurt or angry you are? Someone’s been there before. Someone’s felt it deeper, maybe lost more. You’re not unique. You’re not a martyr. You’re just another guy who’s been through it. And you know what? That realization? It helps.
Because this isn’t about saving the West. Hell, it’s not even about saving you. I’m here to save myself. If anything I say helps you exist in this world a little easier, great. But don’t expect me to carry you.
I don’t get paid for this. I’ve been in the male space for close to 20 years. Two decades of watching the same patterns repeat. I was once a speechwriter for Promise Keepers. Yeah. 900,000 dudes in D.C. marching under the banner of “man up.”
And you know what changed after that?
Nothing. Absolute jack shit.
Every time someone says, “I’ve been red-pilled for three years,” I just shrug. Cool. No one cares. No one’s handing out medals. You think you’re enlightened? Awesome. But guess what? Relationships still take work. Real game? Real frame? That’s playing chess with someone who already knows your entire playbook.
You ever tried gaming the same woman every day for a decade? That’s marriage. That’s the real test. Because she sees everything. She knows when you panic from bad Indian food. She knows what buttons to press when she wants to piss you off.
If you haven’t realized your woman is smart enough to find your thumb screws, then guess what? You’re not calibrated. You’re not ready. You’re a bitch.
And I can’t help you if you’re socially uncalibrated. I just can’t. Some of you grew up with borderline moms who used you for a welfare check. That sucks. I get it. But you're grown now. You put your pants on one leg at a time like everyone else.
So start acting like it.
Because the worst thing you can do? Is not knowing what the hell you want. If you don’t know what you want, you’ll never know what to do to get it. And if you can’t do that, how the hell are you gonna be happy with yourself, let alone someone else?
And now, everyone’s chasing that dopamine hit online. Oh wow, someone “held her accountable.” Yeah, sure. Please. Nobody holds anyone accountable online. Especially not women. What are you gonna do? Shame her? You can’t even slow her down. If she’s sleeping with four guys a day, you could livestream it in Times Square, and a fifth guy would still line up.
Because there’s always going to be simps. White knights. Dorks desperate to get within sniffing range of a woman. You won’t change them. You can’t. Let them burn.
The only person you can work on is you. That’s it. Start there.
And for those of you still lost? Reflect. Read. Figure out what’s useful. Some men have already decided
“I'm never getting married. I think it’s dumb.” And that’s fine. I don’t begrudge it. Others did the marriage thing.
“Not doing it again.” Cool. Doesn’t make one less of a man. You still have values. One might even believe in “be fruitful and multiply.” But not doing it under state sanction. And that’s the thing.
What matters is whether you know who you are. Whether you’ve made peace with that. Whether you’ve stripped off the shame and said: “I am who I am, and I don’t need a system to tell me I’m okay.”
Start there.
And please; stop moralizing. It clouds your judgment. You think you need a system before you find yourself? No. First, be okay with who you are. Then, build a life that reflects it.
The point is: we’re dealing with binary thinkers now. People who can only react. Love it or hate it. There’s no middle. And the internet rewards that. You get engagement, you get reach, you get rewarded; whether people like you or not.
So if you’re angry? If you're dropping 5,000-word comments on YouTube? Cool. Just know we’re reading that like: “TL;DR: I’m a piece of shit.
Because that’s what it sounds like. And no one cares.
I’ve read no less than a thousand field reports. I’ve seen no less than a thousand men pursuing this praxeology. I’ve seen 994 of the same problem. The problem is that guys don’t have direction. Not only that, they don’t even know where to start. Not only that, they don’t even consider the importance of gaining direction in their life’s. And not only that, but they can’t figure out why not having direction allows other people to direct their lives on their behalf, and usually in a half assed and dismal way.
It’s almost always the same. The guy sees some edgy red pilled piece of work online: an essay that shits on whamen for doing stupid shit, a video of women acting a damned fool, or some guy who is validation seeking towards women getting his comeuppance. A guy sees this and rubbernecks into the space, only to discover hundreds or even thousands of guys accomplishing great things in their lives, at various states of completion.
So they are sold, they want in. But now what? They don’t have a planned end state, so they just do what everyone else is doing. And what is everyone else doing?
They write a resume, post some lifting stats, and talk about their hobbies. Why? Because that’s what everyone else is doing.
The part that sucks is that I know how it will go. They will playtend the praxeology for a bit, until they receive some pushback from the women in their lives. They will DEER (defend, excuse, explain, rationalize) themselves, they will buckle under their wives frames, and generally make things happen that make the dude feel bad. Then they will last out and blame the internet people for telling them what to do.
It’s at this point, if they are lucky, someone who knows what they are doing chimes in with a smarten the fuck up speech (see above) and the real work starts. I hate to see that this is a multi month process, but if I knew how to skip to the real work and avoid the pantomime, I’d have a lot more money than I do now, and a lot less hair from dealing with the guys who aren’t ready to learn yet.
Before I get into the meat of it. Don’t forget The Dog Walker has been out since valentines and is, to date, the only work of masculine fiction written in 2025 for contemporary fiction. Turns out as a guy you’d actually like to read, if things weren’t written by theatre kids to appeal to middle aged women.
And if you loved that, you’re going to love the next one. Cyberpunk, and you best believe it comes at it from the same red pilled lens that DW does. Nothing ruins a good pulp novel more than finding out the protagonist is anything but.
Billy, week 53
mid 30s, 190cm, 88.0 kg, married three years, together 15y+, no kids
Routine: ABC Split, 3 x Week (A Legs/Hybrid, B Pull, C Push/Hybrid)
BF: 18.9% navy method
Stats in kg
The remainder of this post is for paid subscribers of Rian Stone's Substack. TheRedArchive holds the freely published portion above; the full text is available from the author at https://rianstone.substack.com/p/case-study-independent-conformists.
