Our romantic dispositions are rooted in developmental psychology.

Readership: All
Targeted Readership: Singles; Pastors; Mentors;
Theme: The Gift of Singleness
Length: 1,800 words
Reading Time: 10 minutes

Intro

Since the beginning of The Red Pill 2.0 (~2020), there have been very few genuinely new insights or theories that have come out of the Manosphere.  However, here’s one theory that I believe is genuinely new.  This idea originates from Adam Lane Smith and is discussed in the first few minutes of this interview hosted by Chris Williamson.

Chris Williamson: 17 Ugly Psychology Truths No One Wants To Admit — Adam Lane Smith (2023/8/31)

In the remainder of this essay, I’ll cover ALS’ explanations of how developmental psychology affects one’s behaviors in the SMP, followed by the new theory that there are 2 parallel and non-intersecting mating markets.

[The transcript has been reorganized and edited for reading.]

The Effects of Sex are Different for Men and Women

ALS: Men and women are very different.  [Women produce a lot of oxytocin during sex, while men have more dopamine.  Oxytocin creates feelings of love and bonding, while dopamine elevates mood and motivation and gives feelings of pleasure and especially satisfaction.]

If a woman has an orgasm with a man, she’s probably going to bond with him.

Sex with Low SMV Men: [This is one subjective reason why women are cautious about having casual sex with a non-Ch@d, in addition to Women’s Existential Fear covered by Rollo Tomassi.] This is why casual sex is so difficult for women and especially maintaining a steady, platonic, casual friendship with a man after a Friends-With-Benefits situation has transpired. This attachment is why they’ll turn Friends-With-Benefits into Situationships.  They will start off agreeing to a casual sex or a FWB relationship, and then after a very satisfying sexual experience (oxytocin), they’ll expect more from the man / relationship.  You’ve probably seen this before.

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Sex with High SMV Men: This is why women think that having sex with a [desirable high SMV] man on the first date will bond him to her in the same way.  But that doesn’t work with secure men or avoidant men.  It really only works with crushingly insecure men who crave approval — men whom women don’t want to bond with.

Men don’t bond that way.  They just don’t.  Men don’t get the same kind of hormone release during sex that women do and men don’t process it the same.  For men, sex has a lot more dopamine.  It’s not the same level of oxytocin that women get.  If there’s already a bond happening (without sex), then having sex can be unitive.  Sex may or may not make him love her more, but it will make him care for her more.  It can increase his affection for her.  It can increase the bonding, but the connection already has to be there.  A woman cannot get a guy to fall in love with her simply by having sex with him.  So this whole strategy of sleeping with a man on the first date so that he’ll stay with her is built on a false understanding of male sexuality.

A False Cross-Sex Theory of Mind Arising from Poor Childhood Mirroring and Psychological Projection

CW: Women falsely believe that men are like women in thinking that “the only way that I would be able to sleep with somebody is if I felt very deeply about them.  Therefore, if a man is willing to have sex with me, then this is how he must feel about me.”  Here, women are constructing a false theory of mind about men.  In evolutionary psychology literature, it’s called a “cross-sex mind reading failure”.

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ALS: You’re very right.  I believe this has to do with mirroring neurons, especially when we’re little children.  The amygdala and the mirroring neurons are the only structures that are fully formed at birth.  Mirroring neurons allow infants to form psychological connections with others, e.g. mothers.  Mom is supposed to be paying attention to us and looking at us and mirroring our expressions to her, so that we feel interesting to people just by existing.  When we make a face, she mirrors it back to us, and we start mirroring each other.  This is the way we learn how other people will respond to us.  We come to believe, “I am enough.”  But if Mom doesn’t engage in the mirroring interaction with her baby, if she’s depressed, or she’s tired, or she’s exhausted, or she’s working three jobs and is never there, or the child is in daycare all the time, or has had an NICU trauma, or various psychological issues, then our brain says, “Mom is not mirroring me” or “I can’t get a response” or “I have to be interesting to get Mom’s attention.”  This is where kids start acting out a lot, or they go inward and don’t believe they can get any kind of response.  Thus, the desire to elicit a response from Mom dies.  At worst, the desire to even connect with anyone fades away.

The Effects

[Fast forward 20+ years to when this infant becomes a grown participant in the SMP.]  So then, people are trying in dating to be interesting.  They’re trying to stimulate others in order to attract attention and create a connection.

When you hear women say, “I have to sleep with [a man] on the first date or he’ll lose interest”, her mother probably didn’t mirror with her correctly, her father didn’t mirror with her correctly, so she learned, “I have to be interesting and stimulating [to attract attention].”

It’s the same thing for guys when they try to [monkey] dance for women’s approval.  It’s the mirroring neurons all the way back.  You’ve probably met guys like this, guys who try to be interesting instead of being real.

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CW: I think there’s a massive lack of confidence and insecurity around authenticity.  There’s all manner of rumor and half-truth and full-truth and no truth about vulnerability and when it’s right to open up and when you shouldn’t open up as a man.  The more layers of Bro Science and half-remembered hearsay that you layer on top of an interaction, the more performative it becomes; the more Persona and less person there is in the interaction.  The more that that happens, the less you actually feel connected with what you’re doing because you’re not connecting with another person, you’re just playing a role.  So even if you do get the outcome that you want, the person isn’t in love with you.  They’re in love with this projection that you’ve given them.  This is such a dangerous Catch-22 to fall into.  I think it’s the fundamental reason why the hardcore pickup World failed for men who were unconfident with women, because it taught them that the person they had to be and the person that they genuinely are, were so far apart.  If I need to go through this massive rigmarole, saying inane fantasies like “Did you see the fight between two midgets outside?”  Isn’t that fake?  If I’ve got to Neg her and twist the lemon [which may be too sour or not worth the squeeze], and if I’ve got to act as if I’m ignoring her and chat up her friend, and do all this B$…  If I have to go through this complex rain dance to try and get a woman to go to bed with me, and that’s NOT the kind of behavior that I would normally do, then what does that say about me?

ALS: Absolutely.  You know, it’s one of the problems of taking your cues from culture as opposed from yourself.  Again, a lot of this could come from parenting problems too.

Two SMPs: Those who are 1nTeRe$t!ng vs Those who are Real

Having explained the supporting information, here’s the new RP idea that I mentioned in the Intro.

At 4:52, ALS says [edited for reading],

From what I have found, there are two different dating pools and they don’t flag or signal to each other at all.  They have almost no crossover.  They’re not even aware of each other.

There’s a Securely Attached group of people who want that direct human authentic connection.  “We are together.”  “We are talking.”  “We’re sharing this Bond.”  They don’t want too much stimulation up front because it feels weird to them.  They understand what a healthy connection is like, so they want the right bonding experience.

Then there’s the Insecurely Attached pool where everybody is trying to be Interesting, 1nTeRe$t!ng, “In.Te.Res.T!ng”!  They’re also dancing to the regimens of Anxious or Avoidant behaviors.

img-1783678936-6a50c7d8203164.83528265.jpgMystery was one very InTeRe$t!Ng Pick Up Artist.

These two different pools of people never cross or interact.  So when you see guys saying, “Every woman out there expects you to be eight feet tall and have an 18 inch d!ck, and you have to have 10 billion in the bank”, and so on, then you know they’re among the Insecurely Attached group.  When you see women saying they want or must have those things, they’re also identifying themselves as Insecurely Attached.

For the Securely Attached group, you don’t need to have all those things.  You don’t have to dance for her amusement and endlessly play games or have Dread Game or control her.  That’s only going to work on those Insecurely Attached women in the other pool.  It’s never going to work on Securely Attached women.  They will get up and walk away, because you’re going to appear like you’re on another planet or from another species.  You will appear to be confused or disinterested in them, and they’re going to track as confused or disinterested about you.  Like I said, the two dating pools are segregated out completely (according to this model).  It is wild to see.

Conclusions

ALS’s “Dual SMP” model provides a psychological theory that explains why certain individuals fall for The Lie of Romantic Love.

It also agrees with Alain de Botton’s explanation of why you will marry the wrong person.

In addition, it appears to correlate with the “Cooperate vs Defect Patterns” that Jim describes in The Three Magic Words (2020/8/7).

According to my previous studies of Attachment Style Theory and other psychopathologies, about 30% of people are Insecurely Attached for whatever reason.  In conjunction with ALS’s arguments above, this implies that the 1nTeRe$t!ng SMP pool comprises about 30% of the population, and the Real SMP pool is around 70% of the population.  Interestingly, this 30% figure tracks closely with the average divorce rate, ~30% AND an assessment that about 30% of people have psychological issues stemming from childhood.  I believe all these similarities are NOT a coincidence.

All these theories also provide explanations of why otherwise seemingly decent, moral individuals may find themselves perpetually unlucky in love and/or fall into bad form with certain others and/or in certain contexts.

This is precisely why I said Identifying Attachment Style is the New Game (2023/10/12).

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