One of my college roommates approached getting married with what I considered at the time, a very unromantic view. Rather than looking for love or to be swept off her feet, she approached the entire process almost as if it were a job interview.
She’s been raised in a traditional upper middle class family. Her dad was an engineer, her mom had a degree but stayed at home after marriage. She had two biological siblings and two adopted ones. She attended a private Catholic girls school and was just finishing up her Master’s degree when we met. Technically she had finished her classes but was doing her student teaching to gain enough on the job experience to get her certification.
I wouldn’t say I knew her well, and we only lived together about 8 months before she fulfilled her goal of finding someone, getting engaged, and getting married. I lost track of her soon after, so I can’t really say how that all worked out.
Looking back though, with a red pill perspective, I can see she realized then what I myself did not — that at 23 (from a male point of view) she was at the physical prime of her life. She guarded her virginity closely, and she bragged about it openly. (She had a long term, 3+ years, boyfriend in college who never proposed, so I often wondered exactly how “virgin” she was but…perhaps technically? Who knows!)
She was blonde, with big blue eyes, and a petite figure. She wasn’t drop dead gorgeous, but she certainly wasn’t unattractive either. She knew how to and consciously did make the most of the assets she had.
I can’t remember how she met her fiance, this was before online dating, but I do remember he fit her very detailed criteria. At the time it seemed so calculating to me, the “hopeless romantic” that she would choose her life mate based on such cut and dry things like his education level, current earnings, future earning potential, adequate but not jaw-dropping looks, and appropriate social status.
They went on a few dates, all the while she made it very clear to him that her goal was she was seeking marriage and to be a stay-at-home wife and mother.
At the appropriate 6-month dating mark, he presented her with the appropriate sized ring, in a socially approved “romantic” way (“surprised” her at a local park after going on a hike.) Truth be told, I am sure he knew that if he did not propose, she would cut him loose and continue her search. She was not at all bashful about putting her expectations out there, and she had a solid sense of her MMP “worth.”
The one missing piece, that he was not raised Catholic, was soon addressed when he enrolled in classes that would make him a confirmed Catholic by their wedding date.
They married in a traditional Catholic wedding, white gown, in the church, etc.
As I have said, the whole thing kind of yucked me out at the time, it seemed too calculating, and she seemed kindof shallow to me, so I did not keep in touch. Truth be told I felt for her fiance, who truly was a really nice guy, and worried she was getting the better part of the deal and he was signing up to be the draft horse to make her dreams come true.
Four years or so later I ran across them at a party at our other former roommate’s house, and was surprised they only had one two-year-old daughter by then, with no immediate plans for another child. They lived in the “right” neighborhood, had the “right” friends, were part of the “right” social circles. She had the life she wanted, had planned for, had aimed for. On the surface anyway, they seemed happy.
Looking back on it I suppose at least from her point of view, it was a red pill wedding. She recognized her SMP/MMP market value, protected it, promoted it, and cashed it in at her peak. Whether it was a red pill wedding for her mate, well that is another story I will leave to the guys to discuss.
Personally I still find myself thinking it was all a bit too formulaic and calculating. I would have preferred to see more evidence of “true love” or them being “soul mates” but who am I to judge? Especially after seeing many friends swept up to their doom by such feelings with guys who never offered anything more than a handful of Skittles and an, “I’ll call you…sometime.”
What do you think, reader? Was she wiser than her years, or did she play it all wrong?
Let those who have ears hear.
—————
p.s. And so of course I had to look them up, via social media, and I see they have two children, a teen girl headed off to college and a pre-teen boy, and they are still together posting pictures of the family body boarding in the surf at an exotic location for New Years! To her credit, she pretty much looks the same now as she did then! And they look happy.
What adds the romance is the seriousness of the vows. “Six figures, six feet, six-pack” certainly sounds unromantic and calculating, and it is—but if it is coupled with “for richer or poorer, in sickness and health” — well, that isn’t so bad, is it?
@ Seriously, indeed there is something to it…agreed!
Redpillgirlnotes,
I trust your gut. It does sound formulaic to me too. However, there are indicators that she was serious about being married. That they are still together is a good sign.
I tried to find somethign brief with Arte Johnso saying, “Hey, want a walnetto?, but this is what I found. This is in response to Skittles.
Sounds to me like she successfully landed the type of man she desired. Her locking him in seems like it was done both honestly and artfully. Good for her I say, and good for him as well. If I had a daughter and she acted just like this young lady, I would feel pride that she got what she wanted without being disingenuous. Unless I missed a detail in the opening piece…
What you don’t see is the “compromises” she probably made. He met her exacting primary criteria. But she probably also had secondary criteria that she was happy to waive for a man who met the primary ones.
I wasn’t raised by traditional parents or RP aware when dating and was nowhere near as meticulous as her with my selection criteria. But even so, I had my long list of requirements (variously qualified, shares my political views, wants as many children as possible, etc), my list of secondaries (attractive hands, shares my exact ethnicity, good at things I’m bad at, etc) and my list of perks (wealthy, arty, introverted, sciencey, agnostic (whatever his beliefs otherwise), into bikes, into metal). Jon did not meet every criterion. He met the vast majority of the requirements, many of the secondaries and a few of the perks. I did “compromise”. Because sticking to my primary requirements only reduced my possible mates list from 3.5 billion to around 700 men. Sticking to my secondaries may have left me with only a couple of hundred. And sticking to the perks too… I’m not even sure such a man could exist.
Who knows, maybe her criteria were unbelievably specific and she compromised at nothing. But the proof is in the pudding: she married young and has the life she was striving for with the man she desired. However meticulous she was, she was still being realistic, which leaves room for romance and spontaneity, even if it doesn’t put them at the forefront.
Yeah, it’s all fun until the party ends with his illness, injury or career failure. Then she’ll dump him like a used-up plow horse and enjoy the spoils of being the poor “unskllled” housewife in the divorce-rape. Been there, done that, going to be paying the alimony forever.
Why women often have huge lists they do?
LOL Bloom, reading it kind of reminded me of what I did. But we were really in crazy love… so much that we made our friends sick 😀 But there were many girlfriends that didn’t understand why I wanted to marry so young, felt like I was giving up my life or ruining it altogether.
But like you, it does bother me to see a woman marry if it’s not obvious that she’s crazy about her future husband. And I do often feel sad for the man, because I think we all realize at a visceral level that if there’s not a deep admiration and attraction, then it makes marriage less beautiful, less easy. And I’m not trying to say that marriage should be easy, but that when you have certain things (like commonalities, good characters, morals, money, etc.) it just makes things easier by default.
girlfriends that didn’t understand why I wanted to marry so young, felt like I was giving up my life or ruining it altogether.
Yes, exploit youth and beauty for all it is worth they did suggest.
A price one does pay for doing so there is.
Perhaps a good post topic this would be
A little too cold-blooded for my tastes…
@ hammerhead let’s hope not. I do wonder if he is happy to be honest but…
In her case she wanted a certain lifestyle, it seemed. But women often do have such lists, as superslav points out, holding too fast to every single point can keep a gal from ever finding someone.
Yes Dragonfly, I think had I ever felt she loved-loved him, it would not have rubbed me that way. She almost had a “eh, he’ll do…” attitude that worried me, for him!
Yes 😦 I had a friend that married a man that she hand picked for certain qualities, but all things that seemed maybe good… but she constantly complained about his looks/weight. She wasn’t (I think) physically attracted to him, but he held a certain position in church that I think she liked to be affiliated with, and he was making a lot of money. I really really do hope it works out, and I don’t think they’d get divorced (very Christian), but I worry about their sex life and how well she’ll really treat him.
Yes, I would not say this is a perfect example by any means. She did understand the difference between the SMP and the MMP, to her credit. And her personality was rather logical rather than passionate. It wasn’t red pill in one big way though, she was the one saying how it was going to be, not him, not them. As a roommate she was selfish and self centered. Never did her share of chores, never took out trash, basically just entitled princess. So I imagine that part continued… Anyway, I feel like I am really bashing her and to be fair there are far worse people. She just wasn’t my cup of tea.
Women not supposed to be so cold blooded they are.
Everybody acknowledges that feelings drive them they do.
Not operating that way, disconcerting to many it is
Yoda,
I can only imagine that Mrs. Yoda’s list was simple. Able to make good green soup to go with her sandwiches.
Dtagonfly,
With tour comment, I was reminded of the scene in The Naked Gun.. They go to the mariage counsxelor and, at the end, he cautions them that he is diabetic. I can see that with your husband. So sweet that people couldn’t handle it.
Dalrock does caution men to only consider women who are head over heels for marriage. I think it would be a great ally against temptation to dump.
“Dalrock does caution men to only consider women who are head over heels for marriage. I think it would be a great ally against temptation to dump.”
Did he mean head over heels for *getting married to someone*, or head over heels for *this specific guy*? I think there is a world of difference.
The way I understood it was that it was all for one guy. Wanting to get married to be married sounds like a path to trouble to me.
Hopefully underneath her apparent selfishness is both a willingness and ability to love her husband and children. I have a female family member who is very non caring towards non family members, but is very loving to her children and was to her parents before they passed.
To me folks outta be intentional during their mate hunting life chapter. Both men and women are getting screwed in our selective assortment process due to one or the other potential spouse playing false to the other. At least the young lady above seemed to be honest, albeit very straightforward.
I view a red pill mate seek as being open and honest about what one desires in a spouse. In the above scenario I find it troubling that he converted to Catholicism to please her. A move like that outta be done out of sincere belief in the denomination;not to please another person.
Hammerhead, are you actually paying alimony? Not many men are ordered to pay alimony anymore. Child support is common of course, but not alimony. If you were divorced a number of years ago, you might be able to have a new judge revisit the alimony order and have it eradicated or at least reduced. I’m divorced as well and share custody of my only son with his mom. It is so difficult at times, but it has gotten so much better than it once was. We as divorced fathers must put our children first, which entails swallowing so much pride and crap. Compared to the well being of our children, it is a relatively worth while sacrifice to make. I hope your situation permits much time with your children.
@ Poseidon I hope you are correct that she’s good to her family, she was very loving to her parents and sibilings, I do know that. And she was young, perhaps she’s grown out of it being all about her. Like I said she wasn’t a bad person, and in many ways perhaps her “logical” approach makes more sense than people selecting based on chemistry or tingles or feelings of romance? Over 20 years later they are together, so something went right there. I’d wager they’ll be together for life. Perhaps it’s not fireworks, but then again it’s solid, stable, more of a partnership. And maybe there’s something to approaching the choice of a life mate like that? I do hope they truly are happy!
I guess it stuck out to me because I have never seen a gal with quite that approach before or since. I have for sure seen women make much worse choices tho!
Your old roommate got what she wanted, but more importantly, she held up her end of the deal for him. She gave him children, kept up her looks and hasn’t divorce-raped him. If she’s still making herself sexually available then he’s in the top 20% of all marriages.
The “six figures, six feet and six pack” comment reminded me of growing up in the South when all the guys wanted a girlfriend with the “3 B’s”
Blonde hair
Blue eyes
Big breasts
I must have missed that class because I’ve always been a major fan of the callimammapygian, although I am recovering from a tendency to favor the megamastous end of the spectrum, learning to appreciate quality over quantity. However, I still recall the day it was presented by a somewhat nymphomaniacal redhead with green eyes, a button nose, the most alabaster skin you’ve ever seen and a lilting Irish accent. Her name was Fiona and she soon discovered she was my kryptonite. Fortunately, her father truly hated me and things never got far enough for me to find out which particularly evil way she would have chosen to break my heart.
Even though it ended on a reasonably good note, the whole thing would still have driven me to drink had the drinks not been delivered by flirty women that insisted on distracting me from the serious business of drinking. If I were a conspiracy theorist I’d be convinced they hated Fiona as much as her father hated me. Reminds me of the old proverb: “Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad” because following that I must have been stark raving mad to marry the woman I did. Still, it didn’t destroy me when she decided to go feral and things eventually calmed down and I finally had time to think things through.
The entire mess that monogamy has become was quite confusing to me for a long time, but once I figured out that polygyny is perfectly normal, moral and sane, I realized that with polygyny it’s possible for a man to have his cake and eat it too. 😉
There is no such thing as a “red pill” monogamous marriage because the frame of monogamy always confers the power to the wife and it’s easily observable that only the truly exceptional woman can handle the temptation not to abuse that power. Odds of finding such a woman are only slightly higher than those of unicorn hunting.
I would argue that when it is the woman who gives away herself, according to her own terms, it tends to create a shallow/conditional bond at best. It’s only when a father gives away his daughter’s hand in marriage, that there’s a potential for unconditionality/depth in a marriage. Some conditional bonds are of course more resilient than others but true unity can never really be achieved as such.
The more unconditional freedom women gain/are given in a society the more conditional/shallow everything becomes in a sense. And that which is conditional in its foundation tends to only last for so long, before the charade comes crashing down. It’s not that women are more shallow than men though, in fact, I’d say that men (at least some) become even more shallow than women in a female centric society.
But a secular society (godless/fatherless) is female centric by definition… It works well for how-ever long you can keep the charade up, but once the music stops it’s hell on earth.
What may seem shallow for some isn’t necessarily shallow for others though, so no point in being negative about it. And it’s really shallow people who keep the charade running… so it’s sort of a good thing for now.
Lol Toad, on e again you have included a term I have no idea of the meaning, yet I am afraid to Google it! Calli-whatever on my friend!
Sigh. I simply have no idea why you think I’d send you Googling to get a definition that would make you blush. If that was my goal, I would have done it the normal way and said something slightly different from the “have their cake and eat it too” comment. But, sometimes it’s a fine line between getting a blush and getting banned, so I do occasionally try to behave. Course, I can’t promise much more than occasionally because it doesn’t take much of that “good behavior” stuff around women before the pressure builds up and something outrageous just pops out.
To ease your fears, Callimammapygian describes a woman with both well-shaped breasts and a shapely rear end. Megamastous refers to a woman with an enormous rack- think Dolly Parton.
Thanks for the clarification Toad, I guessed it meant something else altogether! Lol. And no, I am not going to be more specific! 🙂
Of course I didn’t mean that. Silly girl. That sort of thing requires a special hammock, a hot tub, long bungee cords and lots of lube. Alcoholic beverages are highly recommended afterward and if all goes well a wheelchair will be needed for the woman because she’ll be too weak at the knees to walk.
I was being descriptive, not prescriptive.
Artinsanal Toad,
Where did the twenty percent number come from? I have never found good information along those lines yet. It’s as if someone is keeping a lid on it.
” But, sometimes it’s a fine line between getting a blush and getting banned, so I do occasionally try to behave.”
LOL so true….
“And maybe there’s something to approaching the choice of a life mate like that? I do hope they truly are happy!”
I think there might be Bloom… in Victorian age at least, they did choose based on practicality and necessity, and the good or bad marriages were separated in part by how well they worked together to create a happy marriage. I did 2 posts letters from women in this age about marriages here:
http://girlwithadragonflytattoo.com/2015/10/26/1888-letters-show-women-who-create-happy-marriages-pick-well-are-mature/
http://girlwithadragonflytattoo.com/2015/10/27/1888-happily-married-couples-respond-to-article-calling-marriage-a-failure/
Didn’t know you met my sister!
The story you tell could have been hers, except that she destroyed her first husband by blackmailing him into marrying her. It lasted a year.
Her second hubby – the one she should have married in the first place, was strong enough to stand up to her, and they are still together after almost 40 years. It only lasted because he works 100 hours a week (not an exaggeration) in order to meet his extended family support obligations imposed when his father died. Not being together much might mean each meeting is a new honeymoon?
Lol Toad I think you and I are still thinking of different things but it’s a creative guess!
I think she knew her value and recognized that. I think she knew what she wanted and got it. Some people approach their lives using a checklist but at the same time, who doesn’t?
I don’t think she would have gotten a better guy than the one she has.She sacrificed cheap thrills for what most people would think is “boring” but that’s what stability looks like on the outside. Stability, routines, etc. all seem boring from the outside looking in.
This kind of reminds me of current roommate. Kinda scary because the guy she wants is in the navy but he’s gonna enlist after she graduates. He fits her checklist and they fit eachother’s but it looks weird because their personalities are not compatible and something just doesn’t look right and she is in a rush to get married which to me is kind of ridiculous at 19.
That being said, marrying young is a good thing but like most things in life, I do believe that everyone settles when it comes to marriage.
@ redpillchick I think you are right. It seemed rather calculating at the time but all in all she played her hand pretty well. I’ve seen friends make far worse choices based on emotions/love/chemistry/lust. Maybe she was wise beyond her years?
“Personalities not compatible, something doesn’t look right, in a rush…” All those sound like red flags, marriage is a big, big decision, I hope your friend chooses wisely. Sometimes opposites can work, but most couples I see who make it for the long haul tend to be fairly similar rather than opposites. The opposites thing can rub over time. I wish them much wisdom in this!
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