Ruined for Love
How not to get alpha widowed / what to do if you are
It was a whirlwind romance for the ages! But, only for one of you. By building yourself up through fitness, wardrobe and charm, you briefly caught the eye of someone well out of your league, who then took you to bed.
In your wishful thinking (or “irrational exuberance” in the finance world) you took this to mean far more than it actually does; that you’ve been undervaluing yourself all this time. A “temporarily embarrassed beauty queen/casanova” whose ship has finally come in. Most tragically, planning out your future with someone who never intended to marry you.
Sex does not necessarily equal love, it turns out. But the human ego is very resistant to reality checks. Are you going to conclude you actually weren’t in his/her league and just got lucky, because men will stoop lower for easy sex than women, or beautiful women sometimes compromise their standards for novelty/wealth?
Fuck that! You’ve had a taste of filet mignon, after choking down microwave TV dinners your whole life. No way are you going back to that, now that you’ve seen how the other side lives. The very peak of what you can possibly pull for a one night stand is now forever where your bar is, having flown too close to the sun, never again to be satisfied with street lamps.
This is a uniquely modern problem. Historically, your options were limited to whoever lived in your village. Prior to photography, one glimpsed beautiful people (by modern standards) maybe once or twice in their lifespan. Men often went to war over the sort of women who now prostitute themselves online for the cost of a cheeseburger.
Nowadays, we’re surrounded by supernormal stimuli, which miscalibrates our standards. Women rightfully complain that porn distorts male perception of women. But it rings hollow when those same women juggle 20 guys in their phone, who they may summon to their doorstep for casual sex as one might order Postmates.
Everybody’s chasing unicorns, who roam the land breaking hearts with impunity. Nobody’s satisfied with their objective equal, and the notion that such a thing exists offends them. “Who are you to put limits on me? I can always pull a little higher with a new dress/makeup/gym time.” Nobody wants to settle, or be settled for.
If that sounds like you, cast aside after a fling by someone you realistically can’t do better than, you’ve got a few options (none of them good). I’ll divide them according to sex.
MEN
1. Become Batman
A time honored male overreaction to trauma, defining yourself by that trauma in an dramatic and adversarial way. Men are urged to go to therapy all the time, but therapy is only Batman prevention. Men become Bat Men precisely by avoiding processing grief, instead acting out, coping in unhealthy ways.
Hit the gym and work out angry. Chug that creatine, get fucking ripped! Your job isn’t physically demanding? All the better. Romantic rejection isn’t reversible by exertion, but when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. It’ll give you an outlet for pent up angst though, and improving your fitness never hurts. Shit, throw a lifted truck and tribal tattoo in there king, you earned it.
Eliminate colors from your wardrobe too. You’re in perpetual mourning. What remains of your life will be a monument to grief. Post a lot of memes to Facebook with skeletons on motorcycles about how loyal you are, but also the worst nightmare of those who betray you. People need to know you’re a brooding, wounded lion. (Especially those hot singles in your area)
2. Become a Batman Villain
Sadly the more common of the two. But then, this pipeline ensures Batman never runs out of mentally ill bad guys to fight. Like “Become Batman” this is also an ego protection strategy, but malicious. Defining yourself, once again, by the trauma of a failed relationship, but this time channeling that angst into misogyny.
Think Andrew Tate, whose housing, vehicles, lifestyle & presentation are all chosen to reinforce the message that he doesn’t need women, they need him. A cartoon character more than a human, with a bullied middle schooler’s fortress mentality.
3. Become an Actual Villain
Also a time honored pipeline for spurned men. Murder/suicide of ex-wife or ex-girlfriend, or serial killers of women. Usually prostitutes, hitchhikers & runaways. Family Annihilators don’t count, being successful enough in love to have married & had children. The Ted Bundy archetype is also an exception, being handsome & charismatic, killing mostly for the love of the game (he was so real for that).
This is also where we find Elliot Rodger, Marc Lepine and George Sodini. Not content to kill the object of their unrequited affections, instead waging war on womankind itself. This is an already saturated market frankly, and a tiresome cliche. Women have enough problems without dodging bullets.
4. Vote Republican
(“Isn’t this the same as #3? Hur hur hur”)
If you’re a little too attached to life for the ‘ol murderoonie/suiciderino, there are personally survivable ways to salt the Earth instead. Not inflicting direct harm, but pissing in the pool out of spite, just to make the lives of women a little bit more difficult.
There’s something to the case that distortions in the dating market owe to aspects of modernity like abortion, birth control, feminism and dating apps. These are certainly enablers of what our grandparents would consider debauched behavior, but at the same time, isn’t it just like men to intellectualize our resentment?
5. Convert to Islam
The nuclear version of Vote Republican. Not just salting the Earth or pissing in the pool, but working towards a total restructuring of society along 14th century lines. The actual Handmaid’s Tale scenario happening in dozens of MENA nations as we speak, unaddressed by women’s rights activists in the US and Europe for fear of Islamophobia accusations.
It’s certainly possible, as those nations prove, but it comes at a steep price. Notice how miserable and dysfunctional those countries are. Almost as if women are human beings with meaningful value to contribute, and the subjugation of half of humanity has undesirable second and third order societal consequences far exceeding those of women’s lib.
6. MGTOW
For men supposedly done with women, they sure do talk about women an awful lot. That said, this option is at least conceptually sound. Life has many other forms of hedonic and eudaimonic fulfillment to offer, apart from romantic love or sex.
Hobbies! Caring for pets! Learning languages! Creative outlets! Mastering a discipline, like martial arts! Or on the hedonic side of things, gaming, food, drugs and pornography (including various combinations thereof).
Nowadays one can buy psilocybin edibles online, straight off Amazon. VR is damn good too, and there’s no shortage of adult content for it. The value proposition of gaming has gotten better and better, while the ROI on dating has fallen through the floor. But, is this living? Don’t dopamine loops eventually feel hollow?
7. Fuck a Robot
The favorite fantasy of Silicon Valley tech bros unlucky in love (apart from Chinese honey traps), their solution to striking out with women is simply to make their own. A bleak but logical extension of technological unemployment; As the ownership class callously replaces the human element with machines, incels and spinsters alike may simply automate the opposite sex.
Setting aside how spiritually grotesque that is, there’s a case to be made for the democratization of beauty. Like any other scarce good, human beauty may potentially be mass produced in the same way that printing brought reproductions of fine art within reach of the working class.
Robots with rubber skin live squarely in the Uncanny Valley, a challenging nut on the best of days. But leaving fear-boner territory for a moment, it will probably become possible before long to simply grow human clones without brains (Millions of these already live among us) then surgically install computers into their empty skull cavities running a local LLM (or remotely puppeteered by a data center, for a monthly fee).
The reverse of how cyborgs are typically imagined in fiction, this one has a fully biological body, but there’s nobody home behind those eyes. One could imagine licensing DNA from the top 1% most attractive people in the world, then simply breeding BioBots with one another to make more.
In this way, they double as artificial wombs. Not industrial vats or vinyl sacs abstracted from the human body, but the human body itself. Everybody gets what they want, a beautiful loyal partner, not requiring them to grow as a person first…we’d merely have to break every law of God and Man to achieve it.
Your BioBot exercises for 6 hours a day without complaint, maintaining perfect fitness! It cooks, it cleans, it never cheats, and has no birthday for you to forget. When the body grows old, clone a fresh replacement, then transplant the “brain” from one to the other! Neuralink and brain organoids would already make Mengele blush, we may as well keep going. The Goon Nexus aint gonna build itself!
This entry’s as tongue in cheek as the rest, given the implausibility that medical ethics would allow such a development in the US or Europe. But, it’s absolutely the sort of measure China or India might take. China especially given their 4B movement & growing mob of lonely, dissatisfied, fighting age men.
Mass producing BioBots solves that problem, along with the plummeting birthrate, via the final defeat of consent. And decency. And authentic human connection. Six easy payments of $10k, financing available for ad supported models.
8. Kermit Sewer Slide
An option popularized by The Sorrows of Young Werther, death makes more sense than ever in this economy. Rent drops to $0, likewise grocery bills, utilities and car payments. But are things really that grim?
You got one-shotted by oneitis, a tale as old as time. It’s really not as deep or meaningful as it feels. Before googling that helium exit bag Wikihow, first ask yourself: Was I actually in love, or just infatuated? How well did I know her, and what did I like about her, apart from her appearance?
Death is a one-way trip into the unknown, so before buying your ticket, it’s wise to first ensure that you’re truly out of options. If you decide to do it anyway, at least make it memorable, like that guy who rigged a chainsaw to behead himself. Or the shotgun helmet. It’s job security for janitors.
9. Recalibrate Expectations
There’s a reason this one’s at the bottom, a measure of last resort. Bleh! Nyeh! Hiss! I know, I know, nobody wants to do this, and many legitimately choose death instead. Be realistic about your market value. Let go of delusion. You’re balding and drive an Elantra, you’re never getting your virginal anime tradwife.
One remote possibility is to activate your dormant empathy gland. Go on a journey of imagination with me, attempting to grasp how women on your level feel when passed over for someone with implants and lip filler. The bar scene from A Beautiful Mind illustrates this elegantly:
Like I said, nobody wants to settle, but nobody wants to be settled for either. Put yourself in the shoes of the plain brunettes. How must they feel, that the men in the room look at them second, if at all? If you weren’t so helplessly dazzled by the blonde, if you accepted from the outset that she’s unobtanium, you might pass right by her. Like Aladdin, ignoring all but one treasure in the Cave of Wonders.
It’s a power move which endears you to the brunettes, accustomed all their lives to playing second fiddle, in the shadow of their unicorn friend. Have the wisdom and maturity to refuse supernormal stimuli! Instead, shield your eyes as you make a bee-line for your equal, marking you as principled, grounded, and not superficial.
How refreshing for the brunettes! How charming, what a delightful surprise! Immediately starting off on a good foot, you’re liable to discover that relaxing your standards by a hair dramatically expands your dating pool.
You might now sort primarily for substance, rather than flash. Properly get to know women who, unable to rely on beauty privilege, have instead had to develop other merits like a warm heart and sense of humor. Men ought to look charitably on plain women of virtue, as they make the best wives and mothers.
WOMEN
1. Misandry
You were strung along for months or years by a male unicorn. “Situationships”, they’re called. Surprise, sexual liberation cuts both ways! Your brain knows you’re sharing him with other young women, and that he has no practical reason to commit to any of them. But your heart stubbornly refuses that analysis.
Romantic that you are, or just infatuated, you can’t give up on the dream that he’ll pick you out of his harem to settle down with. Maybe if you fuck and suck that much better than the rest of the girls in his roster, he’ll catch feelings too.
When he doesn’t, you’re devastated. Hurt, angry, with nowhere constructive to put those feelings. You might not publicly blast him due to residual affection and not wishing to burn bridges, in the hopes he may yet come around. But you’ve gotta blast someone.
So, you blast “men”. Not the man who actually hurt you, because you still want him! Rather, the men you don’t want, because you lose nothing by taking your frustrations out on chopped, invisible unpersons. This begins a long series of cryptic posts on Tiktok and other socials, using veiled language.
Never copping to the real cause of your distress, always externalizing blame. “Men are trash” for example, or “Why are men afraid of commitment??” They’re not, honey. They’re busy in the bedroom with their other women.
The downsides of ruling out all but a tiny sliver of unicorn men from your romantic consideration are many. First, men with lots of options…have lots of options. They won’t commit because they lose far more than they gain. They will treat you as replaceable, because for them, you are.
This principle isn’t unique to one sex. The incel canard that “women only like jerks” misses the forest for the trees. Everyone prefers attractive partners, and broadly speaking, human beings behave how life experience teaches them they can afford to. Beautiful people grow accustomed to getting away with callous behavior, the same psychology behind billionaire misanthropy.
Like a white boomer googling racial breakdowns of violent crime stats after being mugged, you go looking for empirical affirmation of the ouchy no-no feelings in your tum tum. You don’t have to look far! Those same sources also bear out that men commit the vast majority of violent crimes, including of course sexual assault.
Close the tab with the racial breakdown though. Ignore that, we don’t need it and it’s a bad look. “Men” is as specific as we’re gonna get with our scorn. This essentially is the exact same rationale underlying racism though; generalizing billions of people based on a pattern of bad experiences with individuals.
You can repurpose the exact same language and thought experiments racists use! The bowl of M&Ms analogy, in which one in every hundred is poisoned, also often used to explain per capita as it applies to crime figures. Valerie Solana’s S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto is more or less The Turner Diaries for misandrists.
This is all to say, you’re in good company if you choose this route! Many have before you, laying the intellectual groundwork you can then make use of in order to feel as if you’ve retaken the control you lost.
2. False Accusations
The nuclear option. Lacking equivalent upper body strength to men, all of the options in the men’s list involving violence are unavailable to you unless you intend to purchase and train with a firearm. Surprisingly few women do this however, even though guns are the great equalizer.
I assume because you never wanted to physically hurt him. You only wanted him to feel what you felt. If not returning your romantic feelings, then at least sharing in your pain. Alas, men are quite autistic, insulated from your pain (and, to an extent, our own).
So, for lack of better options, you try to turn everyone in his life against him. He did sort of rape you in a sense, didn’t he? You slept with him under the pretext that he loved you and would eventually marry you. Maybe he never said as much, but that was your understanding.
If he welches on that unspoken promise, then what is that, if not coercion of intimacy under a false pretense? And, by every definition except the Republican one, isn’t that rape? A broken heart feels, at times, like a blank check for retaliation.
Crucially, don’t file a police report or you become liable. Have a good reason prepared if anybody asks to see the report, like that litigation is pending. This may backfire, but even then, his reputation will suffer irreparable harm.
Your accusation, if well crafted, is unfalsifiable; there are many reasons besides a man’s innocence why a woman who accuses him of rape might recant, such as to avoid legal reprisal. So no matter how he tries to clear his name, doubt will always linger.
Your reputation may suffer too, but only among men, 99.9% of whom are irrelevant to you anyways. Other women will understand your reasons for doing what you did, and as women dominate HR departments, your employability won’t suffer the way that his will.
3. Baby Trap
You know how this works, it’s a time honored strat. Suddenly all the reasons you weren’t ready to be a mother go out the window. But beware, this can backfire depending on how he was raised. If he doesn’t feel obligated to raise it with you, womp womp, you’re a single mother.
4. Girl Boss
This one’s probably the most gender neutral entry, and we have decades of civil rights progress to thank. Men have long run away from problems in our personal lives by burying ourselves in work, and now women can do the same!
If you cannot succeed in love, you might at least succeed by other metrics. This is a form of MGTOW for women, stacking up paper (and cats, and wine) instead of starting a family.
The catch 22 is that, while women have displaced men in desirable high paying office jobs (with government help) they’re broadly uninterested in marrying the men they displaced:
This is a feedback loop which serves only to redistribute income opportunities from men to women, while frustrating and isolating both. It’s the “No take ball! Only throw!” meme, for dating. On top of this, men still pay more taxes than we consume in benefits, while the reverse is true for women:
If our culture adapted such that women were happy being providers and marrying lower earning men who would then perform domestic duties, problem solved! Gender roles reversed, but conserved, according to sensible division of labor.
That isn’t what your heart wants, though. If you’re a high earning woman, you are basically the husband now, in search of a “super husband”. The more wealth is redistributed from men to women, however, the more the pool of high earning men will shrink.
5. Fake Girlbossing
With DEI being shuttered since Trump took office, maybe you can’t land a high paying office job anymore. But do not fret: Multi-level marketing furnishes an easy way to LARP as a self made “business owner”. Decals for your car, a professional looking LinkedIn, expensive clothing and “remote working” on your Apple laptop at Starbies.
There’s no room at home, packed floor to ceiling with crates of TEMU leggings or essential oils you’re never gonna sell. All the outward appearances of girlbossing, but you lose more money than you bring in! It’s at least a less embarrassing way to earn $13.50 a month than Onlyfans would be.
6. Spinster, Fujoshi, Cat Lady
These are akin to the girlboss, but not necessarily high achievers. They have instead sought to fill their lives, and hearts, with something other than men or money. Cat Ladies are self explanatory. Fujoshis are basically female gooners who consume astonishingly depraved smut, and make character.ai chatbots based on Korean boy band members.
Spinsters may be well adjusted, but ugly to the point that they aren’t desiring enough of sex or companionship to accept it from the sort of man willing to offer. It do be like that sometimes, nature deals most people a raw hand they just gotta live with best they can. For many, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
In every case, fair enough. Men fall into these same categories in equal or greater number, and no one is harmed by a life of monastic hermitude. Historically such women might join convents (though often for darker reasons, but that’s another article).
7. Sewer Slide, Girlboss Style
This one would seem gender neutral on its face, until you learn that men account for over 76% of annual US suicide deaths, with 3.3 male suicide deaths for every female suicide death. Yet, there are three female suicide attempts per every one male suicide attempt.
What’s going on here? I suspect there’s a clue in the False Accusation section. You don’t actually want to kill him, you want emotional reciprocity. For him to love you back or at least share in your pain. Likewise, you don’t actually want to die. You want him to feel as if he’s killed you.
After all, in an emotional sense, hasn’t he? Why shouldn’t he suffer too? Why shouldn’t he feel guilty, for breaking your heart? But in a post sexual liberation world, he hasn’t actually committed any crime, nor violated any social mores. You must find alternative means of punishment.
That can come in the form of a performative, unserious suicide attempt. Like cutting, it will draw an outpouring of attention + sympathy for you, and scorn for the man who drove you to do something so drastic.
8. Recalibrate Expectations
Just watch this same video again, but imagine the genders are swapped:
…Keeping in mind that the sexual availability of unicorn men for one night stands has distorted your standards in the same way porn does for men. If all you want is casual sex with unicorn men until you age out, then pivot to girlboss or spinster, have at it.
But if you want to marry, then be realistic in your self appraisal. Compare yourself to men based on objective metrics like BMI, not vibes. Use gender swap apps on your selfies to see what you’d look like as a man, and thus who to try for. Don’t make special allowances, excuses or rationalizations for qualities in yourself you wouldn’t find appealing in a husband.
Understand that single mothers, in particular, are a hard sell to almost anybody. Men whose opportunities the government gave to you, struggle even to support themselves. We can’t afford to support another man’s offspring, and again, nobody wants to be plan B (or C, or D, or E).
Not to worry though! The same government which rigged hiring and university enrollment in your favor for decades will double dip, taking yet more money from men you don’t want, to support the baby you had with the man you did want (who didn’t want you). It’s the circle of life, nature is as mysterious as it is beautiful.
Image by NanoBanana Pro
Thanks for writing this, it clarifies a lot! You've so perfectly articulatet that feeling of having your internal 'bar' reset; it makes me wonder how someone truly recalibrates after such an intense 'filet mignon' moment. Your point about this being a uniquely modern problem, compared to historical village options, is so briliant and spot-on, honestly!