From the original article on December 16, 2011. Author: Chateau Heartiste.
Alert: Intrapickup squabble!
Is it true that an aspiring womanizer — or even a typical man in a billowy button-down who wants to improve his love life — must pay his dues with ugly women before he can achieve the goal of banging hotter women? The question hints at a significant fault line in current pickup thinking, precisely because it throws into stark relief the ego-shattering human impulse to judge men based on the quality of women they pull.
I’ll paraphrase a reader’s objections, who asked not to be directly quoted:
Roosh’s idea that you have to bang a lot of unattractive women to get hotter women is not persuasive. What helps is getting laid regularly, which doesn’t necessarily require cutting your teeth on ugly chicks. You only need one woman to get laid regularly, so such a strategy obviates the need to fill up your notch post with lots of uglies and plain janes. Ideally, your “regular lay” should be in the 6 to 8 range, but if you’re a newbie you may have to start with 4s and 5s. Picking up large numbers of less attractive women may give you experience with logistics and help with honing your routines, but that is the relatively easy part of game. Getting laid regularly, even if it’s with one woman, is all a man needs to step up to the next higher beauty class.
My opinion on this matter falls somewhere between Roosh’s and the anonymous reader’s takes. Roosh is entirely correct to note that men who use the “I have standards” excuse are, more often than not, men who aren’t living up to their professed high standards. It’s similar in spirit to the internet nerd sour grapes syndrome, in which hot chicks that are unavailable to them are deemed unworthy of their loving nerd attention because of some ridiculously trivial flaw, like pointy elbows.
Roosh is also onto something when he advocates for having flexible standards. If 8s and above are all you will deign to approach, then there are going to be times and places when and where you will endure some long, tough dry spells, and this is especially true if you are an average guy with average game and above average horniness. Unless you have rock solid inner game and unshakeable confidence that enables you to weather extended down times without losing your pickup magic or your aura of charismatic fuckability, those dry spells will hurt your interactions with women. Like dogs can smell fear, women can smell celibacy.
The reader suggests that the ideal route for men to take to avoid sexless purgatory while keeping the ladder-climbing option open is to gun for the decent-looking regular lay. This allows a man to avoid the dispiritment that accompanies fucking too many uglies while also sparing him the stink of celibacy that erodes confidence and spooks hot chicks.
And that’s where I part company with Roosh and favor the life strategy of the anonymous reader. Fucking uglies, in even small quantities and in temporary bouts, risks flirting with depression and slumping into a long-term rut. I don’t come by this view speculatively. I have some real world trials by trolls from which to evangelize. I’ll give you an example I’m thinking of from years ago:
I had spent a few weeks fucking a 5. It was only four bang sessions, but that was enough to alter my self-perception and mood. I had gone through a bad breakup and she (the 5) presented herself, fortuitously, almost immediately after the final severance from my ex. She was friendly and sweet, and open to meeting someone. I gamed her but hardly needed more than my first wave artillery; she melted quickly. She had a good body, so despite her plain face the sex was good. But I couldn’t help notice it was not as good as sex with hotter women.
Just at the point I was getting the full measure of my single man’s confidence back, the 5 conveniently left town, rescuing me from the awkwardness of a messy dumping I knew had to be done. However, upon leaving, the sexless rut began to reappear. Two weeks went by with no acceptable nibbles on my penile line. A buddy who was a wingman at the time suggested I meet up with a girl he had failed with himself as a sort of friendship offering in difficult times.
“You’ll really like this girl. She’s totally your type. A solid 8. Very hot, blonde.”
“Oh yeah? If she’s so hot, why aren’t you working on her?”
“I did. I got nowhere, but it’s OK, I prefer brunettes. We hang out together. She makes me look good when we go out.”
“So you want me to meet her? Hmm.”
“Yes, you’ll thank me.”
We met, all four of us — me, the “hot blonde 8″, my friend, and his current girlfriend — late at night under cover of a dark lounge. I didn’t know where my friend’s head was, but she was no 8. Yes, she had blonde hair, but that was about where the confirmation of my friend’s powers of observation ended. From what I could glean through the dim club light and my alcoholic haze, she was no better than a 6, and maybe even a 5.
Nevertheless, I was horny, and feeling down. I could use the pickmeup pickherup. We trundled outside, into a cab, and I took her back to my pad. Inside my place, lights at full blast, I was sorely disappointed to realize my friend’s “solid 8″ was a weak 4. I had never fucked a 4 before, and never would again.
Too late to reverse course, and bored into conspiracy, I lamely escorted her into my bed, and quickly swung her into the doggy-style position where exposure to her face would be limited. Her body wasn’t half-bad, but not good enough to compensate; my dick went limp inside her vagina. I imagine that has to be a girl’s worst nightmare; up front rejection in the form of a backturn or a wandering eye is bad enough, but getting rejected in the most softeningly obvious way possible when you are literally giving it everything you’ve got, your womanhood deeply committed... well, that’s gotta sting.
I couldn’t be bothered to make excuses. She dressed and left in silence. My blue mood hardened. I cursed my friend’s taste in women. I took a shower to wash off the dirt that had alighted upon my soul.
Two women, one borderline ugly and the other plain as unsyruped pancakes, in a row and I was done with the idea of it. Their company, however genial and accommodating, did nothing to lift my spirits or gird my confidence. Just the opposite, in fact: I fell deeper into self-flagellation.
One week after the limp-out incident, I hit up a local lounge and met an 8.5 whom I would spend the next five months fucking in gloriously hedonistic abandon. I have yet to share my bed since then with a woman lower than a 6.5. I learned my lesson.
I’m as horny a guy as you’ll find, but I have to admit not so horny that I’ll start rummaging through the 3 and 4 kitchen trash if there’s no four star restaurant available. Maybe that’s a problem of getting laid too regularly — you lose that wall-climbing horniness that would compel you to stick it in the most convenient wet hole. Ugly girls as stepping stones to hotter women sounds good in theory, but in reality sex with them too often — and too often can happen a lot faster than most men realize — is not only a time and energy suck, but a depressive drug that corrodes self-confidence.
Perhaps this feeling — this sex dynamic — varies by race, age and baseline dignity. If so, more power to the guys who don’t mind dumping fucks in seacows and butterfaces. I can’t bring myself to do it, even if it’s all the local talent has to offer. My minimum threshold in women’s looks is 6, under which it becomes almost physiologically impossible for me to complete the bang.
My inner game is strong enough now that I can afford to risk a month or two downtime without getting too rusty or too doubtful of my skills. I would only use an ugly girl who fell below my minimum looks threshold as a stepping stone in the most dire of circumstances, such as if my dry spell extends beyond two months, or I’ve taken to, ahem, “mood enhancers” that give me 24 hour wood.
So you might say that the reader’s strategy is the way to go if you are a high risk for lengthy dry spells, and your game and self-possession aren’t strong enough to carry you through a slump slumming it with ugly chicks. Alternatively, Roosh’s strategy — to skip the “regular lay” girlfriends and just focus on getting laid even if the talent available is not up to snuff — is better if you can’t tolerate any kind of dry spell, if your dick is indiscriminate, and if your game is good enough that regular pickup with little downtime is within the realm of possibility.
TL;DR Don’t make a habit of banging ugly chicks. It can be as bad for your self-confidence as involuntary celibacy.
Library of Chadnet | wiki.chadnet.org