Everything in a relationship is transactional
While you’ve been hanging around in The Red Pill space, you've probably heard it said that all relationships are transactional. I frankly don’t align myself with this nihilistic outlook on human interactions, but I will admit: I can see where this conviction comes from.
You’ve heard about birds of a feather flocking together, and about you being the average of the five people you regularly hang out with. That's because the male social hierarchy is based on competence. Men don’t want to associate with other men who can’t add anything productive towards an individual or common goal. Even in general, men prefer to associate with those who add value to their life - not those who take away from it. Cue Machiavellianism.
The word transactional is associated with money. As soon as someone brings up that every relationship is transactional, you naturally think of payments. This payment, however, isn’t always that obvious.
It can be about competence, as I said before. Competence has no monetary value, yet it is very valuable to people. You also have to remember that an exchange does not take place if one party does not want what the other has.
You can make a silent agreement to exchange time for value. This is what usually happens in close friendships, which are based upon valuing the other person for whatever reason that makes us want to exchange our most precious resource - time - to be with them.
It might sound cynical, but in a philosophical sense, an exchange does happen there.
But how does this apply to women?
So far, I figured that when it comes to the transactional nature of relationships with women, the only thing people get their panties in a bunch about is the currency.
Women have sex with whom they want, while men have sex with whom they can. Briffault’s Law says as much, and that has been proven time and time again in the Red Pill notes that thousands of men have swapped with each other.
Since we are coming at this from the angle that every relationship is transactional, what is it that men have that's equivalent in value to sex?
Time and attention.
Hypergamy is a two-sided coin covering security and arousal. She not only wants the long term commitment, but also the short term desire. Think about the guy she needs a dinner date with, and compare him to the guy who she matches with on Tinder at 10 p.m. asking "wyd?".
What gets men's panties in a bunch is the currency.
There are men who women spread their legs wide open for just to have a sliver of their time and attention. And then there are men who are judged on what they bring to the table in exchange for the time and attention of the women.
Men’s anger stems from not being the guy whose time and attention are enough for most women to throw themselves at them. Regardless of whether it's via looks or game, they don’t know how to trigger women’s arousal.
They approach it from the abstract, transactional perspective: a man needs to buy her flowers, take her out to dinner, pay for a special experience. But the other guy? He is the experience. He doesn’t care whether they're getting drinks or dinner on a date. He is the date.
He has her genuine burning desire.
For now.
Soft launch
Women, when they're not sure about their man, post a photo on their social media with him. Not a photo of the guy, but with the guy. It’s usually just a hand, or him in the background to see how her peers will respond.
This relatively new phenomenon sparked a discussion on social media about whether women are actually into the man they're posting or not. The experiences I've had haven’t been consistent enough for me to draw an exact conclusion about this. There have been girls who couldn’t stop posting me and bragging about me to their friends, and there have been girls who didn’t give a shit about social media and barely took a photo of us. In both cases, however, the sex was on point; and that's what really mattered to me. I’d rather measure her level of desire by looking at her actions towards me than by judging how she acts towards her followers on social media (within my boundaries, of course).
She can post photos of you two all day. But if she’s on her phone the whole time while ignoring you, you’re a prop - a placeholder boyfriend she keeps with her to look good. On the other hand, if she can’t stop touching you, calls you all the time, initiates texting, replies within seconds and wakes you up with blowjobs IN ADDITION TO constantly posting you on social media, you’re not a placeholder boyfriend. She’s infatuated with you.
Social media isn’t all that real. Don’t 'tism this shit.
Slow decline into singledom
One thing I did notice was that the girls who were into posting pictures of me, started posting less when her interest was declining. This correlated with our diminishing lust for each other. The less intimate and physical we were, the less she posted about me or us. You have to look at certain behaviors with women to know where they stand. It’s always been my go-to when I need to know whether to invest more in her or less.
Where most guys tend to chase after her, I’m telling you to mirror her behavior when she’s becoming distant. There’s an old Roissy post talking about the 3 to 1 rule which was about texting. For every 3 texts she sends, you send one back. It's something not to be taken literally, but seriously; keep it in the back of your mind when it comes to texting, posting, traveling for her or buying her gifts. Show investment when investment is shown. Remember this when you see a girl who keeps posting photos of the love of her life. What’s going on in the background?
A girl shows investment in many ways, one of which might be plastering you all over her social media. But if she starts out hot and heavy, and over the course of time you see her doing less and less of it, watch the actions you find more important. Is she still as physical? Is she still as responsive via text? Is she still as eager to meet you?
The less frequently you see her do these things, the less invested she’s becoming and the more likely it is that you’re slowly declining into singledom.
You can try to salvage the relationship by mirroring her actions, see if it was a temporary thing and find out if she’s still as hot and heavy for you as she was in the beginning, or you can go with the flow and slowly fade out of it.
Parts of a woman's genuine desire for a man manifest in many different ways. There are different ways men like to be desired - but the #1 for both men and women is sexual desire.
She can text you all day, post photo’s of you all day, want to facetime and even want to go out with you. But if she doesn’t want to touch you, she’s just not that into you. Women can’t stop touching a man they’re into. Buying you gifts, no matter how expensive, doesn’t mean anything if there’s no physicality. As soon as that’s gone, congratulations. You’re now her girlfriend.
But how do you stop yourself from becoming her girlfriend?
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