The Aunt Jemima Treatment
A few months back, Max wrote about gimmick game. In the post, he cautioned against Game itself. He correctly surmised that parlor tricks and a phony image are unsustainable. Beneath the tricks and the constructed image, you are still you. You cannot remake the wheel.
If you set out to be the Funny Guy, or the Cool Guy or the Tough Guy, the process doesn’t end with the right set of clothes and a couple of parlor tricks. Pretending is not being.
Six weeks of BJJ and an Affliction t-shirt don’t make you a tough guy. When you walk into a dive bar and order a couple of Jaeguh Bommz, everyone in the place knows you’re a nitwit.
Likewise, working routines and gimmicks will fall flat when they don’t represent You, the guy underneath.
If you are out to improve the quality of your long term relationship, this advice is indispensable. Though you can make changes to the way you interact with your wife/LTR, you cannot change the crux of your being. Attempting to do so may yield short term results, but the charade will become too tiring and you’ll find yourself back at square one, sooner rather than later.
The trick with a relationship is to tweak the margins without sacrificing who you at your core are. The trick is to not don the Emperor’s clothes, but to make small sustainable adjustments that provide lasting improvements to your relationship. As Dave said:
My study of “GAME” was NOT my attempts at becoming a “PUA,” nor was it simply “faking” a personality to “become” attractive to my wife. . .
When I met my wife, I was going to college, training martial arts 3 times a week, and always hunting, fishing, surfing, hiking, camping…something. I basically invited my wife into MY world, and she fell in love with me. I constantly took the “leadership” role and she followed without question. I wasn’t “gaming” her, but neither was I a spineless suck-up being a doormat in an attempt to gain her approval. I tried my hardest to be entertaining by being active and planning and carrying out activities for us both, and she loved doing all these different things with me.
She eagerly accepted my proposal of marriage after we dated for several years. After graduating from college and getting my first job, and getting married, all that changed. Her biggest complaint for years was “we don’t do anything anymore.”
But instead of taking the initiative and re-focusing on my mission…I made my “mission” the endless and fruitless attempt to supplicate and please her in a bid to try and make her happy…just as my father has done for my mother her entire life. And it did nothing but slowly kill her attraction and respect for me.
The distinction is important. Your wife or LTR was attracted to you. The way to maintain attraction in a relationship, to prevent against losing her respect, is to stay you once the relationship evolves. It’s not about routines or tricks, it’s about staying true to yourself. It’s acknowledging that it’s no longer about first impressions or escalation, but about maintenance.
Don’t run routines on your wife or LTR. Don’t ‘Game’ her in the pick-up sense of the word. ‘Game’ her in the sense that by behaving like a man, she’ll respect you as a man. But do so in a way that is natural for you as an individual. If you are stoic and serious, be stoic and serious. If the man who is normally serious attempts to drop a flurry of negs, past experience will suggest to the woman that he is being serious. If you are a smart-ass, be a smart-ass. Being a man does not preclude having a little fun. Masculinity is not rigidly held within one personality type, don’t attempt to box it in as such.
In closing, here’s a scene from Stripes. Check out how Bill Murray seduces P.J. Soles. He’s witty, he’s in charge, he displays higher value. Most important, he’s behaving naturally. Forget the routines, forget the memorized emulations of someone you are not and will never be. Be cool, calm, and collected, but be yourself. It’s way more believable and long-lasting than any floor show you’ve been practicing.
Of course, there is something to be said for the Aunt Jemima treatment as well.
Forgot all about Stripes. Classic scene!
Another high-quality post, Ulysses. You’re still my go-to guy for LTR advice, and this is just another fine example as to why.
Nice job tying it all together.
Oh and Sexy Move: Aunt Jemima treatment?
Yes, excellent advice for those looking to kick start an LTR.
Seems many of the PUA lessons are aimed at those young, horny guys looking for ONS and pump n dumps. Disingenuous role playing to get into a girl’s pants.
I think this advice applies to all situations outside of a club, including short-term flings. You don’t need “routines”, either on a date or otherwise. It’s useful to know some fun stories and anecdotes, and little games you can play for fun – the cube is hackneyed but genuinely enjoyable for both parties. But if you’re confident, happy, have standards for yourself and others, and are not desperate for sex, that should be enough. Thing is, most men don’t fit that description, and need game as a crutch to get to the point where they do. Probably most don’t make it, because they confuse the means with the ends.
[We've all got stories we like to tell, etc. The key is to make sure it flows from within rather than being an affectation. There is some validity to faking it till you make it, but the faking it part has to be something that's plausible for the guy who's working on his skills, otherwise he'll give it up or the veneer will fall off.]