Head over Heels for Rose
Or, that I learned more about the true nature of women from being the guy she cheated with, than the guy she cheated on.
It’s surreal. I was stressed about making it to the ship before they charged me. She was happy to tell me how great her soon to be husband was. We are both sleeping together even those we both had better places we were supposed to be. We only met 45 minutes ago, but it was a better learning experience than I could have hoped for. Hopefully I made it on board before I got charged AWOL.
You don't have to work hard, but you'll have to work long. The navy burned that saying into my head early. I would sail for half a year every year. Canada doesn't deploy often so the queen isn't gracious enough to leave you six uninterrupted months of a home-life. Instead, she takes three weeks, gives one, takes two, gives three, and takes twelve. Imagine your typical date and final words:
"I had a lot of fun with you, we should do this again, how is your October looking?" and wait for her eyes to check out. You are relegated to dating the female sailors or the girls who made their way to the base. They are called "shack rats" and they are as good a catch as they sound. If you go with the flow you'll only find the kind of girl who wants you to find her. Sailors cheat on each other more often than porn star couples while shack rats are looking for a steady paycheck and a moderately absentee father for their children. Exceptions exist, but exceptions aren't the ones swapping stories of their shitty ex-wives.
After a year I realized if I didn't sleep with a girl on the first date it was not going to happen. I was what they used to call an average frustrated chump, or an AFC. I did all the things I was supposed to do: had a good job, served my country, owned real estate. I sacrificed a lot to afford it all. I was in shape, and I "self-improved" about as much as anyone could, but there was nothing to show for it but frustration.
I was told it would be "work hard, play hard" at the recruiting office. After serving for a while it became "work hard, play by yourself at home and stay out of trouble". I was on the precipice. Either I would be a man going my own way (a euphemism for taking your sexual ball and going home) or I would solve the problem.
I chose to solve it.
It is cliché to say someone saved you, but that magical man with the feather boa, top hat, and aviator goggles did just that to my sex life. Mystery (Erik Von Markovik) and Style (Neil Strauss) with their M3 method did. There was something interesting about it. It tapped into my childhood love for systemization. I was raised on a diet of Nintendo 8-bit games. Do the same level a hundred times dying in predictable ways, eventually learning to win through sheer experience to overcome predictable obstacles. What was dating if not a giant game of Mega Man II? I gamified my sex life in the same way I gamified my workouts with GPS and a smart phone, the same way we gamified our military operations through multiple training exercises.
It took a while to get up to speed but once I did it was amazing. The routines were simple, and simple to adapt to my life. That was the appeal. It was a framework. It was something I could use and then give feedback instead of wondering why she didn't call back.
Occasionally the gods saw fit to drop a win onto my lap. There was skill to unlearning how to grab defeat from the jaws for victory. I learned a lot about myself. I learned about all the uncharismatic and unattractive traits that I had, why I had them, and most importantly how to get rid of them. I met a girl named Rose, and I learned more about women by being the other man than from the multiple occasions where I had been cheated on.
My good friend Jason and I were drinking in a pub. He was not a wingman, we were there to unwind during a hectic sailing schedule. He would have laughed about the idea of Game and had a crazy redhead waiting for him behind the bushes by his house so he didn't care. He was getting laid, stalker or no. I was the lovable jerk and he was the most interesting man in the world. Two silver tongue: one social butterfly and one introvert. It sounds like the setup to a moderately funny anecdote. He smoked when he drank, and part of my routine involved keeping a cigarette in my ear and heading out to the smoking area to be better able to have a conversation with girls. We ended up at a house party where the DJ decided he didn't want his damage deposit back. This was one of those moments where a girl just fell into my lap so long as I shut up and let it happen.
Sometimes that is all it takes; she wants a dick and any dick will do. Maybe it's revenge. Maybe it's to get it out of her system. Who knows and who cares? It was four in the morning and we both had to be dressed, shaved, and on board by seven thirty. If we weren't ready the ship left without us. There is nothing more embarrassing than the military police in a speed boat taking you to your ship while the crew watches you come over the horizon. Dead man walking! The Coxn (read: sheriff) starts preparing your summary trial and punishments while your boss scowls at you for embarrassing the department.
I didn't know Rose was engaged until she told me. She decided to tell me at 30 thrusts in. I didn't skip a beat on 31. There is something surreal about a girl telling you how great her fiancé is and how happy he makes her while I am hitting her pelvic bone hard enough to think I got an STD from the pain the next morning. I never did a routine. I never ran game. It was less than half an hour from saying hello to being in her hotel (which he paid for so she didn't have to drive back to the suburbs while drunk). It takes a really good and virtuous man to ensure his girl's safety.
I check my watch. Six in the morning. I do the math. My house is five kilometres away. Work is five more. I can make the first half of the run in twenty-seven minutes on a good day and the drive is another ten. F jetty is the furthest jetty which is another 10 minutes from the gate. It is nearest to the captain's parking spot. I can shave and get dressed in ten minutes and all my stuff is in my locker. I have 15 minutes. I wonder if Rose put this much thought into her soon-to-be marriage.
This would crush that poor guy's world to find out. I was more concerned with shaving while she was more concerned about feeling like a good person while being the bad girl. He paid for the hotel room. He may have even picked her up the next morning. I wonder what she did with the condom. I left it in the trash on the off chance she forgot about it and he thought to look. I doubt he will. Whatever, my conscience is clear. He thought he had won the lottery with this thin, attractive, blond girl and her ankle frog tattoo, the rose on her hip. Oh, I get it now, Rose, very clever. Her conservative application of makeup; her jeans and white t-shirt crumpled on the floor. The "girl next door" uniform borne out of the need for modesty. Trust freely given to her for who knows how many years, destroyed in a half an hour. Of course, I don't think I was the first guy to test hubbies trust, and probably not the last.
Now I was hung over, dressed in bar clothes, doing a 5km run to get to work. I needed to hit a personal best to make it on time. Possible while hydrated and wearing sneakers. Not dehydrated and wearing Chelsea boots.
Concludes below. chapter 2 from the first red pilled book since the Rational Male
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