Dating

The Drought

/ T Wayne Hicks / Leave a comment

It’s been quite an eventful 18 months of no eventfulness for me.

I said it to another man the other day, very nonchalantly. “I haven’t enjoyed to company of a woman for sometime.”

Pathetic right? I’ve been on one date since my last almost relationship died in September 2021. And it wasn’t even with a woman I was attracted to, just a date just to say I had a date.

And, get this, it’s been on purpose.

When I first started this blog, it was to learn game, pick up, and the art of being an attractive, socially adept man dating after divorce.

I had success, becoming better with women, having abundance, but as my blog has evolved, it showed me that abundance in women meant emptiness in myself. I would date anyone with a pulse because there is and always has been the drive by society to say if you aren’t dating, then you are a loser.

So why in the hell would I want this? There’s more to the story below.

These days, we seem to have quite a few “losers” out there, including myself. A study by my alma mater, Indiana University, shows that 33% of men ages 18-24 report having no sex in the past year. I don’t know if there are studies for 40 something men out there, but as a man who’s living it, I have quite a bit to say on the subject.

We are seeing men in general reporting no dating and no sex. Women’s numbers have gone up slightly, but women aren’t taking the brunt of these numbers like many men are. We’re seeing an epidemic of sexlessness, and there doesn’t seem to be a solution in sight.

I watched Rollo the other day talk about hook up culture. He stated, “Hook up culture is alive and well for most women, and the top 20% of men”, but that leaves 80% of men out in the cold and we are seeing a precipitous rise in men who aren’t having any sex. And hook up culture is about the survival of the hottest.

Now I could go on and on about the causes. It could be societal shift to female dominated sexual dynamics, it could be the entitlement many women have when it comes to dating, it could be hook up culture, it could be many things. Myself and the Man-O-Circle have gone around and around on who’s to blame. Hint: It’s everything.

I’m writing this blog today to talk about it from this man’s side and what I am seeing that is holding men back from the dating market, either real or imagined, and what is going through my head on why I am intentionally not dating at the moment, and haven’t been for the last 18 months.

Does this make me a Volcel (voluntary celibate)?

The Reality

“How is a tall, attractive, successful single father not dating any women for a prolonged period of time?”

I’m certain I could make excuses up the wazoo.

My industry / career, my parenthood, lack of time to go out and meet women, where I live, my family time requirements, not religious, etc. It could go on and on forever and the excuses could pile up. You certainly can call me a loser for not going out more, as I’m always coming up with a reason to not. The point is, I’m not alone. There’s a whole shitload of people who would rather do anything but date. Younger men aren’t because it’s not as important as Call of Duty, hanging with friends, work, career, and as years pass it continues to slide down the list.

Social circles are shrinking, the ease of apps are addictive, the hopelessness is palpable.

And the message is the same for many singles I’ve spoken with in many different age groups. “Dating Sucks.”

To the 22 year old woman who says, “All it is is a meat market, and hook ups.”

To the mid-fifties divorcee women: “I don’t want to waste my time on men who are ready for a commitment.”

To the mid-thirties man: “It’s like a shitty game of musical chairs and rather than wait for the music to stop, I just left the room.”

To the mid-thirties woman: “Why go to all the trouble when he won’t commit to you? It’s getting my hopes up for 6 months only to have him cheat or get bored and leave.”

To my fellow mid-40’s single father: “My time is important. And I waste it on the dating apps, waste it on women I don’t find attractive, waste it on getting ghosted after having a good time, waste it on flaking, lying, and trying hard for an ROI that, quite frankly, is lousy.”

To the early 40’s Christian woman: “Younger men don’t want me because they want kids, and they’re too immature. Older men want younger women, and I don’t want a 60 year old man. I’d love someone my age but it seems every single one of them have issues. Not to mention I want a man who shares my faith.”

The stories and comments are an interesting look into what everyone is seeing in a dating market that is most definitely for the “haves” versus the “have nots”. And people like myself and many of the folks above, those who would be willing to date as long as it’s someone who remotely fits what we want out of a partner, would rather hold tight and focus on other aspects of our lives.

Dating gets forgotten and put on the back burner first and foremost because, let’s be honest, it isn’t fun any more.

In my time blitz dating three years ago, many of the matches I had had more issues than Sports Illustrated.

So, in a vain effort to not be seen as a loser, I decided to “date just to date”, not excluding anyone due to attractiveness, figure, salary, mental issues, etc. And it was an absolute dumpster fire. Serial ghosting and flaking, entitlement, and drama met me when I decided to swipe right on everyone who was at least halfway decent. I had traveled the country to meet women from all over, figuring it “was” a numbers game, right? The more women I get in front of, surely one or two will separate themselves from the crowd?

And when a few did? I was lied to about their relationship status (I was the other man several times), catfished, and had long distance relationships that I couldn’t possibly keep alive due to my status as a single parent with two kids and my home being here in Indiana.

With all the work I put into dating….I was exhausted after 2021. The MGTOW battle cry of “the juice isn’t worth the squeeze” harangued in my head.

So, I did the only thing I knew to do. What many people in this modern dating world are doing.

I pulled back.

I needed to do certain things involving improving my physique, health, parenthood, and family life. When my father passed away last November, I felt I had done those things better. My dating life took a back seat, after4 years (and a pandemic) of being the highlight. I got my jollies, I got to date, but I felt more empty that I ever felt, more pessimistic about my chances of finding a woman to be in my life, and wasn’t looking forward to starting up dating again, if and when things were handled in other parts of my life.

The issue here…things will never be handled. There’s never a good time to start, and it was time for me to at least try again to get out, so since December, I’ve been doing small things to get myself out and at least start meeting women. Even if it was to give my number to a server, or to go out and be friendly at new places, it’s a task I am taking great care with who I share my time with, or even who I approach. The “YOLO” and “you should be getting your dick wet” crowds continue to harp on that a man in the prime of his life should be going out and pounding everything that moves. But I submit this:

I’ve already chased pussy. That game is old for me. And while many men would never tire of it, I got tired of the drama, the juggling of women, the slashed tires, the showing up at my house in the middle of the night with my kids home threatening harm, the 3AM booty calls, the annoying calls at work, all of it.

I’ve had it, I don’t want it any more. And I value my time, and the time for dating gets cut because I’ve got other shit going on. Once again, not an excuse, but it is what it is. I have no interest in wasting my time, nor does anyone else in the same dating game as I am.

The Other Reality

Dating too often takes a back seat because….many people aren’t good at it. My dating in 2018 -2021 was Twitter, Tinder, Bumble, and the countless networking events I went to that generated dates, but nothing long term. The problems were many because it doesn’t allow for much long term connections, good conversation, and most were just looking for the quick hit, the spark, and if it didn’t happen, then a – ghostin’ we’ll go.

Dating is a chore because we treat it that way. We expect it to just be “done” and when it isn’t, it’s a drag on our whole life because we don’t want to do something that isn’t comfortable.

I haven’t been with a woman for a year and a half because I didn’t want to get hurt again, I didn’t want to rush in again, I didn’t want the same ending that has befallen me for so long. So I avoided it. So I put other things ahead of it. And I just accepted, as a pissy martyr, that I was destined to be alone.

We make excuses because we either have work to do on ourselves to be attractive again, or we don’t want to do the work to get attractive again. Because it stresses us out if someone rejects us. Rejection sucks, and no one wants to go through it.

I’ll admit I fell back into all of these things because I didn’t want to go back to the grind that was 2018-2021.

I wanted a long term relationship, and it meant having to “get back out there” which is a heavy lift for anyone, but more so for me because I, as of this writing, have never had a successful relationship. A lot of self doubt builds up because I haven’t circled this square. And I’m sure many people are struggling with these issues in their own lives, another reason why many of them are so timid to get back out and try to meet someone.

But lifelong failure doesn’t mean you stop trying.

My self-manufactured scarcity has been on purpose, because the people who I’m attracting at the moment aren’t the people I want. I could have easily gotten into dozens of “situationships” over the past two years but I have standards, I learned from 2019 that I also value my time, and from my divorce I learned that I won’t settle.

I stop watering the plants because I didn’t like the ones that were growing. The drought is self made. And it’s not out of self pity or helplessness, but the plants around me aren’t worth watering. But I have to go and get new seeds and water them.

It’s so much easier to blame so many other things than the fact that you don’t have the balls to get back out and find that person for you.

And that’s where I was for so long, until I realized that it wasn’t going to build itself.

So, in the midst of this self made drought, I have decided to go and get some water and try to find some better seeds.

It’s been deliberate, however. Not getting onto Bumble / Tinder or the online game. But trying different options, like things I enjoy, the gym, classes, hobbies, and adventures. This isn’t going to be a pickup session at a bar or a club. This is going to be me, finding my joys, and finding other people who enjoy those things as well.

The excuse making has to stop for the millions of dateless, sexless men and women in our world right now. But these people also have to make themselves better so their dating is better. But always putting off the fact that you aren’t doing well in dating because of what YOU are doing is the mirror many people need.

Yep, even me, the retired single parent ex-PUA.

It’s time to unretire and take a sip of the water. The taste of bitterness of not having a successful relationship is gone. It’s the cool taste of being the best man I can be, and finding the best woman for me. Use that water to grow relationships.

I will have a successful long term relationship.

No more excuses.

Stuck

/ T Wayne Hicks / Leave a comment

“Everybody wants to change the world, no one ever wants to change themselves.” – Nothing More – “Do You Really Want It?”

Lately, I’ve been unengaged because with almost every facet of my life, my progress has ground to a crawl.

My weight loss is still steady, but certainly not the numbers I was pulling earlier in my journey. As I get closer to my goal, the scale numbers tick smaller, as I’m starting to get closer to my second, and final, goal of 215 lbs.

My dating life has been unremarkable, getting ghosted and flaked on by girls I want to date, and getting hit on by girls I wouldn’t, leads are low.

My family is struggling with my father’s increasing health issues.

My job has been stressful, and even though we are doing well, the frustration of potential stagnations are always over the horizon.

Lately, it seems that “hurry up and wait” is the buzz phrase for my life.

But that’s the problem. I think that I have to “wait” for good things to come my way and instead of waiting, I need to be proactive and make things happen.

So in essence, I feel “stuck” by claiming that the circumstances around me are putting me in a box.

That’s not empowerment, that’s victimhood.

Looking for validation so that you can move forward is like waiting for a sign from God in the form of a burning bush that doesn’t burn.

You wait and as you wait, the walls close in around you. And it becomes more difficult to scale them, let alone tear them down. You’re looking around now and find that your situation has become a bit more tricky because you’ve not planned for this eventually.

Life will block your ass in.

I’m really good at dispensing advice but not taking it, especially my own.

And one of my favorite tweets I’ve ever written is – “If you’re feeling stuck, MOVE.”

Like being in a cave and trying to move through a 3 foot hole, you can’t go back, so you keep pressing forward (I’m claustrophobic so this analogy works for me), and it’s the only way to go, even if it’s INCHES at a time. This agonizingly slow progress, especially for me, a person who has zero patience, is part of the reason it seemed easier to just stop and wait. But the hole isn’t getting bigger, the cave isn’t going to magically open up to a staircase to the light, nor are you going to be able to find another way around this portion of the earth.

But you just can’t convulse or wriggle just to do so, you have to move with purpose and meaning. Doing jumping jacks in a cave isn’t going to get you out of the cave any faster, and it will only wear you down when you really need the strength to climb past a wall or through a crevice.

Which is why I am calmly stepping back from the mess that is currently around me and figuring out the best way forward. But mind you, it is a way FORWARD, not simply staying still. Too many times, I’ve defaulted to blaming the situations around me as the reasons that I’m not progressing the way or the timing of what I want.

“It’s where I live that I can’t meet the girls I want.”

“I’m not losing any more weight so why go to the gym?”

“My progress has stopped on my finances, time to impulse buy something that makes me feel good but I don’t need.”

“It’s pointless to try new things because I don’t have any real interests.”

Comfort zones can kill you, especially those you continue to push to justify inaction.

My inaction is a direct result of being afraid of what my actions will bring.

So, I’ve decided to move. I’ve written down things that I CAN do to make some progress in other areas, as opposed to running a list through my mind of things I can’t do.

It’s too easy these days to lament the things we want but don’t have, as opposed to taking real stock in the things we do, as well as plotting a course on how to get the things that elude us. It’s too easy these days to complain about the world at large being against us, raising a fist to the sky and cursing the “forces” that continue to keep us down, not realizing it’s our own actions or lack thereof that keeps us in the same place.

As FoE (Fraternity of Excellence) has taught me, in the absence of anything, action still makes a difference.

But it still needs to be hammered into me, by me, that I need to continue to take action, even if things out of my control are taking hold of parts of my life I want to improve.

Fitness dialed in? Awesome, continue going to the gym and being consistent so that you can get your goals.

Not seeing results in other parts of your life at the moment? Find some part of your life where you can take quick, immediate action and fix. In my case, it’s annoying things that I haven’t fixed in my home (leaky faucet, stuck toilet seat, trimming the landscaping, pulling weeds).

Not getting the girls you want to date? Start looking at why and focus on what you are doing to attract (or not attract) these women. Also, where are you going to meet new women? If you’re sitting at home after work by yourself cursing that there’s nothing you can do to meet people, realize that in REALITY, you are doing nothing to meet new people and sitting at home cursing the fact that you won’t go out and try new things to meet new people.

Altering reality to fit the fact that you don’t want to do the work to get better doesn’t change the reality, it’s only purpose is to make you feel better about your inaction.

I’ve tried to justify my lack of forward progress, in dating especially, by lamenting that I’m not in the right area to meet a good woman, whining about having to go back to online dating to swipe and sleep with unattractive women because there’s no one else out there, all while I’m sitting at work trying to motivate men to go out and make things happen. I don’t take my own advice, until now, and it’s my way of trying to motivate myself to get out of this victimhood rut. So my tweets trying to get myself out of my own head are only words, and they haven’t inspired any action from me, only wishing I would take action but not knowing how to proceed forward.

But sometimes doing something, ANYTHING towards another goal in your life can make the other parts of your life seem much easier to fix and control, and instead of waiting, you are taking action to make something positive happen.

We don’t know how close we are to a break through, but we’ll sure as hell drop the pickaxe because we’re convinced the diamonds don’t exist, even though we know damn well that they do, because we’ve held them, we’ve seen them, we know.

So, in the meantime, we sit, we wait, we hope something good will happen. We damn the bad shit that’s going on as the universe trying to kick our ass.

It’s testing us, and we are failing the test, because we are upset we have to take the test, not truly working on trying to get the best grade we can. We have to study, we have to prepare for these tests every day, so that we can pass with flying colors. But instead, we dread the test, we curse it. This has been me for the past few weeks.

“Why me?” is the question we ask as we look up at the sky.

It’s not you, it’s the world. It’s how it tests everyone. Some tests are harder than others, and that means that you have to be extra prepared for the tests.

And here’s the funny thing, WE KNOW THE TESTS ARE COMING. Yet we still postpone, get angry, piss and moan, but we know they are coming. And we still procrastinate or justify inaction, or cram and fail.

So, I’m writing this to remind myself that nothing is going to change until I take action. Regardless where the action is taken, a positive move to ANY direction is still forward. The cave isn’t going anywhere, the mountain isn’t going to disappear because I complained I have to climb it.

Tim, get your head out of your ass and get to work. You’ve dominated many things in your life, and these are just more things you need to dominate. You aren’t going to die alone, but you sure as hell aren’t going to get any women you want by sitting and complaining about it. You aren’t going to be rich if you don’t get your ass out there and do your thing by making money.

You aren’t going to weather your family through a crisis if you constantly lament that bad things happen because reasons.

You aren’t going to show anyone you’re serious until you face the fact that you have to stand up for who you are and fight everyday towards your own independence.

You aren’t going to truly have the life you want until you fight and claim every inch of it for yourself, and be prepared to fix it, to defend it, to build it sturdier, to admire it, and be the man you want to be with no more doubt in the pit of your stomach.

Doubt is the spark in the house of your life that can burn the whole mother fucker down.

Action is the hammer, the nails, the screws, the concrete, the structure you need to make sure your home is stable.

Get building and don’t stop.

The Almighty Notch

/ T Wayne Hicks / 3 Comments

I was as bad as you can get with women.

Kissed the first girl at 18.

First date at 19.

Lost my virginity at 27.

My social awkwardness and ineptitude shown through every time.

At 22, I took a first date to dinner and then to my new home being built. That was my plan, and she silently seethed as I told her the layout and how I was so proud.

“Take me home, okay?”

Dated a bigger girl just to try and lose my virginity because my friends ragged on me. Got cold feet after taking her to a friends wedding and had another friend do the deed and take her home because I couldn’t bring myself to have sex with her.

Went out with a girl 4 times and we never even kissed, just did awkward things and chatted as friends over dinner until I invited myself to her house and ghosted her before I came over.

Embarrassing fails, then came my ten year marriage and the trials and tribulations with 4 of those years being nearly sexless (1-2 a year) and my continual struggle with women, as I saw it, was the cause.

During and after my separation and my divorce I stopped giving a damn. Broke, depressed and downtrodden, I let any girl with a passable face and a penchant for saying yes in my life, and these broken women made it even more miserable.

But hey, at least I was getting laid?

Then, I discovered the Red Pill, and Pick Up Artistry.

As I got better with, the women got hotter, but also more fucked up.

My definition of success was to “get good with women”. I had no other goals beyond that. I had no aspirations for a healthy relationship because I honestly thought that just be getting good with women, all the other things would take care of themselves. After all, it wasn’t me, it was the women I was meeting, right?

Tried to fake it at first. Faked my way right into the friend zone in LA. Then back to the dead zone for having the temerity of being a player with multiple leads.

But I was having a blast, and enjoying something that had eluded me for my whole life, the experience of dating multiple women.

So, consider it a checkmark on a box that I had set out with long ago.

But it’s not, and will not be for me, considered a success.

Because all it did was bring on more problems, bigger problems. The short term brought me more sex, more women, but in the end, it brought me no closer to a long term relationship. It merely told me that I could have as many short term flings as I wanted, but that I wasn’t going to be loved, nor would I love anyone, because love is weak. Love is for men who have feelings, who have emotions, and who are simps.

And for as much fun as I was having, this was the bottom line. You have to always be hard, emotionless, and use dread game to keep your woman in line, because “all women are like children”, and they need to be in the “presence of someone who can tell them what to do”. “They won’t ever love you the way you want”, nor will they give you the deep, meaningful love you seek.

As I’ve found, PUA and LTR are incompatible terms.

In PUA, you get what you wish for, but you also get dead ends that don’t lead to anywhere good, because it all boils down to playing the game in the shallow end, when really what you need to learn is to swim in the deep end, and then you get to jump off the diving board.

As part of my journey, I’m having to deprogram myself from PUA thinking and it’s been incredibly difficult. With every passing day, I still catch myself using pick up terms, lines of thinking, even trying to be mindful on how I’m communicating to women because many of the ones who I would be willing to have a LTR with are turned off by these statements.

“The NOTCH is the GOAL”

PUA thrives on escalation, quick and extensive, in order to get to the almighty notch.

And it doesn’t matter HOW or WHO you get it with, just that you get those numbers.

And this goes with everything, approaches, either cold or lukewarm, day game, everything, because the bottom line is hasn’t changed, it’s not about getting you comfortable with talking to women, it’s about getting you comfortable talking to women then sleeping with women.

Because it’s really all about the notch.

When you get the notch, you can brag to the community about it, because you’re doing hard things. And they pat you on the back and you go out and do it again and again. But notice when they get the notch, notice how it doesn’t fulfill anything but going out and getting another one.

The beautiful unicorn is the goal, but it isn’t having a relationship with her, it’s about landing her for even a brief moment (she’s not yours, it’s just your turn) and moving on to another one.

If you’ve read “The Game” by Neil Strauss, he got so good at picking up women that it became nothing fulfilling in his life. Only when he started to have feelings for women did he start to understand the consistent dead end of this lifestyle. And by that time, the damage was done. Many PUA’s have had horrible relationships, including Mystery, because they didn’t understand that simping doesn’t die simply because you said it does. They didn’t understand that self mastery and “fake it until you make it” don’t jive in real life. They became personas, never found the real “them” and tried to apply that to all parts of their lives, with horrible results. So now it’s “don’t catch feels” and everything is cool. And it’s led to an absolute mess of a dating scene.

Look, I get it, some guys want this lifestyle and die with a smile on their face after climax. But it isn’t realistic, nor is it sustainable. Which is why many of your gurus are happily married (or at least pretend to be) with one woman. If you can pull of haram game go for it, but a majority of guys just want a ride or die to support them, love them, and be there for them. We can argue all we want about monogamy being a broken concept, but the fact remains that a majority of this world still believes in it, and as a man who didn’t believe after his divorce, I am a believer too.

Quite simply, the long term love of one trumps the fleeting love of many. It’s shallow, empty, short lived and transparent. And it gets old. You’re the dude in the club at 55, with the pony tail, who fucked his way through the city in the early 00’s, and now you’re hoping for that magic to rub off. But all you’re getting are ladies from the retirement bus, because you never bothered to make a life for yourself, a real life, and lose all the other bullshit that worked for a while, but has since stopped. There’s only one Hugh Hefner, and you ain’t it, and even after that, man made it seem as if this was the life, the world that every man wanted, even as Hef bungled his way through different marriages and arrangements.

“But at least he was getting laid by beautiful women.”

Men consistently have trouble getting laid, and this was the deficiency that PUA was supposed to eradicate. But it took the feels from the game, and it took the reason for being and boiled it down to whether she spreads her legs for you on the first date, whether you’re getting that girl in accounting to go down on you after a meeting, or whether that girl you approached on the street is a “good girl” that you have no shot with. It’s a “Dear Penthouse” that men dearly want but can’t get. It tried to quantify EVERYTHING, so that you can just look at the numbers to see what women are doing, how they act, and how a majority of them believe in “monkey branching”. Hypergamy doesn’t care, until you realize that the majority of women who we blame for hypergamy were broken human beings in the first place, with either bad upbringings, domineering or no fathers, and have no interest in taking responsibility for any of it.

And if you dare to believe in monogamy, you’re labeled blue pill and you’re doomed.

However…..

I’ve seen, in person, many men who have good women in their lives, and I see what it can do for them.

With some PUA, dishonesty was a hallmark. “Don’t tell women anything you’re doing” was the go to. Then, it was “you spin multiple plates and tell them up front what you’re doing”, but brutal honesty only works in a progressive, dystopian dating market where everyone’s trying to fuck everyone else.

You may win in the meat market, but you lose in the life partner game.

And I want to win in that game. Because it’s what I want to do.

The Reality

Nothing punched me in the face more than when I was trying to get into a real relationship and the reality of my PUA programming came up.

Women looking for a relationship don’t want to hear that you’re fucking other women and they can just take that to the bank.

And why would they?

I consistently say to men that if they found out a woman they were dating was screwing other dudes, they would be a bit concerned. And yet, many modern women do just this, and get upset when men do it as well. But it’s not ideal whoever does it, and while it shows disastrous double standards in dating, it also shows how detached we all are over sex and healthy long term relationships, and how the lines have blurred for everyone.

But the reality….the reality is much better than what the gurus tell you or want you to believe.

The Notch you get from strange women is much worse that the sex you have in a relationship.

Why? Because in a deep, committed relationship, you and your significant other open up sexually, and sex can be anything you want.

But they don’t want you to know that. Why? Because hate and anger sell. It’s easier to blame others for your lot in life than to take responsibility for yourself.

But more, it’s easier to sell gimmicks to guys who don’t want to do the work.

If you read “The Game”, you saw that in Los Angeles, when hundreds of men tried to get some of that genie in the bottle that was released, women started catching on to the ruse. Men who had used old time favorite pickup stuff like “The Cube” were suddenly being outed by women they were trying to hit on.

IT GETS OLD.

It’s cliché, but it’s true. We see men dropping out of PUA and the old guard weeps not because guys are doing what’s best for them, but because they miss the old days when they were hitting up models and actresses in the streets of the cities they haunted. Guys understand there are useful things in both PUA and the red pill, but it’s not a place they need to stay at for long. Because time doesn’t stop in those worlds, and eventually it becomes old, boring, and less important that a man getting on with his life.

“Get good with women” is and was the only end game, and once you get there, you’re adrift again because you’ve hit the mark and now you have nowhere else to go. You see men who in their prime were the best PUA’s ever, now reduced to shells of men talking about the days of game like a 43 year old over the hill dude talks about his 4 TD passes in the high school state championship.

Men have to have forward motion, they can’t just rely on inertia or momentum, because it ensures they’ll be stuck forever. Some guys can pull it off. But most cannot.

And instead of giving them consistent tools for building and growing a good life, they give them tips and tricks to get to that next phase, and drop them off like a bus stop. And we wonder why many guys are bitter about what’s happened to them.

You have to think past the notch. The best notches come at the hands of a woman who loves, supports, and is there for you. Men, married men that I know, that have taken control of their lives and become patriarchs, are having the best sex in life. Because they have a trusted person whom they break bread with every day, and they have someone who believes in them and what they are doing.

They’re having hot sex after breakfast, instead of hoping the fat girl at the end of the bar at last call is drunk enough to go home with you.

They’re going on amazing trips and doing fun things with their families, instead of getting high at a friend’s house before going out to the club to see if you can pull some girl younger than 35 tonight.

They’re having children, instead of pulling out and hoping that next phone call isn’t the girl you had sex with saying she’s late.

They’re living their lives, moving on and growing in other directions instead of harkening back to the halcyon days of when they had a threesome while high on cocaine.

I choose the group who’s creating more in the present, instead of remembering the good times, and I won’t apologize for it. It’s my choice to move forward and be more than I could have ever imagined, and there are women, many women, out there that I don’t have to dazzle with a card trick or a palm reading to get them to look. I am the game, and many women are eager to play.

Get out of the past, get passed the notch, and get on with your life.

Or be doomed to stay in the same place, in the same world, in the same dull life, forever.

Relationship Lessons – Part 3: She’s Not Your World, Just a Part of It

/ T Wayne Hicks / 1 Comment

For every girl that you unfairly appoint as your “one”, you lose her before you even had her.

For every girl you spill your guts out to, you lose a small shred of respect she might have had for you.

For every girl you let drive the bus, the more contempt she’ll have for you.

For every girl that you show you’re much too eager to please, she’ll resent you more and more.

For every girl you put on a pedestal, she’ll put you on the chopping block.

You don’t have to explain yourself all the time. You don’t have to justify everything to her. It’s a dance, and you’re doing the Seinfeld Elaine Benes “little kicks” and she’s cringing with every jive.

In the relationship world, one of the hardest things for men to do is to understand that she isn’t the goal, she’s merely a piece of the whole puzzle.

Too many times, myself most definitely included, we jump the gun with the girl who we want, we get too excited, we over-commit, over-engage, and over-explain.

When I was deep into dating in 2016-2019, at the beginning, I was outcome dependent. Each date with a girl would be the setup I needed to get back into a relationship. I put too much pressure on her. I said and did too much.

Three months. Poof. 6 months. Gone. Too eager to start a life she didn’t want me in. Too ready to say “I love you”. Too much jumping the gun. Too much romance and too little mystery. I was an open book, and she didn’t want to read me.

When I became a bit jaded after failing relationship after failing relationship, I stopped and just started fucking.

And it became easier because I didn’t have to care about the woman I was dating. I didn’t have to care because I knew it wasn’t going anywhere.

But after nearly two years of strange bedfellows, I had resigned myself to be a better person. So I worked and fought, and the class of women I met and dated improved. But with that, the clingy, cringey old me started to show his face again, overdoing everything.

Can there be a fucking middle ground here? Why, when a potential life partner comes into play, do I start my word salad, mouth breathing, full court press of said woman? Because of many things. But mostly because of scarcity. You worry that this girl might be someone you can have as a woman, as we hear, someone who “completes” you.

So what’s the play?

It’s Not About Her

My job has always been, and always will be, developing a life of success and happiness for myself.

Full stop.

Notice, if you will, that I didn’t say having a woman is required. It’s not a barometer for success. And yet, we try so hard to do it, get the house, the car, the girl, the kids, the white picket fence.

But we really, really, really don’t get at the guts of what we want from a partner, but more importantly, who the hell we are and what we represent to a potential love interest.

It’s not about her.

It’s about you. Who you are. What your life goals are. What you want out of your life.

Have you truly thought about these questions?

What do you want? Who are you? What are your life goals? What do you want to do with your life? How do you want to build your world?

Again, none of these poignant questions have anything about a woman or significant other in them.

This is ultimately about you, who you are, what you do, what your world is and dreams are, convictions, motives, beliefs, and purpose.

But men, especially modern men, fall into the trap of being too flexible on the above questions.

Scarcity mindset drives this. They’re too anxious to get into relationship mode. They feel like they have to push because they won’t get another woman who checks the boxes they need.

And this is why we say “You Are the Prize”. It’s not someone’s value in a relationship superseding someone else.

It’s you cultivating value in yourself through self esteem and confidence. Confidence in you and who you are. Confidence in what you provide as a partner. Confidence knowing that whoever gets you, gets the full you, the real you, the complete person for which healthy relationships are built off of.

If any woman or possible love interest is going to feel satisfied and content in a relationship, you need to have your shit on point. That means holding true to the person you are, regardless of missteps, screw-ups or falls in your past. That means working everyday to be the man you want to be, not the man a woman wants you to be.

She decides if she wants to be a part of your world. This is too important not to mention again.

She decides if she wants to be a part of your world.

If she doesn’t want to join your world, i.e. she wants her world, then she will have to find a partner that wants to submit to her world. That may be a man who wants to join her and take on a more submissive state. If it works, it works.

But for this conversation, and in general, my goal and men’s goals should be to build the life, and invite her to it.

If she declines, fine. It takes a special woman to want to join your world. She has to align with you on the important things. It doesn’t mean she has to align on all things, just the big ones. But it will ultimately be you inviting her to your life, and her accepting that role. For a man who wants to lead, it can’t and won’t work any other way.

If you build it, she will come.

But you also have to do the work to vet her and make sure she is worthy to be a part of your life. This is where men miss the boat, and where I’ve missed the boat dozens of times. You can’t just let her in because she makes your dick hard.

Is she supportive to your mission?

Is she a teammate that brings you joy over grief?

Is she dedicated to you and what you’re doing?

Is she aligned with your core values, your goals, your beliefs, your convictions?

Look for red flags. Always keep in mind that if you are consistently showing up, she needs to as well.

You lead, she follows. If a man decides to follow a strong woman and it works, then fine. But for this and other examples, a strong, leading man is an attractive trait for many women looking to secure their feminine.

And patience, wonderful, agonizing patience, is the key in setting up a long term relationship with anyone.

Rushing anything, especially when you are trying very hard to vet and get to know someone intimately, is relationship suicide. Pushing doesn’t help at all, in fact, it only exacerbates the situation and guarantees death by a thousand cuts through anxiety, worry, questioning, and general uncertainty about a relationship.

If you have to wonder if she’s into you, then she’s not into you.

If you don’t know where she stands, she’s not standing with you.

This is potentially months of vetting and getting to know her to find out where she stands. And she’ll be very clear when the time comes on where she stands and if she truly wants to be a part of your life.

And that’s the rub here. You, as a man, must maintain unshakeable patience, resolve, and drive when it comes to making your life what you need it to be, and only then can you invite a woman in. If there is any semblance of chaos or disorder, especially when dealing with when the shit hits the fan (and it will in one for or another), she’ll not truly be ready to let you lead.

And that is what she wants. For you to take charge and lead so she can play to her feminine strengths. That bubble she is in must be unbreakable, a FRAME, for her to paint a beautiful picture.

The “ME” Factor

I’ve failed many times in the past with relationships because I haven’t been rock solid on my life and what I wanted, what I was doing, and what my frame was. I’ve had to learn the hard way that things must be settled in my life, be it career, fatherhood, beliefs or fitness to truly attract a woman who wants to be a part of it.

But I must also be clearer on setting my convictions and not letting boundaries slide because I want something to work. I waffled so much when it came to things that I needed to be solid on that it’s been an ongoing problem with potential relationships.

So, I fall back to square one again, but this time, I MUST be honest with myself about who I am, what I want, and who I intend to share it with.

I’m a good man. I know this with all my heart.

It’s just time for me to accept that, smile in the mirror, and realize that my world is worth sharing with someone, but that someone needs to be a person who can fulfill what I need, not just because it feels good.

So I have to be honest with who I am, what I want, and what I’m willing to work with.

And, especially in many of these writings, I’ve stated that time and time again, but when the chips are down, with a chance at commitment staring me in the face, I buckle like a belt. The beta I’ve tried so hard to kill sees a chance for love and falls face first into it.

So it’s time.

And only time will tell if I can recover from these spin outs.

The Box

/ T Wayne Hicks / 1 Comment
Photo Credit: Dreamstime

Third game of the young baseball season. Double, standing at second in the bottom of the third inning.

The adrenaline of the young season already pulsing through his veins. He had scholarship offers from three D-1 schools, but this season was going to put him in the elites. The team was eliminated in Semi- State last year, but the championship would be theirs this year.

Single. He comes around easily to score. This was going to be his year.

Bottom of the ninth. He walks. He’s already scored three times, but their bullpen had issues and gave up a two run homer. Game was tied. He’s 264 feet from the sweep.

Bunt drops. He dives for second. Safe. One step closer.

He’s been giving it his all, not just for the offers, but because, he believed, he was the best on this team. And of course he was. Led in most catagiries, defensively good in the outfield, and brought it every game. Great teammate, and this was going to be his year.

Next batter. Shallow single, but not shallow enough. Give him the sign as he rounded third to hold. Fuck that. He picks up steam. He slides focusing on the plate, and the catcher has the ball. Time to collide.

He hits the catcher full speed, ball drops out. Game won. But in the commotion, in the heroic act to win the game, he comes up wincing.

“Probably just a sprain…”, he thinks. Then he feels the sharp pain in his knee. He drops. The team, in their celebration around him clears for the trainer and coaches.

He’s sure it’s not serious. But damn it hurts. He goes for X-rays. Torn ACL, sprained MCL, the blood drains from his face. There it goes, the offers, the state championship, all of it.

This was supposed to be his year.

Sometimes, we’re so focused on checking the box, pushing so hard to get it done, that we destroy everything else around us in this singular focus.

The idea of hitting a goal, at whatever cost necessary, sets us back further on other, more important things.

Instead of losing one thing, we lose everything. In the example above, the best player that the team needed, pushed when he didn’t necessarily have to. And in his push, it cost him and his team the championship. It cost him offers. But most of all, it cost him himself.

Sometimes, playing smart means taking the short term L for the long term W.

Blazes of glory don’t do you any good when you’re dead.

Injuries don’t help you because you can’t play.

We give people shit sometimes for not going 120% all the time, because we think they aren’t trying hard. Whereas, many of them are playing the long game, understanding that it’s difficult to go undefeated if you don’t have your best on the field.

The goal of fixing the light socket doesn’t really matter if the house is burning down around you.

For a long time, at my job, I have two chess pieces in my office. A king and a queen. I knew I had to be a king to get the queen. But for years, and even recently, I’ve been caught up in checking that damn box and getting a woman that I could call mine.

I’ve written so much, so many times about how a woman shouldn’t be your focus, and here I was, making it that, trying to check that damn box, because I thought, after years of frustration, I had finally gotten to the relationship I wanted.

Nothing else mattered, no how she felt, not the timing, not the whole situation. Taking my time wasn’t in the cards, because I had to check that box.

So here I am again. I won a battle, but lost the war. I focused on home plate, but wasn’t concerned with this woman’s reaction to all of it. It wasn’t fair to her. She didn’t get a say. And that wasn’t right.

We, as men, are taught to lead, and they will follow. But we also can’t go off half cocked, shooting from the hip, especially when there are other people involved. It does zero good to build a life with someone by smothering them in your plans, aspirations, and goals without talking to them.

Assumptions are the mother of all fuckups.

If you want a “Ride or Die”, she has to be holding onto you right on the bike, not being dragged behind by a chain.

All because I wanted to check that box.

All because the idea of a significant other overrode all other scenarios. I didn’t make her a teammate, she was a subject, an object that I gave no mind to, all for trying to check that box.

It hurts because it was an unforced error.

It hurts because it could have been prevented.

I was too selfish to see that the plate was blocked, and I was going to get hurt sliding in.

Many of the lessons I’ve talked about in my past posts on this blog have only been given lip service to me and I haven’t truly lived some of them, especially in relationships.

It’s very humbling to have your words used back at you to tell you you haven’t been true to who you say you are. It’s mirror work that needs to happen, and as strong as I am in many aspects of my life, my relationships with women still need a ton of work.

And that starts with me. It starts with applying the lessons I’ve talked about, but apparently haven’t fully grasped.

It’s leading, not dictating. It’s strength, not dominance. It’s empathy, not stubbornness.

It’s confidence, not desperation. It’s abundance, not scarcity. It’s outcome independence, not hanging my hat on a star.

It’s patience, not pushing. It’s understanding, compassion, and humility.

A man who is measured, strong, and content in his life won’t be eager to check a box. He sees home plate and a shallow single, but also sees the hold sign at third. He knows that he’ll still be playing in the next series, win or lose, because he listened instead of busting ahead haphazardly.

I wasn’t ready. I was only ready to check the box. And checking the box doesn’t mean shit if the whole world is burning around it.

It does you no good to be sitting out injured while your team goes on without you when they didn’t have that choice. You made that choice when you rounded third, and you hurt those who depended on you, who loved you, and who believed in you.

But most of all, you hurt yourself. You made choices that you know weren’t right in order to justify checking that fucking box.

This blog has always been a journal for me, taking the lessons in life, the experiences that have shaped me, and applying them and learning from them. But there are still lessons I haven’t learned. Still things I have to apply. Still places where I’ve fallen short, merely pretending to learn while not truly grasping these situations.

This isn’t a simulation. This isn’t a sheet of paper with boxes to check off. This is real life, love, and other people with feelings, goals, desires and aspirations. They matter too, and in the quest to find a quality LTR, they have a say. They’re your teammate. They’re your lover, they’re your friend. They aren’t a mark on a paper, a post on social media, a trophy that you can add to your mantle.

I have work to do. I’m still trying to be the best man I can be, I’m working everyday to put what I preach into practice. But there are still blind spots that I need to address, especially when it comes to relationships.

But as I’ve always said, and recently forgotten: “You can’t have a quality relationship until you love yourself.”

Everything about you has to be sincere, honest, and representative of who you are striving to be.

I’ve forgotten some of that, and those closest to me have made it very clear that this is a pattern I need to correct. And I intend to.

Time will tell.

Relationship Lessons – Part 2: Vetting

/ T Wayne Hicks / 1 Comment

“She’s the one.”

How many men have said this with a girl they’ve just met?

How many men have told their friends and family about a woman who they saw, asked out, and said this?

How many men have said this simply by judging a 5 minute conversation they had with an attractive woman?

How many men have said this after a first date?

How many men have said this after several dates?

And how many men have been absolutely destroyed when they find out that the woman behind the beauty is a crazy person?

How many men have fallen asleep on the fact that the woman they fell for has more issues than Sports Illustrated?

How many men have realized the woman they thought they loved didn’t have a tenth of things in common with him that he thought?

We’ve all been there, gents.

My relationships always started off hot. But they fizzle fast. Why? Because, as men and women, especially in this day and age, when we find someone who is somewhat decent, we grab onto them like grim death, never looking at the potential consequences on not doing our homework on the person.

I’ve said many times that men will do research on cars, fitness, stuff they’re putting into their bodies, or buying a house, but when it comes to putting in the work on a woman they are dating, it’s fucking clown shoes.

Just because she’s got a pussy doesn’t mean she can skate by your scrutiny of her.

If any man truly wants a long term relationship with a woman, he has to know himself first. And to know himself, he has to have a checklist of major things that need to be in effect for her to even have a shot.

@ParabolicTrav has told me many times: “You determine who gets to be in your life.” Don’t sell yourself short on what you want in a relationship.

I consider vetting to be how a man, from the waist up, judges and checks a potential mate.

But how many men have truly vetted a woman? How many men have put her through her paces, asked the really tough questions, figured out the hang ups, or even had the uncomfortable conversations with her about certain things she believes, understands, or preaches about?

Vet and Vet Often

So how does one vet? If you’re like me, when I first got into a serious relationship, the first one with my future wife and ex-wife, I didn’t ask the questions, I merely let the relationship take over and take me with it. Why didn’t I ask the tough questions? Because, I was smitten, I figured she was okay, and for the most part she was, but there were several sticking points that came up after the relationship was established that should’ve derailed it, but it was too late.

So what is vetting?

Vetting is, in my words, a man’s big head telling the little head to slow the fuck down.

I’ve used an example of “shake her purse, and if it sounds like maracas, run.”

But seriously, you have to be able to look before you leap. Men fail to ask the tough, potentially interaction ending questions and allow the relationship and the woman to take the lead on this creature that is the potential relationship.

So what would a typical vetting session be about?

Have you asked a potential love interest:

  • If they are financially responsible?
  • if they have a history of mental issues?
  • if they are religious or not and if that jives with whether you are or not?
  • Does she have kids? Want them or not?
  • What’s her relationship with family, friends, her exes?
  • What habits does she have? Are they healthy or not? Does she drink too much? Smoke? Drugs?
  • Does she have feminist beliefs? What are her political preferences and is she open minded to other points of view?
  • Is she physically fit? Does she believe in being in good shape?
  • Does she share the same beliefs, goals, purpose, convictions?
  • Does she take responsibility for things she does or doesn’t do?
  • Does she take good care of herself mentally, spiritually, and physically?
  • Does she believe in traditional gender roles, or is she the boss and that’s it?
  • Does she keep a clean house?

These are just a sampling of the vetting questions men need to be asking women they are interested in. You are the captain of the ship. She can either get on board, or not. And the best way to ensure this is to keep vetting, even when the relationship progresses.

Good vetting only happens when you are solid in your frame and all of your life. You have a set of directives, goals, convictions and beliefs that you work off of. You hold to these unmovable traits. This is your FRAME.

She can choose to enter it or not, but when you have these sets of guidelines, she sees them, understands them, and then it becomes her choice to enter your world. But bear in mind, it is her choice, not yours. The minute you change to accommodate her, flex a piece of your frame, bend it and shape it to something other that what you apply in your own life, you’ve lost that part of the frame forever. You can’t get it back. Consistency is key in all of this. And keeping it consistent as well throughout the life of the relationship.

But the pull from the little guy is something that you must overcome. We’ve all seen hot girls, and when we see one our judgement is clouded by the prospect of blowing her back out.

Vetting helps to prevent this as well as puts you in control of the situation and how it is to go.

You have to ask the questions and not be upset if she walks.

You have to be able to hold your frame and be flexible on things not associated with your core values. She will bump up against that frame often to make sure you are holding true.

The Importance of It All

Why do I continue to push this?

Because, as with millions of men who have been affected, the modern man has not been properly introduced on the importance of vetting.

We see it every day. Men will do research on a car, house, stocks, crypto, etc., but when it comes to a woman, he’ll trust his dick over everything else.

And while she may make you feel good down there, the feeling of missed opportunities to feel her out while not wearing a condom come back to haunt men that take this road.

We see men who knew one thing about the woman they married but get a completely different person when the wedding ends. They get a woman who didn’t tell them she had declared bankruptcy, had Borderline Personality Disorder, had gone to jail, was a serial cheater, etc.

As a man, how much do you really know about her? Men ask me why they need to know things as long as she loves him. This is a disastrous mistake. A man must care about protecting himself, his frame, his assets, and other things that can be destroyed in divorce.

This is why, as a man, you have to park the urge to accept the woman just because she slept with you. When I lost my virginity at 27 to the woman I would eventually marry and then divorce, I didn’t have the intuition to ask the tough questions. I was fearful of losing steady pussy and a woman I thought I loved if I had decided to call the ball and take her to task on her questionable past.

With the state becoming a third party in marriage, it’s so important in this day and age for a man to properly vet a woman who wishes to become a part of his life. The stakes are incredibly high for men to protect everything they have and until more men start to see the consequences of marriage and divorce without vetting.

When you don’t do the work, you tend to get bit in the end.

There is also a misconception that you can vet EVERYTHING. You can’t. You, at least, must vet the BIG things, because you can’t anticipate all the little things you’ll miss.

And she’ll most certainly be vetting you, although most women don’t have to do the work that men need to do in order to vet their partner. The woman holds the keys to sex, the man holds the keys to commitment.

If you truly are a high value man and hold yourself in that regard, not just any woman can be with you. Your boundaries will determine what woman can be in your life. You will have a self contained assessment tool in your head about who can be in your life.

So vet and vet often. Work on securing and strengthening your boundaries, convictions, and beliefs, bending to no one when it comes to your core values.

And make sure a women who wants to be in your life is going to be good for your life.

Mistakes in accepting just anyone in relationships can cost a man dearly.

Incompatible Lives

/ T Wayne Hicks / 1 Comment

“It’s time for you to be a father, not chase tail all over the country.”

The voice cracked on my cell phone.

Angrily pacing in the airport, waiting on my return flight, with the phone clutched tightly in my hand, I countered, “It’s about me at this point in my life, my focusing on myself is not wrong. You can’t pour from an empty cup.”

My daughter had been crying in the background when my mother spoke next.

“You’re a shitty father. Your kids need you and you’re flying around chasing pussy.”

I had never heard my mother speak this way to me, and it shocked me greatly.

“Has everyone lost their damn minds up there? Do I get time to myself to travel, date, and sleep with women? What business is it of yours what the hell I do when I don’t have my kids?”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that your kids need you and you’re not here”, she said.

I had this happen before. It was clear as day to me.

Back in my marriage, my miserable dead end marriage, my ex used to call me at work with kids crying and guilt me into trying to come home, saying “they miss you”.

She would leverage my job against my family and she knew she was doing it. And here was my mother, another women in my life, trying to guilt and shame me into coming home because my daughter was a mess.

My daughter had been suffering from anxiety, a curse that I passed down to her, and she wasn’t coping very well. And as her screams and cries harangued in the background of my phone call that day, I wasn’t having another woman in my life try to tell me what I needed to do, leveraging my lifestyle with my kids.

I wasn’t hurting anyone. I was just going out on my time that I didn’t have my kids, traveling and meeting new people, and yes, I was having sex with women. So? “What the fuck?” was going through my head big time as I tried and failed several times to calm down. So there I was, in an airport in Pensacola, yelling at the phone.

Before this altercation, I had spent the better part of 2 years traveling all over the United States, by car and by plane, visiting places I’d never been, meeting people from Twitter and other walks of life, and yes, sleeping with women.

I had spent the majority of my 20’s working, not dating, and being terrible with women. My 30’s were spent with marriage and kids. And after I jettisoned my marriage after 10 years at 40 years old, it was time, albeit late, for me to sow my oats. I hadn’t had this kind of power with women in my life and I wanted to try it out for a spin. I was doing it within the rules of my divorce.

There were weekends I didn’t have my kids, so what harm was it for me to go and enjoy my life?

“I really thought I had thought this through” was running through my head.

Conundrum

Why wasn’t I able to pull this off? I thought I had done my homework. Why in the hell was I dealing with this?

I wanted to continue to travel. I wanted to continue to date all over the country. I wanted to continue having fun with my free time.

But what I didn’t understand? With my particular circumstances, with who I was, and with what I was doing, I couldn’t pull it off.

Some men can and do.

My kids were suffering from my absence, even if I didn’t believe it.

Yes, when I was there, I was there for my kids. But, I wasn’t really there. Between work, hotels, flights, rental cars, date nights, and all the other stuff that was piling up, I was missing from my kids lives. My mind wasn’t where it needed to be. With pussy, dinner plans, and travel getting the lion’s share of my attention, I was mailing it in with my kids.

They needed a strong, grounded father who had built a foundation of strength and stability. They were getting neither from me. And when the inevitable blowups occurred, they (and the women in their lives) needed a strong, masculine calm to break the tension, something that I could not provide at that moment.

And I knew it. Damn I was having fun doing this life. But in a round about way, even if my mom was wrong for calling me a shitty father, she was right about one thing. This wasn’t me, and I wasn’t there.

I couldn’t pull it off. Some other dude could. I couldn’t.

So, as I left the airport bound for home that day, I had to rethink my entire strategy and if it was even possible to have these incompatible lives.

My mother had said very hurtful things to me. Things that I knew weren’t true, but things she had never said to me before. I had to grasp why she felt this way.

The women in my life (mother, sister, and ex) were losing control of the situation because I never had it under control. I took off week after week for a new destination, all while leaving these women in charge of a situation that I figured they had control over. But the minute I left, the shit hit. Why?

Because I wasn’t there. Not necessarily there physically. But there. My presence. My infrastructure. My frame. My setup. My processes.

I had done none of it to help offset any issues that I was hoping wouldn’t come up. I knew about my daughter and her volatility. I still did nothing. I blindly let myself get away with it, and now the check had come due.

She wasn’t getting her dad. She was getting a dude mailing it in on the days he was around and passing it off to others on the days he wasn’t.

The one thing I had wanted in life was to be good with women, and here I was, better than I’d ever been, and I was being asked to give it up for my kids?

Yes. Yes I was.

My kids needed me.

Putting It To Bed

Did I have to give it up?

The thought and question raced through my mind as I flew back home.

The flights lasted longer than any other I’ve ever taken, because I was being asked to let go of something I like doing, but it was becoming detrimental to my home life.

I understood, finally, that I could travel and do some of the things I wanted to do, but just not to the scale of how I was doing them.

I had to get back home and plant firm ground to give my kids the foundation and frame they needed to thrive, even when I wasn’t around. So I did just that and established myself firmly.

And as if by magic, my kids improved dramatically.

As Zac Small says, “Presence is greater than presents.”

And it was proven after my flight landed that night.

A year later, I went back to my mom.

I went up to her, gave her a hug, and told her I forgave her for calling me a shitty father.

She apologized for calling me that as well.

She understood that I had improved as a father, by simply being there for my kids, as opposed to being there for unnamed women.

No amount of pussy is worth jeopardizing your family over.

The women in my life that were the most important to me were getting the full me, finally.

Daughters, mother, sister were getting me, but also, the real me. I wouldn’t put up with any shit, but I would respectfully acknowledge that I was lacking in certain areas as a father, and that was more important to me to correct than any other issue at that time.

And my job was to make sure that my kids got me first and often. I needed to be there for them, even if it meant sacrificing my short term goals, I had to focus on the long term of my kids.

My lives, for just me, were at the moment and for the foreseeable future, incompatible. I couldn’t be the single dad who picked up girls any more. I had to just be the dad. And be a good one, which I knew I was.

But I also had to come to the realization that a long term relationship is what I wanted.

I just had to come home.

Attractive Versus Hot

/ T Wayne Hicks / 1 Comment
Photo Credit: Barnorama

She was gorgeous.

I saw her when I first walked into the room at the networking event. I went over to the bar and talked with the bartender for a moment, then ordered my usual Zombie Dust ale. I had been to many of these before, but this was the first time I’d seen this woman at this kind of event. She wore a light blue business suit, lace cami underneath, and a pearl necklace. Her eyes were as brown as mine were, and her dark brown hair was long and thick.

I sat at the bar watching her set up her booth, a sales table to give out free shit and promote her company. Her boss was flirting with another girl across the room while I looked into her eyes. She kept looking away. Her heels were on point. Fashion pumps with a fresh pedicure. I noticed everything about her. Her earrings, blue hoops matched her suit. She knew what she was doing.

So naturally, I went over to her. We started talking about her company, what she was doing at this networking event, and all the blah topics, but I eventually got her to open up and with a few drinks, we were having a good time as the networking event ended.

What was funny throughout all of this, is the mask was slipping a bit on her. She was obviously a drinker, party girl, but it was amazing how little it took for her to let her hair down and get out of her “business” mindset that made her nervous and unsure about herself.

Liquid courage does it every time.

Sure, she said she had a boyfriend, but she wasn’t acting like it. Touching my leg, whispering in my ear, other things that stated that she was unattached for the right guy.

There were other women there, but they weren’t as “hot” as she was. They didn’t command the room like she did. They were more homely, more reserved, less obnoxious, but they weren’t as hot as she was.

Men let women get away with a ton of shit when they’re hot.

This was the first 9 I had hit on, flirted with. My new found confidence, improved physique, and improving social skills were winning the day. This was what I had prepared for. This was the hotness I wanted in my life.

What I didn’t know at that time…..was that she was a 9, but she was also a damn handful.

I was just stoked to have pulled a hot girl. For months before, as I was working on my game and my approaches, I would go up to hot girls and be smacked down like a weak jumper in the paint. But, all of the sudden, the work was paying off, and I felt as if this was the big time that I was finally going to get some of that top-notch pussy that all the guys talk about.

Other women would look, try to get my attention, but I didn’t care. I had the hottest girl in the room flirting and touching me. Time to take this party on home and enjoy the spoils.

And enjoy I did. I’m sure we did things that her boyfriend didn’t get to do with her.

It was everything I had ever expected and more…..until I woke up the next morning.

Hot But Not Attractive

As I was learning, there was a difference in her attitude when she was not “in character” trolling for dudes in the dregs of the networking circuit. She would proudly claim “boyfriend” if her suitors were not properly attractive enough for her to deem worthy.

And this was just the tip of the iceberg. She was demanding. She had been used to men doing what she wanted because she was hot. When she came across a guy who didn’t, she immediately began the shit testing in earnest. And as I was finding out, she wasn’t a very deep person, meaning she kept her eyes on her phone one minute, and the mirror the next. She had tons of admirers….

As we started dating, I knew it wasn’t going to last very long. She wasn’t interested in anything but the attention she got from the guys she wanted. It was all about her, so it stood to reason that our little escapades weren’t going to last long at all.

Look, the sex was great. Her body and face would make me hard in a heartbeat, and I’d spend quite a few hours pounding away at her. But after the release, my post nut clarity (h/t to Donovan Sharpe for that little nugget) told me this girl was trouble.

Her liberal, “empowered”, independent woman mindset was getting older by the minute.

She belched like a trucker, she was a fucking slob, she was jealous of other girls who I spoke with, all while chatting away with other guys (of which I was slowly not giving a shit). I was under the impression of the many guys in PUA who had told me, “Dude, no matter how hot she is, some dude, somewhere, is tired of her shit.”

She would constantly try to start shit, even when we were out together at dinner. She would shit test incessantly just to try to get a rise out of me. Her self-esteem hinged on being able to challenge me at every opportunity, and it was getting tiresome.

The final straw came when one night, she decided to start talking shit to me when I was at a dinner event with some friends. I wasn’t going to stand for this anymore. So as she started to escalate, I left. And I never looked back to her.

I felt like I had won a prize at first, but then I felt as if the prize wasn’t as pristine and great as it had led me to believe.

She was high maintenance, an attention whore, a slob, and a deeply flawed human being.

But at least she was hot, right?

She would constantly challenge me in front of people, hoping I would erupt and fight back. Constant shit testing became a wear on my nerves.

But at least she was hot, right?

The sex was great. She was extremely good-looking. And I forgave many things she did because her ass looked good in a dress and she wore the heels I liked. But she was always on her phone, talking to who knows, planning her next dude, and this temporary fun time proved the point of the manosphere that “she’s not yours, it’s just your turn” was real as fuck.

But at least she was hot, right?

As I grew older, wiser, and dated more, I found out some things about women that I needed to find out. As soon as the leash of a dead marriage was off of me, I started to go all out in search of the hot women, because I was told they would make me happy. Having hot sex with a hot girl was what life was about. And in some way, yes, I’m glad I experienced it with her, but in many other, mounting cases, there was a reason she was single with a boyfriend for convenience.

Attractive But Not Hot

So after repeating this approach with hot women, and understanding that there were issues with the women I was dating, I started to up my own qualifications. No longer was it just about being a hot woman, it was about more than that. I started to look deeper into the women I was hitting on.

The thrill of banging a hot woman was getting old now. I understand that there are many men who would’ve killed to be in these positions and that I was looking a gift horse in the mouth if I wasn’t going to use my newfound powers to plow different girls, but I just didn’t see the benefit, especially if my mental stability was at stake.

So I pulled back. I regrouped and focused on what I really wanted in a woman that wasn’t being proudly displayed in public.

I started to talk to women and hit on them if I truly was attracted to them. The women I walked by so many times before at the networking events, at the restaurants, at the bars, that weren’t as hot, but were still good looking, were the ones I would talk to.

Many of them were non-starters, but more than enough of them were better and less work than the 8’s and 9’s I had struggled with.

And I was getting better with all women, but I was also raising my personal standards with women. I wasn’t going to just sleep with a woman for the hell of it, because while it was fun, the price of getting my dick wet wasn’t worth the mental anguish I was getting by dating these girls.

I was looking for a “Ride or Die”, a woman who would come into my world and be willing to be a part of it. It was her call. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t say I’d take a few hotness points less for a woman who would support me and be my “Ride or Die.”

As the old adage goes, “I’d rather date a 6 or 7 than put up with an 8 or a 9.”

There’s something to be said about a woman who has her shit together and is attractive in other ways besides looks. I’ve seen women who were a 5 or 6 who were more feminine, softer, and more attractive than the hottest 8 or 9. That’s because attitude either adds or subtracts from a woman. The hottest girl can be the most unattractive asshole if she opens her mouth. Hotter girls are more entitled, as they’ve had men waiting on them hand and foot for much of their lives.

As I’ve always said, the most unattractive hot girl is one that knows it.

Humility and being humble are extremely attractive in women.

Look, I’m not saying find the ugliest, fattest chick you can get because she might be attracted to you. You’re allowed to have standards. But be aware of the hot girls and the baggage they bring with their looks.

As a guy, it’s important for you to sow your oats. And yes, getting experience with hot women is what every guy wants. But be aware that it’s not everything.

Get your dick wet with a hottie. And if you’re lucky enough to find a hot girl that is actually humble and has it all together, hold on to her like grim death.

There are unicorns out there, they just need to be attracted by a beast of a man.

Uncharted

/ T Wayne Hicks / 2 Comments
The lighthouse at Sanibel Island, Florida

When I first started this blog in September of 2018, it was going to be a basic blog on game, approaches, and my progress with conquering one of the biggest challenges of my life, that of being able to be good with women.

It was just a blog.

I was coming off another unsuccessful relationship with a liberal woman, getting into another doomed-to-fail relationship with another liberal woman, and was getting myself red-pilled after enduring two years of post-divorce discovery of who the fuck I was.

I had, two years earlier, divorced my wife of 10 years after enduring a marriage rife with problems. I didn’t know my ass from a hole in the ground, so I grabbed on to whatever I could during that time, including many women who were toxic. I was working hard at my company, drinking with my friends, getting and staying fat, and had zero direction while I floated from relationship to relationship, date to date, day to day, just waiting for something to happen.

This was my life, and I didn’t see a way out except to play by the rules.

But, as we know, rules were meant to be broken. Part of the foundation of myself built on my divorce was the fact that my decision to divorce was made by ME, by only me, and my choice to not be miserable anymore. But it was a journey, as I was starting, that I didn’t have a solid destination. And that’s some scary shit for a man going on 40 who’s basically restarting his life. Add in running my own business, raising two children, and trying to become a patriarch of my family all while not knowing who the hell I was, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. It’s no wonder many men who divorce have disastrous consequences follow them as they don’t know the hows, whats, or whys on what the hell they need to do to rebuild their lives, so they just grab on to whatever floats by, and it’s usually a water moccasin ready to bite them in the ass.

So as I was dating, I blogged as the Red Pill Dad, dishing my experiences with game, my approaches, my style, and my numbers. They weren’t great, but I figured anything I could do to keep my spirits high as I moved from girl to girl, trying to get better talking to them, would be quality content. So I blogged about it. I blogged about my red pill journey, my failures in relationships, my relationship with my ex-wife, and kept reading, studying, and writing as best I could to keep my mind off of this life I was trying to rebuild.

But then, in Early 2019, I was convinced that the rebuild WAS my life.

The Journey Began

It became more than game. It became a man who was on a journey to find himself, his purpose, his convictions. He spent his life being pulled in different directions by special interests and women who benefited from his work. As I placed myself back firmly in control of my life, I was seeing that the red pill was more than just a piece for getting laid. It was an integral part of taking my life back. Meeting women took a back seat to my voyage to find myself and take my life back, so it was getting more and more about the moral, financial, and personal dilemmas that men face after divorce that was taking up my writing time.

I was working out, on pace to lose 80+ pounds and regain my health. I was raising two children as a single dad. I was running my own business. I was struggling to take my life back from those who deemed it theirs. And it was pissing all of them off. For years I had thought I was wrong to alienate my friends and family from my inner circle because they would always shame me for daring to make my own decisions. So I cut those fuckers loose.

I was evolving.

Even friends online were telling me that my “Red Pill Dad” moniker was not really embracing my writing evolution. So, after a talk with a friend, I changed to “A Father’s Journey”. It was about telling men my story so they could see what I was doing. It was about showing men that life crises can be overcome with a strong back and the willingness to fight every day for who you are.

So I shifted my focus. And it was an amazing journey. I started writing about the aspects of my life that were affected when I started to take control of my life again. Parenthood as a single father, dating, and sex as a single father, life as a business owner, and other subjects began to dominate my feed. I was losing weight, taking back control of my life, all while tweeting and writing about it. My world was changing, and I had to chronicle it. My goal was to show men that regardless of obstacles in their way, their journey continued with them at the helm of it. It was a no-excuse time to take control of their lives. So I wrote and blogged about what they could do, what experiences I had, all while showing them that the fear they felt was certainly palpable, but also, faced and overcome.

As I would later find out in my re-brand, I was becoming a beacon to men out there struggling to take back their lives from the tide of an unfair family law system, a feminist society hell-bent on destroying masculinity, and the proof that there is an amazing life after divorce. Second chances are not given often, and men who fail to take these chances to improve their lot in life physically, mentally, and spiritually are doomed to be nothing more than a casket with onlookers lamenting the “could haves” he missed out on.

Not me. Not in this lifetime, and not on my watch.

So I opened my DM’s and I opened my life.

The off limits portions of the Red Pill Dad were now open for business.

My life was theirs to see. I knew it needed to happen. I knew they needed to see what I was going through, what I was learning, how I was growing and failing, for them to see what they could do to improve their lives.

They needed to not only learn to be alone, but THRIVE at it.

They needed to accept their circumstances, but also create better ones.

They needed to understand the fight for their lives doesn’t stop when the sun goes down and they go to sleep.

They needed to always be making moves to free themselves from a world that only wants them for their work.

For all of their lives up until that point, it wasn’t about them. It was time to make it about them.

My taking back control of my life is what my journey was up until that point. It was about writing to let men know that they actually have a choice on what they can do in their lives. They can learn and improve from their mistakes, but they have to make them first.

And maybe, just maybe, the young men reading my blog can avoid what I did. Maybe they can take the steps needed to take back control. My writings, videos, and shows would be a guide. That was my goal, and it still is to this day.

But the journey has changed. And I’m in very new territory. And I’m embracing the new challenges ahead.

Uncharted Father

As many of you know, I’m writing a book that will detail my life before my marriage ended into the divorce proceedings and eventually to the other side.

As I’ve been writing the book, I’ve been trying with increasing difficulty to come up with a name for my untitled book.

Then in January of 2020, I hit on something.

Every year, I go on a vacation by myself to Southwest Florida, specifically Fort Myers, and one of my favorite places on earth is Sanibel Island, home of a famous lighthouse. I go to that beach every year, and my family for over three decades has been living in the area as a second home. So on a particular day at the beach, I walked by the lighthouse and had an epiphany.

My purpose has been to help men who were in my situation, or any situation for that matter, to be better and overcome the slings and arrows of life’s folly. My purpose has been to be a guide to those men who would look out and see darkness, only to be greeted by a faint light of my help. They could choose to follow it or not, but the light is always there telling them of the impending rocks on the shore.

But it also represents the unknown.

What life there is still left to live is going to be unpredictable, and you as a man must plan accordingly. Being constantly prepared for all that life has to offer, both good, bad, and ugly, is a man’s first job. He has to be a beacon, a watch for anything that comes his way to do him harm or pleasure, and he must adjust to embrace this eventuality.

There will be things that happen that you can’t prepare for but must, there will be places you go that you’ll have no clue how to navigate, and there will be times you have to remember in order to move forward in the present and future. In any case, as a man, you must be prepared.

So, on that January day, I decided that my journey had indeed changed and I was navigating uncharted waters.

In every aspect of my life, I was an “Uncharted Father”.

Everything I had done I had done with very little knowledge, only the action to make things a reality in my life, the time to try to help as many men as I could, and the willingness to make as many mistakes as I could in that pursuit.

Men needed to see my struggles in this new life, and they had, but now, they needed to see my foray into new avenues, relationships, and opportunities. My actions and thoughts during this time as well as my past would be a beacon for men looking to make their lives better.

I’m not going to let these men down.

I’ve seen too many men take their own lives, get divorce raped, fall back into damning habits, and destroy their lives because they didn’t know where to turn, didn’t have a tribe that had their back, nor did they have a place they could look for support and accountability.

So I ran with it. And my symbol (I’m a big believer in symbolism) is the very lighthouse I’ve spent much of my life admiring. It’s a symbol of my goals as a man to continue to shine brightly to my kids, my girlfriend, my family, my friends, my business, and all the other things in life that need my light to survive and thrive. I want to be an inspiration to men everywhere of what they can do to navigate crises in their lives and how to come out on the other side better, stronger, and more determined.

My journey has changed. It’s a whole new ballgame. And it’s time for myself and other men like me to “Blaze Our Own Trail.”

I am The Uncharted Father.

Of A Certain Age

/ T Wayne Hicks / 2 Comments

The manosphere, for lack of a better term, has become a driving force in helping men get control of their lives. From unplugging men, to fitness, to inter-gender communication, sex, relationships, philosophy, and all in between, I’ve seen many men get the help they need.

But as I’ve detailed in many past posts, when it comes to defining women and what a man needs to look for in one, the blacks and whites of the manosphere ideology come out.

In one of my most read blog posts, The Single Mom Dating Dilemma, parts of the manosphere pursue unapproachable extremes when it comes to the type of women you MUST have in your life.

Exaggerated at times, there are those who DEMAND you only date virgins in their early 20’s and as they age and the more the world pierces them, the lower quality they become.

The manosphere tends to skew to the ideological outliers when it comes to getting men to ONLY choose women who haven’t been “tainted” with promiscuity or feminism.

Single motherhood is frowned upon, even as I write in my own experiences that I’ve seen the opposite from good, upstanding single moms who I’ve dated.

But there are BAD single moms, but not all single moms are BAD.

There are BAD older women, but not all older women are BAD.

THAT’S the difference here.

My job, as I’ve tried to show, is to portray an accurate picture of the dating world and what I’ve found using inter-gender tropes, for the most part, has helped me avoid the bad women. But there are still too many guys who go to the same well when it comes to judging all women as bad if they fit into a certain category.

This particular blog will help to tackle one of the biggest tropes out there that, just like single motherhood, is trying to paint with a broad brush a picture of women that isn’t entirely true and has too much nuance to be so black and white.

Yep, the dreaded WALL.

Walls

The wall, coined in Rollo Tomassi’s excellent book, The Rational Male, is the point when a woman’s SMV (sexual market value) starts to decline. And depending on how a woman used her “party years”, her wall may come earlier than other women. As I call it, a woman who’s been “rode hard and put away wet” has a tendency to hit the wall much sooner than women who don’t.

SMV Chart – Credit “The Rational Male” by Rollo Tomassi

This chart, while valuable in it’s analysis of the analytics of gender sexual value, can be read to tell me to avoid older women, simply because of their age.

And the problem is, in most things, is that this is theory. Practice, generally, yields different results.

An example, men are told they generally should avoid older women. Why? The main driver? Procreation and attractiveness.

Men’s sole drive in sex is to reproduce. It’s what has been programmed into us over millennia. Our job is to procreate. That’s the bottom line.

And, as we know, women’s biological functions have an expiration date. As they get older, their ability to have kids falters. This is a fact.

And, younger women tend to be more attractive. As women age, they show it, that’s biology as well. As men age, we get more attractive. This is the way it’s set up and we can’t well argue with any of it.

I’m not here to disprove any aspect of Rollo’s or anyone else’s work, as I believe it’s valuable for giving men a picture of why SMV and inter-gender dynamics work. It’s a very needed piece of the manosphere because it raises men’s awareness of the biological differences between men and women.

But I want to show what I’ve found, dealing with these concepts on a daily basis in my dating life, and the realities of what happens when theories are placed against the real world.

The Woman You Want Depends On The Man You Are

The manosphere is right. If you are a man that wants to have kids, you should go with a younger woman.

And also, by the numbers, the younger the woman, the less she’s been exposed to heaux life and had multiple partners.

But, as I’ve said, many times, age does not correlate to hoedom, nor does the younger woman equate to the perfect wife.

Are we selling men on the mindless Stepford wives myth where they expect to field a virgin, early 20 year old who exists to only serve him?

Women are much more dynamic these days and with the advent of birth control and the Sexual Revolution, women have been exposed to decades of feminism and its ideals. You aren’t going to find the “untouched” nuggets save for a religiously isolated group or other such nonsense that hasn’t been hit by societal upheaval breaking towards feminism.

Here’s the deal: If I was looking to have more kids, I would choose a younger woman. But that wouldn’t be the only aspect that I would consider. I’m not dominant. I don’t want a submissive woman. I want a woman who’s strong enough on her own to match my dynamic.

But what happens if you are an older man who doesn’t want kids or already has them?

The majority of younger women I’ve dated (from 23 – 35) were fine, but they weren’t on my wavelength in terms of the maturity factor. It’s fine to date them, and I encourage men to date all ages of women to see what works for them, but in MY case, I have found that dating a woman closer to my own age (44) has been a good thing.

There are exceptions and grey areas all over the place for the wall.

What if a woman takes care of herself into her 40’s and is in better shape that she was earlier on?

What if a woman only has 1 or 2 sexual partners her whole life? (Yes guys, they do exist.)

I don’t want the manosphere to push a man to make a decision based on age alone, because while a young woman is wonderful to date, the age gap and maturity issues can be an issue. Try listening to Steely Dan’s “Hey 19” and you’ll understand.

I’m also not saying that older women harping on men for picking up younger women is right either. Men have a right to choose who gets to be in their life, and age should neither fast track nor disqualify any woman. If a man finds a woman younger than him, in many cases 15-20 years younger, good for him, that’s a personal choice that factors in many different things, including kids, that he has every right to take into account.

In a time where the personal preference of women for men has taken a back seat to broad-ranging narratives on how men should choose a potential mate, with age and single motherhood being primary disqualifiers, the bottom line is it’s ultimately up to the man to make those choices. They must make them being educated and well versed in all the pitfalls and benefits, as well as knowing who he is to help him weed out potential bad seeds and hoes.

Dating women who are younger or older isn’t a science, and each comes with its share of issues and benefits.

But pushing recently unplugged men into “and/or” narratives doesn’t educate him, it only forces him to not think for himself and use tired platitudes that some of the man pundits parrot nauseatingly often to a tune of group-think ideologies that the manosphere was created to get away from.

In general, stop saying “don’t date older women” or “don’t date single mothers” because men will treat both with disdain when many of them are perfectly fine and will enhance a man’s life.

Pointing out bad actors in a group by using a broad brush to paint with is what the manosphere is trying to get away from, because feminism paints us with the same broad brush. We’re “misogynists” even if we very clearly aren’t, because the heavy lifting needed to show that we are different is too hard for feminist elites to take.

It’s easier to demonize a whole group than think that maybe the ideologues in each group are whipping up resentment unfairly. And yes, I do the same thing when I reference feminism, but I’ve yet to meet a good feminist. 🙂

“If You Like Her, Date Her.”

Platitudes can be good, but they can also be cancerous.

The manosphere should prepare men by giving them the information they need to make an informed decision on what woman he should have in his life, not point out groups of women to avoid because the bad actors take all the headlines and overshadow the really good, solid women who are single mothers, older, and take care of themselves both physically and mentally.

There are women who didn’t succumb to the feminist narrative, living well into their 30’s and 40’s and taking on the challenges of being your “Ride or Die.” They are beautiful souls who don’t believe the crap, made good choices in their lives, and recognize that if they did make mistakes, they took responsibility for those mistakes.

A woman, regardless of age, who owns her situation, is a woman that is miles ahead of the feminist lapdogs who blame men and their perceived toxicity for everything that has befallen them.

Her age doesn’t matter if she enhances you in the right ways. If she’s loyal, supportive, sexy, attractive, funny, wise, and sharpens your steel so to speak, you, as the man, should be able to tell what works for you and doesn’t.

I’ve seen many a man follow the manosphere advice of no older women and fall into a trap of being with someone who doesn’t gel with him.

“But at least she’s young and attractive. Just because we don’t have a ton in common, doesn’t mean she’s not for me.”

She can be older and be just as hot. And her attitude, personality, maturity can be just as attractive to a man looking for just that.

If a younger woman works for you, go for it. But as a man, your job is to run your life, and if someone wants to be a part of that, you have to vet and make sure she has a place in it. Her job is to support you, be there for you, and have a connection that transcends everything else. A teammate to help you conquer the world, not just make babies with no other connections.

Gentlemen, regardless of age or single motherhood, it is ultimately on YOU to choose the right woman for you.

This is what the manosphere is trying to do. And certainly what I’m trying to do.

We educate you on the realities of dating, all while showing you the analytics of the world of women. It’s all valuable data that should help a man make a good choice in a partner.

We educate you to date around, have a good time in a responsible manner, and if you ever want to settle down, give you a basis for how to do that.

We educate you on the good and bad of women who are older. It’s a personal preference for many men, and most importantly, it’s not about their age but about their attitudes.

We educate you on choosing a woman based on age because if you want kids, an older woman will probably not be a good choice.

We educate you on dating around to see what preferences you like, and many men, especially in the manosphere, are dating or married to women close to their age with no issues at all.

It’s about finding a partner for your purpose.

Men, take it from me. There are a ton of sexy, attractive, intelligent, loyal, dynamic, nurturing, fit, and incredible women in their 40’s to date.

I should know, because I’m dating an amazing one.