Attention is the only tool modern men have

Let’s say a girl is acting bitchy,” is a good post.

“When having a boundary crossed actually means you’ll walk out, and you have zero tolerance for bullshit, it will show up as soon as the micro transgressions happen. This permeates the whole thing since your very first moment.”

The only real tool modern men have at their disposal is attention. You either give attention or withdraw it. That’s really it. The rest is commentary. When you blow up a girl’s phone you’re dissipating one of the only (or the only) tool(s) you have. Where and how you direct your attention is the fundamental of modern game.

A wonderful book by David Barash, Out of Eden: The Surprising Consequences of Polygamy, lists all the tools men used to have to enforce monogamy. They could kill their wife’s lover (seriously, that used to be legal in the United States… today, if your wife takes a lover and has his kid and then divorces you, she still gets your money and child support). They had physical force. They had the weight of society enforcing monogamy, and women would be ashamed for breaking up their marriage back then. Abandoned women would face big consequences, unlike today, when most women leave the moment they think they can get a better guy.

In the contemporary world, men don’t have violence or social censure as an option… we have nothing but attention itself, which is one of many reasons why marriage is such a bad deal for men, at least in the United States. Attention is the only resource men have. When you give a woman attention, you reinforce whatever behavior she is offering. When you withdraw attention, you convey your displeasure with that behavior.

This is also why I think most men should not use most social media, or minimize use, cause social media gives women attention and validation that is unlikely to lead to sex. A woman loves attention almost as much as a man loves sex; giving too much to her is an easy way to kill her attraction to you. Whatever is scarce is valuable. Offer too much attention and you will demonstrate that your attention is low value. High-value men are too busy building companies, making art, seducing women, and having peak experiences to offer attention, especially lame digital attention, to women who do not reciprocate their attention appropriately. High-value men are also not spending a lot of time on social media because they are in the real world, doing things, making things, building things, and having sex. If a woman is responsive online but doesn’t want to meet in person, then you’re not moving towards sex and can let her go.

It’s not impossible to use social media well, but it’s never or pretty much never a good idea to “like” women’s photos and statutes. Yet I see guys do this all the time. As more people exist primarily in the fake digital space, guys who can drive interactions in the real world will become more and more valuable.

When a woman crosses a boundary, withdraw attention. Better yet, give attention to other, better behaved women. Guys with options are very different than guys without. Girls know you have options when you shut the fuck up.

“Shutting the fuck up.” No one talks about this in today’s verbal diarrhea culture, but because no one talks about it or does it, it’s valuable.

Chicks also know you’re high value when you stop giving them attention and start directing your attention in the only places you should: your skills, your life, the women who are having actual sex with you.

Excessive texting is a waste of attention. Texting should be focused on your next meeting. You are a busy man, as I wrote above. Focus your attention on making real-life things happen. You can do a little bit of texting, that’s fine, but always be focused on making texting an unimportant adjunct to your real life. Today, this will also set you apart from other guys. Less is more, in most circumstances.

Social media is another form of attention, and most guys misuse it. Social media is an attractive nuisance. It’s attractive, because guys imagine that, if they can just get a good enough Instagram feed, hot chicks will message them for hookups. For the vast majority of guys, this will never happen. The vast majority of guys are better off learning cold approach pickup, improving themselves, improving their delivery, etc. But social media is easy and can be done without leaving the apartment. For inexperienced guys, social media takes the perceived sting out of real-world rejection. So the temptation is to take the way that seems easy (social media) but leads nowhere, instead of the way that at first seems hard (cold approach pickup, developing an attractive life) that leads somewhere.

Author: The Red Quest

How can we live and be in society?

33 thoughts on “Attention is the only tool modern men have”

  1. Agree attention is the one tool men have these days to correct the behavior of the women in their life. But thankfully used properly taking away attention is about the only tool you need, if you have the proper frame, boundaries, and abundance mentality (sadly a “big if” these days).

    Attention withdrawal for behavior correction can be used a several ways, I’m sure I’m missing a few:

    1. withdraw it for a few seconds by looking away/ignoring what she says when she says or does something very minor you don’t like, such as going on about a topic you don’t enjoy (“indicator of disinterest”)

    2. withdraw your presence and all communication from her for several days to a week when she gives you significant drama. Blackdragon calls this a “soft next” and breaks down his guidelines for the process here:

    “soft nexts” are incredibly effective done right.

    3. A “hard next” of a girl who crosses a boundary that proves her irredeemable. This means leaving from the situation and never calling/texting/seeing her again. If you lead well and follow the above two you shouldn’t have to resort to this very often, if ever.


  2. “Agree attention is the one tool men have these days to correct the behavior of the women in their life.”

    another tool is to fuck her brains out, to punish her, to make her feel your wrath and power. then she will respect and admire you more.

    this is what i mean when i say, “the harder you fuck her, the more she will love you.”


  3. For me removing attention has worked wonders when the girl was interested in me as a person (rather than just in my attention) and was already somewhat invested.

    With the hordes of girls interested purely in my attention, what I experienced multiple times is that by removing my attention I did not get what I wanted. But at least they did not get what they wanted either. And they surely took a hit when after a rejected escalation I completely withdrew my attention, or at the very least became cold towards them .

    In the most serious cases I not only removed attention completely, but I also made sure to give extra attention to all people around the girl while at the same time ignoring her. Very effective punish tool, but only to be used with the very few girls that have done something seriously wrong.


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