Every so often I get an email from someone who seems to think I’m RP. At first I was confused, then I googled around and found it – the red pill. (A subreddit that mixes solipsism, major daddy issues and misanthropy (but not in a fun way), pop a xan it’ll help)

I spent the last few months checking in on it every so often and whilst polemics against the pseudo-science, neediness and echo chamber circle-jerking warrant a series I’ll stick to one post with a single focus – it’s fundamental impotence.

I

Imagine a male virgin in his late teens, we’ll call him Chad. Chad is essentially a simpleton; he has no discernable skills or major accomplishments under his belt, isn’t blessed with any natural talents and sure as fuck doesn’t have the gall to develop any the regular way (hard work. In case you were wondering hard work is the regular way). He’s inoffensive, nobody can find a bad word to say about him but noone can find a good word (corageous, virtuous) either and so he’s dubbed nice. You can fill in the blanks yourself.

Chad finds himself embittered by the fact he’s so far from experiencing actual sexual contact that he’s moved on to watching anime porn. This quiet but seething rage is fuelled further by the fact that his crush is blowing a guy with a dragon tattoo who just dropped out of his vehicle fitting btec. But whats always missed when you hear a cliche along these lines is that Chad isn’t really a nice guy at all.

Chad’s preferred seduction technique is non-threatening exposure. He hopes thats if he hangs around for enough mochas and netflix (no chill) sessions then he may finally experience the touch of a woman. Where his righteousness fails him is in his cognitive dissonance: he doesn’t realise a failed sexual strategy is still a sexual strategy. It’s a point of pride to him that he’s not like those other (read: actually getting their dick sucked) guys but he’s a fraud all the same. You won’t see him eating wings with fat Susan from his chem class every day and it’s entirely lost on him that people who are actually ‘nice’ are so without any notions of reciprocity, let alone access to orifices.

So why is he doomed to failure? Well its tricky to forge a real connection with another human being when your entire existence revolves around the projection an ego ideal – Nice Guy™, reliable (but don’t ask him to take out a spider, or change a tire). Of course he’ll never see it like this, he’s so lacking in self-awareness that he’s drinking his own kool aid. In the absence of any sexual options he has to either a) accept he’s a fraud or b) place blame. Real change is hard so after finishing off that bukakae video (filtered by length not top rated) he’s primed for…

II

Chad discovers The Red Pill, the #alpha at all costs sentiment speaks to his gaping daddy issues and confirmation bias does the rest. His transtion to a keyboard Don Juan isn’t a descent into narcissism, it’s transference; he swaps the image of his ego ideal and starts over.

If he’s not a full-blooded autist he may even see some early success from the switch. These instances can’t be the result of any of the smaller changes he’s made and of course must be attributed to the undisputed truth of TRP. But the underlying issue, his need to project a false identity to feel worthy of connection, remains unchanged.

When he rages against betas its not really aimed at Joe Bloggs, its a ritualised thought habit aimed at exorcising any renemants of his old ego ideal. When he hits shift to rage AWALT hes chastising himself for his codependent predisposition for indulging in his limerence.

If and when he finds some semblance of success in the form of bedding a girl (whose self-esteem is just as low as his own, father-hunger just as high) he still feels a gaping hole in the depth of his being. No worries TRP provides him with an answer to stop him investigating this further (read: committing to real change). It’s not a lack of connection of course, that kind of thinking is reserved for betabux, besides who wants to be divorce-raped. The hole is a feeling, and feelings are for faggots, keep chasing the carrot of being a man in his 50s bedding 21 year old swimsuit models, the compounded interest of spending your time reading posts on reddit are what makes you a man in his prime.

Chad finds himself feeling just as despondant in the quiet hours as he did before. If he’s lucky he picked some self-help styled accessory gains from his internet browsing, but despondant nonetheless.

The end.

III

The fatal flaw in flocking to TRP is that it swaps the projection of one false identity for another. The need for approval shifts; from one object of desire to many, from the love of a single woman to the online high-fives of red pilled men, emotional self-reliance amiss.

There’s actually a lot of room between being a beta fag and posturing as heartless in an attempt to cover your codependency, but it starts with killing the ego ideal. There’s space for feeling without dependence, appreciation without subservient fawning, partnership without exploitation and connection without a crippling fear of loss, but you won’t find it on a subreddit.

Work on yourself first and you’ll be in a position to give for the love of giving, to recieve without developing a dependence on external validation. Deny these needs and no partner or internet philosophy will fill the void.