My story could be considered the standard model that we find with the nerdy guys these days.

Young, single, tall, mid-twenties, white guy here. I’d say I have a pretty good life setup. A job that pays around 60k. A body that I take care of at the gym. A mind that’s pretty aware, and some side business ideas that might start to take off (with a couple failures already under my belt). Hopefully one or two of them will work out so I have extra income to secure my long term independence.

High school was a blur of homework, sports, video games, and having a pretty regimented lifestyle dictated by my parents. I didn’t like it at the time, but looking back, was something that most kids need in order to succeed and not turn into entitled college kids/adults. I had a lot of friends from science fair and sports, and felt like each day was full of activity.

But when it came to relationships, I thought there was something wrong with me. Each time I’d get a girlfriend, it just didn’t feel right…as if I was playing into her frame and trying to appease to her emotions when I’d ‘Do something wrong.” (even though studying vs. hanging out with her felt like a logical decision to me).

This perpetuate to college, where after a long distance relationship fell apart, I dove into the seduction community lifestyle. Read up on The Game, read all the Blueprint material, practiced failing with girls left and right, and somehow started getting laid by some girls that I didn’t think was possible. Found reddit during this time, and the r/seduction forum was a trove of material to read through.

But it just didn’t feel real, and after a few months, I began spiraling into a depressive state. It just felt like the whole relationship game was just that, a “game.” When I’d be my “nice self”, doing thoughtful things because I know I’d like it if they did the same, those same girls would be driven away. I couldn’t be honest with the girls I got, and would end up just play the same “if-then” decision tree logic that would keep their minds thinking about me. Push-pull technique, negging, playing them off each other…it was all bullshit.

My third year I snapped. GPA dropped from a 3.8 to 3.4. I bought myself a superbike (cbr1000rr, full black body armor) and just began racing around at night, forgot about my classes for a quarter, and didn’t deal with the girls.

It was amazing. I’d start riding at midnight, ride until the tank was empty, refill, go to the ocean to listen to the waves crash, and back to the college campus, fill up again, and get home at 4am. I felt like I was actually living. I wasn’t thinking of my engineering courses, I wasn’t thinking of how messed up things felt in my head, and felt like I could escape from it all. In retrospect, it was pretty irresponsible, but finding a balance might be the right way moving forward.

My fifth year at college, I encountered r/theredpill, and my paradigm shifted dramatically. Here was a group of people who seemed to ‘get it.’ Spent hours reading about the different life approach, becoming the man you’ve wanted to become, with the focus on internal motivation and desires. I really liked the concept, and applied it to my life with great results. 5-10 pounds of new muscle, actually not worrying so much about what people are thinking around me, new friends who liked me for me (as cliché as that sounds). The theories and concepts feel dead-on to me.

During these months I also found MGTOW, and initially thought it was full of guys who were back-rationalizing their failure with women, saying they weren’t worth it in the first place. And sure, maybe some of the guys here are like that, but I’m finding the silent majority of MGTOW individuals are at a different state in their life.

At the end of the day, it felt like my value as an individual had gone up dramatically, while the girls I was trying to go for (or more found me attractive) had a value that was so comparably low that it made me wonder why I felt ‘accomplished’ by getting one in the first place. As if I was looking at a currency for the value it actually was, vs. the massively inflated value other people gave it.

I find it weird to have a girl say “I love you,” when I know she’s said that multiple times with the same devoted, sincere face. It felt wrong. It felt weird to have half my ego tied up in getting girls that would do some shady things and rationalize that they were in the right.

It just doesn’t feel worth it. A saying could be “The juice isn’t worth the squeeze.” (At least in the limited experience I’ve had in both years and geographic/cultural experience)

Removing the stigma of thinking relationships/marriage/family is the “acceptable” life path has freed my mind to focus on the projects/business ideas at hand. For now, MGTOW feels right. So for anyone else who feels this way, hopefully this type of story can be something to relate to.

NOTE: I’ll admit it could still be a confirmation bias situation, or compensating for getting burned kinda hard in a relationship a few years ago, but that’s something to remember when reading this.

TL;DR: MGTOW, when you understand that it doesn’t mean you stop talking to girls, actually makes a lot of sense to me these days.