In this article I interview Rollo Tomassi author of The Rational Male trilogy, blogger at The Rational Male and expert on the Red Pill.

This article is part five of a five part series from the upcoming Life Lessons Podcast, this article will focus on the qualities a guy should look for in a woman.

Let’s begin:

Qualities to look for in a woman

Michael Frank: What qualities do you think a guy should look for in a “quality woman”?

Rollo Tomassi: I don’t believe in the concept of a “quality woman”. I think that the idea of a “quality woman” is an idealization that most blue pill guys have. Like I’m looking for the “perfect woman”. Like this one is “quality” and this other one isn’t. It’s this sort of nebulous easy definition that we apply to women when we love them, and then when we hate them then suddenly they’re not quality women. So I think that it does a disservice for guys to think in terms of what’s quality and what’s not.

What I always tell guys is when a guy is getting married and you’re saying “I do” at the altar, she’s a “quality woman”, but when he’s signing the divorce papers, she’s “that bitch I married”, and she’s no longer that quality woman. So it’s this kind of versatile terminology that we apply to women.

What I say is that there is no “quality” women, there are just women, and you do yourself no favors by building her up into an ideal.

If you say, she’s a “quality woman” you’re letting your guard down when you do that, because you’re putting trust in her nature, because you believe in this ideal that she’s a quality woman. “My woman is quality, so she wouldn’t be hypergamous”. No, she’s a woman, she’s hypergamous. That’s how it’s gonna work out. You do yourself no favors by letting your guard down. And in a way men do that by qualifying women as quality women.

Are some women better fits for you than other women? Yeah, sure.

Are some women better fits for monogamy then others? Yes of course.

Remember I said there are some good ones, and there are some bad ones, but there no one one. If you take that to heart and you’ve decided that you want to have a kid, and/or you would like to live in a monogamous, committed relationship with a woman, how are you going to do that?

Don’t get married

The first thing I would say is don’t get married. Find out some way to work it out where you are in a long term relationship, if that’s what you really want. But in this day and age it is too dangerous, too risky to get married. It’s all downside, 0% authority and 100% responsibility for a man, and any form of legal marriage is always a raw deal for guys. So get that in your head right now.

And people might say, “But Rollo, you’re married!” Yes I am. But if I were to do it all over again, if I lost my wife tomorrow and I decided that I liked some other girl, I would not marry that girl because it’s too risky, too dangerous.

I’m in a very good relationship, I’ve been married for 23 years now, and I’ve also been a father for 20 years, and I would say that most of my success as a father and as a husband has come directly from being red pill aware.

If you are going to have a successful long term relationship, you have to know the nature of women, and you have to accept it, and work within those parameters.

You also need frame, and you need to have a woman who wants to be in your world, and who will accept you as the authority, because in western cultures right now, men take risks by putting themselves into a monogamous relationship, even if it’s just your girlfriend, someone you’re living with, or you just see her on the weekends and you’re committed as a couple.

You’re still taking risks, because at any time she can say that you abused her, or that she didn’t give you consent to do something.

We live in the age of fempowerment and “Me too”, so it’s very, very dangerous.

Qualities to look for in a woman

But if this is what you decide to do, and you see the risks, you understand the risks, and you accept the risks, then this is what you should look for…

A strong Alpha father figure

You should look for a woman who has a good strong Alpha father figure in her upbringing, because women tend to base their estimation of masculinity on the fathers they have.

Daddy issues usually occur when a woman has a weak father, or a nonexistent father. Women who have strong Alpha fathers in the house tend to make much better wives, and much better partners. And that’s really rare today.

A rejection of blank slate equalism

She also has to accept that men and women are different. She must accept that there is no such thing as blank slate equalism.

Trust

You also need a woman who trusts you with her life, because that is essentially what you’re asking her to do.

Admiration for you

She must also look up to you, and the thing is that she can’t look up to you if you’re equals. So you cannot be equals. You have to be above her, even if it’s just a tiny bit more. You’ve got to be the one who is above her, preferably in sexual market value, but at least in that dominance hierarchy from within your marriage.

She needs genuine desire for you

There also has to be genuine desire, and it has to be unmitigated.

You want a woman who will change her religion and fly across the planet and leave her family and friends for you, because that’s how much desire she has for you. I’m not saying that it has to be that way for every single woman, but that is the ideal situation that you want to have. Where she has so much desire for you that she puts you first.

You need to be the leader

You also need to be the leader and she needs to defer authority to you, even in a state where she has all authority.

You know these guys who beat their wives and then the cops take them away, and then she goes and beats up the cops for taking him away, because she loves him so damn much that she’ll fight for him. She’s what we call the ride or die girl. She’s the girl who will, if you’re sitting in the back of the police cruiser, knockout the cop, grab his keys, and take off with you, and it’s going to be a Bonnie and Clyde thing. That’s the level of desire that you want.

I’m being ridiculous, of course. This is just an extreme illustration, but you get the point. There has to be a genuine desire for you.

There is no such thing as relational equity

You also have to understand that there is no such thing as relational equity.

Beta guys who believe in transactional sex and a transactional relationship tend to think that if they do more chores around the house, if they do the homework with the kids, if they go to every little league game, if they’re the good father, the good husband, if they bring home money all the time, then they’re the ideal guy and that should earn them some kind of equity, and that should be some sort of insurance against women’s hypergamy, and I will tell you right now that you will always be disappointed if that is your belief.

If you believe that a woman owes you her loyalty and her self-control over hypergamy because you did all of that stuff, you will be disappointed every single time. There are plenty of guys who are divorced who did exactly that and asked themselves, “How could she do that?” It’s that same question we had before, “How could she go for the dark triad guy? How could she go for the thug in prison?”

Well, that’s because you don’t create that emotional trigger in her, and that guy does. And you don’t because you believe that you are owed her loyalty because you do all these great things. You don’t. You’re still not exciting. You’re still not the A guy she wants to have sex with. She might be in your frame, but she’s in your frame because she’s obligated to be in your frame.

You cannot negotiate desire

A key element in red pill understanding is that you cannot negotiate genuine desire, because too many guys get into a relationship, they’ll get into a marriage, and they’ll start negotiating. And once you do that you lose frame. You lose your position as being admired. You lose your position in so many different ways because you’re willing to compromise.

You’re willing to say, “Okay, I know that you don’t really desire me, so I’m willing to do more dishes, I’m willing to do more stuff around the house, I’m willing to negotiate with you… What is it gonna take for you to actually want to fuck me?” And that is a fundamental misunderstanding for guys because they don’t understand.

Most guys think of sex from a transactional position, rather than a validational position. So when you’re having sex with your wife or your girlfriend before you marry her, and it’s hot and heavy and fun, that’s validational sex because she’s really getting off on having sex with you because you hit the right buttons. And you certainly past the hypergamous test if she’s really into you.

But you cannot negotiate desire, because if you do negotiate desire, you are only negotiating obligated compliance. So if you go and say, okay honey, I’m going to do all this great stuff, and that should earn me X amount of Brownie points. And then once I get enough Brownie points, then you’re going to love me and have sex with me.

I mean for most guys sex would be great, but they would just like to get a kiss or a hug or any kind of affection at all from their wives, because those women are revolted. There’s a revulsion instinct in women to not even have physical contact with a guy who she sees as Beta. And so these guys are trying to negotiate that.

If you’re negotiating for desire, maybe she’ll comply with that, but she’s not going to want to do that. You can’t make her want to do that with negotiation. You have to do it in other ways. You have to make yourself someone that she dreads losing.

Passive dread

And that’s another part of a good relationship. There needs to be a healthy amount of dread. She has to fear losing you. Even if you’ve been married for 23 years, she has to think that other women would want to get with you if she let her guard down, if she wasn’t showing her appreciation and love and sexuality to you then she would lose you. So there needs to be some amount of dread, and I don’t mean this overbearing, “You better do what I say bitch or I’m going to leave!”

That’s overt dread. What I’m talking about is passive dread. The strongest tool you have in your game toolbox is a woman’s imagination, and her thinking about what could happen if she lost you or if things didn’t work out, and that is what inspires women to genuine desire.

Where to meet a woman

Michael Frank: Where should men go about meeting women? Is it just a case of looking everywhere and anywhere? Church and Starbucks and Tinder and a bit of everything?

Rollo Tomassi: I met my wife at a club. I had just got done playing a Gig and she was on girls’ night out. I’m at a place that everybody will tell you, “You will never find a good quality girl at the clubs! You need to go to church. You need to go to Bible study. You need to go the library. You need to go a bookstore. You’ve got to meet your wife in college or something like that.”

Well guess what? I had sex with her on the third date, and here we are 23 years later. So I think that it’s kind of contextual to the guy.

Middle-aged guys: Don’t waste time on Tinder

I think if I was going to make a general rule, if you’re a middle-aged dude then don’t use Tinder, because Tinder is an app that is specifically designed to facilitate hypergamy for women. Bumble definitely is, because women have to make the first call. Men could spend a lifetime on Bumble and never get a single response from a woman because it’s all visceral and based on looks, and whatever the emotional response is that she gets from that picture.

Some guys will disagree and fight me on this, and say that they got a lot of good play from Tinder, but it’s been my experience with guys that I’ve counseled that Tinder is sort of a dead end, particularly for middle-aged guys who are getting out of a relationship, that are trying to get back in sexual marketplace.

Be open to looking anywhere and everywhere

If the question is: Where do I find a wife? Be open to looking pretty much anywhere and everywhere. I would say social circle game, meeting people through your family and friends so that you’ve got some social proof so that people can kind of build you up a little bit.

Don’t underestimate cold approaches or even day game. Don’t underestimate going to a club either. You might find a really nice girl at a club. People will say, “You’re full of shit man, there’s nothing but sluts there”, but I’ll tell you this, you are probably more likely to find a good mate in a club than waiting around on Tinder for some girl to find you. You need to be proactive if that’s what you want.

I understand that in this modern age that’s what we do. We use online dating profiles. We use Tinder, Bumble, even Instagram. We’re doing all this stuff because we have to be interested in the brand of me. And the brand of me is how I’m going to present myself to a digital world. So be aware of how you’re presenting your digital identity, whether that’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or wherever people can interact with you.

Do things in real-time

I will say this too, do things in real-time because that is actually starting to become a novelty.

My daughter is 20 years old and she gets into dating and says:

“Why don’t guys come up to me and ask me to go out with them?”

“Why are they waiting around for me to ask them?”

I say, “That’s because you live in a digital age and that’s what people are used to. Guys are also terrified of rejection and so they will do anything to avoid that”.

They’ll use what I call buffers, like text game, anything that buffers you against the rejection of actually staring face to face at a woman and having her go:

“Mmmm, you’re cute, but no”

“Can we just be friends?”

Guys hate that, and I think that particularly the last generation, most men are just absolutely petrified of it because it is live and in real time, and we live behind a screen.

Learn game that you are comfortable with

The best advice I can give is: Do things in real time, and learn the game from someone you are comfortable with, who you can sort of relate with, because there’s so many different guys you can learn from that specialize in different aspects of the game: day game, going to clubs, social game etc. Look at guys like Christian McQueen and if he’s not your speed, then I would say Goldmund Unleashed