The beginning of the series Fargo, Watson is sitting down to eat tomato soup and a burnt grilled cheese with his wife. She’s gossiping about what other people have, in particular, that his younger brother has a new surround sound system. And then she chirps that maybe she married the wrong brother. Watson demurs. As a man, I find this scene a tad painful.
But this “beat”, this well worn groove of culture, sets the tone of the relationship. Because as American consumers of American media, we all have seen this character before in media, but the wife is also someone we know.
Not to get too Rollo, but let’s delve into her mindset a bit. It’s not that she doesn’t have all the comforts that most enjoy, it’s that her workhorse hasn’t beaten all the other workhorses. And now that she’s fat and old, she’s trying to needle her man into getting her more – so that she can compete with the other broads.
She’s not looking for some objective level of material wealth, but a relative level – where she needs to be on top of all of her female friends.
Though the story may fiction, fiction must follow some level of reality in order for the unreal to be believed.
The woman is real.
This is real feminine behavior. This is common.
For you guys that avoid meeting a girl’s friends, co-workers, and family – she’s bringing you around because she’s proud of you, and wants to show you off. She’s not going to say it outright,
#2 – Pence, Trump, Comey, Maxine Waters
This is a very political blog, it’s just that my politics don’t really fit into what other people think of as politics. You’re not really gonna Make America like Malcolm X Wants it To Be here.
But politics is how we divvy up scarce goods without resorting to physical violence. Politics is war by another name. War is politics by another name.
The game is politics played at the micro level – we are giving a woman what she wants at a mental/emotional level, even if we don’t necessarily give her what she wants at tangible material level. And the game principles behind that are simply
- She doesn’t want those things
- When she get those things she’s not happy
- You giving her those things actually makes her lose interest in you
- People prefer the anticipation/the journey more than the reward
So in the news this week, Comey (former director of the FBI) tells Congress that he didn’t really want to be in the same room as Trump. So Maxine Waters uses this as an opportunity to chime in that Comey feels like many women feel.
Okay, hand clap to you Ms. Waters. (Who I am generally a fan of. Let’s not get it twisted)
But hold up a sec (c) Bushwick Bill
Mike Pence has been roundly criticized for not wanting to meet with women by himself. He does not think it’s appropriate for a man to be in the sole presence of a woman, other than his wife. For me, as a guy that plays the odds, that calculates risk – I can’t find fault in his thinking. One misstep on his part, and it’s a he said/she said, and his career could be over. Not everyone is a Teflon Don(ald Trump). Self preservation is rule #1.
Now the criticism here is that a woman can’t get ahead in her career, because she can’t get a meeting alone with the boss.
The player in me wonders how a woman really expects to get ahead in her career by being alone with her boss. What could she say or do with a male boss that shouldn’t do in front of another employee?
So now we have feminism going at it from both ends. You got women saying that they don’t like to be alone with a boss and women saying that they need to be alone with a boss.
That’s all well and good Archie, but how does that help me?
Glad you asked.
So this tells you about the nature of women. That whatever it is they say they want, what they really want is POWER. So now that you understand the power dynamic – you will start to see it everywhere. She wants both things, both things that are opposites…
You can
- Call her out on it playfully during the initial pull
- You can adopt her stance, wait for her to call you on it, and then pull this out. “How is this different than….” – that creates the tension, the push, and you can extend it, until you release it and pull her back in.
Now a lot of you guys are going to use this as an opportunity to spout off your political nonsense. That’s not what i’m saying. What you need to focus on with a chick is not “politics”, but culture. How do you handle a situation?
-Archie