Chateau Heartiste

Today I will continue building on yesterday’s post and discuss how to defend yourself against the next femme fatale in Clio’s list. (As per M. Blowhard’s suggestion, I’ve split up the posts for easier reading.)

The Eternal Ingenue

She can be distinguished from the Waif, however, by the fact that where the Waif is often silent, and usually still, the Eternal Ingenue is in continual, graceful, coltish motion. Nor is she surrounded by an aura of doom-laden unhappiness. She talks a lot. She laughs a good deal. She is above all else, animated. Prancing, gambolling, frolicking like a puppy or a pony, she is often described as “charming” or “enchanting.”

When guys talk about being attracted to an ethereal “girlishness” in women, they are thinking of ingenues from their pasts. Being a man is tough — it requires strength, stoicism, and seriousness of purpose. We are drawn to the opposite in women, yang to yin, and so the ingenue — the antithesis of the hardened alpha male — captures our imagination like no other woman can. Of the four femme fatales Clio wrote of, the Eternal Ingenue comes closest to embodying the essence of the perfect woman. And, unfortunately, she is also the most diffcult to tame.

What makes an ordinary Ingenue into a femme fatale, one who goes through many men and breaks their hearts, is that this is a woman “in love with love,” who has a dream-image of the perfect love, and perfect lover, in her mind, and is perpetually seeking the one man who can make her feel as she wants to feel.

Perfection is the enemy of settling. Eternal Ingenues run a risk of growing older alone. They won’t be cougars — they’re too feminine, cute and coy for that — but they are the most likely to end up cat ladies babbling to themselves about their potted marigolds. She can avoid this fate by being more hard-headed, but that has its cost. Cultivation of her pragmatic side will weaken her otherworldy whimsical side, which is the big generator of her power.

An element of the Ingenue’s search for the perfect love is that she must convince herself that all her previous loves were wrong or bad or not “real” love at all, so they didn’t count, because, you see, for her the only perfect love is first love. As a result of all this self-deception, she is able to seem virginal even when she is not.

This falls right into line with one of my maxims.

Maxim #7: The sweeter and more innocent a girl seems, the greater the likelihood she has been in a gangbang.

Corollary: Always assume she is a whore. It helps kick the legs out from under the pedestal you will be tempted to put her on, and it is more often than not true.

You really want to be wary of any woman who overly romaticizes her quest for love. She is probably what Clio described: A woman who will pick you apart for minor faults in the most gratingly passive-aggressive way possible, and finally leave you on the flimsiest pretext, often bounding straight into the arms of another man without even a pause for common courtesy.

This kind of woman is often a natural “daddy’s girl,” though her father may have been rather weak, but one who either lost her father early, or has had to share him with other women (her mother, her sisters, a step-mother), and wants him all to herself. She’ll put her trust in a handful of other women, but they are often much older than she is. […]

Having dated a number of Eternal Ingenues myself, I can say this rings true. They either came from divorced families with fathers who bought their love and loyalty, or they had a caring beta father heading an all-female family who had to divide his love between women. You’ll know if you are dating a potential Ingenue if you meet her girlfriends and they are all overprotective and annoyingly sassy cougars-in-training. The Eternal Ingenue HATES competition from attractive girls her own age.

The Ingenue doesn’t necessarily refuse to be responsible or adult. She simply maintains an air of girlish sweetness and innocence through middle and old age. […]

Unlike Waifs, Eternal Ingenues can take care of themselves. Which makes them more difficult prey.

…the waif’s childlike qualities may make a man feel protective: they do not make him feel fatherly. The whole point of the Ingenue is that she brings out this feeling in men. She makes them want to initiate her into the world, but gently, in a fatherly way, with books and talk and advice.

Maybe one of the reasons I date so many Eternal Ingenues is that I date so many younger women. The two go hand in hand. But I’m not fatherly in the least. Books and talk and advice are beta. The only thing I initiate them into is a world of sexual depravity and soul-rending love addiction.

Men: The Eternal Ingenue is extremely alluring as a sexual conquest. You may bed her, but winning her over is an entirely separate challenge. Because you are constantly being compared in her mind to her imaginary “perfect first love” you will be shit tested until the cougars come home. Because there will be so much competition from other men for her attentions, you will be subjected to an endless stream of capricious disloyalty from her, if not outright cheating. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been dating her — she will be the one keeping you up at night wondering if she’s tonguing down some random dude on the steps of the National Cathedral at 3 AM, and the odds are she will be. And, as a charming but inveterate liar, she will be the best at hiding her whorish soul from you.

If you want to break her will, you must, first and foremost, never get thrown back on your heels. If she puts you on the defensive, consider yourself done. This means being acutely aware of her shit tests, and passing them with flying colors. Hone your cocky funny skills to perfection, and parry EVERYTHING she throws your way with the amused mastery of a Jedi player. Example:

Her: “Oh GOD, your taste in music is SO lame. You never play anything I like.”

You: “I didn’t know you were the music czar. I think I’ll just call you ITunes from now on. Hey, ITunes, make me a sandwich!”

Next, be vigilant about your encroaching neediness. Oh Satan below, do Ingenues despise needy men. It will take a lot of willpower, but you should occasionally cancel dates on her and, when sex is imminent, find some excuse to walk away, leaving her horny and unsatisfied. Ingenues love the father figure (are fathers needy? no), so play up those strengths — be her authority, lead, slap her when necessary, playfully dismiss her juvenile provocations, and always be prepared to lay down the law. This last will often mean walking away from her never looking back.

Don’t feel guilty about dating around on an Ingenue. Her loyalty is razor thin, so your virtue will gain you nothing. In fact, an Ingenue will love you more if she suspects you are still playing the field. She needs the challenge, like she relished the challenge of winning her father’s affections away from her sister.

Like the Waif, the Ingenue eight balls her emotional highs from the act of chasing men. She does not suffer long men who chase her — this fleeting wisp of a woman. Of all the femme fatales, she yearns to seek your approval the most and wants to actually win it the least. Unlike the Amazonian Alpha, whom I will discuss tomorrow, the Ingenue can’t tolerate heavy-handed qualifying early on, but she needs to be qualified on a continual basis with a subtler touch. You always have to judge her, without being judgmental. This is a fine art.

Her: “I bought this new dress today. What do you think?”

You: “Nice. But I’m surprised you’re going in that direction. It seems… unique.”

Finally, the most important advice: Because Eternal Ingenues are “in love with love” you should withhold announcing your love for her as long as humanly possible. An old Russian saying: Once a woman captures your heart she loses interest. This is doubly true for the Ingenue. What she doesn’t know, or doesn’t want to know, is that there never was a perfect love in her life, and there never will be, at least not by the impossible standards to which she has elevated the concept. If you lavish her with your love she will find it easier to evaluate her fantasy of love against what you are giving her. You will invariably come up short. So keep her guessing, keep her in the dark, and slowly over time she’ll fill in the blanks and begin imagining that YOUR love is the love she’s been waiting for.

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Clio wrote an informative and entertaining series of posts about the taxonomy of femmes fatales — those irresistible women who will do a man no good if he leaves himself ignorant of and defenseless to their machinations. I’ve decided to do a counterpost explaining to men how to guard themselves against the four main femme fatale types as described by Clio, based on my experiences with women who fell into one or the other category.

The Golddigger

The gold-digger is the classic female heartbreaker, the one everyone except a few feminists loves to hate. She is not a prostitute: although she marries for money she does not have sex for money. […]

In fact, the chief characteristic of this type of female heartbreaker is her ruthlessness in pursuit of what she wants. She has to be careful not to fall in love, because it would cloud her judgment and because the type of man she requires is likely to be frightened by displays of emotional desperation and put off by neediness.

While the golddigger’s ultimate goal is marriage to a wealthy man, she will have sex with rich guys as long as the trinkets and baubles flow. Because payment for her services is not so direct, often coming days or weeks later instead of being left on the endtable by the bed, she is able to delude herself into believing she is not a common whore. But absent love, she is ideologically indistinguishable from her streetwalker cousins. She’s simply smart enough to secure payment without a pimp middleman, and to do it from one or two smitten sources instead of a carousel of johns.

The way to handle a golddigger is to establish your terms of courtship early on, before she has had a chance to suck you into her reality. You really want to sniff out the golddigger quickly, because if you don’t have the money, or you do have the money but don’t want to buy a woman’s love with it, then you’ll want to waste as little time dating golddiggers as possible. Without game, you’ll never change them. The good news is that it’s a simple matter tricking a golddigger to reveal her true inner whore.

The secret is this: Golddiggers target wealthy but gameless greater betas and alphas who deal with women in a very traditional and conventional manner — i.e. buying her drinks and taking her to fancy dinners on the first date. These are the kind of men who work all their lives to eventually purchase arm candy they can bring to cocktail parties. You can jolt the golddigger right out of her utilitarian programming by QUALIFYING HER. For example, you must make clear early on you don’t buy drinks for women and, in fact, if she’s cool, you’ll let her buy a drink for you. Another effective tactic for exposing the golddigger and putting her on the hot seat is to remark on her good taste in clothes or jewelry (golddiggers love when you share their materialistic worldview) and then say without a hint of irony that it’s a good thing you dressed up for the occasion and wore your best watch — while pointing to the Swatch on your wrist. If she laughs or compliments your watch, you have a shot to convert her. If she takes you seriously and looks around the room annoyed or cackles sarcastically, you can escape on a “bathroom break” and leave her with the check.

The golddigger is not used to the tables being turned like this. Indignantly, she will either leave in a huff or become surprisingly intrigued by your chutzpa. You win no matter which path she chooses. She leaves; you’ve now avoided spending money on a de facto whore without the integrity to put out quid pro quo on the first date like an actual whore. She stays; you have broken her and ensured her attraction for you will be genuine.

The more ruthless the woman, the bolder and more alpha you have to be in your dealings with her. An attractive and successful golddigger — and they are usually 8s and up; less attractive golddigger wannabes are simply not in the field of view of rich men — requires the utmost boldness. Beta nerds who have made a lot of money in the tech field should not attempt to tangle with them. They will be chewed up and left more misogynistic than they were before they met her.

The only time it is acceptable to play by a golddigger’s rules is when you don’t mind spending the money for access to sex with a hotter women than you could normally acquire relying on just your personality and charm. There are many men like this, so the golddigger is here to stay. I estimate their numbers in the general population of bangable women at around 15%.

One thing you have to remember about golddiggers — they are not that smart. Don’t confuse ruthlessness for smarts. Being base, corporeally-centered creatures with a crass understanding of the sexual market, they are easily manipulated into behaving by the standards you set for them as long as your game is tight. Shock and awe is how I would describe the game you need to break their will.

Btw, it is possible for a golddigger to fall in love with a man based solely on his money. Cash is a form of power, and women are universally attracted to male power in whichever form it comes. Beware: If she fell in love with you for your money, she’ll fall out of love with you twice as fast if the money disappears. Hopefully for you, by that time, she’ll be a has-been cougar and have no options but to deal with your gameless, poor ass.

The Waif/Neurotic

There is the more vocal Neurotic type, who is probably very intelligent and a high achiever (think Plath, left, or Wurtzel, bottom left, both excellent students), who probably suffers from depression and will do her best to ensure that you do as well; and there is the Waif, who is more obviously fragile in appearance than the neurotic, less verbal, less likely to be an academic success, and more drawn to the visual arts than to writing. What they have in common is that they suffer, and use their pain to hold on to their men. […]

Forget worrying about gold-diggers, men. It’s these ladies who will find a way to make you miserable every time. The ones on the Neurotic end of the spectrum will wear you out trying to take care of them when they’re sick; worry you to death with threats of suicide; make an idiot of you as you try to amuse them with silly jokes or make them feel loved with romantic gestures; persuade you spend all your time and money trying to make them happy. None of it will ever be enough. And then they will leave you for someone else, or have to go for drug or alcohol treatment, or decide that they need to be on their own for a little while.

The Waifs won’t expect you to spend much money, and they tend not to demand as much attention as Neurotics, but if annoyed with you they will give you the silent treatment, drifting around sadly with huge eyes, attracting other men, and suddenly leave you for one. Like Neurotic heartbreakers, Waifs tend to develop drug or alcohol problems, but theirs may be more serious, as they don’t have the same level of self-discipline as their Neurotic sisters. They won’t threaten suicide verbally, but you might come home to find one of them half-dead from an overdose. Lots of drama with these women. […]

One caution I want to make is that not all Neurotic or Waif women are heartbreakers. It’s a special type of Neurotic or Waif who is also a fatale, who learns to use sexual conquest as a temporary antidote to unhappiness.

We all know these types — think any role played by Winona Ryder or Gwyneth Paltrow. I agree with Clio, these women are more dangerous than golddiggers because they wield their feminine power with subtlety and innocent sincerity. Their coin of the realm is fragile femininity and emotional manipulation, as opposed to sex for resources barter. If you are a man who likes his girls girly, you won’t know what hit you until it’s too late and you’re in with both feet and all your heart.

The only way to learn to deal with the waif and neurotic is through experience. It’s hard to teach a man to temper his protective instinct. A waif who connects with a man’s heart and pride enslaves him more than the golddigger who connects through his loins and wallet.

The solution to the emotionally manipulative waif/neurotic is to call her bluff. I once had a girl threaten to kill herself as she sat on the edge of my bed, spastically emptying desk draws for bottles of pills she could swallow. The normal man would crumble and attempt to alleviate her pain and tears with his comfort and listening ability. WRONG. This will only embolden her to greater future outbursts. Instead, I opened the window and told her to jump, it’ll get the job done faster. It worked. She cursed and stormed out, only to return, humbled, a couple days later.

Warning: Sometimes she will actually go through with it and kill herself. Be strong. Her mental weakness is not your moral crisis. You have just saved yourself years of heartache dealing with her recurrent emotional breakdowns.

Don’t get caught up in the waif’s exploitative exhibitions. You are the oak tree, strong and rooted. Let her flail away; you are immoveable. When she sees her tawdry drama and passive-aggressiveness is having no effect on you, she’ll fall deeper in love. Remind her in the strongest terms that her happiness depends on herself, not you. Tell her that she must understand her low self-esteem is no excuse for her shitty behavior and you have little patience for it. You will not be there to validate her ego. Flirt ostentatiously with other women so she knows you can leave at a moment’s notice. Rinse and repeat, and marvel as she learns to manage her worst excesses so as not to disappoint you.

You will have to PUSH AWAY a waif to get her to come closer to you. Consoling her, protecting her, and drawing her tighter into your orbit will work to do just the opposite of what you intended — push her into the arms of another sucker man.

There is really nothing more annoying or frustrating than a waif giving you the silent treatment and allowing other men to flirt with her in front of you. Often, the frustration is precisely because she does not know what she is doing to you. I’ve found the best way to deal with these situations is to confront the waif in clear and calm terms and let her know you are aware what is going on. To wit:

“You’re attitude is telling. If you have something on your mind, you should let me know, or go home now. I will only allow women into my life who are capable of getting past their egos and meeting me with an open heart. Improve yourself, or leave. There are plenty of men who will gladly put up with your shit.”

If this doesn’t shake the waif out of her manipulative malaise, nothing will. And for girls who flirt with other guys in your presence, you have two options: Fight flirting with flirting, or confront her, as I explained above. Showing complete indifference to her provocations will work short term, but fail long term. You’re better off sparking her lust for you by flirting with other women in return, because waifs respond to drama, their own or yours. Otherwise, let her betrayal play out, then later in the evening pull her aside and tell her not to call you again until she’s ready to respect your boundaries. Odds are you will get a call, and notice a positive change in her behavior.

Waifs tend to be drawn to arty, egocentric men who cope with their women’s whims by ignoring them (think of Picasso and most of his women).

I have dated quite a few Waifs and this is exactly how I dealt with them. Often, I would confront her drama with my own drama. Dramafest!

Tomorrow: The Eternal Ingenue and the Amazonian Alpha!

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