Part III: [Absent] Alpha Males
A recent conversation:
“You’re wrong. There are a ton of single studs in San Francisco. Take my friend Trent.”
“Who’s Trent?”
“We played lacrosse together at Yale, then he was in Private Equity, now he’s starting a mobile payments company.”
“And he’s single?”
“Had a girlfriend but they broke up when he moved to SF.”
“Why’d they break up?”
“She wanted to get married. He wanted to focus on the new company.”
“And how’s it going?”
“He’s totally crushing it. Just raised another round.”
“Must take a lot of time.”
“Oh yeah. He works like a 120 hours a week.”
“Sounds like a great guy to date.”
“Well….okay, fair. He doesn’t have a lot of time. But it won’t be like this forever.”
“Right. In five years or so he’ll be excited to date again.”
“Exactly! And he’ll be super rich.”
“And he’ll have lots of 22 year olds drooling over him.”
“Sure, but that’s not who he wants to settle down with.”
[skeptically] “Who will he want to settle down with?”
“With someone like you.”
“You’re telling me that, when he’s thirty-eight, after five years of slaving away at his company, your buddy Trent is going to forego hot young 22-year-olds having the kind of care-free fun he’s currently missing in order to settle down with my laugh lines and rapidly ticking biological clock?”
[Pause] “I guess you’ve got a point.”
There are alpha males in San Francisco, they’re just all “married to their companies” and not at all interested in dating women any time in the foreseeable future. Not that one would particularly want to date them even if they were up for it. You see, ‘doing a start-up’ is alpha male code for ‘postponing serious decisions and prolonging my college humor existence in a socially-acceptable way.’ Kudos to Alex Williams, the New York Times reporter who recently penned an article about the most eligible bachelors in Silicon Valley. His profile of Bachelor Number One begins: “At 31, Mr. Rattray still drives a 1996 Toyota Camry and shares a cramped Noe Valley apartment in San Francisco with three college buddies.”[1] I’m sure this sounds really enchanting to Mr. Williams, a married New Yorker in his mid-forties, but is it really unreasonable to want, in my late-20s, to find a man who doesn’t have to hang a sock on the door?
[1] See “Bachelorville’s Big Fish,” Alex Williams. NY Times, June 6, 2012.
Oh god, you’re describing me to a T. I’m CEO of a startup, live with three housemates, and drive a shitty car. And the fact is, I’m embarrassed when I take dates home. But dating and finding love is important to me. If it worked out, I’m pretty clear it’d be more important than my company. But it’s been hard to justify all the time I’d spend on trying to upgrade my lifestyle to be better for her, before she even appears.
And don’t you leave a ‘tie’ on the door? Or does no one own one any more?
Just move in with a semi hot female friend, cuz in all honesty very few women will ever look like the teenage prom queen pageant girl you almost married, you know the one. The one with the better in every way cousin you pine for.
Oh, easier said than done you say. From one fuckup on the planet enamored with technology and just cannot seem to get his act together (I have accumulated nine felony cases, all of which I have had dismissed or took to trial and was found not guilty), mostly because of my love for drugs and guns and robbing and kidnapping people after returning from the French Foreign Legion lucky to be alive, but unfortunately… well… thirsty for adventure and fell right back into the same crew of crooks and collegiate colleagues that left me leaving the States for salvation under an assumed name in 2003 but that’s another story). What the fuck are you doing living with bros at your age?! BRO!!!! Early twenties you might could get away with such frivolity… maybe even bang some young girls or some strippers but no decent man worthy of a decent relationship with a woman is going to subject her to people listening to you in the otherroom. Fuck, i hate san francisco. You can’t even make love with fireflies surrounding you in the great outdoors on a blanket.
Okay, here’s the real way to do it. Ditch the beater. Get a used Ducati supersporty or go all Che with a Norton 500 motorcycle diaries motherfucker and use the remainder to get a sailboat for ~$4000 and say it’s the biggest money dump ever, tell her you’ve sank nearly $100K into it over the last 4 years and live under the Golden Gate Bridge or near a beach somewhere and pay the $350 SLIP utilities and wifi included.
Every girl loves a man who has a sailboat. Fact. From Chicago to NYC to Seattle to Miami Hong Kong to Rio to London, it just works! “OH You live on a boat? Is it big? Can I see it? You want to take me sailing?” If you’re over the age of 15 and aren’t speaking with double and triple entendre wherever you flow, then, my good sir… YOU REALLY NEED THIS BOAT MOTO COMBO!!!
Even if you don’t have time to date, you have time to sleep.
And that my friend,
means
you have time
to cuddle with,
I mean sleep with,
I mean,
you know what both your bodies desire
and mine desires a woman/women(I stress women, because it’s almost fantasy like to fuck aboard a private YATCH(younger hipster chicks, not these classy babes with these classy blogs)… and to be honest, you need at least one extra MATE to sail from San Francisco to Hawaii (a week’s sail tops), sisters are good. In fact bring your childhood bro you stashed the gun from the police from that hot ass summer in the 773. Just mention in passing that you have to go home and drain the bilge pump. I only date women who know how to work a bilge, I suggest you take a lesson from this… You can learn a lot about a woman on a boat. Most sailors are suspicious and damn near against bringing a woman aboard a vessel… But I’m a nare a sailor and I doubt sure you were.
Eventually she’ll get tired of waking up in damp sheets aboard your 30″ San Juan with the gangster fireplace, Christmas lights, diesel scarves that are silky and double as courtains, but goddamn it if anyone’s as rad as you, slaps hers in the face, telling her you want me to take it away, is this the best you’ve ever had, you’re lying, I’ll fucking take this dick again, after carnage from behind while she’s drunk off some concoction you’ve whipped up infusing herbs, fruits, spirits, and spices inside a glass revolver. GODDAMNIT YES!!!! bending her over both port and starboard bow pulling her mane back to suck you off like a goddamn legless MERMAID who got her wish.
Hell, she might even keep you some hygiene products and a decent meal and a SHOWER and buy you some clothes and leave them in a drawer she clean out for you back at her place and insist you stay over with her so you can be on time, and ready for the next day so she can show you off to her friends. Also, insist she get rid of her car and get a 4Wheel Drive Jeep or pickup truck manual transmission, instead of that luxury sedan. God I hate those. Fucking Asian/granny style. Make sure she clips your toenails in the shower too… If you’re like me and always planning to return to le legion, you have to ruck with 65 pounds minimum on the treadmill all day long while you copy and paste your burrshit and access the HTML5 APIs… you need nicely trimmed toenails to avoid foot rot and blackened toe nails… It’s hard to run 6 minute miles in pants and tennis shoes when your boots are just not working for you… rucking 14:00 miles in the african sun becomes unbearable.
Additional: She’ll grocery shop and you’ll whip up an orgasm in her mouth by way of an orzo wildrice fruits and herbs salad or a papaya mint pineapple quinoa with mint parsley and lime zest. Man cannot live on seafood alone! destroy her place and leave for work in the morning. Go back to your boat and make her chase you pal. Make her chase you forever. Make friends with her friends, invite them over! Make her insane!!! If you don’t do it to her, I guarantee she’ll damn sho do it to you. Don’t let her play you like no suckah! (As my uncs would say). Leave for the French Foreign Legion again after you break your own heart and send her your doggie tags. Write all your girls and send them similar ones. Come back 50 and spend your earnings on hookers and booze and the finest drugs! While! Because you’re wreckless as shit and live in San Francisco!!!!
PS: Yes, all this is a true story and yes, I caught two more cases last year. Goodbye cruel world. I will miss all my wildest adventures… Be like me geeks and nerds jocks and gentiles… hipsters and hippos. Just beware the criminal lean… Living in the world’s no different from a cell. They have us all by the balls. Legio Patria Nostra
Can I depart from the conversation here and say this was by far the most interesting thing I’ve read on this entire blog? Fact, fiction, somewhere in between, doesn’t matter, I read it three times.
Sounds like life to me.
This is. this is. this is great. Yes. Yes.
I think you make decent points in this blurb, but your fascination with alpha males makes me think we live not only in different cities but different worlds.
I’m confused… if LAX Yalie PE CEO dude isn’t an alpha male….who is? If Mad Men has taught me anything, it’s that alpha males don’t have time for the feminine hysterics (aka blogs masquerading as manifestos) of the people they date.
– a Homo in SF who also won’t be dating you
[…] attract whom you want. In Part III: [Absent] Alpha Males, X describes the qualities of a man she is looking through which can be summed as a guy who 1. […]
So who is ‘Trent’ dating now? Nobody. For 5 years? Really? Or just not ‘Alpha Girls’ like you who deserve better than the kind of work schedule it takes to do well here?
Watch out though, most peoples startups bomb. Raising money is not making money. If you did date him you could get stuck with someone below your (own perceived) social (economic) status. Horrors!
You really are stuck- you won’t risk a less than optimal outcome in life but you are not enough of a catch to be somebody else’s best possible alternative. There is no hope for that situation. Your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash Princess.
Above poster is right. You essentially admit you want an unttainable man. In such a situation lower your expectations and date geeks or leave SF. Its like a guy saying he wants to date supermodels, but doesn’t want to move to NYC or Miami beach, doesn’t have any money and has average personality/game.
There’s so much truth to this. I am a 29 yr old alpha female with a website looking for a start-uppy alpha male, but in the end, you can’t marry yourself, which is what always happens. Two insanely busy people will not equate to a normal, loving relationship. I moved to the Silicon Valley/Bay Area 2 yrs ago thinking it would be an amazing place to date like-minded men, but you are really painting an accurate picture, with these profiles. I actually did better in LA, with all their superficial starving-actor men! Kudos to your honesty.
I must admit there is truth to this post here. I would love to date successful men but they are really married to their work. When they tell me they have a startup company or a management consultant, I usually run the other way. There’s a reason why they are so accomplished and successful: because they spent most of their time on work and not enough on themselves.
Successful men do not want successful, busy, alpha women. Successful men want charming, loving, devoted, buy new curtains and pick-up-the-kids women. They want a support system, that allows them the continued luxury of maintaining and elevating that success. Alpha women with powerful careers and dreams are competing with them. The only problem is, the women don’t necessarily get the luxury of the same support system.
Agreed that 2 super-busy people make the logistics of spending time together hard, but frankly most men would prefer a women that can accommodate to their lifestyle and needs [if they are in fact alpha]. Sorry successful, intelligent, rich women, you’re on you’re own. Just accept your solitude and find joy in other things besides the hope of marrying alpha-prince-charming. Go play some on-line games, at least a geek will take you.
Successful men do not want successful, busy, alpha women. Successful men want charming, loving, devoted, buy new curtains and pick-up-the-kids women. They want a support system, that allows them the continued luxury of maintaining and elevating that success. Alpha women with powerful careers and dreams are competing with them. The only problem is, the women don’t necessarily get the luxury of the same support system.
Agreed that 2 super-busy people make the logistics of spending time together hard, but frankly most men would prefer a women that can accommodate to their lifestyle and needs [if they are in fact alpha]. Sorry successful, intelligent, rich women, you’re on you’re own. Just accept your solitude and find joy in other things besides the hope of marrying alpha-prince-charming. Go play some on-line games, at least a geek will take you.
i agree with you! i was married to a very successful and wealthy men in new york city. he worked on walll street i was a nanny, i often wondered why such a men would want to date someone like me, poor and struggling to pay for college. he said most woman on his status acted like men and wanted to compete with him. makes sense.
Hmmm it seems you are only after the guys… So good luck with it! No complaints!
It’s very interesting to see replies from women here who say they “would like to date successful men” but bemoan that they “spend all their time working on their careers instead of on themselves.”
How, then, are these men successful? They are not successful men. They are under-developed as individuals. They are over-devoted to the pursuit of their work, something that is easy to understand as an avoidance mechanism. People who work too much frequently do so because it helps them to avoid the stresses and challenges of their personal and internal lives.
Be honest with yourself and you’ll see that you are not interested in successful men, you are interested in marrying into status. That makes you shallow and undesirable to the myriad men who are developed and successful persons who also happen to have good careers, hygiene, and social skills.
Exactly.
From a successful, hardworking, sexy geeky female that likes REAL men that are independent, ambitious and totally unwilling to put up with whiny, mediocre, catty, closet socially inept females masquerading as “alpha females”.
Excuse me while I expand my cash flow, watch some good anime flicks, eat some cheesecake, do my nails and love life.
You nailed it. Thankyou.
[…] I just read a female who has a bit at stake and playing with some skin in the game https://whysfreallyisthatbad.com/part-iii-absent-alpha-males/ […]
Happening upon this blog has made me glad that I’m on the cusp of middle age and can now view these onanistic 20something diatribes with an air of bemused detachment that generally only comes with a few gray hairs. Look, it’s not been so long since I’ve been trying to “make it” myself (although the sort of Elon Musk worship perpetuated by the media has only set the bar even more unattainably high in the ~15 years since I might’ve slightly resonated with this article) so I can somewhat-kinda sympathize, but — not really.
Look, the descriptor “average” exists for a reason. Most people are painstakingly average: physically, mentally, and financially. The average salary in the US is only $40-something thousand dollars a year for crying out loud! (Granted, that means a little more outside of the Bay Area, but still, it isn’t exactly a fortune even in Des Moines or Peoria.) You seem to pine for “absent” alpha males but my guess is you’re not taking an honest look in the mirror here: do you honestly think that if someone called up “Trent” and said “Hey, y’know, I know this super awesome girl, highly educated, witty, great vocabulary… oh, and let’s not forget smoking hot…” he would be “too busy” for five years to make a note of you? Do you honestly think that highly driven, successful men are celibate for years? Of course not: odds are, like 99% of everyone else out there, you’re a lot more painfully average than you’d like to realize.
It seems like 99% of female attention is now focused on 1% of the “alpha” male population. Fair enough — it works both ways. If you want an “alpha” male, you need to honestly tell yourself what you’re bringing to the table, since most thinking men these days can’t help but be deathly afraid of marriage. Basically, we’re wising up to no-fault divorce laws and the brutal reality of alimony: so, assume that I’ve got seven figures in cash in the bank, a weekend home near Santa Cruz, and (here’s the kicker) I’m so darn powerful and “alpha” that I could have _any_ woman I wanted to, _but you just so happened to luck out and I view monogamy as my ideal and for some reason I’ll love you, and only you, forever_: even if you’re a drop-dead “hottie” that just so happens to be a loving, nurturing person who won’t drop her pants for the gardener the first time her husband is out of town (which she usually thinks she’s completely justified in doing, since that’s what the little BS “Sex and the City” pro-“womyn” media has promoted for countless years now) _what are you doing for me?_ Do I really need someone that just sponges off of me for a few years (when you more than likely stop working a breadwinner type job and start pursuing your “passion” for yoga or short story writing which will inevitably leave me with all the bills, especially if we have kids) only to divorce me a few years later and take 50% of what I own?
Yes, there are decent women out there, but they’re probably doing volunteer work, going to church, etc. and generally doing other tragically un-hip things (they might not even Brazilian wax!) Plus, they’re probably not in San Francisco, arguably the world’s #1 hotbed for emasculated, wimpy, consumer-product-addled testosterone-free Cory Doctorow types.
Honestly, the happiest people are those that accept the reality that they might not be quite what they’re cracked up to be, and adjust their lives accordingly. There’s only so many Elon Musks out there, and even if you _do_ land one, are you really going to be happy then? Really? I hate to sound like some dbag that walks around with a bag of ready-made Buddhist Lite self-help cliches, but true happiness comes from within. Take it from someone who’s been there, and done that: a $500k/year salary is like a new toy: after you’ve got a couple of luxury cars you realize that there’s only so many nights a week you can go to the best sushi restaurant in town and it all starts to get old. Try to wise up a little, now: wisdom is like interest in the bank (well, maybe not interest in this day and age) — it accrues with age, and the sooner you put things in proper perspective the more satisfied you will end up being.
http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/relationship-issues/millionaire-starter-wife
Holy cow dude. I nominate you for blog poster of the year. You couldn’t have said it better. Totally average girls dont deserve anything more than totally average dudes, and vice versa, but take the totally average American male (slightly overweight, making 20 bucks an hour, with 1 or 2 years of college) and he’s treated like a leper here.
It’s cool that you realize that money isn’t everything. A part of me thinks, how spoiled someone is to turn earning 500K into a problem… but you’re totally right… and perhaps it’s actually a good thing not to earn so much money because it gives people a false sense of entitlement, and a false sense of immortality. I do respect / empathize with single women more than single men because of the biological clock. And also because perhaps one of the dark sides and the ironies of this latest feminism craze might prove to do more harm to woman that good. don’t get me wrong, women need the right to vote, equal pay, equal opportunity, freedom of choice, but they also need to be respected for their differences to men. stamping out our differences isn’t the solution it’s about acceptance. i hope you come to accept yourself as you are and truly love yourself as you are no matter how you find yourself.
Jesus you’re awesome and I would almost tangle with you for your name alone. Are you a straight guy or a gay guy?
straight.
I’m a female living in San Francisco and I must say that I think the author is really just projecting her own insecurities onto other people. Personally, my issue with San Francisco males has nothing to do with their geeky, non-alpha ways(seriously? how could you pass up a great guy because he is a little socially inept? don’t you have enough confidence in yourself to not care what people think and maybe help him along a bit? why should it matter? why are you so insecure?) but their nutty leftist, political snobbery. This, I admit, is atrocious to behold at times.
I LOVE a man that works hard and puts his own goals before dating. I think it’s sexy. There will always be men that just want the 22 year old girls after his money and there will always be the “real” guys that will want to settle down with someone reasonable. I am a successful small business owner myself and work is my priority. Why should I or anyone else put our lives to a halt for some judgmental, desperate clinging vine with the heart of a prune?
I think your problem is that YOU are probably socially awkward at heart and totally lack individuality. I’m sure you consider yourself a “people person” and socially gifted when in reality you are just a pro at ass-kissing and mimicry and probably make socially awkward moves all of the time. You probably have to work VERY hard to be the least bit charismatic and while I will agree that some of the males in SF are arrogant jerks you really seem like the average aging 20 something that wonders why she can’t get a date.
Hmmmn. Maybe because you’re totally mediocre and have to struggle immensely to even get a slice of the pie you WISH came naturally to you.
I admit that I’ve never had this problem, however, and yet I don’t feel threatened by the geeky awkwardness of such men you speak of because I am sexy, confident and a total geek myself(although you wouldn’t think it by looking at me, I admit). Arrogant leftist nutcases that look down on you because you didn’t go to an Ivy League school and sympathize with sex offenders and anti-American extremists? Yes, that can be irritating. Liberal artist hippie snobs or psuedo-intellectuals with all the perspective of a gnat? Annoying.
But I think the good men in San Francisco simply wouldn’t want anything to do with you because you are a judgmental, unkind, desperate jerk. Many successful men tend to like women that are more compassionate and accepting than you because they have to deal with competetive jerks all day. They don’t need another one in their life!
For me, it’s not that men here aren’t rich. It’s that they are so worked focus, they aren’t well rounded. They are often very literal and don’t get silly jokes. They seem very disconnected from family, and honestly, the rest of the country. It’s like this bastion of tech is an escape from all of that, and honestly, I like things outside of tech. I like music, film, sports, and art. These are things that are hard to share with someone here.
What the author is describing is not just unique to startup founders. I know plenty of worker bees who are happy to work long hours and weekends here. It’s their sanctuary, and it can be hard to compete with sometimes.
Painful no doubt for some to hear, but nicely said. I really do feel bad for this generation, the expectations are so high and the reality is so low.
I know so many 20 somethings that have no prospects, no real relationships and frankly a fairly dim economic future. I do not think the current tech. bubble in San Francisco will last that long either sorry to say.
My bit of advice is this. Love is not something you fall into like a ditch on the side of the road. Love, as the New Testament teaches is a command, something you commit to doing; something that takes a lot of hard work. If you learn to practice love, expecting nothing in return, and apply a little propinquity to boot, you will achieve more than your hearts desire. Love is it’s own reward.
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I Lol’ed at this description of “college lax -> finance -> HBS/Wharton/GSB -> mobile payments startup” because it is so damned accurate and describes many guys I went to school with, which is probably an undergrad similar to the author’s. I’m not really attracted to this type (I prefer nerds myself) but I had to laugh at this article.
Also WTF is a mobile payment anyway, and how can so many startups be entering this space? A lot of these web startups are just reinventing the wheel or derivative of each other. It’s awesome when people attempt to solve actual, real problems that the world faces, but MBA’s aren’t usually the ones doing this.
So, the blogger wants a young, attractive alpha man with money and a company that’s already successful and who is attracted to her aging ass. Oh, and this will be in San Francisco, the most expensive city in the entire country. Does this girl know how much of a caricature she is? Hilarious. Please keep writing.