When I first discovered the ‘manosphere’ back in 2004 I was looking for answers. 

Getting specific, I had just moved back to London and I was finding it difficult to acclimate myself to my new surroundings.

I had a new job in a new city. I had not lived in London for a long time. I had left behind the friends that I had made in Manchester. I was starting my life anew at the age of 30. 

As a consequence I found my self-confidence taking a hit, with dating proving to be particularly arduous.

So I went online to find solutions to my problems – in particular, how do I meet a girl, talk to her like a normal human being, get her contact details, and later take her on a date?

It may seem incredible now that I needed advice on such basic matters. But I had only just emerged from a period of intense drinking and drug-taking. And while I was some leagues away from being a virgin, I had never learned how to interact with women successfully as a sober man. 

Finding guidance on how to date when you are in your 30s, when most men are already either married or a long way down that line, is challenging. And it was hard to ask the new men I was only just befriending in the city. 

As a result, I found myself on an online forum that was dedicated to helping guys to improve their dating skills. This forum, now defunct, helped me greatly in my early years in the capital. Through it I not only learnt actionable techniques about ‘game’ – that is, the study of how to meet and interact with girls – but I also made friends and built up a network of guys that I still know today.

In this way the men’s quarter of the internet proved to be an essential lifeline for me both in establishing my new life, and in setting me up for the future. Indeed, since my career is now writing for this space, it is clear that I owe a debt to that little forum. 

As it happens, I was only in the game for a short time before I met a girlfriend and dropped out of the scene altogether. After that relationship ended, I got together with another girl for two years. And while I remained in distant touch with the men’s internet all that time, I was at best a peripheral figure there. 

When I split with that second girlfriend and came back into the fray, things had changed significantly. Now guys were increasingly concerned with meta-level musings on the nature of intergender relations, influenced by evolutionary psychology.

This was OK with me. I have always been attracted to a more cerebral approach to human relations, and a lot of the reading required, including Darwin, Robin Baker and David Buss, was right up my street. It was very interesting to see the dots connected, to understand the framework behind the various sexual marketplace shenanigans that I had witnessed in real life. 

The men’s blogs I read at that time were compelling because, while houghtful, they were pragmatic. They offered insights which led to specific actions that I could take in the real world to improve my prospects in dating and life. 

The discourse was practical, and the comments sections on the sites were filled with guys discussing the IRL applications of the OPs, comparing notes and making useful suggestions that I was able to incorporate as I embarked on a full-on game odyssey around London. 

The War of the Multi-Colored Pills 

Right now we are in the middle of a war between what might best be called the red pill faction and the purple pill faction. A war of words conducted on Twitter and on blogs where the combatants are talking past one another rather than seriously engaging with each others’ views. 

For the record I don’t have a particular problem with this. In fact I am probably guilty of it myself. After all, propaganda is a powerful weapon. And propaganda is best delivered by relentlessly promoting a message rather than by getting into the weeds of your opponent’s argument. 

However, it’s important that we consider the new guy in all of this. That is, the guy who has only just begun to seek help for the problems he is facing in his relations with women. Because while the internecine war that is taking place may be entertaining for the participants, it is less than useful for the recent initiate. 

Which leads me back to an argument I made in an earlier essay on the state of the ‘manosphere’: the issue with the purple pill guys is not that they are heretics to the red pill message and more that they don’t offer anything of substance to take the place of red pill ideas.

You can disagree with red pill thinking until you are blue in the face. That is absolutely fine. I have no problem with people holding diverse opinions. In fact, I would relish a full and frank debate to move this whole conversation forward. Unfortunately though, what we get from the purple pill faction is not worth discussing. 

A Higher Level of Consciousness 

What we are seeing is a schism between pragmatism on the one hand and idealism on the other. The red pill offers a starkly drawn view of human relations that withstands scrutiny. Regardless of whether you agree with the conclusions that red pill writers have drawn, and indeed, whether you agree that they are using the right data in the first place, it must be admitted that there is a high degree of rigor evident in red pill thinking. Rigour that has been strengthened by the input of the many commentators who have shared their own evidential experiences. 

The purple pill, meanwhile, is based more in aspiration and idealism than in empiricism. What purple pill thinking boils down to is as follows: The redpill is nasty and nihilistic. Yes, certain red pill truths may hold water, but they are not the full picture. In fact, human relations are far more nuanced and varied than the red pill would suggest. The red pill, while containing elements of insight, does not hold good when one reaches a higher level of consciousness.

It is at this point that purple pill messaging becomes disingenuous. Because the purple pill writer will now suggest that if his reader is unable to discern purple pill ‘truth’ – that at a high level of consciousness human beings do not behave in the animalistic way that the red pill would have us believe –  then that reader is himself operating at a lower level of consciousness and is therefore broken, degenerate and subhuman.

The argument is circular: only the enlightened can truly appreciate the purple pill. And anyone who questions the purple pill, having revealed himself to be unenlightened, is automatically a figure of scorn. In other words, if you can’t see that human relations are more than the pitiful and reductive nightmare the red pill imagines that is because you are a ‘broken person’. 

Not only is this deeply offensive to those who have just gone through traumatic experiences such as divorce, it is also singularly unhelpful. Because what we are not given is any indication of how to ascend to the required heightened level of purple pill consciousness. In fact, the purple pill seems to be a closed shop. You either get it (because you are operating at a high vibration) or you don’t. 

And if you don’t then tough shit.  

For all its faults, the red pill has provided men with an explanation for why things are as they are, and prompted a way forward. The purple pill has yet to do either. At the moment all we have is a bunch of virtue-signallers high-fiving one another – virtue signallers enjoying the warm glow of not being like ‘those nasty redpill nihilists’. 

But what they are not doing is providing a clear counter-rationale, coupled with a plan of action for those men looking for advice and guidance.

Vetting 

This is evidenced by the recent debate over ‘vetting’ that took place on Twitter. 

Previously the purple pill response to negative divorce rate statistics was that if men simply learned to vet potential spouses more effectively then their risk of divorce would fall almost  to zero. 

But when challenged over the efficacy of vetting (which is minimal) the purple pill crew were forced to backpedal and admit that vetting is not in fact a panacea that works in all cases. Instead, they said, vetting was something that every man should do, but that it did not (of course) guarantee a successful marriage.

While it’s commendable that they were gracious enough to concede this point, where does this leave the guy looking at divorce stats and wondering whether he should tie the knot? Clearly in no better position than he was in the first place, for now the purple pill advice pretty much comes down to ‘ man up, get married and cross your fingers while you’re doing it’. 

Of course, I am absolutely not saying that guys should not get married. But this is not leadership from the purple pill camp –  it is at best feel good positivity masking an abdication of responsibility. 

If you’re going to set out a manifesto then set the damn thing out. Put your ideas out on the table for discussion. And if your ideas are lacking or non-existent then stop taking potshots at the work of others. 

There is nothing wrong with writing think-pieces and discussing issues. But in the end what makes a real difference is pragmatism. That is what is required. That is what I needed when I first came into this space. Woolly, new age ephemera has its place. But it should not supplant hard-nosed, actionable advice that will really turn the dial and make a difference.

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