A lot of men have been talking about end game (RedQuest | Roy Walker | Troy Francis | Krauser / Jimmy Jambone among others). (addition 1/27: Tom Torero weighs in that there is no end game). The question seems to be, “is being a player all there is?” and “what comes after being a player?”. It seems for many that after 5-10 years in the game the rush of getting yet another notch doesn’t do it any more.
I suspect what this ultimately comes down to is that men want pair-bonding. I’m 44 years old and have personally experienced the full range of types of relationships with women, from same day sport fucks to fuck buddies to harems to girlfriends to my marriage (ended 5 years ago).
From this experience I truly believe that sexual pair-bonding with a woman can’t last more than 3-5 years tops, before your relationship degrades into routine without any real spark. This is how nature intended it: pair up long enough to produce offspring and get them into childhood, then rotate to a new partner to diversify your genes. We can’t get around our DNA.
So I’m at peace with being a player forever. As a man you have to be able to bring new women into your life on an ongoing basis, and pair-bond with them as you see fit.
What fits best for me (every man is different) is having 2-4 regular girls at a time in my life, where I see each once a week. In effect this is a portfolio of girls with whom I pair-bond in different ways for as long as the honeymoon period lasts (“sweet spot” might be a better term), in some cases for years and still going.
What I like about this in effect is I’m always in the honeymoon phase, even as girls eventually come and go. It’s on you as the man to manage these relationships properly and keep them fresh.
With hedonic adaptation our brains gets used to routine. I attribute a portion of my satisfaction with this lifestyle to the fact that I never let these mini relationships get routine. I vary up where we go, what we do, how we fuck every single time. How we lead the dance makes a difference in getting more satisfaction and longevity out of these relationships while they last.
None of these relationships will last “forever” because nothing in life lasts forever. There is no end to this process, just like there is no end to exercise and good nutrition. It’s a part of a healthy life and supports you in your higher mission, whatever that is for you.
This is why we have to constantly game and constantly build value as men. We are not meant to rest in life. We’re meant to strive till we die.
Honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way. Happiness is making progress towards meaningful goals. Achieving those goals is anti-climatic.
There is no end game.
Addendum 2020:
Runner and I had a great conversation where we expanded on the concept of equilibrium. There is no end game, in that there is no rest for a man. You have to be on your game every single day, even in a serious relationship with a woman.
However, you can reach a state of balance, equilibrium, if you keep your game tight on a regular basis. I laid some of those behaviors out in my Rules of Retention post. No relationship lasts forever, but as a man you lead and you have the potential to keep things with a woman in a “sweet spot” for an indefinite amount of time, if you choose and if you lead properly.
Magnum 
There might be no end to game.
But.
I would make a distinction between “immediate” and “long-term” pleasures. Banging a chick is an immediate pleasure in most cases. So is eating dark chocolate. Long-term pleasures are things like building a business or having a family. “Pleasure” might be the wrong term. “Satisfaction” might be the better word. As we get older, satisfaction may become more important than immediate hedonistic pleasures.
Or… we can try to do both. That is part of what attracts me to non-monogamy.
I am also attracted to co-parenting and other forms of non-traditional arrangements. The traditional arrangement of moving to a distant suburb, co-habitating with a fat woman who hates or tolerates you, and driving everywhere sounds awful.
On the other hand, having relentless casual sex until you physically can’t anymore or become sick, etc. may be alienating.
I am a fan of evolutionary biology, and ancestrally most people who survived to age 35 had a family. I think we are psychologically attuned to need or want that. That is why most chicks who don’t have kids are so unhappy. They have ignored what we have evolved to do. There are outliers, of course.
Guys have also evolved to find young hot chicks attractive and to have sex with them.
So there is tension. There may not be a final resolution. I do not have a final answer. I am setting up the questions and situation.
I will use this as a springboard for a longer piece. I agree that the “old way” of “lifelong” marriage ceased to be functional a long time ago. Can we create a “new” way that is not helicopter parenting, that is not an unhappy couple who want to murder each other, that is still compatible with long-term satisfactions?
I don’t know the answers. Almost no one is asking the questions. There is this sense we have to get married and follow the script from 1910. Or the sense we are stuck doing short-term hookups, with no longer-term reciprocity and caring. I am thinking about how some of these challenges may be reconciled.
If a guy wants to chase the hookups, the short- and medium-term relationships for as long as he can… cool. Do it. I am thinking about the guys who know too much, who know that marriage doesn’t work anymore, but who would also like kids while not getting fucked (in the bad way) by the legal system. This is very much a minority pursuit right now. Some women are thinking about this too https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/03/marry-him/306651, not all of them as deluded as that writer.
As guys, we have some lifecycle advantages. At age 40 – 45, we can easily have a family, at ages when women are on the verge of infertility. So that is a pretty cool advantage, for guys who have their lives together. Guys who don’t will still suffer.
There are also some intermediate pleasures, e.g. most people find weight lifting to be hard, but I like it. Learning to love the pain is very helpful and conducive to improvement.
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> “Pleasure” might be the wrong term. “Satisfaction” might be the better word.
This is spot on. There is a balance to long term and short term satisfaction. I’ve found it for myself in seeing multiple girls at a time over a period of months and sometimes years while mixing in the occasional sport fuck.
But having things nailed down in your woman life is necessary but not sufficient. A man has to have a larger mission in life.
It’s why I wrote “Happiness is making progress towards meaningful goals.” I think too many men look forward to older adulthood (50+) as a time to just sit back and finally relax. That leads to decay and death.
Good points and your asking the right questions. Questions in part that inspired me to write my perspective in this post. I look forward to more dialogue on this
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>Long-term pleasures are things like building a business or having a family. “Pleasure” might be the wrong term. “Satisfaction” might be the better word.
JBP talks about pursuing dignity > pursing happiness. Interesting.
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That is another way of putting it, yes. Most people intuitively “get” these kinds of distinctions.
I’m not knocking the game or casual sex, by any means. But many of us feel “empty” after too much hedonism. Or too many years of hedonism.
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I suspect this is the normal course of hedonism / the hedonic treadmill as our brains no longer get the same dopamine hit that we once did from doing the same pleasurable activity over and over again.
Not sure there’s a solution other than to constantly mix things up in your pleasure life while also be working towards big goals (work towards satisfaction and a variety of pleasures)
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>Long-term pleasures are things like building a business or having a family. “Pleasure” might be the wrong term. “Satisfaction” might be the better word.
JBP talks about pursuing dignity > pursing happiness. Interesting.
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I don’t think we can pursue happiness directly. Happiness is a by-product of pursuing your mission in life, and making progress against it
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> sexual pair-bonding with a woman can’t last more than 3-5 years tops
Helen Fischer (I believe) says that the idea of “7 yr itch” is off. It’s 4 years. Most relationship desolve at 4 yr mark. As that is when an infant transitions into a “kid,” and doesn’t need constant supervision.
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> What I like about this in effect is I’m always in the honeymoon phase, even as girls eventually come and go
I don’t know how I define honeymoon. I know infatuation.
I know I DO value the pair bonding that comes post-infatuation… With those extraordinary girls.
I continue to spin on Miss Thick. I am very into other girls, but she and I left off at the place I would like to spend more time…
Post infatuation. Some routine. But no boredom. I don’t think that lasts forever.
Like you, I kept surprises in the mix… As simple as new restaurants.
But it was the routine… A+ sex, dinner, sharing a joint, and falling asleep on the couch together… There was something there I can’t get from a notch, or even a series of notches.
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What you’re describing with miss Thick is exactly what I mean by “the honeymoon” phase. Maybe “sweet spot” is a better term.
I’m happiest with my woman life when I have 2-3 girls in that “sweet spot” with me. Right now it’s “little me” and “artsy girl” who I’ve been seeing just under 2 years and 1 year respectively.
There’s a rhythm with each time we meet, which is always once a week or less. We know each other well and are far past infatuation. But there’s still a freshness yet a deeper connection beyond just sex.
I believe this comes from pacing things out….only seeing each other once a week or less, and then when we do see each although we have our rhythm in how we connect, but yet I keep things fresh in terms of what we do and always make sure we have amazing sex in a variety of ways.
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