Before sex, it’s all about showing up on time and smelling nice. The sexual tension does the rest. It helps you idealize your partner to keep you motivated and on task. I can’t be the only guy to think I’m falling in love with a girl only to lose all interest after I catch my breath. While this tension will never be as high as the moment before that first penetration, it can be maintained at a healthy level with spontaneity, unpredictability, and creativity—qualities that only come as a result of effort.

Effort. I think this culture used to be about putting in effort and hard-work back when our parents were coming up, but it’s been replaced with expectation. All of us are trained to expect things. We expect to afford a nice car and house for going to college. We expect to be entertained every day . We expect the dead person to be scraped off the road in a timely manner so that we can make yoga class. The problem with expectation is that it leads to entitlement, and entitlement leads to a lack of effort. If both of you are not putting in more effort after sex, things will fade out.

The big issue with out generation is not with getting laid (we’re in a golden era for that), but with what we believe a relationship should be. He believes beauty queens should fall from the sky if he is earning six figures and she believes Prince Charming and Funny and Ambitious should sweep her into a McMansion because she is well-read and has pretty nails. “I put in this work to get where I am, so I am entitled to an amazing partner for life. I shouldn’t have to do more.” It doesn’t work like that. Guys: you are going to have to bring more to the table than flashing your extra glossy business card and offering to take girls to expensive dinners. Girls: it’s going to take more than just looking pretty and sending text messages.

People want the best without putting in work, without sacrificing, without caring. We expect to get more than we are putting in, but ask anyone in a happy marriage how it’s really done and they will tell you it’s all about the effort. You have to care and you have to try, every single day. Good luck finding someone here under the age of 30 who understands that concept. Instead of working towards real change to increase their value, most twenty-somethings instead whine about how life isn’t fair and how bad their luck is, as if there is a concerted effort by the overlords of our universe to keep them single and unhappy. You are responsible for your romantic happiness, and no one else. If there is a problem then get off your ass and do something about it, no matter how many years it takes to solve.

But even if you are willing to put in that effort, there is no guarantee you will get back it in return. The expectation mindset is so perverse and widespread in this country that you will quickly get frustrated at the inability of your romantic interests to put in an amount of work you think is necessary for something to last. It looks like we’ve gotten to the point where modern dating is about experiencing a lot of disappointment until you finally run into someone who gives a damn and shows it.

• No related posts

Amen. Great post. There is a lot that goes into making a relationship successful in the long run…while you need to have the love, the sex, the trust…you also need to have the ability to compromise, put in effort and work hard together to be on the same page and maintain all that you and your partner want in the relationship—and the biggest thing? Communication.

Get better at screening.

fuckin a.

there’s no yin!

Well put.

I think what many don’t realize is that sometimes, the effort takes the form of reminding yourself that you genuinely like and love the other person when you might have lost sight of that.

Thank you.

Great post. There is, however, a downside to putting in the effort and NOT expecting reciprocation or results. This downside is called exploitation, or put a different way, taking something (or being taken) for granted.

The vast majority of people are inherently selfish. They care about themselves first and foremost, and if you offer them the proverbial “free lunch”, they’ll take it without a second thought. This is usually how the dating world works. People take, and then get offended when they’re expected to reciprocate, despite the fact that they received something for nothing. I’m trying to be gender-neutral here, but women are more likely to be selfish in the dating game than men.

In relationships, the dynamic doesn’t necessarily change. Men often make tremendous sacrifices to provide for their families, and yet after the first few years of marriage, their wives assign less and less significance to such sacrifices. In a word, such sacrifices are EXPECTED. No brownie points are awarded for working long hours or taking a second job, since it’s his RESPONSIBILITY to provide for the family. Little is often said about her responsibilities. Thus, the evolution is from EXTRAORDINARY to EXPECTED, and eventually to RESPONSIBILITY and OBLIGATION.

In a relationship (and perhaps in life generally) do not take your partner for granted, but don’t cater to his/her ego either. Be firm, but fair in what you expect of your partner, and communicate those expectations to your partner. Likewise, don’t be afraid of calling your partner out when he/she fails to live up to your expectations. Hoping your partner will live up to your expectations doesn’t work.

Nice post. You’re getting soft on us!
Nothing great in life can be gotten without hard work.

I agree with mm — I was quite surprised to read about something women and men can do to improve relationships.

“We expect the dead person to be scraped off the road in a timely manner so that we can make yoga class.” Haha.

hold up, you get text messages???

Damn it, I don’t even get that!

Good post though

Jay Gatsby, now that Chaco has been put out to pasture, Roosh should give you the Friday guest spot.

This is spot on, Roosh. I could not agree any more with every aspect of this.

Man, you’re making me believe I picked the right one to marry. Huzzah to low drama, work and appriciation!

Well said, as usual.

It’s a shame that most guys, especially “science/nerd guys” end up settling down with the first woman who is affectionate and doesn’t cause ridiculous extremely out of proportion problems. Losers.

I’d be careful about extecting too much.

My ex’s mother was like this — she’d go from man to man, because each one didn’t meet her expectations.No matter what guy she was with, she’d find something wrong: Too quiet, too loud, works too much, works too little.

I just heard from the ex and “mom” is now indigent in a Baltimore crack house. This is someone who once lived in a tony DC townhouse. God punishes in mysterious ways, or whatever the hell my grandmother used to say.

gatsby:
“but women are more likely to be selfish in the dating game than men.”

this is true, and it’s not just because young women are conditioned to behave this way but because they really ARE inherently more valuable to the continuation of the species than men. they can afford to be more selfish without incurring a fitness hit in the way a selfish man would. men do their part to perpetuate women’s selfish behavior by catering to their every delusion with flattery, drink-buying, and chasing while they are young and pretty.

of course, as these selfish women age and lose their looks, men will begin to show their true nature around them. they will very quickly unlearn their selfish habits or resign themselves to a life of loneliness.

Wow I think this is your best post ever because it is one of the few that is rational. Thanks for finally realizing the men and women share some aspect of fault and responsibility when it comes to relationships.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_east/6552333.stm

Ahahahahaha! Too funny on too many levels.

I agree with allll of that. People expect things to just play out like a romantic-comedy. They never try and go the extra mile to make things work. Shitty.

awesome post mate..
“Before sex, it’s all about showing up on time and smelling nice. The sexual tension does the rest. It helps you idealize your partner to keep you motivated and on task. I can’t be the only guy to think I’m falling in love with a girl only to lose all interest after I catch my breath.”
I can’t agree more.
Sad, but true. its all about the anticipation. If a girl gives it to you after the first date. then its not the same was waiting after the 3rd or something.. bet hey… it happens it happens, I’m not exactly going to say no to sex.

another thing is, that people tend to think everything in this world comes easy, a relationship comes easy.. or another thing i find, is that everyone is “too busy” for a relationship, well to make it last and enjoyable anyway, thats because you need to actually make time and commit yourself. If i find the right girl, I’ll stick. if i want to make time for her, then i will.. if i don’t, then thats it. I’m finding I’m a slippery icy slope and i need a girl with some mountain climbing boots.

This whole losing interest after sex thing is really overstated. The fact is that if you connect with the person on more than just that level then the sex will be just as nice the second, third, fourth time..maybe even get hotter. I think of it like that Ed Norton movie where he’s dating Rosario Dawson and he says somehting like “she’s the only woman I have fantasized about after having sex.” If the chemistry is there and you really click, the sex will still be good. And this applies whether you do it on the first date or not, because the underlying chemistry doesn’t change.

Also, I don’t think it’s a straightforward comparison between generations. A lot of people from our parents’ gen are divorced - do you think most of them put in the time and effort you’re talking about? Doubtful. As a woman and hearing so many stories from women of all ages, I also believe it has to do with women now being less willing to put up with their husbands’ sub-par treatment.

Finally, a lot of people don’t want to work on things because of either laziness or they are totally dysfunctional and a lot of the time can’t even admit there’s something wrong or they might be at fault. This is the big thing you have to watch out for when getting married. Somebody who is perpetually in denial.

I agree with everything, which is unusual. I especially like the last sentence. No one has a work ethic about anything these days: their family, friends, job, relationship, even the microcosm of sex.

[…] sex, the power shifts to me. Vagina strength is highest before sex and declines to almost zero afterwards, assuming the girl is with a man who has options. I relax my […]

Roosh. You are the greates idiot I have ever met. I met you in person and you are completely empty. You must be such a shallow guy to think only about women and sex. I would never sleep with an idiot with you even if you were the last guy on this planet. I rather be lesbian than even kiss you. Get a life.

I think you’re on something huge here

interesting post! ;)