I took the ultimate risk. Why?

2023 Update: I'm proud to report that our sex life is better now after a half-decade of marriage. On a fairly regular basis, we will still have spontaneous sex in the middle of the day just because we feel like it! We got married a little fast, we didn't date for years before marrying. And I really don't regret it, I regard it as the best decision I've ever made.

I got married. I'll explain why I took this very calculated risk...

Thanksgiving (a very special holiday for me) of 2018, I got married. My life has been a (mostly intentional) dance with risk, sometimes a reggaeton-powered bump'n grind, sometimes a rhythmic salsa step. In that adventurous spirit, I'm now embracing something new...

Marriage is risky, especially for men. If you don't know why I'll encourage you to just spend a little time perusing the MGTOW corner of YouTube. I certainly don't completely agree with these guys but there's an abundance of evidence why marriage is very risky, indeed the ultimate risk a modern man can take.

So what the heck am I thinking?

Those of you who have known or followed me for a while know that I've enjoyed quite the enviable nomadic lifestyle for the better part of the past decade...

Why trade it all in for one woman for life?

In short, I'm an ethical hedonist who chooses the greater pleasure over the lesser pleasure and prioritizes meaning over happiness.

My parents are generally quite proud of me, they think I have a pretty nifty existence and that I’m doing meaningful work in the world, they are also justifiably proud of themselves, they are more than anyone else responsible for bringing me into the world and forming me into a decent (some would say awesome!) human being. My parents could have had a life of travel and fancy dinners but instead, they spent their time and resources on being parents and when they look at my great life they say wow, it was worth it!

My grandparents aren’t alive anymore but they would most certainly feel similarly, they worked very hard their whole lives in a significantly less comfortable world to provide for their children. And it’s really the same all the way down my (or your) genetic line, there are thousands of people through history (whose names have long since been forgotten) who suffered through a pretty hellish existence to provide for their offspring that eventually produced us. All of them hoping and striving so that their children might be better off than them. And the life I get to enjoy so much is the culmination of the ocean of blood, sweat, and tears they shed in a cruel world.

It’s a giant slap in the face to all of them to let their genetic line end with you. If you have a sense of grandeur, romance, metaphysics, or spiritual connection to the past I hope that you, like me, feel compelled to honor the ancestors by doing our biological duty. By humping to ensure their genetic immortality. I think I have a spark of greatness within me and I intend to ejaculate out it into the cosmos. The most effective way to do that is by starting a family.

What I've heard over and over from fellow entrepreneurs is that starting a family is one hell of an economic lifehack. That it flips a switch somewhere deep in the male evolutionary psychology to motivate us to work harder and smarter to make more money.

The tantric sex stuff that I'm into works a whole lot better if you have a dedicated long-term partner. Tantric practice is about harnessing our sexual life force energy to make sex (a lot!) more fun and it's a powerful force that I wouldn't play with in a relationship that was temporary or fleeting. I wouldn't advise getting deep into the tantric stuff with someone who you wouldn't want to make a baby with.

Some of you might be saying...

Jonathan, I thought you were like a red pill, pickup artist type... You got married?

Yes, I'm very red-pilled. To the extent that I won't even risk account termination by speaking frankly about my specific criteria for selecting my life partner on any of my mainstream social media channels. In this exhaustive article, I was promised a sex slave (read the whole article before you judge), I explain my mindset shift from nomadic seducer to, well, husband. And, no we don't have any kind of fashionable open relationship arrangement, those are an awful idea for the reasons I detail here.

The relationship gurus advise that you date and marry someone with whom you share values. Well, I have to admit that when I first met my woman, we shared some important values but we also diverged on some values. The important criterion I had for a serious relationship was someone who possessed a modicum of rationality, intelligence, and capacity for positive transformation. Her openness to adopting my values, when I lovingly explained them to her is ultimately what made me decide to give her my last name. A lot of guys in the red-pill-sphere of the internet are kind of on this futile mission to find a girl who is single, beautiful, and believes strongly in a bunch of libertarian-esque values that are increasingly cultural taboos. I gave up on finding a hottie at the club that hated postmodernism and believed that taxation is theft! and instead chose someone who had really great feminine yin energy paired with a curious mind that I could have deep conversations with.

I also had very high standards for virtue and character which my wife met. Hard-won experience has taught me that there are a couple of conspicuous red flags that should be hard deal breakers, I explain them in my banned-on-amazon book for men.

Don't Stick Your Dick in a Blender

 

5.0

Category: Book

The great guru of risk management Nasim Taleb has written about how women have this dual mating strategy; women seek both lovers and providers. Pickup artists know well that if you start on the provider side of the spectrum you'll be stuck there permanently. Thus, I stayed far away from provider behavior for a while in our relationship.

All humans pursue stimulation. Women are especially intoxicated by stimulation; be it sexy nights on the dance floor, romantic getaway trips to the seaside, or dinners at fancy restaurants. I consciously made the relationship less stimulating after we'd been together for a while and I knew she was really special when she grew even more affectionate and devoted to me even though we would spend our evenings reading a book together instead of going to a fabulous party with friends.

I'm going to resist dragging my new wife into the digital public space with me. So please refrain from sending her friend requests. I have no desire to transform her into a social media starlet, in fact, we've discussed at length the insidiously addictive and dehumanizing source of validation that social media is for attractive women.

Ultimately, singledom is the most risky.

Being single is awesome when you're 22-years-old in a nightclub at 3 AM and have boundless time and energy to socialize and make friends but single people grow increasingly cynical, bitter, and lonely as they advance through their fourth and fifth decade of life. Loneliness is a major health factor. It's not unrealistic to say that loneliness is the new smoking. As a biohacker, I'm all about prevention instead of cure. Somebody who stays proudly single just for the sake of being single until they are 47 is as idiotically naive as the person who eats pizza and drinks beer every day for several decades and is then shocked when they are diagnosed with chronic heart disease.

As a newlywed man, I'm going to try to refrain from dispensing too much marriage advice. I know that usually the first few months or years are the easy part and that it gets tough after the better part of a decade has passed (2023 Jonathan: Can confirm!) I know that there are some happily long-term married people in my audience and I welcome your insights and words of wisdom.