Richard Cooper - The Unplugged Alpha (2021) Book Review

[GoodMan32]

Sending messages behind an electronic screen to a woman you've never met in person before is a low return on effort activity. That was true in the dating website era and has been true in the swipe app era.

The better play is meeting women in real life.

Arranging first dates in real life leads to a better chance of positive outcomes (shorter term sex or longer term relationships with sex being common desired outcomes).

Some guys can also get same night sex from a bar approach. Same day sex off of an approach in a non-bar venue is super rare and barely worth mentioning. Approaches in non-bar venues usually require a bar date/activity date to get to sex.

You're right, sending messages to broads you've never met behind an electronic screen is a low return on investment.

What I had the highest success rate with as far as tech methods was posting Craigslist ads (back when Craigslist allowed you to post personal/sex ads). That's ideal because rather than wasting your time cold-messaging broads galore, you simply post your ad and let her come to you.

Even cold-messaging on dating sites, however, got me more success in college than in-person approaches did.

 

[BaronOfHair]

Today's dating landscape cannot be compared to ten years ago. Even if ten years feels like yesterday.

Yeah: Ten years ago, our entire civilization wasn't ensnared in analysis paralysis to the degree we are today

 

[Gamisch]

It's an interesting thought experiment to try to figure out how a person would react if entering the dating market in 2024 after a 10 year relationship.

Someone who was in a steady relationship from 2014-2024 likely got married at some point during that time and is possible re-entering the market with a child/children.

Smartphones and text messages had been well established by 2014.

Tinder launched in 2012 and had made its presence felt by 2014. Ghosting and flaking were big by 2014.

I don't think 10 years ago is that much of a change though a man would likely feel rusty if not having had to seduce new people since then.

20 years ago we had MySpace, MSN with the girls with hearts and smiley's in their profile names and cellphones. We had rockband that seemed unstoppable.

Fast forward ten years. Rock is gone, MsN is gone. Ten years ago Tinder was still newish and online dating was still frowned upon. Nobody knew that an obsese 50y.0 hb3 would get a full inbox in the matter of hours. Facebook was unstoppable and we were ballzdeep into hiphop.

That's why I say 20 yeas feels like yesterday. Meanwhile we have Amazon, Facebook is dying and every woman older than 40 grew up with OLD. Meanwhile we have an entire generation of men who are invincible in the dating market.

Popular culture didn't progress hence the endless stream of remakes and remixes. This makes US feel as if tike stands still: it does NOT.

It will take another 5/10 years to determine what's going on today.

 

[Gamisch]

Yeah: Ten years ago, our entire civilization wasn't ensnared in analysis paralysis to the degree we are today

Our own progress might be our downfall.

You need people to repopulate society. On an individual level nobody think about the greater good. It would be interesting to go 100 years ahead in time and see the results

 

[Isildur1]

Like most humans (and most PUAs), he has good traits and bad traits. He has some positive messages you can learn from. But he doesn't seem to like women at all - other than from a sexual standpoint, I assume. You get the impression he finds their company intolerable. In which case why even try to attract them? At that point, you might as well just hire escorts. He can probably afford it, unless his wealth is a mirage also.

When watching people like Liam McRae , James Marshall , Tom Torero, Nick Krausser they were all genuinely interesting people who seemed like fun to be around - I met Tom torero at his last London meet-up in 2018 and he was charismatic guy - it was easy to understand that these guys were likeable and could do well on dates with women- with Richard coooper I don’t see that , he just comes across as soulless and unlikeable and I find it hard to see that he’s had any results approaching women I mean his record prior to publishing the book was horrific

 

[Isildur1]

Unpopular take but women over 40 are mostly bitter, jaded, vapid, insufferable, masculine or delusional who don't have any kids. Obviosuly this isn't true for all of them but this applies for 80% IME.

Unpopular take but if you're a man over 45 and you wanna date younger smoke shows, I see nothing wrong with leveraging your status and success to do so. This will go over peoples heads because they think I'm talking about tricking when I'm not. If you have access then there is nothing wrong with levarging it as long you don't play yourself as a sucker

Also to add it’s often really tough as a 16-25 year old man to date - when I was 16 a lot of the girls in my class were too busy getting porked by 17-22 year olds than giving me attention - of course they saw them as more mature and interesting to date which is fair enough- even at university I was often critiqued by women for my lack of maturity and being too young these women would then pursue 25-30 year olds.

Finally at aged 27 doing daygame I was able to enjoy 20-21 year olds complimenting me and seeing me as a mature and interesting guy the same attributes I was lacking from 16-21 which left me unable to get a proper ltr

old men should be able to enjoy their dating lives how they wish because the beginning is largely a hellscape where you are competing with a lot of mature guys

 

[Divorced w 3]

Sending messages behind an electronic screen to a woman you've never met in person before is a low return on effort activity. That was true in the dating website era and has been true in the swipe app era.

The better play is meeting women in real life.

Arranging first dates in real life leads to a better chance of positive outcomes (shorter term sex or longer term relationships with sex being common desired outcomes).

Some guys can also get same night sex from a bar approach. Same day sex off of an approach in a non-bar venue is super rare and barely worth mentioning. Approaches in non-bar venues usually require a bar date/activity date to get to sex.

I guess I am going to come off as old but, it’s hard to understand that people today don’t realize the power of meeting in person opposed to the internet.

The entire point of attraction is that you meet in person and instantly get that ‘factor’ that can’t be explained, although I will try and which is likely due to non verbal cues. Mannerisms, sensory cues and personality, to take a more descriptive guess.

When you’re behind a screen, you’re a commodity that can be filtered for distance, height, eye color, whether or not you ride a horse, etc. —> solely to try and create the perfect experience in the paragraph above.

 

[SW15]

it’s hard to understand that people today don’t realize the power of meeting in person opposed to the internet.

The last 2 generations (Gen Y/Millennials and Gen Z) are accustomed to meeting people from tech methods.

Millennials were in their 20s when meeting from online dating and social media got big. Also now, aging Millennials are finding it easier to meet people online rather than trying to find someone in the wild. It can get tricky to meet 30s/early 40s singles in real life.

Millennials grew up/had young adulthood as tech was evolving rapidly.

Generation Z had more of a digital childhood than Millennials. Generation Z has less real life social skills than Millennials. Millennials have had weaker social skills than Baby Boomers or Generation X.

 

[Dash Riprock]

How long do you think a man can pull off the 'avoid single moms' thing? I've done it into my early 40s.

A childless man and a single mom is not a good coupling either. I wouldn't be able to date a similarly aged single mom.

When I think about women 35-40 with children, their children are typically 2-8 years old. At least that's the case with the 35-40 year old women that I know with children. That might not be a representative sample of single moms. I know a lot of married moms in that age range.

I'm one of the senior members on this board and can solidly state finding women to date without kids as you get older is a very difficult task. I've found a few and learned they mainly fall into two categories:

1- Boss B*tches: heavily career-focused, know everything about everything, want everything their way, want to make all the plans, and on and on. These women usually settle for highly agreeable beta males because they're easy to control and go along with the Boss B*tch's plans. Definitely not me.

2- Trainwreck Women: dated one of these for a while. She was 51 but looked 35 and had the body of a fit 30 year old. Slight exception here as she had a kid out of wedlock that lived in another state but was never married. After a few dates, I realized why. Lots of moving around, purposely tried to make me jealous when we were out, told me on several occasions "she usually dates younger," and also told me she goes to court a lot but wouldn’t tell me why. Dumped her after about 6 weeks. Too bad because she was hot for her age. Like I said, a total trainwreck.

Now I barely date, as the juice just isn't worth the squeeze. Dating takes a ton of time, not only on the date but all the texting and phone BS in-between dates, costs money, and comes at the sacrifice of the other things you like to do. Most women, even the 40+ older ones, have many thirsty guys chasing them too. The bad behavior, rudeness, hot-cold, and delusional pickiness is prevalent with them too.

As you get older you start asking yourself, why? Why go through all the BS? For what?

THIS is why most older men have completely dropped out of dating and really have no interest in coming back.

A strong, powerful, and dangerous man is one who is 100% cool with flying solo. The beta, insecure, and weak men are the ones sacrificing their valuable time chasing older (and younger), mediocre women who have literally nothing to offer.

Be well.

~Dash

 

[SW15]

1- Boss B*tches: heavily career-focused, know everything about everything, want everything their way, want to make all the plans, and on and on. These women usually settle for highly agreeable beta males because they're easy to control and go along with the Boss B*tch's plans. Definitely not me.

I have dated women similar to this. They aren't fun. Somewhere since they turned 18, they forgot how to have fun. They've gotten far too wrapped up in their white collar work.

As you get older you start asking yourself, why? Why go through all the BS? For what?

THIS is why most older men have completely dropped out of dating and really have no interest in coming back.

A strong, powerful, and dangerous man is one who is 100% cool with flying solo. The beta, insecure, and weak men are the ones sacrificing their valuable time chasing older (and younger), mediocre women who have literally nothing to offer.

Most older men interact with women for the sex. This is also true of younger men to a point, but younger men can at least build a life around their younger girlfriends. For men 35+ dating women 35+, it's more difficult to build a life together since so much of life has been experienced without the other person.

 

[Solomon]

As you get older you start asking yourself, why? Why go through all the BS? For what?

THIS is why most older men have completely dropped out of dating and really have no interest in coming back.

A strong, powerful, and dangerous man is one who is 100% cool with flying solo. The beta, insecure, and weak men are the ones sacrificing their valuable time chasing older (and younger), mediocre women who have literally nothing to offer.

Be well.

~Dash

As I've gotten older, I truly appericate my solitdude and alone time. I have friends who recently divorced or not togther with their childs mother(s). The crap that they tell me they deal with is just insane. I also have lack of of patience for nonsense. I've become ruthless when it comes to NEXTING women, especially those who are 30+and still wanna play games like they are in their early 20s. I just can't be bothered dealing with their B.S. I'm at the mindset now where my time is far more important to me then the woman I'm dealing with and thus I carry myself as such. If I Feel my time is being wasted I have no qualms blocking a number or walking away.

A buddy of mine has a rule, he only dedicates 7% of his time max to women. I have a rule that I deal with women when I choose to. I have no issues taking periods in between dating/dates etc. I've noticed I get stuff done when I do so, although currently I'm activley dating/spinning plates etc

 

[Isildur1]

I guess I am going to come off as old but, it’s hard to understand that people today don’t realize the power of meeting in person opposed to the internet.

The entire point of attraction is that you meet in person and instantly get that ‘factor’ that can’t be explained, although I will try and which is likely due to non verbal cues. Mannerisms, sensory cues and personality, to take a more descriptive guess.

When you’re behind a screen, you’re a commodity that can be filtered for distance, height, eye color, whether or not you ride a horse, etc. —> solely to try and create the perfect experience in the paragraph above.

I had a much lower flake rate from daygame interactions then online

Yet people predominantly people use online dating as it protects the ego- it’s pretty much it - meeting people through face to face shows leadership traits and personality

 

[Dash Riprock]

As I've gotten older, I truly appericate my solitdude and alone time. I have friends who recently divorced or not togther with their childs mother(s). The crap that they tell me they deal with is just insane. I also have lack of of patience for nonsense. I've become ruthless when it comes to NEXTING women, especially those who are 30+and still wanna play games like they are in their early 20s. I just can't be bothered dealing with their B.S. I'm at the mindset now where my time is far more important to me then the woman I'm dealing with and thus I carry myself as such. If I Feel my time is being wasted I have no qualms blocking a number or walking away.

A buddy of mine has a rule, he only dedicates 7% of his time max to women. I have a rule that I deal with women when I choose to. I have no issues taking periods in between dating/dates etc. I've noticed I get stuff done when I do so, although currently I'm activley dating/spinning plates etc

The 7% Rule.

Love it!

 

[Divorced w 3]

I had a much lower flake rate from daygame interactions then online

Yet people predominantly people use online dating as it protects the ego- it’s pretty much it - meeting people through face to face shows leadership traits and personality

I was pulling into Dunkin this morning to grab the usual coffee I get near my home. I was watching the other corner of the parking lot and didn’t see the girl on my side until the last second.
She obviously didnt walk into my car but her face was kind of an eye roll.

Pretty, mid 20’s, sweatshirt, edgy, probably not the type of girl that swipes my way if she sees me dressed in a Goldman Sachs vest, slacks and a button down shirt on Hinge.

Enter the situational opener.

I simply get out of my car - figure she pre-ordered so by the time I am out she should be walking back. I say to her ‘I’m sorry I almost ran you over’ with a slight smile bc it’s actually kind of serious and could have backfired.

As expected, even though I am looking at her, while saying this , it wasn’t until the first couple words hit that she didn’t act like I was even alive, but then when she heard it she started laughing pretty hard. Big smiles on her, me, and the two other women in the parking lot on either side.

I had to go- I didn’t follow up - but I guarantee you the a-hole investment banker probably left a ‘can’t put a finger on it but he’s different’ vibe out there - and, it opened the door to two other women also. If they had gone inside, and we ran into each other.

That’s the power of a real life interaction.