TER General Board
For me, the hobby was first a revelation, then a distraction, but soon became a goal. I am not sure this final stage is healthy ... I don't know one way or the other. Let me tell you my story.
When I first actually completed the act with a provider, I was in my mid-twenties and a hormonally perpetually frustrated young man. Discovering that I could drive to the local stroll, pick on the basis of my own preferences and nothing else, and essentially get what I wanted with very little stress, I began to feel like life was again worth living. I remember screaming and yelling and whooping and high-fiving myself in the car after that first "date", downscale experience though it was. And soon there-after, I began to develop quite a cynical attitude toward your typical "civilian" girl and her machinations. Many men here will know what I'm referring to, so I won't go into it. Suffice it to say, I hadn't really "believed" they were all that manipulative toward me, I just knew it went on, but went on with someone else. (Kind of like venereal disease: "It can't happen to me. It always happens to someone else." LOL) I hadn't actually developed a misogynistic streak before I started getting off with providers, but then I began to have less hormone-induced blindness among civilian potential partners, and started to see through their ploys a lot more. And I got misogynistic damn quick.
But I maintained in my own mind the illusion that, if I worked the system right, I could somehow circumvent the game-playing for my own benefit and (this is the important part) for the benefit of the civilian partner involved. I could "take her away from all that" need for economic support, and social sanction. I was hampered in my quest, partly by being rather desirable -- I'm an attractive man (no self-congratulations, just a little brute fact or so), and at the time I also displayed large earning potential because of the state of my career. So I continued to chase after the hottest of hotties, in civilian life, and didn't get anywhere with them. They were playing some game I didn't even know the rules of. I realize now, they were expecting something other than a simple sexual liason, and that was BECAUSE I was desirable as a long-term committed partner, perhaps husband. The irony, no?
So, as one form of masturbation, I continued with providers. It was all about sexual gratification, which I couldn't get in my regular life. I wasn't hip to the double-reversals of the "game" yet, so providering was just about the only place where normalcy seemed to take place. I still resented the economic outflow, and clearly recognized the trade-off nature of the arrangement -- something negative here, something positive there, unfortunately adds up to a grand total sum of zero. I deluded myself that, if I kept trying harder and harder, some hottie from the civilian universe would eventually take pity upon me.
None did. But I began to learn the game and, little by little, win at it.
I discovered different tactics with the girls, including the "game" of honesty, and found that the thing that got me closest to ready quick fucks with really attractive civilian women, was being a loser and being aggressive. It's true. Nice guys finish last. I quit my graduate program, went into a life of dissolution and dependence on outside unearned income sources, started being bluntly honest with strangers I met in bars -- right down to "Nice shoes, want to fuck?" and found my life looking up. I found a few internet resources on "how to pick up women" and the like, discovered the supportive community of discussion groups about seduction and about hobbying, and started a longterm life change that leads from beta male to alpha male. Or, to put it differently, from responsibility to selfishness. All I had to do was NOT be the guy they wanted to hold hands with, and goodlooking and goodthinking civilian women WOULD want to fuck me.
Sick, yes? I don't think this would necessarily be the case if the people involved in the interaction weren't both expecting something way up in the desirability category -- if I were "settling" for civilians who were mere 7s or 4s physically, or if I myself could limit my aspirations to a "fair match" that would be a teammate BECAUSE she and I were of the same degree of desirability (each gender operating on its own priorities). But I can't. I'm driven (like most of us in the hobby community) to sexing only stunningly attractive women. 10s and 9s. I hate "close interpersonal" interactions with 7s, no matter how "meaningful." I started to see a few benefits to the new lifestyle, and got a few nibbles from civilian hotties.
I haven't quite gotten to where I can consistently pull super-hot women despite their manipulations. And, of course, interactions with women of that sort aren't really fulfilling either. Who wants to land as a girlfriend (or wife!?) some girl who is so misguided in her own life that she only intends to get intimate with a man in order to manipulate him or, as in my (new) case, because she hopes never to see him again? I still hold out (vain?) hope that I'll find some sweet hotties -- or "cause" them to be sweeter than the manipulative bitches I've so far met in my life. I know, bars aren't the most likely places to look ...
Most of the time, though, I think the "game" is hopelessly flawed. Either it's skewed ridiculously in favor of the female in all things except the bedroom (where she "has to put out" just to get her lifetime of economic support) -- and even there, it's not really fair to the male that he must "pay" for the "privilege" of stimulating his fingertips with her clitoris. Or, maybe it's skewed ridiculously in favor of the cynically self-interested, regardless of the gender -- something I've learned to become, and something most women whom I've met who are very very attractive seem to do quite naturally (and unapologetically, more's the annoyance), but something I wouldn't want for myself or my civilian partner. Two cynically self-interested manipulators becoming long-term partners ... hey, sounds like a President and First Lady I know of!
So, now, the hobby is a respite from all the angst-ridden psychological ramblings of a deranged dual personality. Am I a nice guy? Am I a cynic? Will I be ABLE, much less willing, to manipulate little Suzy into the sack? Should I? Does that count as taking life by the reins and driving it where I want, being a man who (like Suzy probably wants) knows what he wants and knows how to get it? Is it HELPING her to realize her potential as a woman? Or does it count as not thinking about other people's needs and just being a damned selfish bastard? I mean, I know I wanted her strictly because she had nice tits!
I don't know where I'm going with this. I haven't resolved anything, and the only real successes I've had are at the first stages of things. My first hobbyings. My first descents into a new city's vice scene. My first civilian seductions. My first visits to strip clubs. My first ... well now, what's next ... 
-- Modified on 7/15/2003 6:39:27 PM
Thanks Singleton!