Chapter 28: MGTOW and the Detached Personality

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Chapter 28: MGTOW and the Detached Personality

‘‘If we seek paradise outside ourselves, we cannot have paradise in our hearts.’’

- Thomas Merton –

Men going their own way and the psychology of the detached personality. What is a detached personality, why is it relevant to MGTOW, and what do I have to say about it?

The MGTOW community has grown immensely since I first began my journey and went my own way, and as more began flocking to the community, I couldn’t help but notice the overbearing sense of anger and sadness rising each year. The infamous grief cycle goes as follows: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

These stages may intertwine, come back at a later time, and sadly, some people may never reach the last stage, acceptance. I also went through my own cycle of grief, and I fully understand what it’s like. It can be excruciatingly difficult, especially when walking through the stages of depression, and I made this chapter in the hope of reaching some men and helping them through the process of going through each phase. With that said, I sincerely hope that my personal experience may serve as a small beacon of hope for those who need it.

The detached personality is something I have personally experienced, and writing this chapter was a healing experience for me, especially since I poured my heart out into it without reservation.

Before I go into the specifics of the detached personality, I want to share a personal experience with all of you. When I was a kid, I was incredibly naive, disturbingly innocent, and deeply sensitive. I remember that my aspirations were always filling my whole being with an intense but fragile feeling of hope and I could peacefully bask in that emotion for long periods of time. To me, it was impossible to lose when good intentions were present. At least, that is how I used to view the world when I was a kid. My mother once told me that she always feared for my well-being when I was a young kid because I was utterly clueless about the evils of the world and I couldn't detect malicious intentions. Clearly this changed when I was faced with more significant adversity. Starting in my first year of high school I was bullied, and even if it wasn't constant nor ‘‘that bad’’, it was just enough to call it slight bullying.

In my second year of high school, I started martial arts classes, and I was really into it. I became fitter, more confident, stronger, and I scared off the bullies. They taunted me, and I responded with a full powered punch on the shoulder of one of the guys. Being who I was, I still did not want to hurt anyone, which is why I choose the shoulder instead of the face. Anyway, the guy felt the pain for a while, and he and his partners stopped harassing me after this faceoff.

As I said earlier, the bullying was slight and I wasn't a primary target. I had others friends and I was good in sports, which is probably why I wasn't targeted a lot. But, the aftertaste of bullying transformed into distrust of others, and I slowly became more stoic, more closed off...

Right after that, my parents got a divorce and my father left home. He disappeared without saying much, and we never saw him again. He also never contacted us. Although I didn't comprehend the situation back then, now that I’m an adult it is easier to understand the reasons that would compel a man to choose that option. Who knows, perhaps he wanted to get out of the role of provider? My mother was a stay-at-home mom, and he had to support her financially plus half dozen children, and he did so for more than 20 years. I can't even begin to imagine myself doing that. It would kill, destroy, and terminate all my dreams.

All those twenty plus years of self-sacrifice being thrown into the dumpster because of a divorce. This must have been a hit so powerful that he chose to forsake his family altogether. To add salt to the wound, we got news a few years later that he killed himself.

At the time I was clueless as to why he had left and I reacted by closing myself off even more. ‘‘I am not being rejected, I am rejecting everyone’’ is a good way to summarize my reaction. Thus, I stopped caring about almost everything. The fact that we were half a dozen kids with a single mother and that we faced financial problems was also an issue. To protect myself, to face a situation that was too hard for my fragile self, I desensitized myself, I closed off like a turtle retreating into its shell, and I became detached.

I saw my new indifference building up brick by brick, and I started to see it as a form of strength. Things did not affect me as they did before and I was proud of it. I threw my naivety out of the window, and I did gain a lot by doing so. It was a new starting point that made me grow in a lot of areas.

But it was unavoidable that at some point, things started to get dull. Everything became gray, tasteless, and I lost the flame that had once lived fiercely inside of me. One day the void became too dark, I painfully forced myself to change, and I made the necessary efforts to reaccept attachment. I can tell you that it was a very, very gruesome process that lasted for many long years.

However, when I found out about MGTOW and the Red Pill, I couldn't help but be left in awe. It resonated with the part of me that had been detached for so long, and I was drawn to it. After all, when someone develops a detached personality, it is usually for a good reason. It’s a self-defense mechanism that compels you to be careful and not to trust others so easily. Under a healthier environment, those predispositions wouldn't have developed, and the results would have been different.

The detached personality can manifest itself when someone is profoundly hurt. It can be physical violence or some form of abuse, rejection from a parent or peers, by being taken advantage off, by betrayal, or any other adverse experiences that may happen in a moment of vulnerability. That is especially true in childhood since we are more sensitive at that age. As a result, we may harbor distrust, and we won't get too close to others. It is essentially ‘‘winning the game’’ by not playing it. In comparison to all the people who lose the game and are left at the bottom of the pit, you are a winner. When you look at it this way, opting out is a valid option.

Opting out of relationships decreases the amount of exposure to threats and betrayal. Being hurt over and over again forces us to become overly detached, and our ability to connect with others physically, mentally, and emotionally is compromised. Too much detachment also affects our capacity for empathy. By being distant, by protecting our ego, we also become less responsive to the emotional pain of others.

When we harbor negative feelings and we've come to assume that others are deceptive, threatening, or just generally abusive, our relationships end up being barren.

Safeguarding our ego in this way has many downsides. It can lead us to ignore golden opportunities in the path of our optimal well-being. Sure, being detached is better than being hurt over and over, but it is not by any means optimal.

And then there is MGTOW. Doesn't what I explained about the detached personality seem to fit with the experiences of most MGTOW? Isn't the lack of trust that the MGTOW community places into the system and women pretty similar to the way that detachment works? (Don’t misunderstand; I am not saying that MGTOW’s distrust is misplaced.)

The current society is so bad for men with its gynocentric laws and culture that men don't have enough incentives to be drawn into a healthy and balanced role. Being rejected for what they are, a considerable number of men became detached and went MGTOW. A distrust of society was born because it denies the nature of men as too many boys saw their father being swindled away in an unfair divorce; so they stopped trusting women as a result. Being punished for being a man led to the creation of many detached personalities, which in turn created the MGTOW movement. At least, that should be true for a portion of the people who are MGTOW.

However, the detached personality is not optimal for one's well-being. What I propose is to reopen yourself up and accept, once more and with great caution, attachment. While this may seem like a leap of faith, the risks associated with it can be significantly reduced with the necessary knowledge.

Achieving such personal equilibrium necessitates that we relearn how to accurately assess who deserves our trust, and how much trust at that. In all our relationships we need to discern what constitutes the optimal combination of involvement and detachment.

I thoroughly acknowledge that there are way too many risks associated with building a long-term relationship with a woman. It isn’t worth it, and I do not recommend it. This may seem like a dead end, but it is not.

Blue-Pill (those men who are not yet aware of the Red-Pill knowledge) men are everywhere, and I do not know of a single person in my entourage that has swallowed the Red Pill. As you can imagine, a profound sense of isolation can come from that realization, and if that was not enough, I also felt betrayed by the world when I learned about concepts such as male disposability, women’s hypergamy, and the ways in which other men are so very gynocentric. After my discovery of the Red Pill, I chose to distance myself from my friends and family, and I faced a period of bitter but self-inflicted loneliness. The rage was burning inside me, and a sense of sadness immediately followed the anger. I realized that human nature cannot be changed and that it is hopeless to struggle; and this realization was utterly depressing. It was a harsh journey of constant reading and absorbing content about MGTOW and The Red Pill, but I was finally able to formulate two conclusions.

The first one is that even if the world cannot and will never change, I can change myself and that is the only thing that actually matters.

The second is that I can forgive, accept, even develop friendship and care for some Blue-Pill men and a few select women. Essentially, it is possible, and I would even say that it is preferable to regain this sense of camaraderie and kinship. Human connection is a precious thing, and we shouldn’t throw our entourage out of the window unless people actively harm our self-interest. Of course, if a community is not beneficial to you and goes as far as bringing you harm, you should ditch them without hesitation.

For me, being appreciative and accepting attachment while remaining fiercely independent is a real source of freedom and fulfillment. While keeping hatred in our heart and being indifferent is understandable, we should remember that most people are lost sheep; even if we cannot necessarily share our insights about the Red Pill with them, we can rediscover our empathy and show them our way by being a positive example in their lives. I think that this is a genuine sense of freedom that comes after thoroughly digesting the Red Pill, and at the very least, it was my way of getting over the hardships of the detached personality.

We all have a spark in ourselves, and sometimes it almost gets extinguished. However, we all have the potential to reach for it and make it burn intensely once more.

For those who still date and enjoy casual sex, I would recommend being honest with your partners while trying to connect as an occasional lover. Hiding your intentions, being deceitful, or manipulating women to ‘‘pump and dump’’ them, will only lock you down deeper into your armor of self-protecting mechanisms.

I don’t date anymore and I even have a sex doll, and as such, I could be considered a ‘‘MGTOW monk’’. Even so, I manage to keep a satisfying social life, I often do outdoor activities, I train, and most important of all, I write. Writing brings me a sense of fulfillment greater than anything else, and it was through pain and boredom that I discovered my passion for writing. I believe that adversity is necessary for growth, and sometimes it is possible to find a hidden jewel during the darkest times. Don’t get discouraged and keep looking forward.

Most, if not all, of your friends are probably Blue Pilled, but I still recommend hanging out with them regardless. Having friends will boost your morale, decrease your stress, and they can be a source of counseling when you are troubled. To make it short, lowering your cortisol levels will help to regulate your insulin levels, which will keep you away from diabetes. At the same time, it will also increase your testosterone, which boosts your energy and keeps you away from depression. Friendship is amazing in more than one way. Hormones are closely linked to each other, and you can rarely affect one without influencing the others. Decreasing your cortisol level is one of the best things that you can do for your long-term health.

To reach, and maintain, a good balance, our thinking shouldn't be unemotional, and our emotions shouldn't be unreasonable.

With the last chapter of this book finally done, I want to leave you with a few words: I know that this world is brimming with pain and injustices, but I hope that you will find your way.

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