So… my life has been utter chaos for the last month or so. The good news is that I’m about to lose my $87,000 / year job on Tuesday.

Yeah… that’s the good news. Everything I own is paid for and my military pension more than covers my expenses, and I probably need to focus on recharging my own batteries for a while. There’s a good chance that I’ll get picked up in September at my old gig, anyway.

My current contract that consists primarily of me writing stuff nobody is ever going to read is not going to be renewed. It’s not being non-renewed because anyone was displeased with my output (it was good stuff, actually, and might have made a real difference in the next war if anyone had read it), but rather because the money that was supposed to pay for me to do another year of brilliant analysis was diverted towards making holes in the Iranian desert.

That’s just the calm eye of the Category 3 turd-storm of family drama that defines my life right now, though. So naturally I decided to take a road trip to get out of my head and away from the madness. I packed my car, filled my tank, emptied my bladder, and told everyone except my wife not to call me. If problems arose, my brother was on call for a change.

That lasted less than a day. A (nother) crisis arose, and my phone started blowing up as I was navigating mountain roads in the rain. My wife was a trooper as I tried to manage the chaos from three states away, but pretty much everyone except her went into “I’m not doing anything until Lurker tells me exactly what to do” mode. (Mind you; I’m the youngest child.)

Eventually things were brought under control and I arrived at my destination, which is really what this is about. I was visiting my “battle buddy” to hang out for a while, and I got a sobering glimpse at how “the other half” lives.

About my buddy: he’s a true bro, and I wouldn’t hesitate to go into battle with him, so nothing I’m about to write should be taken as me denigrating his status as a bro. But…

When it comes to women, he has the survival instincts of a lemming. Chicks have always gravitated to him, so he has some blind spots. (Hence three ex-wives who took him to the cleaners.)

As much as he’s my bro, there’s no way on God’s green earth that I would set him up with any woman I liked. In fact, I have a single female friend he’d probably like, but there’s no chance that I’m going to facilitate them meeting.

The Tale of the Tape: he has three ex wives and a teenaged son who lives with him. He makes good money (a lot more than I do, in fact), and he has a huge modern house filled with expensive toys, yet he’s absolutely up to his eyeballs in debt. He’s been on GLP-1s for a while and has gone from being obese to being somewhat less obese. After decades as an infantryman, his body is badly broken down (part of his massive income stems from his 100% VA disability rating, although he also has a full-time six-figure job). He’s also a bit of a hoarder, and every room (and closet) in his giant McMansion looks like a bomb went off in it.

Personally, I couldn’t care less. He’s a good friend and he’s paid his dues (retired E-9 with combat tours). I just mentioned all of that because those are what women claim are red flags. Which leads me to his dating life…

He uses online dating to meet chicks, and women THROW themselves at him. We’re not just talking about snaggletooth 4’s, either: I’ve seen pictures. These women may be broken, but they’re not fatties and uggos. His last girlfriend was well above average (as long as you’re willing to overlook a LOT of ink). Is she crazy, though?

You better believe she is… she takes SSRI’s by the handful, but she smoking hot with a sex drive like a bonobo on crank, so he was willing to overlook the crazy.

So what does my buddy have that most guys don’t? The most obvious thing is that he’s tall (over six feet). Next is that he’s big, although he’s well off his former body-builder prime. He also had a Harley and a lot of tattoos, which adds to the mystique, especially since he’s wearing a “cut” in one of his pictures. You’d never guess that he has a masters degree, but he does (although that’s not in his profile).

His profile claims (falsely, of course) that he likes hiking (lolnope) and that he’s looking for a long term relationship (AW, HELL-TO-THE-NO)… some woman to spend his life with. What he gets is a torrent of women throwing their panties at him. By any objective measure, he has more red flags than a Chinese parade, but he’s clearly capturing the interest of a lot of women. Meanwhile, good solid dudes with green flags are getting nothing, from what I gather.

My take on all this is that a lot of women in these online spaces are pretty broken, and a good man would do well to exercise extreme caution or steer clear entirely. Not only are the odds not good, but the goods are odd.

I think this is a good candidate post for the TRP feed that @Typo-MAGAshiv mentioned: https://www.forums.red/p/whereareallthegoodmen/325416/meta_waatgm_and_theredpill_are_two_separate_entities_and_the

That said, two amusing things about this: 1) When I grew up, men were chastised as being the "shallow" gender. A woman friend of mine tried that line on me and I laughed. Women are now officially worse than men EVER were combined with other outrageous standards but particularly on height. It should be the one thing men today are focused on for their sons such as exercise, diet, and so on. More important now than even education.
2) If I had a son and I got him tall, he'd never LOSE money in a marriage. This guy has choices and while the "goods are odd" if he cleaned himself up, could he nail some doctors or widows loaded with cash? Or in the least, don't marry the crazy stripper redheads named Brittany?
3) Ok, I found a third: When I see online posts from otherwise nice looking and demeanor women saying they've been single for a decade or more, I hypothesize it's likely because they're height queens.

Good luck on your job/situation! Can you collect unemployment?