The Stop Gap Lover

“Every single woman has at least three boyfriends – one for each key feminine desire.”

– Xenocrates

Gentlemen, does your girlfriend have a habit of discussing your relationship problems with other dudes? What about girls who insist on having a gay friend? Have you ever noticed your girlfriend or wife spending hours on the phone with some bloke you know she would never sleep with, but it perplexes you anyway? Have you ever noticed that your girlfriend keep a scrawny or overweight, unattractive geek around who always tries to play hero when you exercise your God-given rights to act like a jerk when the game is on or when your boys come over?

Ladies, have you ever wondered why some guys never introduce you to their friends? Have you ever wondered why he only comes over for sex, tv and gifts, but never invites you out to party with him, has never asked you out on a “real” date, or is not interested in meeting your family or friends? What about guys who are always “hiding” when they’re having sexual relations with you? What about those guys who never call after you’ve borne your soul out to them telling them how you feel or after you’ve given them the best sex ever? Do you ever wonder why you’ve had so many great flings, but no real relationships? Are you tired of being some guys’ secret lover?

If you have had any of these concerns, then read on. Herein lies an eye opener for all of you. This article will explain everything. 😉

The Boyfriend Deficit Problem

A woman finds out that there's no such thing as a "prince charming".

Before we can get to the meat of the matter, we need to understand some basic psychological ground rules with respect to women. Sometime ago I discussed the concept of the female edifice. In a nutshell it’s the relational expectation that every woman has of men. She learns this from seeing daddy interact with mommy (or the next best thing on TV dramas). This is where little girls see (for the first time) how great a good man can really be. This is to become the precursor for what every little girl hopes to find in her lover. From here, every woman develops a “shopping list” of all the qualities her perfect mate should have. We shall call this perfect mate “prince charming“.

Now, every woman grows up with this dreamy, prince charming ideal of an all-inclusive übermann;  an expectation of guys she will eventually become sexually attracted to. This is what we call the “female edifice”. Because of the female edifice, young girls super-impose their fathers onto their boyfriends. The problem is that her boyfriend is younger than her daddy, and thus will not be as psychologically mature. As such, these men will only have one or two of the many characteristics of a woman’s “prince charming”. Because of this deficit, she will try and ‘fulfill’ those other qualities in other men. This is what leads to the 80/20 rule of marriage.

Mismatches

As I said before, every woman has a shopping list of the qualities that make up her ideal prince charming. However, as she gets older, she starts to realise that her shopping list has mismatches on it. For example – every young girl wants a man who is kind, caring, affectionate but not gay. She also wants a man who is, muscular, handy around the house and smart. She also tends to want a man who is strong, assertive, bold and tender in bed. I’m pretty sure most of you guys are laughing hysterically at this point – and you should be for very obvious reasons:

Each of the pair qualities I just mentioned are mismatches. This means that the qualities mentioned in each pair are diametrically opposed to each other. No man exists on the planet that possesses all of these qualities – at least not both qualities from each pair. It’s either one or the other from each pair. Genetics and environmental conditioning prevent any male from possessing both qualities in each pair. This is nature’s way of ensuring that there is variety in the gene stock by preventing any particular male gene sequence from having a clear and obvious advantage over the others.

Variety; the Spice of Life – Literally

Variety is good for genetics because it increases the chances of survival of the species as a whole by reducing the probability of recurring bad genes in a particular male’s DNA sequence. When there isn’t enough variety in the gene stock (as would be the case if prince charming was consistently an actual real person), the sequence of bad genes will continue to propagate themselves until it maximizes the probability of passing on a hereditary disease to offspring (such as retardation in worst case scenarios, or unusual ugliness as is the case in many European monarchies where the family condones marriage to cousins).

Concordantly, this is why it is a good thing that “prince charming” does not exist. Any man who is perceived to be perfectly ideal for any woman probably shares too many of her genes and will probably sire a retard. That’s why opposites attract and ultimately work out for the best. That reminds me of a story I read some years ago about a woman who fell in love with a real life prince charming who turned out to be her fraternal twin separated at birth. So again, I cannot stress how important it is that prince charming does not and should not exist.

The 80/20 Rule

Women usually come to the awareness that prince charming (like Santa Claus) isn’t real when they hit true cognitive maturity by their late 20’s. When maturity finally sets in, women start to finally realize that they can’t have their cake and eat it too. So what do they do? They switch their man finding strategy. They decide to go for a “best fit” instead of a “best man”; even though sometimes the best man is quite literally the best man at her wedding – but that’s outside the scope of this article. The best fit strategy forces her to prioritize among her shopping list items by asking herself a series of hard questions:

1. What must I have in the ideal mate?
2. What can I absolutely not stand in any mate?
3. What are the most important characteristics that an ideal mate must have in common with me?
4. What characteristics are “nice to haves” but not necessarily “happy makers“?

When a woman filters her shopping list using these questions, she will end up with a set of characteristics that are more likely to occur in a man. These characteristics usually make up about 80% of her total shopping list. The other 20% consist of mostly “nice to haves”, but non-functional requirements (meaning they won’t necessarily make her any happier). This is where the 80/20 rule gets its name. Once she finds a guy that fulfills 80% of the requirements on her shopping list, he becomes fit for boyfriend material and is classified as a “best fit”.

A “Best fit” doesn’t necessarily have to be 80% of her entire shopping list. He could just be a dude that fulfills all of her “must haves” but not necessarily her “can’t stands“. Or, he could fulfill all of her “must have in commons” but not all of her “must haves“. In this case, a woman can be using a weighted shopping list. So if her must haves are fewer than her “can’t stands”, a dude can still score 80% if he fills out the requirements she deems most important. Either way, once the tally hits 80%, he’s good to go. However, it doesn’t end here. Even with 80%, he’s not necessarily in the all clear.

Follow me so far? Good, let’s continue:

A woman has needs

Exercising her right to choose

Any male who has ever had to deal with women knows that because of their inherently fickle nature, they are never truly satisfied at all times – even when married. In fact, there’s a joke about women scaling an escalator in a building to find men of varying qualities on each floor. The rule is that they can either choose to keep the man on the floor they stopped at and not continue any further, or permanently trade him up for the man on the next floor above. As the women scale the building, they find that on each higher level floor, there’s a man with a better quality than the one on the floor below. As soon as they’ve discovered this pattern, they decide to keep scaling the building all the way to the top floor. On the top floor, they find a man who has none of the qualities of the guys from the previous floors. In fact, he is the worst pick of them all – but because of the rule, they have to pick this guy.

Why are women like this? The answer is simple:

Even though a woman is forced to find a male partner using the 80/20 principle, having a best fit doesn’t guarantee loyalty. What it guarantees is a time-share of her total affection. You may fulfill 80% of her desires – but in the back of her mind, she’s still looking for a guy (or guys) to fulfill the other 20%. The question is, which guy are you? Are you the dude she’s sleeping with? That may mean that you’re the 80% guy – but not necessarily. It could also mean that she’s just using you for the sex, in which case you’re probably the 20% guy (or the bootycall guy – yes, women do it too). Gentlemen, know this: Every woman has at least 3 boyfriends – one for each key feminine desire:

1. Mr. Sex me
2. Mr. Love me
3. Mr. Provide for me

Now I know what you’re thinking; #1 and #2 are the same – right? WRONG! A woman uses both sides of her brain when it comes to sex. Men only use one side (hence why you thought as you did). When it comes to sex, a woman treats sexual intercourse and emotional love as two very separate things. Let’s delve into these in more detail:

Mr. Sex Me

Mr. Sex Me is effortlessly attractive - the alpha male.

Mr. Sex me is ideally an übermann – a guy whose sex appeal doesn’t have to be demonstrated. Mr. Sex me is the dude who she finds so sexy that she would loose the panties for him in a heartbeat. This dude represents masculinity in its purest form – a raw concoction of either man meat, brains, brawn, male pheromones or some combination of all of these qualities. He is the man who’s sex appeal is so potent, that just doing normal, trivial, mundane, everyday activities is enough to get a woman sexually aroused. He doesn’t have to work hard to get a woman’s attention – and even those women who try playing hard to get find him frustratingly irresistible.

It should be fair to mention that the personality of these dudes is often immaterial to the quantity of women they will potentially lay before they’re 21. Needless to say, this guy often by right of genetic superiority will assume leadership as Alpha Male of any hunting pack. Mr. Sex me doesn’t have to be the most physically attractive guy in the lot. He just has to have all of the right combination of qualities that would make a woman ogle at him outside a hotel window or do a double take when he passes by.

Mr. Love Me

Mr. Love Me is the local nice guy who is every girl's best friend.

Mr. Love me is the dude in whom she will satiate her emotional, social and cognitive needs. Now it’s important to note at this stage that Mr. Love me is a very important guy. If a woman doesn’t find Mr. Love Me in her boyfriend, she seeks alternatives. The preferred choice of many women these days is gay male friends. Gay men provide women with all the desires of a male in whom she can confide like a boy friend, without having to worry about him falling for her. A woman’s gay male friend is a cheap, inexpensive, replaceable boyfriend with a non-threatening penis – pretty like much a masculine girlfriend.

Mr. Love Me is also that scrawny or overweight geek who loves to come to her rescue when you act like a jerk on Superbowl Sunday. She would never sleep with him but she keeps him around for all the same reasons she would keep a gay male friend. Even though these guys are straight, their lack of potent masculinity renders them obscure to her as a potential sexual partner – unless they can prove otherwise. However, because these guys (like most stop gap lovers) enjoy being in second place, they will continue to suffer in the friend zone in vacuous obscurity.

Now while Mr. Sex Me gets first dibs on all female conquests, he should not be confused with Mr. Love Me. They are often two very separate individuals. If a woman finds both qualities in the same man, then based on the 80/20 rule, she will marry this dude – but that is rare.  But know this: if your girlfriend will sleep with you in a heartbeat, but cries on some other dude’s shoulders (like that scrawny or overweight geek I mentioned earlier), then you are Mr. Sex me. The other dude is her “Mr. Love me”. Mr. Love Me can become Mr. Sex me – but that is also rare. You’d have to mess up really, really bad – pull every jerk move in the book before you loose your status. Sex appeal trumps everything.

Mr. Provide for me

Mr Provide for me scores by being very handy. He's gonna get some.

“Mr. Provide for me” is usually just a peripheral friend – a platonic male companion that she usually hangs with when Mr. Sex me is not around and when she doesn’t need a shoulder to cry on. Mr. Provide for me is the dude who can fix her computer, install her HD Tv, fix her plumbing, fix her car, change her tires and answer all of the technical questions in life that a girl shouldn’t have to care about. “Mr. Provide for me” can also be Mr. Sex Me – in fact they are rarely separate people. However, in corporate societies, there is a growing disparity between really educated men who are attractive enough to become “Mr. Sex Me”, who are simultaneously useless at home as handy men. If this is the case, then a separate “Mr. Provide for me” will be in short order and have a potential shot at the love box.

Mr. Provide for me is also the dude who Mr. Sex Me authorises to go out to the movies with her when he has to work late. The interesting thing is that Mr. Provide for me has a much better chance of being promoted to “Mr. Sex Me” than Mr. Love Me, because quantitatively, he literally does more for her than just be her Mr. Fix-it guy. He may end up spending more in person time with her than the other two combined. That’s why, if Mr. Sex Me were to be out of town and Mr. Love Me was tripping because he wasn’t getting any, even if Mr. Provide for me had the smallest cock in the world, he will become prime real estate if her other options have become exhausted. Hence the topic of this post:

The Stop Gap Lover

"Girl, you would not believe who I just slept with!"

A stop gap lover is someone who is temporarily contracted to fulfill a particular desire while the substantive designee for that desire is unavailable for whatever reason. He or she is usually a platonic friend who is not too far down on the ladder of desire for an individual – a “plan B” person if you will. People who are stop gap lovers don’t usually know when they are playing the role of a stop gap lover. This is because the person using them often employs deception and subterfuge – usually granting said lover false hope.

This is why so many unattractive dudes like to play “Mr. Fix it” for a woman they know they could never possibly score with. This is also why so many women gladly play “Ms. Bootycall” for a guy who would never introduce her to his friends. The stop gap lover usually has such a low self esteem, that they have somehow deceived themselves that they don’t deserve any better than this. They may also just be an opportunistic savant who is out to squeeze their genitals into any available crack in someone else’s love nest.

It should be reasonable to note that at this stage that people who fall into the “plan B” sphere of things may or may not appreciate playing second fiddle to someone else’s emotional or sexual desires. That really is determined by the person’s self worth. Some people enjoy being in second place. From an advantageous point of view, it’s inconspicuous, and they are not required to spend any money or have any emotional strings attached after sex. This holds true for both men and women – although the emotional impact is usually more detrimental for women. Needless to say, stop gap lovers differ for men and women. Let’s examine each:

For Men

A stop gap lover swoops in to fill the void of an upset boyfriend.

Playing “Mr. Sex me” for some girl while her boyfriend is tripping balls is very desirable for most men – particularly man-whores who only see women as pieces of meat or trophies to be conquered. Many men like bragging to their friends saying “I hit that” in reference to an impossibly hot, high profile woman who walks by. It’s a major ego booster that earns the respect of his adoring male companions. This usually determines the bragger as the Alpha Male of that hunting party.

Alpha Male status is useful for scoring a lot of tail. This is because many women desire men who other women desire – a propensity that harkens back to the caveman instinct which was useful for preventing the human race from going extinct. However, even Alpha Males can fall in love. When they do, they tend to work hard at shedding that designation as they could in turn become a stop gap lover for a woman who doesn’t reciprocate the same feelings. (We’ll explore the female equivalent of this scenario in a bit).

On the other hand, a man who genuinely loves a woman may want more than just sex. If he is smart enough to determine that the woman he’s having sex with only wants him for that much, he may quickly loose interest, and chase after a woman who fulfills that desire in him. However, as this process is never usually smooth, most men tend to keep that bootycall girl on speed dial until he has sealed the deal with Mrs. Right. The bootycall girl is his stop gap lover who exists merely to provide him with his recurring need for sex until Mrs. Right feels she’s ready to spread her legs for him. Once she does, Ms. Bootycall won’t get as many rings from him – unless Mrs. Right starts tripping or when he has a dry spell (like when Mrs. Right goes away on a long trip – or when they decide to take a break from the relationship for whatever reason).

Even when the deal is sealed, men tend have a simple rule about stop gap lovers: “Always have a plan B”. So while the girlfriend is allowed to get upset or have serious emotional relationship issues, even if a man’s stop gap lover decides to act up, he will never, ever say or do anything to turn her away or otherwise endanger that relationship – no matter how shallow. He will need to summon her when he hits a dry spell. Dry spells are undesireable for guys – so they always keep a stop gap lover around as a “plan B”.

A man’s stop gap lover is usually a woman who is always horny and who loves sex so much that she’d sleep with almost anybody with a remotely conspicuous penis.  This is precisely the reason why she is never introduced to his friends (even if she’s a very attractive woman) – because she has probably slept with them too. No guy is stupid enough to introduce the village whore to his hunting posse as his girlfriend. That’d be like a hunter bragging to his comrades about a fish he shot in a barrel. There’s no prestige in an easy catch and no glory in an effortless win.

Ofcourse, there are two sides to every story. Let’s examine this from the woman’s point of view:

For Women

Ms. Bootycall vs. Mrs. Right

Playing “Ms. Bootycall” for some guy while his girlfriend (who is his “Mrs. Right”) is tripping tits is very suitable for many women – especially those who get horny even at the sight of something as mundane as cornflakes. Also, some women like to have the bragging rights of overiding the sexual right of way of a powerful man’s wife. It’s a major ego boost that adds volumes to a woman’s self esteem. It gives her the ego unscrupulous audacity of looking at a man’s obnoxious wife at a social event and smiling to herself while thinking – “…I nailed your man, bitch“.

As ridiculous as it sounds, there are many women out there who have just as powerful a sexual urge as the average man. They suffer from the character flaw of having an insatiable desire to be sexually desired and needed by all men. They like the feeling of being able to conquor any man – especially married ones. They’re the ones that show up at social events looking hotter than a Lambourghini with a vagina. They love taking home a guy they just met. To say that they LOVE sex would be a gross understatement of Biblical proportions. They like to get boned so hard that their brains seep through their ears and nose. If they could sleep with an entire football team or every hot guy in their company’s board of directors, they would.

Like their Alpha Male counterparts, they like to brag to their friends about the knobs of corporate CEO’s, politicians and famous sports personalities that they’ve polished. If these girls are particularly attractive, they are often only scored by high profile men and dudes you read about in magazines. They’re usually the 30 something corporate cosmopolitan women who have either just gone through a divorce or are still single and loving it. They’re the women who live the true “liberated feminine” life who believe that they are only using men to fulfill their sexual whims. They are clearly mistaken.

Concordantly, this is why they never give thought to falling in love – as every woman inevitably does at least once in her entire life. So when they do, that’s when the faeces and the fan become intimately acquainted with each other – because these women only attract men who want to use them as stop gap lovers (simply because they’re easy to get). This is when they find themselves in a true quandary as their natural feminine instinct goes to war with her new found feelings of true love. Her dilemma is as follows:

1. I’m used to getting any man I want – so do I ignore my feelings and find another who will give me what I need?
2. OR do I wait around and see if he comes to his senses and loves me?

Women in this position are worse off than their Alpha Male counterparts, since men can switch off their emotional right brain whenever they want (thus eliminating this dilemma altogether). Women on the other hand cannot. So here we have a powerful, super hot woman who is so used picking the men that she wants that she becomes frustrated when the man she finally falls in love with does not reciprocate. He doesn’t invite her out on dates, he doesn’t introduce her to his friends, he is never seen in public canoodling with her, he is always moving like a ninja when they are about to have sex, and he only shows up for sex, tv, and any other goodies she may have the capacity to provide. This is especially true for women who become “sugar mammas” to younger, less successful males.

The problem with these women is that they don’t realise that they’ve spent their entire lives being stop gap lovers for men who were just scratching an itch. When she finally does come to that realisation, it’s usually too late. She has slept with so many men, that even the good men out there have heard about her. While these good men will show her genuine compassion, they will never show her true love in return, because most men don’t want a whore for a wife. The end result is that even these genuinely good men won’t be able to resist the temptation to get free sex from her – and reject her when she (unexpectedly) falls in love with him.

On the other hand, there are women who use men as nothing more than boy toys or smart dildos. The trouble is that the men she uses are sometimes genuinely interested in her as a potential life mate. However, because she gets so much attention from men all day, the good guys usually get used for their emotional satiating skills, but are discarded as soon as an appropriate Mr. Sex Me shows up. Like a black widow spider, she emotionally guts these men like trout, and as soon as they have fulfilled their purpose, she relegates them to the friend zone where no one can hear them scream in anguish. But the story doesn’t end there.

Again, these women are usually a very exciting or very attractive females who have no justifiable reason to be genuine to anyone. They spend so much of their lives being in such high demand, that when when her youth finally fades away and she is rejected for the first time by a prospective male lover, she will break down and cry like a gushing water main. Rejection is a new and frightening thing for them. To make matters worse, these women squandered their youth pursuing hot men who they think they are using. However, her deception is her own. This is because women are at a particular disadvantage in this scenario. Unlike men, women have a relative age cap by when she should ideally maximize her “shelf life”. Men can happily marry any female at any age. As such, these women are only deceiving themselves.

The Solution

You may be wondering at this point why I spent so much time elaborating on the complexity of a woman’s thought process where this issue is concerned. The reason is rather simple actually: Women are cognitively more complex than men. If I may use mathematics to illustrate my point, most men are like simple arithmetic while most women are like complex recursive logarithmic equations. However, despite this disparity in cognitive complexity, both men and women can become stop gap lovers to each other. It happens all the time. Ultimately, that’s not the position either wants to be in.

To avoid becoming a stop gap lover, one does not need to lookout for others. Rather, one needs to lookout for themselves. You are your own worst enemy. If you have found yourself in the position of being someone’s stop gap lover, you have no one to blame but yourself. Humans are opportunistically selfish, evil creatures. Everything we do is ultimately for self gratification. Sometimes, we are so misguidedly selfish, that we ultimately cause harm to ourselves in the pursuit of pleasure and happiness. Here then are the top ways to avoid being taken advantage of as a stop gap lover:

1. Have some Self Respect – If you don’t respect yourself, nobody will respect you either (even those who claim to respect you). Have some dignity about you. Don’t become so desperate for attention that you would pander yourself to the lowest bidder.
2. Reciprocation is Key – People who can’t do something as simple as remember your birthday are making a very clear statement about how much they regard your importance – especially if they make a big deal about you remembering theirs. People who love attention but are frugal about dishing it out are more selfish than you care to realise. Walk away.
3. Have some Self Control – Your desires must be subject to your will, not the other way around. If you love sex so much that you would sleep with anyone who is willing to scratch your itch, it means that you can be manipulated, used and ultimately discarded. Most people will not pass up the opportunity to exploit you for what you’re worth – especially if you have tits.
4. Trust your instincts – If you know that you’re not a particularly attractive person, an incredibly attractive person who suddenly starts showing you a lot of attention even though they’ve known you for some time is only using you for your base qualities. It means that their primary source of attention has gone AWOL and now they’re exploring their plan B – YOU. When it comes to love, if it seems too good to be true, it most certainly is.
5. Always have a ‘Plan B’ – I’m not being hypocritical here. If you suspect that you are being played, you will want to have a secondary focus of attention (preferably something that you enjoy doing that doesn’t involve another person). Because I can guarantee you that your heart is going to get broken soon. At the very least, don’t invest as much emotional energy into a practically one-sided friendship. For rest assured, someone who doesn’t care for you as much as you do them, is most likely using you as a stop gap.
6. Love is Selfish – Remember that love is inextricably selfish. Never forget that. Everybody who is your friend wants something from you. Just make sure that you know exactly what that something is before you make any substantial investments in terms of time, energy and money. Nothing hurts more than not getting a return on relationship investment because you misunderstood the terms of engagement.

Nothing is wrong with being a shoulder to cry on. Just don’t become the shoulder for someone you love who doesn’t love you back. That’s not respectful of yourself. If you do it, do it because you derive joy from seeing them happy – not because their love would make you happy. If not, it’s better to be cold and unaccommodating than to be pretentious. At least then you don’t set any false expectations or set yourself up for disappointment.

Always remember that men and women cannot be friends unless there’s absolutely no attraction between them. Concordantly, don’t cry on the shoulders of someone who you think is attracted to you that you are not interested in. Doing so is putting your own desires before theirs which consequently gives them hope where there is none. If you think like this, then you should probably avoid being in a relationship until you’re ready to grow up.

Everything is wrong with sleeping with someone just because its accessible and easy. There’s no such thing as a woman who is willing to sleep with you with “no strings attached” – not even the village whore. Every woman attaches a great deal of emotional significance to sex. The feeling of “love” is an electro-chemical reaction in the brain. Therefore, a good round of sex does trigger the production of chemicals that most women naively interpret as “being in love”. This also is why you shouldn’t have sex with people who are your friends. It is interesting to note, that nothing messes up a perfectly good relationship like sex and money.

Conclusively;

People who become stop gap lovers and the people who use them have neither respect for themselves nor each other respectively. This is why there is this “warfare” among men and women in the name of love and sex. Everybody thinks that everybody else is out to get them, so each conspire to get what they want with as little collateral damage to themselves as possible. Nobody is looking at the big picture.

It’s fascinating to me that this whole process is what necessitates the survival of the species, even though there is such a dramatic disparity between men and women. However, after meditating on this quandary more intently, I have surmised that this disparity is just another one of nature’s many ways of propagating only the best genes to ensure the survivability of the species. Men and women who get caught up in these selfish displays of sensationally dramatic, wanton and indiscriminate acts of emotional usury have no intention of passing on their genes. They become so involved in the war-like process of self gratification, that they rarely copulate with a view for producing offspring.

By the time they come to their senses, they are either too old to be desired for marriage (women) or too old to care (men). Thus, ultimately, the world is spared the wayward genetic bastardisations that would have been released into the gene pool from these unfortunate unions, thus preemptively corrupting the fate of humanity. I guess nature is doing all that it can to delay the inevitability of human extinction. While I understand the necessity of these things, it is still a terrible way to waste one’s youth.