Sample Excerpt from
"Handbook of Toxic Dating Games"
© 1997 Reginald B. Humphreys, Ph.D.

GAMES OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN SYNDROME
(3500 WORDS)

This game, unique in our society to women, is a highly prevalent collection of individual games, maneuvers, manipulations, and communications which certain women are in the regular habit of directing toward men during the process of dating and courtship. As contrasted to the other games already discussed, games which are part of the Most Beautiful Woman syndrome are complex and varied. These games may be best understood through the unified message which they collectively convey to whatever men may be in the process of pursuing a Most Beautiful Woman.

What exactly am I referring to when I use the phrase "Most Beautiful Woman"? This is a crucial question for all who may be interested in this topic. Identification of the characteristics of women who are likely to be enacting these games may be the most important bit of knowledge to acquire for the individual man who wishes to be informed regarding this dating pattern. Also, identifying the persons, that is, the specific women who may be prone to engaging in this pattern, may be critically important. Once an individual woman has been identified as using this type of maneuver, then the interested man may put this knowledge to beneficial use in decision-making and in planning future interaction and relating with that particular woman.

A Most Beautiful Woman, as discussed in this book, is a woman who is extremely attractive to the opposite sex. Such a woman has at her disposal a seemingly unlimited number of interested men. These men may be continuously offering various incentives to the Most Beautiful Woman to develop a relationship of some kind. These incentives include offers of dates (from simple dinners to expensive weekend trips), gifts and presents of various kinds, and most of all, the offer and promise of lasting interest and affection. This ia all offered if only the MBW will consent to become involved.

The Most Beautiful Woman can usually have just about any man she may desire. Having an inexhaustible supply of dating options, the MBW does not have to play by the same rules as other women who do not enjoy such esteem in the eyes of men. Instead, she invents her own rules. To date such a Most Beautiful Woman requires the man to comply and cooperate with whatever rules or games the woman may define as the rules of engagement. If he fails to work within the relational structure that the woman insists upon, the result is that the man will be forgotten in favor of more cooperative participants. In other words, if he won't play by the Most Beautiful Woman's rules, then he won't get to play at all. She will simply turn her attention to the remaining suitors, themselves all still willing to do things her way.

The clearest way to understand what is going on within this syndrome is to understand the extent to which power and control dynamics are central issues within the couple relationship. In the Most Beautiful Woman syndrome, a very clear power differential exists between the man and the woman, with the woman basically holding all the power. The woman holds the power in the relationship because while the man wants only to be with her, the woman wants only to be with whoever comes up with the best offer that day. The Most Beautiful Woman always keeps her options open, and is unlikely to be pursuing a committed relationship with anyone, as this would limit her options.

It is important to acknowledge that the power differential just described constitutes a very powerful illustration of a general concept which applies to romantic relationships in a broad sense. This concept is that whenever there is a love relationship between two persons, that the person who feels the deepest love, or deepest sense of attachment and involvement, is the person who has the least power in the relationship. In a sense, to be open about loving another person is to lose power in that relationship, to disempower oneself. It is a fact that many persons openly or unconsciously believe that such a phenomena does occur, and then deliberately conceal the fact that they feel love in order to conserve power in the relationship. Such a practice illustrates what the essence is of a manipulative game, in that the person who feels love may conceal this in order to further other kinds of agendas with their relationship partner. These other agendas may include: a conscious or unconscious desire to induce feelings of inferiority in the partner; a conscious or unconscious desire to use the power differential to effect the outcome of relationship events of all kinds (from where to eat dinner to what country to live in); a conscious or unconscious need to reenact power dynamics similar to the person's childhood home and parents; or a conscious or unconscious sadistic need to bear down upon the other person with the weight of this power differential. This sadistic bearing-down may be accomplished through various means, including ridicule, shaming, emotional abuse, and other forms of outrageous behavior. The openly loving partner will feel powerless to combat or reverse these, because to do so would violate the first controlling rule of relationships with such an extreme power differential: if the weaker partner (the openly loving partner) complains or fights back, the game is over. That is, the less involved partner rejects the openly loving partner, calling off all current and future games, and the relationship is instantly history. The looming threat of this likely result of complaining or fighting back keeps the openly-loving person in the one-down, passive, powerless role in the relationship. The relationship will only be maintained as long as the status quo is maintained regarding the power differential in the relationship.

Applying this concept to the context of the Most Beautiful Woman syndrome, we see that the man or men in pursuit of a Most Beautiful Woman must obey her rules of relationship, or be "dropped from the list". Take your lumps graciously, like a "real man", without whine or complaint, or feel my ridicule and rejection, is the unspoken but nevertheless transmitted demand of the Most Beautiful Woman. The interested man must accurately perceive and comply with this unspoken system in order to retain social contact with the woman he desires.

As undesireable as it seems, I believe it is likely that most men who end up having a permanent relationship with a Most Beautiful Woman finally achieve their success with the woman in part by being a participant on this very type of list. This means the man has to survive the hazards that are encountered as part of going through that kind of process, a process which most men naturally experience as demeaning. What I am saying with great emphasis at this point is that there is no good way to beat this game at all. The man playing I'll Beat Her At Her Own Game, while showing admirable initiative and self-confidence, is actually indulging in arrogance and overconfidence. Believing that he can somehow outmaneuver the woman's distancing maneuvers and capture her heart and loyalty, he continues his campaign, in the face of numerous odds in the form of other suitors of the Most Beautiful Woman.

In addition to indulging in arrogance and overconfidence, the man's whole line of thinking is actually as faulty as it could be. The idea that the man can outmaneuver the woman and capture her heart through games of his own is doomed to failure, but not because it cannot be done. It can be done, without doubt. The man can occasionally win a relationship with the Most Beautiful Woman by outgaming her. However, even if this can be done, and even if it can be done easily, what results from such a process is a dishonest form of relationship which is highly defective, and not worth having. At best it is an alliance between two desperate and emotionally crippled individuals, an alliance born of games, maintained by games, and likely to come a painful end due to toxic game buildup within the relationship.

It should be clear from numerous prior comments, that the author advocates the idea that the route to successful relating consists in attempting to rid oneself of games, and also to establish relationships which are more game-free. Obviously, the objective of the man who tries to outmaneuver the Most Beautiful Woman with superior gaming is doing just the opposite of what is desired for healthy relationships. The man is just adding an additional layer of games, which in my opinion can only obstruct and subvert authentic relating and intimacy. The man who attempts to win his desired Most Beautiful Woman by outsmarting her is really not operating out of an authentic form of love at all, but instead is revealed as operating mostly out of power and control needs. The man who tries to win through game-playing seems less man and more cartoon, a hollow representation of masculinity, and a shadow imitation of real love.

I know that some of my colleagues in the mental health field might object to characterizing anyone's relationships as shallow or defective in any way. "Don't put down the kind of relationship that a person has chosen" now seems to be the watchword of society in general. Let people live out whatever quality of relationship they are able to achieve.

But I say, what about the interests of those people who would like to be able to become aware that they are living out a life patten that is actually shallow? What about the person who wishes to transcend shallowness? Shall we neglect the needs of these persons by failing to identify shallow and toxic relationship situations?

Obviously, my answer to this question is no. Learning the difference between toxic relationships and toxicity-free relationships is a key form of knowledge for any single person hoping to develop a lasting love relationship. To some, this issue may seem trivial, because it might be assumed that everyone already knows what a toxic relationship feels like. However, this assumption is clearly false. Many individuals have grown up in family situations where there is a great deal of toxicity in interpersonal relating. Becoming accustomed to this level of toxicity as a normal, everyday occurrence, such individuals may enter into a current-day love relationship where there is a great deal of toxicity, and feel that there is nothing abnormal happening. In fact, individuals raised in toxic family situations may not even notice or be aware at all of high levels of toxicity in current relationships. Being insensitive to the various sources and forms of toxicity, and being unaware of the nature of toxic interpersonal dynamics as they happen are major reasons why people get into and stay in relationships which contain high levels of toxic interaction.

Since there is no healthy benefit in a man trying to outsmart and outgame the Most Beautiful Woman, the only strategy remaining is for the man to learn to live with the rules of relationship established by the woman. He must learn to cope with the various emotional changes and difficulties that accompany such an undertaking. In this context, it will be helpful to now consider the various specific game maneuvers which are part of the Most Beautiful Woman syndrome. Knowing these patterns in advance may help save the man from a great deal of pain, suffering, and confusion, because when these phenomena actually occur, their impact is quite striking and intense. Most men report a sense of trauma that leaves their heads reeling when they initially encounter the maneuvers which are part of this syndrome. The dialogue in the following brief vignette illustrates the kind of dynamics which unfold when such maneuvers are first revealed in a new relationship.

This hypothetical vignette involves Ken and Margaret. Ken is very interested in Margaret, is eagerly and openly pursuing her romantically, and has had three or four enjoyable social meetings with her (dates). He plans a special dinner for Saturday night, during which he hopes that the relationship will begin to manifest the romantic possibilities for which he has been hoping. He schedules the date with her on Tuesday, and spends the rest of the week looking forward to the meeting, with many positive and optimistic fantasies of how the evening will go. He agrees to call her at 4:00pm Saturday afternoon to confirm exact plans for what time to pick her up for the evening. On Saturday, he spends much of the day in preparation, having his car washed and waxed, getting a fresh haircut, buying a new necktie, and picking out a small but valuable gift to present to her during dinner as a sign of his affection. Having prepared himself in all the ways that he can think of, he calls her at 4:00pm on Saturday to make final arrangements as planned:

Ken has just learned the meaning of the word toxic, because now his physical, mental, and emotional systems are in a state of shock, outrage, and dysfunction. Ken has taken far more emotional "lumps" from Margaret than might first be realized. These effects on Ken are worth examining in detail.

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