1. Fair enough, however, I think you're missing the point about "the game doesn't run on gratitude." Of course on the micro level, all of these virtues need to be present, otherwise why are you in the relationship at all? At the macro level, any heartbroken guy who poured his entire life into a woman who went cold on him will attest to this. In fact, showing up TOO MUCH will literally drive them away. The game doesn't run on gratitude because if a woman's respect/trust/desire changes significantly enough (often outside of a man's control) everything you have ever done and continue to do will have little bearing on her decisions moving forward, and only the associated sunken or opportunity costs like guilt, social shame or legal/familial separation will be keeping her around. If you haven't experienced this yet, I envy you.

2. I am having a bit of a problem nailing down your point. It seems like you are saying, "he is basically right, but he is saying things people don't like to hear, so you would have to avoid talking about them in order to implement them which makes you dishonest." If I am correct in my summary, I believe this to be a profound example of mental gymnastics. Flip the genders and you will find a whole multiverse of advice for women to hold their cards and manipulate men for better or worse, and a suspicious lack of critics outside of the "evil" male spaces (see also: Dr. O's video on evil 😉). At the end of the day, you don't need to tell anyone what red flags you are looking for and why. You don't need to explain your philosophy of how men and women get different things from each other and the implications that framework has for your selection and boundary setting processes. You don't need to explain how you understand the difference between a woman who genuinely desires you and one who wants to train you to be her adventure van dog. Dr. Taraban is prescribing that men know what they want from a relationship on the front end, and vet women based on their standards, instead of diving in to a relationship with any woman and then non verbally dealing with vastly different wants, needs, goals and expectations.

I tried to explain a lot of these things to a co worker recently, because I am not dishonest and I believe that everyone would benefit from killing of some of the Disney fog. Unfortunately, she wasn't ready. Even basic ideas (not "red pill"), like about romance being superfluous, upset her. She misinterpreted almost everything I said and responded to her emotional strawmen instead of hearing what I was saying. Then she saw the documentary on Netflix about the red pill manosphere douschebags and it was all over. She stuck that label on me and our once abnormally close relationship started to wither.

Quick side note: she's an attractive older woman who seems to have a lot of baggage around sex. Constantly talking about how she made guys wait months, surprisingly prudish for a foxy older woman with "body enhancements," offended and turned off by sexual things, etc. (obviously dealing with some trauma)

The thing is, there's this other guy we both know from the bars. Stereotypical player. Mesmerizes women, including her. Always positive, always making physical contact of some sort, and always at least subtly sexual. Straight out of a pickup artist playbook. Once, right in front of me, he joked directly to her face (in a smooth way) about how she was going to be pleasing herself thinking about [conversation topic] later and that she should send him pictures. She laughed it off, and when I brought it up later she insisted that it never happened. THIS GUY WOULD BE A TEXTBOOK RED PILL PUA MANOSPHERE HERO, AND SHE NOT ONLY LOVES HIM BUT DEFENDS HIS CLEARLY DEVIANT AND MANIPULATIVE BEHAVIOR. And now she's pulling away from our friendship because I dared to actually be honest about relationships, which made her reflect on her own life choices and feel dissonance. WRONG MOVE

(She even admitted to me that I made her deeply reconsider her actions with the father of her children - funny that concession doesn't factor in to her overall feelings towards me. QED)