This essay is originally from here: https://coffeedaygame.wordpress.com/2025/11/15/power-structures-and-the-generalised-shit-test/

A relic of the early PUA theory is the term AMOG. Directly abbreviates “Alpha Male Of the Group,” but practically, it means the following:

• The PUA goes into a set.

• Some power in the set (usually the highest status member) diminishes him.

• The PUA loses all status, and the set is over.

We are not interested in this particular dynamic, but we are interested in a derivative dynamic. The part, “some power diminishes the player out of the set”. This power can be the girl herself, an intruder, the friend group, her parents, or what have you. That derivative dynamic is very common and should be studied.

Let us start the analysis with a basic division of outcomes. We can fully partition such scenarios as follows:

1)That power is “legit”; the Player had no possible actions.

2)That power was bluffing; somebody got more out of the situation at the expense of the Player.

That is it, no other explanations are possible at this macro level. Under this light, clearly, the first proposition was an error in the decision-making process before we even reach the point where we get blown out. The second is more nuanced; it is way more common than people give it credit. 

It is what we call a shit test. We will go beyond tactics and isolated scenarios. We will analyze it from first principles and power dynamics. We will analyze the generalised form of a shit test.

Definition of power, expectations and confidence

Notice the differentiating factor between the partitions above. We divided based on the legitimacy of power. Power is what determines social interactions, norms, and etiquette. 

Let’s proceed with a working definition of “power”. This term is mythologised in the Manosphere; there are multiple definitions that all work depending on the way we want to use them. We will go for such an approach. We aim to get an acceptable definition for our purpose:

-> Power is measured by how much Party A has to adopt or change his behaviour in the presence of Party B.

There we go, for example: you walk into a store, and you want to get a water bottle for free. Walking away without paying, of course, is theft, and it is theft because society exerts power over its citizens in the form of the Law of the land. If you are the store owner, where your local power overrides the State’s in your shop, you can step away with the water bottle without paying.

Perceptions of power

Now we will make a claim. People operate on incomplete information. There is information asymmetry in every social setting. Hence, all power relations can only be approximated, never fully known. 

Since people have a relative idea of power in any social setting, the rules that govern the social setting are approximate and not rigid. There is a collective consensus of behaviors for each participant. Essentially, each person is assigned an acceptable range of behaviors. The cumulation of this knowledge is what we call “manners” and “politeness”. For brevity, let us call this acceptable behaviour.

Boundary pushing

Acceptable behaviour is not rigid and hierarchical. There is wiggle room, gradations, and it is in flux relative to context. There are strong social expectations that everyone needs to conform to this shared understanding. However, people are pushing the boundaries all the time; this is what can be dubbed a generalised frame test.

There is a qualitative difference in how a person’s boundary pushing (or misunderstanding) is dubbed. If a person asks for more than the shared narrative, he is dubbed a social violator. People straight up won’t take him seriously and will alienate him quickly. In contrast, a person who is asking for less than what he is supposed to, quickly drops to the level of his asking, which we call “his value significantly diminishes”.

To clarify: what we mean by “asking” for more or for less, is a combination of both verbal behaviour and his physical behaviour, i.e., his body language. Is he giving more space than he should? Is he averting his gaze more than he should, etc?

That is why an overly agreeable person quickly loses value. That is why being excessively polite and generous loses value. You are operating below your acceptable behaviour. People need to both rise up to meet it and be careful not to overshoot.

Confidence, calibration, and social intelligence

We are now ready to define “socially acceptable confidence”:

->Confidence is precisely the smart limit testing of the acceptable behaviour. Not asking too much, but asking slightly more than what everybody expects you to.

Did you catch it? Confidence is not objective; it is relative to the social setting and your standing in it. There is no universal confidence; there is only relative confidence.

Think about it! Even in the Daygame context. A cold approach is not forbidden. It is highly unusual, so it attracts intrigue. It manifests as the following thought in the girl’s mind: Who is this guy talking to me? She lets you continue your pitch, partly so she can understand where you stand within the acceptable behaviour.

But here is the derivative insight, confidence is not a standalone even as concept. When we are pushing boundaries, there are two other variables at play: how much we push them and how much we can justify this. These translate word-for-word to the concepts of calibration and social intelligence. Let us formally define them:

->Calibration is measured by precisely how much you ask based on your current standing in acceptable behaviour. Essentially, do you know how much to ask?

->Social intelligence is how much you can back up your ask.

Let us give some examples:

• Assume you are in a coffee shop.

• You can order coffee, but you cannot go behind the counter and make a coffee for yourself. The second is for the boss only → that is Power.

• You can wink at the waitress if she is staring at you and giving you the non-verbal ok. Otherwise, it is creepy → The wink is Confidence, the reasoning was Calibration.

• You can ask for her number covertly; she might give it to you on a napkin. You know that asking overtly is not socially acceptable. You back up your behavior by understanding the setting → that is Social intelligence.

Let us give another, Daygame, example. The stop presupposes understanding of the setting (“is it ok to stop her here?”)  and you passing her attraction threshold (“value”). This is a check of your Confidence and Calibration based on acceptable behavior (“Does your value and the setting warrant the stop?”). The compliment and the witty stack back up the reason that you stopped her. This is Social intelligence. 

If all three go in your favor, you have hit the bingo trifecta. She will accept your frame push and stay to flirt with you. In particular, because girls value all three of those, her attraction and admiration for you will be boosted; we are on the money! These are exactly the mechanics behind the Daygame stop.

In short, isn’t that about backing some unusual behaviour (the Daygame stop) with an understanding of the context? You understand what is happening better than most, and you can therefore excuse a bigger range of actions (literally the definition of power) than someone would blindly expect from acceptable behaviour.

Confidence + Calibration + Social intelligence = Power.

Shit tests and AMOG’ing

We have come full circle now. Here are the two scenarios we theorised at the beginning of this post:

1)That power is “legit”; the player had no possible actions.

2)That power was bluffing; somebody got more out of the situation at the expense of the player.

When we are in scenario 1, the player is the social violator. At some point, he missed the guidelines of acceptable behaviour and asked for something he shouldn’t have. This led him to that situation.

When we are in scenario 2, someone else is the social violator. The player again misunderstood the social structure and acceptable behaviour. His Power dropped because he failed to rise up to his relative standing in acceptable behaviour. He allowed this treatment at his expense without reacting. 

The insight

If we have perfect knowledge and understanding of the social situation, then we can never end up in either situation 1 or 2. We literally brought this to ourselves.

Social violators (at all levels) are common because of information asymmetry in power relations. Simply, people misunderstand the setting. Our frame, or more formally, our understanding of the acceptable behaviour, is under attack frequently. But understand this, shit tests are inherently risky. They rely on some party’s misunderstanding of the social situation. 

When women shit test you, or better put, frame test you, they test exactly the concepts of acceptable behaviour, calibration, and social intelligence we defined above. They are measuring your power, that is why they do it!