RendHeaven

All the time. I genuinely find that women are more misunderstood and unheard by men rather than the other way around. The poor listening epidemic among men is widespread and cultural.

@flume Browsing through this forum, I can usually tell where people are "at" just by feeling into "what kind of energy spawned this block of text?" And I've gotta say you're one of the few people who I tend to perceive as more spiritually/emotionally evolved than "me." Not that such a thing even exists - it doesn't really, just perception and projection - but nonetheless I'm always impressed and blown away by "the place you're coming from" in each post. So gentle, calm, understanding, non-judgemental, and compassionate without posturing. You and Nahm form a league of your own in these respects. And so seeing you express that you're not perfect, that you have petty struggles too, makes you even more perfect lol, it's like "oh right she's HUMAN!"

Refer back to my comment earlier: --- What I AM saying is that there is great practicality in studying selfishness/survival, for it will make you more compassionate. I have not said anything about how you ought to conduct yourself, nor have I said anything about relationships specifically.

How would you know that? Sincerely... Being enlightened doesn't stop you from playing ego-games I agree that, relatively speaking, 2 lovers can suspend ego momentarily. But then they will continue to do human things as though they are humans, don't you agree? And insofar as they maintain that humanness, I expect that there will be survival conflicts. Yes, ego is no mistake. I don't know what I'm asking. I just felt provocative lol. The way you interpret my question is interesting... we think alike, but also not! Yes, well "I" am also the one "assigning the concept" of "survival" onto "__." This shit appears HIGHLY layered. I call this observation "complexity." What would you like to call it? I think it's easy to think we've understood the entire structure of survival after hearing or talking about it for some time, as though we were pointing at a fruit and triumphantly declaring, "apple!" but it's dawning on me that you could spend a lifetime going deeper and deeper and deeper...

They aren't separate. I was playing along with the distinction made by Mr. 4201. Good! Now realize that "ego" is YOU and your whole life story

This is an excellent observation. "Love-dependence," as you've put it, certainly falls under the category of survival, but it's definitely not in the same kind of survival as biological self-preservation and reproduction. Rather, "Love-dependence" is more of a higher-order survival, a survival of the self-image/human ego-mind/character. One would think that the survival of biological self-preservation and reproduction would always triumph, because the self-image/ego-mind/character is sort of a luxury of humans that are not dead And yet, in the plot twist of eons, we can observe many instances of the latter ego-survival (which craves validation, etc.) supplanting the former biological survival. Fighting parents are a perfect example of this. Each side wants love and so lashes out selfishly in a bid to survive their current self-image, e.g. "I am a wife to this man, we took on wedding vows to stand by each other, but why the hell does he feel so distant now? This isn't who I am, this isn't who we are, I need to express this discontentment - it's just too much to keep repressed. But he's not listening, maybe I have to scream and yell. Fine, I will." And to an outsider it might be like "Yo wtf are these ego games? Don't you see you're hurting your biological survival?" But I'd like to pause us here and really reflect on why we seem to prioritize ego-survival over biological survival... there is of course no one right answer. I imagine there are a cluster of reasons that differ per person, but this inquiry is especially effective if we can find personal reasons from our own experiences. Do you recall ever prioritizing silly ego-games over what would've been the more "rational" action to maximize biological survival? It can be really subtle, such as being hung up over your ex and hugging your pillow in bed at night instead of falling asleep soundly and on time. What purpose does "higher order" self-image/ego-mind/character survival serve at the big picture level? What is it's relation to biological survival? Are they really so different? Is there anything about self-image survival that strikes you as especially meaningful or even beautiful? If, hypothetically, the Universe was a self-aware Intelligence, why would it assign so much layered complexity to survival?

It's not wrong! Whenever we bring up selfishness on this forum, we don't do it to moralize. If I say "hey, you're selfish." It's an observation akin to "hey, you're a human," or "hey, you have eyeballs." Being human is neither right nor wrong, having eyeballs is neither right nor wrong, and being selfish is neither right nor wrong. You might wonder then, why make such a big deal out of observing selfishness? Well, because it explains almost all of human behavior! Noticing selfishness will help explain why you think, feel, and act the way you do, and in turn you gain self-understanding; Noticing selfishness will help explain why others think, feel, and act the way they do, and in turn you gain understanding of others; And when the two conjoin, you finally have access to genuine compassion, for you see that you are connected to other people through mutual selfishness, and your heart is finally able to burn bright in spite of what the world throws at you. So observing and understanding selfishness (without moralistic judgements of "right" or "wrong") is very powerful and practical!

Your parents ever fight?

@Preety_India Leo said nothing about right or wrong, nor did he say anything about caring or not caring. Learn to look at things from "above!" You're fucking selfish, like other women, and so are men, as well as I and Leo. Just in different & interesting ways. When you "get it" you'll be celebrating because it's awesome to behold the human condition holistically. But it seems like you refusing to "get it" by being stuck in debate-mode. Understanding doesn't come from debate!

@Nahm Haha, that's so clever. Mental hygiene

Your categories are self-serving. No man actually sees himself as being contained in the boxes you've provided. Most of us are just regular-ass dudes who mistakenly believe that being the object of female sexual desire will heal our various shadows and traumas. This mistaken belief may manifest in what appears to you to be different categories of personalities, but fundamentally there's no difference.

How do you tell if you really love a guy?

Gotcha

Ew, that's so condescending.

Ok that's really just standard dating

@Thought Art Thanks man

It may work by coincidence, but no man deliberately adopts FRIENDSHIP as a dating strategy. That's uncharitable Awesome

Jesus Christ her articulation?

It's spot-on, from the POV of a woman who knows what she wants.

@Intraplanetary Logan basically said "I used to be green, now I'm struggling with orange..." by process of elimination, all that's left is yellow

@Peter Miklis I don't blame women at all, I understand Emerald's position. I'm just marveling at the difference in advice - this is literally the perfect example of male and female needs being in direct opposition, and both needs are equally true and valid from their own POVs!

Yes, well said. I found myself more or less defending the "male side" simply because I've been repressing the desire to correct the mischaracterizations coming from the "female side" for a while, and that sort of just exploded. Pure pickup literally just addresses the needs of men in a very innocent manner. Ego corruptions turn pickup into a toxic culture. The difference is night and day to me, but to someone who's looking at it from the outside they just see the corruption - in the same way that a lot of people will just say "fuck government" these days without realizing that pure government at the core literally just addresses the needs of the population in a very innocent manner. Government isn't the problem, corrupt egos are. Likewise, pickup isn't the problem, corrupt egos are. But I'm not blind at all to the fact that the "male side" mischaracterizes the "female side" even more. When I attempt to clear the name of pickup, I sincerely hope that I'm not misunderstanding women more and more.

Dude just get the jab lmao. Your pretentious love facade is obviously a defense mechanism. You're only fooling yourself. Fixation on this one topic is neurotic. We have much larger fish to fry here.