RendHeaven

I think you're onto something. Funny how that works.

@Cireeric Really impactful quote. Causing me to stop and think. Never heard of bukowski till now!

The boys are starvin' out here man

I mean, his audience is red pill lonely guys. I don't fault him serving his niche

The men who are most successful at attracting women are highly manipulative. This shouldn't come as a surprise. You wouldn't want to become these people though. It's best to cherry-pick useful lessons from them and discard the rest.

50k is barely a city, more like a town lol. Definitely aim bigger. Cannot stress the importance of location when it comes to dating as a man.

YBC is my buddy from an old online community imagine my shock when he blew up one day, pretty damn inspiring

@Leo Gura Sweet, is there an empty seat at the roundtable of mods now? When's the next audition 😈

Your voice is capped in some sense, a tenor will never be a bass (choir analogy). Instead of focusing on lowering the pitch of your voice (which causes unnecessary strain and limits your projection), focus on relaxing and opening up your belly. Obviously in a man, a lower voice is preferable to a higher voice, all else being equal, but the effect on results is marginal. The relaxed and open resonance is significantly more results-generating in commanding respect and attraction. Think of someone like Owen Cook who has the vocal pitch of an imp, but the resonance of an emperor.

That defeats the whole point lol. the catharsis and upshot of 5meodmt is to plunge through your fear onto the other side. If you neutralize fear with a crutch and dodge it completely, you expose yourself as a state chasing bliss seeker rather than an earnest lover of truth.

If I seem strangely passionate about all of this, it's not because I am an anti-monogomous polyamory shill. Although I have admitted my own bias, that I am "pretty sold on (certain models of) non-monogamy," I hold that rather loosely because as @aurum has pointed out, more testing is necessary. And if this thread had a more non-monogamous overton window, I would be steelmanning monogamy as a counterweight. That being said, there's something deeper happening here for me. After extensive contemplation and a heck of a lot of deconstruction and shedding fantasies, in true Actualized.org fashion, I am beginning to see an asymmetry in mental constructions between monogamy and non-monogamy. More specifically, monogamy involves more mental constructs, labels, rules, expectations, fantasies, self-justifications, and limitations than non-monogamy. I don't think this is merely my bias. Certain worldviews simply hold more rigid fantasies despite the relativity of it all. This does not mean that monogamy is bad or wrong. It means something very technical. For example, monogamy is more fragile. Fragile in the sense that it has something to defend. The worldview of monogamy is prone to falling apart if it encounters cold hard reality too much. Non-monogamy threatens it in the way that a needle threatens the integrity of a balloon. Whereas non-monogamy has no "fail condition," and doesn't mind contact with cold hard reality. Non-monogamy has no constructed membrane that is afraid of being popped. Non-monogamy simply asks: "I am a sexual being. Why limit this?" and then monogamy has to spin a web of stories to justify sexual limitation. One way that monogamy seemingly takes the upper hand is that it can genuinely argue that limiting sexual partners leads to a more stable society and healthier interpersonal relationships. This should not be overlooked. Monogamy may even try to threaten non-monogamy by saying something like, "why are you afraid of limiting yourself? why are you clinging to your freedom?" But then, non-monogamy has no problem responding by saying: "what builds social stability is not necessarily what is true. In fact in many ways, lies and deceptions are the foundation of social stability. I'm not afraid of limiting myself - I just find it distasteful to promote a self-serving construct as truth or duty" The critical fault in monogamy is that it conflates positive survival outcomes with truth. "Being loyal to my wife helped me raise my kids in a healthy environment, and helped us have impossibly deep personal intimacy, therefore monogamy is the best system, a TRUE system." But no, you can't say that. There's so much interpretive baggage here, because you're not merely reporting the facts of your marriage, you have a deeper implicit fantasy about how your wife actually belongs with you and only you, and that if she found another man, that would be a betrayal of the highest degree. You credit monogamy for your deep intimacy without opening your mind to the possibility that monogamy is actually completely non-causal and uncorrelated to depth of connection. Why would it be? You just assumed that without testing! This doesn't mean that we should all become non-monogamists. There really is no prescriptive action here. Do whatever fits your own biases and values. I'm more interested here in the constructive structures behind these competing relationship models. What would it look like to relate to women with minimal artificial mental constructs and fantasies?

I don't know, the self-castration mechanism seems pretty unavoidable even if I'm overemphasizing it for the sake of argument here. With a monogamous pact, no matter how you frame or spin the emphasis of the situation in a wholesome direction, you can't avoid the raw content of your promise to her. You are taking your nature as a sexual being, and willingly putting it in a straitjacket to appease her. Maybe you don't see that as a bad thing, or perhaps you even see it as a good thing, but the "self-castration" is active nonetheless. --- I've always found it odd that prior to entering a relationship, your authentic desire has a dynamic and spontaneous range. But then the moment you enter a monogamous relationship, you artificially limit this range, and furthermore you tell yourself that you are a virtuous person (suspicious self-serving story) For example, prior to entering a relationship, you can be in a coffee shop, see a cute girl, and immediately feel a spark of desire inside. You can follow that desire, talk to her, and proactively build connection. This goes beyond being horny and using women for their bodies. This is about being attuned to the omnipresent beauty of feminine energy every time you leave your house. It's a matter of worship. You see the beauty, you feel the beauty, you honor the beauty, you connect with the beauty. It's like swimming in the ocean because you want the nourishment of water enveloping your body. It's a natural process of integrity and expansion. But then, the moment you enter a relationship, this chain of feminine worship gets fractured at the root. Let's rerun the scenario in the coffee shop, except this time you have a monogamous girlfriend. Instead of see > feel > honor > connect, you stop the chain after you lay eyes on her. Your psyche says "I'm not allowed to go there" and you choke out your inner desire before it becomes a problem. Worst case scenario, this is repression, as you don't even allow yourself to feel the desire. But if you're greedy enough to dare to feel your own authentic spontaneous desire, you are now in an existential bind, the situation is no better, since now you've acknowledged your own feelings, but you're still not able to do anything about it per your own rules. But then, in order to live with this juxtaposition, you have to invent narratives like "I'm loyal" or "I only love my girlfriend" or "I'm too mature to feel anything for new people I've just met" in order to preserve the sense of agency which you've lost. The reality of the situation is multifaceted of course. Maybe your loyalty is genuinely a virtue. But the ego would rather play that up instead of look at the full picture. Because it would kill you to admit that: "yeah deep down I really want to see, feel, honor, connect, and worship her, but I willingly promised someone else that I'm not allowed to do that, so I have to pretend I am asexual or else the inner conflict is too much to bear" I see this whole situation as hypocritical. In order to get into your treasured relationship in the first place, you had to take a stranger through a chain of increasing intimacy and connection, starting at, "Hi! what's your name?" But then, once you get into a monogamy pact, you forbid yourself and your partner from ever exploring that chain ever again with another person. It's a pure, selfish, double standard born of fear, which would not be so bad if you could just admit what you're doing, but the worst part is that instead of acknowledging the facts (e.g. "babe, let's limit each other because we're afraid"), you're going to spin self-serving narratives about loyalty and true love to the point that you will actually start believing that you have no interest in other girls, which is an obvious lie because the moment your girlfriend leaves you, you're back to scouting for new women. If you truly think that, "I only love my girlfriend, and other women don't interest me," then I'd like to see you be a male widow forever if she ever leaves you. If you are capable of being interested in new women while you are single, that means you are capable of being interested in new women while you are taken. Bottom line is, let's be honest. It's not even about getting laid necessarily. It's about wanting to cherish the full expansive range of my spontaneous attraction potential. That's fair. But then why have this conversation? Why not go get a monogamous long-term relationship like everyone else and call it a day? If sexual freedom is immature, are you able to spell out for me exactly how genital gatekeeping is mature? "Babe I will never put my penis inside another woman every again, matter of fact I won't even think about it. And of course, you better not spread your legs for any man ever again, much less think about it! If you cross this line you are a liar and a cheater!" Is this mature? This is the inherent implication of all sexual monogamy, even if it's not verbalized. This implication is usually sneaking in the background, dressed in virtue. This axiom is taken on faith, and has deep practical consequences. Here's something I've been thinking for a while. If you're so convinced that the two of you are only meant for each other, shouldn't you have no problem with anarchy or temptation? It's the difference between resisting the junk food because "you shouldn't eat it" vs barely even considering the junk food because it's so obviously not for you. It's the difference between keeping your dog on a leash every time you go outside vs trusting him to walk by your side. If it's truly you and her vs the world, your actions will prove this, without any rules or expectations, in a lawless environment full of temptation. If a girl says she only wants me for the rest of her life, I WANT to throw her in a pool of men without any strings attached just to see how she reacts. It's not even a test per se. I don't plan to punish her if she "fails" or reward her if she "succeeds." I just want to see the real her in a real environment without artificial shackles and the burden of my expectations. The moment you have to erect guardrails and build elaborate promise-structures, you're basically admitting to yourself "yeah I would cheat if not for these rules" or "yeah I don't trust her if not for these rules" In my eyes, the only way monogamy is intellectually and philosophically salvageable is if you have 0 sexual guardrails and 0 genital gatekeeping, and you happen to organically and incidentally choose only each other for the rest of your lives. This is true. I'm used to losing women.

I wrote detailed, point-by-point deconstructions and questions for you on page 2 roughly 21 hours ago. There's a chance you just didn't see it, in which case fair enough. But if you read it and chose to ignore it and double down on your thesis word for word, it seems like we just don't have the same intellectual standards.

That's fair. My confidence only comes from observing my friends in-person and online. But their futures are yet to be seen. And especially my own future is vague. More testing is required. I sympathize with this deeply. Not only must she be attractive, but she must also energetically compatible, have values alignment with you, and now she has to be non monogamous?? That's an impossibly high bar In my experience, women tend to be unfathomably flexible, explorative, dynamic, and go with the flow (i.e. feminine). Feminine women will mold to fit the shape of their container, like how water takes on the shape of its cup. Maybe you have observed this. The same girl you were once dating will get a new boyfriend and it's like her entire personality changes. It's not that she was ever real or fake. It's that her bliss is to follow the leadership of whoever she currently trusts with her heart. This gives her a shocking (and incomprehensible) degree of personality flexibility. This is also the mechanism that abusers and narcissists exploit. Since women naturally have looser boundaries than men, this allows disgusting guys to push and push and push until she bends or breaks. Obviously I am not recommending that we do this. I want the women in my life to be on board with my leadership without any coercion. I'm merely bringing up this dynamic to make the point that women are happy to try new things, so long as their heart follows you. Your dream girl basically has a 0% chance of having non-monogamous software preinstalled. This is an offer you must make, with no strings attached, and she has to willingly choose to give it a shot with you, because she's naturally adventurous, and she wants to keep you in her life. It's a frame battle of sorts. If you really really really really want her, and you're afraid of losing her, you will fold and offer monogamy to placate her. There will be 0 conflict, and both sides will appear initially thrilled. But you did very much just castrate yourself. Your sexual freedom is now nonexistent. You are no longer "allowed" to show interest in any other woman, or else you are a liar. This may cause issues down the line. Are you seriously going to be with this one girl, and only this one girl, FOREVER? That's the implication and promise. So you have to "hold the line" so to speak. The frame is, "I really like you and I want to take this to the next level, but I can't hand you my balls. I want to explore emotional exclusivity, but I can't promise eternal sexual subservience to you. This is not a wise thing to do for our future longevity. I am open to compromise." And if she says no, then that's that. But if she likes you, it's more likely that she will pause and furrow her brow as she's faced with an internal conflict. She may push back or try to change your mind. This is where you gently but firmly hold the line. You want her but you're willing to lose her. If she sees your sincerity and she has an open mind, odds are actually in your favor!

I think you might be assuming that non-monogamy = an orgy free-for-all with 3 girlfriends That's way way way too much. The only core difference between monogamy and non-monogamy is genital gatekeeping. From an earlier comment I wrote in this thread, here's a more realistic/stable and low-key varient of non-monogamy (compared to a saudi harem lol) The simplest and most hassle-free non-monogamy is to have a girlfriend/wife in an emotionally exclusive relationship, but both parties are allowed to have unrestricted sex with anybody as "friends with benefits" (but you can implement safeguards like "no fucking each others' siblings or best friends" to minimize bullshit). The emotional exclusivity helps her feel safe, fulfills the criteria of mutual sacrifice, and disincentivizes her from running off with other men (lmao). This means you can still take on the world with your one special person and go as deep as you want. But you can both eat snacks on the side. You're not meant to get attached to your snacks the way you would with the main course. But it's also neurotic to refuse all snacks for the rest of your life, and to eat your one designated meal like a good boy. Yes, this arrangement does mean you will be using other women as "side pieces" but this is not a problem as long as you have integrity and the all girls involved give their informed consent. If you have an open marriage, for example, this should be the first thing you tell new girls. One main girl + one rotating side girl (because nobody wants to be the side girl forever) counts as non-monogamy, and compared to regular monogamy, gives you more freedom and forces you to be more trusting of your main partner, without detracting from the depth of romance you desire to build (it could even add to deepened trust, contemplate why!) Yes. Non-monogamy is manipulative, but so is monogamy. As to which is more manipulative, I'm not sure. The margin feels razor-thin, and I don't have a horse in this race believe it or not. I'm tentatively sold on this non-monogamy model I just shared above, but that doesn't mean I'm strictly anti-monogamy. One main girl + one side girl who you only see every other week for 2 hours (to destroy her guts) is not so different from just having one main girl in terms of the attention you must give The side girl understands that she's not your girlfriend with informed consent. She's happy to use your body just as much as you are using her. This whole arrangement would actually fall apart if you tried giving more time and energy to your side girl. Paying for dates, talking about your feelings, etc. This would cross the emotional exclusivity boundary, send mixed signals to both of your girls, and lead to the collapse of your castle. You don't have to have 3 full-fledged girlfriends, nor should you ever want that. That sounds nightmarish. The one "downside" to the dating model I'm sharing is the fact that you will have have to go "hunting" for a new side girl once or twice a year. Because if you lazily sit on your ass, your side girl will eventually leave you and you will be completely dry of options, which means you are now in de facto monogamy except your girlfriend still has infinite men knocking on her door and you can't force her to close her legs (it's completely her choice). So you have to stay sharp. Attracting new women has to be fun and enjoyable for you. All girls are going to have a preference for monogamy. The only reason a "high quality woman" would be more difficult to convince is if she has more sexual marketplace leverage over you. If you both subconsciously understand that she is the buyer and you are the seller (due to uneven demand - more high quality men want her than high quality women want you), then she is in a position to walk away from you if you don't fit her standard. She will simply go find someone else. Honestly, go girl! However, if you manage to flip the emotional buyer-seller dynamic by showing her that more high quality women want you than high quality men want her (this is only possible by emphasizing quality. Because you will ALWAYS lose to her in quantity), then you are in a position to offer a non-monogamous relationship, and even though this disturbs her at first, she can't just drop you and walk away. And if she does, you still have other high-quality women willing to hear your offer. Yes, pulling this off with integrity, informed consent, and minimal manipulation requires you to be a bit of a stud (in terms of energy and emotions! NOT money or looks) You can't be a crusty value-leeching gremlin and expect any woman to be happy with your greediness. If you want the benefits of monogamy paired with unbound sexual freedom, you have to earn it by making the women in your life happy.

So women are at fault because society is not fair to men?

Correct. Because women value safety and security on a deep level which is difficult for the average man to appreciate. Non-monogamy at face value is very threatening to a woman because if you're not careful, you might as well be danging an exit door in front of her face which can trigger biological alarm bells or even abandonment trauma. Which is why to get a woman to agree to non-monogamy, she has to feel very very safe around you. She must trust you. And of course, she has to be fiercely attracted to you. It's a high bar to clear, but not impossible. You can substitute the safety and security a woman would feel from a monogamous relationship model by being there for her energetically with masculine containment. It all comes down to communication and emotions.

Non-monogamy is not a prescription for the average person. Non-monogamy is a serious option to consider for select people who are unsatisfied with the traditional sexually exclusive girlfriend/boyfriend model So no need to worry about chads impregnating everybody, lol. What specifically is stopping you from embracing/exploring non-monogamy? Oh no, they'll be subject to critical thinking! the horror~

👊 Gotcha. This is impressive! In that case, I'm surprised you consider non-monogamy "just a theory." What are your specific reservations? I know it'll be difficult Yeah I know what you mean. I lived in denver for a year, and there was a widespread polyamorous (sub?)culture there. That's what I had in mind when I said your assertion was "myopic," but to be honest nothing I saw in Denver is anything I would personally be interested in. Too much hippie shit, not grounded at all LOL. Regarding infidelity, it's neither data nor vibes, but rather just an overwhelming amount of brute encounters IRL. Yeah, I'm prone to sampling bias and my POV can warp or distort the reality of the situation, but it's hard to overlook the anecdotes especially when it's a common persistent anecdote. I respect any researchers attempting to study this using statistics and scientific method, but honestly, how reliable is that? The whole point of cheating is that your partner is not supposed to find out. So how the hell is a nerd in a labcoat gonna know haha. Regarding "relationship termination," I was going to cite that divorce rates have only been going up, but apparently that is not true so I must have gotten false information through the social matrix. Divorce rates are stagnant, if not slightly going down, according to chatGPT. Still, a projected 40% divorce likelihood for married couples in 2025 is nothing to dismiss. The bottom line is that monogamy does not guarantee forever stability. It requires a similar amount of trust, communication, and negotiation as non-monogamy IMO. You wrote that monogamy has proof of concept and I said I disagree. I take that back. You're right, it does have proof of concept. My contention is that it doesn't have proof of reliable execution. It furthermore lacks proof of universal optimal outcomes. Important difference...

Spell it out. You write verbatim: "Having children is the most divine and holy things you can do." How is this not a pedestalized mental construct? How do you know you didn't just pull that out of your ass? What grounds your certainty? Whatever you come up with... what grounds that? Have you bothered to play skeptic against your own firm beliefs? Are you able to steelman the contrary position? Are you able to see the relativity underpinning this question of value judgements? Epistemology101. I'm happy to change my mind if your contemplation is convincing.

Funny how I was genuinely curious to hear about your side of things and then you turned this into a personal attack

I am personally still exploring, but I've seen long-term non-monogamy work for others with my own eyes. This was mentioned in my original post. And if you do simple research on the internet, there is more than ample evidence. Again, mentioned in my original post "Have you tried playing devil's advocate against your assumptions (go out of your way to seek examples of healthy non-monogamy)..." Burden of proof is actually not on me. I'm just reporting what I've seen through the telescope. Now it's your turn to look through the telescope before you doubt my vision. If you actually do a sincere study and come up with nothing, then you can bring that up and call me out. Good thing I'm not defending non-monogamy! This is blatantly myopic. Plug your own assertion into ChatGPT right now and ask: "is this true?" I strongly disagree. Skyrocketing rates of infidelity and relationship termination says otherwise.

How's that going for ya

You are placing your own mental constructs on a pedestal.

Give concrete examples. So far everything you're accusing non-monogamy of, monogamy is also guilty of. For example, you write: "non-monogamy is each bringing a specific package not a whole person" What does this even mean? The only difference between monogamy and non-monogamy is whether or not you gatekeep your partner's genitals. So according to you, if I gatekeep my girlfriend's pussy, that means she's suddenly a "whole person," but if I hand sexual freedom back to her, she's now a "specific package?" Make it make sense. I think you are trying to say that by being sexually exclusive, you don't need to (or rather, you can't) turn to other people to meet your sexual needs. Therefore this builds more mutual dependence. Neither side has a choice. If they have needs, there's only one well to drink from. I think you see this as a good thing, because devoting yourself to drinking from one well is a sort of loyalty. But really, none of this is a victory for monogamy. Greater codependence leads to more manipulation and in-fighting. And you say that this greater dependence = "a whole person," but keep in mind that if you are a man, no woman can ever meet every single one of your needs universally. No matter how stellar of a woman she is, you're going to need family and friends and hobbies apart from her in order to live a fulfilling life. So even in monogamy, there is no such thing as a so-called "whole person." You only ever have "specific packages" when it comes to dating. So you cannot fault a non-monogamous relationship model for only meeting partial needs. Non-monogamy skews in favor of men with high sexual optionality, yes Monogamy skews in favor of women and men with low sexual optionality. But again, you can't fault either model for having a bias. As I keep saying, all dating is inherently survival/manipulation/needs-based. And that's not a bad thing. It is what it is. Try to contemplate the available relationship models without bias, and see if you might learn something about yourself or humans. This is a very low-resolution 144p crude summary, but I see where you're coming from. A woman desires safety and emotions. A man desires vagina. True. Not sure what this has anything to do with the monogamy vs non-monogamy debate. I think you are trying to say that non-monogamy will make a woman feel less safe than monogamy. This is actually a fair critique and it is true. Which is why your average bum cannot pull off non-monogamy convincingly, and he's doomed to either sleep around frivolously or, if he's lucky, he will lock down a good girl according to cultural norms. But that doesn't mean non-monogamy is inherently flawed or bad or wrong. As I've been saying several times now, with proper openness, communication, and compromise, you can TALK TO YOUR PARTNER and construct non-monogamy to be a win-win. If you disagree, chances are you are simply not serious about understanding relationships, and you are lost in defending your own bias. If you construct non-monogamy in a healthy manner, your children will never meet your fuck buddies, so this is a non-issue.