NEW11

@Nahm You both confirmed and rejected what I said at the same time, so "thank you" and "huh?". Furthermore, even if Bobby was talking about something else, alright. So if you want me to switch back to talking about "other types of love" just tell me "that's not what Bobby meant". I'll say "sorry, maybe I misunderstood" (like I said before - I thought she meant romantic love because of the way the problem sounded, if I was wrong, fine, I'm happy to see that). But if you want to talk to me about what I said, then talk to me about what I said, don't go about criticizing me for something I never said.

"In a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of the entropies of the interacting thermodynamic systems increases" "like poles repel, unlike poles attract." Shall is obsolete, redundant in both sentences. And you cannot make a new law of physics by adding a "shall". Just like you said, you cannot disobey a law of physics. But the fact that I am able (if I want) to hate my neighbor, shows me that "love thy neighbor" is not a law of physics, but a commandment, a "should". a moralization. It is not the word "shall" that is the key. "Ready-made boxes" - Nah, I have no boxes for people, I only have ideas that I dislike. Also I have no bad experience with regards to religious dogma. I even considered becoming a priest once - not because I believe, but because it pays well, at least in my country. You basically work 3h/day, and in a normal week (i.e. no funerals, no marriages, etc.) 4 days are completely free. Also, I never contradicted you. I was merely pointing out that while you were talking about universal love, I was talking about romantic love. That is why I said "you cannot be in love with yourself unless you are narcissistic". Sure you can love yourself, but that love isn't of a romantic nature. "Science and spirituality is a duality that can be dissolved with greater clarity." - Agreed. But I'm not one of those who rejects religion with science.

@Nahm The reason I saw BobbyLowell's question as implying "romantic love" is because when people say "that guy/girl can never be loved" they don't think of universal love, or the types of love that you're talking about (if you think they do, then you need to get out of the house more), they think about romantic love, they think about sex. Furthermore, I insist. There is no need to define other types of love, or the words "self" or "ego", as this is not what I've been talking about. If you want to start a new conversation with me, about that subject, fine. I do agree with everything that you say then. But I do not agree with mixing a conversation about "universal love" or "self love" with "romantic love", as they are quite different feelings, just as I do not agree with mixing a conversation about geometry with one about calculus. Just because they both are mathematics, doesn't mean they are the same. And if someone comes to you with a question about one of them, but your answer is about the other one, then the conversation makes no sense. It is pointless to keep talking about calculus and show me how versed you are in it if my question was about geometry. That's why it is shallow to keep telling me about self-love, universal love, etc. when it's clear that this is not what I'm talking about. Because you are completely missing my point (careful, I'm talking only about your conversation with me, not with BobbyLowell). And that's what I called "shallow" - the argument that you gave me - not the type of love you're talking about. Because when it comes to that love, I agree with everything you're saying. PS: Padawan is not a label (I mean not in this context). Hahahaha... I rolled on the floor when I read that.

Then tell her that. Tell her you don't know how you feel but you want her in your life. So you're afraid of her cheating on you? Would you still hold back if you knew she would be faithful? If the answer is "no" then maybe you want a relationship and you want to tell her "cheating is not allowed". If the answer is "yes" then maybe you don't have feelings for her, but just enjoy her company. This too shall pass, and you may find yourself just one year from now not even remembering exactly how she looked like. However, no matter what the answer is, if cheating is an absolute "no" for you, then I'd advise you against pursuing a relationship with this girl.

@Ian You obviously ignored what I've been saying. I was talking about romantic love, and you cannot be "in love" with yourself unless you are narcissistic. If you want to define love in some other way, then suit yourself. PS: Yeah, it is preachy. I mean what Jesus said was alright, but you can't make a "should" out of love. You can't force someone to love somebody else, no matter what type of love you're talking about. And punishing them for disobeying this with hell for eternity? Well, I'm sorry, but for all my dislike for "horrible people" in my initial comment, I dislike this a million times more. I find "love yourself" better said as "accept yourself" or even better: "know thyself".

Well yeah, "follow you feelings", as in "follow your heart", "follow your dreams". If you dream of being a philosopher, there's no use in taking an engineering degree just because it "looks cool", and if you dream of becoming a sage, then there's no use in gaming all day. In this situation, there are two people involved, so you have to take her feelings into account too. However, if you don't see yourself being with a girl like her, then there's no use in just sleeping with her. When I said "you have the possibility to give her a chance at a relationship", I meant getting to know each other and what both of you are like in a relationship. But do not confuse sleeping with her with the desire to have a relationship. Sexual attraction is like appetite for food. If you want to eat healthy, you don't give in to your appetite for burgers, but you learn to develop a better appetite for better food. So yeah "follow your emotions" not your cravings. PS: If she likes you, but doesn't want to sleep with you, she probably meant that she wouldn't just sleep with you without having a relationship with you. That may be the reason she finds the idea disgusting because the next day she would just feel "used".

@Nahm Ah... I see that my padawan joke has been ignored. There may be multiple uses of the word love that mean entirely different things. I get that you mean a "universal love" of sorts. However, it seems to me that the concern of BobbyLowell was romantic love. For me, that love is about "giving". Not necessarily giving materialist gifts, but giving your time, sharing your feelings, etc. In that context, you cannot be 'in love' with yourself without being a narcissist. To answer the question "can everyone be (romantically) loved?" by "you can love yourself" is to ignore the question. It's as shallow as if I asked "can everyone learn advanced mathematics?" and you looked to me and said "everything around us can be expressed through mathematics". I grant you that in another context that might be viewed as "deep", but here, it is shallow. When I initially answered the question, I took the meaning "romantic love" because in there I saw the challenge. Otherwise, my answer would've been "adopt a couple of cats". To say "everyone can experience other types of love" is no challenge really. But they are actually completely different feelings. The love I feel for my mother is not the same that I feel for my girlfriend, and the fact that they're both called "love" is just an unfortunate accident of this language. There should be two different words. I can say that I love my mother, and my father, even my dog, but I am only in love with my girlfriend. So what kind of love is that you direct to yourself? And wouldn't it be more accurate to call it "taking care of yourself", "growing yourself", "not being a doormat", (as in putting all the whims and wishes of others before you) "self-preservation", "accepting your flaws", "common sense" or something like that?

@Spiral Like I said, do what your feelings tell you to do. I merely wanted to remove your fears and make you aware, that every possibility plays out worse if you don't listen to them. If you had feelings for her and chose to ignore them, then the friendship would still be lost (because of the reasons I mentioned above) and the feelings would haunt you. If you don't have feelings for her, then it's easier to tell her that, even if she will suffer. If you pretend like you have feelings, then both of you will suffer far worse. I was not pushing you to pursue this relationship, but your feelings. So if your feelings point away from her, then follow them and leave her be. However, keep this in mind: if your feelings point to some place, then even if all the fears about pursuing them come true, it's still better than of what will happen if you do not.

@Nahm Words games do not bring about the truth. Love is not self, just as I am not art, even though I can paint, sing a song or play an instrument. You may say that "art is inside me", but that's only a metaphor, not truth. Enlightened masters are the ones who experience love at its fullest, after they have gotten rid of the self. The self does not exist. Love does.

@Helios I always saw love of self as narcissism. In my mind, love and self do not mix, as love should be about giving, giving to the world, to your partner, to your padawan, to your children, to your parents, etc. If you make a gift to yourself, that's not giving, that's just taking.

@Spiral I'm not saying that you should be with her if you don't want to. Just that if you're afraid to follow your feelings because you think this wouldn't work, that it's better for you to follow them. Furthermore, the excuse "the friendship will suffer afterwards" is a blind excuse. As you can clearly see, the friendship already suffers, because she has feelings for you, and if you think that you'll tell her "hey, I'd prefer that we remain just friends", and then everything will come back to normal, you're kidding yourself. Once she clearly understands that there's no chance with you, she will seek someone else and pay you less attention. When she'll spend time with you she won't make all the efforts that she does now. Now she does them because she thinks they will pay off and spring a relationship. But she won't "work" when you tell her that there won't be any payment. I've seen plenty of people say "I just want to be friends". From that day, the "friend" that they desired disappeared from their life completely. I'm not saying this will happen, merely that when she'll stop some of her efforts towards your friendship and then you may find the new friendship that you have with her is just as normal (and maybe even shallow) as every other one. So why walk the path where you don't get to see if your feelings for her can flower and you also lose the friendship? You never win with "just friends". Again, don't get me wrong, if you don't feel anything for her, you shouldn't be with her. But do not expect that the friendship will remain just as beautiful after destroying her hopes for a relationship. This is just an unrealistic expectation.

@Spiral A very good friend of mine always says, "give it a try, do you want to be plagued by the 'what if' question for the rest of your life? If you do this, at least you'll know if it would've worked or not, if you don't, all you have is an assumption and maybe regrets later on". I don't know how much I agree with him. However, I will tell you a short story from one that happened to another friend: I remember him telling me that he wants to date a girl who's just as smart or even smarter than him. He said that he could never be with a dumb girl, no matter how beautiful she'd be, because he wouldn't be able to talk anything with her or relate to her. Well... guess what. Apparently, he has plenty to talk about with a girl who can't locate Spain on the map to save her life. You never know your own potential until you develop it. You cannot know how a person acts in a relationship until you try it out. They can act completely different, so different that it blows your mind because the "relationship" status allows them to do things that they wouldn't normally do if they were "just friends", things they wouldn't even speak about. You've got time, why not give it a go? Have a "trial relationship" for a certain period of time that you agree upon, and then see if it works or not. If it does, upgrade to premium.

@Spiral Make yourself clear again. Sometimes a casual conversation is not enough. Have a serious one. And if you already had it, have one again. If you continued to hang out with her ever since you had the last conversation about this, and she felt great, she might be thinking that maybe you'll "soften up to her" or change your mind in some way. Tell her all that is on your mind, tell her what you wrote in your first post here, do not let anything go unsaid. Anyway, are you sure you have no feelings for this girl? I mean you came here and posted about this topic, so it's clearly an issue to you. If that happened to me, and I'd consider the girl "just a friend", I wouldn't bat an eye.

@Spiral Bad spot? Tell her the truth about how you feel! Or you'd rather have her hang around, hoping against hope. and wasting her time? Yeah, sure, she might not want to hang out with you after that, but it's better to let her move on with her life, and let her find someone who wants to be with her. Let her know that she should search for someone else. It is somewhat unethical if you know she expects something, you know that you can't give it to her, and you don't tell her: "It is but a shadow and a thought that you love. I cannot give you what you seek."

@BobbyLowell I'll assume you're talking about romantic love. Otherwise, this would be way too simple, I mean if someone says that "that guy can never be loved", you could say "well I love him like a brother", or "his mother surely loves him". "Horrible people". For them, they'll always be a reason to dislike you. If you learn to take joy in life, be happy and become enlightened, they'll say you only did that because you're poor. If you have money, they'll flock to you like birds but hate you for your success. When you fail, they'll leave you quicker than they came to you. If you gained your success by being smart, reading a lot of books and applying your knowledge in the real world, they'll criticize your appearance (there will always be something else to criticize). If you go to the gym and eat healthy and fix just everything else that you can fix about yourself, then they'll criticize some aspect of you that you can't change: you're too short, you're white, you've been born in a place and to a family that gave you more opportunities, so naturally you succeeded, while they did not (even if they actually know about what opportunities you had, they'll still assume things and criticize you). You look to these people and see that they find what they call "love". They find someone who fits all their shallow criteria and they are happy. While I'll admit that some endorphins are released into their brains, can they ever be as happy as someone who truly worked for their success or someone who is enlightened? Can they ever truly love, for their love turns to hatred as soon as one of their shallow criteria isn't met, and can they ever truly receive unconditional love from you, when they have so much hatred in their hearts? Are these the people that make your faith waver? They, who deal judgement, not realising that the judgement that they pass is actually not about the person that they point to, but about themselves. This kind of people will never know true love. _______________________________________________________________________________________ PS: I'd also like to tell you a short story, to make you see that what I'm saying isn't just taken from a dream and disconnected from reality. I remember, some time ago a friend told me: "It's easy to say 'everyone can be loved' when you're leading a wonderful life, blind to the hardships that others may face, that you do not. When you're dating hot chicks every other night, it's easy to look to someone who's not so fortunate and say 'he/she'll find someone', but in actuality, neither you or anyone you know would ever date someone like them. Would you ever date a fat girl? Or a blind girl? Or a girl that didn't have a leg?" - Well... in 2 months I'll be marrying a blind girl. And another story: I remember a friend telling me that he wants to date a girl who's just as smart or even smarter than him. He said that he could never be with a dumb girl, no matter how beautiful she'd be, because he wouldn't be able to talk anything with her or relate to her. Well... guess what. Apparently, he has plenty to talk about with a girl who can't locate Spain on the map to save her life. Even if you say "I'd never be with someone like that", you're not actually in full control of who you fall in love with. You never know what surprises the other person has up their sleeve. PS2: "How do I become strong and unbending in my belief that everyone can be loved???" - wrong question. Doubt is good, doubt is the beginning of wisdom. You do not just choose what you believe, you seek proof and you conclude what is the most probable truth from that. If you doubt your belief and you seek proof, then next time you talk to someone else, you'll be able to provide them counter-arguments or even change their mind. If you just believe, then even if you actually believe in what's true, that won't help you one bit. So if you really want to seek proof, then whenever someone says "a person like that can never be loved", I'm sure you could find 3 couples to point to, that would prove them wrong. You can go to the ones they criticize and actually try to help them. You may find that many of the ones that they criticize actually lead a better life than them. Furthermore, if your faith still wavers, you don't have to stay with these people. These are toxic, self-absorbed people. Find a better group of people to hang out with.

@Spiral You've never been in a relationship with this girl? Just "best friends"? If so, call me crazy, but it seems to me like she wants you to "take the hint". By saying "you only want food and cuddles from me" she's actually asking "are you sure you don't want more from our relationship, to take it to the next level?" Some girls are like that, they never say straight up what they want. At least when they're young. Don't worry, when they're older they'll tell you everything that they think directly. (source: see any mother when any family member does something 'wrong' in her eyes). Typically, a normal friend doesn't care as much whether when you're meeting you only cook together or you only do homework, or whatever. They just have fun in the time they spend with you and move on with their lives. So take the hint. Ask her up front if she wants a relationship with you.

Good, then fix your other problems. I hope that's not all what you made of what I said. I mean that was not even the main point. If that's all you focused on, then you missed 95% of my point.

@Hardkill Actually, I think there is something more that I want to say. I should apologize beforehand, but I'm going to be honest. I haven't read all the posts that you have on this site, but from what I gathered from this topic only, you don't really have a deep understanding of how dating works, you don't understand why you have this problem, you just want a solution, and you want it with the stubbornness that a child might want a toy, crying out to his parents to buy him that toy. Nobody wants to even be a bystander in the store while that child is screaming at his parents. So go do the work, understand human and female psychology and much more important start to understand your desires and eliminate them. I mean "I really want a hot girlfriend". Why? Why is this so important? So that you can pride yourself with your girlfriend? Isn't this shallow? And are you really that hot too? (I'm sure that you wouldn't be having this problem if you were, or maybe you are, but that's not your biggest problem) Do you work out? If you do not, then why are you demanding for the girl to be in some way that you are not? Wouldn't I be a hypocrite if I'd demand from my girlfriend to read at least 50 books/year, while at the same time, I'm barely reading 5? Your biggest problem is needing a solution and never asking "why have I got this problem?". You desire a girlfriend so much, that you forget to work on yourself and instead you focus on petty topics like "girls have dating easier" - like that's going to help. I'm not saying that if you find a girl that you fall in love with, and she's hot, you should run away, but that aspect shouldn't matter to you. If she gets sick and the disease somehow transforms her body into something that isn't pleasing to your eye, that shouldn't matter to you. Or are you going to leave her? All your desires should be eliminated. You should learn to be happy with or without a girlfriend, you should learn to create abundance for yourself. Otherwise you're just like a beggar telling Bill Gates to take him as a business partner. Start by watching "The Tao of Steve", a simple movie, a funny movie and move up to reading books and do the work. I know that you can get by not doing the work. Yes, you can have a girlfriend while not doing this work. But is that really how you want to live your life? Do you want to leave everything up to chance? Do you want to have an awesome relationship or just any kind of relationship? Do you not know, that without this work there will be a lot of unneeded suffering involved in your life and future relationships? Maybe the best advice anyone could give you right now is: assume that you will never get a girlfriend, unless you learn to let go of your desire to have one. Finally, if you don't want to do this work, then why are you posting on a self-development forum? Isn't that why we're here? You have to take on the challenge. If you'll always run away from it, then don't be surprised that its solution will also run away from you. No matter how many avenues you try, you'll always have this problem if you don't work on yourself.

But of course there will be more people that won't date you than people who want to date you. I mean even if you're some kind of celebrity that might have more than average success at dating, there are still more people who don't want to date you than people who want to. I mean what would the world look like if everyone wanted to date just anyone? It would mean that nobody has any standards, and then being in a relationship with someone wouldn't be so "magical" since you know that the other person could just as well have been with that guy walking down the street or that man who's waiting for the train. Wouldn't you like somebody to choose you, because she likes you, the way you are? Then you'd know that even if someone who's more good looking and richer than you passes down the street, she wouldn't leave you for him, because she likes you. Granted, it's hard to find the person who would like exactly the traits that you have. You might like a girl, but her ideal might be completely different from the way you are. Then again, a girl might like you, but she might not be suitable to your criteria at all. Sometimes, you never find somebody who fits all your ideals, and you have to say "alright 5 out of 7 will do, the other 2 are not really that important anyway" and work it out during the relationship. Any avenue you take, you will not find a high success rate. Suppose you were searching for a job, do you think that you'd be suited for any job that is available out there, or would you be more suited to the jobs that require your specific skill set, to the jobs that are related to the college that you went to? You say that you have had some good results and some bad results. Build on the lessons that you learned from these. Furthermore, there is something that Leo said, but I can't remember exactly where he said this: it was something like, if you're working in a mine, searching for gold, hoping to get rich, you might fail 10,000 times, but you only need to find gold once, and you're set. Remember, Thomas Edison tried 10,000 light bulb filaments before he got to the right one. But he didn't need to find the right one twice. One last point: so what if you're a freak? I mean in order for someone to at least find you interesting, you have to be somehow different from everyone else, there has to be a thing that sets yourself apart from the crowd. Do you expect someone to date you just because you're the same as everyone else? Learn to use the thing that sets yourself apart to make yourself "shine". Be desireless. Be excellent. Be gone.

He cares because he is facing the problem. Talking him down won't change that. I'll go by the teacher's principle "there are no dumb questions", but do not expect the answer to fit in with your worldview. Leo is right here, women face a lot of issues, and complaining that "approaching" is hard is lame. Even if we lived in a world where women wouldn't face all the problems that Leo mentioned, I'd still prefer to be on the man's side of the dating game, because I'd never trade "approaching", no matter how emotionally difficult it might be, for the pain of giving birth. Furthermore, there are two sides to every coin. @Hardkill, you have to stop looking only at your side of the coin. If some women choose not to approach, then they have less control over the whole situation. They might have their eye on that guy who's sitting in the other corner of the nightclub, but then someone else actually approaches them. Furthermore, if you have such a difficulty with "approaching" then switch games. It's not like real-world dating is the only game in town. Go online, sign up to some dating sites. Sure, every avenue might have its flaws, but you should choose the one that is most suited to you. @Hardkill As I said before the solution is optimized trial and error. Go out there, meet new people, see where you go wrong, read books on this stuff and you'll see yourself slowly improving over time. We're not born with the dating skill, just as we're not born playing the guitar. If you look at your neighbor who's already playing the guitar, asking yourself "how come he can do it so easily?" may be a valid question, but it will never help you improve your own guitar playing. @HII That is awesome in and of itself, even if you don't care about dating. But if @Hardkill does that, that still doesn't guarantee that his dating problem will be solved, and when he gets a job and sees that he's still facing the same problem, he'll come back here and complain again "look, I got a job and I'm still facing this issue". A job may help, but it isn't really critical to his problem. To illustrate this, I'll give you an example from my own life. Until 1989 (if you know what happened in 1989, you can also guess the country), my grandmother lived in a communist country, so she never really had the opportunity to get rich. My job makes more money/month than my grandmother could ever dream of making in an entire year back in those days. Now, if we take the issue of eating healthy, is money important? Sure they may play a role, but just because you have plenty of money doesn't mean that you are eating healthier. This has happened in my own life, for a time I focused too much on my job and I didn't really pay attention to my nutrition. I didn't eat very healthy, even if I had the money to do it. (fortunately I managed to fix that in my own life). However, my grandmother never faced this issue. She is nearly 80 years old and she managed to eat healthy despite her circumstances, and to this day, she never really fell ill, she never had more than an occasional cold. Money can be used to eat healthy, money can be used just as easily to eat unhealthy. Sure, they may help a bit, but do you really think that they'll fix confidence problems and other such types of personal issues that @Hardkill might face? If he gets money, he might use it to search in the wrong places for a date. @Hardkill, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't get a job or find some way to make a living for yourself. You definitely should find something to do in this life! But if you get a job, get a job for the job's sake, get a job that is in line, or that may lead you to your life purpose (if you have such a thing, if you don't, for now, just get a job that's in line with your values), don't get just any job so that you can date women. Never do something just so that you may be able to do another thing. You might end up fixing your dating problem, only to find yourself having problems with your job.

What? You just have to think a little bit. First think about yourself: what are you like? Are you a guy who reads a lot of books, goes to a lot of seminars and stuff? Well then probably you're not going to like to be together with a girl who's not "on the same level" as you are because at many times you'll find you have nothing to talk about. If you find a girl that likes to goes to a lot of parties every night, but you're a guy who likes to stay in and read a good book, then you must think: do I like to party, can I accept her behavior, can I go out, or do I dislike partying so much that I cannot tolerate such a behavior in my relationship with a girl? You have to think like this about 3 types of traits: traits that you really need, traits that you dislike and traits that you shouldn't really care about. You have to think about this sort of thing yourself, nobody else can do it for you. After you decided on this matter, the way to find these traits in another people is to find common interests. You could try dating sites. Or if you like playing the guitar, go join some guitar club. Do you like public speaking, go join toastmasters. And don't go there thinking "I should meet someone", go there only if you really enjoy the activity that the group is involved in. In this way, if nothing else, you could at least improve at guitar playing or public speaking and have a wonderful time with the new friends that you'll make. Eventually, you might hear something like "let me introduce you to" from one of the new friends that you'll make. You say that you really care whether a girl is hot or not. Fine, but be aware of my previous example with "6 traits from 49". If you desire only 1 trait, then 1 in 49 girls will be compatible to you. But the more traits you desire, the harder it will be to find the girl who is right for you. If you desire 6 traits, then 1 in 13,983,816 girls will be compatible with you. Now, the numbers are not accurate, and the real problem is not that difficult, this is just to give you an idea of how the problem's difficulty will increase with each new trait that you desire. So think about it: "is hotness really a thing that I need, or is it more an issue of pride or satisfying my own ego? When I think of hotness, do I think of priding myself with my girlfriend in front of my friends or other such things?". If you decide that you don't really need hotness, that doesn't mean you should avoid hot women. That only means that if you meet someone and you decide she fits all the needed criteria that you have, but she is not hot, then you still like her anyway. However, if she happens to be hot, that's a bonus. Be honest with yourself. Do not say "alright, hotness doesn't matter" if it really does, because you'll just end up making yourself miserable. But always be aware that each new trait that matters is going to increase the problem's difficulty. And one last thing: if you really desire a trait, make sure that you too possess trait. Don't be "poor and pretentious". If you want your girlfriend to be smart, make sure that you're smart too, otherwise, she'll get bored with you. And if you want her to be hot, make sure you're hitting the gym. And cut out the "hopelessness" off the dating equation. Think of Thomas Edison and the light bulb. Legend says that he tried 10,000 filaments for the light bulb and (obviously, from the light bulb that is shining in your room) he never quit. In every endeavor that you make (business, dating, etc.) every failure is a learning experience and a step closer to success. However, if you extrapolate from your previous failures and you say "every future try is going to end the same" then you can't really be enthusiastic about your future endeavors and you're creating a self-fulfilling prophecy effect. Failure is good. I met one of my ex-girlfriends from another girl I approached, but with whom I had nothing in common. @HII If I was 5 years younger, I would agree with you wholeheartedly. But it only takes 1 or 2 really hard slaps from life in your face to make you humble. A great artist from my own country said the following: "You should never be satisfied or confident in what you already did. The power of an artist to create ever better performances or pieces of art comes from a sense of dissatisfaction. Never rest on your laurels." Confidence can help yeah, but what you need more in this life is courage. And courage means dealing with a situation even if it scares you to death. I agree with the rest of what you said, mainly because your arguments don't really focus on the really important points that I was trying to make. I mean when I was making the point about "If there is a correlation between having a job and relationship, I don't see it, and I'd be in doubt of any woman who cares about my job", my attention was focused more on the second part of the sentence, which was the doubt part. Moreover, I never make points that fit in the category "society's brain-wash ideas". There are just a lot of recurring arguments that I see and I don't like, and I decided that I should take some action against them. Here, let me give you an example that has nothing to do with the topic at hand: "well how do you know whether you like the soup or not, if you haven't tasted it?". This is not a "brainwashed" argument, it is just one that appears a lot, and I'm sick of it. Replace 'soup' with 'shit', and you'll see what I think is wrong with this argument. I can agree with that. However, I hope that you weren't being judgmental of these people. If you were, I'll have you know that the main "issue" they deal with is lack of time or being too tired when they get home to go out and do something else. Furthermore, self-esteem will never be boosted by learning new skills or acquiring new things. These will only be "patches" which will seem to cover the problem, but really, the wound is still bleeding deep down, even if you don't feel it anymore. You either face it head on or you never solve it. And you know you have solved it when your self-esteem is no longer affected by outside factors like "do I have a (good) job or not?" "do I have a (hot) girlfriend or not?" "do I have the skills to do X or not?" etc.

I'll have some fun with this one. Try out this attitude - when you see a beautiful girl think to yourself "she hasn't succeeded in getting the best guy in this nightclub, because that is me!" I didn't read all the comments very carefully, but I think he said nothing about living with his parents. This seems to be a common thread among posts like this, always the "job + parents" argument. I've seen plenty of jobless people, still living with their parents, with hot intelligent women, way out of their league, and I've seen people with good jobs (engineers, CEOs, doctors, programmers, etc.) who are still single or have trouble with dating. If there is a correlation between having a job and relationship, I don't see it, and I'd be in doubt of any woman who cares about my job (it's an excellent job, I just don't plan to stay there, so if they care about the money aspect, then my interest in them would drop bellow 0 immediately). Independence and faith have nothing to do with one another. Sure, if you're the type of arrogant person who enter solves 5 problems in a maths course and thinks to himself "this is an easy course, I got this", then yeah, you will develop some faith. On the other hand you might be the type of person who thinks "these were only 5 problems, this doesn't necessarily mean that I'll be able to handle everything that this maths course throws at me". Life's just like that maths course. You can't be prepared for everything and you never know what comes next. Best method: optimized trial and error! This means that you go and speak to girls, hang out with them, until you find one that you're compatible with. This will take a lot of time. If we would convert this to a simple maths problem, then imagine that in order for you to find a girl who is truly compatible with you, you'd need her to posses 6 traits. However, let's say those are 6 traits out of a possible 49 total traits, and each person has a combination of 6 or more traits from the pool. You see the problem? I'm confident that it's actually easier than that in real life. You have to keep trying. Why do I say optimized? Firstly, it's not just a random search, I mean if you're the type of guy who reads a lot of books, you'd be foolish to go out in a nightclub to pick up girls. Secondly, drop all your needs for this girl to be "hot" and possess qualities that have nothing to do with how compatible she is to you. Is she fat? Good, you'll start running. You can work on the details. Dreaming of finding someone who fits all your criteria down to every last detail is unrealistic. I heard many people saying "but I could find someone better, someone who is compatible with me and also isn't fat". Yeah, well guess what? Everyone can find someone better, if we all went for "better", there'd be around 20 couples in the whole world. My girlfriend is blind, yet I never desired someone "better". Actually even the thought of "better" disgusts me, I mean, it's not her fault after all.

Woah. That almost sounds like "if you were rich, would you still care about poverty?". Yes, yes I would. It is still important if people who you love, love you back because of what you are, or because of what you have, and it is still important for others to find love as well. I mean maybe your problems are over, but what about your friends, your brothers, your children? Would you have them living in a world where dating is easy because people genuinely look to find the one that is truly compatible with them, or would you have them living in... this world? If both of us played a game of chess, but you started with an unfair advantage, because you stole my horses, then it might take me 10 hours to beat you instead of only one. So yeah, I still care even if I beat you in the end, because I lost those extra 9 hours. Anyway, I have no opinion on the "dating field" thing, I was just reading through the post and this argument bothered me.

You don't know the guy personally. While he might just be in doubt about this book list, he might have excellent ideas about what to do with his money. Even if he doesn't, it's his money after all. Furthermore, you can't evaluate how much he needs it based on his desire to buy it. Maybe this guy buys the book list, only to find out he's read all the books or that he has better books in his own library. Or maybe not. But you shouldn't draw conclusions based on something you don't know. It's like the "I don't know what that flying saucer is, so it must be aliens". Well, if you don't know, then that's where your sentence should end. Especially when you give advice to people. Actually, a friend of mine bought the book list and when I saw it, I found out that I have heard of many of those books on my own. If you're genuinely interested in philosophy (like I am), self-development, psychology you'll end up hearing about these books. Well, maybe not about all of them, but you might hear about better books that Leo doesn't know about. Leo's list will just save you a lot of time of going through bad books or reading a lot of reviews. However, also keep in mind that something that Leo might have considered a "bad book" and excluded off his book list because it didn't resonate with him, it didn't help him or he just didn't like it, might just prove to be the best book for you to read right now. If you want my thoughts on the matter. Well... I'd recommend it sure. But I can also give you a link to a google drive that I have, with my own book list, which includes all that I read and what I am going to read (it also includes some books in pdf and ebook format). My list includes about 60-70% of Leo's books, but my list comes somewhere close to 500 books because I also read (or am going to read) a lot of science books, fiction and some poetry from my own country. If you want my book list, just ask and I'll share it with you freely. Leo, if you see this, keep in mind that this is my own list, I made it during my life, just as you made yours. It is my own belief that no book list should have a price. I mean, it's not like some of that money is going to go to the authors of those books, who actually did the hard work of writing them... Sure you might say that the authors will get some money as a result of some people buying the book list. However, how would you feel if I'd ask you for money and in exchange, all I did was tell you if that restaurant over there has good food? I don't know, it just doesn't feel right... I mean I win, the restaurant wins, but you have to pay us both and the risk is that you might actually end up not liking the food at all... EDIT: Got it, I know why "it feels wrong". Look at the book list as an 'ad' for the books, or as a 'trailer' for a movie. It's like paying to see an ad, or a trailer. It's ridiculous. It's one of the few things that I didn't like to see Leo doing (I generally agree with him, even with him doing psychedelics). I mean, sure, he did some work in order to come up with this book list, and I appreciate that, but you can't just sell anything just because you worked for it. It's like someone who's distributing leaflets asking you to pay for those leaflets that show you information about their product, or in this case, someone else's product. That being said, it is also worth considering that Leo's videos, which are his own work, are free. He could ask money so that we're allowed to watch those. He could literally say in one of his videos "from next week, all my videos are on my site only, and you have to pay 10$ to watch each new episode". However, he doesn't do that, as far as I understand, it is because it wouldn't actually be in line with his life purpose. So you could consider the 35$ (or whatever the cost is now) that you pay him now, as a way of saying "thank you" for all his free videos that you watched. I still disagree with selling a book list, haven't changed my mind about that, it still rubs me the wrong way, but it's not really that big of a deal.

I somehow disagree with Leo. I mean I do agree that the fastest way to get over a girl is to find a new one, but this is not the best way. Think of it like this, you are hurt, you've been hurt even before meeting this girl but you didn't know it. Now you want to patch your wound with this girl, but this girl refuses. Finding another girl is like finding another patch for your wound. But the patches won't help, they will not really heal the wound. Your wound is born out of egoism (I know this because I've seen it in me and in others), you want this girl for you because of some reason. When you altruisticly want another person, you give them freedom to leave whenever they want and you don't feel attached to them. You can love without attachment. Go for the long-term solution, find happiness within yourself, see that you need nobody to make you happy. If you want to get a quick insight in that, just sit down and realise how these emotions are hindering your progress. When I see something that hurts my progress I drop it. Realise that it is not the girl who made you feel this way, but your own mindset. My ideal is this type of mindset: "I will work for myself and harvest my own results and if someone wants to join my life and tag along she is welcome to stay for how long she wants." When you have that mindset you will start to see other people's feelings and you will care for them. When you see other people's feelings you understand more easily why they do certain things and you don't get hurt, you don't take it personally, and you don't become attached. But you have to genuineley, altruisticly care for them. And if you keep on with your work, your life will move on and you will get results and one time maybe you'll get a girl you'll like who'll want to tag along. When you get that you can decide wether you want her in your life or not. You have to decide from a "want" perspective, not from a "need" perspective. I accomplished this mindset after much trouble, and I hope I can shortcut the trip for you. I admit I am not fully there yet. Good luck to you!