flowboy

@Flatworld Crusades Good question. I suppose it feels like if nobody knows about it, it didn't count/happen/matter. Hmm... Makes me wonder whether I would prioritize things differently if I was not allowed to tell anyway. The sex thing has to do with overcompensating for some bullying in high school. For new insights, it doesn't, but I just really really want to share them and have them validated by someone. Otherwise it's just me thinking up crazy stuff, doesn't feel as real

Some more reasons: I want to be an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is a leader. A leader doesn't react to contradicting viewpoints and wastes no energy on them. To be a pioneer, I must dare to be alone. To keep faith in the plan even though everyone disapproves and loses faith I notice that I compulsively brag to friends everytime I have sex with a new person or gain a new insight. I noticed I am the only person I know who does that.

There's been a lot of threads on that lately, did you do a search?

@DrewNows At least we both have billiesimon's best interest at heart. Let's see what he decides to do and what we can learn from that.

Definitely, definitely DON'T do this shit at school or work. Not even in your neighbourhood, if you run into the same people there. You'll get a reputation quickly and it will make your life hell. Go to busy places, clubs, parks etc in the city center. All due respect, you haven't approached enough people to find out what works and what doesn't. 5 is nothing. You're doing great though, keep it up! When you've approached 100 people, you will have learned some things. 1000 and you'll kind of get the hang of it, and will have met some nice girls who liked you. Until then, drawing conclusions is kind of like throwing a 4 with dice three times in a row and concluding that your dice always give you 4. Do they work on you? If I for example want to get you to come hang out with me for a day, is there a magical sentence I could say to you to make that happen? No. It doesn't matter how I start the conversation. It matters that you feel good talking to me, and that I seem like someone who you'd like to hang with. That's how you want to think about this. I recommend checking out RSDMax on youtube. Also, I'm from the Netherlands. Which part do you live?

This matches my experience, yes. And like you I don't hold it against them. I hope you will post the results of your decision here! That will really enrich this conversation for everyone. Opinions are nice. Experience is king.

@DrewNows Since you insist, let me break it down for you: I'm advising to open up the possibility for a real relationship (friend or otherwise) by being honest. You really can't sweep these things under the rug and still call it an honest friendship. You seem to be confused. Wanting to feel better is what has kept him from growth, until now. He is making a choice to stop being afraid of feeling bad, as the price for authenticity. You must be joking. All breakups lead eventually to the most dramatic personal growth! For guys in particular.

And don't worry about hurting her. If she's your friend, she'll be glad you told her the truth. You'll both feel very different afterwards, you may not even want to pull away to avoid the pain anymore! Honest sharing is powerful.

Yes, yes and yes. It's rare for a guy in your predicament to be so clear and free of victimhood about it. You didn't go redpill or incel, you're really taking responsibility and doing what you need to, to grow. I respect that a lot. This tells me you will be a trigger-pulling boss in no time!

@billiesimon There you go! You'll see it hurts, but it's not as bad as it seems. And this courage from being honest this time, you will carry forward into the next time you will meet a girl. Also there's a big chance that she knows already, and will respect you for being able to say it finally. Could become a real friendship from there.

The problem started when he was scared to be honest about what he wanted. Ending the friendship with excuses is just more of the same: dishonesty to avoid biting the bullet.

Good choice! Respectable and healthy attitude. Congratulations! If she is truly your friend, she won't be too mean about it. Chances are she's been through it before. Maybe you'll even get an honest friendship out of it, now that you have nothing to hide anymore!

Oh she will, definitely. Girls are not attracted to guys who don't have the balls to act through their own desire. But you still need to go through that experience. Tell her how you really feel. Experience that pain. You see, only that pain will motivate you into changing out of this disingenuous pattern of behaviour. Enough of this rejection pain, and suddenly becoming a man who pulls the trigger doesn't seem so bad and scary anymore. It's called "emotional leverage". Look that up. So embrace it, get rejected! It's your only chance to get where you want to go! Good luck!

@Knock If she really didn't want to be approached, she'd invite her girl friends to drink and dance to music at home. Really think that through. If she truly didn't want the attention of guys, she could party at home. Or at a gay club. Both sexes are there because on some level they enjoy the game. Not everyone (your girlfriend, for example) may be there to be picked up for real, but certainly they are there because they enjoy the game and like the attention. But, you'll say, why would she complain about it then? You're not making sense! That's the problem with a masculine mindset. From your masculine, if you run into something unpleasant, you avoid it next time. From the feminine however, it's all part of the movie! Good and bad aspects of her experience are all interesting and make her feel alive. Just like a good movie has some negative in it. Sure there's rude groping guys with no manners, I'm not saying she likes that. That's the bad that comes with the good. She's complaining to you about getting attention from guys in this way, because: She enjoys talking about her experiences, both bad and good. It has nothing to do with problems that have to be solved She LOVES that she IS getting attention from guys, but complaining is the only way she can share with you, because she knows your ego couldn't handle it if she went: "Lots of guys found me attractive and hit on me, it made me feel wanted and sexy, it was really cool!" So she's trying to share her experience with you in a way that won't freak you out. Women are generally really good at detecting what someone's fragile ego can handle and what it can't, and adapting their story to that. And this is a good and necessary thing. Guys can't handle the truth and boy do they get dangerous when their ego freaks out.

I know, I've been worried about it too. Why spend the energy? Part of it is because I feel it could maybe help open some minds of people who read this thread, to give a voice to that perspective. I do hate slut shaming and related small-minded moral convictions about sexual behaviour, and feel motivated to point them out. But also I'm still addicted to agreement, like most people. People saying things I really don't agree with, unfortunately motivates me to get involved. I realised that this need to find or create agreement is what shackles me. I'm still working on letting it go.

We were so caught up in our cockfight about who's the most right in analyzing this situation. Meanwhile, no one is addressing the actual problem@SageModeAustin has. Which is, he's obsessing and self-flagellating over a person he's only dated for a few months. It's actually not healthy that she means that much to you after such a short time. Believe me, I've been there two years ago. It's a telltale sign of one-itis and lack of sexual options. Analyzing this to death won't help you, man. You're staying in that negative energy of focusing what you may have done wrong, while actually the ONLY thing you did wrong was not meeting more people, so you wouldn't have been so desperate and ungrounded. And I've been enabling you. I'm sorry. My advice to you is to stop obsessing over this immediately, as it's a huge drain on your energy, and start meeting new people. There are no more valuable lessons to be learned by picking this apart even more. At this point, you're procrastinating your next relationship by staying ADDICTED to the negativity of self-punishment.

Last week only 6% of my weekly schedule got accomplished. I didn't even look at it.

@Aeris I think your choices are equally valid, so I'm not saying everyone should live like me. Definitely I recognize that maintaining multiple relationships takes a lot of time, which can be a problem. I just want to point out some differences in ways of thinking. And I've thought like this too. Other guy who fucked her yesterday means not trustworthy. Why? If there is no agreement she's breaking, I don't see how that speaks to her character negatively. I would interpret it as a woman who owns her sexuality. Not only seeing you means not dedicated. Is that true? You're never spending all time together in a relationship, you have to work and see friends. Is that lack of dedication, then? Or is it a possible other sexual connection that detracts from yours? The win-lose mentality. When you love someone else, you love me less. This is untrue. I have a girl friend who has a boyfriend. I can be totally vulnerable with her, and I trust her. What would you be afraid of in that situation? It's this value judgment, this labelling of "not loyal/trustworthy", this association between other engagements and betrayal, that I'm calling into question. I've been there, so I won't say I don't understand. It can feel like that. But to me that's all it is, projections of the painbody. You made me feel x so I will label you as an X

Wrong, men are the salespeople and women are the purchasers in this metaphor. Are you deliberately misunderstanding me? That's why a customer can tell you all about what it feels like coming to your store, but if you ask them what would make them buy, they would give very incorrect answers. Mainstream myths they like to believe about themselves, and never had to confront, mostly. Because people generally don't know what "works" on them. Unless they've been the salesperson, and had to confront all their incorrect beliefs. Similarly, your female perspective can tell us how certain things a pursuer does would feel (maybe, still a projection), but this perspective is quite useless for determining what the pursuer should have done. Which is what we're discussing here. People are generally bad at predicting their own behaviour. So, sorry to say, but being pursued doesn't give you expertise in being a pursuer. Go hit on twenty women and get them to sleep with you, @Emerald , and then you would have some experience and there's a chance that you see what we're talking about here. I've never picked up a man, so I don't claim that I know how to do it. Even though it's happened to me. If some girl would ask me point blank how to get me, I would give very incorrect answers (be nice? be supportive of my mission? be interested?) and when I listen about pickup advice for women, I'm kind of appalled to hear what would actually work on men. But I don't discredit it, because it's not my area. I have no experience there. Get it?

@Emerald You have to learn to read between the lines. This comes with experience of having been in those situations many times. So it's not strange that you can't see it, it's strange that you assume that that means it's not there. As I said before, her texts show many not subtle responses to neediness. I will refer you to the post I made about that on the previous page.

There is actually no problem. This forum is what it is. It attracts the people that it does. That said, maybe we could make a rule that a posted thread has to be constructive and can't just be about blaming groups of people for your shit?

@Emerald This is just nonsense you tell yourself to feel above it. Making good eye contact, being able to manage your emotions and be in a good mood, speaking clearly and having your life together in a way that brings you happiness, only works on a specific type of woman? Really?? Because this is what RSD teaches. Clearly you have no idea and didn't bother to find out. You're pretending that it's about "tricks" and one night stands, while actually, it just teaches men (and women) how to be themselves in the most attractive least creepy way, and relate to women optimally, whether it is a cold approach at the bar or meeting someone through their social circle, or online dating. It makes you feel safe to consider yourself "not that specific type of woman", not a target, so you can keep believing that it wouldn't work on you. Guess what. It works on everyone. Sorry to burst your bubble, but every time in your life you have met someone who became your boyfriend or girlfriend, it could have been thanks to them following RSD teachings.

@Emerald What makes you the authority on all women? I respect that you are one, okay, but that makes your statements on "most women" just a projection. As you say yourself, you don't have much actual experience pursuing women romantically. I do. Not a lot, but at least some. And I'm saying that if he had framed it correctly and held that frame, he could have gotten her to be really supportive about his RSD work. In my experience, if a woman likes you, she'll shift her interests and values to fit yours, to some extent. What she says to herself and friends about her likes and dislikes, suddenly doesn't matter, because she's in your frame. So, I believe you that you don't like the idea of a man going to RSD seminars. But I think it's possible to meet a man (or woman) who is so attractive, that they make you forget all about that. (Also the reverse could happen, we all know guys throw their principles overboard for sex all the time) Also, I suspected that these 90%-10% percentages, you're just pulling them out of your ass. This is just your uneducated guess, extrapolated to "all women". So, I tried to find some actual numbers: guess what, the number of people likely to be open to non-monogamy is over 40%. Source: https://openpsychometrics.org/research/demographics-of-polyamory/

@Toby This idea of commitment meaning sexual exclusivity is just a conditioned shortcut to avoid doing the emotional work of confronting jealousy and insecurities. That's all it is. You can develop trust by practicing radical honesty and getting over your insecurities. This way, you can re-define commitment in a positive way (being with each other) instead of a negative way (not being with others) See, my girl friends don't have to pretend around me that they're only seeing me. I don't get insecure about that, so we can be honest and open. In the same way, I don't make any pretenses around them. I'm even seeing two best friends at the same time. Everyone is on board and happy with this. And because I share myself completely, not holding anything back, I can have very deep and intimate connections. Even deeper than in most typical exclusive relationships, where my desire for other women as well as her attraction towards men is something that is typically taboo, a topic that must be avoided to not make the other insecure. It's even normal to pretend you're never attracted to someone else! This having to pretend, and tell each other untrue stories (only you baby! I never looked at another man that way since I met you) is what makes the typical exclusive relationship way LESS authentic and intimate.

@Aeris I have both of those. You don't need to confine yourself to a single person to have that. Do you need to have only one friend, for true friendship? No, you don't. Love is endless and there is enough for everyone. You don't 'run out' of it. You can have it with as many people as you like. This bias towards exclusivity is just societal conditioning towards the codependent clingy coupling that is considered normal.