Natasha Tori Maru

Unfortunately, for those men who need to hear, understand and know this most - it will most likely fall on deaf ears. There is too much knowing - the cup is full. Coupled with the simple fact that those who are trying to understand women are usually pursuing it through either 1) an inflexible frame (shit epistemology) or 2) with an intention purely to learn mechanism to extract what they want to fulfill their needs (bias). Understanding needs to be relational with an intention to connect in fullness. We can't understand something fully if our own bias is looking at it mechanistically to find leverage points to extract what we want. I think this mechanism search blocks relational understanding. I think we have a "knowing" problem and a "relational" problem blocking understanding. And these two issues can cross contaminate each other. And form an insidious loop - which I think we are seeing here. The knowing problem to relational failure: "I already understand women" - less curiosity - fewer genuine questions - less corrective information - existing model unchanged. The relational problem to knowing failure: "Women can be understood through mechanisms" - interaction becomes analysis - the person is treated as data - their actual subjectivity is obscured - the mechanistic model is reinforced. You basically end up with someone who has accumulated an enormous amount of knowledge about women while having relatively little understanding of women as people. And as a woman on this forum, I feel pretty powerless to affect these loops. Not with all members. Just some. I am heartbroken continually to see it is only other men that men listen to regarding their failure to understand

100% That some little neurological energetic thing can happen that we call a "thought" can trigger energetic systems in such a huge way. Thoughts are like levers for energy in the body - some may have a longer handle and require less effort. Some have a chode handle that we need to grind at to make the energy arise 😁 Yes. A big one. If I am judging someone, I cannot simultaneously be genuinely feeling the truth of my emotions. As soon as I judge someone - I'm blocking or avoiding something in my internal experience. This insight came after I was harshly judging my sister for sabotaging my work. I was fuelled with so much anger and justice. Narratives spinning for revenge. I realised that anger and indignation from judging her wasn't what I was really feeling; hurt, sadness and some shame that maybe I didn't give her the tools she needed to succeed. Judging her blocked all the truth of my experience. I was avoiding feeling sadness. It all passed like nothing at the insight. And well.... Basically I had that prickly sensation of adrenaline, energy and jubilation 😁 I couldn't stop crapping on about it to my close friends 🤣

@aurum you describe my process as well. Once I know I am decisive. When and how much is the essence of the quastion.

@Miguel1 I think it's happening from both sides. It doesn't look like a clash of character or egoic battle. More like a clash of epistemologies. I think if you asked more questions, rather than taking it as a challenge, it might help you reassess how YOU know what you know, and how you used your experience to derive conclusions (and clear up any hasty conclusions made when we think we understand what someone is saying). Sometimes others have information we can use that will help us update our models - and this information needs to be assessed, discarded, or used to update our understanding. It's just hard if there are emotions involved - and this topic is emotionally loaded to fuck because it touches on the very meaning of being human, and the human experience - connection. I admire you for putting yourself though this process. I do it with people on real life, and I don't know if you are anything like me, but it is painful. When I engage in something like this, I remind myself that every time I am judging someone else, their experience, or then - I am blocking what I genuinely feel. You might notice you can't actually be in touch with how you truly feel when you judge someone else. That helps move through the pain faster and see with clarity.

Its a baby roo!! I see them along my bike trails in the morning. Roos populate metro areas of Australia 😁

I suspect there is a genetic component - great grandmother, grandmother and mother and sister all have or had it. Caveat there as my great grandmother had all the symptoms but never a diagnosis. None of the men in my family had it.

@BlessedLion I get you. I have extremely strong intuitive feelings that are rarely wrong. I do often sit with it, and probe further, to ensure I am not being mislead by a feeling based on some existing bias. So I try to test the feeling. It usually comes up that the 6th sense is correct, though. I just feel I need to do my diligence against my twisty little mind 😁

The problem with how this dialogue is infolding is that an interpretive conclusion is reached prior to doing enough information gathering first (IE there are no genuine probing questions being asked to understand how other users arrived at their dating strategies, why it worked etc). The answers are being funnelled through a pre-existing frame and a conclusion is reached. Essentially it reads like a frame is adapted and the model is rigid and doesn't want to be updated. It's not difficult to see this play out as whenever information that might contradict the model is encountered it is discarded without much inspection (hence the lack of questioning, flat two word responses discarding users views, methods and experience). Reacting not responding. And I have a feeling this is because what is being said is misunderstood due to a lack of open curiousity around other users experience and methods (again as there are no who what why when questions, and simple "no" answers). I don't really understand the purpose of the thread myself when this is the pattern here. But I see a genuine attempt to work out a path for dating, it could simply be that there is so much emotional load behind the dilemma it's making it hard to take on alternative views that might push against an existing model. I get it as it is normal. I go through the same thing often. I don't see that the issue is that a particular conclusion was reached - it's that it was jumped to without truly understanding what was said by other users beyond a surface proposition.

@Miguel1 I was just making conversation... 2/3

Also to add on to my point above - I look for integrity as it is a cleaner transmission to pick up on from a person; do their actions and behaviour match their words and intention? The signal is more obvious as it is behavioural and acted out in the real world. Authenticity and integrity are linked and operate together in my experience - authenticity is about “Am I being true to what I actually experience, value, think, and feel?”. Integrity can be viewed more like “Am I behaving consistently with what I claim to value, even when there is a direct cost to me?” Looking for integrity, which usually requires assessment over time, can be a great green flag for authenticity - not guaranteed but because they work together it's a good heuristic. I then see this as authentic integity; our inner experience, professed values, and behaviour aren't fundamentally at war with one another. Another reason why I don't rush to hasty conclusions too early. 2/3 months of dating is good for me to want to take next steps.

I think it can work both ways. I wouldn't be so quick to discard establishing a good understanding of the person through varied, shared experience. You only see who someone truly is in integrity between their behaviour/word, and that needs to be assessed over time. I haven't ever found a heuristic that can shortcut the process. I've been surprised many times! From my perspective, jumping in too soon can also be conformity. Blindly following feelings or chemistry without really attending to the above system I loosely outlined ( and at the start, the initial rush and flurry of meeting someone new can lead to fantasy and strong hormonal pushes that override sense). This is what society constantly brainwashes us is love and connection via movies, media and TV.

Do you think you can accurately see someone's soul from a few dates in?

From perfect. I can be a right little shit! Online is very different to real world - although I have met some great people online who were as they appeared. All of these strategies and ways of being were hard earned, I had my trial by fire and made many, many mistakes along the way. I dare say you just see a better version of me now that I have grown. They say "beware wisdom that is unearned". My shit was earned. Through suffering - yes, but crazy resilience and self belief. I guess this process developed a deep sense of self trust and connection. So I remain clear in who I am and what I want. I am very different in real life to how I might present online. I am not a very serious person I know there are others out there like me, there just have to be! Finding them would be the difficult part. There is simply SO much less face to face interaction these days compared to when I was younger. That makes it hard. I have no clue how to find someone like me. I have the same trouble from the other side of the yin/yang coin

Someone linked this to me, haven't gotten around to it ( if any of you stupendous souls want to dive in )