something_else

I've only ever found one girl who can make me cum from a blowjob, before that I didn't like them either. Now I can't get enough, lol.

Obsessing over getting something perfect the first time around is not an effective strategy. You’re going to fail at stuff in life and as long as you can learn from your mistakes, it’s better to make some mistakes while you make progress than be paralysed by inaction trying to get something perfect the first time round. Most of the time they’ll still wipe the floor with a newbie developer when it comes to fundamental skills of software development even if they’re not up to speed on all the latest tech. Disregarding everyone in a field with much more experience than you because you think you know better as a newbie who read some books is the definition of being foolish. Both will have a 100% rate of killing you. You cannot learn surgery by reading books. At this point, we are so abstracted away from the original topic I’ve stopped giving a fuck. Enjoy your life mate, I hope you get your perfect relationship first try

I mean that's a decent start I suppose, but you're still mostly going off bits and pieces of experience from the sidelines. If I was going to take relationship advice I'd still go with someone who's been in 2 to 5 long term relationships over any of this. My little experience as a novice programmer may contradict what a senior developer of 20 years has to say about programming, but it could be because I'm so inexperienced that I can't actually comprehend why he says what he says. You're experiencing the Dunning-Kruger effect right now. You are right though, people who are in 50 year marriages may also have shitty opinions on relationships, especially if that marriage has been their only long term relationship or they live in a conservative country where they were forced or pressured into it. You need theory + practice for success. Both of these imaginary doctors are equally likely to kill you if they perform surgery on you. Good luck to you and your paradigm shifting ideas

That is my point they don't sit around thinking and theorising, they train Most college degrees don't teach you shit about how to get anything done in the real world because they are so theory focused. If you study something where college degree is actually required and useful like engineering or medicine then they are combining the practical and theoretical stuff in your degree and not just teaching you theory. How have you seen how these concepts play out in real life practically? Most of these aspects you listed in a relationship will play out behind closed doors where you cannot observe them. You don't have to jump directly into a relationship, you should do it when you are ready. What is silly is doing all of this theorising and talking like you are an authority on relationships before you have had a single one. The analogy for you is more like: Imagine your surgeon telling you he's never done any surgery before, but he is also telling you he is an expert because he's read all the surgery textbooks for 5 years. You'd not take what he was saying very seriously and would ask for a different surgeon. 'Mostly' is just categorically the wrong word to use here. There are some where the man is a king, prince or CEO. But it is not most. Overall to me it seems like you need to map out, plan, and control every aspect of a relationship before you have one, which is a recipe for disaster. You cannot control a relationship like that. It is not in the nature of how a successful relationship works.

The point is exactly what I wrote. Metaphorically, the same thing that would go wrong if you thought about boxing hyper-logically for 5 years, had no actual experience physically boxing, and then fought in a real boxing match. Or sat theorising about graphic design for 5 years, did no actual drawing, and then took on a graphic designer job. In both cases you are not going to significantly improve your chances of success by spending those 5 years analysing each field hyper-logically. Relationships are very similar. You can and should think logically about relationships, that is part of your role as a man, but you need the actual experience to make the logical thinking worthwhile. Otherwise you're just mentally-masturbating in your bedroom. Almost no rom-coms or romance novels are pitched towards men, lol. Rom-coms cover a massive range of plots, not just this finance dynamic you are focusing on. Different plots to cater to different women with different preferences.

But you don't know very much about this topic. Taking pride in what you know here is self-delusion. It is wiser to accurately assess your skills/knowledge/experience than pride yourself into thinking you are an expert on a topic you don't really know much about. You actually don't know if it's a limiting belief or not. You also don't know if things will become straightforward if you only think hyper-logically about this. You are assuming both of these things. It seems that you think because this approach works in other areas of your life (engineering) it will work here, which is fallacy. You're approaching relationships like a science when they are much more like an art. Ehhm, do they? In my experience + some googling, most rom-coms/novels seem to be about love triumphing over materialism or money. At least where I live. Maybe where you live they are different. But 'always' is certainly the wrong word to use here either way.

It's fairly common for woman to plan out exactly what man they want, and then get swept off their feet by a man who doesn't really match the description at all because she develops strong feelings for him. I've seen this happen several times now. We should do this planning too, it can be beneficial. I am not saying you should have no standards or that you should think with your dick, those are words you are putting in my mouth. My point is that you are planning with a severe lack of information to judge compatibility accurately. And that the information you are lacking is not something you can get from the internet or a forum, no matter how hard you try. It's very hard to know what you want from a relationship when you haven't been in one. Many of the things you think you want, you don't. And many of the things you want, you don't even think about. Have you heard of the term paralysis by over-analysis? I think it describes what you are doing here quite well. So much theory and so much thinking that you are shooting yourself in the foot in terms of actual progress towards your practical goal of having a great relationship. Compatibility is not something you can map out logically. For example you are coming up with rules like "I need to make more than her boss for her to be compatible with me" which is an arbitrary logical rule unrelated to compatibility for most women you would actually want to be in a relationship with. So you've already made a fundamental flaw in your compatibility planning which is caused by a total lack of practical understanding of how women think about relationships. I know you're now immediately thinking about responding with "well how do woman think about relationships then?" and the answer is that in this case, most woman only care that are earning roughly the same as them. And even there, there are plenty of exceptions. Some woman are gold diggers and want you to earn a bunch of money and some will literally date broke men if they are attractive in other ways. This is part of the reason why what you're doing is so silly; woman vary a lot.

I mean that’s pretty much what blitz chess is, even at the highest levels. Years of practice and honing your intuition mean you can rely on it pretty exclusively without needing to do any logical calculation. Same as how a top level pianist can play songs perfectly without thinking about the individual keys to press where as a novice has to plan every key press in his head intentionally.

@mr_engineer From the sounds of it, I think you want an LTR but you are trying to plan out every last detail of the perfect relationship before you enter one, is that right? That is the impression I get.

Oh yea meet-ups are great

Then stop coming up with theories on topics you don’t know much about Go and have a relationship or two and then you’ll start to understand how woman think about relationships much better.

I'm wondering if anyone has opinions on the benefits of going backpacking for a year from a growth perspective? Age is probably important context here, so I'll start with saying I'm 23. I am someone who has always struggled a fair bit with social anxiety and making new friends, but when I travelled to Nepal this summer for just over a month it was the most naturally sociable I've ever been, I had an absolute blast and met so many amazing people. I probably made more friends in that one month than I have in my entire life up until that point. It was mostly long-term backpackers who I met, and they felt like they were my kind of people. I can make friends here but they all feel more superficial than the friends I made when travelling. When I was sitting listening to music on a 6hr long bus to go out on a Safari trip with two mates I met while trekking, I can genuinely pinpoint that moment as the happiest I've ever felt in my life up until this point. It's also the moment that I realised I am in a pretty good position in life now to go backpacking myself. I started planning to quit my job at the end of this year, and go travelling around SE Asia, India, Nepal (again) and perhaps other places for the entirety of next year like many of the people I met on that trip were doing. It's not cheap but I can afford to do it if I save up for the next 6ish months. It is something I've completely set my mind on doing, but at the same time there is a part of me that is viewing this as me wasting every penny I have saved up on a year long holiday that isn't going to provide me any actual long term value. But then another part of me looks at how many amazing stories and experiences I got from 1 month of it (and how many crazy stories the people I met have) and I feel so passionately driven towards doing something like that myself that I honestly don't think there is much that can stop me from doing it now. Does anyone here have experience with backpacking and do you feel like it was an experience that grew you? Do you feel it was worth it? Do you have any advice? Thanks!

Nepal has no trains so your options are flights or busses. I would imagine long distance travel in India is mostly by train or plane. They have decent-ish roads between big cities, the issue is that they have a monsoon season every year that decimates many of the roads making it hard to actually maintain a consistent road network. But the people there figure shit out and things go on. I went by bus for the adventure and I don’t regret it. I got a local bus a few times and also a tourist bus a few times. Neither are particularly safe by developed standards but you’re probably going to be fine lol. The local bus was more dangerous but more of an adventure.

@mr_engineer have you ever actually been in a relationship?

This reads like a very detached-from-reality perspective. Do you get most of your information about women and relationships from the internet?

I get your point. This is a more balanced take than your first post which was suggesting that mediation alone is the cure for loneliness. OP is feeling lonely/isolated and as a result is feeling the urge to be sociable, this is a healthy human impulse and responding to it with meditating the urge away is almost akin to repression.

I mean, they do. Your mindset/feelings/emotions often determine the quality of the rational decisions you make in chess and life. You can also argue that chess, and life, should be played with style and romanticism which are qualities based on feelings.

What are you scared of? Will do!

I'm reasonably good looking and as of recently have an actually decent profile, and I still feel like I get a shit deal with online dating compared to real life, unless I pay Tinder money. Figures. The ratio of male to female on dating apps is insane. Officially statistics are around 80/20 male to female in the US, but most of the rest of the world it's like 90/10. And a good chunk of that 10-20% of women are not on dating apps for anything other than ego boost or instagram followers. So you're looking at maybe a best case of 85/15 and a worst case of 95/5. This sounds really bad, but you actually should view this as a positive thing. What it tells you is that most women really don't like dating apps very much either. --- Also, you should stop watching that guys content. It's predatory. He is converting your low self-esteem and fear into money and you are falling for it hook, line, and sinker. His thumbnails are carefully crafted to target your insecurity and make you feel inadequate. Notice this feeling is making you click his videos every time you see them in your feed. You are being manipulated.

Do you live in a big city with decent nightlife? If you do, you can absolutely go out solo and have a great time. You might even make some friends who you can go out with next time.

This is like telling someone to meditate away hunger or thirst. Go out, party and talk to women then, what's stopping you?

I don't know if it's my favourite film ever but 12 Angry Men is really good. It's old and black and white but it doesn't matter. The idea that an entire movie could be set inside a single small room and still be incredibly engaging is really impressive.

I mean that decision will make them an exceptional amount of money so it's not that odd.

I get how it can be misinterpreted. Though I think it's more that women like good leaders. And good leaders aren't usually that bossy. Instead good leaders have a way of making you want to follow them, instead of having to use aggression/force/bossiness to make you follow them. I think that kind of leadership is what women really find attractive.

I relate to this a lot. Get a really good haircut, done by a stylist who knows what will look good with your face. Get your beard trimmed/styled professionally, if you have one. Clear up your skin if it's not already. Learn your angles for taking great pictures. Learn how to smile for photos in a way that looks natural. A lot of this stuff helped me appreciate my face a lot more.