something_else

@Johnny Galt What exactly are the reasons you think early sex-ed is bad? In a few sentences. It was hard to tell from your rambly post but I'm curious to hear your viewpoint Asking 11 year olds about their sexual orientation is pretty bad, I agree. Educating them about what different kinds of sexual orientation there are so they can start to consider it themselves on the other hand is a great thing. I'm assuming that was the intention of that survey The best argument for early sexual education is that by the time a kid is 11-12, they start learning about sex stuff from their peers anyway, especially if they have older siblings or older friends. And then the question becomes whether you'd rather a trained professional sex-ed teacher taught them about sex or they learn it through the filter of their peers. Because one of those two things has to start happening first

The forum isn't that bad. Relationships/dating is frustrating as hell, especially if you're not getting your needs met. A heavy proportion of posts here are guys blowing off steam and frustration, which is somewhat toxic. But at the same time, totally understandable. Better here than some incel type forum

Shit, you've exposed me, reading these is one of my guilty pleasures

I had a tendency to do this when I was heavy into online dating It was because at any given time, I'd likely only be talking to one girl, maybe two. And it felt like a lot of work to move onto the next girl if for whatever reason it didn't work out or she ghosted me. So I was heavily invested in one girl I'd never met, only snapchatted, and barely knew. Which is bad. Ideally you should feel like it's not a huge deal if for whatever reason this doesn't work out because you know you can attract another girl, especially since you've never met in person

I think the way this should work is that you spend your younger years experimenting, satisfy your desires for sexual variety, get into some slightly more committed relationships and see how it goes. Most will fail, be ok with leaving when necessary Once you've exhausted that desire, you start looking for deeper connections and something longer term, ideally with someone who has also experienced some sexual/relationship variety and now knows what they want. And that what they want is you. Both of you feel like you've landed a catch, and you click perfectly. And you build something incredibly deep together I would say this is optimal. Obviously this is massively over simplifying and this won't be the right path for everyone. But I think for most who feel they don't want to settle down too early, this is the path

This is just not a good mindset to have in the first place, about anything really

This dudes thumbnails and video titles give me a headache I'm sure he has valuable things to say, but, for me personally keeping it simple works better. I notice that the more theory I consume the worse I feel, the more I get stuck in my head and the worse I am socially The simple, holistic, kick-up-the-ass, practical advice tends to be what works for me and that doesn't usually come in the form of 2hr lectures with violent social media marketing strategy applied However, the best advice is the advice that inspires and motivates you and if this guy does that for you then that's great. Just be careful not to get too bogged down in theory

Yea it plays a huge role. But even if 90% of results are based on pure chance, you want to optimise the 10% that you do control as much as possible

@Max8 What you're saying is essentially that 'success in life is based on luck', is that right?

SMV I get but why the fuck is there an acronym for interracial dating lol

Funny, I was just out at a bar and there was a guy who was burning through his last (apparently) £100 he had buying these two girls drinks because he reallllly wanted to get with one of them. First thing she told me when I spoke to her is that she had a BF but she was letting him follow them about all night without telling him so he'd keep buying them drinks He must've spent nearly £50 on them total, then just left after getting nowhere. Don't be that guy Or that girl for that matter lol

I think the rule of thumb here should just be that if you go somewhere cheap, you do whatever is smoothest Offer to pay, if she objects don't fight, let her pay her way. Who pays in this situation is purely a logistical concern because no woman you want to date should give a shit if you buy her a coffee or she has to pay for it. But she likely will care if you're indecisive and awkward about who pays You just want it to be a complete non-issue, something you don't even really think about, like a 5 sec conversation. Because it actually doesn't matter at all who pays for what in this situation. All you have to do is not make it awkward When it comes to more expensive things like a meal (which is a bad first date idea anyway, so maybe 2nd or 3rd date) then it's not as clear what to do. I think it depends on the situation and the girl. I can see a girl being attracted by a guy who pays for her meal, but you have to be sure she's already attracted to you. All the girls I've gone for a meal with have insisted it's split though

I'm basically only just out of my teenage days and still dealing with the struggles from those days, but I'm now in a place where I can start to unwire some of that shit I was bullied badly from like age 7 - 14. I had very loving parents which I'm extremely thankful for, but they were loving to the point where I was definitely coddled and that made me quite sensitive. I was also an only child so I was a bit undersocialised with people my own age. The result of that is me being a go od target for bullies in that I would usually react really intensely e.g. crying, shouting and so on which is what they get off on That's caused me to have intense social anxiety and I often feel quite uncomfortable expressing myself authentically, many many layers of filters with people I don't already feel comfortable around Other than this, I feel extremely grateful for the environment I grew up in. I feel like I've got a very mentally stable and grounded baseline and I've rarely struggled with things like depression or general anxiety that I've see many of my peers seriously struggle with. It's just socially that I'm totally fucked

I know that scientifically it's been out of fashion for a long time in favour of things like the Big 5 which are more rigorously testable, fair enough, but definitely doesn't mean it's valueless at all When it comes to personal dev type work though, how useful is it as a tool? It's certainly very interesting and intellectually stimulating and it seems to addict people in a similar way to things like astrology. I'm curious since there seems to have been a spike of conversation about it here recently so I'd like to hear some others' opinions on how it can be used I was super into it at one point, almost to the point of addiction. Properly into all the cognitive function stuff as well as just the 4 main axes, but I could never actually pin myself down as a type, really. I think I narrowed it down to ISTP, INTP, INFJ, ISFP or INTJ but like I actually cannot pick one of those that resonates with me the most, it depends on my mood and circumstance That ended up being why I lost interest, it seemed too rigid to base life decision on, especially the idea that you could not change types, which a lot of MBTI people seemed to take very seriously TLDR: Curious on your overall opinion of MBTI, is it useful for personal dev, or is it just an interesting test to inspire some self reflection?

The root cause of loneliness is not talking to people It's kind of like saying you aren't gonna eat food to conquer hunger If you wanted to transcend loneliness in a healthy way then you have to do that from a position of having abundant social opportunity/experience and choosing to reject that in favour of solitude. Otherwise it's just running away from your problems Sounds like you're on a better track now. I'm also on the path of building up a social circle, trying to be far more social etc. As a way to handle social anxiety

I mean maybe technically it's possible but this is probably just your laziness/ego looking for a quick solution to things that take time

Was scrolling through the thread looking for a response like this, and you wrote it better than I could Same for me

I'm getting closer and closer to thinking you're an actualized.org prankster with every post ?

@Leo Gura Funny you should say that, my dad was actually into the proper pickup craft, back near its inception, like the 80s or so. And from what I gather quite successful. I only discovered this recently and it creates a weird concoction of emotions inside me to say the least ?

Entirely unrelated but this is was a nostalgia bomb These guys have a group in my city with 6 people, guess it could be interesting, idk, I feel like I'm more drawn to the path of making extroverted friends to go party with or just going out on my own. Seems to be working OK so far I don't like the idea of 'doing pickup' per se, I like viewing it as learning so socialise and beat social anxiety instead

"Adults who possess relative pitch but do not already have absolute pitch can learn "pseudo-absolute pitch" and become able to identify notes in a way that superficially resembles absolute pitch.[9] Certain people who train to name notes may indeed become able to identify all 12 notes of the scale with 90% accuracy or above,[10] and valproate, a medication used to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder, may re-open the "critical period" of learning, making the acquisition of absolute pitch, as well as languages, potentially as efficient for adults as for children.[11][12] Even so, this form of pitch training can require considerable motivation, time, and effort, and it is not retained without constant practice and reinforcement.[13]" I mean that sounds like a pretty good start minus the medication part lol Pulled from Wikipedia. I also found a lot of places that say perfect pitch is usually found in people who have extensive musical training at young ages. I don't know if that's talent, I suppose it's luck that you started early. I don't know a lot about music so that all might be full of shit, please tell me if it is, but sounds pretty reasonable Yea you can be lucky and born with special skills or advantages, I'm not disagreeing with that. The problem is that the mindset of "I'm not talented enough to do X" is a really really bad one that you should try and drop

The problem is this is a retarded assumption for like almost all skills Most of what you call talent is just people who got into something young enough that it's so naturally built into their being that it looks like talent Sure there are sometimes people who are exceptionally gifted at things but you also notice that most of them tend to work pretty hard at their talent too and that's not coincidence Their real talent was having enough passion and drive about a single thing to work hard at it but there's no reason you can't recreate such a drive artificially or find something for which you have a natural passion and drive This isn't designed to cheer you up btw, in fact it should make you feel kinda unpleasant because the whole reason most people blame lack of success on lack of talent is because it makes your own ego feel good

This is the big one for me and it's a horribly vicious cycle. You're too anxious to say things, then you become anxious about being too quiet because realise you haven't talked for 10 minutes and that it would be weird to suddenly jump in after that silence That situation can also make you say weird things because you feel like you need to say something, so you force your way into the conversation with something kinda inauthentic or out of place What tends to happen is that I feel like I have more filters than someone without social anxiety, so it takes a few more seconds for me to judge a thought as being acceptable to speak or not, so even if I deem it acceptable the moment has passed A few things that I've noticed help me 'flow' with conversation more: having an activity to do while talking, like playing pool with people or some kind of game etc. And fidgeting with something Having an activity to do is kind of an obvious solution, it means the talking isn't the main focus. But there's another benefit that's similar to the fidgeting in that ironically these take up brainpower and focus that you would otherwise be dedicating to filtering your words I'm not talking about nervous fidgeting, it has to be something relatively unnoticeable to others (because ofc you have social anxiety) so something like slowly running your thumb over your other fingers is a good one. Or even just slowly and intentionally fidgeting with a random object in front of you isn't seen as weird at all and has this effect of helping you speak without over-filtering

I'm pretty sure I know the answer, 'it depends', but I'll explain myself and maybe someone can offer some insight into this I've noticed I often feel quite guilty when I buy reasonably expensive things I want. I've recently just started working as a software engineer on £30k which is pretty reasonable as a single guy, I live in a cheapish place in a smaller town cos I work remote, so financially I'm not really worried at all and I end up with a good amount of disposable income Yet, when I buy things there's often an underlying guilt and I can't work out where it's coming from For example, I'm doing a lot of socialising, getting better with girls, partying etc. cos I missed out on all of that in uni. So I figured having clothes that I really like is good and as such I've spent a whole bunch of money on some nice clothes recently, nice jackets, jumpers, jeans, t-shirts, a nice watch etc. yet every time I buy anything quality (which comes with a bigger price tag ofc) I feel so guilty for not just going to cheaper places, even though I know I can afford it Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to crazy expensive places, usually mid-range brands so like ~£100 for a jacket or jeans, £10-20 for a t-shirt etc. for context I've also bought a lot of furniture for my place recently with the same feeling of guilt, even though it was all from IKEA which is as cheap as you can get really In my mind I feel like I should be saving the money for something 'more useful' and for 'my future' but I have no idea what 'more useful' thing in the future that is so it's just some vague idea my mind pumps out that makes me feel guilty I guess what I'm asking is should I just kind of impulsively buy the more expensive things that I prefer and not worry too much about it, or should I try to be more frugal and shop at cheaper places, carefully manage money etc. Again the answer is probably balance the two, but maybe someone has some insight into the psychology of money here that might help, I'd appreciate it if you do!

Ironic that the solution to fear of buying things is buying things, isn't it I have the book list already, I'll take a look, cheers There was some weird shit when I was younger where anything nice my mum bought me, I'd be afraid to show to my dad because he was far less well off and would talk shit about how my mum spoilt me etc. (They were divorced for context), that's about the only thing I can think of but I don't feel like it's had a tremendous impact on my psyche. Who knows, I suppose Based on this, spending money on clothes is perfectly acceptable as I feel socialisation is definitely one of my main 3 things that I'm focusing on right now. In fact it's pretty much the only thing I'm intensely commited to rn until I can travel. This helped, thanks