mr_engineer

@bebotalk Your problem is not with hot women. It's with the simps who suck up to these hot women. They are who you have real danger from. Without simps, hot women have no power to hurt you.

So, is this relationship the cause of love or the effect of love? Or, is it 'love' in and of itself? That is my entire question. What is the right paradigm within which love can fit in? I'm asking questions! What more do you want me to do to open myself beyond my current paradigm?! To be completely honest with you, I have to know what I'm signing up for when I 'open up and connect' with people. The reality of our world is that people use our vulnerabilities against us. And what helps them sleep at night doing this, is that they're doing it 'out of love'. The most abusive individuals on the planet think they're doing what they're doing 'out of love'. So, this is a very important conversation.

There are multiple authority-figures giving multiple definitions of 'love'. Maybe our parents say that 'love is the self-sacrifice we do for you'. Or, rom-coms say that 'love is a positive feeling-state towards someone'. Or, religion says that 'love is the desire to do good for your fellow humans'. Or, non-duality says that 'love is the realization of Oneness'. All of these definitions refer to different 'direct experiences'. So, what's your definition? So, you're talking about 'love' as a noun or a verb? This sounds like a verb to me. The problem at hand is that the process of understanding love on a rational/intellectual level has already begun with the different types of conditioning we have about it from different sources. Everyone has a different definition of it. So, love is 'friendliness'? Why does friendzoning happen, then?

Keep in mind that we're trying to solve the shame-problem here. So, when you're saying 'you won't understand it until you experience it', that's not very helpful to them. And, if you don't want to help solve this problem, what was the point of talking about it in the OP to begin with?

@Emerald I don't even know what you mean by 'love'. Let's start there. What is 'love'?

Is it a 'sense of family'? And, if it is, what would that be based on? Define 'support'. 'Personality' changes with time. Even who you are on the inside changes with time. The 'flavor' will also change with time. What will keep you committed to him long-term? Forget about whether he's stable/secure, what would make you stable/secure? What's 'you'? Who are 'you'? 'You' are such a complex topic that you've probably written 10 journals about yourself. So, which aspect of 'you' is he supposed to 'love'? And, what is 'love'? That is correct. But, they will choose whom to bond with, solely on the basis of transactional need! It may not be physical needs or logistic needs, it will be emotional-needs. Define 'commitment'. Commitment to do what? Define 'investment'. Investing what? These were well-defined before feminism, when men's job was to provide. No matter how much love a man feels for you, commitment will always be a rational decision for him. (If he is high-quality and smart and he understands the stakes.) There are life-altering consequences based on who you commit to, it's a high-stakes decision for your life. Is it his job to make your life happy?

Now, I'm going to share the biggest challenge with this from male perspective. In the 1950s, there was religion, i.e. a belief in God by default. So, through the Bible (or your religious scripture), 'God' defined 'family'. This is important, because if God says that you are meant to be together in a certain configuration which God calls 'family', it would give you a sense of purpose that is strong enough for you to defend your family from a tiger, at the risk of your own life. And, 'God' laid down the rules for how a 'family' should be run. Then, when you followed those moralistic rules and did those religious rituals, you were being 'good' in the eyes of 'God' and for that, you would get a sense of 'family' or 'belonging'. Then, what happened is that technology made progress, because of which people's minds started to become more scientific and intellectual, and less dogmatic. They started to question the concept of 'God', they became atheistic. So, factor #1 - no more 'God'. And, when you reject the concept of God that comes from religion, you start to disagree with the religious definition of 'family'! Meaning, the single-family household, the rules your parents made you follow in your religious upbringing start to be a problem for you. Up until this point, we're fine. The problem, now, is that we don't have a 'right definition of family'. Because of which, when we date, we don't know what we're trying to construct! We say 'we have emotional-needs, we have these boundaries, we have these dreams and goals and aspirations and these elaborately intricate definitions of compatibility' but in reality, will that result in a 'sense of family'? Which is exceedingly important, because only when you have God telling you that you're meant to be together, will you be willing to make sacrifices to be together. Only then will the commitment be strong! Or else, the commitments will stay loose. And, obviously, if there is no sense of family that's coming out of your dating-experiences and this results in weak commitments, this will result in the 'shame' that you talk about in the OP and all of the problems that come from that. Now, how do we fix this? Let's say we get a newer, more non-dual, spiritual definition of 'God'. I'm assuming that you have some degree of enlightenment. Now, given this definition of 'God', what societal structure would work better than the single-family household to create a sense of family?

Except for parenthood, all of these can be had with a friend. Or, a 'friends-with-benefits', so to speak. A big shadow of the patriarchy is that if women don't have equal rights, men have to provide for the family and if a man does that successfully, he can be assured that she will stay, she won't leave. And he will be valued for providing. Providing was 'enough' for a man to be valued by a woman, before feminism. I'm not saying that women getting equal rights is a bad thing, by any means. Women should absolutely have professional skills and the ability to survive on their own in the modern world. Having said that, feminist women have swung the pendulum to the opposite extreme, where they want to be 'boss babes'. Meaning, this idea of 'women being independent and doing everything alone' is really being glorified. This makes the 'mutual contribution' thing unappealing to a man who wants to be valued as a provider. Now, here's the tricky part. You could get this with any conscious man. Any conscious man recognizes that connection and companionship are needs in him and in others and you can have it with him. Why should one individual stand out from another for you? What would result in a genuine strengthening of the relationship? How does he know that the relationship with you is secure? Isn't he replaceable? By the same token, he can also get these things with any conscious woman. Aren't you also replaceable? Wouldn't the commitment stay loose, in reality, if these are your most important deciding-factors with a man? What would make you stay with an individual man long-term? How would you choose between two men who can give you this type of relationship?

Agreed. What are those social/emotional needs? Which ones can be met by a male friend and which ones do you need a long-term male partner for? Define 'contribution'. It was 'providing for a family' in the past. After feminism, that's not an acceptable definition anymore. So, what does 'contribution' mean, practically? Define 'value'. What value do men hold, in a world after feminism? If you could answer this question, it would help with the shame.

@Emerald Alright. I understand the problems you're presenting and I agree with you. You are right. Now, let's be solution-oriented. First, I would like to posit that men can't do this on their own, amongst each other. We will need help from conscious women to resolve this. It's not just because men can't learn to feel and process emotions on their own. That we are actually capable of. Where we need your help, is in figuring out where we fit into society. Let me explain. With feminism came a wave of 'female independence'. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, this is a good thing. However, a side-effect of this, a cost that men had to pay for this, is that men lost their role in the family as a 'provider'. And, in relationships with women and children, men need to feel useful. Because if the man isn't useful, he will start to feel insecure in his ability to keep women and children in his life. Individually, every man's life is different but collectively, if we want to understand these big waves of 'misogynistic' movements, this factor cannot be ignored. Unconscious women cannot figure this out, because they don't see themselves as responsible for society at large, much less men's problems. The whole point of feminism, under the surface-level ideology of 'equality', is to show men a big middle-finger after the 'oppression' that happened 70 years ago. We can sense it. But, conscious women, who have their own shit sorted to the degree that they are capable of doing something for society, should intuit that this is something worth their attention. Here is my question for you - now that the patriarchy is effectively done and we have a more 'civilized', 'equal' society, where do men fit in?

What I'm gathering from what you've written, is that the problem is the existence of the masculine ideal that these men are striving to embody. I have a few questions for you. Would it be better if they had a different masculine ideal to aspire to? If so, what would a better value-system be? Should there be a masculine ideal to aspire to? Or, is the existence of the ideal in and of itself the source of shame, so if we had a different masculine ideal, they would have a different source of shame? Should men have a goal to get laid? Or, is that a part of the coping-mechanism with shame? In other words, is male sexuality fundamentally a problem? You say that 'if the issues with shame were resolved, the problems making connections would go away'. How would that work? What is a 'man' in your eyes, how would these men express themselves in a way that would be attractive to women, after resolving their shame?

There is no other reason to have a gender-preference for your child, other than self-bias. So, when you ask us this question, what you're really saying is that you want to know our biases!

In that case, consider the possibility that your hormones are going wild when you meet other attractive men, because you're a teenager. When you cross 20, you will not regret not breaking up with X/going on some wild goose chase for someone you haven't met in person.

Do you see yourself having a baby with Y? Is it a possibility?

In theory, there is no reason you can't be free to love two. In practice, though, a relationship involves more than just sex. It's an attachment-relationship. And, compatible attachment-figures are few and far between. They're not replaceable. That's why I stand for monogamy. I'm biased towards monogamy. If polyamory is something you authentically want, then I'm the wrong person to ask. I just think that the 'monogamy vs polyamory' question is too heavy for an 18-year-old, so I'd suggest trying to make monogamy work until you're 25. Then, if you still feel called towards polyamory, by all means, go for it! In that case, don't break up with X. Now, if you're attracted to other men, this means that X is not doing it for you, he's unable to give you what you want. So, I'd suggest you voice this to X and improve your relationship with him. Whose baby would you want to have? That's a good question to ask yourself, when you choose! It will also show you the pitfalls of polyamory and why monogamy is so popular.

Who reminds you more of your father? X or Y? And, in which ways? Once you figure this out, look at analogous patterns in your childhood relationship with your father. Then, make up your mind as to whether you want to keep the pattern or discard it! And, get help from the guy who's involved in that pattern in the present-day, do this work on your relationship. At age 18, who you choose is less important. What's more important, is for you to understand what 'family' means to you, and to construct that kind of relationship. Whoever fits into that definition of 'family' can stay in your life.

As said at 2:30, be a 'good bad boy'!

No, that's domination and submission. Submission is natural to femininity, but objectification will feel unsafe to a feminine woman. Usually, there is in-depth communication about turn-ons, turn-offs and building of trust between them for the woman to consent to this kind of sex. This is the opposite of objectification, where there's no communication, you're just acting on your impulses.

Right. Now, from female perspective, the problem is that the objectification is the cause of a lot of trauma for them. I agree with you. Now, having said that, the concern of how conscious you're being, is a very different one from how ethical you're being. As long as you're following the law, you're being ethical. (You can be an ethical, peace-loving narcissist!) But, if you want that the sexual-experience actually feels good to her, if you don't want to be a part of the problem of unconsciousness in PUAs, that's a totally different ballgame. Now, narcissism will not fly.

Right, so there are other ways to learn. Like, going to meetups, going to social events, going to concerts, talking to women at work, etc. Why pick-up? Why random women on the street? It's not obvious. Then, when you look farther into it, you realize that they're thinking with their dicks. They see a hot woman, their dick gets hard and now, instead of channeling their sexual-energy into their work, they go 'me want to fuck, me go talk to strange woman'. It is kinda objectifying, if we're going to be honest, to make the decision to pursue a woman just because of the way she looks. This is the practical reality of pick-up. Now, you may say 'not necessarily, what if she made eye-contact with him and they had an instant connection? Shouldn't he know how to convert that?' What I'm talking about is the norm, this would be the edge-case.

As I said, in theory, there is a way to do pick-up ethically and there is nothing fundamentally unethical about pick-up. In practice, though, the big thing driving PUAs is insecurity about their attractiveness, which they try to cover up by building a body-count. The whole body-count thing is an ego-boost for PUAs and using women as a tool for this ego-pursuit is definitely unethical.

It's not pick-up itself that's low-consciousness, it's that the pick-up community right now is littered with unconscious individuals with shallow motivations. Most of them are players who only want to get laid, who don't want to commit to women. This is a selfish approach to dating and it causes women a lot of trauma.

There is a possibility that I will meet my sales-targets next month. And, if I do, I will be all set to achieve financial-freedom in 1 year! I won't be rich yet, my life will be simple and frugal. But, I will be free! Leo and actualized.org will have a big role in this achievement. Thank you all for being the support that you are! Wish me luck.

I'm saying that there can be better definitions for 'frame' than what he's describing and that if we hold onto this definition of 'frame', we can only get a 'good girl', who is essentially a 'yes-man'. Feminists will say that you're 'toxically masculine' and 'good girls' will think that you have 'strong frame', until the day you make a mistake. Then the RAS-flip will happen and all bets are off when it comes to the future of the relationship. In order to come up with a better definition of 'frame', first, you have to figure out what you have to offer to women. Meaning, which love-language can you speak! Then, you can hold 'frame' in that love-language. And secondly, you have to understand why women are looking for a man with 'strong frame'. The reason for that is that they feel unsafe in the world and they need a man to protect them. Now that you know this, you can come up with a definition of 'frame' that falls within your love-language! So, if it's words of affirmation, then it makes sense to be ideological in your 'frame'. If it's quality-time, then the way you hold frame, is by giving her focused presence. If it's physical-touch, then maybe the way you hold frame is by giving a hug or cuddling. If it's gifts, then the way you hold frame is by having shared experiences and then gifting her a memento of that experience. If it's acts of service, then the way you hold frame is by working on something together and leading that team-project.

What he means by 'frame', is actually ideology. You have to have a self-serving ideology in which 'you're a 10'. Some will call this grandiose narcissism. I think it's fine to think that you're the shit as long as your rationale is grounded in reality. Cuz there is a danger of buying your own BS with this frame-stuff (or at least, the way they're defining 'frame'). Now, about the RAS-flip - this will happen with 'good girls', or girls who could earn the approval of their fathers. Is this a problem? Yes, it is irrational and biased to only pay attention to the 3% where someone messes up and not to the 97% where they do well. We can all agree on that. The question is - why do they do this? Before I give my answer, I will talk about Owen's rationalization for it. He's saying that 'it's a defense-mechanism to stop them from getting impregnated by a 'beta-male''. The question, though, is - what is a 'beta-male'?! If you can just decide to be an 'alpha', in your mind, you're the 'alpha'. But then, why is she deciding that you're the 'beta' and why is she flipping on you the moment you lose frame? This is not something that should obviously happen with all women. Because, some women are smart! Some women are rational, they can weigh the facts and make a rational decision and give some margin for error. So, what kind of woman will this happen with? And why? This will happen with 'good girls'. Their father 'held frame' in a certain way for them. So, now, when you 'hold frame' like that for them, they will be attracted to that. Now, here's the thing - the way they related to their fathers, is that they earned his approval and he gave it to them. And, in the process of earning his approval, they gave up certain aspects of themselves, that would have been disapproved of! They hold this resentment towards their fathers, it's a daddy-issue. But, they can't confront their fathers on this, because the father is going to tell them how many sacrifices he made to raise them and how his morality is actually a 'hard-learned lesson of his life', they can't win this argument with their fathers. Now, in the situation with you, when you 'break frame', they're going to perceive it as you not making those sacrifices that their father made to keep frame! So, their resentment towards their father will show up in that moment and will make them rationalize it as 'If he isn't making this sacrifice for me, why should I make these sacrifices?! Let's bias ourselves against him and rebel against him and do the RAS-flip!!' That's why they do the RAS-flip in that specific situation.