Emerald

A deep connection doesn’t necessarily mean a compatible romantic relationship that serves both partners. A deep connection will arise simply from living life together like any other familial bond. As far as the separation goes, things are much better between him and I as friends and co-parents. I was really unhappy in the relationship. And I’ve opted for the past several years to still live together despite our separation so that we can see our kids every day and not miss out on the family dynamic. Now in terms of relationships in general… Once you get past the initial attraction stage… things get less exciting but they grow a lot deeper. “Still waters run deep” is a good quote for describing it. So, anything that requires a significant amount of “game” past the initial attraction stage will just get in the way of that deepening because game is about creating excitement and intrigue… but real relationship is markedly uneventful.

Have you ever had a relationship with someone before? I feel like you’re going towards this notion that all human interactions are shallow because you’ve never had a real relationship before. And perhaps your friendships haven’t even been that deep. Relationships can actually go extremely deep. For example, my relationship to my husband is really quite deep because we’ve seen each other almost every day for the past 13 years. And we’ve been separated for 4 of them. But the relationship still deepens as we live and raise our kids together. And in my other romantic relationships, things have gotten deep fairly quickly as we shared more experiences, conversations, and personality facets with one another. My advice would be to seek out relationships and friendships that can give you deeper wisdom into what it means to relate.

Lots of men like to romanticize the notion of what it means to be a man in order to get away from feeling disempowered. And one of the ways they do this is by cherry picking certain biological insights and weaving them together into a male empowerment fantasy narrative. And these narratives are usually about men holding power over women in the realm of sexuality, dating, and relationships. This is because men often feel disempowered in relation to women and their feelings about women. And they want to tell themselves a comforting story that puts the woman in the disempowered position relative to men. And so, they may cherry-pick some scientific truisms around men having biological urges to spread the seed wide… and they use these truisms to weave themselves a narrative like… “Women just need to embrace the “natural” female role because it’s in alignment with nature for men to cheat. And if she complains, then she’s going against nature and being too Masculine… because natural Feminine women are accepting when their men cheat. And women are only desirable when they’re Feminine, so they need to allow men to cheat or the man won’t be interested in them anymore because they’re not Feminine enough. I bet they’re not Feminine enough because of daddy issues and having too many trains run on them. So, women should definitely stick with one guy because lifelong monogamy is the only kind of sexual experience that doesn’t damage the woman. Also, think of lions! The alpha male gets to mate with all the females and the female lions are okay with it.So…” Etc. Etc. Etc. This is just one example of a male empowerment fantasy narrative. And they’re everywhere. And because of the internet… you have scads and scads of men wrapped up in the same male empowerment delusions. And it’s really annoying because they really believe it’s true. But the main function of men talking about this and creating this narrative is to make himself feel empowered simply for being part of the male identity group.

I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying here. But am I correct in my understanding that you mean that you wouldn’t ask a woman how she’s doing because you already know she’s doing great. And you know she’s doing great because you’re at the center of the conversational experience… and so because she is speaking with you, you know that she’s having a good time. And you’re saying that all conversations between human beings are surface level. And then claiming that I’ve never met a guy that I have felt moved by. And that men connect to the deeper “make up” of the woman. But women are only connecting to the facade that men are putting on to attract the woman. Did I interpret this in the way that you meant it?

If a guy doesn’t care how the woman is doing, she will probably pick up on that and not want much to do with the guy. Women are mostly looking for a human connection with a man.

This is silly. Of course a guy should ask how the woman is doing. It’s a normal human conversation piece.

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What about it?

Only one of my relationships began that way. Relationship #1 was when I was 16-20. We worked together at KFC for about a year. And he was a very social stoner guy. He threw a party at his house for New Years Eve and invited me. And I spent the next three months hanging out with him as friends, practically living at his house with him and his family. One night we were horsing around and we finally kissed after heavy flirting for months. It was mutual initiation. Relationship #2 was from 20-29. This is my relationship with my husband. I was out busking outside of a bar that he was drinking at. And he sparked up a conversation with me. We talked until dawn. The next night he tracked me down again in my usual busking spot and asked me to go to dinner with him. So, he initiated and it was similar to the scenario you gave. Relationship #3 was from 29-30. I met him through my channel. After several months of chatting about spiritual stuff and inner work, he got up the courage to confess his feelings for me just for the sake of honesty as a part of his inner work. And I was quite surprised because I felt the same. So, he kind of initiated. But I let him know my feelings later that day, and the relationship sprung up from there. Relationship #4 was from 31-32 and lasted exactly a year to the day. We had been chatting for a few months as friends because of mutual interests in spirituality and psychology. He had/has a lot of deep understandings about esoteric things, so we were always emailing each other back and forth, nerding out about psycho-spiritual stuff. And I developed feelings for him. So, I texted him and let him know how I felt. So, I initiated. He and I are still really good friends. Relationship #5 is my current relationship. I’ve known him for 4.5 years. We got together last year when we met up to do an Ayahuasca ceremony together which I suggested since I knew he was interested in doing one. And the initiation was mutual though I probably took a stronger role in the initiation because I knew he would worry that he’s stepping over boundaries. Four out of five of these relationships grew organically from a platonic relationship first that developed over the course of months or years.

Why do you get to decide how many therapists a trans kid has to see before they can access treatment? Are you an expert that’s well-versed on the topic? Or are you a trans person who knows what gender dysphoria is like? Have you done any genuine research into this topic at all? If not, you’re coming up with these random perspectives from a place of ignorance… and purely from an emotional gut-reaction to something you don’t understand. And it’s wise to take stock of what it is that you don’t know… as opposed to assuming that you do know. Also, being “locked in a therapists office” isn’t going to help the kid at all.

I do understand how people become attracted to one another and how relationships form… quite well, if I do say so myself. I’ve had several serious relationships that have all ranged from 1 year together to 9 years together. And I’ve learned a lot on the topic from a practical and archetypal perspective. And I’ve worked with over 400 male and female clients… with many of them exploring the topics of dating, relationships, and sexuality with my guidance. And I’ve also had direct experience of Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine in my plant medicine experiences. And from all of this, I can tell you that your internet bro-science understanding of male/female attraction dynamics is severely lacking in terms of the psychological and practical understanding of how people actually function. It seems to me that you’re just reading a bunch of stuff on the internet about women and believing that it’s true. But one thing I would ask you about your perspective on male/female dynamics is… how’s that working out for you?

There is a constant ebb and flow between the Masculine and Feminine in all things… including human beings. But in the broad strokes sense, some things/people are more Masculine than they are Feminine. And vice versa. But if you zoom in, you will always find Masculine facets in the Feminine and Feminine facets within the Masculine. So, paradoxically… some people are more Masculine and some people are more Feminine… BUT simultaneously (if you get down to the granular level) everyone has infinite facets of both… BUT in the absolute paradigm all dichotomies are illusory and collapse. So… some people are more Masculine than they are Feminine and vice versa. And everyone is equally Masculine and Feminine. And no one is Masculine and Feminine. All three are true from different paradigmatic vantage points. But if you want to get practical with dating/relationship dynamics and you want to create a Masculine/Feminine polarity between two people, it’s good to know about the Lover and Believe archetype and how to apply it.

It was.

Toxic masculinity is a term that was coined by Men’s Rights Activists that describe the toxic expectations that men and boys have put upon them by society. So, it’s things like the expectation to never cry or show emotions. Or the expectation to behave in unhealthy macho ways. Healthy Masculinity is the natural Masculinity that’s subtle and unpretended that comes from the inside. Toxic Masculinity comes from social pressures and is more like a mask of socially enforced “Masculine” traits that society expects men and boys to wear. And many of these expectations make a man callous, brutish, emotionally unintelligent, and womanizing if he “successfully” adheres to these expectations. There are toxic Feminine expectations too. Things like “be submissive and self-sacrificing” or “your only importance is your appearance”. Things like that. But most of those are self-deprecating. So, the toxicity happens inwardly… and sometimes toward other women.

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No worries

Just saying this as someone with the experience of being the younger person.

Why do you want me to change my mind about bodily sovereignty? Do you want the government to be in control of people’s bodies? There are some circumstances where a person is not capable of consenting. In which case, there should be protocols about who gets to make decisions. Otherwise, it’s my view that people should have absolute bodily sovereignty under the law.

As to your question, it’s a difficult one. What I would say is that the best solution is for it to be policy that the mother should create a birth plan for if these contingencies. And part of it could be that she grants the father (or another friend/family member in the absence of the father) to make that decision if she’s unable to consent. Otherwise, I think the default position should be with the doctor.

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I’m not advocating a situation where the woman isn’t making any effort. I’m just talking about the archetypal framework that informs male/female relationship dynamics. But people are not archetypes. So, all people have the lover and beloved within them. So, men and women will ebb and flow between these archetypes organically. That said, if you want polarity in the dynamic, then the man primarily as Lover and woman primarily as Beloved tends to be what leads to deeper pair bonding. The opposite doesn’t usually lead to good results in terms of stable pair bonding… unless the woman is more Masculine and the man is more Feminine.

The younger person always thinks this about themselves. But be careful. The older person probably isn’t viewing you that way.

But Leo and I weren’t talking about work. We were talking about existing as an attractive woman with big tits and getting freebies. Sex work is work… not a freebie.

I’m not dodging any questions. I notice that this is the third time you’re ascribing motives to me that I don’t have. First the thing about thinking I was secretly replying to you when I was replying to someone else. The second was the thing where you thought I was bullying you. And now you’re ascribing to me that I’m dodging questions. I feel like you may be projecting something/someone onto me that I’m not. What specifically was your question about the issues with bodily sovereignty?

@Leo Gura Certainly people would be wise to eat healthier food. But my point was that there can be certain circumstances that aren’t related to lack of education that hold a person back from eating better. It is common for people to know all about the nutrition and yet still be held back from positive changes due to psychological self-sabotage mechanisms.