Emerald

Yeah, it definitely does set the stage for things like this to happen. It's not good advice all around. It's advice for women that caters only to men... and specifically men who are threatened by women who don't diminish themselves. And men who fall into that category are very low-quality partners who feel so insecure in themselves that they feel weak if their woman is strong. So, if you want a strong relationship... your best bet is to work on yourself and grow yourself as an individual. When you do this, you'll attract a higher quality partner. And that higher quality partner will be a wonderful addition to an already fulfilling life.

This is bad advice... even based on your own premise around marriage and family. Setting aside the fact that, if she followed your advice, she would potentially be stopping herself from individuating. If I put all the concerns for her personal development off the table, it's really not a good strategy to find a congruent and committed partner. Most successful men who are looking for a healthy relationship will be looking for an equally educated partner who shares their values. And if he's not looking for a healthy relationship with his intellectual equal, then he's not good husband material. Meaning, he will likely be immature, flaky, non-committal, having a tendency to cheat, etc. Also many people meet their significant other in college. Lots of people even joke that many women go to college to get their "MRS" degree. And that's because this is a super common dynamic where you meet a like-minded person, perhaps even studying the same subject as you, and the relationship develops into a marriage. Most college educated men will get married to college educated women. It's relatively uncommon to have it otherwise. Also as a bit of personal experience, my level of education and success have never stood in the way of my capacity to attract a partner who is very committed to me.

Strong work ethic and ambition are attractive for two reasons. Number one, they are virtues and I admire people who possess virtues. Number two, work ethic and ambition are a masculine quality (regardless of whether a man or woman is possessing this quality), so a man who lacks these things is just not so attractive to me. It puts me off if it isn't there. Also, I don't see success as a proxy for intelligence, ambition, and work ethic. There are plenty of successful people who are none of those things. I've always been intelligent, ambitious, and had high work ethic but chose to work as a teacher until I went down the entrepreneurial path I'm on now. And teachers aren't very successful financially. You can find plenty of people in fairly low-paying, non-glamorous jobs that embody really positive qualities. Often times, success and high income can come as a result of being born into a family with lots of money and connections. Whereas, you might have a very intelligent, ambitious, and hard-working person who was born into a lower station in life and chose an important but low-paying career. For example, I admire a lot of people who work blue-collar jobs. My father is a mechanic and was always very hard-working. And so, I wouldn't have any issue with being with a guy in one of those professions as long as he shared my values and interests. And what I meant by "being on the same wavelength" relative to work, means that he does his very best at what he does. He doesn't cut corners. And that it's important to him to feel a sense of contribution.

I can only speak to my own experiences. But I don't really care about finding a guy who out-earns me or has a higher status. As long as he's on the same wavelength in terms of having big goals and a strong work ethic. I make a little under 6 figures a year now, so if a guy was making a $10k to $30k less than me per year, it wouldn't be a big deal. The only dealbreaker is if he's not on the same wavelength with regard to work. But as long as we're doing well financially and he's contributing in equal measure effort-wise, there's no issue there. I tend to think that women who would suss out a guy for this reason and make it a dealbreaker is because she's probably deeply entrenched in materialism and status-seeking. So, in Spiral Dynamics terms, basically deeply entrenched in Stage Orange. But I've also found that many men are attracted to me specifically because of the personality traits that I possess in relation to what I do for a living and many men admire me for my capacity to make things happen for myself. So, I've not really run into this issue, nor is it a concern of mine should I ever find myself single again.

I wouldn't call the man submissive persay... more reserved. I'm definitely not very dominant with this. It's a more subtle dynamic, usually couched within a developing friendship. Not very dominant or submissive at that point. What I'm actually attracted to is the sense of a man being reserved and mysterious and wanting to bring out what is otherwise hidden. And what's also attractive to me is that a man might be concerned with my feelings about his approach, showing a kind of responsibility and restraint... a strength of character. I've had a tendency to be attracted to older men since I was 20. And there was always an understanding that any older man who actively approaches a much younger woman might not have consideration for her feelings or boundaries. And he might have a tendency towards immaturity and seeing her as a wish-fulfillment fantasy. And this just wouldn't be attractive to me, because in my attractions toward older men I was attracted towards maturity and supportiveness and desiring a deeper dynamic. And so, in a circumstance where I'm attracted to a man who's older than me, I would tend to only be attracted if he shows that he's concerned for my perspective and takes into account how his actions might emotionally impact me. And this means showing constraint with his sexuality. So, this means that I would need to indicate to him clearly that I'm interested. If it's too easy for him to cross that threshold, it's a bit of red flag. But this has also carried through with attractions to men my age too.

The way it typically goes is that I'm already spending a lot of time with him. And I can tell that he's interested in me but concerned for going over boundaries. And then I'll either tell him how I feel about him or start being more affectionate with him so that he knows that I'm interested. So, I have typically been the initiator because I tend to be attracted to men who don't wear their sexuality on their sleeves. And I'm usually the one to escalate things further.

I tend to think women don't pursue men more often because a lot of women are out of touch with their emotions and instincts. When I develop a true attraction to a man, it's deep, intense, and pre-occupying. It's anything but lukewarm. And the only thing I can think of is being close to him sexually and otherwise. Anything short of that feeling is just not that magnetic. Now, I know that I (and most women) are more selective than most men about what is sex-worthy. Men are said to have a higher sex drive because they want sex more often. But I would actually argue that frequency of desiring sex only tells part of the story. I think men want sex more frequently but that women want sex more intensely when they do want it. So, I don't see women as having a lower sex drive than men. I personally am very libidinally oriented. That said, it's not so easy to push those buttons, so I'm more selective with the expression. But when those feelings arise, it's such an intense instinctual pull towards the person I desire. It begets a deep and electric-feeling longing. By itself, the idea of a relationship is not attractive to me. But that feeling is the most intoxicating feeling. So, if the feeling is intense enough to make me forget how unattractive the idea of relationship is to me, I know it's a real attraction. Otherwise, it's not anything worth giving attention to. So, I would tend to think that when women are in touch with their emotions that they will pursue men more. Whereas a woman who has a more vague relationship to her feelings, won't feel much of a natural magnetism toward anyone. It will be more of an intellectual endeavor of wanting a guy who meets a laundry list of qualities and having an idealized vision of relationship that stands in as a symbol for completion. And that's when the blah feeling exists around sex. But I don't agree with the abortion thing. I think most women who choose to get abortions do so because they don't feel able to raise a child at a particular time. Also, if men are just horny dogs it's actually not good for survival because stable fathers that can devote their time to parenting their children are a strong indicator of how well a child will thrive. So, men going around and impregnating a bunch of women will just lead to lots of children without a father figure in their lives. Also, in nomadic times, that would have meant death to the child and mother alike. So, I would argue that you get much stronger families and societies when the woman chooses her partner based on her emotions and instincts as opposed to settling for whoever happens to approach.

I totally agree with this. I've almost always been the one that's made the first move. Yet again, personality-wise David Schmachtenberger is like the type of guy that I'm usually interested in because he seems fairly reserved and very introspective. So, perhaps it's more of a "this type of man does this to attract this type of woman." But from my perspective, men who are pursuing me and wearing their interest and sexuality on their sleeves right away and I automatically register as "There's no emotion there. He's doing this with everyone." and I subconsciously auto-filter him as a serious relationship prospect. I just don't resonate with that type of man. It feels boring because attention from men like this feels like getting junk mail that's dressed up to look like real mail. Just not a lot of emotional resonance and intrigue as it's very common. Basically, it feels very blah. And it only makes sense for women to pursue because women's sexuality is very pointed towards a particular guy usually. So, it makes sense that she'd be the one pursuing him as opposed to a man pursuing a bunch of women. Like peacocks and peahens, the male fans the feathers and the female approaches. Also, the way I get attractions is gradually over time, and I need a long platonic period (usually 2 or 3 months) to tell whether or no an attraction will arise. But once it does, there is a strong desire to pursue. And the emotional resonance is through the roof. At that point, it feels like the best drug ever.

In a conscious society, no it doesn't. In our society, in some contexts it does have its place. But most first world nations honestly don't need it. But part of the expansion in consciousness also entails unlocking new inventions and innovations. So, even though society will probably never go completely Vegan, there will likely be lab grown meat in the near future. So, we can truly let it go.

Nope. This is totally characteristic of me. I miss a lot of obvious things when I'm not tuning myself into them. I have tons of "derp" moments all the time to where I'm kind of known for them in day to day life. It's kind of like, someone who works as a mathematician who often forgets to put two and two together unless they're in work-mode.

@Etherial Cat I just now realized this... which is totally off topic. Your icon is now an actual etherial cat. I didn't even make the connection.

When people skew too far into self-preservation drives over species-preservation drives, we end up with fractured, atomized communities and a lack of investment in others. Isolation is one of the biggest issues that we face as a populace as we are naturally a social species but we are functioning as though we're not. And a symptom of that is men who are disconnected from the instincts around community building... which is more than just fatherhood. It's not really about pro-creation and making lots of people. It's about being involved in a community. And fatherhood as a quality isn't exclusive to men who have children. Just like you could describe a woman as motherly even if she has no children. Basically, we're in a society that's very disconnected. And this exacerbates all of our other issues... and causes many of them. So, it's not a man-only issue. But the avoidance that many men tend towards tends to feed into this dynamic quite a bit as well as being a symptom of it.

Why are you assuming that she doesn't eat healthy food or that she doesn't have a gym membership because she decided to spend a relatively small amount of money on fake eyelashes? That's a weird assumption. Also, why are you the police of what she should or shouldn't spend her money on? Is there anything that bad about buying false eyelashes? If so, let me know, because I have a pair. If I don't get rid of them soon, I guess the rules are that I'll have to throw out all my food and cancel my gym membership.

Yeah, I would agree with that, both in and outside the realm of dating. There's a lot of potential being left off the table and there is a failure to see the value in it. It's like a person who has a bunch of gold but doesn't know its worth. And it's making society worse. But there is a collective issue with men and avoidance... particularly avoidance of the feminine. It's a fear of penetration on any level but the physical. And since these masculine drives require connection to the feminine side to integrate them, many men have these potentials left off the table by default. So, all the focus is put towards the self-preservation drives in men as opposed to the species-preservation drive in men. There was an insight I had a year ago at a medicine work ceremony that the masculine is out of its natural alignment and that this, on an energetic level, is why it's somewhat uncommon to find a man with a fully integrated and healthy masculine side. This was part of the avoidance. It's either a lack of integration/rejection of the masculine side or an overextension into a very limited array of masculine traits that are learned from the outside.

I wouldn't be so sure of having completely escaped it. This runs very deep here. It's not just newcomers.

I don't really see the connection between what your wrote here and my post that you're responding to. My point was not that men and women both have triggers and dissatisfactions in relationships nor was it about the brutality of relationships. My point was to express to @soos_mite_ah that many of the men here are hyper-fixating upon one of their masculine drives and leaving the others off the table.

It doesn't work that way for me. Attraction isn't objective or rational. I don't have a laundry list of qualifiers that need to be filled before I can become attracted to someone. I don't go looking purposefully for high status guys. It doesn't consciously cross my mind. For a few years in my 20s I was really drawn to status... but that was because I was more focused toward status myself. I wanted to feel more adult back then and so I wanted a very specific vision of classy adulthood. I kind of feel like I wanted to live inside the song "Smooth Operator" back then... it just pushed some buttons for me. But I grew out of that, and I wouldn't much be interested in the men that sparked my interest back then. I eventually realized that I was just attracted to suits. But the way attraction has worked for me otherwise is that I just spend time with the people in my life, and random attractions spring up seemingly from nowhere. If I'm spending time with "low status" guys, the attraction will likely fall on one of them. If I'm spending time with "high status" guys, the attraction will likely fall on one of them. It tends to be whichever guy is the most a mirror to my Shadows and strengths. I find that, currently I mostly spend time with like-minded people which is the best thing I can do to find a partner that fits me... if I were to end up single and go looking for one. Before I knew myself as well as I do now, I'd spend time with many people who I liked but didn't share my values. So, I would end up with partners and friends that weren't congruent to me. But attraction still lands somewhere eventually. So, it's not a matter of worth and status for me. It's like chemistry and like-mindedness. Now, if a guy acts like a jerk or a scrub, he's going to automatically be unattractive to me. I have Shallow Hal vision... ugly personality traits ruin any potential for attraction for me. That was true, even when I was a little kid. Unkind people were always unattractive to me.

I'm not saying these people don't exist here in either of those categories. But the overall Shadow attraction point here is 'feeling not enough'. And my wager is that everyone here has that in varying degrees... and I don't exempt myself from that. So, the place you can go to get a look at that underbelly the very most is the "dating/relationship/sexuality" category. And that's because you have a lot of people with that "not enough" feeling, and this section tends to bring out the "not enough" feeling the very most. And PUAs have the same Shadow attraction point. So, there is a lot of that here. It's a collective community Shadow that both communities share.

Thank you both for the kind words!

I don't really think what you're saying is true in terms of no one hiding behind masks. I tend to think this populace here is a bit defensive in general and really trying to become something else than what they are. But what I was saying is that there are a myriad of masculine instincts beyond just the desire to have sex with attractive women. But you would think otherwise on this forum, as many men boil their masculinity down to that quite often. And this reflects an underdeveloped orientation to masculinity. Consider that human instincts exist for a very important reason... survival in the form of self-preservation and species preservation. All of our instincts are geared towards that. The masculine instinct to sew the seed widely with many fertile women is a strong drive for that reason. But consider also, that a pre-birth-control society based on men ONLY owning that part of their masculinity. And that becomes a society that is piss poor in terms of species preservation (and therefore self-preservation) because you have men impregnating lots of women... meaning fathering lots of children that he has no time/ability to father. So, there are other pro-social instincts that come in and temper this instinct, otherwise society doesn't function. In present day, that instinct is still designed to be tempered by those other instincts. The difference now is that we have birth control. And men are having a hard time developing a connection to those other instincts because there is not as much of an impetus to temper the beauty-seeking drive. So, when a man only owns the beauty-seeking drive of his masculine instinct without regard to his other instincts like his instincts towards pair bonding, fatherhood, commitment, community building, etc. this can lead to a society that's out of alignment and a populace of men who are out of alignment with the full depth and breadth of their masculinity... having only a one-note connection to their masculinity. And it also leads to men losing the respect of women who can't be satisfied when a man is fixated upon just one of his masculine drives. And this particular masculine drive is impersonal, so it orients to women more as objects than as people just as a natural outcome of that drive. So, it's both triggering and unsatisfying at once from the female perspective when this drive is not integrated and channeled with the other drives that are more personal.

A website based on self-improvement will always have the Shadow of insecurity because many/most people who get into the path of self-development are trying to compensate for a sense of lack and feelings of low self-esteem. The outward facade here is that it's a place for those interested in higher consciousness who are on a higher wavelength. But it's really more like a large group of people who feel like they need to be that to be enough.

There are more drives to male sexuality than just the beauty-seeking drive. Though, on this forum, you'd think otherwise. It's a strong drive, for sure. But there is also the drive toward love and pair bonding and fatherhood and community building. We are a social species so men are also geared towards love and commitment. In fact, men who are married tend to live longer and suffer depression less often than men who are not. Now, an immature man will not have developed the appreciation of his other masculine drives. A mature man, on the other hand, will have gotten in touch with these drives and will exhibit the ability to connect deeply and will cease to see women as merely fungible objects of male pleasure. And while even a mature man will respond instinctually towards youth and beauty (which is natural), he will value a myriad of other things. And if a guy is only looking at the surface, just don't get with that guy because he's not well developed and won't be able to give you the intimacy you're seeking. He's not a "high quality" partner.

I'm just saying that that's why I responded that way if it didn't seem to fit the original post's message.

What he said in his later post I was responding to had a vibe of envy towards attractive women for being able to get freebies. I responded this way and interpreted jealousy because he was saying that only male celebrities get treated as "good" as attractive women. This is something that many men get jealous of women for often. You find it a lot with Red Pill and Incel guys. So, I don't really think his perspective is that "Women are unlucky because high value women are born not made". I think his perspective is that "Women are LUCKY because high value women are born not made." Obviously, it's not a lucky position to be in because you have no control on a particular level and aging happens regardless of how good your hand is. But many men are short-sighted and don't think of that. And see men as being in the disadvantaged perspective because, "No fair! Women just get to show up and look pretty and men have to develop themselves." Obviously, most women would kill for the ability to appreciate our sexual marketplace value like that. But many men fail to see how women are in worse position because they interpret women as meaning a very narrow range of women. And they see this narrow range of women up on a pedestal.

It seems like you both have feelings for one another. And you're trying to deny it to yourself. And she's trying to make you jealous to get you to realize that you like her. My advice is just to go with your intuition and feelings and see where it leads. Don't let your ideas over-ride your intuition.