Emerald

I don't know how to respond to this because it feels unrelated to what I said.

The distinction here is that I'm not providing you with actionable distortions of the truth... I'm providing you with relatively un-actionable truths. If you want to get laid and do pick up, what I shared on here is of no use for that. It's true... but it has little utility if you just want to get laid. But if you value deep connection like women generally do, you must understand that women who are relatively introspective will be able to tell you far more accurate information about female sexuality compared to pick up artists. And if you want real intimacy with said woman, you would be wise to listen and believe them. It won't get you laid by a ton of women... but deep intimacy isn't possible without that. And if you carry the idea that men know better about women's sexuality than women do, you will write over your lady's sexuality with the things you only think you know... because they worked for your purposes. So, it's just that the truths that women will tell you are not actionable or orchestrable. They are not user friendly. When a woman is sharing their sexual leanings and insights with you, they just are what they are. Now, pick-up gives a lot of workable falsehoods. They will work for your purposes. They are useful... but they get female sexuality ALL distorted and wrong. Any woman will tell you that, and they're 100% correct when they do. But because the falsehoods work and the truth doesn't work for the purposes of pick up, men come to the conclusion that women are just out of touch with what they really want. And that's simply not true in my case or in the case of any woman who is relatively introspective. But what women really desire... and what some women will settle or fall for (often in false hope of changing the guy into what she really wants) are two totally different things.

I'm almost always attracted to quiet and reserved men. I seldom ever like brash or loud men. It usually puts me off. I'm much more likely to see a quiet guy, reading in the corner and get curious about him and what he's thinking about. I am a quiet and reflective person. So, in situations where I've scoped guys out in the past, there's always been this desire to find my match... someone who was relatively mysterious who could understand me and I could understand him back. That's seriously the story of 90% of how my attractions have begun going back to like middle school... a curiosity about what's going on in the mind of a more reserved guy. It's always been that way. I wouldn't likely match with a man that's very extraverted because I am not extraverted. I dated an extrovert once... and it didn't turn out well for compatibility. And I like ambiguity and a bit of resistance to work up against. If a guy is really wearing his sexuality and personality out on his sleeve, it robs the ambiguity and resistance and there is not ability to build up sexual tension. I like the sense that I'm getting an aspect of him that no one else sees. That's just what pushes my buttons.

If you're just looking to get laid, it will certainly work fine for you to ignore what I'm saying. Go ask a pick up artist for that. But if you should ever really want to understand a woman and have a deep connection with her, then you'd be wise to have a listen to my perspective... because I'm not just telling you useful lies that you can use to maximize your lay count... I'm telling you the truth of my experience of attraction as a woman that I've contemplated extensively upon. And if you don't value that, then that's fine. But I have to give you fair warning that this is the exact thing that leads me to auto-filter men out of my consideration when they don't even care about my subjective experience as a woman. It reflects a selfishness that is juvenile and unbecoming of a man. And I'm sure many women are the same. And you may be able to get away with doing that and still get laid or have a casual girlfriend. But please dispossess yourself of the illusion that you can ever truly satisfy a woman as a man without caring about her subjective experience of sex and relationships. No intimacy can be had when you ignore the female sexual experience. And a great many women will strike you from their lists without you even realizing it.

Trust me when I say I've been involved with more pick up than Leo ever has... from the receiving end. I could have a Phd in it.

I definitely second this. I have been attracted to assholes in the past and it lead to big problems. So, there is an awareness and an aversion now. It all comes with experience.

I'm sorry Leo, but you're just incorrect about the attraction factor around assholes. I've met plenty of very attractive masculine men who are kind and warm. In fact, most attractive masculine men with mass appeal that I've known have been very warm-hearted, but also very assertive and strong. And I've met many men who are arrogant assholes who, despite their masculinity (or even lack-there-of), are very unattractive. Arrogance is just an annoying and selfish quality where no true intimacy can exist and no true surrender can happen. So, of course, assholes are no prize to be won and there is even a repulsion factor to them because they often act like spoiled children. Now, I'm sure you'd be able to get a higher quantity of women if you were more of an asshole. But this asshole quality and subsequent ability to get laid by a bunch of women would not be a reflection of increased attractiveness... just a reflection of what will succeed in getting you laid by more women by ramming through certain women's weak boundaries and to disregard social graces. I think men are largely under the illusion that getting laid by many women is a true reflection of their masculinity and attractiveness. But from my perspective, I see this as being almost as silly as a woman thinking that the number of men who want to sleep with her is a measure of her attractiveness. So, I would encourage you to not take quantity of sexual success as an objective measure of your attractiveness. I know a ton of asshole redneck guys from my hometown who get laid all the time... but they're definitely not attractive. And I've known tons of asshole pick-up artist guys with a billion notches in their bedposts who are also definitely not attractive. And just think about how many super models that that 'studly stud' Donald Trump has had sex with. We all know he's a 'hottie'. Honestly, if you prefer to look through the survival lens relative to sexuality and human relationships, you can see why this quality is quite repulsive. Assholes are actually really bad for female survival. So it makes sense that there would be that repulsion factor. But perhaps, if you're just seeing your attractiveness as a means to and end... the end being sleeping with the highest quantity of women, then being an asshole will be a very effective strategy. But don't be under the illusion that the asshole quality is attractive or that there is an innate link between masculinity and assholery.

An optimally attractive man is like a very fierce lion with an expertly skilled lion tamer. If a man's lion is not fierce, he is not attractive. He is weak and submissive. If a man's lion tamer is not skilled and he lets his lion run amok, he is not attractive. He is dangerous and/or creepy. And both of these men are bad for female survival and are unattractive as a result. The only reason why assholes are successful is because they can hide that they're assholes before women can recognize how unskilled their lion tamer is. And it can be easy to be carried away into silly fantasy that an asshole will learn to tame his lion. A strong-willed man who has the capacity for violence but the self-control to wield it justly and responsibility, is very attractive. Everything else won't allow for true feminine surrender... because surrender requires safety and trust. And you can never be safe with a man who locks his lion in a cage... nor can you be safe with a man who has a shitty lion tamer.

Well, let's take this imaginary projection of the reward/punishment dichotomy into an analogy that reflects the magical thinking within Purple societies. Let's say that a particular Purple society collectively believes that there is a creature that comes and steals people's breaths while they sleep. And they make all kinds of accommodations as a society to catch this creature that steals people's breath and kills them. Little do they realize that it's actually the fact that they're sleeping too close to the fire. And that the fire is eating up their oxygen while they're sleeping... causing them to suffocate. So, when they try to catch the creature and fail, it is because they have a worldview that isn't rooted in the truth of how reality actually is. So, projecting the falsehood onto the situation is an ineffective mental tool for being able to sus out the truth of the situation, that would save lives in this case. Now, your idea is that projecting dominance hierarchies onto things is helpful. And perhaps, projecting this falsehood onto the reality could have some benefits in certain contexts. So, back to our analogy.. if we take our breath-stealing monster example, and it actually leads people to making the decision to sleep further away from the fire because the breath-stealing monster lives in the fire in the mythology. It could suffice as an effective tool, even if it isn't reflective of the truth. But, let's say that this projection onto reality of the breath stealing monster is too simple to account for the complexities of the problem. So, maybe the breath-stealing monster mythos can help you sleep away from the fire. But perhaps there are other elements to the truth of the situation that the breath-stealing monster projection doesn't account for. And so, the people make a ton of mistakes based upon their mythological understanding of the situation. But if they know that fire is sustained upon oxygen and that they need oxygen to breath, then understanding things in actuality is the best way to account for the dangers and to address the situation at its roots. So, there can be many issues that arise when people believe that their projection isn't just a tool for practical understanding but believe that it's an existential truth. And so far, what I've seen is that men projecting these ideas of winning/losing and punishment/reward over the top of female sexuality and other things, often just gives them a chip on their shoulder and a sharp blow to their self-esteem. And it keeps them away from creator thinking and in the perspective of competing to one-up other men on the imaginary hierarchy. So, this projection can and does seriously backfire on men, endowing them with incorrect and disempowering world-views around their own self-worth and their dating prospects. I would guess that a man who doesn't get hung up on dominance hierarchies and where he falls within them, will actually end up with more social status than if he didn't project reality onto these hierarchies. It's much more liberating and effective to see the truth underneath the projection. That way, you can play whatever game needs to be played for your own survival and enjoyment, without feeling like you're being punished or marked by some woman's feelings that exist completely independently of the hierarchy being projected upon it. So, it would be socially advantageous to understand that dominance hierarchies aren't inherently real and will change between social situations. And to use them as a tool if you want to... or don't. But there is a need to liberate one's self of the belief in the inherent reality of dominance hierarchies based upon male worth and seeing women as the sole arbiters of the judgment of that worth. Liberating one's self of the fairy tale will help you be more socially successful... including with women. And women will lose the projection of this monumental amount of power that this fairy tale gives us over men... which we don't actually possess or benefit from. Basically, it's better to see what's actually true than what is collectively projected. Because, even though collective projection of dominance hierarchies or the breath-stealing monster CAN be helpful. It is often a double edged sword.

I don't think it's a bad idea. I think I would probably have a cold approach/pick up phase if I were a man. I think that would be helpful... as long as I also developed the capacity for the slow organic process of bonding with a woman I want a deep relationship with. But I know that it's a "meh" kind of feeling with a guy who's trying to pick me up. I need time and ambiguity to develop potency of attraction. Or it's just luke-warm. It's the least potent form of the romance drug. Like if I'm going for a deep bond with a man, I need the heat and tension of the slow burn over time and the ambiguity around that to forge that bond. Like if you can imagine that I'm a piece of metal and I need time to heat up to the point where I can turn to liquid and meld with someone. And cold approach is well... too cold for that type of bonding. It just makes for a more lukewarm romance... which is kind of blah. But it's good as a starter and to get some experience as a man. I can see the efficacy of it because cold approach is actionable with a high degree of control. But what I appreciate is that which grows organically... so lower amounts of control on the part of the man but infinitely more juicy and intimate from the female perspective. So, my recommendation is to open yourself to both.

It's mostly that, for romantic prospects, it takes several months of platonic interaction for an attraction to arise for me. I don't really respond well with cold approach because attraction is a very slow burn for me. And there is no guarantee of that, even if I do spend a lot of time around a guy. So, even though I understand that this isn't very actionable from the male perspective, the element of organically growing warm bonds is very important to the attraction process. In order for an attraction to be potent enough to really want it, there has to be that build up and slow bonding process without expectation of romance. But generally, if a guy is into pick-up, it takes away what's interesting to me about the process. It's the idea that he has feelings for me in particular. So, if a guy is approaching me... it stands to reason he's doing that with any girl he finds relatively attractive. So, the specialness, ambiguity, and organic development of relationship is off the table if a guy approaches me. That's really the reason for the filtering. But beyond that, there's the perk of getting to know someone over time and seeing how they are when they're not trying to make a good impression upon you. So, I wouldn't give cold approachers my time in that way, when I can build up warm bonds with men who exist within my social circles and frequent stomping grounds.

Suit yourself. But you'd be wise to realize that you're projecting all kinds of falsehood onto female attraction and that your self-esteem and romantic prospects are suffering for it.

So could any other guy on the planet. But my point was that Ben Shapiro isn't masculine and he's an asshole in comparison to a Dwayne Johnson type who is masculine but seems very kind. My point was that masculinity and being an asshole aren't inherently linked.

I am being very realistic with you by helping you see underneath your projections. A woman being attracted to someone is not a reward. A woman being unattracted to someone is not a punishment. It just is what it is. Women don't even consciously control it. It just happens or it doesn't. Also, I didn't say much of anything about men at all in my last post. I was saying how you're projecting your feelings and worldview onto female attraction. I never said anything about men other than that neither men nor women are punishing people or rewarding people with their attractions. Attraction is just a phenomenon that either happens or doesn't. But honestly, most of what you posted makes no sense in response to what I wrote. It's almost as though you're responding to something else entirely. Yes... all people project meaning onto attraction. But not everyone projects the punishment and reward dichotomy onto attraction like you have. And even if someone does project punishment/reward onto attraction, it doesn't mean that projection is an accurate representation of reality as it is. You can project anything onto attraction dynamics... and it doesn't mean that it's true. And projecting the punishment/reward dichotomy leads to an incorrect, fatalistic, and ineffective worldview around attraction. And furthermore, it makes a person seem desperate and entitled because the idea becomes... if a man's been "good" enough then he should "deserve" sex. And if women don't give him what he's "earned" by being "good", then women are a bunch of selfish people for not bestowing him with his rightfully "earned" sex. And not only is this a selfish mindset, it's also very lacking in social awareness, needy, and unattractive. So, it would be in your best interest to dispossess yourself of that punishment/reward illusion that you're projecting onto attraction dynamics. That's what I'm trying to help you with.

I personally auto-filter guys who do cold approach. It tells me something about them and their priorities that don't jibe with my own. I wouldn't listen when these guys are trying to cajole you into cold approaching women. It is very annoying. If I were going about meeting women as a man, I would just develop some social influence and a wide social circle where I make a lot of organic social connections with many men and women. And then, I could warm approach from within that wider social circle.

Female attraction is just what is. It isn't a reward or a punishment because women don't choose who they are or aren't attracted to. It just happens, and often for no discernible reason or quality. It's the same way that male attraction isn't a reward or a punishment. It just happens. You don't consciously choose who you're attracted to. You're adding too much intention into the attraction process. You're projecting a meaning onto it that simply isn't there. Someone being attracted to you isn't a reward. Someone not being attracted to you isn't a punishment. It may feel that way to you. But it simply isn't the case. You're just projecting your feelings and value system onto the phenomenon of female attraction. From the female perspective, it's usually just "Oh wow! I have a big crush on John. I hope he likes me too." That's all there is... just a flood of endorphins and positive emotions in relation to a particular guy. It has nothing to do with anyone else or how they feel about her attraction to this particular John character. Everyone else is romantically neutral. But fear not, I'm sure you've been someone's John many times and you will be many more. But women tend not to be forthcoming with their attraction. When you like one guy in particular, it's extra hard to confess it because there is no one else like him. And if he rejects you and you have so much investment already, it's a much scarier situation than approaching someone you have no investment in. Also, there is not such thing as deserving and not deserving. This is another projection of your worldview onto reality.

First off, don't think about female attraction as a reward. It's just how she feels. There's no sense of rewarding someone with affection. It's either she is attracted or she isn't. But I think a lot of women would prefer a dominant guy who is an asshole over a submissive guy who is a nice guy. But that women would prefer the confluence of dominance and kindness. A lot of attraction is based on survival. And in nomadic times, if you were with a man who can't protect you and provide for you, then this leaves you and your children dead. So, the ability to be a strong protector/provider outweighs temperament in the attraction process. But the issue with violent ruthless men is that there is a point of diminishing returns. He who protects you and provides for you can also turn on you and beat you and murder you. So, that's when a kind temperament becomes important in the attraction process. So, the most attractive men possess both the capacity to be kind and gentle while also possessing the ability to be a strong protector/provider... which includes the capacity to become violent and ruthless. And then also the ability to consciously choose which mode he's going into. So, self-control is also very important in attraction. From the perspective of our wiring... if you have a man who's too submissive, it's a survival threat. If you have a man who's too dominant, it's a survival threat. Best to shop around for a guy in the Goldilocks zone.

From reading your responses, I'm thinking that you missed the point of the Teal Swan video. She states that if you put a kind man with all the masculine/dominant qualities and an asshole with all the masculine/dominant qualities next to one another, that the kind man would be preferred. There is no link between being an asshole and increased masculinity. The only difference is that assholes won't second-guess themselves or consider others. There are tons of assholes that aren't very masculine, and there are tons of kind men who are. Like, let's take someone like Ben Shapiro... very un-masculine and very much an asshole. Then, take someone like Dwayne Johnson... very masculine and seemingly very kind.

The little girl at 2:08 is low key terrifying.

This music video reminds me a lot of what it was like during the ego death experience I had at my Ayahuasca ceremony last year. Not so much visually... but very good visual metaphors for the experience. Particularly at the 2:06 mark and between 2:40 and 2:53. The same could be said of the creepy part at the end of the video, where the woman turns into a desert. But not quite as much.

The things you need most of to be a good life coach are listening skills and the ability to ask good questions. It's much less about what you know and much more about your ability to facilitate exploration in your clients. So the requisite knowledge you need includes emotional intelligence, connection to the intuition, empathy, detachment from outcome, and the ability to establish rapport. So you don't necessarily need to have subject matter based expertise. You need to be able to help others see things from new perspectives that they haven't considered before.

That mindset is untrue and unhealthy. The vast majority of people will be able to bond with others. The only hard and fast barrier to bonding would be something like sociopathy where a person is physiologically unable to feel their emotions. But Incels are mostly just a group of otherwise normal guys with very intense self-esteem and body image issues... and a tendency to resent women for their perceived deficiencies. And this resentment comes from the false assumption that no woman will ever care about them. And because they get into a group together, they add fuel to the fire of each other's self-hatred. And it is only their mindsets that makes them feel as though they can't bond with others. So, what it takes is a bit of face-to-face socialization, some mindset fixes, and personal development.

I see. It could very well be that you have difficulty picking up on these types of social cues because of the Aspergers. I had wondered when we spoke before if you had a mild form of Autism, because (on first glance) your words read as though you were trying to get a rise out of people. But afterward you were expressing a genuine sense of questioning the social norms. The same thing with this post is true. That's what made me question that. But I think most people wouldn't be aware that these questions are sincere because tone doesn't carry through written messages, and they may not understand the difficulties of processing social cues for someone with Aspergers. So, they might think you're being entitled/arrogant or something like that. And there are plenty of guys out there that would be fully aware of the social norms and boundaries and try to push past them out of a sense of entitlement. There are plenty of guys that come through this forum that might say/do similar things for totally different reasons. So, I think they're interpreting your questions through that lens. But I see that you really mean it when you ask these questions. So, I would say that a good rule of thumb would be to avoid explicitly sexual conversation topics for a while. Now, the difficulty here is that I would typically advise someone to watch for social cues of receptivity. But this is specifically the challenge of being on the Autism spectrum. So, if I were in that position (which I am not, so take this with a grain of salt), I would try to come up with some systematic workaround for that difficulty with picking up on social cues. Like you can learn to recognize certain behaviors like if she's smiling, making eye contact, playing with her hair, moving closer as signs of receptivity. And then you can learn the signs of discomfort like if she's moving further away, frowning, body facing away from you, etc. Now, in a way, I think the ability to disregard social cues has helped you in some ways as well. You have had many experiences with women, perhaps because you've been able to push past certain bottlenecks most men face with ease... because you might not even sense it as being socially difficult. But like I said, even if you have been successful with bringing up porn initially, I recommend starting with something more platonic and working things up and trying to read social cues to see when to escalate. Otherwise, it becomes a roll of the dice in terms of how a particular woman will react to you. And it can lead to a lot of blocking and the like.

I would bet that this is the root of why Red Pill ideologies (and other ideologies that simultaneously give empathy to men's emotions while also confirming their worst fears) proliferate so much. Now, men's issues on their own create an emotional dilemma for men. And with emotional dilemmas that can create the tendency to tongue one's own wounds and create distorted narratives that makes sense of the dilemma. So, things do spread that way. And of course there are uniquely male issues in dating/relationships, paternity, and the way men are viewed by society in general. But also, and I think more importantly, there are people who profit off of that emotional dilemma who can come in and sell men who are dealing with those emotional dilemmas all kinds of solutions to that perceived dilemma. When there's money to be made, there will be campaigns in place to drum up the insecurities that lead to purchasing behavior. And I would guess that a lot of influencers in the Red Pill community and PUA community are grifters who seek to make money by confirming men's worst fears and selling them the solution to those fears. And this is a real problem in marketing. Basically, if you can sell a bleak worldview to people, a person will pay you any amount of money to relieve them of the ails of the worldview you've sold them. The same is true for how women have historically been marketed to... though it has gotten a bit better recently as many women that I've seen in comments sections will respond angrily to any ad that implies that a woman's value is in how a man views her. But this was always an advertising mainstay, to create insecurities in women about their own level of attractiveness and to sell them cosmetic, hygiene, and fashion products to alleviate their insecurities. But this type of advertising to women has been discovered as toxic in a more collective way. So, a lot of recent advertising for women (or at least many of the ads that I've seen) has diverse body types and pro-self-esteem messaging. And those ad videos always get a ton of compliments from women for that reason. And tons of women will be like, "Buying this for the ad alone." The same cannot be said to be true about advertising that plays off men's insecurities.

For me, it has always just happened. I'm usually the one to seek my partner, not the other way around. I generally prefer reserved men who don't wear their sexuality on their sleeves. And I like to be the one that subtly seduces them. It's usually the case that I end up in a social situation where I see a guy often... like work or school or something. Then, over the course of a few months of platonic interaction, I may (or may not) develop those feelings that usually spring up randomly when I think about him at home or in my own space. And then I wonder if he likes me or whether or not something might happen. And one very key factor in the attraction process is that there is that ambiguity where I genuinely don't know if he's into me or not. This gives time for tension to build. It's a really slow cooker of an experience where I get to wonder what's on his mind and if I'm special to him. And from my perspective, a guy approaching me specifically for dating purposes is a red flag in and of itself because he likely does that to lots of women. This means I'm definitely not special to him, and that's a turn off. And also, it doesn't give me any sense of platonic ambiguity and steals the sexual tension that can ONLY build over time. So, there's a kind of boring feeling about the straight-forward and fast method that cold approach is... as it just doesn't give enough time for the fermentation of my desire to happen.