Leo’s advise about dating and sex are mostly aimed towards man

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, Lila9 said:

@Emerald Thank you for providing your insights, this is so informative and inspiring!

You're welcome!  I'm glad it resonates.

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, Etherial Cat said:

Yep yep yep!!!

So well put!!!

Thank you!  

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, Etherial Cat said:

Unfortunately, I am convinced to the core that many of them here are unable to believe it, because they just don't see themselves as worthy of such love, but in an unconscious way. So the idea furiously bounce from their awareness the moment they read it. And they hide behind some macho posturing and ridicule femininity not to have to deal with it.

I totally agree with this.

It's sad but also interesting how triggering it is for them to hear that, when a woman is genuinely interested in them, that they are actually being appreciated for the core of who they are as a unique person.

It's like trying to take a hurt and scared animal out of bear trap, but they start scratching and biting your hand as you do it.

They are so afraid that the core of them is unlovable, and they believe that women cannot see what's lovable about them beyond their utility to us.

If they could just see once through the eyes of the Feminine and the a-rational lens of beauty that it isn't like that, they would be dispossessed of a lot of shame instead of feeling so inadequate and like they need to change so many things about themselves to be loved, appreciated, and validated.

[aurum]

2 hours ago, Emerald said:

I totally agree with this.

It's sad but also interesting how triggering it is for them to hear that, when a woman is genuinely interested in them, that they are actually being appreciated for the core of who they are as a unique person.

It's like trying to take a hurt and scared animal out of bear trap, but they start scratching and biting your hand as you do it.

They are so afraid that the core of them is unlovable, and they believe that women cannot see what's lovable about them beyond their utility to us.

If they could just see once through the eyes of the Feminine and the a-rational lens of beauty that it isn't like that, they would be dispossessed of a lot of shame instead of feeling so inadequate and like they need to change so many things about themselves to be loved, appreciated, and validated.

Do you see this a-rational lens as a form of unconditional love?

From my experience on the other side of the "hyper-particularization" fence, it's true that a woman's love is strong. Occasionally I even feel the need to safeguard her boundaries because she's willing to burn it all down in the name of loving me. And I'm certainly not someone who checks every "objective" box.

At the same time, I have a hard time seeing that as feminine, a-rational appreciation of my innate self-worth. And I don't feel that particularly bothers me either. I don't need her to just love my innate worth. I fully expect her love to be at least somewhat conditional, just as mine is.

[Emerald]

4 minutes ago, aurum said:

Do you see this a-rational lens as a form of unconditional love?

From my experience on the other side of the "hyper-particularization" fence, it's true that a woman's love is strong. Occasionally I even feel the need to safeguard her boundaries because she's willing to burn it all down in the name of loving me. And I'm certainly not someone who checks every "objective" box.

At the same time, I have a hard time seeing that as feminine, a-rational appreciation of my innate self-worth. And I don't feel that particularly bothers me either. I don't need her to just love my innate worth. I fully expect her love to be at least somewhat conditional, just as mine is.

I don't see it as a form of unconditional love. It's definitely SUPER conditional.

But it's not conditioned primarily upon specific objective qualities. It's conditioned on him being precisely who he is.

It's more about an appreciation of the whole gestalt of his personality and who he is as a unique living breathing feeling human being.

I would call it hyper-subjectificaton where that one guy becomes like a demi-god in a woman's eyes. And that's true even if he doesn't possess objectively attractive or positive qualities. 

And yes, that can be a huge issue. This tendency has a pretty self-destructive side to it if a woman doesn't get ruthlessly picky about who she allows to get close to her.

Once a woman has her heart set on a particular man and she gets attached, boundaries can be difficult.

This is why it's important to integrate the Masculine side, which is to set clear boundaries and standards for the men she spends time with... lest she be struck by Cupid's arrow for a man who will drag down the quality of her life.

So, it's SO important to have solid deal breakers and to be able to protect your boundaries as a woman because these feelings put you in a vulnerable position. And that's especially true if you're young and inexperienced.

Like back when I was between age 16 and 20, I had no boundaries because I thought boundaries were wrong to have. I thought that I would be a bitch if I had any boundaries, and that was a huge fear for me at the time.

When I was 16, I fell in love with my first boyfriend who was 17. And we were together for 4 years.

And he had some redeeming qualities. But he was mostly a mess of a guy who was going nowhere in his life. 

And I lived with him, his mom, and his sister in my junior and senior year of high school before I went to college.

And he was very chaotic and would frequently threaten to commit suicide... often as a means to control me or evoke certain reactions from me. And he was also in and out of jail for petty crimes. And life was very stressful with him because he was super unreliable and irresponsible.

But I had this deeply held belief that "If I love him, I should be willing to support him and stick with him through anything." And he didn't have much of anything going for him, but I had this deep value of loyalty where I would sacrifice myself for him again and again and again.

And I kept trying to act as an almost motherly figure to him because his life had been very traumatic and neither of his parents had ever given him any nurturing.

His mom was an alcoholic and was a decent person but very rough and tough. He also witnessed his older brother having hung himself when he was 12. And his dad even tried to shoot him at the request of a hooker he had brought home when my ex-bf we was 14. (Side note: His dad also enlisted the help of a drug dealer to try to steal our van by pretending like he was being held for ransom unless my ex-bf would sign the title over. And a few months before he and I got together, my ex-bf was seeing a girl who was also 17 like he was. And he took her to Tampa with him for a week to stay with his dad. And his dad started giving her (a 17yo) crack in exchange for sex. I could go on and on about his dad and how terrible he is.)

So, when he and I got together, I was trying EXTRA hard to compensate for all of his pain by being as loving and nurturing as possible. And I was endlessly enabling. 

But one night, when I was 20, he went full-blown homicidal with me and started threatening to kill me and himself.

And he was leading me around by the pedestrian walking area downtown at 3am and holding a broken beer bottle to my throat for about an hour as we walked and he was threatening to cut me and also to snap my neck. And he led me to the fort that's in the same area and was holding me next to a high ledge near the for with a 10-15 ft drop and threatening to push me off and asking me if I trust him or not.

Funny enough, I wasn't too too scared... because he never went through with anything he ever said he was going to do. And he'd never been violent with me before. It was just sad and traumatic.

Needless to say, I had to break with that value and end it. And it was a painful but important lesson to learn that I needed to grow some claws.

Then when I finally severed the tie, I didn't really have a support system.

And out of loneliness, I started spending time around guy who was about a decade older than me, and I had started to catch feelings for him. And he had all sorts of issues with heavy drugs. And he'd lost custody of his kid. And he was showing so many abuse red flags just in a few week's span of time.

And I could sense with those hyper-subjectifying feelings that were kicking in that I was going out of the frying pan and into the fire. 

So because I was very alone in the world at that time, I deliberately went out and found another random guy to spend time around that I was generically attracted to that wasn't as chaotic.

It was a crazy time with many lessons. And one of them is that you have to be super picky about the guys you spend time with BEFORE those feelings fully set in.

[Leo Gura]

Rule #1: Don't sleep with criminals and drug addicts.

Edited October 3 by Leo Gura

[Emerald]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Rule #1: Don't sleep with criminals and drug addicts.

That's definitely Rule #1!

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, Emerald said:

That's definitely Rule #1!

[Emerald]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

Yuck it up if you want.

It wasn't obvious to me as a teenager because most people around me had their own special brand of crazy, and low standards of moral behavior was just the way half or more of the people operated in my hometown as a folkway. Such is the way of growing up in the trashier areas in a small Florida redneck town.

And I was unconsciously judgmental of the people with low standards of moral behavior, and I sought to differentiate myself. And I became identified with hyper-specific moral standards including self-sacrificing... which put me in a state of tolerating a lot of things I shouldn't have and priding myself on being (supposedly) non-judgmental of others as a cornerstone of my identity. 

And I knew plenty of peers and adults who had been in and out of jail/prison that were otherwise okay people, but didn't understand the extent to which that would invite chaos and pain into my life to be romantically involved with someone who the local cops know personally.

But in general, when you're in these types of settings and it's super common for people to have low standards of behavior, you lose a certain degree of disgust and discernment. It's like going nose-blind to a bad smell... or getting used to cockroaches crawling all over you at night because you're living in an infestation.

So, I didn't have the firewalls to be adequately picky. 

As a contrast, it was really quite a culture shock going to a liberal arts college with tons of upper middle class people with Stage Green values.

For the first few months that I was there, I was trying to bond over conspiracy theories like I would with people in my hometown.

And that didn't play very well in that culture and had the opposite effect of connection.

[aurum]

50 minutes ago, Emerald said:

I don't see it as a form of unconditional love. It's definitely SUPER conditional.

But it's not conditioned primarily upon specific objective qualities. It's conditioned on him being precisely who he is.

It's more about an appreciation of the whole gestalt of his personality and who he is as a unique living breathing feeling human being.

I would call it hyper-subjectificaton where that one guy becomes like a demi-god in a woman's eyes. And that's true even if he doesn't possess objectively attractive or positive qualities. 

And yes, that can be a huge issue. This tendency has a pretty self-destructive side to it if a woman doesn't get ruthlessly picky about who she allows to get close to her.

Once a woman has her heart set on a particular man and she gets attached, boundaries can be difficult.

This is why it's important to integrate the Masculine side, which is to set clear boundaries and standards for the men she spends time with... lest she be struck by Cupid's arrow for a man who will drag down the quality of her life.

So, it's SO important to have solid deal breakers and to be able to protect your boundaries as a woman because these feelings put you in a vulnerable position. And that's especially true if you're young and inexperienced.

The hyper-subjectification is definitely real. I see it as a function of her survival agenda, which is essentially to lock down a particular guy. So of course once she finds "that guy" she is going to be head-over-heels for him and tune out the rest.

50 minutes ago, Emerald said:

Like back when I was between age 16 and 20, I had no boundaries because I thought boundaries were wrong to have. I thought that I would be a bitch if I had any boundaries, and that was a huge fear for me at the time.

When I was 16, I fell in love with my first boyfriend who was 17. And we were together for 4 years.

And he had some redeeming qualities. But he was mostly a mess of a guy who was going nowhere in his life. 

And I lived with him, his mom, and his sister in my junior and senior year of high school before I went to college.

And he was very chaotic and would frequently threaten to commit suicide... often as a means to control me or evoke certain reactions from me. And he was also in and out of jail for petty crimes. And life was very stressful with him because he was super unreliable and irresponsible.

But I had this deeply held belief that "If I love him, I should be willing to support him and stick with him through anything." And he didn't have much of anything going for him, but I had this deep value of loyalty where I would sacrifice myself for him again and again and again.

And I kept trying to act as an almost motherly figure to him because his life had been very traumatic and neither of his parents had ever given him any nurturing.

His mom was an alcoholic and was a decent person but very rough and tough. He also witnessed his older brother having hung himself when he was 12. And his dad even tried to shoot him at the request of a hooker he had brought home when my ex-bf we was 14. (Side note: His dad also enlisted the help of a drug dealer to try to steal our van by pretending like he was being held for ransom unless my ex-bf would sign the title over. And a few months before he and I got together, my ex-bf was seeing a girl who was also 17 like he was. And he took her to Tampa with him for a week to stay with his dad. And his dad started giving her (a 17yo) crack in exchange for sex. I could go on and on about his dad and how terrible he is.)

So, when he and I got together, I was trying EXTRA hard to compensate for all of his pain by being as loving and nurturing as possible. And I was endlessly enabling. 

But one night, when I was 20, he went full-blown homicidal with me and started threatening to kill me and himself.

And he was leading me around by the pedestrian walking area downtown at 3am and holding a broken beer bottle to my throat for about an hour as we walked and he was threatening to cut me and also to snap my neck. And he led me to the fort that's in the same area and was holding me next to a high ledge near the for with a 10-15 ft drop and threatening to push me off and asking me if I trust him or not.

Funny enough, I wasn't too too scared... because he never went through with anything he ever said he was going to do. And he'd never been violent with me before. It was just sad and traumatic.

Needless to say, I had to break with that value and end it. And it was a painful but important lesson to learn that I needed to grow some claws.

Then when I finally severed the tie, I didn't really have a support system.

And out of loneliness, I started spending time around guy who was about a decade older than me, and I had started to catch feelings for him. And he had all sorts of issues with heavy drugs. And he'd lost custody of his kid. And he was showing so many abuse red flags just in a few week's span of time.

And I could sense with those hyper-subjectifying feelings that were kicking in that I was going out of the frying pan and into the fire. 

So because I was very alone in the world at that time, I deliberately went out and found another random guy to spend time around that I was generically attracted to that wasn't as chaotic.

It was a crazy time with many lessons. And one of them is that you have to be super picky about the guys you spend time with BEFORE those feelings fully set in.

 Glad you made it through all that. Sounds like it could have been traumatic, but you alchemized it. That takes serious strength. 

[Emerald]

45 minutes ago, aurum said:

The hyper-subjectification is definitely real. I see it as a function of her survival agenda, which is essentially to lock down a particular guy. So of course once she finds "that guy" she is going to be head-over-heels for him and tune out the rest.

 Glad you made it through all that. Sounds like it could have been traumatic, but you alchemized it. That takes serious strength. 

Yes, that's exactly how it is. You become fixated on that one particular guy, and every other guy is whatever... even guys who are kinder, better, more attractive, etc. etc. etc.

And to your point from the previous message, this can also repel a guy because guys tend to fall in love through trying to earn a woman's appreciation and affection. And feeling these feelings too openly or intensely can 'spoil the game' for a guy, and he won't really appreciate the affection without the sense that he earned it through this that or the other action or quality.

So, it's a delicate needle to thread... as this Feminine way of becoming attracted to a man without boundaries and temperance can backfire and can cause a woman to step into the lover role, which is a Masculine archetype that's all about giving love.

And she can start over-functioning and treating him like the beloved, and trying to woo the guy and give and give and give, which he may enjoy but doesn't fall in love with. And it creates an imbalance of investment that is repellant.

She may try to woo him by giving him sex, a pretty face/body, affection, love, cooking, cleaning, low-maintenance girlfriend treatment with low commitment, etc. in hopes of winning his affection. And this is her projecting her own sexuality onto him, because she would like him to invest in her and give and believes that he responds to the same thing.

But men usually don't respond with love to receiving. 

He's more likely to respond with love to giving and being appreciated for what he gives.

So, it requires the ability to temper those feelings and to maintain quite a bit of restraint and opacity... and to create more space when every fiber of your being says "Get closer!!!!"

And thank you for the compliment! Before I became a mom at 22, my life was a lot more chaotic. But I learned a lot about people during that time. And it's all very helpful to me now because it gives me some different points of perspective.

[Letho]

@Emerald God I'm so sorry you went through that.

Quote

sad and traumatic

@Princess Arabia Value differentiation = Internal Cultural value / Maturity = positive correlation with measurably real external survival value. 

In conversation I think that's what we mean when we're on a spirituality forum, if we were on a toxic reddit forum our underlying assumptions about what we deemed mature in this context would probably be different.

For me just to broach this conversation more generally a high value woman = Long term marriage & family material (LTMFM) ). That's only in the last 12 months or so though. Many say marriage is over and I completely agree, as most people are too immature for it because of our decaying cultural standards, hence why to get any maturity these days we have to much more strive for an internal culture over an external one. Inside or outside wanting or deciding to/not have children, following this metric is still going to make a woman high value in my eyes. 

If you're a woman or man and you want marriage and children, don't mess around. 80% plus of the population are no good for it even if on paper it looks like they're passing. Get your shit together, stick to your plan and don't fall in love fall in alignment across several categories of consciousness: health, intelligence, heart, future desires. 

People believe that we're meant to fall in love through what is clinical delusion when in reality, it meant to be in connection across several areas of sanity. Three simple questions are needed to make the determination, "do you like one another and will this stay the same in 5 years what would change this result and are you both capable of simulating through this intelligently?", "could you raise children genuinely well together in the future?" and "what changes would either of you need to make in order to bring a positive resolve for both question two relative to any weaknesses you noticed?"

Most relationships have such fragile ego boundaries that they'd completely collapse in deep discussion of the first question as it brings to surface hidden things they never bothered to face head on together about and for the second question, it really highlights the present dynamics of the relationship and whether that would fit in a family context, for example perhaps one of the spouses is particularly self-absorbed, selfish and just, not in reality but the other one is codependent, so then the codependent starts to either realise they'd be doing most of the work or they imagine a fantasy scenario whereby the selfish one is going to magically change, which won't happen, and that the kids will adapt normally as things progress through the changes the partner makes, which they won't. And lastly for question three, you should never begin a relationship based on how your partner is going to be good/better in the future otherwise, why are you with them in the present? Uncomfortable truths are quickly faced and ideally evolved from there.

Most of us will fail in our relationships, statistically, so we need to be mature about how we approach our understandings here and really mould our approach to reflecting who we truly want to be and are deep on the inside.

For me, a woman I want to marry has slightly less to a woman I want to have children with, and I'd say right now that's where my transition is.

I don't make any of this stuff a priority though, I know I'll easily find the right woman when I'm ready to. Finding a woman to start a successful family with is arguably much easier than finding the right woman to marry, however if I can sort out family, marriage kinda sorts itself out as it means I've already vetted relative to more objective measurements anyway if that's what I'm prioritising. 

So 'high/low' value can also shift and have nuance to it relative to our personal existential context and changing the mirror upon which we view that, helps our decision making, like staying away from toxic reddit threads. 

Edited October 3 by Letho

[Etherial Cat]

10 hours ago, Emerald said:

I totally agree with this.

It's sad but also interesting how triggering it is for them to hear that, when a woman is genuinely interested in them, that they are actually being appreciated for the core of who they are as a unique person.

It's like trying to take a hurt and scared animal out of bear trap, but they start scratching and biting your hand as you do it.

They are so afraid that the core of them is unlovable, and they believe that women cannot see what's lovable about them beyond their utility to us.

If they could just see once through the eyes of the Feminine and the a-rational lens of beauty that it isn't like that, they would be dispossessed of a lot of shame instead of feeling so inadequate and like they need to change so many things about themselves to be loved, appreciated, and validated.

That's not only what I see, but it’s literally what I was thinking about writing to you a bit earlier. They remind me of a bunch of spicy cats who aren’t realizing how safe, nurturing, and caring the person in front of them is while they furiously attack the well-meaning Samaritan.

And oh God, these cats are really spicy. Their spiciness prevents the nice petting and great play moments that could arise, which would feel much better for everyone. 

Also, Emerald, reading your backstory—albeit very insightful and somewhat fascinating—makes me very appreciative and glad that things turned out so well for you despite those sordid experiences.  You have all my compassion.

And while I wish none of that had happened to you, I suppose that 'Emeralds' are created under a lot of cosmic pressure... 

[Keryo Koffa]

I just found out @bambi wrote a song about @Emerald

"[...] But behind those Emerald Eyes, she's a devil in disguise [...]"

[Etherial Cat]

7 minutes ago, Keryo Koffa said:

I just found out @bambi wrote a song about @Emerald

"[...] But behind those Emerald Eyes, she's a devil in disguise [...]"

Someone's got a strong mother wound. And behaves as if Emerald was the infamous hunter responsible for it. 

[bambi]

1 hour ago, Etherial Cat said:

Someone's got a strong mother wound. And behaves as if Emerald was the infamous hunter responsible for it. 

Not quite, I just see through all ego-posturing games and bullshit you all like to play

Notice that you dont respond to AI analysis, does AI have wounds too?

The ultimate core of your issue is dunning kruger, you dont have the intelligence to accurately assess your own or others, and its leading to deep errors and conflation. 

You see Emerald as a saint, and me the wounded devil. This is your deep bias and misapprehension at play. Emerald is an ego manic, and I am the only saint willing to call the bullshit out, yours too lol

[RendHeaven]

15 hours ago, CARDOZZO said:

Today I approached a woman. 

Extremely feminine, beautiful but happily married 

She appreciated the initiation and proactivity. We had some laughs together!

It was really fun 

GOAT!

[Miguel1]

Keep it civil guys.

[Rishabh R]

@Emerald You have gone through a lot of suffering in life and you have demonstrated great resilience which is commendable. Hope you have found light at the end of tunnel or will find.

[Emerald]

35 minutes ago, Rishabh R said:

@Emerald You have gone through a lot of suffering in life and you have demonstrated great resilience which is commendable. Hope you have found light at the end of tunnel or will find.

Thank you! It's been 15 years since all that craziness from back then.

But it was a chaotic and painful but important time in my life. 

I have a 13 yo daughter and a 9 yo son. And in them approaching the age when things became chaotic for me (early teens to 20), it really drives home how vulnerable I was at the time and how much I was having to navigate dangerous and difficult waters while building my identity and preparing for adult life.

In one of my medicine journeys, it showed me that these experiences and the more stifling pains from age 13 and before were given to me as a gift (a sampler platter of many experiences and traumas on many scales of intensity) to learn how the really world is... and to learn about trauma, coping, human motivation, etc. so that I can gain the perspective and wisdom to help people in many situations from a place of lived experience.

So, this perspective has been helpful to see. And I see my negative experiences as some of the most prized treasures of my life.