Toxic dating works better and it's killing me - how to stay authentic?

[aurum]

If character was required for sexual attraction, humanity would have gone extinct a long time ago.

What generates attraction is survival advantage. Which is NOT equivalent to character. In fact, it can be very much the opposite.

[Miguel1]

I live in a stage green socialist-capitalist society. Perhaps the most developed nation in the world. At least the happiest.

I behave and treat girls very well here. I do balance it with lots of teasing, fun, playfulness, wittyness & charisma. I also have a lot of social proof here. I am naturally very good at emotionally connecting with people, and I authentically care about them due to my deep empathetic nature.

If a girl behaves like a selfish entitled idiot, I call them out, give them shit and move on, cuz poor behaviour pisses me off. Oftentimes I laugh at their face and move on.

I do not have an issue with supply of girls being attracted to me.

Honestly, I feel like the worse I treat girls, the less success I get. But maybe that’s because it’s just very incongruent and fake of me to treat people poorly. Unless they deserve it.

The more developed an individual and collective is, the more turned off they are by bad character.

I havent read all of @Emerald’s posts but I am leaning more with her. It’s been like that I believe ever since I joined this forum back in 2021. There was also Ethereal Cat being more active back then. Same issue, same discussion, different year.

All that being said, Leo is not completely off either.

A middle ground to what ya’ll are fighting about is where it’s at, I believe.

Edited Wednesday at 06:57 PM by Miguel1

[Leo Gura]

24 minutes ago, Miguel1 said:

I do not have an issue with supply of girls being attracted to me.

If you already have attraction all figured out then of course your concern is now finding quality personality and character.

You are like a girl who takes attraction for granted.

You people are completely out of touch. Like millionaires swimming in money. You don't even understand what poverty is.

Edited Wednesday at 07:10 PM by Leo Gura

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

It is important to see things from the feminine perspective, but you also have to check it against cold hard reality. In this case it just doesn't pass the check.

You can believe whatever you want about dating, but then reality will crush your ideas to pieces. Women can hold ungronded ideas about it because they never need to face the cold hard reality of the man's situation because that is irrelevant to them.

First off, I already said this post isn't asking advice about how to get better with women. This is a post about the OP feeling a fear that he can't be loved by a woman because of misunderstandings about women's nature.

But really it's about creating a narrative to tongue the wounds around deeper feelings of shame and unworthiness.

And that deeper feeling of unworthiness expresses itself through a false male-created narrative about women that could be dispelled if he really understood how women actually feel about men... and not just the skewed narratives men weave about how women feel about men.

And you keep trying to give generic attraction advice to men who are struggling with something deeper that is only tangentially related to the topic of becoming attractive to women.

And you're also missing altogether the thing that I'm saying.

I'm not saying that you're totally incorrect and that you have nothing valuable to say on the topic. And I'm not saying to throw out what works practically.

I'm sure if we went down the list thing by thing, I'd find quite a lot that I'd agree with.

But it's not about any one specific belief you're holding. It's about the fixation on a very specific male-created narrative that paints the picture of a false reality that feels very real and evident from men's perspective, but that doesn't actually exist in real life because you're not being holistic in your way of thinking about this topic.

And a big part of that is that you neglect the social, emotional, and psychological realties and hyper-focus on biological realities, which creates a simpler paradigm of value with very little nuance. 

And you're very attached to looking at women and human relationships from one very specific reductive angle that presents a skewed vision of reality woven in with kernels of truth, and you hold onto it tightly like a security blanket because you've found something that feels like it works and gives you a sense that you can tie it up in a neat box.

And you're very attached to your sense of certainty about this topic and lack intellectual curiosity about it.

But you don't see the ways it's backfiring on you and holding you back at the same time to view women and relationships this way. And you don't recognize that you're missing a lot of wisdom on this topic, yet presenting yourself as an expert.

And your results are not what most men want now or will want in the future.

And when men believe they can't learning anything valuable about women from women, this causes a lot of problems for men as it creates ideological blocks to real intimacy and understanding.... which is the bedrock of a functional relationship.

[Candle]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

If you already have attraction all figured out then of course your concern is now finding quality personality and character.

You are like a girl who takes attraction for granted.

You people are completely out of touch. Like millionaires swimming in money. You don't even understand what poverty is.

Agreed. I'm totally exhausted explaining things here. 

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

And a big part of that is that you neglect the social, emotional, and psychological realties and hyper-focus on biological realities

No one is hyper focusing on bio realities. No one is neglecting other things you mentioned. Go through my previous posts carefully. It's pure logic. 

Edited Wednesday at 08:22 PM by Candle

[Tenebroso]

1 hour ago, aurum said:

If character was required for sexual attraction, humanity would have gone extinct a long time ago.

What generates attraction is survival advantage. Which is NOT equivalent to character. In fact, it can be very much the opposite.

This. Nothing to with morality, kindness, emotional intelligence etc The gaslighting is hard to take seriously. Men have eyes and share experiences, we can see clearly a vast gap between what women say and how they act.

[Tenebroso]

@Miguel1 Netherlands?

[AION]

1 hour ago, aurum said:

If character was required for sexual attraction, humanity would have gone extinct a long time ago.

What generates attraction is survival advantage. Which is NOT equivalent to character. In fact, it can be very much the opposite.

This is true even in stage green countries.

Male character is only a small variable in the female gaze. Obviously a guy should have the bare minimum of moral upstanding but it is not the thing that draws her in. She is not like "look at that guy, he is such a good person, I want to do this and that with him".  Character is not the thing that creates sexual attraction.

Most of the time, a lot women at the end of their reproductive value go for guys with high moral standing when there are more fun options out there for her, only out of necessity and the biological wall that is approaching.

Edited Wednesday at 07:28 PM by AION

[Tenebroso]

@Emerald I have found a lot of value in your post on here and your youtube channel. However, you are not listening. There is a gap between how you explain attraction and what men are experiencing and your responses are becoming increasingly dismissive. You seem to assume the best of women and see every woman as some enlightened, intuitive, morally perfect person who can only make bad decisions when manipulated.

What men are are saying, is even when we develop and become self aware, emotionally intelligent etc it doesn't change the fact that women actively choose the most attractive, narcissistic and sometimes abusive men while gaslighting regular men about what they are attracted to. If you spent one day as a man you would see how demoralizing this is. Every time a woman complains or has a problem it's because of something men are doing but when men share their experiences and struggles it's because they are thinking about things the wrong way. Do you not see how this is hypocrisy?

[Leo Gura]

OP can apply the advice given and decide for himself what works best.

My job here is done.

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, integral said:

@Princess Arabia @Emerald okay guys what advice would give to a men who is struggling to get a gf, maybe he's a virgin maybe lets say he's 22. What strategy should he use to be more attractive or find himself with a gf?

The post from the OP isn't really about struggling to get a girlfriend. That's just a symptom. So, that kind of advice won't be very helpful to the OP in this instance. 

This issue is that every single thread on this subform becomes about how to attract women because "When all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail."

But that doesn't seem to be the OP's problem as he already said women are interested in him when he pulls away more than when he's available. So presumably, he is having these push/pull experiences in his dating life.

And part of it seems like he might be anxious and attracting and being attracted to more avoidant partners. 

So, attracting women isn't the real problem he's dealing with.

The post is actually about the OP fearing that he will never truly be loved by a woman for who he is... and that bad boys are the only one who get loved by women.

So, my advice to the OP would be to explore what would be so bad about if it were true that women only get into relationships to emasculate men and that women only like bad boys. And that will reveal to him the origin points of his own fears that are getting transferred out onto these false  narratives.

And it would help him learn more about himself and turn inward towards the root cause of the feelings of fear, shame, and disconnection... instead of looking outward to scary manosphere narratives about women that predatory grifters come up with to manipulate men (and as a side note, the grifters cement their predatory narratives by conveniently saying women can't provide any valuable counter-argument to such claims because women are deluded about their own desires.)

So, my advice to him would be to recognize that he doesn't know how women are operating and that in the dearth of knowledge, women are becoming a convenient projection screen for these wounds and narratives to be projected upon. 

And to turn inwards towards his real fears.

[Emerald]

3 minutes ago, Tenebroso said:

@Emerald I have found a lot of value in your post on here and your youtube channel. However, you are not listening. There is a gap between how you explain attraction and what men are experiencing and your responses are becoming increasingly dismissive. You seem to assume the best of women and see every woman as some enlightened, intuitive, morally perfect person who can only make bad decisions when manipulated.

What men are are saying, is even when we develop and become self aware, emotionally intelligent etc it doesn't change the fact that women actively choose the most attractive, narcissistic and sometimes abusive men while gaslighting regular men about what they are attracted to. If you spent one day as a man you would see how demoralizing this is. Every time a woman complains or has a problem it's because of something men are doing but when men share their experiences and struggles it's because they are thinking about things the wrong way. Do you not see how this is hypocrisy?

I'm not explaining attraction at all in this thread. I have not spoken one single word about what women are attracted to at all.

And I have not said "Be more emotionally intelligent to attract women." That's your straw man. Some women will be attracted to that and others won't.

What I'm saying is that there's a problem with using myopic over-simplified narratives to understand female sexuality as it creates paradigm lock. And projections from that paradigm lock creates problems with women down the line that feel right now like solutions.

And it blocks men from actually gaining wisdom in this area of life because the cup is already full and nothing more can be poured into it.

And as a woman, I can see how it's practical but also leading to false conjectures... that lead to worse relationships with women down the line.

And I'm adamant about this because I've seen these skewed narratives floating around for a decade, and they are doing more harm than good by a mile. 

[Emerald]

24 minutes ago, Candle said:

No one is hyper focusing on bio realities. No one is neglecting other things you mentioned. Go through my previous posts carefully. It's pure logic. 

Leo does. That was addressed to him. I haven't read your posts.

[whh2222]

1 hour ago, Buck Edwards said:

It takes a special breed of man to bypass looks and see the woman for what she is worth. 

It's not gender exclusive 

[Miguel1]

40 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

If you already have attraction all figured out then of course your concern is now finding quality personality and character.

You are like a girl who takes attraction for granted.

You people are completely out of touch. Like millionaires swimming in money. You don't even understand what poverty is.

You make a solid point.

[whh2222]

5 minutes ago, Emerald said:

 

And I'm adamant about this because I've seen these skewed narratives floating around for a decade, and they are doing more harm than good by a mile. 

What do you think caused this way of thinking to appear a decade ago? 

[Candle]

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

Leo does. 

I don't think so. Everything he wrote in this thread was from common sense. And I'm not biased. It was relatable. That's why I am saying this. 

I have understood very well what has happened in the whole thread and I'm out of this thread. 

 

Edited Wednesday at 09:15 PM by Candle

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, Miguel1 said:

I havent read all of @Emerald’s posts but I am leaning more with her. It’s been like that I believe ever since I joined this forum back in 2021. There was also Ethereal Cat being more active back then. Same issue, same discussion, different year.

All that being said, Leo is not completely off either.

A middle ground to what ya’ll are fighting about is where it’s at, I believe.

That's the thing. There's a stuckness and unwillingness to learn and go deeper on this topic.

So, all the narratives are over-simplified and seem to create bigger problems than what they solve.

But I'm sure that if Leo and I went down a list about it, I'd agree with certain things. I'm not in resistance to any given insight from him. And I probably operate off of many of the same understandings.

It's more about the overt stuckness and unwillingness to question his assumptions about things and open up to new knowledge. It's a protective stance that's specifically against hearing viewpoints that might open him up to more uncertainty in this field.

And he doesn't see the value that these perspectives from women can bring to men who are caught up in scary and false narratives about women's nature. 

[aurum]

38 minutes ago, Tenebroso said:

This. Nothing to with morality, kindness, emotional intelligence etc The gaslighting is hard to take seriously. Men have eyes and share experiences, we can see clearly a vast gap between what women say and how they act.

Be careful about using what I said to reinforce a misogynistic worldview. That would be a trap.

Emotional intelligence and kindness can provide survival advantage in certain contexts. 

[Emerald]

6 minutes ago, whh2222 said:

What do you think caused this way of thinking to appear a decade ago? 

Narratives like the one the OP was talking about are largely archetypal narratives that represent a man's relationship to the his Anima (the Feminine side).

So, a lot of these devouring dominating pedestalled woman narratives have always been alive in the male psyche as a representation of his resistance to his Feminine side and desire for integration with his Feminine side all in one.

This has largely been as a result of societal adaptations that cause men to have to go into opposition to their own Feminine side... which has been necessary up until very recently in human history.

And all of this resistance and disintegration with the Feminine gets projected out onto the romantic connections with women. So, it looks like a dating issue... but is really more about the internal.

And 10 years ago, things broke open in terms of online Manosphere groups that utilize and amplify these narratives... so now they are coming into the light of consciousness when they've been more of a private inner torment in millennia past.

And it's good that this collective Shadow is coming into the light of consciousness.

But it's also got a lot of problematic manifestations that are corralling lots of vulnerable young guys into these narratives that make it harder for them to have functional relationships with women.

It's kind of like how horror movies have interacted with our natural instinct toward fear.

The fear of the dark had always been there for millennia. But now we have cinema monsters to project into the darkness.

And the narratives that manosphere influencers create do the same thing as the horror movies. They put a clearer form to an ancient archetypal inner struggle.

So, with the internet and the coalescence of men who deal with similar struggles, there's an amplification of what always was but was grappled with privately.

And with Leo, it's a mixture of facts and narrative. 

And the narrative parts are still about the struggle with the inner and outer Feminine. 

So, there is a desire to protect one's self from the Anima by being able to reduce it down through a series of easily understandable reductive viewpoints and projections of certainty.

And this is why there is a myopia and an attachment to one single lens.

But in general, these narratives are either wound-tonguing narratives that are designed to trigger and aggravate the inner struggles. (like the narrative the OP was responding to)

Or they're compensatory narratives to give a sense of power and control over the inner struggle. (like Leo's tendency to simplify things down to gain a sense of knowing and expertise... and that he's tamed the beast of uncertainty)