How can I actually pick 1?

[aurum]

17 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

From what I can tell, a monogamous relationship with minimal artificial mental constructs and fantasies requires nigh-superhuman development from both parties. To give your whole heart to someone with no strings attached and 0 control is anti-survival-instinct - requires mutual operation on a whole new playing field.

So there's no disagreement from me here, I'm just emphasizing the gravity of our conclusion here. Having a truth-compatible, freedom-compatible monogamy is not a trivial or obvious matter. It's a rare gem.

But do you apply that standard equally to non-monogamy?

If monogamy requires nigh-superhuman development, then I'd argue non-monogamy requires nigh-super-superhuman development to be successful.

My proof for this would simply be the fact that monogamy is the dominant mode of romantic relationships on the planet. Meaning it requires less development to have reasonable success in.

However many couples fail at monogamy, more would fail with non-monogamy. 

17 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

I'm glad

Have you ever witnessed a relationship with your eyes that made you think "wow I'd like to emulate that!"

If you have, I'm curious what quality was inspiring, and how it informs your current view on relationships

Most of my inspiration comes from my own past relationships. I've been able to see what did or didn't work for me.

The most important thing I've found is that we are in our energetic polarities.

 

From the masculine POV, the implicit frame is something like this:

"I am here to lead this relationship. I will protect you, care for you and provide for you. I am proactive in honoring your sovereignty and your needs. I welcome all your emotions and will be there at your worst. I am fully here and committed to you. I am better because of you. You are safe with me."

From the feminine perspective, the implicit frame is something like this:

"I am here to follow you. I trust you to protect, care and provide for me. I will support you and heal you when needed. I respect you. I will show you your king. My heart is fully open. I melt into you. I am safe with you". 

 

Of course all of that is somewhat idealistic. In reality, we fight and argue and fail to live up to our best expectations.

But man, even when we are in the vicinity of embodying those frames, it can be like magic.

[RendHeaven]

6 hours ago, aurum said:

But do you apply that standard equally to non-monogamy?

If monogamy requires nigh-superhuman development, then I'd argue non-monogamy requires nigh-super-superhuman development to be successful.

My proof for this would simply be the fact that monogamy is the dominant mode of romantic relationships on the planet. Meaning it requires less development to have reasonable success in.

However many couples fail at monogamy, more would fail with non-monogamy. 

When I said that nigh-superhuman development was required for monogamy, I meant specifically in terms of truth-alignment and freedom-alignment.

I wasn't talking about the success of the relationship or even the health or outcomes of anybody involved. You can have a very successful monogamy and a happy family which is full of subtle fictions, lies, conformity, control, and restrictions. In fact, that's an accurate picture of my own parents and upbringing.

It seems to me, the better the outcomes, the more fictions are likely involved. Because good outcomes = survival optimization which means skewed priorities and a biased lens with implicit defenses (not always, but often).

I think non-monogamy is more truth-aligned and freedom-aligned by default in the absence of superhuman development, for the simple reason that it involves less bias and control.

You don't build an identity around differentiating pussies, and she doesn't build an identity out of differentiating dicks. There is a certain truthfulness there which is potentially very threatening (but nonetheless true). This should not be overlooked.

However, if we are to talk about maximizing survival, AKA the success/health/outcomes of a relationship model, then the script flips, and monogamy requires less development, as you've noted.

Successful non-monogamy requires absolute honesty and transparency which is a tall, tall order.

It's as you said - all boils down to what trade-offs each person is willing to make.

My takeaways:

• undeveloped monogamy: most biased and sexually suffocating. decently stable, but often neurotic. constantly threatened.
• undeveloped non-monogamy: less biased, more sexually free. unstable, and often manipulative and hurtful. chasing sex.
• developed monogamy: minimal bias. sexually limited by sovereign personal choice. stable, but requires enormous development.
• developed non-monogamy: minimal bias. more sexually free. stability uncertain, needs more testing. requires absolute honesty/transparency. potentially chasing sex..?

6 hours ago, aurum said:

The most important thing I've found is that we are in our energetic polarities.

If you've ever lost energetic polarity in your past relationships, what was the driving factor?

6 hours ago, aurum said:

But man, even when we are in the vicinity of embodying those frames, it can be like magic.

Edited January 31 by RendHeaven
added the comment about my parents lol

[aurum]

20 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

I wasn't talking about the success of the relationship or even the health or outcomes of anybody involved. You can have a very successful monogamy and a happy family which is full of subtle fictions, lies, conformity, control, and restrictions. In fact, that's an accurate picture of my own parents and upbringing.

It seems to me, the better the outcomes, the more fictions are likely involved. Because good outcomes = survival optimization which means skewed priorities and a biased lens with implicit defenses (not always, but often).

I think non-monogamy is more truth-aligned and freedom-aligned by default in the absence of superhuman development, for the simple reason that it involves less bias and control.

You don't build an identity around differentiating pussies, and she doesn't build an identity out of differentiating dicks. There is a certain truthfulness there which is potentially very threatening (but nonetheless true). This should not be overlooked.

However, if we are to talk about maximizing survival, AKA the success/health/outcomes of a relationship model, then the script flips, and monogamy requires less development, as you've noted.

You're making some good points about better outcomes requiring more fictions. 

In a sense, monogamy creates an artificial distinction / construction that did not exist before. This human now becomes your "husband" or "wife" or "partner" or whatever. And within this construction is another construction about sexually exclusivity.

It's kind of like a border for a country.

Technically all borders for any nation are a construction. And yet, even if one is conscious of the imaginary nature of borders, this does not mean getting rid of a border is a good idea.

Rather, construct-awareness means that we simply are conscious that a border is a construction. And therefore the construction can either be altered or kept the same, vs just buying into it as an absolute truth.

So you can argue that non-monogamy is more truth-aligned in the sense that you are deconstructing the constructions of monogamy. But it would be a mistake to assume that means it is a better way to live.

And really, you are not just advocating for non-monogamy theoretically. We are considering this for a actual lifestyle. So we need to talk about survival and what the tangible outcomes are likely to be.

I don't think the goal should be to erase just relationship constructions. Our goal should be construct-awareness around them.

Another point: non-monogamy may deconstruct the constructions of monogamy, but what constructions might it sneak in unawares? This would be interesting to contemplate more if your concern is fictional constructions.

20 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

Successful non-monogamy requires absolute honesty and transparency which is a tall, tall order.

Not exclusive to non-monogamy though.

That's just a feature in general of most healthy relationships.

20 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

My takeaways:

undeveloped monogamy: most biased and sexually suffocating. decently stable, but often neurotic. constantly threatened.

undeveloped non-monogamy: less biased, more sexually free. unstable, and often manipulative and hurtful. chasing sex.

developed monogamy: minimal bias. sexually limited by sovereign personal choice. stable, but requires enormous development.

developed non-monogamy: minimal bias. more sexually free. stability uncertain, needs more testing. requires absolute honesty/transparency. potentially chasing sex..?

That seems like a good summary.

20 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

If you've ever lost energetic polarity in your past relationships, what was the driving factor?

That's not been much of an issue for me.

The biggest vulnerability from the masculine perspective is simply not being able to live up to the list of things I described. You fail at being a provider, protecting her or simply leading the relationship to a better place.

I think this is why guys tend to overpromise and put on a strong front. You want your girl to think you are Superman, and she wants to believe it. But the truth of course is that you can never guarantee a positive outcome. You can't guarantee her safety or even your own.

There is wisdom in wresting with this vulnerability. But it's hard. And it's hard to know what to say to her when she's hoping you're Superman.

Edited February 1 by aurum

[RendHeaven]

1 hour ago, aurum said:

So you can argue that non-monogamy is more truth-aligned in the sense that you are deconstructing the constructions of monogamy. But it would be a mistake to assume that means it is a better way to live.

And really, you are not just advocating for non-monogamy theoretically. We are considering this for a actual lifestyle. So we need to talk about survival and what the tangible outcomes are likely to be.

I don't think the goal should be to erase relationship constructions. Our goal should be construct-awareness around them.

Another point: non-monogamy may deconstruct the constructions of monogamy, but what constructions might it sneak in unawares? This would be interesting to contemplate more if your concern is fictional constructions.

Good points. I will continue contemplating

1 hour ago, aurum said:

There is wisdom in wresting with this vulnerability. But it's hard. And it's hard to know what to say to her when she's hoping you're Superman.

Fuck

[aurum]

51 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

Fuck

Yup  

[LordFall]

I think human relationships will evolve a lot this next decade in ways that are hard to imagine now. We are still in the dark ages of dating. Some places don't even allow divorce. I think most humans are bisexual as would make sense if you believe in non-duality but we're heavily repressed in that as well.

You can see it in swinger communities or in general when people hit their late 30s and 40s they're much more sexually open than before because they realize it's their life and doesn't matter what people think.

Dating multi people and having your own harem is not that far fetched imo. It mostly depends on value giving like people have already mentioned but mostly emotional intelligence and communication skills. If you understand the needs of the women you're dating and are able to communicate with them efficienctly while having a high understanding of social dynamics I don't see why you couldn't date 8 of them at once. Most men are pitiful in communication so your competition will be slim. 

 

[RendHeaven]

14 hours ago, LordFall said:

Dating multi people and having your own harem is not that far fetched imo. It mostly depends on value giving like people have already mentioned but mostly emotional intelligence and communication skills. If you understand the needs of the women you're dating and are able to communicate with them efficienctly while having a high understanding of social dynamics I don't see why you couldn't date 8 of them at once. Most men are pitiful in communication so your competition will be slim. 

I agree on the principle of openness and not hoarding partners. I'm even on board with the idea of dating multiple people at once, and that this requires "emotional intelligence and communication skills"

The 3 red flags for me are

1. the phrase "having your own harem"
2. the phrase "I don't see why you couldn't date EIGHT(!?!?!) of them at once"
3. the phrase "your competition will be slim"

These 3 phrases give away your intention to use the accumulation of women for pleasure and status.

The needs of the women are clearly not being considered. By saying "your competition will be slim," you're basically saying "these girls don't have a choice but to follow my scheme" (this justifies manipulation and frames suboptimal terms for her as benevolent)

You really can't see why dating 8 girls at the same time is an atrocious idea?? God, just imagine the drama, the energy drain, the in-fighting, the breakups, the instability, the damage control, and the unsustainability of the whole scheme. Even if you saw each girl on consecutive days, your rate of bonding per girl will still be <once a week, meaning you're not actually building a life together, you're just using each other to fuck. Not to mention this leaves no time for your life purpose or solitude if you're seeing a girl every single day nonstop.

I'm pretty greedy for sex myself, as aurum has pointed out. But even I'm wise enough to rein it in because I actually care about sustainable long-term harmony and genuine win-win dynamics.

It might be worthwhile for you to go through this whole thread and wrestle with all of aurum's points

[Consept]

17 hours ago, LordFall said:

I think human relationships will evolve a lot this next decade in ways that are hard to imagine now. We are still in the dark ages of dating. Some places don't even allow divorce. I think most humans are bisexual as would make sense if you believe in non-duality but we're heavily repressed in that as well.

You can see it in swinger communities or in general when people hit their late 30s and 40s they're much more sexually open than before because they realize it's their life and doesn't matter what people think.

Dating multi people and having your own harem is not that far fetched imo. It mostly depends on value giving like people have already mentioned but mostly emotional intelligence and communication skills. If you understand the needs of the women you're dating and are able to communicate with them efficienctly while having a high understanding of social dynamics I don't see why you couldn't date 8 of them at once. Most men are pitiful in communication so your competition will be slim. 

 

8 would be a bit extreme for me personally, but I do get your points on the evolving nature of relationships. 

Thinking about it though, I feel like there are a lot of unhappy relationships either because people who are not really fit for a relationship feel like they have to get in one or because simply it's the wrong person. People don't want to be alone and we've set an ideal in society of what a relationship should look like but it doesn't leave room for those that don't fit into those boxes. 

It will be interesting going forward and seeing how relationships change. Personally I think I will just date and see what happens and if someone comes along where I'm like 'this makes sense to me to be with this person monogamously' then I would definitely do that. I want to free myself of expectations in dating or even not limiting myself because I don't want to get to close. 

[LordFall]

@RendHeaven

6 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

These 3 phrases give away your intention to use the accumulation of women for pleasure and status.

I'm pretty greedy for sex myself, as aurum has pointed out. But even I'm wise enough to rein it in because I actually care about sustainable long-term harmony and genuine win-win dynamics.

It might be worthwhile for you to go through this whole thread and wrestle with all of aurum's points

Pleasure sure if you mean it by building a fulfilling and engaging life for myself and my women. Status is great as well if you mean providing extremely value to the communities and organizations that I am a part of.

Brother from reading this thread I would love for you to share more in detail your progress on your own polyamory quest because you seem inexperienced and not having tried much. I'm one of the most experienced people on this forum when it comes to game and social circle particularly, feel free to look at my Instagram if you want to see what my life looks like.

I think there are many vary good reasons why harems don't generally work in normal society but you can overcome those if your really cared to. 

@Consept 100% human beings have no idea what they want and when they do figure it out it scares them to death so they barely take action on it. Myself included. It's gonna start to change slowly but surely though and things have been exponentially going towards romantic and sexual freedom since the 60s and the sexual revolution so I'm extremely optimistic on that regard for the human race as a whole. 

[numbersinarow]

2 minutes ago, LordFall said:

@RendHeaven

Pleasure sure if you mean it by building a fulfilling and engaging life for myself and my women. Status is great as well if you mean providing extremely value to the communities and organizations that I am a part of.

Brother from reading this thread I would love for you to share more in detail your progress on your own polyamory quest because you seem inexperienced and not having tried much. I'm one of the most experienced people on this forum when it comes to game and social circle particularly, feel free to look at my Instagram if you want to see what my life looks like.

I think there are many vary good reasons why harems don't generally work in normal society but you can overcome those if your really cared to. 

@Consept 100% human beings have no idea what they want and when they do figure it out it scares them to death so they barely take action on it. Myself included. It's gonna start to change slowly but surely though and things have been exponentially going towards romantic and sexual freedom since the 60s and the sexual revolution so I'm extremely optimistic on that regard for the human race as a whole. 

 

Of course, you're completely single-minded. The sexual revolution means that there is literally nothing a male can do to actually get sex. You can't approach in public, can't approach anywhere. There aren't any opportunities to talk to girls or get girls. Women's asexual nature will eventually lead to a backlash and complete regression into authoritarianism.

People thought hell would be sex, drugs and partying, the truth is all that an atheistic world brings is pure hierarchy and pure authoritarian evil. A locked-down system where the evil people have nothing to guide them and instantly fall into the status quo.

And if you're taking any approach that contradicts my threads in the dating and sexuality forum you're not living in reality.

Brother, we can sort of see that with the appeal to accomplishment fallacy you're using.

[Consept]

2 hours ago, LordFall said:

Consept 100% human beings have no idea what they want and when they do figure it out it scares them to death so they barely take action on it. Myself included. It's gonna start to change slowly but surely though and things have been exponentially going towards romantic and sexual freedom since the 60s and the sexual revolution so I'm extremely optimistic on that regard for the human race as a whole.

Just out of curiosity, are you living a poly life, what does that entail and how many partners do you have?

[LordFall]

1 hour ago, numbersinarow said:

 

Of course, you're completely single-minded. The sexual revolution means that there is literally nothing a male can do to actually get sex. You can't approach in public, can't approach anywhere. There aren't any opportunities to talk to girls or get girls. Women's asexual nature will eventually lead to a backlash and complete regression into authoritarianism.

People thought hell would be sex, drugs and partying, the truth is all that an atheistic world brings is pure hierarchy and pure authoritarian evil. A locked-down system where the evil people have nothing to guide them and instantly fall into the status quo.

And if you're taking any approach that contradicts my threads in the dating and sexuality forum you're not living in reality.

Brother, we can sort of see that with the appeal to accomplishment fallacy you're using.

I mean we can have an arguments on the future political and economical future of the human race but in short I think you're wrong and aren't contemplating how the current trends around decentralization of dating will also soon lead to the decentralization of finance and freedom for people to do whatever they want which is of course ultimately a great thing. Our economy will not depend on human labor for much longer and fertility tech is looking extremely optimistic so I don't think there's anything to worry about in terms of the future for mankind.

 @Consept Not currently I had a few fwbs at the same time before but never dated them officially all at once which is what I aim to do with my next poly setup. Mostly working on my business and social circle right now to be able to sustain this long term. 

[Consept]

23 minutes ago, LordFall said:

@Consept Not currently I had a few fwbs at the same time before but never dated them officially all at once which is what I aim to do with my next poly setup. Mostly working on my business and social circle right now to be able to sustain this long term.

OK got you, would you consider a monogamous relationship or are you set on the poly life? 

I think poly can be difficult, I wonder if it's something people just try for a while and then end up going monogamous if someone they really like comes along. I would be curious to maybe have 3 or so concurrent relationships but I honestly don't think it's that sustainable, it's often hard just having a normal relationship let alone 3+. 

 

 

[LordFall]

@Consept Sure I've had a year long monogamous relationship that I thoroughly enjoyed. It showed me the inherent problems with that relationship model.

I want to for sure try polymaory specifically in the form of large harem and if that doesn't end up fulfilling my goals and leading to a stable family unit like I think it will for me then I perhaps will try monogamy again. 

[Consept]

6 minutes ago, LordFall said:

@Consept Sure I've had a year long monogamous relationship that I thoroughly enjoyed. It showed me the inherent problems with that relationship model.

I want to for sure try polymaory specifically in the form of large harem and if that doesn't end up fulfilling my goals and leading to a stable family unit like I think it will for me then I perhaps will try monogamy again. 

Interesting, thanks for sharing man, if I'm ever in Toronto I'll give you a shout 👊🏾

[LordFall]

For sure brother sounds good! 

[RendHeaven]

3 hours ago, LordFall said:

 @Consept Not currently I had a few fwbs at the same time before but never dated them officially all at once which is what I aim to do with my next poly setup. Mostly working on my business and social circle right now to be able to sustain this long term. 

You're definitely more experienced than me with building social circle. But that doesn't translate to authority on poly relationships.

FWBs and dating are two different beasts.

If you said "I don't see why I can't have 8 FWBs" I would have agreed

But you said "I don't see why I can't DATE 8  people at once." That's just a disastrous conflation. If you still don't see what's wrong with that, I guess you'll just have to try it and find out haha

6 hours ago, LordFall said:

I think there are many vary good reasons why harems don't generally work in normal society but you can overcome those if your really cared to. 

The reason harems don't "work" is because the man is ultraselfish and it eventually backfires. Yeah you can have your personal ideal sex paradise for a short period of time, but you have to maintain it across time and placate everybody involved if you want something more than a series of flings.

You can try to get around this by being a saintly, selfless harem-haver, but at that point you're running into an oxymoron. The more girls you string along into your scheme, inherently the more selfish you are. This shouldn't be rocket science.

[RendHeaven]

6 hours ago, numbersinarow said:

Of course, you're completely single-minded. The sexual revolution means that there is literally nothing a male can do to actually get sex. You can't approach in public, can't approach anywhere. There aren't any opportunities to talk to girls or get girls. Women's asexual nature will eventually lead to a backlash and complete regression into authoritarianism.

I have no idea what you mean.