How to make her obsessed

[Emerald]

On 1/27/2025 at 6:55 AM, something_else said:

Another quick point. 

Men feel like these manipulation tactics are necessary because they don't think they are good enough to deserve a woman without tricking her. If they were good enough (or more specifically if they believed they were good enough) they wouldn't feel like they had to spend time learning how to trick women into liking them.

This^ is like the fundamental problem with the pickup style of thinking.

100%

It's really evident to me that the main problems facing men in dating have mostly to do with feelings of shame and unworthiness.

And women get saddled with the projection of being arbiters of male worth and society enforces that archetypal narrative. So, it creates all these stakes and tension around dating that aren't actually there. And men end up isolating themselves because they feel unworthy.

Or they end up relating to women in powerless or combative ways because they see women as holding so much power to validate or invalidate them.

And pick-up often gets used as a bandaid coping strategy to either make one's self more worthy of the woman OR to make one's self appear worthy to the woman by tricking her (as the appearance of worthiness is the only thing that feels possible from that standpoint of shame).

Of course, some can just learn some of the seduction techniques and be successful if they don't have self-worth issues. But that seems to be the exception and not the rule.

But it seems like, 95 times out of 100, men seek to learn about pickup as a means to either try to become worthy of female validation through 'becoming more Masculine' because they can't fathom of having a woman who wants them for them... or as a means of tricking women into validating them if they can't fathom of having a woman who wants them for them to the point where the woman could only love the false mask.

And pickup turns into a game of seeking external validation as a temporary salve for the underlying shame.

It's that thing of trying to fix a symptom rather than addressing the real root cause. And it seems to be making men lonelier and lonelier... especially the ones who end up successfully sleeping with lots of women.

That's the issue when you successfully cut off the head of the hydra without cauterizing the stump.

[CARDOZZO]

39 minutes ago, Emerald said:

100%

It's really evident to me that the main problems facing men in dating have mostly to do with feelings of shame and unworthiness.

And women get saddled with the projection of being arbiters of male worth and society enforces that archetypal narrative. So, it creates all these stakes and tension around dating that aren't actually there. And men end up isolating themselves because they feel unworthy.

Or they end up relating to women in powerless or combative ways because they see women as holding so much power to validate or invalidate them.

And pick-up often gets used as a bandaid coping strategy to either make one's self more worthy of the woman OR to make one's self appear worthy to the woman by tricking her (as the appearance of worthiness is the only thing that feels possible from that standpoint of shame).

Of course, some can just learn some of the seduction techniques and be successful if they don't have self-worth issues. But that seems to be the exception and not the rule.

But it seems like, 95 times out of 100, men seek to learn about pickup as a means to either try to become worthy of female validation through 'becoming more Masculine' because they can't fathom of having a woman who wants them for them... or as a means of tricking women into validating them if they can't fathom of having a woman who wants them for them to the point where the woman could only love the false mask.

And pickup turns into a game of seeking external validation as a temporary salve for the underlying shame.

It's that thing of trying to fix a symptom rather than addressing the real root cause. And it seems to be making men lonelier and lonelier... especially the ones who end up successfully sleeping with lots of women.

That's the issue when you successfully cut off the head of the hydra without cauterizing the stump.

I'm working on myself is the #1 cope man use these days. 

[sholomar]

Best video I've ever seen just about about what makes her obsessed, or at least what they look for, something an autist who likes it blunt rather than all the mysterious bullshit advice you get from most people will be able to digest.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 04:27 AM by sholomar

[AION]

@Emerald So what is the solution? Just letting go of shame and unworthiness and everything will fall in place 🤣That is seems kind of truncated and simplified.. although at the core it might be true what you are saying. I'm clearly seeing this in some friends who have no success. They feel ashamed about their situation and unworthy because they don't have the things that they think they need. But in my opinion it is more complex. These guys take everything personal and too serious instead of gaming their way through life. Perhaps even more important than letting go of shame/unworthiness is learning playfulness which is something that comes natural in humans but we unlearn playfulness after a certain age.

Edited yesterday at 06:49 AM by AION

[Emerald]

10 hours ago, AION said:

@Emerald So what is the solution? Just letting go of shame and unworthiness and everything will fall in place 🤣That is seems kind of truncated and simplified.. although at the core it might be true what you are saying. I'm clearly seeing this in some friends who have no success. They feel ashamed about their situation and unworthy because they don't have the things that they think they need. But in my opinion it is more complex. These guys take everything personal and too serious instead of gaming their way through life. Perhaps even more important than letting go of shame/unworthiness is learning playfulness which is something that comes natural in humans but we unlearn playfulness after a certain age.

I do think it's a little bit like 'take care of the shame' and other things fall into place.

And that's because shame keeps us rigid, performing, and disconnected from others and our sense of belonging in the universe. And it injects really high stakes into dating and relationships.

In analogy to approaching women... having no shame issue versus having shame issues is the difference between walking on a balance beam that's a few inches off the ground compared to walking on a balance beam that's 200 feet in the air.

It's the same action, but the stakes feel so much higher.

And it's the sense of unworthiness and shame that makes approaching feel monumentally difficult because rejection is like lemon juice on those pre-existing shame wounds.

So, I see pick-up and other ideas/narratives that surround it (even Red Pill, MGTOW, and Incel narratives) as a workaround for shame.

And without shame, these workarounds wouldn't be necessary.

And a lot of pick-up advice is like Dumbo's magic feather. Like Dumbo believed he could only fly with the magic feather. But then he lost his magic feather... and thought he lost the ability.

But he later discovered that he could always fly and that the magic feather was just a placebo effect.

Also, when you feel secure in yourself, then your natural personality shines through and playfulness becomes more effortless.

There may be a few things to learn. But I think men forget that heterosexual women are biologically wired up to be attracted to them.

I think a lot of men can get caught up in shame narratives that make them feel like they have to be a 6'11" Chad who's perfectly strong and Masculine all the time and has a totally different personality than their natural personality to be attractive to women.

And that sense of "I'm not enough as I am" creates reclusive tendencies and all sorts of attempts to "fix" one's self.

To focus on pick-up as a way to resolve shame is like focusing on the symptom instead of the roots cause.

It's like having Malaria, and instead of seeking the cure to Malaria... it's like trying to find a solution only to suppress the fever while ignoring the deeper cause of the fever.

[LifeEnjoyer]

@Emerald Very insightful post, thank you. I really liked your analogy with the shame and crossing a gymnastics beam 200 feet off the ground. 

That's an interesting observation about pickup too. My understanding is we're all born as natural flirts, then for some reason in school we get bullied for having a crush or, whatever, and suddenly making new friends and girlfriends becomes hard

[Something Funny]

@Emerald the question is how do you get rid of shame in a reliable and predictable way.

 

Pickup is attractive because it give people a simple practical approach to the issue. You go out and approach. You approach 1000 people you will get better and you fear and shame will probably also get much easier to handle. You could even create a more complicated program, like a workout plan. Because you have specific numbers and parameters to work with.

While "get rid of shame" advise seems really wishy washy. Like how do you do that? If most people could get rid of shame, I feel like they would.

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, Something Funny said:

@Emerald the question is how do you get rid of shame in a reliable and predictable way.

Pickup is attractive because it give people a simple practical approach to the issue. You go out and approach. You approach 1000 people you will get better and you fear and shame will probably also get much easier to handle. You could even create a more complicated program, like a workout plan. Because you have specific numbers and parameters to work with.

While "get rid of shame" advise seems really wishy washy. Like how do you do that? If most people could get rid of shame, I feel like they would.

The issue with shame is that you can't improve yourself or fix yourself to get rid of it.

The only antidote to shame is unconditional self-love and unconditional acceptance on the level of being. And that does reliably resolve the shame... even though it can be a difficult and drawn out process.

So, pickup will never be a solution to shame. And any type of self-improvement will always be 100% ineffective at addressing shame.

Any kind of action towards self-improvement that's taken from the attempt to relieve one's self of shame, will only exacerbate the shame issue. And the higher the standards you place upon yourself to accept yourself, the more intense your shame will become.

So, there is a reliable way to resolve shame. That's to find ways to accept yourself no matter what... and to never use pick-up or any other form of self-improvement for the sake of getting away from shame... as that will only exacerbate it.

Instead, try to switch to a more experiential process-based motivation for the actions you take.

So, instead of thinking about pick-up or any other form of self-improvement from a desire to improve or fix yourself or become better to get validation... think about it more as things you're doing to enhance your own amusement and enjoyment of the process of life.

See yourself as already valid and valuable... and make decisions from a place of self-love and a desire to give yourself the best experience possible. 

Take action from a place of being like a kid who doesn't want to miss out on Disney World.

So, if you wanted to do pick-up, think about it from a place of already being whole, valid, and valuable as you are. And interact with women from a place of self-enjoyment because you love yourself.

And don't approach pick-up from a place of "I need to change myself and fix myself because I'm not enough as I am to get female validation via sex and sexual interest. And I need female validation because attractive women are the arbiters who have the power to judge me as sufficiently or insufficiently Masculine... and therefore worthy or unworthy of being. And who I am isn't enough to be notarized as valid by these attractive women, so I need to learn all these techniques and improve myself to become enough (or pretend to be enough in the case of men who lack self-efficacy in conjunction with their shame struggles.)

I rarely see guys on this forum who are interested in pick-up from a place of self-amusement, fun, and pleasure. Probably 90% of the time, it's guys who don't feel enough trying to use pick-up to improve themselves to try to make themselves enough.

And even if a guy gets good at pick-up, this will never resolve that shame. He'll just transfer it onto the women that sleep with him. And he'll devalue them because "If they like me, they must not be worthy".

Like Mark Twain said "I wouldn't belong to a club that would have me."

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, LifeEnjoyer said:

@Emerald Very insightful post, thank you. I really liked your analogy with the shame and crossing a gymnastics beam 200 feet off the ground. 

That's an interesting observation about pickup too. My understanding is we're all born as natural flirts, then for some reason in school we get bullied for having a crush or, whatever, and suddenly making new friends and girlfriends becomes hard

Thank you! 

I'm not sure if everyone would be naturally flirtatious per say, as personalities differ.

But I'm certain that it would be a lot easier to interact socially and to open up.

[Zen LaCroix]

18 hours ago, Emerald said:

100%

It's really evident to me that the main problems facing men in dating have mostly to do with feelings of shame and unworthiness.

And women get saddled with the projection of being arbiters of male worth and society enforces that archetypal narrative. So, it creates all these stakes and tension around dating that aren't actually there. And men end up isolating themselves because they feel unworthy.

Or they end up relating to women in powerless or combative ways because they see women as holding so much power to validate or invalidate them.

And pick-up often gets used as a bandaid coping strategy to either make one's self more worthy of the woman OR to make one's self appear worthy to the woman by tricking her (as the appearance of worthiness is the only thing that feels possible from that standpoint of shame).

Of course, some can just learn some of the seduction techniques and be successful if they don't have self-worth issues. But that seems to be the exception and not the rule.

But it seems like, 95 times out of 100, men seek to learn about pickup as a means to either try to become worthy of female validation through 'becoming more Masculine' because they can't fathom of having a woman who wants them for them... or as a means of tricking women into validating them if they can't fathom of having a woman who wants them for them to the point where the woman could only love the false mask.

And pickup turns into a game of seeking external validation as a temporary salve for the underlying shame.

It's that thing of trying to fix a symptom rather than addressing the real root cause. And it seems to be making men lonelier and lonelier... especially the ones who end up successfully sleeping with lots of women.

That's the issue when you successfully cut off the head of the hydra without cauterizing the stump.

I've seen you mention men and shame a lot. You think men have a lot of shame. Can you explain more? Where is this shame coming from that men have and women don't have

Edited yesterday at 07:32 PM by Zen LaCroix

[Something Funny]

@Emerald how do you distinguish "I need to fix myself" because I am paranoid about not being enough and genuinely lacking dating skills and wanting to use pickup to improve that because you don't really know a better option? Are all worries about lacking "skills" ultimately just being insecure about not being enough?

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

Take action from a place of being like a kid who doesn't want to miss out on Disney World.

 

It's hard to do that when you feel like you are fighting for your survival. You would need to feel pretty safe in life to adopt that mentality. 

Elon Musk can be a kid in Disney World, he has got billions of dollars, he can do whatever he want and not be worried about the consequences. If I act like a kid in Disney World, I might lose my job, or get rejected from my already tiny social circle, or get publicly embarrassed.

Edited yesterday at 08:34 PM by Something Funny

[CARDOZZO]

3 hours ago, Emerald said:

The issue with shame is that you can't improve yourself or fix yourself to get rid of it.

The only antidote to shame is unconditional self-love and unconditional acceptance on the level of being. And that does reliably resolve the shame... even though it can be a difficult and drawn out process.

So, pickup will never be a solution to shame. And any type of self-improvement will always be 100% ineffective at addressing shame.

Any kind of action towards self-improvement that's taken from the attempt to relieve one's self of shame, will only exacerbate the shame issue. And the higher the standards you place upon yourself to accept yourself, the more intense your shame will become.

So, there is a reliable way to resolve shame. That's to find ways to accept yourself no matter what... and to never use pick-up or any other form of self-improvement for the sake of getting away from shame... as that will only exacerbate it.

Instead, try to switch to a more experiential process-based motivation for the actions you take.

So, instead of thinking about pick-up or any other form of self-improvement from a desire to improve or fix yourself or become better to get validation... think about it more as things you're doing to enhance your own amusement and enjoyment of the process of life.

See yourself as already valid and valuable... and make decisions from a place of self-love and a desire to give yourself the best experience possible. 

Take action from a place of being like a kid who doesn't want to miss out on Disney World.

So, if you wanted to do pick-up, think about it from a place of already being whole, valid, and valuable as you are. And interact with women from a place of self-enjoyment because you love yourself.

And don't approach pick-up from a place of "I need to change myself and fix myself because I'm not enough as I am to get female validation via sex and sexual interest. And I need female validation because attractive women are the arbiters who have the power to judge me as sufficiently or insufficiently Masculine... and therefore worthy or unworthy of being. And who I am isn't enough to be notarized as valid by these attractive women, so I need to learn all these techniques and improve myself to become enough (or pretend to be enough in the case of men who lack self-efficacy in conjunction with their shame struggles.)

I rarely see guys on this forum who are interested in pick-up from a place of self-amusement, fun, and pleasure. Probably 90% of the time, it's guys who don't feel enough trying to use pick-up to improve themselves to try to make themselves enough.

And even if a guy gets good at pick-up, this will never resolve that shame. He'll just transfer it onto the women that sleep with him. And he'll devalue them because "If they like me, they must not be worthy".

Like Mark Twain said "I wouldn't belong to a club that would have me."

One of the most insightful posts on dating sub-forum.

Thanks ❤️

[LifeEnjoyer]

2 hours ago, Something Funny said:

If I act like a kid in Disney World, I might lose my job, or get rejected from my already tiny social circle, or get publicly embarrassed.

How likely is for that to actually happen, though? Is it really that bad?

[Emerald]

4 hours ago, Zen LaCroix said:

I've seen you mention men and shame a lot. You think men have a lot of shame. Can you explain more? Where is this shame coming from that men have and women don't have

Men and women can both have shame individually for a variety of reasons depending on the details in their own lives.

But I'd say men's collective wound is more shame-based, while the current state of women's collective wound is more about disempowerment than shame.

But women do tend to deal with different types of collective shame patterns... like shame with body image, age, sexuality, Femininity, being seen as weak, incapable, inferior, looney, etc.. So, there definitely is female collective shame patterns as well.

But there's been a lot of shifts over the past century or so (and especially in the past 10 years) that have created some genuine progress with those collective shame patterns that are based in the collective rejection of Femininity... and seeing Femininity as lesser than Masculinity over the course of millennia.

So, there's still a lot of collective shame for women but the attitudes over the past several generations that have arisen are slowly shifting things. 

For example, when I was growing up, all the ads depicted perfect-looking women and slut-shaming and fat-shaming were off the charts. And it was just common for women to hate each other as a default and to internalize all these standards. 

But over the past decade there's more sensitivity to that kind of thing and a rejection of those beliefs and arbitrary standards that have been the cause of a lot of collective female shame.

But the shame dynamic with men is one that men haven't quite collectively woken up to as of right now. And it has to do with unrealistic and prescriptive expectations of strength, responsibility, Masculinity, etc.

Like, if you tell the average women that they're not Feminine enough and that they need to be more Feminine and to match societal expectations of Feminine gender roles, they'll get up in your face and bless you out. Go try it on the internet and you'll see. 

But if you tell the average man that they're not Masculine enough and that they need to be more Masculine and to match societal expectations of Masculinine gender roles, many men will feel genuinely beholden to that expectation and feel shame if they feel like they don't match up.

The main difference here is that there aren't any really attractive boons to shoving one's self in the box of the traditional female expectations that you can't also get more and better of by sloughing off those expectations. So, women recognize that these "be more Feminine" shaming are basically just saying... "Take one for the team and get back in the box because it makes me feel more comfortable."

So, it's easier to wake up to and shake off the majority of these expectations... as long as you're not caught down in a social system that requires you to conform or be ostracized.

But with men, following Masculine gender roles dangles a kind of idealistic carrot of "If you conform to this expectation, you'll be the man!" And there's a lot of peer pressure from other men to conform to these expectations as well.

So, there's all these sentiments that echo "You're not man enough" everywhere... from dads, to guy friends, to immature women with unrealistic expectations, to grifters on the internet who want to make a buck off of that insecurity. 

And it's hard to reject the box that limits you and causes insecurities when you feel like the box is necessary to get respect, power, connection, women, friendship, etc.

The box is like golden handcuffs that aren't actually made of real gold.

But the expectations still loom heavily. And to the degree that a man internalizes those expectations and tries to mold himself to match them, is the degree to which he rejects himself. And the degree to which he rejects himself is the degree to which he will feel shame.

And then this shame around these expectations will play itself out in interactions with women. And there can often be jealousy and resentment towards women because they are not beholden to the same expectations. 

[Emerald]

3 hours ago, Something Funny said:

@Emerald how do you distinguish "I need to fix myself" because I am paranoid about not being enough and genuinely lacking dating skills and wanting to use pickup to improve that because you don't really know a better option? Are all worries about lacking "skills" ultimately just being insecure about not being enough?

It's hard to do that when you feel like you are fighting for your survival. You would need to feel pretty safe in life to adopt that mentality. 

Elon Musk can be a kid in Disney World, he has got billions of dollars, he can do whatever he want and not be worried about the consequences. If I act like a kid in Disney World, I might lose my job, or get rejected from my already tiny social circle, or get publicly embarrassed.

If you just feel like you lack skills and there's no strong emotions attached to it, then it's probably just a need to learn more skills. 

It takes some introspection and attunement to the emotions. What I would ask is... do you tend to feel insecure/shameful about things and thinking/feeling like you're not enough as you are? And do you fear rejection and shame?

This could indicate that there's more to your motivation than just a desire to learn skills.

But yes, if you're in survival mode (worrying about physical safety and stability), that's a different kind of insecurity that isn't necessarily shame based. 

But what I mean about operating as though you're a child who doesn't want to miss Disney World is to take productive actions from that place. 

Like, with your goals, think about the kind of motivation that a child has when their parents say "If you keep your room clean and get good grades in school, we can go to Disney at the end of the month. But if you don't clean your room and get good grades, we won't be going to Disney."

You just recognize that you have to take certain actions to enrich your life... and if you do, you get the enriching experiences you want... and if you don't, you miss Disney World.

And the good thing about this motivation is that it's very practical and self-loving... and not based in shame.

Like, when I was in my teens and early 20s, the lion's share of my drives towards achievement were about getting away from shame and self-hatred. I really believed "If I don't achieve and outdo others in my fields of excellence, I don't deserve to exist." I was really hard on myself.

Now, at the age of 35, I've gone through a lot of healing with shame.

And I literally feel like I could literally lay around and do nothing forever and not feel very much shame about it. And my goal is to get it to where I don't need to do anything at all to accept myself.

But now, my motivations are much more experience-based.... and more sustainable as a result.

For example, with my business... I don't have many conscious drivers to avoid shame through having a successful business. My concerns are more practical... when it comes to negatives I'm trying to avert.

Instead, most of my motivation comes from a desire to enrich my life and the life of my family... and to be able to have the experience of helping other people. 

I'm like a kid that needs to do their chores or they won't be able to go to Disney World. And that's my main motivator towards my success now. I do what I do because I love myself, I want what's best for myself, and I don't want to miss Disney World because I was slacking on my chores.

Edited 20 hours ago by Emerald

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, CARDOZZO said:

One of the most insightful posts on dating sub-forum.

Thanks ❤️

Thank you!  

[CARDOZZO]

53 minutes ago, Emerald said:

If you just feel like you lack skills and there's no strong emotions attached to it, then it's probably just a need to learn more skills. 

It takes some introspection and attunement to the emotions. What I would ask is... do you tend to feel insecure/shameful about things and thinking/feeling like you're not enough as you are? And do you fear rejection and shame?

This could indicate that there's more to your motivation than just a desire to learn skills.

But yes, if you're in survival mode (worrying about physical safety and stability), that's a different kind of insecurity that isn't necessarily shame based. 

But what I mean about operating as though you're a child who doesn't want to miss Disney World is to take productive actions from that place. 

Like, with your goals, think about the kind of motivation that a child has when their parents say "If you keep your room clean and get good grades in school, we can go to Disney at the end of the month. But if you don't clean your room and get good grades, we won't be going to Disney."

You just recognize that you have to take certain actions to enrich your life... and if you do, you get the enriching experiences you want... and if you don't, you miss Disney World.

And the good thing about this motivation is that it's very practical and self-loving... and not based in shame.

Like, when I was in my teens and early 20s, the lion's share of my drives towards achievement were about getting away from shame and self-hatred. I really believed "If I don't achieve and outdo others in my fields of excellence, I don't deserve to exist." I was really hard on myself.

Now, at the age of 35, I've gone through a lot of healing with shame.

And I literally feel like I could literally lay around and do nothing forever and not feel very much shame about it. And my goal is to get it to where I don't need to do anything at all to accept myself.

But now, my motivations are much more experience-based.... and more sustainable as a result.

For example, with my business... I don't have many conscious drivers to avoid shame through having a successful business. My concerns are more practical... when it comes to negatives I'm trying to avert.

Instead, most of my motivation comes from a desire to enrich my life and the life of my family... and to be able to have the experience of helping other people. 

I'm like a kid that needs to do their chores or they won't be able to go to Disney World. And that's my main motivator towards my success now. I do what I do because I love myself, I want what's best for myself, and I don't want to miss Disney World because I was slacking on my chores.

Ralston is talking about it:

 

 

[Something Funny]

@Emerald I see, thank you.

[Something Funny]

@Emerald Also, I think we should distinguish feeling shame and being insecure about being not good enough. I don't think I have much shame about not being good enough, but I do sometimes feel like I am not good enough. And then make a distinction about being good enough for yourself / existentially and being good enough practically / for other people. Like sure, I can recognize that I am good enough the way I am, that I deserve love and have a right to exist, and I shouldn't feel like I should achieve something special or whatever for that. Sure.

But am I good enough as in am I good enough for women to say "I like this guy and I want to be with him"? Am I good enough for people at work to promote me to a manager position? Am I good enough to start a successful business? I don't know, I don't feel like I am at the moment.

What is your proof that I am good enough for women? You don't really know me much. You definitely don't know Aion, and other people here much. I, on the other hand feel like I have a lot of good reasons to not feel good enough. Like the fact that I've never had a girlfriend in my 25 years on earth and never had a moment where I felt like somebody is attracted to me.

Just sharing the thought process for you to understand this point of view better.

And I don't think that all the wanna be pickup artists and manipulators on this forum feel much shame either. Insecurity? Sure. But I am not sure about shame. They seem pretty shameless and self centered to me, actually.

Edited 15 hours ago by Something Funny

[Something Funny]

5 hours ago, LifeEnjoyer said:

How likely is for that to actually happen, though? Is it really that bad?

I misunderstood what she meant.