zazen

If you are long distance and rarely meet (if thats the case) shouldn't she be using her holiday time/resources to want to meet you? Depending on the age and frequency it matters. If younger than its natural for women to want to go on holidays with their girls, there still in their party phase and don't want to be stopped. You stopping her will make you come across insecure. If she does this on a frequent basis instead of coming to see you then its another issue. You can set boundaries and be cool at the same time without coming across needy. If she frequents girls holidays not wanting you there instead of coming to see you or arrange to meet somewhere with you instead, then she could be keeping you on the wings whilst on the lookout. You say she's amazing but does she think you are? Flip it on her head and realise your the prize, doesn't matter how hot she is, its not about that. Being with a hot girl who doesn't respect and love you and would rather party than meet you on a frequent basis (one off is understandable) isn't worth it. Your the prize, remember. You have the standards to be lived up to. Could say something along the lines of: I don't give my commitment away that easily, and appreciate you. Your free to do as you wish, likewise Im free to respond how I feel appropriate, and in my eyes a woman in a relationship doesn't frequent holidays or parties without her boyfriend. If that something you'd want to continue maybe our values are incompatible, but you do what you feel is right. You've told her your boundary, but given her the freedom to live up to it or not. Her actions will tell you what she really thinks at that point. But you setting your boundary and that your the chooser, sets a frame that your the one who's high value. And if her or anyone ever tells you your insecure due to your natural instincts as a man hold your ground and tell them its about respect not insecurity. Your frame should be, I dare another guy to talk to her and think he can out do me, good luck.

Lol, jokes aside though. Quote '' The reflexive response most guys will have in a situation like this will be one of mate protection; the fear being that if they don’t express their disapproval they’ll run the risk of their woman thinking they don’t care enough about them to be jealous. This is a trope most guys sell themselves, because it’s more about suspicion than jealousy. As intuitive as this sounds it really masks the insecurity that their girl will meet another guy and hook up with him. On an instinctual level we’re well aware of women’s pluralistic sexual strategies, thus an evolutionarily honed suspicion was hardwired into our psyches to protect men from becoming the beta cuckold provisioning for another male’s offspring. However, as counterintuitive as this sounds, a girls night out is an excellent opportunity to display confidence behaviours by acting indifferent.'' Quote '' There is always going to be a naturalistic side to male possessiveness. For very good reason evolution selected-for men with a honed sense of suspicion – men want a certainty that their parental investment (or potential for it) will be worth the exchange of resources with a woman who will facilitate it. '' We have instincts that are natural, how we respond to them and how they act out is what matters. A man who doesn't care at all about his woman and her behaviours clearly doesn't have value himself or the relationship. It may come across cool, and initially being cool in the beginning stages is what hooks a woman into a relationship, but once in you must start protecting the relationship as the man. It is in our nature to protect, and a women to feel protected by you. If not, her comfort level will diminish. In pick up they talk about the balance of value and comfort, not caring at all so that you don't come across 'needy' doesn't fulfil the comfort side of the equation, only the fuck boy non chalant side, but a high value man is an integrated man, an actualised man who balances the precipice of both. Its tricky as theres a fine line between coming across insecure (not worthy and fearful of competition) and showing that your a man with standards and boundaries to be respected. If you keep conceding to everything like a walk over then that can tilt into the opposite and imply that your so insecure and don't want to upset your woman that you'll just let her do whatever in an attempt to please her and keep her happy or that you just don't care about her at all that she feels insecure in the relationship or not protected and will seek security in another man. The balance between stimulation and security. Not giving a shit may stimulate her, but it won't feel secure either. Your not trying to pick her up anymore, so put the tactics aside. Your not controlling her, your containing her feminine chaos within as masculine frame work in which she can feel protected in. Its not that your jealous or insecure as much as you think so highly of yourself and know your worth that you believe women come into your frame and respect the boundaries you have as a man, and if they don't your confident in your worth to replace her and know theres a line of women who will. You don't want to be too strong with boundaries to the point your woman is walking on egg shells as thats an unpleasant experience and will ruin the relationship. But if you let her get away with anything then ironically you don't come across as a man of value, or respect. A man of values has values in the first place, those values have to be lived up to, boundaries and standards are formed around them to which you hold others in your life too, including your woman. By having these and her living up to them or attempting to, she feels she is winning you, that she has someone of value, because he valued him self and had his own set of values and that she is valued and can obtain your valuation of her by living up to them. You improve her life in the process, win win. My question to other on this forum regarding looser boundaries to not come across 'insecure'. Where is the boundary then? If letting your girl go to vegas clubs continuously isn't worthy of a boundary then what is?

Love whatifalthist. If you see Peter Zeihans work its also very doom and gloom. A lot of the data presented can be true but its the projections of whats to come from the current data/facts that can be tricky to pin down as the human factor isn't always known, we can adapt in many ways and there are so many moving parts in the world. Saying that, some very intelligent people across different spheres have mentioned the next decade being a tricky one , and if things prevail then a transitory one to better times if we can make it so. Teal swan, Eckhart tolle, Ken wilber just to name a few from the spiritual community have said the next decade of two don't look very good. Ken Wilber mentions he's not hopeful for the next 10-15 years but eventually/hopefully we'll grow from it into something better. See timestamped video below. Some major negative trends seem to be - Demographics / a declining birth rate = growing populations lead to economic growth (if that population is educated skilled etc). We've been riding on the back of the baby boomers after world war 2 which had plenty of children. Young people are needed to fund the care of the elderly (via taxes etc). With a inverted demographic pyramid where there are much more old than young, the young are pretty much working and getting taxed heavily to care for the old which burdens the welfare system. With population below replacement immigration will open up to bring in younger populations, this causes tensions with parts of the population who would be anti-immigration, especially if that migration isn't the correct kind or don't assimilate well causing ghettos/gangs/crime. - Economic model = generally capitalism is good at growing the pie whilst socialism is good at dividing the pie, however socialist can erode the very pie it divides by its nature if left un checked in certain ways. Capitalism, especially late stage leads to the problem of high in-equality and the erosion of buy power for the average person as basics (housing,healthcare,education) outpace the growth of wages. Once in-equality gets to unsustainable levels as we have now, civil unrest being. What happens in the world of negative population growth, or the wrong kind of population growth ie unskilled,educated etc. How is economics structured for a society where the pie isn't growing any longer like we'v seen as the world globalised and traded over the past decades. - De-globalisation to regionalism = with tensions arising between competing powers and the world becoming a more multi polar world (the west and the east), if there are trade route disruptions vie choke points, or proxy wars in vulnerable regions (Ukraine) this affects energy markets, agriculture etc. Countries who are self sufficient can bear these situations. Countries will look to regionalise / on shore manufacturing, and obtain energy themselves or with allies to become self sufficient. - Energy = green energy is noble but unrealistic that it can replace fossil fuels at the stage they are currently at. The world has to slowly transition to green energy, and put more towards R and D. The inputs required for green energy are mostly under control of China/Russia, and require heavy mining. Through the whole life cycle of these technologies aren't as clean as they seem to be, only the dirty parts of it are out sourced to the mining regions where the mineral inputs are, even then the social factor comes in to question if the labour is ethical or not. With the squeeze of fossil fuels via the green agenda, the current war, and the world we are going into, the West in particular Europe will have to face whether they push their 2030 net zero goals later and find fossil fuel replacements or go back to coal if Russia turns the taps off. - Social / culture wars = The dating scene and the rise of black pill etc is self explanatory, the high divorce rate, broken families etc. In the name of liberalism and liberating ourselves from social shame and guilt of being promiscuous we have denigrated family units and trust between the sexes, only fuelled by the technologies that facilitate these social values ie dating apps, social media etc. Broken families leads to broken people leads to broken society. What could overcome these problems is awareness, innovation and communication. Unfortunately, modern technology and platforms stifling speech and communication due to their incentive structures isn't helping us with overcoming the many challenges we face.

Depends on age and cultural background. In the east leaving parents (especially when they are older) is heavily looked down upon and brings 'shame' upon the family. Tough situation when they have a very different mindset/values and judge everything you do or would like to do, and then balancing that with taking care of them and not upsetting them or the wider family that holds those traditional views. Very common amongst traditional minded asian (or eastern) families living in the west. You wish to live a certain way (ie don't agree with marriage0 but the family looks down upon you just being with someone as a partner as its 'haram' (sin) in Islamic culture or not 'proper.'

Quoted from Illimitable man: Women are enthusiastically attracted to cocky men. The more brutish, rough, arrogant, selfish, cruel, risk taking and self-superior he is, the more attracted she is to him. And all these qualities make for a terrible husband. Strength = survival, and in the mating game women are hardwired to secure strength in a man, in any of its forms be it good or bad. This is why women can be bad at picking men - they are specifically drawn to the primal, raw strength, rather than refined strength. Even if the mind (logic) says this man is bad, it the body and nature responding instinctively, rather than intellectually. Because of this specific attraction towards what is deemed toxic men, we hear about how terrible men are, despite knowing plenty who are very much good. Women can pick or have eyes on predominantly the worst of men, then besmirch all men. They have apex vision (only such men are visible to them or come on their radar excluding the rest of the normal guys who don't garner any attention, especially romantically). Men are constantly incentivised to become the very worst they can possibly be, to be shadow possessed (by animal nature) and stay shadow possessed so they have access to a plethora of women - women are unknowingly incentivising and rewarding the very thing they constantly complain about. Primarily and primally attracted to and giving sexual attention to dark triad men, narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths, criminals (Hybristophilia) and all the rest, to the exclusion of good neurotypical men, and then have the nerve to call men as a group terrible despite their continual preference for deviance and brutality. They did not care those men had those traits when they were seduced by them, they only found them repulsive when they were used to betray them and hurt them. Only then did they have a problem with it. They are drawn to raw strength, but only renounce it once it's done with them. Regular men see this, and it creates a perverse incentive structure in society. They think "how can I become a narcissist?" or the 'bad boy' - because they see "toxic men" with little regard for morals having so much success with women. Women are malleable, but aren't blind. They tend to be more socially intelligent than most men - and yet they continuously date the very worst men. So can we say the socially and emotionally superior gender's ignorant? No. It is a matter of subconscious preference for primal strength. Most men would rather become what women want, than be what they believe is right (most likely not men on this forum). Meaning if they see women always sleeping with terrible guys, they will aspire to become terrible in order to sleep with them too. Show him the villains get all the girls, and guess what he wants to be? Men must have a sense "the good guy gets the girl" to inspire heroism. There must be some pretence of this, even if it's not the pure and unmitigated truth, or we cultivate degeneracy amongst our men. Women and human biology isn't going to change in our life times or any time soon, biological evolution is far slower than cultural or technological evolution. This doesn't mean women are bad. It's more the case that they do not reject raw forms of strength that evolutionary served us over Millenia in harsh environments. It entices and tempts them easily, and they enjoy it. It is far rarer to see healthier forms of masculinity which can take that raw strength and refine it, it doesn't come as easily. Women fall to temptation first (wicked men) and because she is his temptation, he aspires to become what she is tempted by (a wicked man) and thus we have this unholy and unvirtuous feedback loop of sorts. He becomes his temptation's temptation to win the desires of his temptation, but in failing to restrain her, he has lost to her. Because he allowed her (women) to dictate the kind of man he would be, rather than aspire to be the kind of man he believes he should be. Many men today lose in this way, but they all feel like winners. Of course they do. They are sleeping with beautiful women, so why would they think they lost? It would never dawn on them. They wouldn't think they lost their soul. They'd believe they improved and evolved. Sad. There is a kind of dark poetry to the notion that in surrendering his goodness in order to become wicked enough to sleep with women, she in turn surrenders her body to him. It is a perverse kind of reciprocity. This is the damage free + unlimited female choice has on society, without the oversight of patriarchs to protect daughterly integrity and discriminate against deviant men, deviant men have their pick of the women, and the women's unconscious preferences encourage men as a whole to be deviant. So next time you hear a woman complain about her ex boyfriend being a narcissist, a sociopath, an abuser or some such, she is either wrongfully defaming a good man, or putting herself forward as proof and living testament of these words.

Theres a lot of content now days about hook up culture and its negative affects, or mens spaces talk about how body count affects pair bonding. How do we morally without guilt go about dating if we aren't in a position to be in a relationship due to focusing on other areas of life ie work, self actualisation or simply find it better to have a degree of independence, or we just want to do pick up for self development. We don't want to be celibate, but don't want a full blown relationship as that takes a lot of energy and time or if you don't believe in legal marriage/want kids. Mens spaces talk about casual sex being bad for women then promote spinning plates and 'enjoying the decline'. How can we enjoy the decline when we are living in that declining society. There are karmic affects, we create the society we live in. Dating can be viewed as development in that through the pain/pleasure cycle we experience, it forces us to seek the peace of presence which is always with us, it can be a force that pushes us and others towards self actualisation. But what we actually see in reality is most people becoming bitter, nihilistic, closed off, and dis embodied. They'll still have sex or meet those needs, but with minimal emotion, only going through the motions. And this is helped further through numbing, and substances such as alcohol, drugs etc. A emotionally healthy person should be able to feel emotion, a spiritually advanced person will feel emotion and yet not get attached. Thats what life and especially dating should teach us, to not be attached to form, and yet enjoy it. Be in the world yet not of it, I just don't see that happen and so have to question whether I want to contribute to that suffering. Knowledge makes one aware of the amoral aspect of human nature and biology when it comes to mating, evolution doesn't care about human happiness. We have to consciously live life to find happiness without giving in to some of our instincts. Ancient instincts, in a alien modern environment if not controlled will cause pain. Its why we can't just gorge on sugar salt fat, or have to fight to not be lazy when survival is taken care of. In the same way our mating instincts can cause a lot of problems and is in the modern world. As we become aware of the negative emotional consequences unfettered mating has long term when people can't get into relationships or have so much baggage from failed hook ups or dating trying to lock down people or guys who just want to keep things casual, it makes it harder to partake in the dating game knowing its negative effects it has on women and society. Even if you are honest that you don't want anything serious, people still try to change you or view it as a challenge, and even if they sleep with you that can bond them despite what they say. In the end people get hurt and there is collateral damage. What is the right path.. our instincts drive us to mate, but awareness of the heartbreak those instincts can have causes conflict on what to do. The celibate life is lonely and your suppressing your desire unless transcended, the bachelor life is emotionally taxing and causes guilt of countless heart breaks, the monogamous relationship route is a huge time/energetic investment and thats if you even find the right partner, that also comes with its own challenges as being life long monogamous isn't even within our nature and is almost a spiritual yoga in and of itself. Each have theirs pros and cons and offer growth in different ways. Even if one wants a relationship, the process that leads there ie dating is bound to cause emotional heart break. Maybe the past way of courting (ie dating without sex) was the safest way as sex emotionally bonds us too much to people we find in the end aren't even compatible. People we have love affairs with aren't always people we can build a life with, and that whole process adds baggage disrupting happiness in future relationships. Now we get to know people whilst having sex, where as before people got to know each other before sex. Maybe that is the best method of dating whilst minimising heart break.. but attempting that in todays world you'll come across weak or not confident enough before they move on to someone that seems more 'serious' in their eyes.

The arousal of biology is raw, savage, amoral, instinctively selecting for reproduction. The attraction of psychology is refined, romantic, moral, intellectually selecting for what ensures the survival of the offspring being reproduced. Mating is the interplay of the two. The friction is between our instinctive animal nature from where we came, and the intelligent integrated human being we’r continually evolving into. Women default to raw rather than refined strength, as they are more instinctive - hence selecting for the bad boys. Evolutionarily strength = survival. Women seek to secure strength in a man for their survival, be it raw (bad) or refined (good). In the absence of the good, they will go for the bad. Their survival / nature pushes them to it primally, over the nice guy absent any strength at all. Good strength pulls them higher. Men should want to embody good strength, and healthy masculinity. Our animal evolution and heritage is far longer than our more intellectually adaptive brains. We'v evolved under brawn far longer than brain. Our default is to live instinctually rather than intelligently. Our technological and cultural evolution has outpaced our biological evolution, biology takes far far longer to adapt, so we have to live with the realities of attraction and the affects it has on the dating landscape. We can hope for, and select for civilised love and meaningful relationships but it doesn't come natural to our animal nature.This is where we should have sympathy for men and women's choices when it comes to dating, compassion arises from understanding. It is a constant choice, and conscious effort to stay monogamous and select whats good for us long term, and for society when it comes to mating.

The following are not my words but seem relevant here and interesting enough to see what the forums thoughts are on it: Women most enthusiastically sleep with uncivilised men, but the burdens of relationship and constant presence of woman civilises him. Civilising does not mean elevating, but more so defanging and domesticating. No wonder so many marriages are sexless then. The more brutish, rough, arrogant, selfish, cruel, risk taking and self-superior he is, the more atavistically attracted she is to him. And all these qualities make for a terrible husband. Strength = survival, and in the mating game women are hardwired to secure strength in a man, in any of its forms be it good or bad. This is why women are bad at picking men - they are specifically drawn to the primal, raw rather than refined strength. It is their biology reacting, on the level of form. Spiritual love is of another realm and of the formless which is what Leo talks about in his video. Because of this specific attraction to and near exclusive tendency to date the toxic, we hear whining about how terrible men are, despite knowing plenty who are very much good. Women can pick predominantly the worst of men, then besmirch all men. Men are constantly incentivised to become the very worst they can possibly be, to be shadow possessed and stay shadow possessed so they can enjoy a plethora of pussy - women are literally incentivising and rewarding the very thing they constantly complain about. Primarily attracted to dark triad men, sleeping with narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths, criminals and all the rest, to the exclusion of good neurotypical men, and then have the nerve to call men as a group terrible despite their continual preference for deviance and brutality. They did not care those men had those traits when they were seduced by them, they only found them repulsive when they were used to betray them and hurt them. Only then did they have a problem with it. They are drawn to wickedness, but only renounce it once it's done with them. Regular men see this, and it creates a perverse incentive structure in society. They think "how can I become a narcissist?" or "how can I become a psychopath?" or from the red pill today how can I become a alpha jerk - because they see "toxic men" with little regard for morals having so much success with women. Women are malleable, but aren't blind. They tend to be more socially intelligent than most men - and yet they continuously date the very worst men. So can we say the socially and emotionally superior gender's ignorant? No. It is a matter of subconscious preference for primal strength. Most men would rather become what women want, than be what they believe is right (most likely not men on this forum). Meaning if they see women always sleeping with terrible guys, they will aspire to become terrible in order to sleep with them too. Show him the villains get all the girls, and guess what he wants to be? Men must have a sense "the good guy gets the girl" to inspire heroism. There must be some pretence of this, even if it's not the pure and unmitigated truth, or we cultivate degeneracy amongst our men. Women aren't going to change. They can't even help it. They can't help that they love raw strength and what their bodies respond too. A lot of them don't even realise it. Some do realise it, but are powerless to change it and continue to be drawn to it. Few learn to be disgusted by it and avoid it. It's total chaos This doesn't mean women have no redeeming traits, that they cannot express virtue or anything like that. Because they can and they do. It's more the case that they do not reject evil, it entices and tempts them easily, and they enjoy it. Eve bit the apple first, after all. We see women being drawn to wickedness in men, and then men who aren't wicked aspiring to be it as a biblical echo of sorts. Eve bit the apple first, then encouraged Adam to do so. Women sleep with wicked men, then men become wicked to sleep with her. Same thing. She falls to temptation first (wicked men) and because she is his temptation, he aspires to become what she is tempted by (a wicked man) and thus we have this unholy and unvirtuous feedback loop of sorts. He becomes his temptation's temptation to win the desires of his temptation, but in failing to restrain her, he has lost to her. Because he allowed her (women) to dictate the kind of man he would be, rather than aspire to be the kind of man he believes he should be. Many men today lose in this way, but they all feel like winners. Of course they do. They are sleeping with beautiful women, so why would they think they lost? It would never dawn on them. They wouldn't think they lost their soul. They'd believe they improved and evolved. Sad. There is a kind of dark poetry to the notion that in surrendering his goodness in order to become wicked enough to sleep with women, she in turn surrenders her body to him. It is a perverse kind of reciprocity. This is the damage free + unlimited female choice has on society, without the oversight of patriarchs to protect daughterly integrity and discriminate against deviant men, deviant men have their pick of the women, and the women's preferences encourage men as a whole to be deviant. So next time you hear a woman complain about her ex boyfriend being a narcissist, a sociopath, an abuser or some such, remember this. She is either wrongfully defaming a good man, or putting herself forward as proof and living testament of everything I have stated here.

Same world as Fernanda it seems. Not sure what world black pill, red pill, incels live in either or where we hear the common phrase where have all the good men gone. A subset of men have women pining after them or hurt/frustrated by them for not committing and then bringing that baggage to their next relationships. Average guys don't hurt women but certain men can and do, intentionally or not. These average guys then have to deal with that baggage, and have the negatives of those men projected onto all men. Dissatisfaction in these relationships are higher as she compares him to the past 'alpha guy' that got away. Or these women put off relationships completely because they don't want to settle.Their version of good men are those top 10-20% who don't have the incentive to settle down, and who imprinted on these girls blinding them to the average guy who is actually a good nice guy at heart and just wants a loyal appreciative girlfriend. Not saying to identify with victimhood, men or women. These are collective issues as you mentioned, and this forum is a place to identify problems, figure out solutions and actualise ourselves. One extreme is stage red traditionalism which is very repressive, relationships were out of control than choice. What we have now in the liberal west seems to have swung the pendulum to the other extreme which was needed to shake us out of the negatives of tradition. But now whats the balance, we can't have the pendulum swing back. The mens movements seem to be backlashing and wanting traditionalism to come back in full force ie men say women with only low body counts are relationship material, they can't have friends of the opposite sex etc. These are frustrated men struggling in the dating market.

Dating / pick up can cause you to mature as you go through the pain of rejection and loss, learning to rely on yourself for emotional well being. Why trauma healing and presence work is so important, mini rejections and break ups are like mini traumas. Presence goes beyond the pain/pleasure cycle, and the constant exposure to pain should lead us to what is beyond pleasure/pain which ultimately is spiritual development. Most people in society we interact with aren't usually working on that or growing from it and instead become wounded in stead of wise, and bitter instead of better. One has to learn to deal with the guilt of the collateral damage left along the way. You could rationalise that its good for our emotional development when rejected, left or cheated on but most people can't handle it. We become less able to love and be loved, closed off, commitment phobic, and nihilistic in the end ie black pill or women angry at men these days for not wanting marriage etc. Pick up and the knowledge in the red pill sphere is double edged. Whats bad for women/society (hook ups leading to baggage, emotional/familial break down) is described, but whats prescribed is to spin plates, pick up ( un ethically) and have rotations, causing the very society complained about in the end. Then they say just 'enjoy the decline' when they are living in that very declining society. Gaming and hook ups can set the precedence of enjoying variety / novelty, the thrill of the hunt and the dopamine it provides like an addiction. If intelligent, you can stop chasing the rush as with any addiction as you realise it never fulfils you deeply and only provides fleeting pleasure. Pleasures are external, joy is internal. Another option is to find pleasures that don't harm others emotionally beside pick up. Pick up guys say leave women better than you find them as a way to get around the guilt of hurting them. How can a guy reconcile pick up / dating casually and 'alpha widowing' women ie being so good that you leave a emotional imprint on her, causing her dissatisfaction in her future relationships with lesser men? Its the fact that you leave them better off and your such a great guy that can actually hurt even more that they lost a catch. Picking up is one thing, but dropping off is another. Every drop hurts, and going backwards, in relationships or lifestyle is always painful as comparison is the thief of joy. We only appear to live in the moment, but really we live in and through the past. A smaller and smaller sub group of men enjoy the pleasures of the dating market taking the women away from the average guys, and ruining these same women when they settle for less than what they experienced and which they got a taste of shortly. Morally you can clear your conscience if your upfront about your intentions and what you want, but even we know that women will try win a guys commitment through sex and time spent together, bonding them and inevitably getting hurt in the process of failing that. Marriage is too risky, casual dating makes the moral kind feel guilt, celibacy requires transcendence. This is where we'r at in the modern era. We live in modern times, and act modern, yet expect traditional marriage to still work. We need new models to adapt to the modern times or else having traditional expectations placed onto modern humans in a modern environment is a recipe for disappointment and frustration when those traditional expectations aren't met in relationships.

You can embrace your biology which has the natural urge towards sex/reproduction, but that also conflicts with your natural feelings of compassion as a human being for hurting others in the process of satisfying those primal instincts. How do you engage in pick up / dating without the guilt of causing emotional collateral damage. Say if you don't want a serious relationship, or do but it takes a lot of people to go through to find the right one. Those people aren't a right fit for you, and it takes time being 'casual' to figure that out, during which you physically bond to each other biochemically, but you have to end it due to finding out you won't work well together long term. Your biology/body emotionally bonds to the other, your psychology/mind and logic tells you it won't work long term. Your heart breaks in the process of hurting and letting down some one, and having this done to you or doing it to others over and over numbs you, creates a heaviness of these past bonds in your psyche and guilt of having to let them go and them having to deal with that emotional heart break. The heart break, causes headache as you think of it. Physically mentally and emotionally the dating process takes it's toll.

True. I guess being upfront and clear about what we want. These days a lot of guys don't want children or marriage, and even a serious relationship. Having integrity and stating this early on before getting sexual will probably leave a guy thirsty, as a recent post in the dating section just made one on integrity losing him sexual encounters. Reflecting on this I think it comes down to responsibility and how much and where the line is drawn for our responsibility towards ourselves and others feelings. We can't take full responsibility for others emotions as that is toxic and will drive us crazy. But we can't just take responsibility for ourselves without considering others.In fact its complimentary, for us to be happy ourselves, we need the people around us to also be happy to a certain extent. The middle balanced way is take some responsibility for yourself AND some for others. In fact, taking all the responsibility for another human being is in a way dis-respecting them. Its saying they aren't mature enough to make their own decisions and take life into their own hands, its almost dis-empowering. We'r telling them they have no agency, power, or life within them. As long as we are upfront, honest, respectful and treat others with dignity should be fine. Yes, that state of limbo between meeting and where is this going or is it going somewhere anywhere serious keeps us in competition anxiety to lock each other down in the dating phase. It can be exhausting, and either side catches feelings and decides to leave as the pain gets too much for them to stay in something one sided.

Depends if we'r talking legal marriage or just the ceremony. You can still have the wedding, rings, name changes, titles etc without legally getting married. If long term 50% of marriages end, and most of the remaining stay together unhappily due to kids, religious convictions, social circles, comfort etc why make it so painful and entrapping not if but most likely when you decide to part ways. Divorce and the court system can cause financial and emotional ruin. It does provide security for the woman if/when she has children and is out of work and doesn't wish to depend on the husband. The power dynamic shifts too negatively with modern marriage laws towards women. The woman can weaponise sex to get what she wants out of the man (because he's vowed monogamy and mens sexual needs are on most of the time compared to a womens cyclical needs), financially threaten divorce, and cause emotional pain as she'll have custody of the children if they were to part. This can make the man more submissive in the relationship out of fear, which weakens her attraction only furthering the likelihood of all of the above. Best to come together and stay out of love than by the law. Can still have the fairytale theatrics to please everyone. Some thoughts on not having kids and the reasons would be - Culture (is the modern culture something you'd want your kids to be raised in) - Court system (not being fair in case of divorce) - Cost (very expensive financially, time wise also) - Opportunity cost (in the modern world we can do so much more than just pro create) - Overpopulation (self explanatory)

It can be bad for men as well like you mentioned, but worse for women as they have a harder ability separating sex and emotion the way us men do. Men go through a lot of pain and loss in dating also and become bitter, negative experience isn't just a woman thing but a human thing. For the guys who are good gaming wise you get hooked on the chase and thrill of it so once your in a relationship your even more tempted to cheat or end the relationship knowing you have the ability go get women easily. You have a certain power, and power doesn't corrupt as much as it reveals. It reveals our animal nature, instinctually which is to spread seed. Our intelligence of a higher order is what can over ride that and transcend those instincts, which we can choose to act on or not, rather than act on compulsively. Like you said, it can negatively impact men as far as relationships go. I'v dated and had success and thats the reason I contemplate all of this. I've had girls cheat with me or want to only to find out after that they were in a relationship, or had girls hit me up whilst in relationships saying they still have feelings (even 'religious' girls married who you wouldn't expect), a girl in a threesome once broke down crying after due to feelings of guilt (conservative up bringing). What it showed me was we'r all at a battle between our primal instincts and our intellect. Religion and society enforces sexual morality onto people by control rather than a natural growth that happens within us, and makes us feel bad or like we'r sinning for not living like their ideals. When you actualise your in a position to be in the world and yet not of it ie engage in instincts like sex without it having to destroy our emotional well being. We become able to connect, without being attached. We indulge in the pleasure of the world, but the presence keeps us grounded enough to be okay once that pleasure leaves and so we avoid the pain/pleasure cycle. At a higher level engaging in casual sex as a sharing of energy rather than a groping for fulfilment through other people isn't a problem and thats what the liberals/spiritualists are shooting for, but it must come naturally. We'r talking about how society should be (ie emotionally healthy for those activities) rather than how it is in its current evolution. Physically we are able to procreate from a young age, but we don't develop emotionally to handle those entanglements at those ages. Now days, we don't seem to develop emotionally at much later ages even. If we ourselves are at such a stage in development, most of humanity isn't at that stage where there able to get involved in the pleasure of another person, without becoming addicted to the pleasure that other person gives and the forth coming emotions of possessiveness, jealousy etc coming into the picture destabilising their emotions. Even girls who are just friends of mine still deal with past baggage making it harder for them to be happier in current relationships and still 'healing'. Maybe as your a higher caliber of man (being on this forum I assume so) you have no problem getting any kind of woman to bond well with you, but whats the after affect of that when she goes to someone who isn't on your level. Guys who aren't getting laid may not bother about these things as their trying to get laid in the first place, or could be using it as a cope to not take action, or just empathic enough and into self actualisation that they question life more deeply and wish to know whats the right course of action.

Dating can cause you to mature as you go through the pain of rejection and loss, learning to rely on yourself for emotional well being. Why trauma healing and presence work is so important. Presence goes beyond the pain/pleasure cycle, but the others you have interacted with aren't usually working on that. One has to learn to deal with the guilt of the collateral damage left along the way. You could rationalise that its good for our emotional development when rejected, left or cheated on but most people and especially women can't handle it. We become closed off, bitter instead of better, commitment phobic, and nihilistic in the end ie black pill or women angry at men these days. Red pill knowledge is double edged. Whats bad for women/society (hook ups leading to baggage, emotional/familial break down) is described, but whats prescribed is to spin plates, pick up and have rotations, causing the very society complained about in the end. Then they say just 'enjoy the decline' when they are living in that very declining society. Gaming and hook ups can set the precedence of enjoying variety / novelty, the thrill of the hunt and the dopamine it provides like an addiction. If intelligent, you can stop chasing the rush as with any addiction as you realise it no longer satisfies you or brings the pleasure it promises. Pleasures are external, joy is internal. Another option is to find pleasures that don't harm others emotionally. How can a guy reconcile gaming / dating casually and 'alpha widowing' women ie being so good that you leave a emotional imprint on her, causing her dissatisfaction in her future relationships with lesser men? Its the fact that you leave them better off and your such a great guy that can actually hurt even more that they lost a catch. Picking up is one thing, but dropping off is another. Every drop hurts, and going backwards, in relationships or lifestyle is always painful as comparison is the thief of joy. We appear to live in the moment but really we live in and through the past. A smaller and smaller sub group of men enjoy the pleasures of the dating market taking the women away from the average guys, and ruining these same women when they settle for less than what they experienced and which they got a taste of shortly. Morally you can clear your conscience if your upfront about your intentions and what you want, but even we know that women will try win your commitment through sex and time spent together, bonding them and inevitably getting hurt in the process of failing that. Marriage is too risky, casual dating makes the moral kind feel guilt, celibacy requires transcendence.

Depends on the place its coming from. You could make the case that monogamy requires higher consciousness as your working against your instinct to spread seed and mate with many partners, and to work continuously on the relationship despite the ups and downs, becoming bored of each other etc. You could also make the case of open relationships requiring higher consciousness as although our biology has a instinct to mate with multiple partners, evolution doesn't necessarily care for our psychological health or well being, just to survive and reproduce. It takes a very emotionally strong and centred/actualised individual to be able to love freely , free of jealousy etc. As the saying goes, before enlightenment chop wood carry water, after enlightenment chop wood carry water. You can do both, from a lower or high consciousness. The stage where society is currently at in its development, probably isn't ready for polyamory as most people aren't spiritually centred enough or have the emotional resilience for it. Especially since we are disconnected from a lot of the things or habits that could bolster our emotional health (ie connection to spirit, nature, community, healthy diets and lifestyles in general). In our tribal past they could sleep around more easily but had the backing of the tribe for resources, protections, emotional security, and even when kids popped out the village/tribe raised it rather than the burden being put solely on a single couple. Saying that, our society could evolve towards that and the small sub section of society will participate and get the ball rolling in that direction. At a higher level whether you choose to be mono or poly depends on you and the partner(s) you choose to do that with. The main difference is whether its coming from compulsion (instinct) or consciousness (intelligence). What is more natural? We are more poly by our nature, monogamous by nurture. Maybe women aren't poly in that they want multiple partners at the same time but they want the best one they can get at the time, they are monogamous one at a time rather than for life. They find it harder to separate sex and emotion like men do. Men can have a emotional connection with one partner and have sex devoid emotion despite still loving his partner. So men are monogamous in heart, but polygamous by body. Women require more emotion due to being the child bearers, so nature could have designed them to have to be picky and have emotional connection/investment from men before sex to ensure offsprings survival.. or is this more of a psychological thing that our higher intelligence just thinks is the rational thing to do? Can women have sex without much emotion or pain? We are having a lot more casual sex now days but does this lead to women being sad as a psychological response (conservative social stigma etc) or is it baked into biology also? Is that why drinking/drugs goes hand in hand with this as to cloud away the negativity of it all. There are exceptions and not all women but are most woman wired in this way? This begs the question of how we go about the whole pick up/dating game and whats ethical/moral. You could say men are pair bonding non monogamous (emotionally exclusive, sexually inclusive), where as women are pair bonding serial monogamists ( biology draws woman to man to give birth and stay bonded until the child can fend for itself or up on its own feet 3-7 years hence the 7 year itch, or that a lot of relationships last 3 years on average especially when just dating). Maybe nature hasn't designed us to be long term monogamous, but monogamous one at a time for women, and monogamish for men. The nature fallacy is the idea that if its natural its good. In that case our instinct to eat sugar salt and fat is good, or mate with anything that moves is good, or for women to mate with the strongest male for example even if they are dark triad. The instincts that we evolved served us in the past, but in the modern environment can hinder us and cause emotional heart ache as we live longer lives. Our biological evolution hasn't caught up to our cultural, social, technological, and emotional evolution. The modern environment constantly tickles our instincts, and we are at battle with our intelligence (higher consciousness) to live through intelligence rather than through instinct and make decisions that will benefit us physically emotionally etc. Of course, you can become higher conscious to the point you can indulge in your instincts (ie casual sex, poly etc) and yet remain intact emotionally. Maybe thats where evolution will take us and all the pain etc that the hook up culture is causing is pressuring us to evolve and develop emotional maturity. Although, we don't see too much of that, instead we see people become jaded, bitter, give up on dating etc and go into darkness hating the opposite sex. The resources and knowledge need to be there in society to help us develop emotionally to handle relationships maturely. Change comes from pain, but how much is too much to the point we longer have the desire to change or bother with relationships. Hence the rise of singleness etc. Maybe we need to make the distinction between pair bonding and mono/poly. You can be pair bonded with some one (emotionally) but poly sexually. In that way everyone has emotional security of having a partner with them to ride through life with, but when our biology calls us to have sex with a stranger or have a small adventure we indulge in that instinct, but realise its an indulgence and a holiday, not the home that our partner is to us. For men we are more able to do this. In general men cheat to save a relationship, women to end a relationship as women find it harder to separate sex and emotion (would love the women of the forum comment on this and if women can just have sex for the enjoyment of it devoid it leading to anything serious ie can they compartmentalise. Do women who do have sex with 'alphas' or 'fuckboys' do so in hopes of trying to win their commitment in the end and get disappointed eventually even it was always explicitly casual? If they have just sex with these guys, isn't good sex and orgasms enough to bond with that man even if its 'casual' or 'fuck buddy territory'. Theres the whole alpha fucks beta bucks thing in red pill for example where women have sex with the alpha for the strong genes, but settle with the beta for security needs). If its a one way open relationship in that the man can have sex with others, but the woman can't as maybe this is whats more in line with our biology, even if it makes sense on a logical/biological level, woman's psychology kicks in and builds resentment in the end anyway so these types of relationships struggle to work or she feels one of the sex partners may get you emotionally and risk the relationship even if you attempt to keep it as just sex with those outsiders.

Spot on. Men evolved for hard strength (overt, direct), women for soft strength (covert, indirect). For a woman being ostracised from the social group is a risk to her survival, for this reason she evolved to be more socially cunning, and social soft skills for survival. Men having physical strength so can fight for their survival, although being social also helps but doesn't need to be relied upon as much as a survival strategy as it does for women. It's the reason women are more communitarian (also because of maternal caring instincts for children), seek attention (attention from the social group especially men = being watched over protected), avoid blame / accountability / saying sorry (not entirely but generally), as it risks their survival if their 'bad' and not under the social tribe / clans protection. Men can be more individualistic and have their own opinions etc because of this, as they can defend against opposing views etc better. For this reason women are more susceptible to cults, group think, herd mentality, trends, consumerism as to fit in etc. Men also, just not as much.

It's the degrees of connection. A woman wouldn't just sleep with you if you didn't trigger her emotionally to some degree at least, sex itself gives good emotions. Its about meeting a minimum threshold of connection/comfort for them to have sex, once that minimum threshold is reached for her sexual attraction towards you along with comfort/safety threshold, she can act upon and participate in that with you. Minimum just means comfortable / connected enough and attractive enough to have sex, not that they have this amazingly deep connection in order to have sex, or for it to need to be at a maximum level. The minimum level of comfort needed will vary from girl to girl and the situation. If a girl is conservative or holds her self off for sex then it will be higher, if a girl is more liberal and in a party setting along with being drunk then her threshold is lower, if a girl is emotionally guarded due to past bad experiences/trauma then it may also be lower as she doesn't want to get too connected out of fear of being hurt yet she sleeps for pleasure, resources, validation etc. People can and do have sex just for pleasure, its not good or bad its just limited in what it provides as its not of depth. Its like eating junk food, its pleasurable but not satisfying, versus eating a healthy diet. @Preety_India Emotional connection vs emotional stimulation is a good way of putting it. The body is aroused, the mind is attracted and they both reinforce each other ie the mind connects and forms a romantic story of this person which illicits a emotional response in the body, or the body is aroused sexually and the mind rationalises these good feelings around the same person and confirms to itself how good this person is. Thats why in pick up they say create a bubble of 'us' which is a story of 'we' between the man and woman. In this way there isn't really just casual sex, although it may start that way. Shouldn't the continuous positive emotions from sex with that person eventually bond that person to you as you rationalise the person must be good if your having sex with them, and start to elevate their positive traits in your mind which further reinforces the arousal of the body etc etc. I guess you need a minimal connection to get casual sex, but its hard to keep it casual if two people are continuously having sex over a period of time as the bond forms.

How does a man tell a woman he doesn't believe in legal marriage as its unfair or bias against men. Most women won't take you seriously ? And it calls into question your trust in your partner.. its a tricky situation yet a lot of people are having kids and partnering without it now days also.

We live through stories, its our way of making sense of the world we find ourselves in and is what holds things, people, nations together. The story of nation, religion, marriage etc. People change and so can their story in marriages. Their story becomes I'm unhappy, or you grow apart from your partner and deserve better or are better off single with your own space/hobbies no one interferes in etc. People change with power, and in marriage power is generally transferred and in the hands of the woman. All is not fair in love and war. Committing on paper isn't just a piece of paper with ink on it. Its your emotional well being and financial assets on the line ie your survival needs going into another's hands partially. It not that simple, and in todays world people change faster, stories change, jobs change, ideas and perspectives change as we have access to much more than we did in the past. In the past we had consistency in things like where we lived, the people we grew up and would know for life, the occupation you had you'd have for life etc. Now the pace of change is fast, and the only certainty is uncertainty, and with that people also. Finally, you are with yourself. Committed relationships are beautiful, it can be the one constant narrative in your life despite so much change around you, and that shared history is beautiful to experience and has depth, but it does take work and comes with its own risks.

True, you could say the fact you need a legal document calls into question the trust of the relationship, yet society persists that if you don't commit on paper the trust isn't there. Marriage can also be seen as trust because in marriage your basically saying I trust you so much that I hand you the power to financially and emotionally destroy me. People say prenups kill the romance, but from another pov could say it shows that both parties aren't in it for monetary gain but for each other as people. I guess it's all on how we view things but we can rationalise any relationship setup to be trusting ,valid, secure or not. We'r rationalising creatures more than we are rational lol.

Marriage offers woman security. While she gives birth / raises children and is unpaid in that process, in case of the man leaving her at a later point in life when its harder for her to get into another relationship due to looks declining and that older people have less options in general, she has a financial cushion to support her self. This all makes sense, but the the laws are a bit too far biased against men. Men just don't trust women of the modern world due to them having higher body counts, not being able to pair bond and stick around as easily, past ex's they can go back to, cheating almost as much as men and it being easier than ever with apps big cities and no stigma, no fault divorce where you can divorce just because you 'feel like it', divorce rates being high with women initiating most of them 70-80% of the time. Forget man, what human in their right mind would sign up for such a thing. A marriage ceremony is nice to have, but not legally being married. Even int he case of prenup it just starts the whole relationship in a awkward manner.

Quoted '' If a man is to marry, there is reasonable fear the fresh legal supremacy his woman enjoys will disrupt the balance of power that previously maintained their relationship. The informed man is all too aware the legal privilege of the modern wife can be used to force him into domestic servitude, and that legally speaking, the marriage hangs on a thread tied to a hovering sword that follows him wherever he goes. From the moment he has said “I do”, a dangling sword of Damocles stalks him, scrutinising his every action, primed to strike. Too many mistakes, and the sword falls, divorce initiated, financial and emotional chaos wrought. Now of course there is an imbecilic, ignorant argument to be made that “not all women are like that“, and indeed this is true, not all women will whimsically detonate a divorce bomb. And yet a wise man in his prudence must ask himself “is my woman like that?” and then follow up this question with “if my woman is not like that, what is the likelihood she could become like that?” to which the answer in all earnestness is a most pertinent “easily”. If too much comfort is indulged, if too much is neglected or too much left to chance – the ruination of marital union is all but a certainty. A marriage is like a car hanging off a cliff, it requires the man driving to accelerate now and again to ensure the car does not tilt and fall into the ocean below. Just as it was in courting, in marriage the burden of performance is man’s to bear. If man fails in his capacity as husband, or is at least perceived to have failed, he loses everything, by contrast if his woman is an abysmal failure of a wife, she gets a pay day and a fresh chance. In today’s society a woman’s marriage risk is minimal, and of course, this comes at the expense of man’s being astronomical. Women do not fear marriage because they have no reason to, men do because they have every reason to. A marriage’s odds of success are merely improved, but still mightily unfavourable for man even when the potential wife is of considerable quality. And so although it is not impossible to become a patriarch, it is a dangerous affair regardless of who is involved. This danger is neither explicitly the man nor the woman involved’s fault, but rather, the fault of a judicial system that makes marriage so costly to men. The success of a marriage is of course dependent solely on the parties involved, but what was once merely a monumental investment on the part of man has been perverted by the misandry of feminism into a monumental gamble. A sensible man is not a gambling man, he does not wager half his assets and his emotional stability on the odds of a woman’s whim remaining pretty. No matter who is involved, this aspect remains the same: a man has no assurances nor protection from the state, in a worst case scenario, the woman is protected and the man is left to rot. Idiots will marry blindly and gamblers will marry brazenly, whilst sensible men will abstain and the intelligent romantically delay.'' ''The salvation of a crumbling civilization, the very thing it needs to persist and replenish itself morally, intellectually and socially is the very thing that has been poisoned to disincentivise man, the family. Deprive a nation of the nuclear family, and eventually, you deprive a nation of its very existence. And it is the poisoning of women by feminism in tandem with the hostility of family law that is encouraging men to embrace the playboy lifestyle in record numbers, in an accelerating social breakdown, cocaine, whiskey and hookers can seem like a smart choice to the live hard opportunist. We cannot blame the men who shy away from their responsibility as men, Christians, or whatever, for not indulging the burden of patriarchy when said burden has been contorted to ensure man’s life will almost certainly become a living hell should he be anything but perfect. When men conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the potential for marriage, and rightfully deduce the chance of success is not in their favour, and that a painless exit is all but unattainable, we cannot blame their aversion. It is easy to mount the entirety of blame on men, and accuse them of immaturity and commitment phobia. But I believe many men are, at heart, family men. They are socially smart for avoiding marriage, but evolutionarily dumb for not reproducing. Many things in life are a trade-off, and this is by far one of the greatest a man will ever contemplate.''

We have advanced to the point where victory could have defeated us. The rational optimist/ pinker and few others show us stats of progress and while there is progress on technological levels, wealth, green values etc this doesn't seem to be translating to human happiness. We have environmental issues, mental illness, life expectancy decreasing, relationships in turmoil, modern dating issues with the divide between men and women and low fertility / declining population which could lead to economic stagnation / collapse. Loss of meaning, connection to each other and nature. Our own advancements ie internet and now social media is polarising us more and more. Culturally and technologically we are evolving, but our social and conscious evolution can't keep pace to keep those forces in check or from destroying us. The question of family comes in and if one's out look on life and the future doesn't look good it begs the question why would you want to bring life into the current world only to suffer. Not sure if Leo wants kids or family, but I ponder this a lot and am uncertain. When you tell people you don't want children due to a dire future, people with kids get angry as it puts them in fear mode, and people without kids especially women get emotional and call you negative, weak (shaming guilt tactics) etc as it goes heavily against their maternal instinct and social norms. It seems most humans aren't rational humans but rationalising humans. The only thing certain is uncertainty, in the past we also had uncertainty but the issue now is the pace of change and level is so fast with technology we can't keep up or balance / ride the wave of change. We have more than ever technology / knowledge wise to fix many of our issues so the world could go either way, it all depends on us. But seeing how the world couldn't even come together to tackle covid and now the war mongering happening, it seems humans aren't evolved enough yet. Only this time, we have enough power to destroy us. Smart people are saying similar such as Yuval Noah Harari. What do you all think?