mr_engineer

You approach a girl, she says 'Ew, you creep!' You have to find a way to invalidate that criticism immediately, or else it will weigh on you for years. This is the real point of social calibration. It's so that you know and understand the 'norms' of how things 'should work' so that morons can't sway you.

Alright. It is time for me to demonstrate what I mean. In you come with 'being bothered by criticism means that you're not a real man, you're a little boy'. Here's my deflection : I disagree. I think that someone who is a 'man' is grounded enough to know that it hurts when you're criticized. And knows how to protect himself.

@Leo Gura You're talking about pick-up and cold-approach, which is a very specific circumstance. Yeah, you will have a lot of phonies smiling through their teeth at you, if you play their little social game and follow their stupid rules. Right now, we have a whole bunch of media that's spreading man-hate. Everyone who says anything about men has way too much negative shit to say about men and zero good things. And, all men need one point-blank solid answer as to 'how to feel secure as a man, how to protect yourself from all of this negativity'. It's too much negativity to ignore, you need explicit ways to shut people up about you.

Wouldn't this enable their behavior? When I hear this advice, a part of me is like 'that's a little bitch-move, they insult you and berate you and you just take it'.

Would you say that physical and mental health is a major factor in happiness? If it is, then the comfort-zone that I described is a big happiness-killer. Fair enough. This is a relativistic stance on happiness. If you do figure out the optimal path to happiness, please do teach it. It will get a lot of attention.

Easy does not mean happy, right? The easiest thing to do is to stay in your crappy comfort-zone, eating Cheetos and watching TV (from a newbie's perspective, not necessarily your or my perspective). Will that make you happy? What is the optimal path to happiness, then? And if this isn't it, why do you do what you do?

You sure you want to be saying that, being a self-improvement teacher?! If that's the message we send to newbies, how will we raise the world's level of consciousness?! The biggest impact you can have on the world is with self-improvement newbies.

If liberals really are more developed than conservatives, this shouldn't happen, right?! Here's my opinion on this - Liberals and Democrats are more concerned with 'deconstruction' than 'construction'. To have deconstruction be your biggest motivator, means that you're coming from a place of unhappiness. Now, true, it's possible that conservatives are also unhappy and just aren't admitting to it. Having said that, this is a problematic stat for progress in general and it will motivate more people to just dig their heels in the sand. Progressives need a better vision for what a better world would look like. Deconstruction is not enough to create a happy life. Sure, it's good for letting go of attachment and unnecessary neuroses in life. But, if you don't have a constructive agenda alongside, you will not have an alternative system to monkey-branch to. You will have no hope for the future, you will become nihilistic and depressed. Yes, nihilism is the ultimate truth and life ultimately is meaningless. But, what this also means is that the responsibility for your happiness is fully on your shoulders. And our society is not meant for people to prioritize happiness, it's meant for people who prioritize survival. So, in the short-term, the conservatives will be happier than the progressives.

If that were the case, why would women report greater levels of happiness with them?

The first thing you have to do is you have to figure out the right emotional-dynamic that you want in relationships. In simple terms, what emotional-need do you want women to meet for you and what emotional-need you want to meet for them. Figure out a win-win there. The way you do this is by doing trauma-work/inner-child work and you find your strengths in relationships. This will tell you who the compatible women are. Next, you go to those compatible women and you offer what you have to offer, to them. Then you'll get hook-point! Everyone wants attention these days. All guys want female attention (which is what hook-point is). So, to get it, you have to do something that they aren't doing. And you have to offer something unique that they aren't offering. Because what you're wanting is attention, this is a marketing-problem and it has a marketing-solution.

The question is - 'What do women want in a romantic partner?' (Not in a sexual partner, in a romantic partner. To get laid, game is enough, I'm not denying that.) The answer is - Women want a man who is more successful than their (her) boss. It's not just enough to be the best on their level, you have to be the best on a level above them. This is why dating sucks when you're a young man. And most men in their 20s are content just sleeping around. It's not because they only care about sex, it's because they have low standards. Because they can't afford to have high standards, because this is what the modern woman wants. They talk about feminism raising the standards on men's behavior and 'respecting women', that 'women don't have to put up with your shit' and 'this is what makes you angry' (lol, nice gaslighting-attempt). What they don't talk about, is that the standards also get raised financially. And this is what's really disillusioning a lot of young men. Does this change anything about the patriarchy?! Nope. This is why they don't talk about this. Because, if they did, the whole independence-ideology would collapse. Can the men who are on this level of success have 'toxic masculinity'? Yes. But, it will be excused. Because, the bigger priority that women have in dating is just not talked about, which is that they have this level of success. It is a shame that decoding female behavior is so exceptionally hard. If women were just straightforward about this, years of men's lives would be saved.

Did she have an alternative for you? If not, she's full of shit and you need a new therapist.

As long as it's not dangerous, you could find girls who are into that shit.

Just don't do pick-up, then. Practice meeting women through your social-circle. Pick-up may not be for you. You need a very thick skin for rejection if you're going to do pick-up. You have to see women as a number and nothing more than that until they date you. You have to be very pragmatic. I don't feel intuitively guided to have this attitude towards dating and women. I would like to have more information about a woman before I make up my mind about her too, I would like things to go more 'naturally' for me. Pick-up really does feel like I would be forcing the issue, which is precisely why it primarily attracts players who want to use and throw women. Maybe that's what disgusts women about you cold-approaching them, that this may just not be your attitude towards dating in general, and you're committing to a process that you're not authentically on board with. Basically, what I'm getting at is that you need to have a 'player-frame', it should appeal to you. Then you will succeed in pick-up. To me personally, I find the player-frame very disgusting. And it doesn't align me with my goals, it feels like a big distraction, to become so cold-hearted towards women just so that I will have stories of sexual escapades to talk about. That's the only benefit of casual sex, really. (And, by the way, having a player-frame does not make you more 'loving' towards women, it makes you less 'loving'.)

Yeah, but how do you define the technique without theory?! Why should you believe in a certain technique, if there's no theory giving you a reason to believe that it will work?! You don't find the technique out there, you have to define it yourself and discover it for yourself. I don't even know how you define 'practice' without theory. What is it that you're 'practicing'?! Practice with theory is called 'deliberate practice'. I really don't see the point of demonizing theory. Isn't that because they need better theory? And better research that improves the theory? Keep in mind that what a doctor's degree ultimately means, is that they know theory. That they have taken theory-exams, passed them and gotten their degree. If they didn't have their degree and just said that they know what they're doing, you wouldn't believe them.

It can turn into a cult if the 'cult-leader' demonizes those who question them. If they can properly answer questions, then it can be consensual. And, the 'consent' being mindful, willing and uncoerced.

By meeting them through your social circle. The fact that pick-up has such a low success-rate is not an accident. The reason for it is that women don't trust people totally detached from their social-circle. I believe more in going through your social-circle than cold-approach.

This analogy is wrong, precisely because there is a tried and tested path to get good at playing a musical instrument. There is no debate about what it means to be good at it. Whereas in relationships, everyone disagrees on the theory. So, figuring out the theory is exceptionally hard work. There are certain 'high-yield techniques' to get good at anything. With musical instruments, because the consensus is strong, it's easy to just go to any music teacher and ask them what the technique is, they'll tell you. And that technique is universal, because no matter who you are, you're playing the same musical instrument. But, that's simply not the case with relationships! It's very personal. So, you will have to discover that high-yield technique for yourself. Based on your vision for it, your strengths and abilities, your resources. And, if I tell you what mine is, you may dismiss it and say 'no, that's invalid, mine is the only right one'. But who are you to say that about my high-yield technique?! Yall really need to get out of your illusions of the right way to go about this and wake up to the very real issues at hand. The biggest one being, the lack of theory. Stop denying the need for theory, it's very much needed. Religion has totally fucked up people's minds on the issue of relationships, so much so that atheistically minded people are running from relationships. That's why the divorce-rates are going up. Because your belief in God is how you create belonging, it's God that decides where you belong in this universe that it created, who you belong with. So, in order to create belonging, a shared belief relative to God is a must. This is why religions prefer to get people married within the religion.

@CARDOZZO I've read 'The Anatomy of Loneliness' by Teal Swan. Out of all the material I've seen out there, that book I take the most seriously.

"Do or do not. There is no try." - Yoda. When you go for it, you're not supposed to leave the possibility of failure open. It is essential that we nail this. Because the consequences of screwing this up could absolutely ruin our lives. This is not a game of house. Lives are on the line here. I DO NOT CONSENT TO GOING THROUGH 2-5 BREAK-UPS. Period, the end. Why the hell should I get my heart broken so many times, when I can just learn from the mistakes of others and not make them?! And they're really elementary mistakes, by the way. They seem really elementary and avoidable to someone who understands the theory, because most people don't know the theory of making relationships work. Doctors who went to med-school 40 years ago didn't learn a thing about genetics. So, they literally don't understand genetics. Now, though, students who go to med-school study huge books on genetics. So, they just know better about genetics. Better than doctors with 50 years of experience. Similarly, there was no social-media 40 years ago. So, Gen-X'ers know less about social-media than Gen-Z'ers. Evolution is a thing that you're not factoring in. Decades of experience isn't everything. A similar thing is happening on the relationships-front. Not so long ago, compromise was king when it came to making relationships work. That's simply not the case anymore. Now, it's all about compatibility. And personalization. The rules of the game have completely changed. And, everyone disagrees on the right strategy to win the game. Why does med-school have books, then?! There is a reason the best surgeons write books. It's for future surgeons to learn surgery. And, if you're not reading the big names in your field, you will cause a lot of suffering. Inevitably. A newly educated surgeon knows the theory of surgery, so they're fit to start doing surgeries. So, no, they do not have a 100% rate of killing you.

You mean, someone who screwed up 2-5 relationships?! That's a huge red-flag for me, actually. If you're going to screw things up, why not take baby-steps first?! When you say 'someone who's been through 2-5 relationships', I hear 'someone who's been through 2-5 break-ups' and I mentally dismiss that. I don't want 2-5 break-ups. Do you?! Or, it could be because the senior developer is so senior that the languages of their time don't exist anymore and they didn't keep up with the times enough to understand the languages of our time. I'd trust the person who only knows theory. At least, there's a possibility that they won't screw it up. But, someone who doesn't know theory, who's just slashing you with a knife, will, for sure, screw it up. Then, they'll be like 'I have a lot of experience dismembering people's organs with my knife. My body-count is 11. What's yours?!'

If it's a shitty textbook, I do, in fact, have to read another one and another one until the subject-matter makes sense to me. Then, I get to 'doing the math'. In fact, the process of finding the right textbook is a huge struggle in something as complicated as relationships. You have to make your own theory, actually. Cuz in math no matter who you are, 2+2 is still 4. But, relationships are very personal. Yeah, but that training doesn't show up as a W on their CV until they get it after 2 years. Also, until they have their first W, do you really know whether they were 'thinking and theorizing' or 'training'?! Socializing, speed-dating events, spending time with family, going to community-events and participating in them, connecting with women, making masculine/feminine dynamics work, going to salsa-class and figuring out the cultural obstacles in the masculine/feminine dynamics, doing trauma-work with therapists, having shadow-work groups in which we did trauma-resolution together, etc. Takes some observation but you can learn a lot just in everyday interactions with people, it's not that big of a deal. The thing is that whatever little experience I've had, happens to contradict what people who have been in fifty-year marriages say. Most people are utterly deluded about relationships. There is a severe lack of theory on it. In fact, when people like you say that it's not even needed, I find that ridiculous. I'm going to theorize based on whatever little experience I have. No, I'm not building castles in air. You don't have to believe me. But, I will not let you take away my right to make sense of the mind-fuckery that today's relationships are. He's more of an expert than a 1600s doctor who's done a lot of so-called 'surgeries' by doing blood-letting. When a new paradigm comes along through the new generation, this 'lack of experience' argument is a very common one that the established status-quo uses to discredit them. Relationships today are a shitshow. And it's all because there's no proper paradigm to make sense of them. Yall can sit on the sidelines and do nothing about this and say that 'this is an impossible problem to solve'. But please, let me do something about this.

People train for a couple of years before entering a ring. People go to college for 4-5 years and just study theory before getting their first job. It works out fine for them. You have to learn a lot of theory to make a relationship work. You have to know and understand what 'compatibility' means as a concept, what 'love' means, what 'masculinity' and 'femininity' mean, what 'protection' means, what 'teamwork' means, what 'belonging' means, what 'community' means, what 'family' means, what 'emotional needs' are, what 'significance' means. Even though I haven't jumped directly into a relationship, I have practically seen and observed how these concepts play out in real life. That's what my modelling is based on. I'm in the process of creating something that doesn't exist yet. You don't just 'get' relationships in the marketplace by paying money for it, you gotta create it. And it takes a lot of thinking to get it right, to make it work. Calling this mental-masturbation is like saying that 'Thomas Edison mentally masturbated in his lab for 50 years, failing to make the lightbulb work for thousands of times, before he made it work.' And, don't underestimate the negative consequences of getting into a relationship with the wrong person. That's not smart, actually, it could destroy your life. Your health, your money, everything could go down the drain with the wrong decision. Your advice basically sounds like 'when you're starting a business, don't think about the problems that could come up and how you're going to solve them, oh no. Just go for it, just invest everything you've got into a business, no matter how bad the idea is. If you lose everything and you die in the process, well, at least, you learned something! And don't talk to anyone about the practical difficulties of having a business, don't have a plan, just take action. If you die, we will have a great time cremating you.' Even Cinderella has a 'prince charming' in it. It's mostly kings, princes, CEOs. The only times I've seen a female-focused movie show a man with subpar success is when he's either the butt of a joke, or to demonize him as a 'bad deadbeat husband'.

Is this just condescension for its own sake or is there a point to it? What could go wrong if I think about this hyper-logically? I'm talking about the rom-coms pitched to women, not to men. The ones pitched to men do, in fact, show 'love triumphing over materialism', where the skinny nerd gets the girl over the jock, cuz 'love triumphs over materialism', 'he's more sensitive and loving than the jock'. But, in the ones pitched to women, they show a well-set, well-built, financially stable guy who also happens to be emotionally sensitive (lol, that's just not the reality for most well-set guys, you gotta be a ruthless killer to be that rich, unless you have a contribution-based Life-Purpose, in which case the protagonist/superhero is the man and not the woman), who takes her on expensive dates/vacations/they meet at a party in Miami or something where he's the host/very close to the host. And, the plot is about some emotional drama that happens with his ex, where his ex and the female protagonist are making each other jealous and then, he sees how much she loves her, how 'authentically feminine' she is, as opposed to the shallow ex who just wears push-up bras to look hot/who has a rich background herself.