Emerald

I can relate 😄

In this case, what I mean by love is a relationship between two people based on a deep feeling of bondedness that has grown over time… and where people’s lives have grown intertwined with one another over time. But the issue with your questions is that you’re trying to make love fit into your current paradigm about male/female dynamics. And love can’t fit into that paradigm at all. Lao Tzu said, “If you want to gain knowledge, add things every day. But if you want to gain wisdom, remove things every day.” You’ll have to embrace the “not knowing” to open yourself up beyond your current paradigm… which might feel scary. I sense that you ask all these questions to try to get maximum assurance so as not to get hurt. But it’s that very tendency that will keep you from opening up and connecting,

I totally get that. The raw approach is good too and you convey your points very well. And to be honest, my initial emotional reaction is always a mix of incredulity and exasperation when someone says something wild… especially about women in ways that evoke feelings of powerlessness (usually due to misrepresentation of some sort or another and not being heard/seen because of being overshadowed by the misrepresentation). It just grates against those ancient Feminine wounds and my Nervous System short circuits for a moment or two and 10,000 volcanoes explode before I can collect my thoughts. 😄

Me saying that you have to experience it is a means of me trying to get you out of rationalizing mode. I cannot explain to you what must be directly experienced nor would it be helpful. If you wanted to learn how to play basketball, you could read every book and figure out every technical understanding of the physics of it intellectually. But no amount of rational understanding will help you learn how to play basketball. You have to actually play basketball. Likewise, understanding love on a rational/intellectual level won’t help you develop this kind of connection. My best advice is to let go of the need to know what love is intellectually and instead focus on developing warmth and connecting with other people (women and men) on a friendly level. Then, after you get used to connecting, this will set the stage for you to connect in a more romantic way.

You’re identifying too strongly with being the good guy and savior of women. Be careful, if I had to pick between who scared me off more… a pickup guy or a guy who thinks himself a defender of women’s chastity… the latter would put me off a lot more. Now, both would probably put me off. It’s just not equal. The reason why is because the pickup guy’s motive is something I can understand in a straightforward way. I would get why a guy would want to have sexual experiences with women even if I don’t want to be one of them. But a guy who fancies himself an agent working for the divine feminine to protect women’s chastity is likely dealing with a variety of different Shadows that will likely come out in ways that scare women off. Here’s a list of things that could be underneath the surface of someone who thinks this way… Feelings of moral superiority over other men Feeling like sex is bad which indicates sexual shame and repression and all the monstrous expressions that can take Jealousy over women’s past sexual experiences A desire to control female sexuality Having false projections of female innocence and seeing women only as the victims of villainous men that need to be saved by virtuous men Not being able to see the woman for who she is outside of this narrative Identifying with the good guy to the degree that you cannot recognize yourself as threatening Delusions of grandeur around being the savior figure to women Fetishization of female purity which can lead to seeking very young partners with no previous sexual experience Seeking female validation by being the good guy who’s not like the other guys Tone deafness and being unaware of how much these ideas would make a woman cringe Etc. I’m not saying that all of that is necessarily true for you. But it is what I immediately would think when someone says what you said.

You’re trying to rationalize all this way too much. But you won’t be able to understand what it’s like until you experience this type of connection. Most people are capable of forming non-transactional relationships with one another on the basis of mutual love. And that in itself is what most people who truly value having a relationship are looking for. Mind you, there are many people with traumas/coping mechanisms that could shake a relationship apart. There can also be fundamental incompatibilities that make a relationship untenable. But in lieu of these complicating factors, most people want to love and be loved. The relationship dynamic itself is the thing that is of primary value. The other give and take elements are just side components. It seems like you believe that a woman would only value a man out of some external need that he meets. You don’t seem to believe that a woman can value a relationship with a man because she loves that man in particular:

Great point 🙂

I recommend checking out the work of Drs. John and Julie Gottman. They have done decades worth of research on what creates a happy relationship and can predict with 94% accuracy which couples will stay together and which won't. They just did an interview on Diary of a CEO recently...

Sure. There are better and worse ways to cope with the shame. Red Pill guys and pickup guys (the ones that this shame dynamic applies to) are generally going to have better coping strategies to deal with their shame than Incels and Black Pill guys. In fact, some men (and people in general) can become wildly successful with women and with life in general because they're coping with shame. But if you look, you'll see that the common thread of toxicity that runs through each of these communities is a shame-based toxicity. That includes the toxicity in the pickup community. But the pickup community is more of a mixed bag because there are guys that end up there just because they want to learn attraction skills. It's a place where some go there to chase two rabbits... to get good with women and to try to alleviate shame through female validation. And some go there to chase one rabbit... to get good with women. That's why, in my original post, I didn't include pickup as directly being a community of shame. But I mentioned pickup as a side element that has a lot of this dynamic within it... but isn't what I would call strictly a community of shame. This is the exact quote of what I said.... "And the pattern that has coalesced can be seen in communities like Red Pill, Incels, MGTOW, and the Manosphere in general. You can also see it in men who aren't directly involved with these online communities but that tend to have a lot of bitterness and mistrust towards women. And you can see these same patterns arise in pickup/male dating communities a lot as well."

The men that I'm primarily referring to in this post (that are involved in Manosphere groups) get anxious because they believe that, when a woman rejects them, it means something about their measure as a man and their existential worth more generally. This is a dynamic that occurs mildly in most men to some degree or another. But in the groups that I mentioned, that internal narrative is more extreme and almost take on a Social Darwinian view where attractive women are the arbiters of male worth and that men "have to be in the top 10% of men" to be worthy.

I'm not talking specifically about pickup guys. I'm talking about Red Pill, Incels, and that types of guy. You can find this pattern in pickup communities too because there is crossover. But I'm talking about a different sort of echo chamber.

I'm very glad to hear that. Thank you for letting me know.

There’s deeper intimacy, cuddling, sex, parenthood and lots of other subtle dynamics that can only be had with a male partner as opposed to a friend. And I don’t see why provision would be off the table as something men are valued for after Feminism. I personally prefer a dynamic of mutual contribution in a relationship. But that’s still provision. It’s just the sense that I don’t have to do it all alone and that I have someone to share life with. And that I have someone that I can rely on for help if I need it. It’s a feeling of relaxation knowing I don’t have to deal with things alone and that I don’t have to struggle against life by myself. It’s the closeness, affection, companionship, and mutual support that I value the most. And I prefer that dynamic with a man.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get better with dating/approach skills. It’s useful. And of course motivations are multifaceted. If the shame dynamic I talked about was resolved totally, men would still want/need skills for meeting women. So, I’m sure when you sought out pickup, you probably had quite a lot of your motivation based on functionality. Also, while most men have some level of shame relative to the dynamic that I mentioned, keep in mind that I’m talking about guys who specifically end up in communities like the ones in the Manosphere. And shame is the glue that keeps those communities coalescing together. But if you don’t think you’re dealing with shame, I would implore you to look again. People who get really into self-improvement tend to have a lot of shame because many are trying to transcend some intonation of themselves that they disliked and could not stomach. So, even though I wouldn’t characterize you as a Manosphere guy because you’re not getting sucked into those communities, I can notice that your acceptance of yourself is very conditional. The more conditional your self-acceptance is, the more shame you will have. That’s true even if you’re meeting all of your conditions.

You’d be incorrect to not call that shame as the shame is as I described it by definition. Men can feel shame if they struggle to get sex if they make the meaning “I’m not lovable” or “I’m not enough” out of it. And anyone who struggles in that department could end up creating some of those shame narratives about themselves even if they don’t fall into the manosphere vortex. But even men in these kinds of communities who have a high degree of self-efficacy with getting sex from women still feel shame. And that’s because the shame can’t be fixed by getting better with women… or by any means of self-improvement. So getting sex doesn’t change that because the shame is about feeling invalid on the level of being. And we can cope with shame through all means of self-improvement tactics. But these tactics cannot fix our shame issues even if we do overcome the perceived problem. The only antidote to shame is unconditional self-love and self-compassion.

If it were just a sexual need, it wouldn’t be expressed in such a toxic way. And if it were just a sexual need, it would go away in men who get good at doing pick-up. But it doesn’t. There are plenty of men in these communities of shame who have female partners and who are good at getting sex who still hold the same resentments. So, I’m not just talking about incels.

That’s more like the definition of embarrassment and guilt… which often get used interchangeably with shame. Embarrassment/Humiliation is being seen by others in a foolish light that we don’t want to be seen in. Guilt/remorse is having done something that hurt someone or that we see as unethical and feeling bad about it. But shame is about feeling like we are invalid. It’s the feeling of exile and like we don’t belong in a social group or in reality at large. It is to feel unlovable and like we are a mistake.

To explain this we have to see how the current societal structure isn’t working towards pro-social ends. We all live in fractured off single-family households without a strong sense of community. And those single-family households easily break apart. So, we’re living in a very fractured lonely time period which only gets worse with social media because we’re not socializing in person. And everyone’s running a rat race just to make ends meet and doesn’t have energy to engage in community. But the reality that I’ve noticed is that people need each other. Not just on a task level… but on a connection level. So, husbands and wives still rely on one another to contribute to the household and children. It’s nearly impossible to do it alone. But more so that that, there is a deep-seated connection need that we have for the people in our lives. And many (probably most) women need a connection with a long term male partner to feel like their social/emotional needs are fulfilled. For women who have been hurt by a man in the past, this can create a lot of painful feelings because there is a sense that they need what hurts them. And it can create feelings of powerlessness and anger. I see similar dynamics with men who have bad experiences with a woman. But overall, men might feel the most unneeded if he lacks a feeling of contribution to a relationship, family, or wider community. Or if he feels like his contributions aren’t acknowledged. But the number one thing a man can do to offset this is to be in community and relationships with those who value him.

Shame is what happens when we apply some condition upon ourselves in order to be existentially valid. And shame is to be in the illusion that we are separate from all things in reality and don’t belong here. Sometimes people build their motivational drivers on the foundation of getting away from shame. But this leaves them with a lifetime of feeling disconnected and inadequate. It’s a common misconception that shame is helpful because people can become hyper-motivated to get away from it. But overall it just leads to workaholism and a terrible life with no self love. Instead, it’s much more sustainable and functional to motivate one’s self based primarily on positive motivation and from a self-loving place. Otherwise life just comes to be about running from the monster of shame.

@Jayson G There will always be an interest in improving skills with dating/meeting women/sex among men. That's not where the toxic element comes from. The toxic element comes from shame... which stems from the pressures that I mentioned. The issue is when men consciously believe that they just want to get better with women/dating... but in actuality are unconsciously looking for a salve to alleviate the shame. This is when the drive to connect with women get's pretzeled into the drive to alleviate shame. And men don't consciously realize that they're chasing two rabbits.

What do you mean by “admitted daddy issues”? What did I say? The majority of my parental issues have been with my mom.

Are you saying that men generally don’t feel pressure to match up to a Masculine ideal? Are you claiming that men as a collective actually feel more pressured to be Feminine than they are pressured to be Masculine?

Yes, this dynamic is a big part of what I mean.

Shame is about feeling fundamentally unworthy of existence. And the only antidote to shame is unconditional self-love. Any attempt to fix one’s self will always backfire and produce more shame because shame is about feeling invalid on the level of being. And running from shame is not a sustainable motivation strategy.

There are some solid points within this around the ideal Feminine image that tackle this topic from a different angle. Men’s shame in their Feminine side tends to come through the lens of Anima issues. There are 4 phases to Anima development… The Eve phase The Helen phase The Mary phase The Sophia phase In the Eve phase, men are the least integrated with their Anima (the Feminine side) and have a strong aversion to the Feminine and see women as both incapable and untrustworthy. In the Helen phase, men are somewhat more integrated with their Anima than in the Eve phase but still have an aversion to the Feminine and see women as capable but untrustworthy. In the Mary phase, it is named for the Virgin Mary. And the Feminine is idealized and viewed as pure goodness without any capacity for wickedness…. And women are seen as the purer sex. In the Sophia phase, this reflects a total dropping of shame regarding the Feminine side and a full integration of Anima. And the Feminine is recognized as multifaceted and women are seen as just human (without the projection of the Anima overlaying them) and are seen as free agents capable of both good and evil. What you describe here is what happens when a man in the Mary phase is faced with the reality of women being capable of ‘evil’. And they can either use this to transcend to the Sophia phase of slip back into the Helen phase.