Emerald

I have tended to push back on that one by saying something similar... "Imagine a male version of me, who is just as interested in consciousness work... and equally nerdy about these topics. Then ask yourself: Does that man experience attractions in a fundamentally different way from the average man?" And of course, the answer is "no". And I've often used a similar example of... "Imagine there's a woman who's a very popular female dating expert who has a TON of influence over young women. And she's very un-attractive and un-appealing to most men... and clearly quite toxic. But imagine that she has all the receipts. And she's got tons of men chasing after her and wanting to lock her down. And she's getting and turning down a bunch of marriage proposals from very insecure men. And now, she's peddling her "tips and tricks" to young women that will repel like 70% of men... which includes the best and most compatible men. Then, part of her system says, "Never listen to a man about what he wants. You already know him better than he knows himself." And this creates a paradigm lock for any woman who listens to her, as no conflicting information can be let in from a man. And then, she's so popular that like 30% of women start drinking her Koolaid... and start doing really un-attractive things. But it's audacious. So, the women who use these tactics do indeed get more men falling all over themselves. Then, when a man says... actually those things are just repellant. Try a different strategy. They're like, "What do you know? You're just a man!" or "Well, you're a special exception because you're an ultra-conscious man." or some other tactics borne from a desire to maintain this "expert's" POV. Then, her model is a popular business model. And the majority of female dating coaches start working from her same script and frameworks. Then, there's a "female loneliness crisis" because most of the men (the ones who are more discerning) got disgusted by these easy-to-spot behaviors... and avoided any woman who uses these tactics."

I had forgotten to add this one to the list. But strawmanning is also another tactic to quell cognitive dissonance by reframing the opposing perspective to one that's not as strong... and thus easier to discredit and disregard. So, my perspective is, "There are many men who hold onto comforting frameworks about women. And when they hear perspectives that might cause doubt in those comforting perspectives, they will use tactics to quell their cognitive dissonance in order to maintain their attachment to those ideas." And you used the tactic of strawmannirg to reframe my perspective as, "Anyone who disagrees with me is wrong." So, you misrepresent my perspective and build a straw man of it. And then you smack down the straw man of my perspective in order to preserve your paradigms about women, attraction, and relationships.

That sounds like more of an incompatibility issue from the woman's perspective, than anything else. The issue is that people get into relationships with other people who can't meet their needs. And then, they try all kinds of tactics to get the other person to change into the person who can meet their needs... including nagging, criticism, etc. And the painful thing is going, "This person is incompatible with what I need to feel good in a relationship." And then having to admit there is no way to make it work... and breaking up with a person they're deeply attached to. That's why it's so important to be very romantically discerning and to ask questions like... If nothing about this person ever changed, would I be able to co-exist comfortably with this person for years? If I had a child with this person, would I be comfortable with this person operating as they current do? And if the answer is "No" to either of them... don't get into a relationship with them. The issues is that women can tend to go for WHO they want rather than WHAT they want because of the hyper-particularized nature of female attraction. We can get attached to Jonny and only Jonny.... even if Jonny is deeply incompatible with what we want. And then, when women do this, they try to make WHO they want give them WHAT they want. And they nag because they want their apple tree to produce them a lifetime supply pears. But if a woman knows WHAT she wants and she doesn't let the WHO attractions distract her too much, then she can find a partner that has both the WHO and the WHAT. The trick for women is to raise her self esteem and level of discernment. Really, when a woman is choosing the WHO over the WHAT... she's choosing the relationship with the man over the relationship with herself. And the nagging is the result of doing that... as she's getting mad at her partner for just being himself when she was the one who chose to get into a relationship with him. It's like a bird complaining to the fish it got into a relationship with that the fish never wants to go flying through the trees.

I think it's more about an introspective woman coming in and saying, "Actually, the thing you're doing doesn't work the way you think it works.... and that paradigm will eventually backfire." Consider that there's a lot of comfort in logical analysis and having all of these frameworks about women, where a man can read a book about female psychology and feel assured that they understand everything they need to know. And if a man who feels a bit insecure about dating learning such a framework can make him feel, "I now understand women better than they understand themselves. Therefore, I'll always have the upper hand."... then that cuts away some of the insecurity. But the comfort shakes a bit when a woman comes on and says.... "Your framework is incorrect. Here's my 37 years of experience with what makes a man truly attractive that I've contemplated deeply on... and it's something that can't truly be faked with tactics." Then, when that framework shakes, it create a lot of cognitive dissonance between opening up to greater truths about female attraction and holding tight to his comforting but backfiring framework. And to quell that cognitive dissonance, he'll try different tactics to reset his certainty in the frameworks that comfort him, like... But (Emerald/Natasha/etc.) you're not like other women. You're special and different and highly developed. (And this tactic is a double-whammy as it redefines any reflections from women who intelligently challenge the framework as perspectives that don't really count because "they aren't actually women". And it also seeks to disarm the woman in question through flattery... and getting her to reframe her perspective as "Well, that is a good point. I'm not like other women. So, maybe my perspective doesn't count.") But Emerald, you're bi-sexual. So, you're not like other women. (Leo tried this one once. This basically has the same function as the first tactic of trying to set me into a different category that makes me and my perspective a special exception that can be disregarded... when I'm attracted to men 99 times out of 100.) You're just a woman. So, don't ask a fish how to catch it. (My paradigm is safe because no woman can validly challenge it.) Women are just too scared to see the truth of what they're actually attracted to. (This one creates an explanation for women pushing back that further reinforces the paradigm.) Well, at least he's trying. (Shifting focus away from the effectiveness of the tactic to the effort put into the tactic, which is completely different conversation) But I had success using these tactics before. (My point that I always try to make is, "Just because the tactics work for getting sex, doesn't mean you're actually becoming an attractive man." And seeing the successes can genuinely cause a man to lose sight that those topics are apples and oranges. But it can also be used as a strategy for quelling cognitive dissonance. Just plain being disrespectful to try to clown on the woman pushing back on his framework. (Being a clown in an attempt to make the woman get on his level... so that she discredits herself. This is the silliest one.) Ad hominem attacks to discredit the perspective of the woman (ie. "You're the biggest try-hard on this forum, so...") Etc. But the main thing with each of these perspectives is that they're not very well thought through. And they're just ad hoc defenses used to try to maintain the comforting paradigm. The most important thing is to recognize them for what they are and not take the content very seriously, as the content isn't the point. The point is to protect their paradigm. So, regardless of whether someone says... "But you're so much more developed than other women." or "You're the biggest try-hard on the forum"... the meaning is the exact same... "Please don't disturb my comforting paradigm. I don't want to see beyond it."

@Rafael Thundercat I agree with your previous post. I think that challenge is that the elements that make a man attractive are subtle and require a lot of (non-dating-related) general personal development to embody. And the effects of that are subtle but profound in his overall vibe. And it's easier to try out tactics to cut past all that inner work and to simply larp as a the admirable Masculine man. That's especially true when there is a sizable minority of women who aren't very discerning about who they'll get involved with. A lot of this is because of an attempt to avoid loneliness. Or maybe she feels unworthy, and any kind of male validation fills in the void. Or she's got a messy life in general and lacks discernment in many areas of life. So, when a man who uses tactics gets a lot of success with women in this group, he may think... "Awesome! I've become an attractive Masculine man!" But the real work was never done. And most high-discernment women who have a really sensitive relationship with her sense of disgust will notice that the tactics are just hiding deeper vulnerabilities. And she'll avoid that guy. Think of women that embody the quality of the princess in the story of the Princess and the Pea. She senses the pea underneath 9 mattresses, simply because she's so sensitive. And that's what proves that she's the true princess. But the issue is that that guy doesn't know how often he's avoided by princesses, because he's getting a bunch of success with women who have not yet developed a keen sense of discernment.

I meant "better" from the female 'maximum attraction' perspective... and the 'becoming an admirable mature man' perspective. A man who is authentic and grounded in himself gives off very good energy. And he comes across as the most attractive version of himself... which is inherently polarizing. And he earns a lot of respect in many areas of his life. But it's polarizing in that, it will repel incompatible women... and attract compatible women. The same is true in friendships... as authentic people are polarizing. They will repel most and attract only compatible people. And in the case of the grounded man, compatible women will find him to be 10/10 attractive. And incompatible women simply won't be attracted. Contrast that with a man who uses tactics... He isn't as attractive and doesn't come across as an admirable man. And his life circumstances will reflect that. But he also is NOT as polarizing. So, women who aren't as discerning will respond to the tactics. And he will get more volume because he's not polarizing. So, women who are willing to sleep with a guy who they're only 5/10 attracted to will be who the tactics work better with. But as a woman who can sense when someone is grounded and authentic who requires 9/10 attraction to even think about connecting romantically with a man, tactics just feel like they're doing too much. And it makes me wonder about his level of sincerity. Edit: I just came up with a good metaphor. Imagine that there are two brands of beer. And one brand of beer is very very cheap and a bit watered down. And the other brand of beer is like a specialty IPA and it's more expensive. Of course, the cheap and watered down beer is going to sell A LOT more than the specialty IPA. But the specialty IPA is much better and better crafted. And people who really appreciate the taste of beer will seek it out.

That tracks with what I was thinking. It seems like she was very attached to you, and felt very vulnerable and anxious about that attachment. And so, she did a whole bunch of manipulative things to try to ensure that you don't leave. And she may not express those things in other contexts, as she may be anxious in romantic relationships but avoidant in all her other relationships. So, she may simply keep a distance and stay detached in other facets of life.

That's terrible. I'm sorry to hear that you went through that. Now, she definitely doesn't read to me as a psychopath... as psychopaths are pretty stone-cold and tend to lack in vulnerabilities. Even when a psychopath's life is in danger, they don't have strong vulnerable feelings like fear. Their heart rate doesn't even accelerate much. They have something physiologically going on that prevents them from feelings like empathy, fear, sadness, and guilt. And it sounds like she definitely has some degree of dark tetrad coping strategies in presentation... with the vain statements, manipulative tendencies, and the enjoyment of your pain at not being able to have her. (though all of those could also be secondary coping strategies that run downstream of the anxious attachment vulnerabilities... which doesn't make them okay. They're still very abusive tendencies, even if they're not purely dark triad traits) But even if she does indeed have 3 of the 4 dark tetrad traits, that doesn't mean that all vulnerable traumatized people have dark tetrad traits. Many traumatized people care about others and hate to see others suffer... but might still blow up their relationships and get into all kinds of problem behaviors. And often, people with dark triad traits don't come off as vulnerable. They come off as very invulnerable on a more consistent basis because of their psychopathy... and detachment via seeing all other humans as fundamentally lesser pawns of their own using. So, there are plenty of dysfunctional and even abuse people whose behavior has nothing to do with the dark tetrad. Like, my first boyfriend when I was a teenager was a deeply vulnerable and traumatized person.... and in retrospect, he probably has BPD as he'd go through cycles where he was okay for a few days, and then he'd fall apart. And he definitely had some manipulative qualities... but not quite Machiavellian-level manipulative qualities. HIs manipulations came from knee-jerk reactions rather than Machiavellian rationalization. And despite all his issues and being emotionally abusive in a knee-jerk way, he definitely didn't have the dark triad going on. So, there are a ton of people out there who are a mess... but only some have dark tetrad traits.

It's a fairy-tale for you to be grounded and centered in your own authenticity... and to drop tactics?

I think he perceived me to be insulting the OP, by saying the tactic in the original post came across as 'try-hard'. So, he was just giving the same insult back because he got defensive.

100% The main problem-dynamics that I see on this section of the forum tend to come from trying to analyze women rather than understand the individual woman as a person. And this analysis tends to come mostly from fear and trying to get a very specific validating outcome by gaining more knowledge. That way, there's the ability to control for maximum emotional protection. Contrast that with a man who feels comfortable with himself, detached from outcomes, and truly present with the reality and not his logical understanding of what a man 'should' do.... and the difference is night and day. The man this describes will come across with much more safe, stable, and centered energy. And this level of maturity allows a woman to relax more. And this is where the subtle Masculine/Feminine attraction polarities that are being aimed at can actually play out. This is all very subtle, of course. It whispers... and it doesn't shout. And it doesn't fit neatly in boxes. But it's difficult to understand what "leadership" means when it's subtle and understated. And it's perhaps difficult for heterosexual men to recognize what makes men come across as an attractive man who can be safely relied upon and trusted with leadership. So, there's a tendency to gild the lily of Masculinity... like putting a hat on a hat. Instead, it's better to simply become centered and grounded in one's self, such that the opinions of other people don't sway their opinions of themselves. And with that, the analysis projection and tactics can drop away... and a real connection can be established.

Okay. Then, that should be okay. From what you wrote, I was just imagining being with a guy and him being like "No" at every suggestion I make or doing a ton of legwork to come across as the leader. And that would be exhausting.

Thank you. I think they just don't me sharing my thoughts very directly and without softening it up. A lot of the guys on this forum have major insecurities with woman. So, when a woman comes on and is very straightforward and is like, "Hey. You're doing it wrong. Women won't like that because x, y, and z. Do this instead."... they just see me as a woman being needlessly cruel to them. So, they try to ad hominem me... or insult me "back" to try to shut it down.

Do you still say "no" to every time your partner wants to choose where to go or what to do?

With the dark tetrad being sadism, narcissism, Machiavellians, and psychopathy... those are all very specific issues. And I've met a ton of people dealing with trauma and emotional regulation issues... and some of their lives are falling apart... and some have psychiatric disorders... and others might have serious insecure attachment issues. But none of these constitute the dark tetrad. Someone who is genuinely in the dark tetrad views themselves as fundamentally above other humans. And they see other humans as pawns for their own using, with no conscience or empathy towards the pain or suffering of others. This is the type of person who enjoys seeing others suffer... and who is very cold, calculated, and manipulative. And they usually don't feel their feelings very deeply at all. Contrast that with someone who is a hot mess and anxiously attached... and is dealing with all kinds of vulnerabilities. And maybe that person can operate in a deeply dysfunctional way. But it's not coming from Sadistic drives, psychopathy, narcissism, or Machiavellian manipulation. They're just a person who's struggling with traumas or other mental health issues... and has coping strategies that aren't working for them.

The issue is that he's trying too hard to impress the woman with the "I'm in control. So, no, no, no, no." performance. So, even as he's trying to be the leader... he is actually defaulting to whichever frame and actions he thinks will impress the woman the very most. So, he's not just letting her control the frame... he's letting his PROJECTION of her control the frame. And this is easy to read, from the woman's perspective. And honestly, it will just come across as kind of goofy. That's just the reality of it. And it's much nicer to let someone know they're making a mistake, rather than simply allowing him to keep making the same mistake and being like, "It's okay. At least you're trying." The former is honesty and tough kindness. The latter is nice but not honest or kind.

Dream on with that fantasy. Most lesbian couples look like this and aren't interested in men at all...

The butch one.... Duh!

I suspect that it doesn't work for the majority of people. But one of my closest female friends and her husband are poly. And they've been together for 18 years and going strong. And over the years, they've either had a sexually-open relationship... or had other male and female partners. And I honestly can't imagine her being able to operate in a monogamous marriage without losing core elements of who she is as a person. And if she were with a monogamously-oriented guy, the relationship wouldn't have worked out. So, I do think that polyamory is necessary for some people who aren't suited towards monogamous marriage. And I think truly mutual polyamory between two poly-oriented people can work quite well. But it's always a little more unwieldy compared to monogamous relationships, as there are more moving parts. But I do think it suits people who are all genuinely suited to polyamory. Conversely, one of the things that I've seen happen is when there's a woman who really likes a guy that she's with, and he wants to open up the relationship and start dating multiple women. So, she tolerates it and tries to be poly with him. And that's always sad. And the guy isn't even usually suited to polyamory himself. He may just have a fantasy of being with multiple women sexually, without the desire to form a genuine intimate connection with multiple people. So, I think this one-sided polyamory will always fail. And for monogamously-oriented men with sexual fantasies about multiple sexual partners, but who aren't actually poly... those relationships will fail too.

This feels very performative and try-hard. If I were in a romantic dynamic with a guy who operated this way, I'd be feeling like he cared a bit too much about my opinion of him... and was trying to impress me and earn my validation by larping as a leader.

Traditional gender roles aren't the set-up that you see in shows from the 1950s. That "man goes to work and woman stays home" dynamic is very modern and borne out of industrialization and the increased wealth of industrialization during the golden age, which enabled a single middle class income to support a whole family. That's why everyone liked Ike so much. So, the 1950s set-up is actually very modern. And women staying at home and only being a mom is also very modern... and only something that was ever available to those wealthy enough to support that. Real traditional gender roles are... The man and woman and their 10 children wake up at 5am. The man plows the fields and does the heavy manual farm work with his sons, which require strength. The woman milks the cows, tends to the chickens, tends to the crops, prepares all the meals, sews all the clothes, washes all the clothes by hand. And the daughters do the same thing. The elder daughters do most of the caring for the younger children. The man, women, and their 10 children all retire to a small home where they fall asleep at sundown. That's what traditional gender roles ACTUALLY look like. What you're thinking of as traditional gender roles are what happened during industrialization in the several decade window between when men entered the industrial workforce... and women were permitted to do the same. That's like the 1930s though the 1960s. And unfortunately, it's what a lot of people think "traditional" means. But traditional actually means peasants... ruled over by a landlord in a pre-Capitalist farming community.

First off, I don't think the drop in birth rates arise from women entering the workforce. The latter doesn't cause the former. But I believe both are separate flowers growing from the same root system. So, women entering the workforce and the declining population both stem from a common cause. But they don't have a cause and effect relationship with one another. Realistically, the population drop and women's engagement in the work force arises from the transition from Stage Blue farming communities with agrarian values to Stage Orange modern post-industrial societies with values like achievement, progress, and expansion. And this agrarian to industrial/post-industrial transition leads to shifting values away from pure survival and having a bunch of kids to work on your mom and pop farm, to a greater expectation of progress and expansion outside of the home. And it also requires and allows both men and women to leave the family farm behind and go to work in other places of employment... like factories, companies, and other such institutions. And that leads to men and women who are interested in parenthood to choose to have fewer kids, in order to build a deeper relationship with their kids... rather than having as many kids as possible to keep the family farm up. Then, some people don't want kids and are in a freer state to choose a better option for themselves. And because they aren't stuck with the dilemma of "Who will tend to the farm?", they don't have to have kids. Ultimately, it is these macrocosmic shifts in technology, values, and societal structures away from the values that govern a Stage Blue community based subsistence farming and towards Stage Orange industrialization that cause the drop in birth rates. And this same shift also enabled men (and a few decades later, enabled women) to enter a non-agrarian post-industrial work-force instead of tending to a family farm, like most men and women do in agrarian societies. Then, the values of the subsistence farmers are also dying out, as we go further into the modern era and grow more adapted to the current state of society. For example, my paternal grandma grew up on a farm with 10 brothers and sisters in the 1930s and 40s. She was one of 11. And that was a common number of children to have. Then, she moved away from the farm into the outskirts of Atlanta in the mid/late 50s to early 60s and had 5 children, but one died in infancy. Then, two of her surviving children has 1 child each... and the other two of her surviving children had 3 children each. Then, the grandkids... two of us has 0 children, two of us have 1 child, three of us have 2 children (I'm in this camp), and one of us has 3 children. So, as there's a move away from family farming and its values.... there's also a move towards having fewer kids, as it's just not necessary and usually not desired to have a bunch. But if you're willing to go back to family subsistence farming and forego modernity to have a wife and 10 kids to work the farm with you, feel free to do so, if you think it will help. But don't ask women to go back to their traditional role as a subsistence farmers while you stay in the post-industrial workforce, working for a paycheck... as that's something that also runs downstream of the causes of the dropping birth rate. But ultimately, I just see this transition as inevitable... and as something that humanity will have to try to adapt to. And as long as the drop in fertility is relatively gradual over 10 generations, it would actually be better in the long run for the planet and the human populace. Right now, the global birth rate is a little bit over the replacement rate. It's something like 2.2 children per woman. And the replacement rate is 2.1 children per woman. So, we still haven't reached the apex of growth at the top of the parabola... globally speaking. But within the next generation or so, the global replacement rate will dip below 2.1. And that's when we'll need to start transitioning our systems to work with a gradually shrinking population. The main catastrophic birthrate drop would be where we have to make those transitions over the course of 3 or 4 generations... like what South Korea will almost certainly be experiencing. (Side note: And from what I've looked at, it seems like that drop might be coming from hyper-focus towards school and work monopolizing ALL of one's time from childhood onward. We're talking 16 hour days packed with schoolwork from small childhood through college.... and literally no time to socialize. And the adult workplace is very similar. There are also very strong pressures on the populace to be thin and look young, which are much stronger than in other places... and pregnancy or being a parent/spouse might mess with people's self-images. And it causes women (and men) to under-eat... which isn't good for fertility. Also, misogyny is often stated as a reason why many women have decided to forego marriage and children in South Korea. But I think it's more of the hardcore pressure to perform at the highest level in all categories in all hours of the day and extreme judgment and shame if those standards aren't matched.) But I suspect most places in the Global North will likely be able to sustain their workforces through immigration from the Global South, where the birth rates are higher. And that will carry us through that transition period more gradually. I read somewhere that we may find a stabilizing point of 2.5 billion people... which is what the global population was in the 1950s. So, our population shot up very high, very quickly. And what goes up must come down. We can't expand forever without contraction.

Interesting. It's a little bit like the plot-line for the movie Memento, if you're familiar with it. There's a kind of sincere confabulation going on in the movie where the main character and the audience is fully within the confabulated context and true believers of the confabulation in the moment. But the original decision to confabulate was done with full knowledge and intent to confabulate.... but then immediately forgotten that the confabulation took place, such that he can immerse himself back in his own confabulation without being aware that he confabulated it.

Wow! I hadn't even thought through the fact that she would know a lot about postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis as a delivery nurse. AND she's looking up extra information too. I get the steel manning perspective... and I think that's important to keep in mind. Maybe she was looking up that information to ask questions about herself. But that seems to fit quite well with the setting up evidence to fake it perspective, very strongly. And if she's very sophisticated, she may even think to vary the pattern a bit to create doubt about her faking it through expert knowledge... but getting close enough to where it looks like she has something going on that looks like postpartum psychosis, auditory hallucinations, and some other diagnosis that's unclear. Truthfully, she just needs to know how to answer most of the questions correctly. So, it's honestly not that sophisticated of a ruse. And any decent liar could pull it off, if she knows how people in psychosis would generally answer and behave.

I watched an expert testifying earlier today who was talking about why he didn't suspect that she was experiencing a command hallucination. And he said that, with people who experience command hallucinations there's a tendency to use coping mechanisms to drown them out... like praying. And Lindsay Clancy wasn't doing that. There's also a tendency for people with these hallucinations to experience them periodically. And it would be uncommon for someone to experience them once and then not again. He also found it unlikely because she had said that she was experiencing these hallucinations all the way throughout the duration of the 20 minutes, with the external voice repeating the same phrase over and over the entire time. He may have brought up another point, as well. But those are the ones that I'm recalling. But he was suspecting that she was committing suicide and filicide... killing her children out of love and because she didn't want to be separated from them when she commits suicide. And I don't know about that explanation. To me, it seems like that's a reach to assume her motive was to kill her children out of love. But in that case, she'd still be criminally responsible for their deaths. So, he was in favor of her being seen as guilty. But his reasoning about the motive seemed very speculative.