Emerald

I'm not so sure that that's where the "ick" actually comes from... in terms of men suddenly expressing too much all at once and women not having the bandwidth for emotional compression. (though that is certainly true of some women) I don't think the "Lots of emotions all at once" thing is the actual ick factor. It's more a correlation than it is a causation. I believe it's moreso that frequent and intense emotional expression in a man tends to correlate with a general skill-deficit regarding emotional compression and social attunement. And it comes across as immature and potentially unsafe because the guy doesn't feel socially calibrated... nor does he have the capacity to do the difficult things when necessary like adults need to do. Also, some of that ick can come about from emotional expression being an amplifier that draws attention to other issues... like victim's mentality and neediness. But if a guy otherwise has these skills and opens up... and he isn't being needy or going into victim's mentality... and is socially calibrated... then men's emotional expression is a very welcome thing that indicates emotional intelligence... even if it is sometimes a lot of emotional expression all at once. Like I remember a situation back when I was a high school teacher. And one of the math teachers (who was a Masculine even-keeled middle aged man) was giving a speech. And he started to tear up in speaking about how much he appreciated his colleagues. And it was just a genuine expression of feelings from an otherwise chill and level-headed guy. And he had no agenda attached to his emotional expression... it was just him opening up. And it made him come across as more secure in himself in his willingness to be vulnerable in front of his colleagues. But if a guy is constantly a weeping mess and looking for everyone to be his personal therapist 10 times per day, that indicates that he is needy. And that is an ick. And if a guy is always whining and complaining about how unfair the world is, then that's victim's mentality... and also an ick. So, I think the ick factor is more like... "I can sense this guy's neediness and victim's mentality. And he is unable to emotionally regulate himself and wants me to do it for him"... rather than, "This guy is expressing too much at once and I don't have the bandwidth to hold space for it."

I can't think of very many careers that offer more survival value than childcare and nursing.

I'm glad to hear that you've broken up. It's difficult to end a relationship. But that controlling behavior would have never stopped.

That's accurate in my experience. I've always excelled at math and science in school. And I have no doubts in my capacity to go into many of the careers under the STEM umbrella, if I wanted to. I honestly feel that it would be straightforward in the sense of things being fairly formulaic with mathematics-based careers. But I would only ever go into a STEM career if I was forced to, as it just wouldn't be that interesting. I need for things to be subjective and creative and open-ended and human-ish for me to be profoundly interested in them. What drives me crazy is the implicit sexism that hides inside the idea that "We need to get more women into STEM." And for women who do want to get into STEM but feel blocked in some way, those campaigns could help. I'm not saying there isn't a sizable minority of women who want to go into STEM who feel discouraged from it. I'm sure that there is. And they should be encouraged. But in this framework of "We need to get more women in STEM", there is an assumption that "It's only because women are conditioned to go for lower paying careers that women avoid going into STEM." But in this nurture over nature assumption... this line of thinking gets it ass backwards! It isn't that woman are conditioned to go for lower paying careers. It's that the careers that women naturally gravitate towards are devalued and underpaid because Femininity is culturally viewed as inferior to Masculinity. So, Feminine careers are not valued as much as Masculine careers. And if hypothetically, STEM suddenly became a female-dominated field and was seen as Feminine in the collective consciousness, STEM careers would pay very little and wouldn't be valued as much in society. STEM careers would start getting teacher-level salaries. This has happened with many other fields that have experienced major changes in gender dynamics, where a female-dominated field changed over time to a male-dominated field and the pay increased. And where male-dominated fields become female-dominated and the pay decreases. So, if STEM (through cultural forces) did come to be a more gender-equal field, the amount of pay and prestige would likely diminish quite a bit... and moreso if it became female dominated. So, in the notion that there is no Masculinity or Femininity beyond what's socially constructed, there's a lot of hidden space to hide patriarchal anti-Feminine bias from one's self... as it assumes any career discrepancy between the sexes is 100% conditioned and 0% innate. Therefore STEM is seen as gender-neutral... and as an inherently superior career choice to the career choices the average woman makes. And the idea is that women are being conditioned to value the inferior humanities over the superior sciences to disenfranchise women. But the disenfranchisement comes from the devaluation of Femininity itself... and viewing the humanities as inferior to hard sciences. Like, you always hear "We need more women in STEM." But you almost never hear, "We need more men in caring professions." And that's because STEM is seen as superior to caring professions like childcare and nursing... because on some level (even people who don't believe in innate Masculinity/Femininity) STEM is recognized as Masculine-principled. So, it's kind of like 90s Feminism where the message was... "Women can be just as good as men." or "Women can do anything that men can do." But in that, it assumes that maleness and Masculinity is the standard to match up to... and sends the message that Masculinity is superior to Femininity... and that, if a woman want to be valued, she just needs to un-condition herself from being Feminine and condition herself into being Masculine (as these are mere social constructs and not innate parts of our nature.)

It's 100% exactly that with these gender superiority narratives. It has this double-whammy of "I'm not inferior! They're inferior!" AND a scapegoated group to play the victim off of.

Yes, that's the way I see a lot of the threads on this part of the forum. It's just a lot of intellectual theorizing about differences between men and women... and about women's nature. And they get it so incorrect. Or the things they do get correct, they exaggerate in an extreme way to where there's a total distortion. And half the time it's like... "Here's my overarching intellectual framework of female nature, which will guarantee that I will be able to have sex with the hottest women." The other half the time it's like... "Here's an overarching intellectual framework of female nature to show (once and for all) that men are superior to women in every way that matters. And that means that (by virtue of being a man) I'm superior to those hot women! And reality is unjust because these women have too much power despite being inferior! So, I am a victim of society and women are to blame!"

I watched the video. First off, of course women can be abusive to men. It happens all the time. Abusive behavior doesn't have a gender. Abusive people just use whatever tools they are capable of using to abuse their partner (which tend to vary a bit between men and women). And it's quite common that men don't register abuse from a woman as actual abuse because culture has this idea, "Woman weak. Man strong." So, men have a harder time recognizing when they're being abused by a woman, as they see it like, "Because I'm a man, I am stronger and more stoic... and anything she does to me can't impact me that much because I am less vulnerable than she is." Men also tend to grow up with lots of inter-male ribbing and fighting. And part of the challenge is to be able to absorb the ribbing and some degree of pain/violence to show they are able to be cool-headed in challenging situations. So, this also makes men susceptible to being harmed without realizing it, because they have conditioned themselves through their lives to be stoic in the face of pain and to show they are strong and stoic enough to absorb it. It's sort of like that Jeff Foxworthy comedy bit where he jokes about a man accidentally getting his foot cut off with a chainsaw and playing it off like it's nothing. Like, "Eh... just throw the foot in the cooler and get me another beer. I'll deal with that later." So, men in abusive relationships tend to take quite some time to notice when that's the case. I have had to inform a couple of my male coaching clients that they are in an abusive relationship because they don't quite grok the idea that they are capable of being abused by a woman. They just didn't see the woman as capable of causing them real harm. Secondly, the reason why this guy gets so much pushback is because he has a red pill slant and says a lot of ideological things like "Women are worshipped in society" and frames society as being tilted in women's direction. And because of his Red Pill ideological slant, the real message of "Men can be abuse victims too." is cheapened and framed as some societal gender war thing. If he just came on there and shared the message that men can be victims too, he wouldn't have gotten any pushback. But he should expect that, if he's using the fact that men can be abused too as a cudgel to say, "See! Men are the victims of society because women are worshipped!" that he's going to get some pushback... and rightly so.

I see you being very adamant on many threads that having an intellectual model of women being starkly different from men is somehow helpful to men. But I find that the men who have an ideological framework that's intent on differentiating men and women in stark ways tend to understand the least about women because they're so keen on defining us as totally different from men. So, they miss the common humanity of women and tend to wrap us up into a stereotypical 2-d image, which impedes their ability to relate to women on an ordinary human-to-human basis. And it's noticeable that these intellectual distortions and stereotypes tend to negatively impact these men's ability to have relationships and positive interactions with women. These men also seem to struggle in other areas of life for the same reason. They tend to be the type of person who engages more in the imaginal world than in the real world... and lives in a world of constructs and concepts without applying anything (as it would shatter the ideal in their mind). So, they also don't have success in other areas because they are so attached to their intellectual frameworks that they don't want reality to upset them.

I've heard Leo say that "sex = attachment" before. But that's not actually true. It's actually more like "attachment = sex." I think his perception comes from the fact that women are more likely to have sex with a man she feels attached to... and are relatively unlikely to have sex with men she doesn't feel attached to, as that just isn't emotionally stimulating. So, the attachment comes first before the sex... not the other way around. But chances are (unless the woman is into casual sex), her decision to sleep with you has a lot to do with already feeling close to you and attached to you.

Regardless of your perspective that it has no value for the common good... men still value sex a lot. And many men are willing to pay a good price for it because they value it. And they don't make these monetary value decisions based on the common good. They do it based on getting what they want. But even your perspective that sex work doesn't serve the common good is debatable. It's possible that access to sex workers could prevent some percentage of sexual assaults and rapes by providing an outlet to consensual paid sex. It's difficult to know because we've never had a society without sex workers... it is the "oldest profession", as they say. The challenging thing is not knowing a world without sex workers. But I'd imagine that it's like having a public building without janitors. When a public building has janitors, it is marked by the absence of a problem. So, we don't necessarily appreciate the janitor because his work is invisible. I suspect it's similar with sex workers. Who knows what kind of mayhem sex work prevents by giving lonely horny men a guaranteed sexual outlet.

@Psychonaut This is common with controlling/abusive partners. They blame their partner for their controlling behavior. And she is even using your diagnosis as a way of justifying her control to you and to herself. It's important to know that NOTHING you will do will change her. And she will never stop controlling based off of how much you walk the straight and narrow. And there's a 99.9% chance that she will not change. The rare exception would be if she has a sudden "come to Jesus" moment and suddenly faces all her problems and (of her own accord) wants to seek deeper healing. But she is unlikely to do that... because she will never take personal accountability for her behavior or her wounds. She wants to blame you instead... because then she never has to change or face with her abuse. It's very important for you to realize that she will NEVER change. And she will NEVER stop controlling you. If you stay with her, this will be what your life is... and you will never be free and always be the one to blame in her eyes.

@Princess Arabia @Natasha Tori Maru Thank you!

That's a strange assumption to make. How do you imagine this to be... like what kind of insights and tactics?

The average woman is interested in shopping and chit-chatting with girlfriends about gossip. The average man is interested in football and drinking beer with his buddies. So, yes. The average man and the average woman's interests are very different. But you're comparing average women with nerdy men and saying, "See how different men and women's interests are." But you're not actually controlling for the maleness and femaleness factor because you aren't comparing average men and average women. Average men and average women tend to dislike what the other one is into. But once you start deviating from averages and having more niche interests, different niches have different gender dynamics. And different creators within each of those niches could message in a way that appeals to one gender over the other. And it's important to note that Leo's audience is a niche audience and he directs his messaging at men. And when you have a channel, you don't end up accidentally attracting a target audience. Leo has gotten the niche audience he wants to target which is mostly young men who are looking to self-actualize and become great. I have a channel where I share topics in a similar niche but with a different target audience: people of all ages and genders who are spiritualists and inner work enthusiasts. And my audience is still slightly more male because men have slightly more interest in academic depth psychology than women. But it's more of a 60/40 split. And there are definitely spiritual and personal development channels that attract more women than men. You can find all sorts of niches with different target audiences... age-wise and gender-wise. So, don't think that Leo's target audience is indicative of average men being interested in these topics. Most men are interested in football and beer. A small niche of men are interested in personal development. And there are other content creators who have personal development channels whose niche is predominantly female. So, don't assume that because you are on Leo's forum learning about higher consciousness topics that Leo's demographic split is indicative of the general gender demographic split for the personal development niche. This context is deliberately cultivated for young men because Leo was a young man when he first created his channel.

It's not about difficulty... it's about value. People don't pay more for something just because it's more difficult for the one doing it to do it. People pay more for something because it provides them more value or solves a bigger problem for them. So, of course a sex worker is going to charge more for sex work than a house-cleaner charges for house-cleaning. First off, the sex worker will charge more because the sex worker is risking more... legally, psychologically, and safety-wise. The juice has to be worth the squeeze form the supply side of the bargain. But also, from the demand side, sex is more in demand and valued than cleaning is... and it's harder to come by for men.

If you don't have women in your social circle, then your social circle is just incomplete. The social circle is ideally meant to be like the village... and that has always been the way we've co-existed throughout the vast majority of human history. Before going through all the approach methods for dating purposes, I recommend interacting with people in general (men and women... ideally a mixture of peers and people of all ages). And just focus on building acquaintance-ships and friendships with men and women... including women that you don't find attractive. When you don't have a particular type of person in your social circle (in this case, women) it will make you feel like that kind of person feel is like an alien "other" to you, and it will feel difficult to relate to them beyond one specific agenda or idea. I see a lot of young guys who don't socialize or only socialize with men having this problem with meeting and interacting with women. You can resolve this issue by building yourself a more complete village-like social circle as your primary social goal. And that will give you a more platonic and detached habit of making connections with people without an agenda. And in that process, you will get better at socializing in general and you will come across as more normal and socially adept to women. Overall, it's kind of like the advice of "Don't go to the grocery store when you're hungry"... only it's "Don't approach women when you're starved for basic social connection (or basic social connection with women in particular)."

I have also always been quite a solitary person myself... since childhood. But one of the major take-aways that I've gotten from my medicine journeys in recent years is that I am less open to socializing because of certain emotional labors and blocks that come up when I socialize... and not because I don't like to connect with people. So, it was clear to me that my lifelong tendency towards solitude has always been more of a coping mechanism than it is something authentic to me. But I always romanticized my solitary ways... as they are something I saw as making me rare and special. And I still like some creative me-time... a little every day. And in that medicine experience I recognized that, deeper down, there is part of me that wants and needs far more connection... but that there is a deep visceral aversion to it. It showed this to me in the "emotional bite" that I felt (and have always unconsciously felt in years prior) when thinking of communal words (like relationship, community, church, etc." And I have recognized in recent years how much community is a fundamental human need for all humans that cannot be forgone without negative emotional and psychological consequences... which are often unconscious but pervasive. And it only makes sense, because human beings have never survived alone. In this way, all solitude is and has always been just an illusion of solitude. So, I do tend to take people who identify with solitude as being like I have been most of my life... mistaken about their solitary nature... and unconscious to the real blocks to belonging and connection that they are afflicted by, which impacts them semi-unconsciously and unconsciously on many levels of their being. And a major culprit from that is an identity of being "the different one"... which is also a commonality of people on this forum because of the attraction to Leo's content and methods of delivery which build on the identity of divergence and specialness that he also subscribes to. One can build quite a positive and efficacious self-identity out of being the rare person who doesn't need to engage in the lowly business of common socialization. It's very enlivening in those regards... and it emboldens people to carve their own path. But on the flip-side, these identities also keep one disconnected from humanity, nature, and the universe at large... feeling like a stranger in a strange land... and coping with that feeling by romanticizing one's rarity and role as the stranger. It is one who never gets to feel "home" here. And this sense of being the "island unto one's self" is common among the ilk of people who seek something greater than the ordinary and mediocre. But I saw for myself that the way to genuinely be greater is to sink deeply into the ordinary... and to allow one's self to be part of the furniture of the world. Plus, let's also be very self-honest about what we're all doing on this forum. We're coming here nearly every single day, just to socialize. That includes Leo. So, while the commonly held belief of those on this forum may be one of seeing solitude as superior to community... that is just a way to signal a kind of intellectual superiority to the communal out-group and a sense of in-group belonging within this higher minded in-group.

I'm very curious. You seem to be suddenly shifting perspectives, and that suddenness makes me question why... as people usually don't have such quick mindset changes. It's not unheard of... but it does make me question if you're going through something or feeling unsure in general and a little unclear about your own values. It would concern me that you're taking too much direction from the outside world and its perspectives. Like you went from being anti-Vegan a month ago... to then making a post a week ago about needing to go Vegan for ethical reasons. And now, you've done a sudden shifts in your perspective away from pick-up. To be clear, I agree with the mindsets you've shifted into. So, I'm not bringing this up because I disagree. It's just a concern when someone suddenly shifts 180 degrees on multiple things.

It's this repeat of the false idea that "All women only want to go for the top 10% of guys". Look around the world and you will recognize that this isn't true. And the hyper-utilitarian lens of this forum doesn't help matters. The reality is that things are harder now-a-days because people aren't socializing enough... and everything happens through a screen. And people don't have a community social circle that they're interacting with daily. It's not a result of "sexual libertinism" or "hypergamy run amok"... nor is it a call for some top-down authoritarian structure to do sexual communism to control women's choices in partners and dole a court-ordered wife out to every man. It's just because people are not socializing as much as they used to. And dating is mostly happening through dating apps, where people don't get a chance to experience real human-to-human chemistry. So... men who are only socializing with women through datings apps... or who are living a solitary life... are OF COURSE not getting into relationships. Instead, go out into the world and meet people (men and women). Build yourself a social circle and cultivate experiences. Then, you will meet plenty of women that way. You just have to do it yourself now since society isn't engineered for face-to-face socialization anymore.

@Xonas Pitfall It seems to me that the perspectives that Leo shares about men and women are just a way for him to feel like he's a member of the superior team... and also because he seems to fear the Feminine and has little respect for and understanding of the Feminine principle. I'd take his perspectives on men and women about as seriously as a white supremacist who waxes poetic about how white people are more aligned to truth than black people. It's clearly not true. You can look around the world and see that people of all genders and racial backgrounds have a variety of different relationships to truth. But the concept of white supremacy it's a feel-good narrative for those who are hyper-identified with the white identity... and belonging with the white supremacist in-group. The same exact thing is true with gender supremacists. It doesn't matter what's true. What matters is that they get to be the superior ones in their own mind. And the vast majority of men are just as muddied as the next person when it comes to perceiving what's true, because men (like everyone else) also have worldviews and identities to cling onto. And it's primarily the preservation of the identity/worldview that muddies the waters to truth in the first place. And when there's an ego to preserve, every human person will unconsciously lie to themselves to blot out the truth that might undermine their ego. And the more attached one is to an identity, the more distortion filters there will be that prevent that person from seeing the truth. It's only when a person is able to look beyond and detach from the identity and worldview that the perception of truth becomes non-threatening... and one can perceive it more easily. And I see zero evidence that men are less attached to their identity and worldview compared to women. So, while many men might speak with less tact than women do when interacting with other people, that's not an indicator of a person being capable of perceiving truth. The real indicator of how well someone can perceive truth is the degree to how much one can surrender to uncomfortable truths about themselves and reality. And let's be real. Hypothetically, if Leo did come across some solid evidence that women were superior truth-seekers compared to men... do you think he would have acknowledged it and make an article about it? Or do you think he would find some way that that evidence doesn't count and rationalize it away? My money is on the latter.

@Psychonaut This relationship seems to have escalated into a dynamic that's very controlling to you where she's controlling every little thing about you. She's even preventing you from food and music that she doesn't approve of... and prevented you from bodily sovereignty (with her prohibition on masturbation). This might not be nice to hear, but I don't think this situation can be salvaged. She is very unlikely to change or even see the fault in her own actions. If you value your freedom and sovereignty as an individual, you will likely need to end this relationship. So, the question is "If nothing ever changed about this relationship, would you be able to feel content about the trajectory of your life?"

I think that Trump knows that the Epstein situation is about the only that could actually lose him some supporters... as he always gets off scot-free in general and in the eyes of his supporters. So, it's only because of the potential consequences that he cares to cover this one up. Otherwise, I'm quite sure that he doesn't care what the plebs think about his character. He probably thinks of himself as uniquely entitled to do whatever he pleases because of his sense of superiority... including but not limited to committing sex crimes on whoever he wants to. He only cares about the opinions of his fans in-so-far as their opinion is practically necessary to preserve his power. And he knows that most of his hardcore fans will be loyal to him with literally everything but pedophilia. And some, of course, would still be loyal to him after that... and engage in all manner of rationalization to preserve their identity of allegiance to him. But he'd likely lose at least a quarter of his hardcore supporters if it were definitively revealed that he committed sex crimes against children... which would be an impediment to his power.

I'm sure that Leo believes what he's saying. I believed what I was saying too when I was valuing and identifying with solitude. But is it truly him loving solitude? Or is a way of rationalizing his own avoidant tendencies to himself by framing them more in the positive? I know from personal experience that it's possible to believe the former... but to have the reality be the latter. And if you didn't notice... he spends a lot of his time socializing on this forum. So, he says "I value solitude" to a group of people who values him and who see value in his pursuits... of whom he interacts with almost every single day. So, he clearly values social interaction. He just doesn't identify himself as someone who values it as valuing social connection is common. A pattern that I've experienced has been a strong identification and enjoyment of solitude... along with an attempt to make myself a rare person who is rare in quality and kind. But there is a pattern of using this to differentiate myself from other people as a way to feel "a cut above" others by "being the rare person" who enjoys solitude and who is aware enough to value things of a higher nature. It's like being a special and extraordinary alien living among the dull and dreary ordinary humans. And there's an ego boost that comes along with that tendency that helps one distinguish themselves from the "contemptibly common" qualities of the masses. But in my medicine journeys, I have recognized that there are deep patterns of disconnection that have come from years and years of differentiating myself from others... and conceptualizing of myself as alien-like in my divergences from the norm (including but not limited to a proclivity for solitude and the valuation of higher achievement and higher states of awareness... as well as an attempt to be a rare person). And this coping strategy has many boons to it. You really can reach to heights that most people aren't so interested in reaching. And so much potential can be realized in this hyper-individuation path. But it is usually borne out of first feeling different and alien in a bad way... such that one eventually embraces this difference and builds an identity of being alien in a good way. And while this coping strategy has many positives to it, it creates a sense of disconnection from other people, from nature, and from the universe at large. And one feels that one cannot belong without proving one's self special and divergent through rarity of identity. I see these same kinds of patterns playing out in Leo's M.O. from the way he speaks about valuing solitude. It reminds me of me. So, I can't simply take his statements around valuing at face value (especially since he spends a lot of his time socializing).

Thank you

Leo isn't any different. He's human just like everyone else.