Challenging Leo on women

[Xonas Pitfall]

9 minutes ago, Joshe said:

After a certain point, when I saw clearly how unethical I was being with women, I just couldn't do it anymore. It took a few years to stop behaving like a selfish prick once the realization set in. Basically, I knew that women didn't just want to have sex with me and that they wanted something more. So if I knew that I didn't want to be their boyfriend, it was shady of me not to tell them that and string them along for my own satisfaction. 

But when you tell them you don't want to be their boyfriend, it often backfires because they often want you even more for not wanting them. So that becomes another game. So then, you have to be blunt as fuck, which basically means, as a man, you're ending your own fun.

I remember the last girl I did this with. One night, I finally got up the balls to tell her and I just came out and said "You know I'm not going to be your boyfriend, right?" And she just stared at me like I was a total asshole (I was, lol), turned around and walked right out and got a cab, and I never heard from her again except when she said "it's all good dude" when I apologized to her over text. And it sucked because I did enjoy hanging out with her, and she enjoyed hanging out with me. But I knew she was expecting something I knew I didn't want. So, I had to tell her. And this isn't easy for a man to just send some good sex out the door. It's discombobulating. Like, what the fuck did I just do? lol

If you're like me and truly don't want a gf because you just don't like the lifestyle/commitment, and you know with 100% certainty you don't want to be her bf, how can you just string her along and be ok with it?

If you actually are looking for girls and entertaining a serious relationship, then I don't see a problem at all with sampling the market. But if you know you don't want to be with a girl seriously, you gotta let them know. And that comes at a high cost. I reframed it as a developmental challenge.

Exactly. Basically this.

And not to just point fingers at men. Women can absolutely do the same thing themselves. A woman can string a guy along for sex, attention, favors, money, entertainment, validation, or simply because she’s bored and enjoys having him around here and there.

It really isn't a gender thing. It's ego.

If you want something, and you've convinced yourself that getting that thing is important, your ego can become incredibly sneaky in convincing you that what you're doing is morally acceptable or necessary. It will find ways to explain why it's “not that bad,” why you “had no choice,” why the other person “deserved it,” or why you're somehow justified in doing what you're doing.

And sometimes it goes even further. The ego doesn't just convince you that what you're doing is okay. It can prevent you from fully seeing what you're actually doing in the first place. Ego Blindness.

The core of self-deception, and it's a lot of what Leo talks about in his lessons more generally. The mind can become extremely creative when it wants something badly enough. It can construct an entire ideology around your behavior so that you can continue pursuing what you want without having to confront the fact that you're manipulating, deceiving, exploiting, or hurting someone.

[LordFall]

@Xonas Pitfall Okay when phrased like that, I mostly agree. I think lying to get laid is a fundamentally a scarcity based move and you can be purely honest and get tons of sex. 

[Xonas Pitfall]

9 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

What is a falsifiable model?

A falsifiable model requires clear definitions and clear conditions under which the model could be proven wrong.

Obviously, everything is fundamentally relative to some degree, including what we mean by “falsifiability.” But within a given framework, the basic idea is still straightforward:

“All swans are white.”

Now we know exactly what would challenge the claim. If you show me a genuine black swan, then the original claim has been falsified.

What you can't do is keep changing the definition every time contradictory evidence appears:

“Here is a black swan.”

“That's not a real swan.”

“Why not?”

“Because real swans are white.”

“Okay, but this animal is biologically classified as a swan.”

“Yeah, but it's an abnormal exception, so it doesn't count.”

“Okay, so what would count as evidence against your claim?”

“Nothing. If it's white, it proves I'm right. If it's black, then it isn't a real swan.”

At that point, you've constructed a model that cannot possibly be wrong. You're no longer testing the premise.

A lot of human ideology can work this way. Someone starts with a premise they are emotionally invested in, and then every new piece of information is interpreted through that premise. If the information appears to contradict it, instead of allowing the evidence to update the model, they modify the definitions, introduce exceptions, reinterpret the evidence, or create new distinctions that preserve the original conclusion.

[Xonas Pitfall]

3 minutes ago, LordFall said:

@Xonas Pitfall Okay when phrased like that, I mostly agree. I think lying to get laid is a fundamentally a scarcity based move and you can be purely honest and get tons of sex. 

Yes, I have zero issues with that claim.

Again, I think a lot of people simply cope with this. Maybe they genuinely want a specific person around because that person gives them some "goodie", but at the same time they realize that they want different things, more investment, different responsibilities, or different expectations from the relationship.

But because they don't want to accept the possibility of losing that “goodie” the person provides, they start doing all kinds of self-justification and ego framing, tactics to avoid confronting the incompatibility.

The ego goes, “I want this goodie, so how can I frame reality in a way where I can keep getting it without having to admit that I'm being selfish, deceptive, or unfair?”

Then you can end up rationalizing almost anything.

[Joseph Maynor]

4 minutes ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

A falsifiable model requires clear definitions and clear conditions under which the model could be proven wrong.

Obviously, everything is fundamentally relative to some degree, including what we mean by “falsifiability.” But within a given framework, the basic idea is still straightforward:

“All swans are white.”

Now we know exactly what would challenge the claim. If you show me a genuine black swan, then the original claim has been falsified.

What you can't do is keep changing the definition every time contradictory evidence appears:

“Here is a black swan.”

“That's not a real swan.”

“Why not?”

“Because real swans are white.”

“Okay, but this animal is biologically classified as a swan.”

“Yeah, but it's an abnormal exception, so it doesn't count.”

“Okay, so what would count as evidence against your claim?”

“Nothing. If it's white, it proves I'm right. If it's black, then it isn't a real swan.”

At that point, you've constructed a model that cannot possibly be wrong. You're no longer testing the premise.

A lot of human ideology can work this way. Someone starts with a premise they are emotionally invested in, and then every new piece of information is interpreted through that premise. If the information appears to contradict it, instead of allowing the evidence to update the model, they modify the definitions, introduce exceptions, reinterpret the evidence, or create new distinctions that preserve the original conclusion.

So who is being falsified on this basis in the context of this discussion?

[Xonas Pitfall]

3 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

So who is being falsified on this basis in the context of this discussion?

We’re pointing out the unfalsifiable ideological tactics that allow more toxic ideologies to become self-propagating.

Stuff like this:

Quote

And then if those girls say, “Hey, I don’t want to have sex. I’m saving myself for the guy I eventually marry,” the guy might get frustrated, resent her, or even cheat on her with another girl who is more promiscuous. So either way, she can’t win.

If those girls instead say, “We don’t want to date men. We’re going to stay single because all of this has made us confused, distrustful, and resentful,” then you have men complaining about male loneliness, saying women are selfish and ungrateful, arguing that women shouldn’t have been given rights in the first place because “look how they turned out.” Feminism, grrrh!

If the girl is somehow smart enough to see through his bullshit, he can get annoyed by that too. Suddenly she’s “too masculine,” “too intelligent,” “too argumentative,” “too suspicious,” or “attacking him” simply because she questions what he says instead of blindly trusting him.

If she has her own career and doesn’t need a man financially, she’s “too independent” and supposedly incapable of submitting to a man. Not girly enough.

If she wants to take things slowly and actually get to know him, she’s “playing games” or making him “wait.” Shit testing.

If she has sexual boundaries, she’s boring. If she is sexually open, she’s apparently “used up” or no longer worthy of commitment.

If she doesn’t ask enough questions and trusts him, then she’s supposedly responsible for choosing a bad man.

If she stays and tries to work through the problems, then her staying can simply be interpreted as proof that the man's behavior wasn't really that bad.

If she wants a relationship but also wants to maintain her own identity, she’s selfish. If she completely devotes herself to the relationship, then that devotion can be taken for granted. That is just what women should do; they are "naturally" submissive.

If she chooses to commit to a man when she’s young, say at 18-25, and he eventually cheats on her or leaves her when she’s 40, then apparently she “chose wrong” when she was young, so it’s her fault.

If she goes through that experience and becomes more guarded or less trusting afterward, while she is older, then apparently she’s “used up,” undesirable, old, ugly.

If the man leaves her and she becomes a single mother, then that’s also her fault. She chose wrong. Now she’s supposedly an “old hag” or a “used-up single mother” who no longer has the same value or desirability.

That's what makes the whole framework feel so fundamentally rigged. Almost any response the woman has can be interpreted in a way that confirms the ideology. If she trusts him, she's naive. If she questions him, she's too masculine or combative. If she stays, she's accepting his behavior. If she leaves, she's selfish or incapable of commitment. If she dates men, she's choosing badly. If she stops dating men, she's selfish for contributing to male loneliness.

A lot of cults can do this too.

For example, a cult leader claims that an apocalypse is going to happen on a specific date, and that's why everyone needs to give him their money, follow him, and make whatever sacrifices he demands.

Then the date arrives and absolutely nothing happens.

At that point, a falsifiable belief should take a serious hit. But instead, the ideology can simply generate a new rationalization:

“Nothing happened because you all sacrificed so much and did such a good job. God saw your devotion and spared us for another day.”

And just like that, the failed prediction becomes evidence that the ideology was right.

The same basic pattern can keep repeating. If something happens, it proves the ideology. If the opposite happens, that also somehow proves the ideology. Every contradiction gets absorbed into the framework rather than forcing anyone to question the original premise.

Edited 8 hours ago by Xonas Pitfall

[LordFall]

8 minutes ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

Yes, I have zero issues with that claim.

Again, I think a lot of people simply cope with this. Maybe they genuinely want a specific person around because that person gives them some "goodie", but at the same time they realize that they want different things, more investment, different responsibilities, or different expectations from the relationship.

But because they don't want to accept the possibility of losing that “goodie” the person provides, they start doing all kinds of self-justification and ego framing, tactics to avoid confronting the incompatibility.

The ego goes, “I want this goodie, so how can I frame reality in a way where I can keep getting it without having to admit that I'm being selfish, deceptive, or unfair?”

Then you can end up rationalizing almost anything.

I think you're overemphasizing negative behaviour and discounting the value that FWB relationships have for both parties. Why this cynical take? Have you had women blow up on you for leading them on or are you internalizing the anti-sex sentiment that's common on the internet lately?

My FWBs pretty much all thanked me for the time we had together except 1. She didn't like me telling her I wanted to keep seeing other women on top of her but that one also proves my point. You can have your cake and eat it too. I've never had to lie to women to sleep with them, nor to keep them. 

Edited 8 hours ago by LordFall

[Xonas Pitfall]

5 minutes ago, LordFall said:

I think you're over emphasizing negative behaviour and discounting the value that FWB relationships have for both parties. Why this cynical take? Have you had women blow up on you for leading them on or are you internalizing the anti sex sentiment that's common on the internet lately?

My FWBs pretty much all thanked me for the time we had together except 1. She didn't like me telling her I wanted to keep seeing other women on top of her but that one also proves my point. You can have your cake and eat it too. I've never had to lie to women to sleep with them, nor to keep them. 

Sorry if I came across as cynical, haha. I genuinely have 0 issues with people having FWB relationships if they enjoy them.

I was really just responding to what the previous comment was getting at, so I probably made it sound more negative than I actually meant it.

Edited 8 hours ago by Xonas Pitfall

[LordFall]

8 minutes ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

Sorry if I came across as cynical, haha. I genuinely have 0 issues with people having FWB relationships if they enjoy them.

I was really just responding to what the previous comment was getting at, so I probably made it sound more negative than I actually meant it.

Got it, in that case I agree with much of your perspective.

I think it's such a shame the hold that sexual shame has on society. There are valid reasons why that was the case historically and even today being a max hedonist has it's drawbacks but it still swings too far into the shame polarity IMO. When you study frame control you start seeing very clearly why a lot of religions, cultures and governments have defaulted to it. When you got people by the balls basically literally, it's way easier to get them to comply to your will in all kinds of other ways.

It's also great marketing, if the church can get you to think about them every time you touch your dick or pussy then they'll stay imprinted deep in your psyche for the rest of your existence. 

Edited 8 hours ago by LordFall

[Emerald]

16 hours ago, AION said:

But I mean if a girl is a 4/10 and she starts becoming more selective. That doesn't mean she now deserves guys that is a 6/10. But a lot of women believe that. And that is why there are so many single women out there.

And thus 40% of women will be childless by 2040. I don't think that is a good thing though. People are pricing themselves out of the dating market. Because they all think they deserve the best. And although I wish that for them too, it is not realistic.

Making a deal is also about compromise and I'm not reading that back in your message. 

Usually I skip women that are too selective. Because it only tells me she has been around the block. And I have to carry the emotional baggage of her past mistakes. But if a girl is hot she can get away with it because she has such a big dating pool, she can just work the field to find a sucker.

If a girl is hot and she is can get away with basically everything, I was dating this hot girl and she made me work for it. At the end I was just irritated because I knew she was a club girl and other guys smashed it on the first encounter and I had to go through 5 dates with her. At the end I didn't respect her. Because I had to pay 5x the price the other guys had to pay.

First off, there's no correlation between attraction and deserving. Those are totally separate things.

In fact, deserving is a figment of the human imagination and doesn't actually exist as an external reality. (So, no one "deserves" or "doesn't deserve" anything at all... attraction being least of which.)

But bear in mind, I'm not talking about levels of physical attractiveness (or other superficial standards) when I'm talking about being selective.

Usually, people will have partners that are equivalent in the level of physical attractiveness to their own level of physical attractiveness. So, 4s will be with 4s and 8s will be with 8s. Go out in the real world and you will see that couples tend to be on a similar level of attractiveness. 

So, a woman who's a 4 might be able to get a man who's a 6 (or vice versa). But that's not something I recommend selecting for. 

The really important form of selectiveness for a woman to exercise comes more from selectiveness about a man's character and personality qualities... and his level of investment and interest in her specifically.

And women are nowhere near selective enough about these things and end up in all kinds of situationships that are going nowhere and/or terrible relationships that put a strain on the quality of her life and the lives of her children if she has babies with that man.

So, it's important to NEVER compromise on those requirements for any woman of any level of attractiveness, as it will just make the woman's life a living hell... and any children if she has them. 

And it's not like unattractive women "deserve" to have shitty relationships low-character guys. An unattractive woman can find a man of similar attractiveness who's a great person. 

Plus, when women have lower standards en masse, it sends a message to men as a collective that they can be low-character individuals and still have relationships and pass on their genes. And that's exactly how things have been historically, where women were forced by societal patterns to be un-selective because marriage was the only path to survival.

And one of the perks about being selective is that it scares the wrong men off, which makes room for the right men. 

It also encourages men to rise to the occasion and become better people, when women have high selection standards based on things like trust, character, stability, willingness to invest, and a highly developed sense of himself. 

That way men don't get confused and turn themselves into scoundrels to sleep with women who haven't learned how to select well enough yet.

Edited 5 hours ago by Emerald

[Joshe]

17 hours ago, eos_nyxia said:

My perspective comes from someone who was classically gifted as a child, who is also married to someone who was classically gifted as a child. Our backgrounds were very different, but we have a lot of shared perspective as a result of this commonality. Like my husband, I have no concept or experience of having had an intrinsically insufficient intellect (and creative capacity, to a somewhat lesser degree) to do anything during my formative years. Everything came super easily.

Points in No Particular Order:

• Giftedness is very poorly understood amongst the general population (and honestly pretty much any demographic, including general intellectual ones). An example: a lot of gifted people have inborn and developed early-life emotional traits which are often clocked as masculine if female or feminine if male. A lot of these traits are treated as “problems” growing up, and this often lingers as baggage in adulthood. Just a few examples, by no means extensive:
  • If female: too logical/ left-brain orientated, know-it-all, too blunt and asks too many questions in a way that gets under people’s skin (even when you’re trying to be as polite as humanly possible and mindful of people’s boundaries), unusually high learning and problem-solving drive 
  • If male: too sensitive and feels too deeply is the big one. Also cripplingly self-conscious in an emotionally self-aware from a young age. Combined with having a child's brain, this is not very enjoyable. 
• Likewise, the last time I felt self-conscious about how the opposite sex viewed my intellect was middle-school aged, where it became pretty clear that boys in general don’t like know-it-alls. I mean this super literally, as just knowing things that they do not and being willing to point it out. But after that point, it’s never been a real deterrent for whenever I wore my interests and way of thinking on my sleeve. If I was not very secure about my intellect (because for me going out of my way to clock as intelligent for its own sake is a joke), I’m sure I would have had a different experience.

I think the biggest factor for me is having a certain kind security in your intellect and not tying this to your intrinsic masculinity (which highly gifted men either tend to not do at all, or they have paralyzing amounts of it as if their idolatry of intellectualism was an armour that could save them from the stupid in this world). This is where I tend to clash the most with men who have... at some point in their lives (let’s just say as a teen and onward), chose to identify themselves as The Intellectual. I've found it to be tryhard.

Like if you NEED to be the smart one in the relationship or negate the experience I went through because that’s the only way you can feel man enough, that is not cute. You are probably not secure in your intellectualism in the way that self-appointed intellectuals often are not, and that itself is ok. But it is just better to be able to assess yourself realistically and then aspire to do better, which is what we ALL should aspire to do. And there are easily a ton of things you could potentially be better at than me, and that itself, especially with curiosity and passion, is very attractive. 

I find that a certain kind of combativeness is brought to interactions and they’re not always aware of it. It's the energy of needing to prove themselves. It's not a zero sum game lol.  A relationship is not for competition, unless somehow you can make it a healthy one and you want to for some reason. Keep it playful and light though, I think!

But more than anything, there is a huge gap to bridge in our ways of relating to the world and the way our identities were formed, I think. For this reason especially, the unwillingness to put himself in my shoes is a deal breaker, because that is what I try to do for him!

Gold! 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

3 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

What is a falsifiable model?

I think @Xonas Pitfall nailed it.

Did you truly not know what a falsifiable model was? Or did you want someone's personal definition?

[Emerald]

11 hours ago, BlessedLion said:

To get married young and be under the leadership of some fucking dude sounds like hell. But maybe if i was a woman i would think differently and want that, if i did want that, i would capitalize on my youth....because that's when i'd have to most Sexual marketplace power.

No you absolutely wouldn't think about things that way if you were a woman.

Bear in mind... if you live by the sword you die by the sword.

So, if you find a partner based on being a hot young thing... you lose the same partner when you're no longer a hot young thing. And there's always more hot young things coming of age every day. 

It's a game that most women learn very early not to play, because it's a game where the woman always loses because it requires her to stay 18 in order to be a more ideal plaything in the eyes of icky guys... which is impossible, even if she did want to.

And I'd wager you wouldn't be foolish enough to play a losing game.... where it's impossible to win. But even if you do "win", it sucks.

Even now, you react like a woman does when thinking of the nature of that game. That's why you think you'd be some RadFem who hates men and posts on forums about it. (But you probably wouldn't be that either. You'd just say no to un-winnable, un-fun, and unsatisfying games and find better guys.)

So, what you would learn instead is to immediately sort guys from consideration who show signs that they're only into you because of your looks or youth. And they're easy to spot. And you'd get really sick and tired of it.

So, if you were a woman, you'd probably know that thinking that way would lead to awful men who will use you... unless you were naive, had really low self-esteem, or lacked critical thinking skills.

The issue is that you're taking your male lens and looking at women that way.

And attraction is being over-valued as a tool for female dating whilst judicious sorting is being under-valued as a tool for female dating.

So, even though attractiveness may be what you value in a woman.... attractiveness is not the primary vector upon which a woman finds a loving partner who values her. And most attractive women are on high alert for men who are only looking for arm candy.

There's no reason to assume that your experience would be different, if you were a woman.

[Joshe]

57 minutes ago, Emerald said:

So, even though attractiveness may be what you value in a woman.... attractiveness is not the primary vector upon which a woman finds a loving partner who values her. And most attractive women are on high alert for men who are only looking for arm candy.

IDK why this is so hard to see. It seems like easily attainable knowledge.

Maybe pickup is coming around to this though? I've heard Leo say something like "women aren't driven by beauty because they don't need it", or something like that. But it seems like they're still missing something, else they'd drop pickup. I think it's the chad wound. 

[LordFall]

46 minutes ago, Joshe said:

IDK why this is so hard to see. It seems like easily attainable knowledge.

Maybe pickup is coming around to this though? I've heard Leo say something like "women aren't driven by beauty because they don't need it", or something like that. But it seems like they're still missing something, else they'd drop pickup. I think it's the chad wound. 

Pickup artists rarely rely on looksmaxxing, they rely on charisma, boldness and understanding social dynamics to a high enough level that you can subvert expectations in a calibrated way to end up charming as a result. Two dating coaches that come to mind are RSD Todd and Michael Sartain that basically boil down all of fashion for men as "wear black jeans and a black t-shirt". 

Edited 3 hours ago by LordFall

[Joseph Maynor]

2 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I think @Xonas Pitfall nailed it.

Did you truly not know what a falsifiable model was? Or did you want someone's personal definition?

I get it.  But how about falsifying personal opinions like I find so and so attractive and so and so unattractive.  Falsifiability tends to be used as a test for scientific statements or statements purporting to be objective.  

Edited 2 hours ago by Joseph Maynor

[Joshe]

15 minutes ago, LordFall said:

Pickup artists rarely rely on looksmaxxing, they rely on charisma, boldness and understanding social dynamics to a high enough level that you can subvert expectations and in a calibrated way to end up charming as a result. 2 dating coaches that come to mind are Todd Valentine and Michael Sartain that basically boil down all of fashion for men as "wear back jeans and a black t-shirt". 

I get doing all that, but there's something odd about how much energy and thought is put into it. And why would you need another guy to tell you how to charm? Charm has to be unique. 

It's like when I come across some porn and I hear girls making the same stupid noises over and over, thinking they're being sexy. When really, they're just copying what they think works. It's cringe af and I have to turn the video off every time I hear some girl saying "yes daddy, yea, yea, yea" It's like, STFU!!! lol It's 100x sexier for the girl to just make noises as they come to her. 

That's the basic idea behind what I see pickup accomplishing, if that makes sense. Don't get me wrong, it will work, but it's so tired and boring. I don't want to be posturing like every other dude because then I'm offering her the same shit every other dude is offering, which isn't much. 

No right or wrong here, just my opinion.

Edited 2 hours ago by Joshe

[Natasha Tori Maru]

7 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I get it.  But how about falsifying personal opinions like I find so and so attractive and so and so unattractive.  Falsifiability tends to be used as a test for scientific statements or statements purporting to be objective.  

This is changing the category of the claim. Not what I was saying.

[LordFall]

7 minutes ago, Joshe said:

I get doing all that, but there's something odd about how much energy and thought is put into it. And why would you need another guy to tell you how to charm? Charm has to be unique. 

It's like when I come across some porn and I hear girls making the same stupid noises over and over, thinking they're being sexy. When really, they're just copying what they think works. It's cringe af and I have to turn the video off every time I hear some girl saying "yes daddy, yea, yea, yea" It's like, STFU!!! lol It's much sexier for the girl to just make noises as they come to her. 

That's the basic idea behind what I see pickup accomplishing, if that makes sense. Don't get me wrong, it will work, but it's so tired and boring. I don't want to be posturing like every other dude because then I'm offering her the same shit every other dude is offering, which isn't much. 

No right or wrong here, just my opinion.

The idea is to get guiding principles for it, not to follow it A to Z. 

There is a right or wrong to it, that's the idea. Every guy thinks he can get women; very few can do it consistently. Some principles work consistently no matter which man uses them. Push-pull for example, being cocky funny, having good logistics, building a cool social circle with attractive women or getting big on social media, etc.

Edited 2 hours ago by LordFall

[Joshe]

4 minutes ago, LordFall said:

The idea is to get guiding principles for it, not to follow it A to Z. 

There is a right or wrong to it, that's the idea. Every guy thinks he can get women; very few can do it consistently. Some principles work consistently no matter which man uses them. Push-pull for example, being cocky funny, having good logistics, building a cool social circle with attractive women or getting big on social media, etc.

I suppose for me, if I attract a woman or not, I'm fine with that, even if I wished I could have pulled one that night. I don't go home and think "man, I really gotta step my shit up because I want to be a man who gets what he wants when he wants it." 

For me, I either get attraction or I don't, and that's that. So that could be a factor.

When I consider the cost-benefit of spending thousands of hours in trying to minimize those instances where I don't pull a girl, the reality of those instances is not so painful that I'm willing to put in the thousands of hours to minimize them. It mattered in my 20s but attraction wasn't so sparse that I needed frameworks and tactics.