A Story to Give Some Perspective...

[Emerald]

One of the things that I've noticed, is that there's a sizable minority of guys on here that seem to have very negative views on women... believing women to be manipulative, irrational, chaotic, etc.

(The same dynamic can be found in other spaces where there are women who have very negative views on men. But this is a 95% male space, so you see more negative views on women. Plus, you also have strong forces like Red Pill, Black Pill, and other Manosphere rabbit holes that can make negative views on women more rampant with common repeatable talking points.)

But the reality is that, what you believe about the opposite gender (and other people in general) will become a self-fulfilling prophecy... and you'll find more and more evidence to support your beliefs.

So, if you believe all/most women are terrible... you will mostly meet and interact with terrible women. (And it will also transform you into a more terrible man.)

So, I wanted to share a personal story that happened to me about 12 years ago to illustrate this point...

During that time, I was working as a full-time graphic design teacher at one of the local high schools. So, I'd usually dress in business casual kind of clothing that's typical in white collar jobs. 

And one time, my van broke down. So for a few days, I had to take a taxi cab into work.

One of those days, a very rough looking guy was the cabbie. He was probably in his 40s or 50s and you could tell he maybe had had some issues with drugs currently or in the past. He clearly had had quite a rough life.

And he started asking me questions about what I do. And I was just telling him that I'm a graphic design teacher and the regular small talk when people are asking about what you do for work.

And as I was telling him about work, the guy seemed really surprised and impressed about what I was saying... even though it was just basic information about my work and nothing special in my usual social circle of teachers and staff at the high school.

And at some point during our conversation he started complimenting me by comparing me to "the average women" and telling me how impressed he was by how different I am from the average woman... like I was this rare exception to the rule and totally different than 99% of women out there.

He said something like, "Most women are pill heads and strung out and crazy. And it's so refreshing and different that you're not like that.."

But he said more than that. It was a whole conversation. And I probably had to say thank you like 5 or 6 times.

He was utterly flabbergasted at the fact that there are women like me who exist... simply on the basis that I was not a junkie.

And he was thinking that he was giving me an amazing compliment by gushing and comparing me to these women with pill addictions that he knows and interacts with. And it was clear that he was thinking the majority of women in the world are like those women.

But from my perspective, it was less of a compliment for me... and more of a tell about himself and what he's come to see as normal in the people around him on a day-to-day basis. Clearly he was used to being around people who used substances a lot.

And it wasn't hard to guess that he probably had some pill/drug problems himself.

Though he clearly saw the pilled up women as different than himself in some fundamental way, as he was very othering to them. But everything he said about those women, I knew was a reflection of himself.

So, anytime I see someone on here who's like "Most women are crazy/chaotic/immature/emotional/etc".... I know that I'm probably talking to a crazy/chaotic/immature/emotional/etc man.... OR an analogously negative kind of guy who is the negative version of the opposite of those qualities. 

The same is true for women who make sweeping negative generalizations about most men. It tells me immediately the type of guys they're usually around... and it gives me strong hints about the things about themselves that make them more likely to encounter, attract, and be attracted to those kinds of guys and build a worldview that most men are like that.

Of course, there are many people out there who fit these negative descriptions. I don't doubt for a moment that the cabbie guy was interacting with a lot of women with pill problem. He was definitely telling the truth as he witnessed it to be. I'm sure that interacting with a non-pilled up woman was GENUINELY like finding a unicorn in the wild from his perspective.

And there are a ton of terrible men and women out there who will drag your life down. And it's important to be vigilant about red flags.

So, it's not "Yay! Everyone's amazing!" because that isn't true. There are many untrustworthy people out there.

Instead, what's important to cultivate is something like this... "Wow! I'm so blessed in my life to know so many wonderful women/men/people, and I'm always interacting with amazing women/men/people because I have cultivated strong values and an amazing life... and so I only regularly and meaningfully interact with men/women/people who I genuinely consider awesome."

That becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And you'll start to find more and more evidence that "there are so many amazing women out there" if you shift your mindset this way.

[Olaf]

I don't think woman are terrible, of course I have my frustrations with woman as it is sometimes hard to understand them. What I do belief is that the whole red pill movement is toxic and that self-fulfilling prophecy is real. I notice this in my life too, sometimes also from woman projecting something onto me, which is funny, so it goes both ways. I always seem to do the best with woman when I believe truely not like some affirmation, but truely that they like me and that I am of value to them. And then that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where I do give value and they do like me, it is kind of like magic. Most guys just never talk to woman and listen to content like "focus on your business" or "go to the gym forget about the girls" like anything to basically not talk to woman and then the red pill says "they are all hoes" and then that gives a reason to not talk to woman again. So I think what we will see is that we got a bunch of jacked dudes, rich guys and no social skills or understanding of woman, because it is easier to dismiss them and cope then to actually invest time/energy and courage into understanding woman. I don't know why I got on a whole rampage here, but yeah woman are not terrible to me.  

[Carl-Richard]

Some people think most people are just stupid, uninteresting, morally bankrupt, etc. But it just happens that the former are maybe pretty introverted and don't like interacting with people. And therefore they don't interact with people and they don't learn how people really are. Or they are too consumed by their own judgement that they can't open themselves up to see what is really in front of them.

Edited 1 hour ago by Carl-Richard

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Sometimes these sorts of beliefs are also coming from a very strong cognitive bias; huge amounts of data that could contradict a worldview are simply discarded.

[Monster Energy]

Sometimes a red flag is just a red flag, not a mirror.

 

[Lyubov]

Yeah, I do agree that this sort of world view clouds one's clarity. It is often times easier to stick with familiar beliefs than look in the mirror. Things go unresolved in the dating part of life. I would also give equal weight to the truth that there are alligators in the water you must watch out for. 

[LordFall]

Good point! Humans are very good at avoidance and projecting is one of the key symptoms of it.

Most men are scared of accountability and in this case admitting that their ability to attract high quality women into their life is lacking and therefore project that there are no high quality women around. They are also in scarcity and don't know a lot of women so they meet 2 bad apples and give up instead of taking ownership, reflecting on what went wrong and then learning from it to build a life where aligned people are around them in abundance.