One of the most endemic masculine pitfalls men have faced since the rise of feminine social primacy has been the belief that their ready displays of emotional vulnerability will make men more desirable mates for women.
In an era when men are raised from birth to be “in touch with their feminine sides”, and in touch with their emotions, we get generations of men trying to ‘out-emote’ each other as a mating strategy.
To the boys who grow into Beta men, the ready eagerness with which they’ll roll over and reveal their bellies to women comes from a conditioned belief that doing so will prove their emotional maturity and help them better identify with the women they mistakenly believe have a capacity to appreciate it.
What they don’t understand is that the voluntary exposing of ones most vulnerable elements isn’t the sign of strength that the Feminine Imperative has literally bred a belief of into these men.
A reflexive exposing of vulnerability is an act of submission, surrender and a capitulation to an evident superior. Dogs will roll over almost immediately when they acknowledge the superior status of another dog.
Vulnerability is not something to be brandished or proud of. While I do believe the insight and acknowledgement of your personal vulnerabilities is a necessary part of understanding oneself (particularly when it comes to unplugging oneself), it is not the source of attraction, and certainly not arousal, that most men believe it is for women.
From the comfort of the internet and polite company women will consider the ‘sounds-right’ appeal of male vulnerability with regard to what they’re supposed to be attracted to, but on an instinctual, subconscious level, women make a connection with the weakness that vulnerability represents.
A lot of men believe that trusting displays of vulnerability are mutually exclusive of displays of weakness, but what they ignore is that Hypergamy demands men that can shoulder the burden of performance. When a man openly broadcasts his vulnerableness he is, by definition, beginning from a position of weakness.
The problem with idealizing a position of strength is in thinking you’re already beginning from that strength and your magnanimous display of trusting vulnerability will be appreciated by a receptive woman. I strongly disagree with assertions like those of various Purple Pill ‘life coaches’ that open, upfront vulnerability is ever attractive to a woman.
The idea goes that if a man is truly outcome-independent with his being rejected by a woman, the first indicator of that independence is a freedom to be vulnerable with her. The approach then becomes one of “hey, I’m just gonna be my vulnerable self and if you’re not into me then I’m cool with that.”
The hope is that a woman will receive this approach as intended and find something refreshing about it, but the sad truth is that if this were the attraction key its promoters wish it was, every guy ‘just being himself‘ would be swimming in top shelf pussy. This is a central element to Beta Game – the hope that a man’s openness will set him apart from ‘other guys’ – it is common practice for men who believe in the equalist fantasy that women will rise above their feral natures when it comes to attraction, and base their sexual selection on his emotional intelligence.
The fact is that there is no such thing as outcome independence. The very act of your approaching a woman means you have made some effort to arrive at a favorable outcome with her. The fact that you’d believe a woman would even find your vulnerability attractive voids any pretense of outcome independence.
Hypergamy Doesn’t Care About Male Vulnerability
When I wrote Women in Love and the followups, Men in Love and Of Love and War, I described men’s concept of love as ‘idealistic’.
Naturally, simple minds exaggerated this into “men just want an impossible unconditional love” or “they want love like they think their mothers loved them.” For what it’s worth, I don’t believe any rational man with some insight ever expects an unconditional love, but I think it’s important to consider that a large part of what constitutes his concept of an idealized love revolves around being loved irrespective of how he performs for, or merits that love.
From Of Love and War:
We want to relax. We want to be open and honest. We want to have a safe haven in which struggle has no place, where we gain strength and rest instead of having it pulled from us. We want to stop being on guard all the time, and have a chance to simply be with someone who can understand our basic humanity without begrudging it. To stop fighting, to stop playing the game, just for a while.
We want to, so badly.
If we do, we soon are no longer able to.
The concept of men’s idealistic love, the love that makes him the true romantic, begins with a want of freedom from his burden of performance. It’s not founded in an absolute like unconditional love, but rather a love that isn’t dependent upon his performing well enough to assuage a woman’s Hypergamous concept of love.
Oh, the Humanity!
As the true romantics, and because of the performance demands of Hypergamy, there is a distinct want for men to believe that in so revealing their vulnerabilities they become more “human” – that if they expose their frailties to women some mask they believe they’re wearing comes off and (if she’s a mythical “quality woman“™) she’ll excuses his inadequacies to perform to the rigorous satisfaction of her Hypergamy.
The problems with this ‘strength in surrender’ hope are twofold.
First, the humanness he believes a woman will respect isn’t the attraction cue he believes it is. Ten minutes perusing blogs about the left-swiping habits of women using Tinder (or @Tinderfessions) is enough to verify that women aren’t desirous of the kind of “humanness” he’s been conditioned to believe women are receptive to.
In the attraction and arousal stages, women are far more concerned with a man’s capacity to entertain her by playing a role and presenting her with the perception of a male archetype she expects herself to be attracted to and aroused by. Hypergamy doesn’t care about how well you can express your humanness, and primarily because the humanness men believe they’re revealing in their vulnerability is itself a predesigned psychological construct of the Feminine Imperative.
Which brings us to the second problem with ‘strength in surrender’. The caricaturized preconception men have about their masculine identity is a construct of a man’s feminine-primary socialization.
The Masks the Feminine Imperative Makes Men Wear
To explain this second problem it’s important to grasp how men are expected to define their own masculine identities within a social order where the only correct definition of masculinity is prepared for men in a feminine-primary context.
What I mean by this is that the humanness that men wish to express in showing themselves as vulnerable is defined by feminine-primacy.
For the greater part of men’s upbringing and socialization they are taught that a conventional masculine identity is in fact a fundamentally male weakness that only women have a unique ‘cure’ for. It’s a widely accepted manosphere fact that over the past 60 or so years, conventional masculinity has become a point of ridicule, an anachronism, and every media form from then to now has made a concerted effort to parody and disqualify that masculinity. Men are portrayed as buffoons for attempting to accomplish female-specific roles, but also as “ridiculous men” for playing the conventional ‘macho’ role of masculinity. In both instances, the problems their inadequate maleness creates are only solved by the application of uniquely female talents and intuition.
Perhaps more damaging though is the effort the Feminine Imperative has made in convincing generations of men that masculinity and its expressions (of any kind) is an act, a front, not the real man behind the mask of masculinity that’s already been predetermined by his feminine-primary upbringing.
Women who lack any living experience of the male condition have the calculated temerity to define for men what they should consider manhood – from a feminine-primary context. This is why men’s preconception of vulnerability being a sign of strength is fundamentally flawed. Their concept of vulnerability stems from a feminine pretext.
Masculinity and vulnerability are defined by a female-correct concept of what should best serve the Feminine Imperative. That feminine defined masculinity (tough-guy ridiculousness) feeds the need for defining vulnerability as a strength – roll over, show your belly and capitulate to that feminine definition of masculinity – and the cycle perpetuates itself.
“The Mask You Live In” by director Jennifer Siebel Newsom (dual surname noted) is the perfect example of this perpetuation. You have a woman deciding for a larger public in a documentary what the male experience is and then solving the problem (i.e. the tired trope of men needing to get more in touch with their emotions) for men.
Men are ridiculous posers. Men are socialized to wear masks to hide what the Feminine Imperative has decided is their true natures (they’re really girls wearing boy masks). Men’s problems extend from their inability to properly emote like women, and once they are raised better (by women and men who comply with the Feminine Imperative) they can cease being “tough” and get along better with women. That’s the real strength that comes from men’s feminized concept of vulnerability – compliance with the Feminine Imperative.
Ironically Newsom is still oblivious to the fact that she can only create such a documentary in an environment of feminine-primacy. No man could produce this and be taken seriously in our contemporary social climate.
It’s indictment of the definers of what masculinity ought to be that they still characterize modern masculinity (based on the ‘feels’) as being problematic when for generations our feminine-primary social order has conditioned men to associate that masculinity in as feminine-beneficial a context as women would want.
They still rely on an outdated formula which presumes the male experience is inferior, a sham, in comparison to the female experience, and then presumes to know what the male experience really is and offers feminine-primary solutions for it.
From The 16 Commandments of Poon:
IV. Don’t play by her rules
If you allow a woman to make the rules she will resent you with a seething contempt even a rapist cannot inspire. The strongest woman and the most strident feminist wants to be led by, and to submit to, a more powerful man. Polarity is the core of a healthy loving relationship. She does not want the prerogative to walk all over you with her capricious demands and mercurial moods. Her emotions are a hurricane, her soul a saboteur. Think of yourself as a bulwark against her tempest. When she grasps for a pillar to steady herself against the whipping winds or yearns for an authority figure to foil her worst instincts, it is you who has to be there… strong, solid, unshakeable and immovable.
True vulnerability is not a value-added selling point for a man when it comes to approaching and attracting women. As with all things, your vulnerability is best discovered by a woman through demonstration –never explaining those vulnerabilities to her with the intent of appearing more human as the feminine would define it.
Women want a bulwark against their own emotionalism, not a co-equal male emoter whose emotionalism would compete with her own. The belief that male vulnerability is a strength is a slippery slope from misguided attraction to emotional codependency, to overt dependency on a woman to accommodate and compensate for the weaknesses that vulnerability really implies.
I know a lot of guys think that displays vulnerability from a position of Alpha dominance, or strength can be endearing for a woman when you’re engaged in an LTR, but I’m saying that’s only the case when the rare instance of vulnerability is unintentionally revealed. Vulnerability is not a strength, and especially not when a man deliberately reveals it with the expectation of a woman appreciating it as a strength.
At some point in any LTR you will show your vulnerable side, and there’s nothing wrong with that. What’s wrong is the overt attempt to parlay that vulnerability into a strength or virtue that you expect that woman to appreciate, feel endearment over or reciprocate with displays of her own vulnerability for.
A chink in the armor is a weakness best kept from view of those who expect you to perform your best in all situations. If that chink is revealed in performing your best, then it may be considered a strength for having overcome it while performing to your best potential. It is never a strength when you expect it to be appreciated as such.
November 24th, 2014 at 11:29 pm
@dcllcd,
Thanks for the page quotes, pretty much sums up my assessment of Manson’s purple pill adovacy.
November 25th, 2014 at 12:30 am
I’ve been spending the last few minutes laughing to myself about “a bad week.” The phrase perfectly describes how I unwittingly narrowly avoided marriage to somebody regrettable.
A couple I know are putting their union on the chopping block after 30+ years. Imagine her self-righteous outrage that he flew to an island and started a relationship with someone new and 15 years younger than she. Admittedly ham-fisted on my part, I quietly reminded her that she conscripted him to bed-death and the basement man-cave for the 2 years prior to his departure. Who gave up on who first?
The mere notion of any responsibility for an adult relationship on her part clearly vexed her. She hasn’t spoken to me since.
Similarly, I find that the female commenters in this discussion are super-quick to align themselves with any arguments putting the onus on men and alleviating them of all but the bare-minimum responsibility for their agreed-to commitments. Despite the word that comes to mind, I’m smirking at the fact that stuff like this is angering me less, day-by-day. I’m no alpha, but my baby-steps are a small victory.
By the way, the word is “sickening.”
November 25th, 2014 at 12:31 am
myrealitie:
“keep a house and a woman on a steady and happy path”…”Because that makes women feel great. And a woman who feels great isn’t going anywhere…”
And I’m sure there would be more references to such buried elsewhere in her comments.
There it is. If the woman “feels great”. If the woman is on a “haaappy path”. She might stay. It’s all about how the woman is made to feel. And we all know how rock-solid emotions are, especially a woman’s…not! What fool is going to found a life-long commitment on the basis of a woman’s ephemeral, whimsical, fleeting, temporal, vaporous feelings/emotions?
November 25th, 2014 at 1:44 am
@Snowy, re: “What fool is going to found a life-long commitment on the basis of a woman’s ephemeral, whimsical, fleeting, temporal, vaporous feelings/emotions?”
Ha ha! Probably a vulnerable man, desiring to be intimate. Probably a man who needs comforting, some comforting some times, some small shred of decency from a woman. Probably a man who still somehow foolishly believes that a woman is capable of actual love, that some woman will at least pretend sometimes to appreciate his devoted service.
Certainly no strong man will ever think any such woman is worth *anything*, much less himself.
November 25th, 2014 at 7:49 am
I’m going to start polishing my Fake Chinks.
The, honestly, rather stupid Handicap Principle theories suggest, handwavingingly in childish models, that the additional genetic strength needed to bear the burden of a vulnerability, i.e. the costs of a handicap, is Honestly Signaled by the increasingly *misleading* elaborations of the handicap.
If emotionalism were a handicap for men, and we know it is, these theories suggest that we would see men breaking down in tears, giant, elaborate, colorful tears, all the time, men carrying around the sparkly burden of their peacock tail of uncontrollable emotions.
November 25th, 2014 at 7:54 am
I’ve commented enough here, not to mention elsewhere, enough to reveal a large number of obvious strengths and clear vulnerabilities. I say again, I’ve clearly revealed a number of emotional vulnerabilities. I’m sure you agree.
If such kinds of vulnerabilities be exploitable and not merely handicaps, then surely mine would be, if any are. So, to help you muster your exploitativeness, or rather to explore whether vulnerabilities be, eh, vulnerable to text-based assaults, then take a swing. I’m serious. Give it a shot.
November 25th, 2014 at 8:09 am
jf12:
“Ha ha! Probably a vulnerable man, desiring to be intimate. Probably a man who needs comforting, some comforting some times, some small shred of decency from a woman. Probably a man who still somehow foolishly believes that a woman is capable of actual love, that some woman will at least pretend sometimes to appreciate his devoted service.”
Amazing how precisely you describe my Blue Pill (i.e. Pre-Red Pill) days. So…this thing that women say we men should ‘just get’ is that women just naturally want to submit to a man’s leadership? That where I lead, she will just naturally follow? All I have to do is man-up and take charge of her? It’s all up to me? She’s a child? [Yes!]. Why didn’t I think of that before? The only women I’ve known in my life wouldn’t be led by a man even if you were holding a gun to their heads. I must be meeting the wrong women, since NAWALT.
November 25th, 2014 at 9:03 am
@Snowy, I couldn’t agree more. The very idea that women want to follow good leaders is laughable, despite the sinister motivation for promoting that lie (i.e. the lie that a good leader leads women where women want to go).
November 25th, 2014 at 9:57 am
The very idea that women do not want to coddle the men they love is laughable, despite the sinister motivation for promoting that lie (i.e. the lie that women are just naturally bitchy even to men they love and just cain’t help it). The stench of the FI permeates *everything* about women.
November 25th, 2014 at 10:51 am
So, what are some good ideas for Fake Chinks? I could spin Fake Puppy Tales all day, I guess, but a storyis not really a chink.
November 25th, 2014 at 11:01 am
re: rape-by-fraud laws.
The evolution of YMY means that consent can be retroactively withdrawn, formalizing regret rape into law. This effectually pedestalizes women’s whims at the expense of men, thereby making men almost completely vulnerable to women. Each man is now a giant walking chink.
November 25th, 2014 at 11:13 am
I’ve come to believe that when it comes to gaining any form of respect or connection from a woman. A man has to let go of all of his ability to want to care, emote or get close to any of them.
Its for this reason that I think a man can never gain complete happiness in his relationships with the opposite sex. Because sex on it’s own isn’t enough or fulfilling.
It’s a lose/lose situation. Get loads of sex and still be unhappy, or be in a relationship and hold back on intimacy and become emotionally cold.
Makes me wonder what the point is of all of this besides sticking your dick inside a hole and producing offspring.
November 25th, 2014 at 11:13 am
Is there any possible good motive for encouraging someone to be more vulnerable to an adversary in the absence of any evidence that the adversary is making nice?
November 25th, 2014 at 11:27 am
re: prohibiting defenses.
Since the new versions of YMY prohibit the filming of consent, and since consent can now be explicitly withdrawn retroactively anyway, the law has (theoretically) removed any actual defense, strictly in order to make it more adversarial he-said-she-said, and to make the man more vulnerable. It’s all about forcing the men to be sexually fearful, sexually vulnerable, sexually violated. There is no other reason.
November 25th, 2014 at 12:24 pm
Your happiness should come from your primal energy and the strength, calmness and optimism that it gives you. The woman submits to this energy and gives you a helper and someone who can inject the necessary feminine energy to diversify your life. Appreciate her for what she does, because it can definitely improve your life. Just don’t expect something that can’t be given.
November 25th, 2014 at 12:35 pm
@ jf12 on YMY:
if that is true I’ll have to recall my thoughts that it couldn’t possibly get any worse. There is just one word for it: insanity. They really try to push the envelope here.
I’m glad I don’t live in CA but many have noted before that it won’t be to far fetched that this will be the law for the whole country one day.
Nothing can save us guys, because there is no rational solution to circumvent conviction not even a signed contract will do.
November 25th, 2014 at 12:40 pm
In case you thought YMY was only limited to on-campus consensual sex rape allegations:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/nj-lawmaker-introduces-rape-by-fraud-bill-to-criminalize-lying-to-get-sex/
November 25th, 2014 at 1:13 pm
Yeah Rollo: You’re right about the “rape by fraud” bill being introduced in NJ, but I can report it’s already being laughed at in the Star-Ledger. I suspect it won’t go anywhere beyond click-bait andf TV bloviating. Though I note its “supporter” – an “author” who got taken in by some PUA’s “I’m a CEO” story – justifies the “rape” designation for what happened to her, saying that “sexual assaults can occur in many ways. Not all of them violent.”
If that’s not YMY to the limit, I don’t know what is. Let’s cut the crap and just outlaw fornication and sodomy and be done with this. Define all approaches and sex as “assault” so you don’t need to worry about motives. Polish up your purity rings! Get out your Jonas Brothers CDs!!
November 25th, 2014 at 1:16 pm
Your welcome.
It might also interest you to know that when he re-released the book he said he was going to take out the sections on working out and grooming. He felt they weren’t as important as his other ‘advice’.
That sure is strange.
November 25th, 2014 at 1:18 pm
*You’re (gets me every time)
November 25th, 2014 at 1:22 pm
@ jf12
re: “One Thing women get so wrong is that women DO coddle the men they love. Women LOVE to coddle alphas. Alphas aren’t out there fearlessly leading invulnerably; alphas are in the warm bath getting their backs scratched by some unpaid geishas while other unpaid geishas soapily slither around their fronts.”
Thank you for correcting me. You’re right. And also pointing out women’s COMPLETE hypocrisy about this.
The FI doesn’t want alpha-aspiring guys to be alpha. They want them to stay where they are, and think that coddling is for weak, baby men. When in reality, genuine coddling is reserved for the men that women baby — Alpha men.
Stereotypical fanning with leaves and feeding grapes while the guy’s reclining on a luxurious chair. Massaging and scratching his back, massaging his feet.
Lions don’t hunt. The lionesses hunt. And when they bring the food back that they caught, the lion is the first to eat.
The kind of “coddling” Beta men want is a fantasy. It only exists as a fantasy in their minds.It’s never actualized for them by women, because actual coddling from women is reserved for children and Alpha men.
I forgot about that. There’s the tendency to go MGTOW — give up on the idea of “intimacy” and “coddling” when in reality, the only goal is to re-define what those terms mean, and realize we CAN achieve them, in a different (and better) context.
@ Onder
The bitterness can fade even in a guy like me who isn’t currently getting laid. What you have to understand is that the real change is within YOU.
You CAN have true intimacy after you change your state of mind. For all the accusations of misogyny here, the goal of this blog is to teach men how to have better relationships with women based on reality. What really works.
My belief is that the “vulnerability” we believe we have as men has been conditioned into us. I am extremely empathic and sensitive person, but I’m still a man. Soyen Shaku said “My eyes are cold like dead ashes, but my heart burns like fire.”
It’s possible to have profound emotional depth and wisdom and acute sensitivity and empathy without embracing what the FI tells us we should embrace.
The FI telling us things like talking directly about “our feelings” in the context of trying to establish an “intimate connection.” That men just want that “closeness.”
Hogwash.
Simply in the act of ALLOWING a girl to service/pleasure you, you are SILENTLY AFFIRMING (showing by demonstration instead of telling) that she is providing something of use to you.
Women communicate differently than men. Logically “talking” about feelings with the goal of establishing “intimacy” is completely contrary to how women establish intimacy.
IMO the most intimate thing for a woman is to service a man. This is done without words. This one girl that loved going down on me and would swallow every single time said she thought that giving me blowjobs was the most intimate thing she could do with me. She loved going down on me. Now thinking back on it I’m thinking that it’s because it was all about me — all about my pleasure. I would just lay back and she’d do all the work, and she loved it, and never hesitated to tell me how much it turned her on to think about blowing me. “I feel like I’m going to come just thinking about sucking your dick.”
I’ve found, after a lifetime of wearing my heart on my sleeve, that holding your cards closer to your chest doesn’t mean sacrificing who you are. “Don’t cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them, and then turn on you and tear you to pieces.”
Being able to regulate your emotions and present yourself as calm, cool and confident does not mean that you don’t have emotions anymore. It also doesn’t mean it’s an act or that you’re “faking” it.
Soyen Shaku also said to act the same when you’re alone as you would if you were with distinguished guests. I agree with that advice.
Intimacy — true intimacy — is really possible. But only when you re-define yourself. Get rid of the FI conditioning. Get out of the Blue Pill matrix. Learn how and why women do the things they do. Reflect on your past successes and past failures. Even someone with as limited experience as I have has plenty of references to think back on and re-process in a Red Pill context.
Don’t give up. I’m not giving up. We have to realize that the truth is that beyond Red Pill knowledge is intimacy we never could’ve dreamed of. e.g., experiencing the benefits women give to Alphas. It’s impossible to even DESIRE those benefits if you’re coming from a Beta mindset. Let alone believe you deserve them.
Coming from a mentality of qualifying to women is hell on earth. This includes wanting “intimacy” with women, as in verbal expressions of emotions, or extreme displays of emotions without any judgment.
I’ve had a lot of success feeling more grounded and centered in myself by acknowledging in private all the emotions I have. Learning how to step into your mind and fearlessly look at all your demons — in private — is an especially critical skill to have as a man.
That way you’re not fighting back tears. You’re not hiding yourself. You’ve already made peace with your demons and so the ‘stalwart’ sentinel presence you can have around people in emotionally volatile situations is not ‘faking it.’ It’s authentic. It also doesn’t mean being cold or unable to support other people.
You are calm and confident because you’re the real deal. You’ve felt and experienced all these things before. You know how to handle it. You’re at peace with yourself and you can extend that peace to other people who need it.
Anyway, I’m just mulling over some ideas. But it’s very important to drive home the message, which Rollo’s mentioned before, that it isn’t “acting” or “being a clown” or “entertainer” when you AUTHENTICALLY change who you are (for the better).
You have to take on a new identity. And that doesn’t mean abandoning yourself. It means integrating your past experiences, learning from them, and becoming a better, evolved version of yourself.
Who will I be if I’m more alpha? Happier, healthier, more laid back, have more fun with people and definitely have more fun with women.
It’s funny. In Faster EFT, that’s the main fear people have: who will I be if I let go of all this stuff? (Faster EFT deals with actually changing how we represent our memories).
They identify with the bad stuff. For example, being a beta guy, and having beta fantasies that will never come true. So the idea of “killing the beta” is so terrifying because…..
…..who will I be?
It’s safe to let go of being a beta. It’s okay to let it go. Just remind yourself that. Any behavior or belief or feeling you have that is hurting you and keeping you stuck as a beta — you’re safe as you let it go. It’s safe to let it go. Just let it go.
Have to get rid of the beta to make room for the alpha. It’s been a slow integration process for me, but not considering how many years I spent as a beta. I don’t know how long I’ve been reading this site, but trust me when I tell you that it gets better.
Even without women, it gets better. My belief is that as I keep building my alpha mindset and lifestyle, the women will come on their own. I’m not worried about it anymore, like I used to be.
So take it from a guy who has had tremendous improvements IN THE PRIVACY OF HIS OWN MIND, and psychological well-being and confidence, simply by integrating the Red Pill into my life.
i.e., how women are. What’s really the deal with them. Why I’ve had such little success, and why I had what success I did have. And re-modeling myself not with the direct intention of just getting women, but re-modeling myself for my own well-being.
There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. The farther down this road I’ve gone the more I’m starting to understand that. The Blue Pill is actually hell on earth. Craving something from women that you can’t get, and even if you did get it, when would it ever be enough?
I experienced that intimacy, albeit due to a sharp contrast in SMV between me and her. I felt loved and supported and I got all the affection and blowjobs I ever could’ve wanted.
But it still wasn’t enough. I was still placing all my value on her and what she was offering me. So even when you’re getting the intimacy you think you want, you’re tormented by your insatiable desire for it.
In Buddhism, one of the levels of hell has monsters with GIGANTIC stomachs and little pinholes for mouths.
This is what beta men are like. Wanting to fill that void.
Alphas have no void. They’re epicenters of personality and emotions that other people want to indulge in. They are what other people want to be around, so people give them the best of themselves — including women.
I don’t want to get too philosophical here, but that’s the real deal. You can feel the effects yourself without even getting near a woman, just by changing how you think of women — by changing how you think of yourself.
November 25th, 2014 at 1:25 pm
@jf12
“I’ve commented enough here, not to mention elsewhere, enough to reveal a large number of obvious strengths and clear vulnerabilities.”
Yes, it is just a matter of time until a young attractive female commenter here lusts after you and wants to marry you.
But what you need to do is only hint indirectly at the vulnerability by producing large numbers of words ranting how tough and invulnerable you are.
November 25th, 2014 at 1:34 pm
jf12 – “Is there any possible good motive for encouraging someone to be more vulnerable to an adversary in the absence of any evidence that the adversary is making nice?”
Yes. From the Manson understanding of vulnerability as risk the point would be to get one to stand up for one’s self despite the obvious risk. Carried to an extreme the vulnerabilities of both are that someone will lose. Accepting and facing the risk is masculine, fretting and doing nothing but seeking external comfort is feminine.
An adversary that doesn’t make nice must be destroyed, or surrendered to there are no other options. In the men vs women context the successful man crushes the woman’s ego by walking and seeking other options. A reputation for that is dread. Dread is an admission that risk exists and that the man’s sense of self is the first concern. A man without dread has surrendered to the woman, he isn’t vulnerable he instead simply fearful.
November 25th, 2014 at 1:36 pm
@ Rollo
He presumes a default weakness in men from a feminine defined context of masculinity.
And underlying this is the pedestalization of women.
November 25th, 2014 at 1:37 pm
I wish I had more time to write a cogent response to this article, because there’s so much to talk about here. As far as my own experience goes, I firmly believe in NEVER showing any vulnerability to any woman, anywhere or under any circumstances.
Instead, I just read an article over at Slate that obliquely references this post’s topic:
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/11/hanna_rosin_and_laura_kipnis_chat_about_men_and_men_an_ongoing_investigation.html‘
And a real shocker is inadvertently dropped about half-way through the piece, and I quote Laura Kipnis:
“There’s a lot of violence in the world and most of it is directed against men. Yet women feel themselves at their core, to be vulnerable, in ways that don’t entirely map onto the reality.”
So, my point is really that women have staked a claim to vulnerability as their own specific property, and it’s also interesting to think that maybe that’s why male vulnerability is so jarring for a woman on a number of levels. First, it’s male identification to a female attribute (bad idea). Second, it calls into question a woman’s hypergamy in selecting the biggest, strongest and toughest man; you’re essentially telling her that her much vaunted feminine intuition is faulty. And thirdly, it messes up the lie that women are the perpetual victim; if you’re showing that you’re vulnerable, you’re robbing her of the ultimate power of perpetual victim-hood.
Great post and I’m really enjoying everyone’s take on it, male and female.
November 25th, 2014 at 1:49 pm
jf12,
When I first wrote that I was making humor, but actually I have seen that phenomenon in my life with a friend of mine.
If you act like a jerk, women will create a narrative about the vulnerabilities that you’re (tragically) trying to hide. The benefit is that the imagined vulnerabilities will be their favorites, and you don’t actually have to show any because she makes them up for you.
November 25th, 2014 at 1:51 pm
@ myrealitie
A woman working outside of the home doesn’t mean she is trying to take over the world, it is just something that some women enjoy doing, and it can add value to the economy and the family.
What would happen to wages if 90% of women left the workforce?
November 25th, 2014 at 1:52 pm
Softek – “You have to take on a new identity. And that doesn’t mean abandoning yourself. It means integrating your past experiences, learning from them, and becoming a better, evolved version of yourself.”
It sees to me the only real change is taking ownership of your identity. You must be able to resist the corrosive effects of both criticism and praise. Praise being particularly destructive if you come to rely on it.
For example I am a bad painter. I love the process and am never happy with the results. Others, friends, family, random people who have seen my work all tell me I’m sooo talented and a good painter. Their opinions are not relevant. Their praise is accepted at face value as just praise, but not as a determining evaluation of my work. My work is not for anyone but myself and if I am happy with it I am immune to both praise and criticism.
I try to apply that to my life generally.
November 25th, 2014 at 1:56 pm
theasdgamer – “What would happen to wages if 90% of women left the workforce?”
Wages would rise substantially but the economy would shrink dramatically. Credit markets would collapse, banking would implode, the country would be in dire straights for awhile until a new equilibrium was reached. I say we try it.
November 25th, 2014 at 2:15 pm
@ Badpainter
Jezebel would go bankrupt, along with most liberal publications. Liberals would leave politics. Women would make sammiches if they wanted frivolous stuff from a man. Compliance regulations would have to be dropped.
Women would have to do their chores or have to leave. Homes would be cleaner and healthier. Food would be healthier.
November 25th, 2014 at 3:17 pm
@jacklabear, re: “The benefit is that the imagined vulnerabilities will be their favorites, and you don’t actually have to show any because she makes them up for you.”
Oh, I like this: the virtual peacock tail. She just has to imagine there’s some vulnerability you’re trying to hide.
November 25th, 2014 at 3:44 pm
Oh the tangled webs … that indicate the FI. “Women would follow you, you moron! if you simply didn’t care if women followed you!”
It’s simply not true, ever, that the most effective leader is the one that cares the least whether he is followed. There is no such principle, because there can be no such principle.
Whatis always true, however, is that pretzel logic is needed to try to justify women’s behaviors.
November 25th, 2014 at 3:47 pm
Everything about attraction is about polarity. Women see feminine behavior in the same unattractive fashion as men see masculine behavior in women. Masculinity is selfish, demanding, determined, and unsentimental. Any man with a mission life will incorporate those traits naturally and see them as positives. Women will follow. Then decide whom you want in your life.
November 25th, 2014 at 3:57 pm
re: “Masculinity is selfish, demanding, determined, and unsentimental.”
Would to God that women were less masculine than men, then! Seriously, you think 99% of women are LESS selfish than 99% of men?
November 25th, 2014 at 4:34 pm
A woman’s generosity can only come out in the presence of a selfish man who demands submission to his will. She will then yearn to please him.
November 25th, 2014 at 5:04 pm
It would be interesting to catalog here our perceptions of women’s specificaly female vulnerabilities.
1. Women hate to be considered as being mannish.
2. Women are very easy to fool about men’s emotions.
3. Women really don’t know what they want and are very susceptible to suggestion.
4. Women cave instantly when made fearful.
5. Women greatly suffer from Freudian envy in all its forms.
I’m sure there’s many more.
November 25th, 2014 at 5:14 pm
The lastest word is that men do NOT over-perceive women’s interest, but that women are extremely lousy at self-reporting, as evidence by women ratting out other women.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pop-psych/201411/biases-boys-or-girls-being-coy
“both men and women believe that other women will under-report their sexual intentions and, given that the men’s average perceptions remained consistent across studies and women’s continuously shifting in the direction of the men’s average, that the men’s perceptions were probably accurate in the first place.”
November 25th, 2014 at 5:16 pm
“Women greatly suffer from Freudian envy in all its forms.
I’m sure there’s many more.”
Moustache envy.
A few of us men stopped shaving our upper lips for Movember to raise funds or awareness of prostate cancer.
In a small company of ~25 people, so far two women have said to me “I can grow a moustache too”. To which I replied “You aren’t going to win any contests”.
November 25th, 2014 at 5:18 pm
6. Women are extremely susceptible to opening with instant sexualization and brisk escalation.
7. Women hate knowing they are their own biggest blind spot.
November 25th, 2014 at 5:25 pm
@jacklabear re: moustache
Yes, a lot of women vastly overestimate their facial hair achievements, including eyebrows and eyelashes btw. I’m not the least bothered by a relatively few lip wisps myself.
November 25th, 2014 at 5:29 pm
New Yorker says
8. Women are vulnerable to men being selfish and demanding.
November 25th, 2014 at 5:37 pm
re: rape-by-fraud laws.
At least five states already have rape-by-fraud statutes
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/11/rape_by_fraud_nj_lawmaker_introduces_bill_to_make_it_a_crime.html
and almost ten more have criminalized sexual deceit by case law.
November 25th, 2014 at 6:15 pm
An acquaintance used to be a police officer in a conflict ridden country, once he was kidnapped by terrorists, beaten, stripped naked and locked up in a private house in enemy territory to be executed. Fortunately the fog of war left him unattended and a humane local released him and he trekked naked through enemy territory by night to reach his side.
After that incident he had bouts of bed wetting, how do I know? His fucking wife blabbed about his insecurities to other women. So much for intimacy.
Moral of the story never show fear. Intimacy is for children.
November 25th, 2014 at 7:27 pm
Showed me vulnerability to the ex way back when. She married me anyway, but the sex mostly went away and the fitness tests ramped up hard. After a few years, I was still blue pill, but I had all I could take and moved out. Stunningly enough, she was incredulous that I would do that. I can only conclude she had to be living in her own little fantasy world in which there were no consequences to her for treating me the way she did. Long after we separated, when I started stumbling into red pill knowledge, she once said to me, I never wanted the divorce; I replied you may believe that in your heart and I get that you do, but I can tell you from *my* point of view that your actions pushed me away and eventually drove me out. To be blunt, your actions were totally different from your words.
So that is one of my biggest takeaways from that relationship: don’t show vulnerability. Unless it is done from a position of strength and even then, only for a moment and only when there is no stress, that’s it. Can never be showing vulnerability in periods of stress. Need someone to talk to? Talk to your close male friends, but make sure they will keep it confidential, do not want them blabbing about it then it gets back to your woman. Don’t have any close male friends you can talk to? That is bad news, you need to cultivate at least one, your woman cannot be your confidante for this stuff.
@Rollo 11/24,5:27 & 5:28pm
seeking approval? whaaat? say it ain’t so … ;)
@softek, fewer words, more actions.
I looked into Mark Manson awhile back. purple pill.
November 25th, 2014 at 7:42 pm
re: “Masculinity is selfish, demanding, determined, and unsentimental.”
Exactly as it should be. It’s the only way to protect yourself. Women sure don’t have your back.
Vulnerability and intimacy both require a key ingredient….trust. Once trust is gone, it’s gone.
http://no-maam.blogspot.com/2010/06/zenpriest-2-you-cant-change-pickle-back.html
November 25th, 2014 at 8:50 pm
Masculinity is not so much a way to protect yourself as just a better and more uninhibited way to be on an emotional level. I don’t expect equalist intimacy with a woman. I expect a moment of closeness with someone who provides something different. But she cannot be expected to understand you. It is not even fair to ask. She can love and support you in what you are trying to do…but don’t expect her to react well to an event which shows that she chose a man to lead her who is not as strong as he seemed. Her biology will command her to panic….and she will..
November 25th, 2014 at 9:06 pm
@Random Angeleno
‘Don’t have any close male friends you can talk to? That is bad news, you need to cultivate at least one, your woman cannot be your confidante for this stuff.’
The Feminine Imperative wants to take away and intrude on all male spaces to systematically isolate men from each other.
“Girls night out” is a socially acceptable positive concept as it applies to women, but “Boys night out” has negative connotations of misbehavior.
I agree, it is very important for a man to have male friends, especially have bonds with their fathers, uncles, and brothers if possible,
We are a social species, a tribe, we simply don’t function well in isolation.
November 25th, 2014 at 9:28 pm
Another brilliant post from Rollo.
To attract a woman a man needs most or all of these things.
A) He must be taller than she is
B) He must be stronger than she is
C) He must be smarter than she is
D) He must be more talented than she is
E) He must be wealthier than she is
F) He must have a higher status than she has
Essentially he must be superior to her in every way. If he is not superior she will not be attracted to him. Nowhere in that list does vulnerability come up. Girls like winners.
November 25th, 2014 at 10:21 pm
This may be an extreme example but I’m watching this story unfold with some interest.
Last Australian NRL football season, a young and up and coming player was badly spear-tackled, broke is neck and is now facing life as a quadriplegic.
The interesting twist that might be relevant for this post, is that he was in a relationship with his girlfriend for 3 or so years prior to the accident, and then within days of being paralysed – lying in a hospital bed unable to move – he asks his girlfriend to marry him. This was huge in the MSM at the time – so there was really no way she could have turned him down without an entire nation wanting to lynch her.
Bear in mind that as a young player, he didn’t have a big contract with the NRL and now relies on fundraising ($1.5M so far), a small ($500K) insurance payout and a ‘job for life” with the club ($60K a year).
Fast forward 6 months and I read this article
http://www.news.com.au/national/alex-mckinnons-fiancee-teigan-power-opens-up-about-her-young-knights-road-to-recovery/story-e6frfkp9-1227004461632
From the article: To stay busy, Power has been teaching kindergarten students during placement at School. She said the school had helped take her mind off her fiancee’s daily struggle.
“Coming here has been a great distraction,” she said.
Why would SHE need to keep busy? Why would SHE need to be distracted?? He’s the one doing all the hard rehab – he is the one that will probably never walk again.
I cant help but think once the media glare dies down, Hypergamy will dictate the probable outcome. Poor guy.
November 25th, 2014 at 10:22 pm
BP: credit, banking, finance… usury is the enemy of liberty. The sooner we abolish such evils the better. Those who make their living off usury should face the wall like lawyers
November 25th, 2014 at 10:31 pm
@ CrazylittleRealityBiters – Hi girls. So listen, let me make my case more clearly. It seemed to me that you two are both essentially uni-directional traditionalists. However, in a world where I can’t tell you how scared I am, I also get to tell you both to shut the fuck up and in such a world, it actually occurs to you to listen. In a world with equanimity, that would be so. But the world we live in now has only demands for men, with loads of disrespect and denigration. So, we aren’t playing.
You both fail to see the point. There is no “win” with you or any other woman any more. In the U.S., the culture has been ruined. You don’t know how to be demure and submissive and coquettish, rather it’s all running your mouths and telling us what’s what, being brash and domineering. If a woman will not be submissive, there is no point for a man to be dominant and strong.
I’m well past most of it anyway, but it’s fun to see how blind you girls are to your own natures. There isn’t a thing attractive about them, just in case you missed it. And as far as offering to bang lonely Red Pill guys, wow, I thought you were both here because you got it. But I guess you are just like all the rest, bathing in male tears…
November 25th, 2014 at 10:34 pm
SfcTon – “Those who make their living off usury should face the wall like lawyers.”
I agree. In 2008 I was advocating, such as I could, to let it burn. The period of readjustment would be rough, but the opportunities far outweigh the risks. However our feminized society has zero tolerance for risk, and thus no chance to survive.
November 25th, 2014 at 10:49 pm
In an environment with unchecked hypergamy, you can either a) complain about it and “go your own way” out of bitterness, or b) adapt and decide to have plenty of unattached sex or keep a woman interested in marriage (if kids are important to you).
I don’t see unchecked hypergamy going anywhere, no matter how much you cry about it. So, adapt or be bitter, your choice.
She is speaking for the collective. Do you guys honestly believe women can be allowed freedom and the average man can survive? Can civilization survive? They don’t give a shit about you.
Got birkahs?
November 25th, 2014 at 11:08 pm
@ Glenn
All I can think of is this part of a comedy sketch I saw a while ago. It says it all, and so much more. I had a good laugh tonight.
Guy: “Shut up.”
Girl: “But I was trying to say that –”
Guy: “No. Just shut up.”
November 26th, 2014 at 1:13 am
BP LOL liberty is risky, dangerous and wild. Like men should be.
Bnago Tango. I do not. Which is why my homestead is as much compound as hearth
November 26th, 2014 at 1:13 am
“So that is one of my biggest takeaways from that relationship: don’t show vulnerability. Unless it is done from a position of strength and even then, only for a moment and only when there is no stress, that’s it. Can never be showing vulnerability in periods of stress. Need someone to talk to? Talk to your close male friends, but make sure they will keep it confidential, do not want them blabbing about it then it gets back to your woman. Don’t have any close male friends you can talk to? That is bad news, you need to cultivate at least one, your woman cannot be your confidante for this stuff.”
Why would you want to live like that? I’m sorry and maybe this is just from my “blue pill feminist conditioned man’s naive idea of love” but how could you give a rats ass about a creature who will laugh and smile with you in good times, act warm and caring and within a blink of an eye hate you, literally hate you! because you dropped your guard for a second. It’s like if men had a requirement of women that they be pretty and lady like ALL THE TIME and if for some reason that standard isn’t rigorously adhered to week in and week out then it’s just not working out and guess what girls it’s all your fault!
That’s what I think of when I hear these slutrealities talk about what they demand in a “man” and that’s just the way it is! So alpha up and just accept that’s the way we are and we ain’t changin’!
Disgusting piece of garbage…you want that as your wife! Is that what you call a wife? A relationship? How are you relating outside of PIV? Lmfao
November 26th, 2014 at 1:17 am
“Bnago Tango. I do not. Which is why my homestead is as much compound as hearth”.
Shit. That answers that. Good one. :-)
November 26th, 2014 at 1:25 am
SfcTon,
Life is dangerous, we’ve all become too soft to appreciate the beauty, and potential in the danger.
When time comes I’ve got some lovely land picked in eastern Colorado to bury our various social parasites and Marxists. I suppose y’all will just toss ’em back in an out of the way holler.
November 26th, 2014 at 1:32 am
Bangor Tango – “…how could you give a rats ass about a creature who will laugh and smile with you in good times, act warm and caring and within a blink of an eye hate you, literally hate you! because you dropped your guard for a second. It’s like if men had a requirement of women that they be pretty and lady like ALL THE TIME.”
Your question answers itself. You aren’t allowed to drop your guard, she isn’t allowed to gain weight, nag, wear sweat pants round you, or talk about nails for more than 15 minutes a day. Fair trade.
What we men have lost is any collective capacity to voice and enforce our own standards on women. Frankly a woman who meets my standards is just a expensive fuck toy, I’d rather be with one who can’t meet my standards but busts her ass trying.
November 26th, 2014 at 6:37 am
re: trust
The women commenters here have said, basically, “Yes, women cannot be trusted. But it’s just they way we are, so you’ll just have to live with it.” Women use their lack of trustworthiness as yet another shit test.
November 26th, 2014 at 7:06 am
“When time comes I’ve got some lovely land picked in eastern Colorado to bury our various social parasites and Marxists.
Let’s hope the Injuns don’t want it back, then.
No state=No State (and precious few arms manuf’s., eventually. Well, apart from foreign marxist ones, I suppose)
November 26th, 2014 at 7:30 am
BP, here is my take on soft living and in a real way my blog is pretty much about how soft living produces fucked up men
http://tonsplace.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/making-men/
Naw bro I’ll feed them to the HellHounds.
Bango Tango LOL yea don’t usually have to second guess where I stand on any topic do I? Oddly enough part of why I have a poly home is because I am forted up
November 26th, 2014 at 7:31 am
Injun’s aren’t ever gonna be a problem again.
Tam, I don’t know if ever traveled in the US, but west of the Mississppi river it’s mostly empty. Therefore it’s mostly self sufficient if you remove the bureaucratic roadblocks.
November 26th, 2014 at 7:43 am
@sfcton,
I’ve been reading your blog for the past several months. You’re my Zen master of the practical. In fact I’ve been invoking your name to limit the amount of navel gazing I do, a quick “what would ‘ton do?” and the action answer magically appears. So I thank you for your hard headed, no BS commentary.
November 26th, 2014 at 8:29 am
re: US population density map
If I had to take an educated guess, Badpainter was talking about the treeless range lands covering a thousand square miles. The US has what would be the world’s best grazing areas, such as the Comanche National Grasslands.
November 26th, 2014 at 8:41 am
re: What Would Ton Do?
9. Women are vulnerable to male violence.
The best defense is a good offense. Many moderners would claim that violence is a coverup for feelings of vulnerability. But I think those moderners are projecting their own feelings of *being* vulnerable to violence.
November 26th, 2014 at 9:32 am
The mere notion of any responsibility for an adult relationship on her part clearly vexed her.
TAALT (They Are All Like That)
November 26th, 2014 at 10:00 am
Perhaps the finest, single 40 minute television script I have ever seen is Episode 10, Season 1, of Mad Men, “The Long Weekend.” This episode is about vulnerability and death.
A lot of things happen, but the second act ends with Roger Sterling, the rakish, muscled libertine lying nude on the floor of his office with a young girl not his wife; Don Draper, the show’s protagonist, is at this time sitting quietly in his office with the girl’s sister, whom he has refused to indulge.
Draper kicks the girls out, raises the ambulance, and as the dying Roger is being wheeled out of the office on the gurney, Roger cries out “Mirabelle!”.
Draper stops the attendants, grabs Roger by the hair on his head and hauls him up enough to slap him hard across the face.
“Mona. Mona. Your wife’s name is Mona.” Roger’s admission of fear, and confusion, is unacceptable, and Don is remorseless in reminding his friend and boss of this fact.
Later in the hospital the (heretofore) true alpha Roger breaks down in tears and pledges to his wife and daughter how much he loves him. But not before he begs his wife not to bring his daughter into the hospital room because “I can’t let her see me like this.” And not before he has tearfully, separately, rued “I’ve been living like it’s shore leave, the last 20 years. I wish I were going someplace now” instead of simply dying and disappearing.
Don Draper, here in the long story, remains a mystery: the man with no past, a man who stole another man’s name by swapping dog tags with a corpse in Korea, hugely talented but offering no visible means of developing that talent; a man who took his bug-out cash stash and gave it to his brother, telling him to leave town and never contact him again; there have been a few flashbacks to his brutal and mean childhood. His ‘frame’, at work, at play and at home with his perfect wife, has been impenetrable by doubt or worry. Whenever his past reappeared to threaten his fabricated self and position in life, he confronted and dispatched it. Masculinity, like revenge, is a dish best served cold, and Don reminds a dying man of this fact.
Until now. Don cracks. He delivers himself to a young woman client, who is in love with him but has refused his efforts (previously) to engage in a discreet affair. It’s the middle of the night; she resists him again, but allows him to sit, stupefied, on her sofa and drink whiskey. Refusing him again, she then submits when Don says, “This … this is all there is.” They have sex. We have never seen Don like this. He is obsessing on Roger’s dying corpus in the hospital bed. “His skin looks like paper.”
The episode ends with Don, lying gently across the woman’s nude form, telling the first human being ever, in his fabricated self, that “My mother was a prostitute.” Roll credits.
***
We are all vulnerable to death, but even death offers no surcease. As we will see over the remainder of this long story, no one will ever love Roger — or Don — for his essential humanity. The flashes of human insight provided by Don and Roger in this episode will shortly be overwhelmed, again, by their obligation to lead, create, produce and dominate their environments. *That* is what their women want. There will be no sappy inflection point in their lives, as there is in even our best theatre, when they transcend their brilliant masculinity and become “whole” by just being themselves, admitting their frailty and need, trusting an intimate with their essential humanity. Vulnerability predicts only imminent obliteration. No one gives a shit about deathbed cris de coeurs, and if we have a best friend, he will slap us, hard, if we forget this.
***
I’ve had some medical adventures this year, which included being choppered into intensive care for a few weeks to a dreary hospital on the band edge of that unpopulated, unpopular part of the country. My older children — living large in more fashionable climes — declined to visit. I erred in telling them my true condition, which was iffy, and suggesting that it might be a good idea to fly out. And erred again by sending them a picture of my face, which was like any other face attached to oxygen and a fractured skull that had slid across the end of a runway into the weeds.
I did receive one visitor, a woman who is both a client and a friend. She spent most of her professional life being protected by men like Ton, in shitholes like those we read about, the ones the USG abandons when the shooting starts and threatens someone’s career in DC. She walked into my room and said immediately, reflexively and without thought, “You’re going to die.” Before she left we had sex, of a sort, while I still had tubes and wires hanging from me like Christmas lights on a dried-out, post-holiday tree. Fortunately I was able to perform.
A few months later I visited her back in Washington, and, after a bit of sporting fun in her living room I found myself re-damaged and bleeding and admitted to yet another hospital. As soon as I could walk out I did, and cancelled plans with my best friend (then) (another woman) so I could drive myself the 1300 miles home and get back in my own bed. This other friend (non-romantic, she’s an intellectual friend) was very hurt and blasted me. I made the mistake of telling her that I was sick of being damaged, sick of this, sick of that, blah blah blah.
So she slapped me, as Don slapped Roger, after a fashion. Weakness is a taboo, and especially so if that weakness follows decades of betraying little. Weakness, vulnerability, in the end is not just unattractive; it is taboo. Our vulnerability competes with the vulnerability others believe their proper reserve, when in our presence. Vulnerability suggests role reversal, and this is profoundly threatening to them, as it is to the woman above in this thread, when her husband admits disappointment in his professional situation.
So she slapped me, hard, and said, “You’ve already had your pity party for the year.” She’s written me half-a-dozen long letters, on paper, apologizing and explaining her remark, but I find these also impossible to read, much less reply to. I’ll send her a card and a small trinket for Christmas, and we’ll reconstruct things, I suppose, once I am able to be convincing in laughing off the recent unpleasantness.
Vulnerability is death and trumps any presumed intimacy. There’s a reason, we will learn, that the opening credits of Mad Men are of Draper falling through space, the implacable NY tower and its impenetrable curtain wall of glass, his only companion. We’d best learn to laugh about it.
November 26th, 2014 at 10:01 am
Guy: “Shut up.”
Girl: “But I was trying to say that –”
Guy: “No. Just shut up.”
I have that conversation with the first mate – frequently.
What follows is a period of me cutting her off. She gets incredibly needy. The cycle starts again.
“We never do romantic things anymore”. Well of course not. I long ago gave up hope that you would work to stay bonded. When you do bond you are a cunt. When you break up you are nothing.
The least show of affection on my part causes things to go down hill.
I am red-pilling her. But it never takes permanently. Women are vile creatures. But I do like fucking them. And fondling cunts. And getting a handful. I have big hands.
Nature is amazing. It has nothing to do with romance.
Now about that circuit I’m designing…..
November 26th, 2014 at 10:13 am
Buea Vista – “Vulnerability is death and trumps any presumed intimacy.”
Nothing more to say after that.
November 26th, 2014 at 10:23 am
BuenaVista
November 26th, 2014 at 10:00 am
Thanks for that. It reminded me of my early interactions with my first mate. I too had a difficult childhood and was putting it past me. I had no past. An interesting way to live. And it drove the first mate nuts. Because of her difficult childhood she was desperate for “family” and a man who would be her protector.
I have the misfortune/good fortune of actually liking her. I try to keep it hidden as much as possible. Especially when she breaks up – which is usually minor and short term. Because it causes me to reframe.
My cardinal rule? If you don’t want me I don’t want you. And reforming will require begging on your part. Because I don’t need you. And to prove it I cut her off from all physical attention. These days she is usually desperate by day 3 of that.
Now about that circuit I’m designing…..
November 26th, 2014 at 10:36 am
But I guess you are just like all the rest
TAALT
November 26th, 2014 at 10:36 am
BP, I am honored an humbled.
Yea BV is killer at this shit
LOL JF12 I get accused of being a caricature all the time. Pretty damn funny that men can no longer imagine unapologetic, unrepentant and unreconstructed masculinity
November 26th, 2014 at 11:01 am
sfcton
November 25th, 2014 at 10:22 pm
It has its place. Civilizations that can use it generally advance faster than those that don’t.
We used to have boom/bust cycles to keep it in check and weed out those who bet too often on losers.
But the bankers got control and now they just get refinanced. There is no hurt to check their worst tendencies.
The real answer IMO is smaller government. Much smaller government. And end the Fed.
The remit of the Fed is to iron out the boom bust cycles. The cure of course being worse than the disease. The disease is actually a natural function that provides balance.
Cannabinoids could cut medical expenses by about 3/4s. Which would go quite a ways towards patching some of the bigger holes. But of course those depending on the high cost of medicine will be in very big trouble. They have done their very best for 40 years to keep the public in the dark and full of hate. That is ending.
So let me close on a political note: You do not rule men by fear. That is very expensive and ultimately self defeating. The best you can do with fear is control. What causes enthusiasm for the rulers is hate. Where is Emmanuel Goldstein when you need him? If you look at our two political parties they define themselves by what they hate more than anything else. If you don’t hate then you have no party.
To get past politics it is necessary to avoid both fear and hate. Not an easy trick. Contact with reality helps. Which is why I like it here.
November 26th, 2014 at 11:20 am
The flip side of this problem, I’ll admit, is that I really can’t stand it when someone promises transcendental, perfect acceptance of me in all my imperfections. I immediately smell a rat. I didn’t use to but I’ve too much experience now. This may be my limitation or an intimation of truth.
(An example is a local pastor whose church I attended, until I didn’t. There were a few reasons, but I lost all respect for him and his elders one day. We were having lunch, which he starts by saying, “So, BV, how is your *soul*…” as though I have a delicate soul that only he can assuage. I replied, “Likely same as yours. Flawed and yearning.” Lunch continued and he asked why I was dropping out of his church and I noted that I couldn’t take the mommies and their undisciplined, noisy children acting like the sanctuary was just another ChuckieCheese. (I conclude these are just churchian females who think their obese fecundity is the real subject of worship.) I couldn’t take the modern feminist rewrite of Scripture that made “Sons” into “Children” and turned Jesus into a girl with a beard. And I couldn’t take the soft rock love-songs-to-Jesus that half-a-dozen females standing at the pulpit led for interminable blocks of time, confusing wet-panties-for-Jesus with musical religious devotions. He replied, “I need someone like you to take control of the congregation while I am preaching, I cannot do it all myself.” This is true, but I lost my shit at this, because his self-praising “elders” — who loved to provide me with lifestyle advice, all of which contrasted my life with their purported superior lives — should be doing this, not the new guy. “I am not a hatchet man for Jesus,” I said. We took a walk after lunch over the cigars I brought, and he giggled that someone in this village would see him smoking and question his sanity.)
So, two months pass. This week he emailed me and asked me to return to his “church family” and added that he “loved me in all my imperfection …” You can guess the rest. He meant well and he’s sincere, though I imagine too he misses my weekly cash. No human loves us in all our imperfections, certainly not mommie, and much less a pastor who thinks a grown man goes to church in search of phony mommie-love. The cult of vulnerability is a social construct of great utility, to the churchians and to many women who decide that that is a useful lever to pull in locking down a man. But it’s just a siren singing over the shoals, and we know what happens to a boat on the rocks in heavy surf.
Okay, dudes, I have to move some snow as we got dumped last night and the temps are crashing today down to 4F. I apologize for not being more concise. Thank goodness, and Jesus I guess, for anti-gelling additives and block heaters.
November 26th, 2014 at 11:37 am
@BV, do yourself a favor and don’t watch ‘The Mask You Live In’ documentary I linked in this post – you’ll lose all hope for humanity.
It kills me to read confessionals like this and then see a woman like Jennifer Siebel Newsom earn accolades for a documentary about a masculinity she has neither the experience nor the authority to ever make a presumption about.
November 26th, 2014 at 12:09 pm
@Bango Tango…
MY POINT EXACTLY. In asking that question, you provided your own answer.
From my perspective the whole “opening up and showing your emotions, humanity” nonsense is the biggest shit test I’ve even went through and failed, because I didn’t realize it for what it was back then. It’s a sting operation, a live action mousetrap. And having gone through that whole New-Agey, David Deida touchy-feely nonsense with my the girlfriend in my last LTR, I vowed to never, EVER again open up.
You just can’t afford to in public, and certainly never with a woman. The risks to your psyche are just too great. Holding your tongue and keeping your shit together, and only unloading your blues on a trusted male friend is the only sensible path here. And I meant TRUSTED, someone who will take a bullet for you. I made the mistake of opening up years ago to a male friend, who “shared” that private conversation with his wife. The resultant shit storm of abuse I got from the circle of wives ended that friendship for good. And that’s what blue pill training does for a guy; you’re already regarded as a puss to the women in your life, and offering up another guy’s secrets to get in good makes you both bitches.
Honestly, why would you want to be a poor imitation of a woman anyway? I’ve seen enough of women’s emotional landscape to be glad I wised up in time. Vulnerability; avoid it, hide it or kill it. No other options are available.
November 26th, 2014 at 1:30 pm
@ Mike
“Vulnerability; avoid it, hide it or kill it. No other options are available.”
I’ll mention Faster EFT again. It really works wonders. You can do this in complete privacy. The goal is genuine, authentic emotional control. I had a very bad childhood but am coming to terms with it using this technique. I’ve been learning and using it for the past 6 months with tremendous results.
Panic attacks have almost completely disappeared, especially at night — I’m getting more sleep and am going to bed without having panic attacks/nightmares and sleeping through the night. I’ve cut back my drinking to a healthy amount and have also stopped cutting myself.
Perhaps the most significant thing in relation to this blog is it’s helped get rid of my ONE-itis and my obsessive feelings of attachment. I have even been able to deal with letting go of my 5+ year LDR, which was all I had.
Craving ‘love’ and ‘support’ and feeling a deep void that ‘only women can fill’ — that is an emotional issue that can also be addressed using this technique. I’ve been using Faster EFT along with reading this blog and it’s been doing wonders for my emotional issues around my Beta/Blue Pill attachment to women, which is rapidly dissolving.
But whatever technique you use, the goal is emotional control. AUTHENTIC emotional control and self-regulation. No hiding anything — your ‘hiding’ vulnerabilities from other people is not actually hiding them. It’s just a result of the fact that you know how to deal with them on your own. So there’s no need to reveal anything to anyone. You are emotionally self-sufficient — it’s authentic. You don’t reveal vulnerability to anyone not because you don’t have any vulnerabilities, but because you have no practical need to.
Getting this down is important. Alpha has to be authentic — forget women, it’s for your own sanity. The Beta has to die, but remember:
“Memories buried alive never die.” Aspiring Alphas might tend to bury their Beta alive. And the Beta programs are still alive and kicking in the background, and will activate whenever something triggers it. That’s why it’s important for us as men to acknowledge — in the privacy of our own minds — our vulnerabilities. To recognize them for what they are, and then make a point of making peace with that within ourselves.
Then there isn’t any tension in trying to ‘hide’ everything from women, or anyone else. It isn’t putting on a mask. It’s just being who you genuinely are after you evolve by developing the skills to deal with your vulnerabilities.
November 26th, 2014 at 1:37 pm
@Softek said, “That’s why it’s important for us as men to acknowledge — in the privacy of our own minds — our vulnerabilities. To recognize them for what they are, and then make a point of making peace with that within ourselves.”
Word!
November 26th, 2014 at 1:41 pm
@ Rollo
“It kills me to read confessionals like this and then see a woman like Jennifer Siebel Newsom earn accolades for a documentary about a masculinity she has neither the experience nor the authority to ever make a presumption about.”
My sentiments exactly. Funny how feminists harp day and night about how men can never understand them because they’re not women, but then they define men according to a feminine primary point of view and claim to understand them. As in that video.
It’s pretty mind boggling. I’m not new to this stuff, as I’ve been reading here for a while, but it’s taken some time for it to sink in — finding HUS and reading some articles there, then watching that video…..it’s a trainwreck. Once you actually see what they’re doing, you see how twisted it is. They truly are wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Telling us that “men just want closeness” — dressing it up in this pseudo blanket of warmth and intimacy and sensitivity, when in reality that whole model of thinking is what has brainwashed so many boys into growing into degenerate, self-effacing, self-hating, sex starved and frustrated men who are still waiting for their Promised Land of reciprocated female intimacy for everything they’ve suffered through.
I forget what samurai movie it was. But the guy said something to one of the prostitutes, which was, to paraphrase:
“I don’t want any of your sympathy. As if you could possibly understand what I’ve been through.”
November 26th, 2014 at 1:56 pm
That’s just it, Newsom and the FI are ‘sympathetic’ to a masculinity of their own creation. A perception of a masculinity that doesn’t exist.
Anything that looks like conventional masculinity to the FI is an act, a mask men wear because they’re “afraid’ to embrace what should be ‘real’ for them – real emotionalism as defined by the female experience.
In other words men’s experience, masculinity, is not a legitimate experience. Only women’s emotionally open experience is legitimate, and anything that contradicts that experience is an act, a posturing.
November 26th, 2014 at 2:11 pm
Re: “Only women’s emotionally open experience is legitimate, and anything that contradicts that experience is an act, a posturing.”
Great stuff. Moreover, women do the hall-of-mirrors projection all the time. When myrealitie, and AWALT, insists that the way to her heart is for her husband to pretend to have no problems, to suck up his disappointments etc., what she means is … entirely solipsistic. Follow me into the hall.
She thinks that whatever she is feeling, that *everyone* else’s feelings ought to be highly affected. She thinks that when she gets ready to go out, finally choosing the “right” dress, having her hair “right”, her smile “right”, etc., that it really matters and that it brightens everyone’s life. She thinks, similarly, that her husband *ought* to be sexually repelled by her whenever she is feeling blah.
So when she berates her husband for feeling down (instead of encouraging him), she double-flipping-reverse reprojects her feelings of solipsism onto him! She literally thinks that by him feeling bad he is trying to make her feel bad (since that’s what she does …). So she accuses him of refusing to lead by example, of refusing to put a happyface on in order to make her happier.
November 26th, 2014 at 2:15 pm
Never trust anything that can [talk to someone about someone’s opinions about yet another someone else’s choices in footwear] for seven days and still lives.
November 26th, 2014 at 2:18 pm
Rollo – “Only women’s emotionally open experience is legitimate, and anything that contradicts that experience is an act, a posturing.”
So twisted, as we know only man’s reasoned experience and objective thoughtful observation is legitimate because it’s the only one testable against objective reality. It’s the only experience that can be tested against other reasoned experiences to improve the collective understanding of the world and all within. Doing so with emotions tells us nothing about reality other than how someone, or some group felt about their experience with reality.
November 26th, 2014 at 2:19 pm
@MikePhil re: “Honestly, why would you want to be a poor imitation of a woman anyway?”
Outstanding question! The standard answer handwaves off in the direction of working on your weaknesses, I think. Which begs the question of why you would want to decrease your masculine strengths simply to be both a lousy man and lousy woman.
November 26th, 2014 at 2:27 pm
@ Rollo
You’ve laid it out clear as day.
This also goes hand in hand with men berating other men for being “too masculine.” Men are being brought up to think of overt masculinity as a bad thing, or a “front.”
I can see it now:
“I just wanted to fuck you. I’m not really interested in being your boyfriend.”
“You’re just saying that because deep down you’re afraid of opening yourself up to a woman. You’ve lost your ability to trust.”
“No, I just don’t want a girlfriend.”
“Why are you afraid to fall in love? What’s holding you back? We could be so happy together.”
“Sorry.”
*Hamster drinks case of Monster Energy – commence running*
November 26th, 2014 at 2:42 pm
@Bango Tango, that is exactly it … the vulnerable you will *not* be embraced by your woman. That’s just all there is to it. I now think of this aspect of women as a feature, not a bug.
When I first encountered the red pill, I learned from other men that we men need to keep our masks on around women and children, that we could only let our masks down with trusted friends. A trusted friend is a man who cares enough about you to tell you the truth about you to your face even when you do not want to hear it, who will not hesitate to slap you upside the head to drive his points home, who will keep it confidential so you can go back to being the alpha dog for your wife and family. This is the difference between mothering and fathering. Mother was the one who soothed you when you scraped your knee at the playground; father was the one who told you to stop crying and pushed you to get back out there. Pushing a man is best done by other men. As iron sharpens iron, so one man can sharpen another. Right there in the Bible.
That’s what the men-only social outlets were for: their main purpose was to serve as places where men could just be men with other men. But as soon as a single woman invades that space, all that goes down the drain.
Back at Bango Tango … I see women for what they are now, not as I would wish them to be. My mother is an old school throwback red pill woman and yet even she has her female moments. After all, she did school me to be a nice guy. I’ve since forgiven her as I’ve come to understand that to some extent, AWALT. The truth sets you free, no more angst about it, a lot less taking it personally when you understand it’s often not about you. So stop worrying about it and realize that it is still possible to enjoy their company as long as you don’t drop the mask.
I’ll paraphrase Rollo and others: women are; men do.
The mask is part being a man doing.
November 26th, 2014 at 3:14 pm
In a feminine-primary social order, just being male implies a disingenuous existence.
Unless you internalize the female experience as being the only legitimate experience you are a fake. In fact so important is this acknowledgement to the Feminine Imperative (and its male identifiers)it will define that non-female-compliant male disingenuousness as rape:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/nj-lawmaker-introduces-rape-by-fraud-bill-to-criminalize-lying-to-get-sex/
November 26th, 2014 at 3:31 pm
@ Buena Vista:
Regarding – “Don Draper, here in the long story, remains a mystery: the man with no past”
And yet even Don has moments of vulnerability, which occur throughout the series with increasing frequency as the curtain is pulled further and further back on Don’s past as “Dick Whitman”.
He shows these vulnerable moments, but only to the women in his life, and only in fleeting moments. For example, Betty discovers his past as Dick Whitman. He’s flummoxed and speechless and out of sorts. He pulls it together and comes clean about nearly everything – his past as Dick, his little brother Adam, the grinding poverty, his abusive stepparents, his Army desertion.
Another happens when the ad agency has a potential contract that requires Defense Department vetting. The government spooks interview Betty, Don’s ex wife, who of course knows he’s an Army deserter. His anxiety about the vetting is so severe that he develops panic attacks and vomiting episodes. Betty protects him, though (because despite his sins, she still is attracted to him and loves him, proven by her having a one night stand with him in a later season). The vetting and his reaction to it is the most vulnerability he has displayed to date. Yet another is when his bucktoothed French Canadian second wife Megan leaves him in the last season. He cares about Megan, and he doesn’t want another failed marriage. And it shows, as he dejectedly hangs up the phone.
What can we learn about Don’s vulnerabilities:
1. His moments of vulnerability are fleeting. They do not last long, mostly because he recognizes them and works to get them under control. Don is a master of frame, and he uses this to center himself when he is vulnerable.
2. He recognizes them as the feelings they are. They are just that – feelings. They do not define him.
3. He really does care about at least some of these women (at least as much as he is able to).
4. He has a contingency plan for what to do in case it all goes to shit.
November 26th, 2014 at 3:48 pm
I agree, Deti, with each example. And your takeaways. I deliberately stayed away from some of them to avoid spoiling the show for the three people left in the world who haven’t seen it already. Also, I was sufficiently long-winded and had punished enough eyeballs.
In support of our discussion though, Don’s suppressed feelings (and cloaked past) have a cumulative, and cumulatively negative, effect on him. His drinking eventually becomes pathological, which is a metaphor for the psychological and emotional drowning he’s experiencing. Wife #2 is revealed as a self-interested, hypergamous mate, and Don’s supplicating efforts to sustain their relationship even after she moves out, moves away, and moves into ambiguous new ‘friendships’ in L.A. fail utterly. His relationship with his daughter hangs by a thread.
It will be interesting to see what Weiner does with him in the last few episodes. I submit he is a man falling through space, per the opening credits, logically either a suicide or victim of some self-induced violent accident (same thing).
But two brilliant examples of this long-story genre, The Sopranos and True Detective, ended with saccharine happy talk (TD) or a noncommittal ambiguity (TS). I imagine the heat has been on Weiner to not end the series with graphic nihilism, which nihilism (despite his fleeting loves) sits at his core.
He could always do what we term ‘go MGTOW.’ A great illustration of an executive going native is the protagonist in Jim Harrison’s novella, The Man Who Gave Up His Name. (It is collected with Revenge and Legends of the Fall, so worth the price if either of the movies from the other two interest one.) That guy, a CEO, essentially walks out of his office, post-divorce, and disappears. It ends with him living in a fishing shack in Florida, cooking in a modest restaurant, and dancing alone in his shack each evening. I can see Don doing that, effectively returning to the dirt farms of his childhood.
November 26th, 2014 at 4:12 pm
re: “the Feminine Imperative (and its male identifiers)it will define that non-female-compliant male disingenuousness as rape”
Hence, admitting that Dishonest Signaling works! Since women’s pickers are so lousy that they can be so easily Gamed, then external forces must be put to bear to reduce the Dishonesty of so many men’s Signaling, so that women can get back to business with Naturals.
November 26th, 2014 at 4:18 pm
@Softek re: tapping.
It turns out various mechanoreceptor neurons can be excited in different ways. I don’t know which ones do right for tapping. One interesting anatomical factoid is that the fast way to stop a panic attack is to press hard on places on your own carotid artery. Your heart rate will quickly decrease within seconds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroreceptor
November 26th, 2014 at 4:21 pm
BV:
Yes, all true regarding the way Don has developed to date. The show has explored Don’s relationships with his kids, particularly Sally, his oldest child. Don really does try to be a good father, and he’s depicted as loving and caring to her. But as Sally gets older, she sees his foibles and sins, and becomes increasingly alienated from him (and everyone else in her life) as she judges him.
You know, the one thing I hope Weiner does NOT do is pair Don up with Peggy. That would be quite the copout, wouldn’t it. In many ways Peggy is Don’s mirror image. She houses his best qualities (talented, ambitious, resilient) and none of his worst (She is authentic, approachable and innocent in response to his artifice, steely eyed coldness, and cynicism.)
Peggy is the one woman in Don’s life with whom he has ever been able to have a durable, functional, mutually beneficial relationship. (Anna Draper doesn’t count – she is too separated from Don by distance to have any real influence on him.) She is the only woman in Don’s life who he hasn’t really mistreated. Peggy clearly loves Don, but knows how damaged he is. Don cares for Peggy, because professionally, she is his creation. But beyond that, he is too baggage laden for her; and she is too neurotic and traditional for him.
November 26th, 2014 at 5:53 pm
@ jf12
Very interesting. I just might have to try that.
Robert talks a bit about “tapping without tapping,” and “mental tapping.” The physical tapping is based on acupressure points that are used in traditional EFT. I do think they can help. Not sure how much importance I place on the Chinese theory of the Meridian system in the body (e.g. that they use for acupuncture), but I have no experience with it outside of tapping so I have no comment.
But the main premise with Faster EFT is using the tapping as a “trance breaker” — the idea being Pavlovian conditioning in reverse. You let the stimulus that’s upsetting you upset you (i.e. creating a conditioned response that you don’t want), and then you tap while repeating the simple phrases of “Let it go, I’m safe as I let it go, it’s okay to let it go,” etc.
…so when you go back to the stimulus, you find that it isn’t upsetting you in the same way, or isn’t upsetting you as much at all. The goal is to do this repeatedly until it no longer bothers you when you think about it, and then actually flip it to a positive.
You can use other techniques like having people follow your fingers with their eyes, interrupting them and saying something irrelevant (e.g., ‘where did you buy those shoes?’) — those all serve as trance breakers.
So as for the physical aspect of tapping, I’m not sure what it works on, but I do know that in Chinese medicine the tapping points are all on meridians that relate to major organs. I think the four tapping points used in Faster EFT correspond to the bladder, gall bladder, stomach, and kidneys.
I don’t know how much I buy into that or how truly important it is. Although I always have been fascinated by Chinese medicine and the meridian theory is definitely interesting.
The real gem is the reverse Pavlovian conditioning. At least that’s how I think of it. And physical intervention, e.g. that carotid artery technique you mentioned, certainly can play a huge role in that. The real deal is to face directly what’s bothering you, feel it completely, introduce a good, peaceful state as an interruption, go back….and that’s where you get the:
“good – bad collapse.” Major internal shifts — all of a sudden what used to be this huge problem is now no longer an issue.
I had to use this extensively while I was getting over my LJBF rejection. That was only a bit over 4 months ago.
And even more recently after letting go of the 5+ year LDR I was in.
These things seemed like the end of the world to me. Such horrible things to happen. Now looking back on it I am almost completely amazed that these things even mattered to me at all. Crazy stuff.
So back on topic: being aware of our vulnerabilities and having the tools to deal with them is tremendously important.
One key for me has been realizing that all along, even in my blue pill days, what I wanted was sex. That was the intimacy I craved: for a girl to want me. To be sexually attracted to me. To be sexually EXCITED by me. For all the depression and loneliness I felt, I never got laid or even hugged by a girl. I confused affection and sex and thought that I wanted affection and acceptance when I really wanted sex and respect. Which go hand in hand as I’m learning now.
So I personally don’t really feel like I’ve changed at all. Just got more aware and learned how to be more honest with myself, and respect myself more. Complete flip – change in internal processes. I’m still me as much as I’ve ever been. I just have much more of a clue now, thanks to things like Rational Male and Faster EFT and so many other things I’ve read. But those two have been particularly helpful and transformative.
November 26th, 2014 at 6:14 pm
@Softek
Why ‘let go’ of your LDR before getting another plate going?
She may not be a PAW (physically attractive woman), but as you pointed out she has a number of good qualities. Mathematically, the product of looks times personality/character in women tends to be a constant.
Also, being in a position of having a take it or leave it attitude about a relationship gives you leeway to experiment with Red Pill ideas and actions that you wouldn’t feel if you were in love with a hot babe. It is fertile ground for internalizing alpha.
November 26th, 2014 at 6:17 pm
Boy is selfish and demanding and threatens violence, woman like it.
http://woodtv.com/2014/11/24/prosecutors-expected-to-cross-examine-tutor/
November 26th, 2014 at 6:17 pm
“in Chinese medicine the tapping points are all on meridians that relate to major organs. I think the four tapping points used in Faster EFT correspond to the bladder, gall bladder, stomach, and kidneys. “ .. and these things are real? Show me, please. I have a collection of knives, and all of them are _very_ sharp (it’s a carpenter thang, you just wouldn’t understand). Failing that, I do the odd bit of knapping; flint/chert, bottleglass, obsidian. I adore free education.
November 26th, 2014 at 6:28 pm
@ Tam
Although the TCM theoretical framework doesn’t correspond well with modern scientific understanding, the fact remains that the Chinese were sharp observers of nature and came out with many effective remedies, especially herbs.
I suspect that the meridians are actually a functional map of the nervous system. Stimulating the nervous system the right way probably has effects that Western Medicine is ignorant of.
As an engineer, the bottom line is does it work. The theory behind it is of secondary importance. Working empirically in the lab, I have been able to deliver results that the PhD physics types couldn’t.
Having said that, I know that there are a lot of new agey scams out there.
The bottom line is does it work?
November 26th, 2014 at 6:28 pm
@ All – BV, Softek, JF12, M. Simon in particular, and Rollo of course, wow, just wow. I’m so moved by this colloquy and realized that in the company of men, with this kind of anonymity I can actually be really vulnerable. Rollo, you are so spot on about the ‘mask’ men have to wear non-stop in a feminine primary society. I cannot be my unguarded self in the world, particularly with women, as it will be shamed, denigrated, scoffed at, repressed, criticized and ostracized.
So, let me share something of my inner world and hope that the gals who were gabbing earlier can get what horrific human beings they are. My internal agony and emotional pain from the terrifying physical and emotional abuse I was subject to when I was a child is nothing short of excruciating (I also have a half blacked out memory of what seems to be sexual abuse, like some stupid LifeTime movie, awesome). I had several abusers, I guess I was just lucky like that. My level of fear and the real traumas I suffered caused me to develop anxiety conditions at the age of 7-8, including recurring nightmares, spastic colon, a stammer and compulsive behavior. I now know that I had PTSD by that age.
My father was a terrifying man. He could fly into a fit of rage in an instant over anything and be grabbing you or hitting you or throwing a hot cup of coffee at you from across the room. My entire household changed when we heard his car in the driveway. As a teen, if friends were at my house when he showed up, they would flee – running. I watched him stab my brother, I myself have been slapped, punched, tackled, beaten with metal spatulas, a wire brush to the face – he tried to throw me off our garage roof, he failed because I wrestled free of him, and much, much more.
His emotional abuse was macabre, ornate and often long running. He might take an angle of criticism or a theme of denigration and develop it and torture me with it over a period of days, weeks or months. He’d tell me that he couldn’t wait until I was 18 so he could throw me out of the house and watch me fall on my face. When he was hitting me, he would become enraged if I defended myself and tell me to lower my hands and let him hit me – which I did until I was 14. He was a pathological liar and you could never trust anything he told you. He’d lie about his past, the family history, things he’d done, places he’d gone – and heaven help me if I actually needed something from him. He’d lord a 25 dollar check for trumpet lessons over me for weeks, constantly making me wonder if he would ever come through with anything. He belittled me and laughed at me – when I was just a child. It was nothing short of horrific.
And oh yeah, my Mom died when I was 11. My inner emotional world has been characterized by suffering for my whole life. To this day, I don’t ever instinctively feel safe. I have to manage my emotional state constantly to release the tension that arises in me automatically, without relent. As an adult, my ex left me for another man and my daughter was eventually alienated from me – the person I loved more on this earth than anyone else.
The “Heart of my hearts” as I said in a song I wrote for her. I have lost so much in this life, and the reservoir of grief I hold inside is profoundly deep.
I could go on, as the circumstances and truth of my life are painful and I suffer – and don’t deserve a bit of it. I’m a cucumber that’s been pickled and I’m never going back. As a psychiatrist told me once, after reviewing my developmental history, “Nobody can come out of what you went through as a child and be okay. Death of a parent, parental alcoholism, severe physical and emotional abuse, divorce of your stepmother and father at 15 – you never had a chance.” I did 15 years of therapy to work my way through it all, but still, there is so much pain. I’ve been suicidal, lost myself in drugs and alcohol, been full of rage and fear, suffered horrific anxiety, passing out from it and have had sleep problems for my entire life. I’m not living life without depression and manage my anxiety. But the truth of the matter is that it isn’t easy being me and being stable.
You see, Realitie and Crazlittle, your love for a man has no room for his humanity. I know I can’t share my pain with women – you think you’re cool or chill for telling us all here what we already know? Our point is that anyone who behaves like that is a cunt and shithead of gargantuan proportions, yes? The wetness of a women’s pussy is more important than my suffering – that’s what I get from you. That me possibly asking to be held while I let my grief wash over me – grief I didn’t invite into my life – or to just feel safe enough with a woman for one moment express my angst and pain, is simply just not fun for you, so I should stop? Are you fucking kidding me? Are you really so cheap and shallow? Can you not override your impulses? Do you have no discipline, no compassion, no emotional control? I know the answers to these questions – you don’t have emotions, you are your emotions. And men’s suffering just isn’t interesting to you. Do you get what that makes you? You readily admit you have no room for the suffering of half of humanity – and we’re supposed to be impressed?
Now don’t get me wrong – I don’t want anyone’s sympathy here. Many on this forum have had very tough lives too and some far worse, I’m sure. I put my past where it belongs – in the past and live forward. It’s not always easy but I have a good life in many real ways. I’m happy to be me, and I accept me. But for emotional support, I go to men. I can tell them I’m tired of trying, of having to “work on myself” and that I’m just frustrated. Or that I’m anxious and worried, or that I’m feeling down, and men care. They listen, they offer support and ideas, and most of all they don’t abandon me.
I think Softek put it right. Alpha can only come from an authentic expression of self-loving and self-relatedness, otherwise it’s “technique”. So, I don’t wallow in my pain but it is there. I contend with it. I’m currently mentoring a troubled young person (that’s one way I turn my suffering into an asset) who’s Mom killed herself and died in front of her earlier this year. This girl is 16 – and no, I’m not trying to fuck her. I told her, “We must be matter of fact about our tragedies” and we talk straight up about what happened and how she feels about it. Hey, maybe next time, I’ll take the advice of you girls and just scowl at her and shame her so she can get the point that she shouldn’t be such a fucking pussy.
Some fucking world we live in, ehh guys? I’m glad I’m awake but really, the view is shit.
November 26th, 2014 at 6:48 pm
@ Tam
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2011/260510/
It’s not determined whether they’re real or not. I just did a cursory search and found that interesting considering I’ve also studied myofascial trigger point release therapy and have had results with that on myself as well as other people, despite there being controversies about how it works. saveyourself.ca is a good site that has more information about that, which may indirectly tie into the alleged meridian systems in the body.
I’ve used Faster EFT on people that were in the middle of having severe migraine headaches and had the migraines completely disappear within 10 minutes. I did not tell them what I was doing. I just told them I had a technique that might help and asked if they wanted to try it, they agreed, I did it, and it disappeared. The first response I got was “How the hell did you do that?” Went from being in debilitating pain and feeling drugged to feeling fine.
I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t done it myself and seen it firsthand in a person that I didn’t explain anything to. And I don’t expect anyone else to believe it. But it’s true. And I’ve done the same thing to myself with my own issues and on other people with different issues. Mostly emotional problems though. The getting rid of migraines surprised even me. I had a feeling it might work but I wasn’t expecting it to — I was prepared for it not to. But it did.
Results speak for themselves. I just happen to be very open-minded and I will give just about anything a fair trial. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, and I’ve abandoned a lot of things based on that simple test. But as far as Faster EFT goes, when I’m able to consistently get results using a technique that takes an absolute minimal amount of time — I’ll leave the research for someone else. Not everyone is willing to try it but I’ve only had completely positive results on people that were open to it.
I’m no stranger to carpentry. The Tormek T-7 is a nice tool for sharpening. A friend of a friend has been making knives for over 40 years and lately that’s been the only sharpening tool he’s been using. My friend had some chisels he needed touched up and after he brought them over there they worked better than they ever had at any other point.