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I can't watch it right now but will later, Ikaika. You lighten things up just by being here. ;)

I'm just mostly reading. I will admit I don't get the red pill phenomenon. But hey, if it works for some guys and the ladies they are courting don't have an issue, who am I to judge.

But, I live aloha (deep meaning there beyond what most think of that word and philosophy). My wife says I can give aloha as long as I don't spread aloha.
 
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I think Aloha actually means something like what grok means. Am I close? A word that describes so many emotions and such knowledge all at once that it is impossible to describe but the closest meaning would be something like "total compassion" (with the "total" part being the misunderstood and unexplainable part).
 
Question for ya...

In the context of the Dread game, along with the ongoing issue between my wife and I regarding her difficulties verbally expressing her attraction to me...

It's a beautiful day outside, mid 80's, sunny, and I was sitting on a bench out front of my work building when a late 20's, early 30's woman sat down beside me, took off her sandal, told me it was broken and asked if I could try and fix it for her. I said sure, and after about 30 seconds or so, she started making small talk, and after a bit of that, she told me that she thought that the jeans and t-shirt weather really agreed with me.

Am I correct in thinking that if I were to say anything about that to my wife, it could likely be considered playing the dread game?

True story--I got mooned by a hooker on the way home from work yesterday. Called my wife immediately and told her. She about died laughing.
 
There's a ton of reasons why a man is having problems attracting their physical equivalent.

If 10 guys who were my level of attractiveness tried to attract me there would be plenty of various reasons why I wouldn't be. Maybe he's a jack@ss or too c@cky (seen this one plenty of times). Maybe he has baggage (had a guy try to pick me up by talking about how he lost his job, his girlfriend left him, he's going to get kicked out of his home) or his likes to wear his pants really low with a belt around his pelvis to hold them up (had one of those guys try too, WTF) Maybe he wears too much cologne or I don't like his hair.

Yes, there are various reasons you won't be attracted to him... but those unknowns drive his pursuit of information. The process is like so:

Step 1 - he incessantly fails.
Step 2 - he asks, she answers.
Step 3 - he adjusts behavior in accordance with what she said. Step 4 - he still incessantly fails.

*Divergence in the force*

Defeated male:
Step 5a - he lowers his standards and self-esteem, and is finally successful with a less attractive female; he believes his lack of success must be tied to having an overly high opinion of himself. He is bitter and feels life is unfair.

END A.

Undefeated male:
Step 5b - he stops asking women, and instead observes the characteristics of men who are good with women.

Step 6 - he adopts those characteristics to the best of his ability.

Step 7 - with practice and ever increasing social awareness, he now easily gets the women he originally thought were his level, yet were beyond his reach. Life feels good and fair.

Step 8 - he moves up, and loses the concept of any woman being beyond his reach. His confidence is sky high.

END B.

I can see that it's an issue for some men and some women but let's just not get carried away with the "Most of the men...." stuff
I don't think anyone is speaking to prevalence. I don't know how common it is. I imagine the extreme lack of interest that drives one to look as far as PUA material is not "most men". It applied to me, and a lot of the advice worked exactly as advertised.

I'm inclined to think the root of my problems primarily tied to growing up with a single mom and resulting female advice and self-minimization (avoid being a burden to struggling mom). If that's true, I suspect it's a growing population. More single moms raising softer young men who then go out to meet a population of ever more independent, harder, young women.

thinking that there are large amount of women who don't/can't express their needs so it's up to men like AK to tell you what they are.
It's not about who knows what. It's about what actually works. When listening to women works, men will do that. Many men, including myself, have found women to generally be a horribly unreliable source.
 
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Literal term of aloha - presence of the breath of life. Hawaiian culture is filled with oral legends and proverbs.

Aloha" is more than a word of greeting or farewell or a salutation.

"Aloha" means mutual regard and affection and extends warmth in caring with no obligation in return.

"Aloha" is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other person for collective existence.

"Aloha" means to hear what is not said, to see what cannot be seen and to know the unknowable.

I ka ‘ōlelo no ke ola, i ka ‘ōlelo nō ka make. In the language is life. In the language is death. So with our words we can breath life or death. So I'm always reminded by my kupuna (Hawaiian grandmother, a woman who I have so much respect for. Does not have my education but far wiser than me) to be careful with my words.

Sorry end my thread Jack... Back to normal discussion of the subject.
 
+1 that women take the greater risk in M

mainly because we are the ones who get pregnant, bear children, and are traditionally the primary nurturers of children. That takes a huge amount of sacrifice. Huge!

a child takes 18 years to raise (at least, and if they go to college like mine, make that 22 for financial obligations)

otherwise, in an era of equal rights and equal career opportunities if a couple remains childless, I suppose M is equally risky for both
My H and I both nurture our son and when we were going through seriously tough times it was killing my H to have to be away until he could consistently be safe. My H is a big nurturer as am I, so I just don't see it as that far apart in experience.

Its why I hung onto him... if he learned to control his anger there was enough nurture behind that that has made it worth while to risk what I risked to keep our family together.

I know there are men out there who disengage, but there are also women who disengage, more than women like to admit.

I am highly aware of the physical risk of birthing a child. I almost lost my life, but my H almost lost his wife.
 
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Aside from that, you get a book that suggests self-improvement, not placing women on pedestals, and adopting a confident, assertive demeanor in order to be sexier. Ah, the outrage!
The outrage is because the "aside from that" part that's basically just insulting women comprises 90% of the book.
 
I don't get why this fact has any relevance. There are also aisles of make-up at any drug store, and it's almost entirely for females from 11 or 12 years old and up. Young women dye their hair, too.

Even very young girls like to wear make-up and get mani-pedis with their Moms. I know people who get jewelry for very young girls, even babies with their ears pierced.

Beauty enhancement is a life-long thing for most women.

So is it really some kind of statement on the value of women's appearance vs. men's appearance in middle age and up that there are more beauty products for women?

In a way, the very fact that there is "cover the gray" product for men kinda suggests that men start to get nervous about aging, too. I think they sure do worry about it. Unlike the beauty products for women, you don't see that kind of stuff for the young men, yeah? It is only when they get older that they start to stress about it.

Yes, women age. So do men. I think "older women are wrinkled and lonely and have no value" is just a myth. I don't see it at all in real life, for either men or women.
Stated as you have, it would be a myth. No value is not what AK is pushing. He's pushing the notion of decline with age at a greater rate than men, because of the differences in what men and women prioritize.

I'm certain some men do worry about aging. And I very much enjoyed your retort that women of all ages dye their hair. Very good point that completely unravels what I'd hoped the relative demand for dye products might show. So I ask you, which demographic do you think conceals their gray hair more? Old men or old women? The only way to know for sure would be to examine sales research by demographic, which I don't have available to present, but I think you'll agree that the notion of old men dying conceal gray hair to the degree that women do is wildly far fetched, which would mean you accept the premise if not the evidence exactly.
 
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That is true for me too, BL but it does not remove the fact that raising them has involved a great deal of sacrifice (careerwise, financial, emotional, freedom to come and go as I please...)

sacrifices my H did not make

he really sacrificed nothing careerwise, nor in coming and going as he pleased, nor in moving us whenever and wherever he wanted
I hate he didn't do that for you. My H has learned to receive my influence and be grateful for me and hear my heart while at the same time not laying down his primary role. I hoped your H would see the light when I was on your thread and mine at the time had not quite gotten there himself, but I knew it should be so. It is a sacrifice, but I am seeing my H now sacrifice along side me. Your H missed out on so much and its sad. He could have done things differently.
 
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Literal term of aloha - presence of the breath of life. Hawaiian culture is filled with oral legends and proverbs.

Aloha" is more than a word of greeting or farewell or a salutation.

"Aloha" means mutual regard and affection and extends warmth in caring with no obligation in return.

"Aloha" is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other person for collective existence.

"Aloha" means to hear what is not said, to see what cannot be seen and to know the unknowable.

I ka ‘ōlelo no ke ola, i ka ‘ōlelo nō ka make. In the language is life. In the language is death. So with our words we can breath life or death. So I'm always reminded by my kupuna (Hawaiian grandmother, a woman who I have so much respect for. Does not have my education but far wiser than me) to be careful with my words.

Sorry end my thread Jack... Back to normal discussion of the subject.
Lovely!

that words bring life or death is also in the Bible

the bit about knowing the unknowable sounds very like what I call "intuition"
 
Lovely!

that words bring life or death is also in the Bible

the bit about knowing the unknowable sounds very like what I call "intuition"
Which is exactly why I bring it up... it is SO misunderstood but is a wealth of relational truth that Athol could learn a thing or two from....
 
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There's a ton of reasons why a man is having problems attracting their physical equivalent.

If 10 guys who were my level of attractiveness tried to attract me there would be plenty of various reasons why I wouldn't be. Maybe he's a jack@ss or too c@cky (seen this one plenty of times). Maybe he has baggage (had a guy try to pick me up by talking about how he lost his job, his girlfriend left him, he's going to get kicked out of his home) or his likes to wear his pants really low with a belt around his pelvis to hold them up (had one of those guys try too, WTF) Maybe he wears too much cologne or I don't like his hair.

Being too nice, in touch with my needs and listening to what I want and like, never happened.

First time I even heard of it was on TAM and I've been around a lot of life forums and of course RL friends and family.
Seriously. This idea that the only reason that men ever fail with women is because they aren't "alpha" enough is bs to the extreme.
 
Actually I know a couple of guys in their 50's who do a lot of the same grooming and "concealing" of aging that women do. My immediate boss, dyes his mustache to hide the silver.
Oh, I totally believe it. I know a guy who dyes his beard. Yet I know FAR more gray haired men. I also happen to know that almost all women with gray hair do - courtesy dating a hairstylist.

It's not even a contest. If that's not evidence that looking youthful is more important to one gender than the other, I don't know what is.

I mean, we can do this all day, from youthful skin moisturizer to anti-wrinkle cream. Still haven't met a guy who buys anti-wrinkle cream, but as rare as he is, surely he's out there.
 
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Oh, I totally believe it. I know a guy who dyes his beard. Yet I know FAR more gray haired men. I also happen to know that almost all women with gray hair do - courtesy dating a hairstylist.

It's not even a contest. If that's not evidence that looking youthful is more important to one gender than the other, I don't know what is.

I mean, we can do this all day, from youthful skin moisturizer to anti-wrinkle cream. Still haven't met a guy who buys anti-wrinkle cream, but as rare as he is, surely he's out there.
Your determination to insist that older men are more attractive and less concerned about appearance than older women is remarkable. Why so invested?
 
The entire PUA industry is based on men's insecurities....men of all ages. The idea that men don't care about this stuff is pure nonsense....of course they care, why else would they be constantly trying to gain advantage over other men by whatever means possible.
Wrong angle. We care about women's level of interest in us. We don't care about looking youthful, because women don't give it much priority. If you cared more about it, we would too. But since you don't, it's not an area for us to compete with each other over... or we would be competing that way. ;)

In fact, you'll more commonly experience a woman who finds a man who uses a lot of beauty product distasteful than women who will spurn a man for gray.
 
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Your determination to insist that older men are more attractive and less concerned about appearance than older women is remarkable. Why so invested?
Well thank you, I'm just a determined guy. I have no investment. I'm still relatively young.

I'm just calling it like I see it. Your restatement of it is a bit of a straw man though. It's not that the "older men are more attractive" in the physical sense I think you mean to imply. They deteriorate just like women do (with possible exception of childbearing-related issues). The total attractiveness difference isn't so much in how they each look... it's in how the other sex prioritizes what they're actually looking for, with men placing more weight on physical characteristics, and women placing more weight in non-physical characteristics.

The easiest example of this is men not caring how much money a woman makes, while women are proven to care a great deal (even though they refuse to admit it). If that's a factor in female attraction, then physical appearance is necessarily a lesser share whole picture for women than it is for men. It's one more thing to be traded on if you have to. According to the studies, women will sacrifice looks for money, and not even think they're sacrificing. Money just magically makes him look better. So it's not "looks don't matter", its that you have more things on which to trade off looks. It's one of many reasons I've found to take what women say about attraction with a grain of salt - y'all have a lot of conflicting pressures - so often what comes out of your mouth isn't yours, and is instead what you're "supposed to say".
 
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Again, I wish we could talk about this idea of "works". Because yes, you can make people do things by playing on their insecurities and vulnerabilities. However, I wouldn't call this the basis of a good relationship.

More just resentment fostering.
My definition of "works" in the PUA context is fairly simple - anything having a positive influence on the ability to engage a woman of like attractiveness so as to ultimately have sex. I qualify it with "ultimately", because that sex can be within the bounds of a committed relationship... or not.

Some of them are fine in the context of a good relationship, some are not. Some are moral, some are not.

But they "work" for their intended purpose. The rest is up to the guy applying them.
 
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