Striving for 100%- A Nod to Plate Theory

[STR8UP]

As critical as I am of the whole idea of NEEDING to spin plates in order to keep a straight head when dealing with women, at the same time I have to acknowledge the value of the state of mind that it brings.

I've always been quick to make the disclaimer that although I believe the ultimate goal of any man is to have the attitude that any woman is replaceable at any time, I can appreciate the mindset that comes along with the knowledge that you actually DO have "backup".

I understand the value of having multiple women around at any given time, and I truly believe that as a man it is possible to have a good frame of mind even WITHOUT spinning plates, but I have a question.

Do you believe it is possible to ever be 100% confident in your ability to attract/ replace a great woman, or to TRULY be 100% ok with being alone?

I'm almost 37 years old, and it has taken me many, MANY years to get to the point where I am at. I always say that I can take women or leave them, but when it comes down to it, I experience a different state of mind when I know there are several women who are attracted to me at any given time.

Although I pride myself in being fairly confident in the idea that I can be happy with or without a woman, and that I have the ability to walk away from any woman at any time, it wasn't until recently that I realized how much different I feel when I am actually getting female attention from many different angles.

It's amazing that even if you feel like you could care less about the 32 yr old 7.5 you have been out with a couple of times, as soon as you see potential in a 23 yr old model who is a solid "9", the 32 yr old dulls in comparison.

So what do you think? Is it possible to ever get to the point where you have the exact same mindset being 100% alone as you have when you are surrounded by many women who are vying for your attention?

I'm beginning to think that since we are in fact social animals, there is simply NO WAY to be 100% unless you are actually receiving "reinforcement" from women, or one woman who you are very much attracted to.

What do you think?

 

[iqqi]

We all want to love, and to be loved, and that is one truth we can deny all that we want.

 

[Victory Unlimited]

Yo Str8up,


I think that it's impossible to maintain a perfectly constant mental state of personal prizeability with women as a group. The reason why I say this is because it's human nature for a person to feel at least SOMEWHAT of a sense of loss whenever a person HE PERCEIVES as having value "exits" his life for whatever reason.

If someone is SIGNIFICANT to our lives in some way, their passing, if not necessarily mourned, will AT LEAST be measureably NOTICED by us in some way-----even if the setback to our confidence is extremely temporary.

I believe that the level of specialness that a man "assigns" to any particular woman is in direct proportion to how confident he will be in his ability to "replace" her.

Or, in other words:

The mere fact that a man even reaches a point where he deems ONE woman out of the many as being distinct in some kind of positive way, automatically elevates her value somewhat to that of "a rare find"-----even if it's only in HIS mind.

But if a man can successfully objectify women in such a way that he sees NONE of them as special, THEN I believe it would be more realistically conceivable that he could have a 100% degree of confidence in his ability to generate other female options----but ONLY because his views of the women in question is that they are FAR MORE disposable to him than men who are blessed or "cursed" with a greater sense of conscience and respect for the uniqueness of each woman's individuality.

And by the way, the same is true whether the distinctions you perceive between the women you meet are either negative OR POSITIVE. A man can trigger within himself that SAME sense of loss if he thinks that by staying with an HB8, he is "missing out on something" if he DOESN'T pursue the female that he has internally assigned the status of HB10 to.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

Sometimes, our perceptions of the value levels of our options, and how emotionally invested we are in obtaining them, can have an effect on our sense of fulfillment, our self-concept, and therefore, OUR CONFIDENCE.




Peace...to you.


And good night and GOOD LUCK.

 

[Bible_Belt]

We all want to love, and to be loved, and that is one truth we can deny all that we want.

Speak for yourself. I just want to get laid. "Love" is for women and AFCs.

 

[iqqi]

Denial!!! The matrix has you!

 

[ketostix]

...There is simply NO WAY to be 100% unless you are actually receiving "reinforcement" from women, or one woman who you are very much attracted to.

What do you think?

I'm right there with you Str8up on your views of plate spinning. But being a guy and seeing is believing and all, I'm going to say no, there's no way to be 100% without reinforcement from at least one plate or more.

Denial!!! The matrix has you!

You are part of the matrix :cuss: .

 

[Knight's Cross]

STR8UP,
Being at a similar age, let me give my observations. As I've pulled my head out of the matrix, it's become easier to want less, and more importantly feel less of a NEED for female attention/ affirmation. Sure, everyone likes it, but when you truly don't need it, you have reached a higher place. It's pure rocket fuel. As far as I'm concerned. When I started to switch from gaining ground with women as a GOAL, to redirecting that focus at my career and hobbies, I have felt the desire for women and their attention just fall off the scale.
I still enjoy the company of the plates I spin, but I've gotten to a point where I realized I'd always lose $ chasing women, but never lose women chasing $. Also I'm having too much fun with the career to waste on any plate whether she's a 7HB, 9HB or whatever. I think it REALLY hit home when a former plate that I LJBF'd told me she was getting married. I truly felt relieved. As if I dodged a bullet.
Individual results may vary, but hitting the place in your life that you truly don't need plates due to having your own affirming action going on is where I've found happiness.

That's the view from my foxhole~

KC

 

[hithard]

Interesting question, I think a lot of the PUA guys that have actually honed it to an art form would be close to the 100% on a regular basis. Simply because they have tried and tested their skills hundreds and hundreds of times. So they would be safe in the knowledge that they could easily attract women at a moments notice. Keeping women on the other hand they might have an issue with.

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

Do you believe it is possible to ever be 100% confident in your ability to attract/ replace a great woman, or to TRULY be 100% ok with being alone?

No and yes. I think total confidence in any given situation is most certainly a worthy thing to strive for, but it implies perfection and thus be an idealized state. You'll never have absolute control or absolute confidence, however i think high degree of self-confidence is definitely achievable. More important is an ability to weather blows to that confidence and come back from them, even in the absence of actual options, but knowing you can, and have generated real options. Replacing a "great woman" has to take into consideration a Man's objective ability to really determine her being "great". Naturally this (should) comes from experience and maturity. In our AFC days I'm sure there were countless women we thought were "quality" who, by our own admonition or by their opportunism, shamelessly exploited that AFCness. Those experiences, and the breaking with them, contribute to our becoming aware of what we were, but more importantly (again, should) teach us to appreciate the exceptions to the rule.

As far as becoming 100% comfortable with being alone, I would say this is not only possible, but should be a natural progression for a Man. That's going to come off in two ways; as very cavalier or else it will merit the pity of the "Lonely Old Man" myth. No man is an island, but that isn't to say to be alone is to be a hermit. You can be entirely social AND be comfortable in being self-dependent. The true measure of a Man is how he deals with his self-dependence. Far too many men never actualize this, going from living at home into young adulthood directly into marriage (or a live-in situation) without ever really learning to be self-dependent and self-reliant. In fact, I think the very reason "being alone" is termed in the negative is to distract men from actualizing self-reliance. If a man can be put into a position of dependence, if he can be taught to fear the specter of "loneliness" or "isolation" he never learns his own self-worth; nothing frightens women more than a Man who's self-aware of his own value.

It's only when you can be comfortable in your own self-reliance that you really appreciate a person worth sharing your time with.

 

[Juando]

Do you believe it is possible to ever be 100% confident in your ability to attract/ replace a great woman, or to TRULY be 100% ok with being alone?

Great question and responses.

I just posted on another thread

http://www.sosuave.net/forum/showthread.php?t=16901

my concern with being alone- not that it's not doable, not that it can't be an incredible growth experience, but that I wonder if the price for being alone for too long is too great for someone who sees the sexual/romantic connection as one of the great gifts of life.

Not a need but a gift.

 

[STR8UP]

I think a lot of factors come into play here.

First you have the social aspect. People are SOCIAL animals. Socialization is part of getting laid. Getting laid is a natural drive in each and every one of us.

Second is societal conditioning.

How much of my feeling "lonely" or desiring intimacy from time to time is due to the residual effects of what I have been told all of my life?

All I know is that I can be happy IN a relationship as well as out. But there are times when I am single and would love nothing more than to have the perks that come with a quality relationship.

The past three years have been a series of ONS's, STR's, and random hookups. Fine to get your rocks off, but NOT very fulfilling.

I'm just not sure that any person can be completely comfortable with being alone, at least not over the long haul. I think the reassurance that comes from getting positive feedback from attractive women HELPS (even if you aren't necessarily banging 5 of them), but in the long run I think most people will get an itch, a desire for intimacy, that needs to be fulfilled. I think everyone should STRIVE to be ok with being alone, but I have my doubts as to how many people actually get there.

Think about it this way. Lets say you're George Clooney. Money, looks, status, fame....he's got it all.

Do you think he's worried about his next birthday making him a year older? Hell no. But that doesn't mean that even if he fukks three different women a night that he will ever be 100% content. He might not ever have to be alone, but that doesn't mean he doesn't get lonely.

I'm not even sure what I'm getting at here, but it's a good discussion nonetheless.

 

[Juando]

I think everyone should STRIVE to be ok with being alone, but I have my doubts as to how many people actually get there.

Interesting discussion indeed.

I would agree with striving to being ok with being alone, but I would argue that the ideal would be for someone who is ok with being alone enjoying the gifts of a relationship chosen from that foundation.

I don't see being alone as a goal, obviously.

Come to think of it, I was one of those people who was ok/alone before my LTR but now on the other side of it I'm having to relearn to love myself. And it's not easy for me, I did get attached.
Some good if painful lessons though. Yesterday I got LJBFd by Miss i after letting her know that I was not available as a girlfriend. The dream of having her as a gf went up in smoke and the vacuum hurt for a while, still does a bit but I did take a stand for me as a man and the resulting aloneness does not feel like a punishment and I don't feel like a victim- on the contrary I feel proud to be alone.

 

[Alexander the Great]

Do you believe it is possible to ever be 100% confident in your ability to attract/ replace a great woman, or to TRULY be 100% ok with being alone?

So what do you think? Is it possible to ever get to the point where you have the exact same mindset being 100% alone as you have when you are surrounded by many women who are vying for your attention?

I think it is possible, but it depends on what you call "confidence".

To me, confidence is made up of many factors. I mean, it's okay to feel bad about losing a great woman for example. That doesn't mean you're lacking confidence. What I often feel is advocated on this site, is that if you're not able to walk about the world and not be unphased about anything that happens to you, then you're not 100% confident. But such confidence isn't confidence in my book. Just ignorance.

Confidence for me is also allowing yourself to feel down and bad and hurt when things go amiss with a great woman/person, but knowing that those feelings will end and that you'll find another. Confidence to me is also feeling that you may have lost The One (excuse the term) and accepting that you may be "alone" for the rest of your life. Being okay with it. Confidence to me is being at peace with yourself and the world. I know that sounds very hippy-like. And it probably doesn't convey properly what I mean.

Maybe I mean what Rollo already said: self-reliance. I think many people lack the confidence described in this thread because they feel they need another and others to feel safe and secure in this world. Someone confident feels safe and secure with himself and needs no other for that. If you see confidence as such, I think a 100% confidence is possible. But I suppose that's entirely personal, depending on how you see things and what "confidence" is to you.


And yes, I think I could be content with being "alone", but again that depends on what "alone" is. No special woman to share things with isn't that bad if you have other people to relate to, who take that place. Friends, family, friends with benefits, or, maybe most importantly, yourself. I think being able to be intimate with yourself kills all loneliness, even though I'm not even sure myself what I mean by that. Perhaps loneliness stems from a lack of intimacy. With oneself. And therefore we seek it in others.

Intimacy is a form of acceptance of who you are. Being content with who you are. Not complacent, but content, a knowing that it's alright to be like that now, and that you'll change and grow without having to be afraid of that (something people often are, I feel). I suppose that's where confidence comes around the corner again: being confident that whatever happens, whatever changes, good or bad, will lead to a better place and a better you.

As for being "alone", I think it's a pity if you never find someone who clicks with you on a deep level, but I also realize that since everyone is different, and that it's very hard to meet someone who is enough like you with whom you can feel a true connection with. Only from that, real love can follow. When you don't need someone and about whom you feel okay to let go. That's real love. Admire but don't need. Grief but don't obsess. And it's also an important precursor for being able to be "alone" I think.

Love today I feel is often just a state of co-dependency and mutually imagined neediness.. Nothing more, nothing less. Real love... is rare. And a state most never reach. But that's my limited-by-experience-perhaps view.

Anyway, after all, we are ultimately all alone. You just make do with the people you meet on the way. Once you accept that, I think you're truly ready to be "alone", because realizing that, changes your outlook on life because "alone" is no longer "alone" with that mindset. If you catch my drift.

I think it has something to do with seeing yourself as a wanderer of the desert. Desert people aren't needy. Desert people are prepared. They don't know anything else other than that scarcity is the way of life and they live in self-reliance, on a quid pro quo basis when interacting with others. Maybe that's the solution to the overcrowded western nations, where, mysteriously enough, a lot of people feel alone? It seems just odd. Maybe adapting a more self-reliant attitude is the solution to the current artificial, self-centered, objectifying attitude of "spinning plates"? I can imagine a world, like the leisure planet you sometimes see passing in Sci-fi, where people share eachother openly, without it being a bad or immoral thing to do. But maybe that's taking it too far.


To be perfectly honest, I have this unpleasant feeling that I'm just talking nonsense or stating the obvious...

 

[Metro3pilot]

After recently dropping all the plates I was spinning and not wanting to replace any of them, I have come to a point where ...I really don't care to expend the energy required to spin plates.

Now I can concentrate on the important things in life like fishing, and drinking beer.

 

[STR8UP]

Love today I feel is often just a state of co-dependency and mutually imagined neediness.. Nothing more, nothing less. Real love... is rare. And a state most never reach. But that's my limited-by-experience-perhaps view.

"Love" is like heaven. You can talk about it all day long and believe it's there, but has anyone (alive) ever seen it?

I don't believe in love in the traditional sense. That's setting yourself up for unrealistic expectations and inevitable failure.

I do however believe that it is possible to have a wonderful experience with a woman in your life. The question is, if you never really experience this, have you truly lived a fulfilling life?

 

[Alexander the Great]

I [...] believe that it is possible to have a wonderful experience with a woman in your life. The question is, if you never really experience this, have you truly lived a fulfilling life?

That depends on what fulfilling is.

To some, the answer would be "no". They are perhaps the sex-less, mysagonists, narcistic or the social phobic.

To others, the answer would be "yes". Those are perhaps the AFC, the ones who base their worth and happiness on women. Or they are perhaps the wise and knowledgable, who just know that if you've never had a wonderful, special woman, you've not lived a fulfilling life.

I'd just like to say that if you've never experienced a wonderful woman in your life, you've not tasted the fullness of it. Which is perhaps in essence saying "yes" to your question, in a more neutral sense (because in all honesty, I just don't know).

I think most people wil say "yes" to your question. The difference I think lies in the their motivations for it. Ironically enough, I think that under both a matrix/AFC and a DJ mindset, the answer is "yes", but both have different motivations.


(What I just said feels like the most meaningless ramble I've ever seen, somehow. Why is that?)