Why this site is both the elixir of love and happiness and the poison of madness

[jbbrain]

My last post can give u guys the context u need.

But this is just a little rant about this site and LTRs.

I find there is a serious dichotomy in the way this site teaches you how to handle a healthy LTR, based mostly on the fact that every poster subscribe to either one of these camps:

1)The LTR as a means to happiness with someone you love. With this option, you leave your ego behind and you strive to create a new adventure with yourself and your significant other. Here, the destination isn't the most important thing in the world, but rather the journey.

or

2)The LTR as a means to challenge your knowledge of Sosuave, to play mind tricks as a way to see how long you can keep your LTR. Perhaps its a smarter, more risk free approach, but the time one uses to maximize ones strategy is not used really for unadulterated love, but truly only a half love where your constant obsession and concern with "your" security is half the battle.


I want to create a bridge between both, and mayb those who have already can help me with this one.

So, this girl Ewa. She great. So great that I "know" an LTR with ehr would be amazing. As you can probably tell, I like her a lot, and went through a lot of ONS with abunch of different chicks to realize what she means to me.

Now, starting this exclusive LTR, part of me wants to embrace option "1", I want the ignorance, to jump into this romance almost blindly and see where I end up, whethr it be utopia or heart wrenching hell, all the while trusting myself to do a good job, realizing my self worth and being my usual confident self.

After joining this site a good 3 years ago, I unfortunately find this option nearly impossible with a girl in an LTR. Now, I havent been in many relationships in the first place, Ewa being my third, and I just wanted to thank this site for improving my sucess with women and with understanding myself during my times of the "Single Life". I embraced my role as a man, have maximized my confidence with meeting women and just generally being able to be myself. Ive slept with 25 girls in the meantime: and I need to thank this site for my current competentness (?) with women.

Unfortunately, I find myself having a hard time perpetuating this harmony in a meaningful LTR. Last year, I went through a bad relationship with this chcick Julie, and I really learned a lot of lessons in the meanwhile, both because of experience, and because of good feedback from you guys. I now find myself slowly falling for this girl ( maybe a little infatuation, I know) but then I read from half you guys, some of whom are not dimwitted bible regurgitating newbies who dont think for themselves, that my longing to be with this girl is "bad" because it can create potential oneitis bla bla bla...oh yeah! and boredom on her part due to the lack of challenge you threaten to give her..holy shyt! Weve only been goign out a week and weve slept at eachothers places 3 nights in a row!!!!?? How could I???

I have pretty good judgement, but what I am tryign to say is that I find myself incorporating some gimmicks, some uselful, some not, into my game as if I dont trust myself. Like tonight I wont be talkign to her, yes because of a lot of school work, but also so that she wonders about me which can subsequently peak her interest. Is this ridiculous? Is it not? Is this fundamental for any healthy relationship? When does all the game playing stop? I find myself playing games she probbaly isnt experienced enough to know exist and she doesnt pull this stuff with me. its not her style. Why do I find myself playing the "byches" role with a girl whos so sweet, sincere, honest, and confident in herself?

Whats bothering me is that I find this site, which has taught me to instil artificial barriers with girls I like so as to "protect my heart", is making me more and more self conscious. Call me hard headed, but I think this site can help destroy the "organicness" of a healthy relationship with a girl u sincerely like, and who, presumable, is crazy about you too.

I think a good relationship should not be viewed as a challenge to test your skills on how crazy you can make a girl fall for you, but rather a great journey all into itself.

Suggestions, questions?

 

[NewMan]

Weve only been goign out a week and weve slept at eachothers places 3 nights in a row!!!!?? How could I???

Thats the very reason to protect your heart.

You'e known someone for a week, and your willing to throw everything you have into it? Did you learn anything from your other relationships?

How can you truly know this woman after 1 week?

If you had told me you had been with this girl for a year, then my response would be different - But the fact is, you don't put all your cards on the table after a week.

 

[JohnJones]

I think that one was a joke? -- jbbrain's other post set up the current situation pretty nicely.

jbbrain: I have little to add at the moment (I still play dopey tricks that don't mean anything [like not replying to email, that kind of thing] with my girlfriend). I don't exactly know what to do (other than that I don't want it to get dull).

This post is another in the same line as Chubbs' from a few days back about LTRs.

 

[jbbrain]

newguy, i wish you would have read my previous post.

Ive known this girl since March, been seeing her since april, summer not included

 

[b's nuts]

I find myself in the same mindset at times, which I think is unhealthy for the relationship (almost 4 months). Like we will even be having a wholesome conversation, and i think she will be testing me to see if i have any backbone left, now that we have been together this long, and thus me being a jerk. I know its wrong, but the mindset it took to get me this girl, im not so sure is the mindset to keep her. She has even told me that she isn't playing any games with me, which makes me think she knows i am at times. When i can pull out of these being a jerk ruts, and start opening up, i find myself thinking im being a wuss, but truly I know these are things she wants to hear. slowly i think im finding a happy medium, and i haven't been over analyzing things she says to me (like everyone of these damn newbies are doing) and things are going well. jbbrain - I think to find a happy medium in this journey, you need to give up the games, and just be man, cuz that is what she truly wants.

 

[jbbrain]

b's nuts...thats what Im thining..I just need to give this shyt time..maybe slow things down.

 

[jbbrain]

bump, come on boys!!

Call me righteous, but I think this is some good discussion

 

[NewMan]

Here is my 0.2 cents on this subject - which is thought provoking.

2)The LTR as a means to challenge your knowledge of Sosuave, to play mind tricks as a way to see how long you can keep your LTR. Perhaps its a smarter, more risk free approach, but the time one uses to maximize ones strategy is not used really for unadulterated love, but truly only a half love where your constant obsession and concern with "your" security is half the battle.

I disagree with this - this is not what I'm here for, or it's not what I want in an LTR.

Some things are necessary at the start of a relationship - be a challenge, don't give her all of your time, don't call her back right away.....

But these are more things that will make you stand out from the regular AFC.

My belief is that it's all about us being a MAN - THE MAN.

No supplicating to your woman and doing everything she wants.

But I don't see that playing games with the woman is necessary in an LTR.

Don't be something your not - love and enjoy it.

As someone once said - and I do not know who....

"It is better to have love and lost than to have never loved at all"

 

[iqqi]

hmmm....

i am very tired right now but i will definately comment on this here.

i just wanted to say that i think Tesque Red would provide some very good insight to this. so PM him or something with the link to this, cuz he hasn't been around as much.

 

[jbbrain]

one more bump for this one

 

[TesuqueRed]

Hey guy

Sounds like you're coming to the end of a phase--a focus on technique. So theory and technique meets real experience and there's a conflict---way cool.

I think your post is summed up in the phrase "when does the game-playing stop?"

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Let's just use the term "technique", I find that using the perjorative "tricks", "games", "mind-games" etc. are misleading and biased. Using them means you force an answer one way or the other without looking at the issue clearly (or unbiased.)

These are like tools--it depends who's hands are holding it: if you're a tail-scoring numbers-counting player, a technique can be a trick, gimmick or mind game. If you're connecting with and engaging with someone that excites you and who you like, a technique can be nothing more than managing yourself and your time like an adult.
______________
IMHO, Jb, you may be bumping up against the end of a phase where you've gone out playing and learned a good deal. And it no longer suffices for what you want and need. So you're reaching beyond that--into what, you don't know--but you seem to relish the challenge and the unknown. You couldn't ask for a better head-space to be in, btw...

But you're saturated with much of what you've learned and used recently--techniques--so much so that it's an interference, so much so that you can't seem to interact without it feeling like a manipulation. And you're sick of it.

So--IMO--and I'm just making a lot of guesses of what's going on with you based on what I went through--there's 3 things I would high-light.
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1) Remove your biased misperceptions and fantasies as much as you can. I don't know what unadulterated love is. I thought I did once, now I don't know. It seems like people use it as a fantasy ideal--which is a natural reaction off your growing disatisfaction with techniques. It was that way for me. And it was also a by-product of the coctail of hormones that flood your system when someone really exciting comes along. It's a florid, endorphin-cruising drug high that is infatuation. Look back over the other girls that gave you the same reaction (since junior high, even) and see if you can't recall how it felt--almost impossible, you really need those hormones screaming through your blood to get it again. That's why it can be addictive (I'm using the word loosely, so to the psych majors--yeah, I know I'm using it sloppily and probably incorrectly.)

Anyway--point is--try to minimize misperceptions like these--of unadulterated love and it's like. The hormones will flood your perceptions, you really can't stop it, but your knowledge and experience you've gained bagging 25 girls will give you a bit of perspective that may protect your heart and allow you to give more--or give more wisely--than a rank AFC (ignorant and misguided) could manage.
______________
2) You will have to abandon all you've learned. Jump in and flounder--put yourself absolutely in situations that you can't prepare for or predict so that you feel everyone staring at you waiting for you to say something--and, so, in a crisis moment, you improvise, you become spontaneous, or you see what comes up.

This is breaking the mold--in order to create the next thing (a new you, a new ability to give and receive in a relationship founded on something deeper and more integral inside you) you will have to forget or abandon what you've worked so hard to acquire here.

I say this because it seems that the techniques have become such an impediment to you at the moment.
______________
In actually, what I think you will find once you re-balance or get to the next level is:

3) that what you've learned, all the techniques, aren't techniques or tricks but one of many options available to you to use appropriately or not use--whatever the situation calls for, which is, whatever you need and want, you will use. It will become natural and part of your way of dealing with the world, of communicating. You will have expanded and mastered new abilities and use them in alignment with the better part of you.

And the way to do it is in #2: abandon what you know and put yourself in challenging, even crisis, situations. Challenge yourself. See what works, what doesn't.
______________
My own experience, for your reference, was that a few months before I signed on here I started voraciously pouring through the bible, the archives, Doc Love, D'Angelo, Copeland and Lewis, Steele, Speed Seduction---any and every resourse that could give me more or different angles on whatever subject caught my interest. Body language, nice guy vs jerks, why women will cancel dates, how to use the phone--I didn't just read, I bird-dogged a subject to ground over and over again.

Then I went out and looked at everyone, every relationship around me, and assessed them in light of what I newly learned. And I did the same with my interactions with friends and dates. It was very much an intense, intellectual phase of analyzing, going back for more info, analyzing more, trying new techniques and seeing what worked.

I practiced on counterpersons, strangers, etc. I worked on my weak points and improved what I already could do well.

And then I had to abandon it. Let it go. The actual reality of standing in front of a woman and talking to her, of engaging, connecting, etc.--often required that I had to wing it and make it up as I went along. I had to reach inside and see what I produced in an actual encounter that meant something.

It worked when I could make anything I did based on what I call "self-referencing". It didn't work when I used a technique. I could use a technique with minor effectiveness and later use the exact same action--but from an intuitive, self-referencing awarenss--and it would either work really well or give me invaluable information (like reveal her low IL and what excuse-making I had been doing in order not to admit it.)

This is the state I call "self-possession" based on "self-awareness". If you enter this new relationship with a sense of self-possession (similar to what Pook envisions in "get a life" perhaps??? to me it is so...) you can fvck up, be aware of it, and self-correct. That is key--you can assess and adjust in mid-stride.

When I abandoned technique, I found that I resumed where I started---pay attention here JB!---as an AFC. My first responses had overtones of supplication, desperation, neediness, lack of confidence. It amazed me this shyt that I had thought I had mastered had come up again!

But I knew better! I even acted differently--like w/o supplication, desperation, with confidence---before. And I had techniques available too. I had choices for the first time and---KEY---I started making choices and acting on them.

An AFC doesn't have self-possession or choice---just think of the AFCs here who just can't restrain themselves from acting like one, even though he intellectually knows better. He hasn't developed an ability to meaningfully choose for himself--the amount of pain he's in doesn't affect this. Strange, huh? Put your hand on a hot stove and you jump away. An AFC puts himself in extreme emotional pain and cannot pull away.

I digress. An AFC is all too ready to throw everything he has before the object of his one-itis. And he has little of a "self" to offer her, or anyone, even himself.

I haven't thought enough about whether a tail-chasing number-counting player is closer than an AFC towards self-possession. Pook certainly expressed his views on it (and that should be looked up.) I largely agree with that perspective. But I've seen tail-chasing players who appear to me to be quite self-possessed, more so, really, than an AFC.

Like I said, I haven't thought it through enough.

Anyway---I think Pook's various posts where he weighs in on the subject of technique vs becoming a man forms an excellent discussion of just what you're encountering now. I don't know that he's put it all into one post, I think the views are scattered among many posts (sucks for you in finding it in a simple search, but there it is...)

For my part, it's about self-possession, self-mastery (or self-knowledge, probably no distinction there) and awareness. You get that by throwing yourself into it (this new relationship, for example) and challenging yourself. Go for it.

Hope this helps.

 

[iqqi]

He speaketh.

 

[Player_Supreme]

In a perfect world yes. But in reality. Sorry Charley. Get over it.

When you let your guard down women become dissinterested. Unfortunately this is true as you will find out and be back on here posting and whinning about how she did you.

Unfortunately you can't put her on a pedistal. I just had a convo with a woman today who told me:



repost from a thread at another site today:

In talking to her she revealed that when I first started with her...she had a few on her own team.

One fool she related she had to let go because:

He put her on a pedistal and put her above him. That made her think what was wrong with him! She started thinking that he had some kind of problems that would make him say all these things to her and put her on a pedistal.

Her ex-husband is the mack whom I reffered to who got $50,000 from one chick and recently is driving a brand new lexus from another...so the girl knows the game is smart enough to observe what works and doesn't work.

Her words are: A man should be above the woman. A woman should have to look up to the man.

Pschologically you want to be above the woman....never be a symp and put her ass on a pedistal.



Don't put women on pedistals in your mind. It will come out in your convo as that idiot mentioned above. You will act and say stupid shyt. This one fool spent his money taking her out and shyt and got nothing for it.

**********

She also related the story of a player whom she had dated whom told her "Around you I feel like I can relax and let my guard down"

And she walked right over him and broke his heart as any woman would of done. What attracted her in the first place went away as did her attractiion.

*********

good luck on finding a happy medium

 

[Master of the Universe]

TesuqueRed,

That was an AWESOME and thought provoking post!

I've recently entered my first relationship, and you addressed many thoughts and questions that were going through my mind.

Again, this is an awesome post. Thanks!

George

 

[ShortyBrown]

JB.....

You're inquisitive, thoughtful, a smartarse, knowledgeable,and really frickin hot into the bargain. I wish you well kid.

*gives you a cyber hug*

 

[Cheiradawg]

Will someone love me for the person that I really am?

 

[B9]

great thread this.

TesuqueRed, you should be posting more.

 

[chlywly]

Because it's called "Life".... Life = balance, ying/yang, black white, hot cold... what ever you want to call it.. You are born, you die. Doing little of something is as bad as doing too much of it.

Therefor this site can too be good for you or bad for you, depending on how you interpet things and depending on how much time you spend on here

Healthy fruitfull long term relationships and dating are two totaly different realms.

You want a healthy relationship you have to start doing things from the beginning to start building the foundation, maybe i'll write an essay on it for you guys, but for now go look at www.sivasakti.com great website ((Yoga)) stuff, has tons on relationships.

 

[JustDoItAlways]

Hey, jbbrain, good to see you've found one you really like.

Some really good posts on this one, TesuqueRed and PS etc.

In my mind, there are only 3 kinds of DJs on this board.

- Those wanting to learn how to play the game because they have only been AFC to date.

- Those looking to score as many women as possible and maybe hook-up more long-term when a really good one comes along.

- Those just looking for one really great girl, that may or may not be the final one.

Overtime, most DJs move down the categories and I'm assuming you put yourself into the third category now. Each one of the above guys should be approaching the game in a slightly different way. There are lots of DJ tactics that are common to all of them, such as Challenge, but there should still be differences.

In terms of your specific problem, the way I read it is that you have found that one really great girl and are asking if you should still be using all the DJ tactics that this board is based on.

The simple fact is that it is impossible for us to go through each individual tactic and each individual situation that you might face with this particular girl that we do not know, for us to give you practical advice.

Besides keeping the bottom-line DJ musts such as "Be a Man", "Never Let Her Know She Has Won You Over 100% - 80% is OK Though", "Keep You Emotions in Check" and "Do Her Hard", the one LTR strategy that I have found to be very effective is "Mirroring."

Like mirroring body language, you mirror her approach to the relationship. She likes to spend most nights with you, heck, if you are getting some each night and you actually like the girl, what is wrong with that. "Being unavailable" is a DJ tactic that just does not work with this kind of girl. The third DJ-type guy has a little different approach than the second DJ-type guy.

Mirroring does not mean doing it exactly the same as she does. She is a girl and you are a guy, so you have to take the "male" mirror of her female approach.

Do what seems right, adjust your game for the girl and mirror her overall approach to the relationship. But there are basic DJ principles that are universal in an LTR and a ONS. You've been here long enough to tell which ones you need to keep and which ones you can loosen up on a little.

 

[jbbrain]

JDIA and others..

I have to go to school, but Im coming back with more repsonses...Anyways, JDIA, I still view myself as more in the 2nd category.

Engaging myself in a possibly meaninful LTR is really only something Ive gotten into with this girl. I was going to stay single initially, bangin chicks, having fun doing always what I WANTED, but this girl surprised me. She took me off guard. Shes cool. I thought, "what the heck, Ill just give it a shot"...

So far so good.