Random Relationship Derailment Thread

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Stahlmann
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by Stahlmann »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Wed Jun 28, 2023 6:33 am

Now, imagine that you are an intelligent alien from another galaxy sent to Earth to research what human heterosexual females find attractive when sexually mating. Pretend like you are the sort of dedicated researcher who is willing to read original documents actually written by human heterosexual females. Compile your results.
Probably as an alien I wouldn't care about following fact, or it would be oblivious to me for a long time... but as a human I'm not sure if I should believe only what one gender says. Second point: why should I focus on descriptions of wants instead focusing on real outcomes?

I get I should focus on female version, because nobody likes to be observed or fitted in some schemes as in "We know more about you, than you know about yourself, check mate sis!".

Also, as an example, no person will admit that taking drugs is something what made someone attractive and the main factors of lack of immediate rational the end of relationship was some chemical cocktail in the brain?

BTW, I'm no idiot and I won't start taking drugs to mimic part of the bad boy aura...

PS. In real life, I'm less theoretical. If I have mood and energy, I try to be more attractive, if not, I simply don't care or complain about women online (honestly I reduced the last habit grossly, so I'm a bit proud of myself).

zbigi
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by zbigi »

I read a testimony of a quiet, timid guy, who made himself act in a way that women like. He was shocked to see that: A) he was suddenly swimming in women, B) how exhausting it was to constantly pretend to be someone he was not. He ditched it after a couple of months IIRC, deemed it absolutely not worth it.

chenda
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by chenda »

zbigi wrote:
Wed Jun 28, 2023 8:58 am
I read a testimony of a quiet, timid guy, who made himself act in a way that women like. He was shocked to see that: A) he was suddenly swimming in women, B) how exhausting it was to constantly pretend to be someone he was not. He ditched it after a couple of months IIRC, deemed it absolutely not worth it.
This is why most aspie-nureo typical relationships are doomed to fail. The aspergers man has to put on an act (usually after years of teaching themselves social skills by observing and copying others) which ultimately is impossible to sustain.

white belt
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by white belt »

chenda wrote:
Wed Jun 28, 2023 7:09 am
Stahlmann I recall you once said you suspected you might have a form of Aspergers/high functioning autism. Have you been tested for this ?

https://psychology-tools.com/autism-spectrum-quotient/

People, especially men, with aspergers often never 'get' how relationships work, as their brains are wired differently. That doesn't necessarily mean they can't form successful relationships, but it can be a struggle for them, even on the milder end of the spectrum.
I second this. Only because, advice for someone on the spectrum needs to be quite tailored vs advice to just general population guy who is bad with women. I don't know about that specific test, but maybe it can be used as a starting point to go in for further evaluation with a professional. It might be the case that a few sessions with a therapist and associated work will be more valuable than literal years spent searching the web for answers.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Stahlmann wrote:Probably as an alien I wouldn't care about following fact, or it would be oblivious to me for a long time... but as a human I'm not sure if I should believe only what one gender says. Second point: why should I focus on descriptions of wants instead focusing on real outcomes?

I get I should focus on female version, because nobody likes to be observed or fitted in some schemes as in "We know more about you, than you know about yourself, check mate sis!".

Also, as an example, no person will admit that taking drugs is something what made someone attractive and the main factors of lack of immediate rational the end of relationship was some chemical cocktail in the brain?
Don't misunderstand. I absolutely didn't mean that you should take to heart what women say when they are making a "nice" list of qualities they are shopping for in a man OR when they are bitching about the men in their lives who, obviously, already made it past the first gate. For instance, when I complain about men being "grouchy", that's a Level 2 fail, not a Level 1 fail*. What I meant by "original documents" would be more akin to the female equivalent of porn; romance novels, "her"-otica, or basic chick lit. Watch some episodes of "Shrill" to get a feeling for how fat girls often suffer similarly as timid men, until/unless they gain some consciousness/confidence.

Maybe it's kind of subtle, but you have to remember that human beings want their preferences to be acknowledged, but they are also deeply impressionable. So, for instance, if/when you come to understand why a woman might find a bit of cocky behavior attractive, that's actually when you don't have to exhibit that kind of behavior to be successful. IOW, it's not just a matter of observing what works and then modeling it. That's just at the level of Copying a Recipe. Grokking why a bit of cocky behavior "works" is like grokking why a bit of ground chipotle "works" in a recipe. And, then you can better substitute what you do more readily have on the offer.

For instance, let's say you have super skinny arms with no visible muscles in them, but you wanted to date a woman who listed "biceps" as one of the three things she was looking for in a man. You could just go ahead and do the things that somebody with big biceps might do, while frankly, confidently, and happily acknowledging that you don't have big biceps. As in "Yeah, I noticed in your blurb that you like big biceps, but I was thinking that maybe that's just because you like it if your partner can toss you around a bit in bed. Clearly, I am no Schwarzenegger, and it's possible that you have 10 or 15 lbs on me**, but I will do my damdest to please. "

*Although, a Level 2 fail may eventually become a Level 1 fail for a particular woman after frequent exposure, like the drink you've vomited up one too many times.

**Just kidding. Absolutely delete this part from your spoken language, although it's okay to think about it when planning for the physics of leverage, etc.

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Jean
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by Jean »

chenda wrote:
Wed Jun 28, 2023 10:00 am
This is why most aspie-nureo typical relationships are doomed to fail. The aspergers man has to put on an act (usually after years of teaching themselves social skills by observing and copying others) which ultimately is impossible to sustain.
I managed to convince my normal gf to put an act for me. I must be some kind of genius.

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Jean
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by Jean »

More seriously, I think the women here, while giving good advice, are overcomplicating it.
No sane woman will find you attractive if your life isn't in your control somehow.
You don't seem to have found your way or being on it.
I've only managed to attract women when I was happy with my life, or actively working on making it better, or maybe just having confidence that it will get better.
You seem to be able to get one night stand or relationships for fun. Use the relief they provide to have some energy to try things to change your life to something you like.
I you are temporarly sexually deprived, it sucks. I was able to cope with it by masturbating, i wasn't using porn at the time, I think not using porn is better, because you fantasize on women you met or saw during the day, which helps preparing you to do the step that could lead to have sex with them.

Trying to fit some criterion sucks, but if you are developing yourself, there are always women whose criterion you fit.

chenda
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by chenda »

Jean wrote:
Wed Jun 28, 2023 4:11 pm
I managed to convince my normal gf to put an act for me. I must be some kind of genius.
You have aspergers?

Stahlmann
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by Stahlmann »

I think I tend to enter a specific role with my online persona, and I'm easy "told into" something (online/real life), but I tried to solve https://psychology-tools.com/test/autis ... -quotient/ honestly, and I received "Your score was 40 out of a possible 50. Scores in the 33-50 range indicate significant Autistic traits (Autism)". :oops: :cry: :? :)

I tried talking about Asperger's with my shrink. For adults, it's rather expensive to get tested, and it isn't available on state aid. Eh.

chenda
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by chenda »

Stahlmann wrote:
Thu Jun 29, 2023 12:44 am
I tried talking about Asperger's with my shrink. For adults, it's rather expensive to get tested, and it isn't available on state aid. Eh.
I think it's worth exploring further with a specialist, or doing your own research. It may also help you with your career/employment issues. Some jobs suit aspies very well, many others do not.

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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by jacob »

Lets tap the brakes a bit here. It seems that over the past couple of years, neurodiversity has become the new cool. Elon Musk ostensibly has Aspergers and so does Chris Rock and maybe Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have it too. Or do they really?... Lets not forget that the baseline probability for Aspergers is less than 0.5%. It's great that neurodiversity gets some awareness, but lets not turn real yet rare conditions into fashion statements or simplistic explanations for various socially problematic quirks.

Unfortunately, [the field of] psychology has a tendency to turn every trait into a pathology that needs medication or therapeutic services (solutions looking for problems... perhaps to pay off those student loans :-P ) and culture has created the stereotype that everyone with Aspergers is a socially awkward nerd. However, Aspergers is its own condition and not just a trait of the socially awkward.

There is some overlap in the Venn diagrams of the traits of the stereotypical nerd and aspies, but the underlying brain functionality between the two is rather different. In order to be diagnosed as an aspie (by trait), one needs "all"(*) of the following
  1. Lack of social skills
  2. Inability to read emotions/subtexts in others
  3. Inflexibility of mind (fixed behavior)
  4. Easily overloaded senses
(*) Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The symptom is not the disease.

Whereas your standard nerd can be diagnosed as
  1. Lack of social skills
  2. More interested in science and technology than people
  3. Solid intellectual skills
  4. Obsessively curious to learn more
Ahh, so there's some overlap in the trait indicators. Yet also some rather strong counter-indicators.

Looking under the hood (or cranium), what really defines the Aspergers is a sensory overload issue. Aspies tend to pay attention to so many details that it gets overwhelming. Metaphorically speaking, there are too many sensors connected to the CPU. The coping mechanism is to narrow their focus to reduce what they pay attention to which in turn fixes their behavior into simple set habits, rituals, or obsessions where the scope can be comfortably limited. This problem may be fixed "wrongly" leading to socially weird behavior because the aspie paid attention to the wrong thing about the situation and constructed the wrong framework around it. E.g. eating in a certain way to prevent vegetables from getting stuck between the teeth as opposed to eating in the way that society feels socially acceptable---"normal" people would probably not even notice the teeth issue.

Whereas for the standard nerd or INT* person, the lack of social skills is not due to kludging an underlying hardware sensor issue but a relative lack of interest. Why spend one's time and energy talking about Lady Gaga or what people have been doing lately when there is science and technology to be explored and new discoveries to be made. The problem here is not a lack of social skills but a lack of socially compatible people with the same esoteric interests as the nerd. Indeed, if the "Star Trek club" was 90% female and 10% male rather than the other way around, this [relationship] problem would fade away very quickly (for the guys).

This means that the relationship problem for the nerd is either a search problem or an interface problem. The nerd either has to find another nerd or they have to dedicate some time keeping up with what non-nerds like to do or talk about, boring as that may be to them. Both take away time from exploring the world they're actually interested in, so it's a trade-off in terms of how much they want a relationship.

Whereas the relationship problem for the aspie is to realize---that is both people in the couple need to realize this---that aspies bring something different to the table and in particular that there are some things they're not bringing such as appreciating spontaneity or expressing empathy in the socially conventional manner.

The response to a surprise involving tickets to see a football game makes the distinction clear. The aspie doesn't like it because it's a surprise. The nerd doesn't like it because it's football. The normie doesn't know how to make this distinction given how they like both surprises and football themselves and thus conflate the causes.

Jin+Guice
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by Jin+Guice »

Finally.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@jacob:

Having worked with many children with Asperger's, (I was comforting a very cute little aspie girl who was weeping due to other children excluding her from play just a couple days ago), I generally agree with the very important distinction you are making. I would also note that low level cyclothymia, which is not uncommon in more ENTP-temperament-like variety of nerd, is frequently misdiagnosed as ADHD. One important distinction being whether you were an early reader or a late reader. If you were literally hopping on Pop while reading "Hop on Pop" at age 3, likely you are a bit tending towards mania.

However, I disagree with this:
The problem here is not a lack of social skills but a lack of socially compatible people with the same esoteric interests as the nerd. Indeed, if the "Star Trek club" was 90% female and 10% male rather than the other way around, this [relationship] problem would fade away very quickly (for the guys).
As an NT female who has found herself in the 10% female contingent on numerous occasions throughout my life, I must state for the record that lack of social skills of the 90% male contingent is quite evident. For instance, when I attended an engineering school in the frozen North which literally had a 9 to 1 ratio of males to females, I only rarely was approached by any of my classmates, but during the same time period when I spent my breaks and then transferred to the campus of an even more selective, but more "universal". university (admissions were highly based on very high SAT scores), I was approached by men quite often.

So, two basic problems with nerd male strategy I have noted:

1) Do not approach women. If otherwise attractive will eventually fall "prey" to women with much more assertive social manner*. IOW, they will not mate until some take-charge female decides to make one her boyfriend.

2) Work under some long-term theoretical plan for when they will "deserve" to mate. This causes problems on both ends, because while "waiting to deserve" no actual experience is being gained, and once "achievement level where deserves a partner" is achieved, resentment of either females in general OR the-bad-men-who-did-not-follow-the-theoretical-contest-which-is-supposed-to work is experienced when partner ("trophy") does not magically appear.

IMO, OP has indicated that, although greatly improved, he is still suffering a bit from both (1) and (2.)


*Of course, this might be reflective of a bit of sour grapes on my part due to lack of success of my "shy" youthful strategy when stalking the otherwise attractive reclusive male, which was pretty much limited to behaviors such as "wearing a tight red t-shirt to math class and smiling**."

**Here's a hint for the nerd male. If/when a reasonably attractive girl wearing a tight red t-shirt smiles at you, you might want to give some consideration to the tactic of smiling back at her rather than scowling.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

In fact, I would further note, that it might less be the case that females are not interested in nerdy topics as they are positively repulsed away from such fields by the social behavior exhibited by some proportion of male nerds. Every memoir written by female scientists or mathematicians that I have read would soundly confirm this theory.

chenda
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by chenda »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Fri Jun 30, 2023 10:40 am
In fact, I would further note, that it might less be the case that females are not interested in nerdy topics as they are positively repulsed away from such fields by the social behavior exhibited by some proportion of male nerds.
It's interesting because you would have thought natural selection would have bred out autism (or nerdism for that matter) from the gene pool due to lower rates of reproductive success (homosexuality raises a similar question)

One theory I once read was that the human species needs autism to be so successful. 99% of people designed to breed, with 1% who develop obsessive interests in obscure niche topics, out of which the occasional genius emerges. Although autism is found throughout the IQ spectrum, most high IQ outliers show clear symptoms of autism. It's also much more common in men then women (although likely under diagnosed in women)

7Wannabe5
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@chenda:

Hmmm..I’m old enough that it may be the case that I am to some extent confounding autistic tendencies with old school sexism. For instance, I was thinking about my high school physics class and the way the very disagreeable WW2 era teacher huddled in a little back room with his chosen group of male nerds while I was left with the general population building my rocket with a guy named Brad who always wore sunglasses.

Also, I’ve recently been reading about all the terrible famous 20th century highly “rational” statisticians who were motivated by their subjective belief in eugenics. It seems like it is frequently the case that red pill is taken as chaser to large glass full of false premises.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by mountainFrugal »

chenda wrote:
Fri Jun 30, 2023 5:47 pm
It's interesting because you would have thought natural selection would have bred out autism (or nerdism for that matter) from the gene pool due to lower rates of reproductive success (homosexuality raises a similar question)
This could be true if it were a single gene or a small handful of genes that led to 0 reproductive success in all cases. However, IQ, autism, and most traits like this (height as the classic human example) are poly-genic. These genes also interact with each other and the environment starting in the womb. The fact that these genes are in our populations and do not produce autism (or high IQ or whatever) in all cases mean they are unlikely to be selected against at all, even if some combination cases they may lead to "lower success". And again lower success does not mean no success.

add: poly-genic in these examples are literally hundreds of genes.

Jin+Guice
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by Jin+Guice »

zbigi wrote:
Wed Jun 28, 2023 8:58 am
I read a testimony of a quiet, timid guy, who made himself act in a way that women like. He was shocked to see that: A) he was suddenly swimming in women, B) how exhausting it was to constantly pretend to be someone he was not. He ditched it after a couple of months IIRC, deemed it absolutely not worth it.
I'm confused by these stories. The set of skills that it takes to talk to women/ get women to like to/ be "swimming in women" is still a set of skills. No one is out here being like "I used to be a totally inept handyman, couldn't tell a nail from a screw, and then I taught myself to build my own house, but somewhere between the erecting the frame and laying the pipe I lost myself. Thankfully, a few months after completion of my house, I was able to regain my identity as a man who doesn't know the business end of a screwdriver."

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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by jacob »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Thu Jul 06, 2023 9:24 am
No one is out here being like "I used to be a totally inept handyman, couldn't tell a nail from a screw, and then I taught myself to build my own house, but somewhere between the erecting the frame and laying the pipe I lost myself. Thankfully, a few months after completion of my house, I was able to regain my identity as a man who doesn't know the business end of a screwdriver."
OTOH, there's a lot of "I used to work with ABC. However, it didn't pay very well, so I went back to school and got a degree in XYZ to make more money. However, while the money was nice and I was good at my XYZ job, I hated the work. Now I'm back to ABC and much happier."

This comes down to how the skill can't really be separated from its user. It's a full package. If the cost of applying a(ny) skill is losing yourself (changing yourself in a negative direction), it may not be worth it. Skills aren't just additive.

chenda
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Re: Random Relationship Derailment Thread

Post by chenda »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Thu Jul 06, 2023 9:24 am
I'm confused by these stories. The set of skills that it takes to talk to women/ get women to like to/ be "swimming in women" is still a set of skills. No one is out here being like "I used to be a totally inept handyman, couldn't tell a nail from a screw, and then I taught myself to build my own house, but somewhere between the erecting the frame and laying the pipe I lost myself. Thankfully, a few months after completion of my house, I was able to regain my identity as a man who doesn't know the business end of a screwdriver."
I'm guessing he had to put on an act to attract women which became tiring, inauthentic and he just wanted to be himself.

I think it was mentioned on another thread that more than sex men want the social validation that women are attracted to them. Same way women want the validation that men think they are hot (hence all the tinder time wasters and insta models who are just in it for the likes and DMs) Perhaps the act he was putting on felt like too many filters and photo editing.

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