An ERE dating site

[Alphaville]

What, exactly, does the word "feminine", and "masculine" mean?

(i know this question wasn't for me but...)

it means that someone is trying to shame you into doing/not doing something

[7Wannabe5]

@Crusader:

I agree that the dichotomy can be different and unique for each couple. Sometimes I wish I could find somebody who would agree to hard-flip lead/follow on a weekly or annual basis in the realm of lifestyle planning (sigh.) And I have been in significant relationships with men from cultures that assigned different traits as masculine and feminine. However, there are some extensions from physiology that tend to ping with many humans. For instance, the example offered in a book on the topic that resonated with me was to consider whether it was my instinct to strongly place my hands on a man’s waist when he strongly places his hands on my waist? Hmmm...not so much. The natural gesture in response is complementary rather than copying. How far or in what directions any unique couple might go from there is another matter, but the two poles could be Yin Yang or feminine masculine or Dominant submissive or lead follow or active responsive or ??? (I definitely do not mean to imply that these dichotomies are synonymous.)

[Crusader]

You haven't answered my question.

[7Wannabe5]

@Crusader:

I’m mostly just parroting the experts on the theory. Here’s a link where Deida answers the question much better than I am able.

https://youtu.be/LYd94lXmicE

And here’s an excerpt from one of his books which starts out with a description of a typical problem which reads very much like your problem as you related it up thread.

https://deida.info/wp-content/uploads/ ... ges-24.pdf

There are also a couple male forum members who are also fans of Deida and offer their likely more easily comprehended perspective on a couple other threads somewhere in the forum archive.

[Crusader]

I give up. You do you.

[Jean]

@crusader
It's not worth much, but my expérience confirms 7w5, and she has been successfull in relationship.
On the other hand, i have Seen your beliefs being correlated with relationship failure.
I could sum up my love lire like this. Having your beliefs (no dichotomy) led to failure, overplaying male led to sex with very féminine women, understabnding thé dichotomy led to an happy relationship with a proportionaly opposite partner.

[7Wannabe5]

Bit of an overstatement to describe me as “successful at relationships.” I am super successful at getting the upgrade to dinner after meeting a man for coffee, and that might be due to my practice of attempting to relax in feminine energy in dating context. My personal method of doing this is to pretend that maybe I was somebody who was in a very arty (probably black and white) semi-porn movie twenty years ago, and approach the encounter in the state of “I wonder....”

However, in general, my take on sexual dichotomy theory/practice is kind of like my take on Atkins or Paleo diet. It definitely works, but whether I can stick with it for the long run is questionable.

Another simplistic way of understanding it is that every individual human and every unique relationship needs a balance between “I think” and “I feel” and/or “I am” (being) and “I will.” IMO, the reason why FIRE dating will not be very successful is that both parties will have already indicated preference for “I think” and “I will.” IOW, the clash of formidable 5,10, 30 year plans is inevitable. OTOH, I believe there is more room within ERE for variety of preferences, but a mixer with a permaculture group or Barbara Sher type lifestyle design forum would probably work better.

Human in Masculine Energy:

The current level of median resource use will almost certainly result in significant increase in sea level.

Human in Feminine Energy:

I feel sad for the humans in Bangladesh.

Anyways, one of the reasons why I sometimes find it hard to stay relaxed in my feminine energy in relationship is that my male partners are not always that great at math or science. For instance, my “street smart” 6’5” extremely masculine BF thought he could win at craps with controlled throwing, and I don’t know how to construct an objection to that sort of thing with a phrase that begins with “I feel...” According to the GRE, only 3% of men attempting to enter graduate school are better at math than me, so that kind of severely limits my playing field. For instance, IME, your average male engineer at one of the Big 3 or government-employed IT type isn’t going to cut it. I mean, romance or infatuation renders everybody a little bit delusional, but, for instance, no way in hell I would follow the lead of somebody who doesn’t understand basic probability theory during an epidemic.

[Jean]

I alway had an impression that I made no differentiation between thinking, being, feeling and wanting. Am i the only one or is that very common?

[Alphaville]

Human in Masculine Energy:

The current level of median resource use will almost certainly result in significant increase in sea level.

Human in Feminine Energy:

I feel sad for the humans in Bangladesh.

cmon now, this is utter bollocks.

logic isn't "masculine" and feeling isn't "feminine". logic is logic and feelings are feelings.

math skill requires ability to carry out symbolic operations, but symbolic operations can be carried to crazy ends. this is what i see happening here, i.e. computational ability in the service of madness. kinda like when we try to explain the whole of humanity on the basis of myers-briggs. only worse.

this stereotypical labeling pressures women into pretending to be stupid to please a man, and pressures men into bottling up their feelings to look tough... in your culture. please don't make that american 50s cultural inheritance into some sort of cosmic thing.

i looked at that deidor whatever. he's a "spiritual teacher." goddammit.

i'm a little angry right now. and anger is also a feeling, but one you frequently associate with men. is anger masculine or feminine? (please don't answer, this is a rhetorical question, those categories are bullshit). anyway, as neil gaiman says, "anger gets shit done." so i'm doing something.

as for @crusader, it seems to me he needs a person who thinks with rigor so that he can communicate with them in equal terms. but at the same time doesn't he want a "dry" machine-like partner. i see the problem, and i sympathize with his predicament. i guess that makes me a sissy macho man or something. because i think and i feel. maybe i need a crystal to guide me

also i've mentioned this before in our conversations, but this kind of nonsense seems to be damaging your own choices.

e.g in a previous post here/often you say you want to commit to a garden and date casually. which is and independent way to live, and makes sense--but maybe you think independence is "masculine" or something? then you go on "feminine" mode and become dependend on some cranky man you covertly despise and then you hate your life. so maybe remove those blinders and do what you need to do? you're getting lost in "theories".

so, maybe "dichotomies" is the actual dysfunction.

im feeling a little salty. is that feeling masculine or feminine? but i also feel for your troubles. is that masculine or feminine? but i also feel the need to print an error message on the recursive loop you seem to be stuck on. is that masculine or feminine?

i just want to clarify that im not mad at you, i'm just sick of stupid notions that send people down a stupid road. which... goes towards logic. but hey i have feelings about it too. a sissy macho. ffs.

tldr: dont box me in. don't box yourself in either. let's just stop boxing people in.

[7Wannabe5]

@Alphaville:

I’m not at all angry, and I was trying to convey that I don’t believe that sexual dichotomy theory is the be all end all either. However, since it has been my experience that, like the Atkins diet, it does work for purposes that I grant may be quite limited, there might be some value in examining why this is the case, rather than simply dismissing it out of hand. IOW, perhaps it would be more functional to transcend the notion of gender rather than to ignore it? Have you read Ivan Illich on the topic?

Also, I would note in my defense that I do not covertly despise the cranky men I date. I make very direct statements like “ I do not believe we are suited for long term relationship, because I believe respect is an important aspect of long term relationship, and I do not respect you for these reasons,....” , but then they reply with something like “Okay, but I don’t want you to do some crackhead thing like living in a tent, so just stay here until you get vaccinated.” OR they just completely ignore what I said and leave roses on the table by my vacant lot camper.

OTOH, it is the case that I believe that “freedom/independence” is quality of the “juvenile masculine” quadrant as stereotyped by Tom Sawyer. So, it is difficult being the rare female eNTP. However, it is not the case that I end up in the lairs of cranky old men because I reject my strong desire for independence and exploration as masculine and shame myself for it or anything remotely like that. The reason why I end up “trapped” in the lairs of cranky old men has more to do with having a high sex drive and thinking I can get away with totally casual sex combined with something like adult ADD. Okay, also a bit of a tendency to infantilize my partners by thinking about them being like terrible dogs that nobody will ever adopt from the pound. IOW, a thoroughly ridiculous smidgeon of extremely misguided maternal (adult feminine quadrant) guilt may be involved, but not shame. In fact, I think my desire for independence makes me more “cute”, and whether or not any of my cranky old male partners share this perspective I do not give a fig about. I just need to toughen up about imagining them eating soup all alone in an ugly room by themselves because they were made too cranky for any human company including mine. I actually just made myself feel very sad and start crying just thinking about this. Like I am running one of those terrible humane society commercials through my mind, but the dogs are all cranky old men I have abandoned.

IOW, it’s very hard to maintain your independence, no matter how much you might value it, if you are also a hyper-sexual round-heeled, sentimental soft-touch.

[horsewoman]

@alphaville - you don't like to sort people into boxes, and that's quite alright. This does however not negate the fact that lots of people think like this and feel comforted by sorting with boxes (BTW in Germany we sort people and ideas in drawers, not boxes, for the language nerds amongst us).
I need to pre-sort stuff, ideas and yes - people into boxes, otherwise my brain gets overwhelmed and it stresses me out to no end. What's more, I have no problem whatsoever if people put me into a box on first glance. Good for them, if that's what they need.

So while I have no idea if this whole female/male energy shtick is bollocks or not, I don't like it when someone tells me I'm not allowed to think in a way that works in general very well for me (and lots of other people, too.) Naturally there have been some fails, but not putting people into boxes is not failsafe either, I suppose. To each their own.

[Alphaville]

you don't like to sort people into boxes, and that's quite alright.

i don't like being boxed either.

im not saying that categories are not useful to some extent, but trying to reduce all modes of cognition/relationship to "masculine/feminine" is like trying to describe microtones with a pentatonic scale...

...but only worse, because we're not dealing with just pitch and duration, but also values, culture, attitudes, preferences, expectations, desires, and all manner of human complexities, with just 2 silly notes from some "spiritual teacher" (yikes).

if logic is masculine and feeling is feminine, are you being "masculine" when you explain the use of categories? see, that way lies madness.

and so i must protest. is protest masculine or feminine?

[Crusader]

The science is pretty clear on this. We like people who are similar to us, not different. Also, adhering to any kind of masculine/feminine prescriptive norms based on your sex correlates with dissatisfaction in relationships. References available upon request.

[Alphaville]

We like people who are similar to us, not different.

i think this is so generalized and broad that it invites confusion and talk of "dichotomies". with more specificity there would be less of a semantic drift. similar in what way?

Also, adhering to any kind of masculine/feminine prescriptive norms based on your sex correlates with dissatisfaction in relationships. References available upon request.

with this i strongly agree but the references would be good

[7Wannabe5]

Thanks, horsewoman, well put.

I also wanted to note for the record that it is not totally irrational to think about the cranky old men I date this way, because cranky old men who live by themselves are the most likely demographic to commit suicide. And most of my former post-divorce partners are still single. However, I know that it is dysfunctional to take on responsibility where one does not have authority and it is better to turn my maternal functioning to focus on my own vulnerability and edit the tape in my head to imagine behaviors more likely to verify my decision to exit relationship. For instance, if I imagine one of them using tokens to make a 19 year old Romanian girl dance for 5 more minutes on the internet or chortling about profits earned as semi-slum lord, my perspective becomes more like “adult who can damn well take care of himself.”

[Crusader]

@Alphaville
Fair enough. Create a weighted average metric of the traits/preferences everyone has. Weighted because some traits/preferences matter more to an individual than some others. I prefer to eat pinto beans over black beans, but not by much, I really don't care that much, therefore low weight. But, I am a militant atheist down to my core, therefore high weight.

How likely I am to like/get along with/able to have a successful romantic relationship with someone correlates with how close we score on this metric.

Edit: references coming, probably this weekend, too much stuff happening this week with other commitments

[Alphaville]

IOW, it’s very hard to maintain your independence, no matter how much you might value it, if you are also a hyper-sexual round-heeled, sentimental soft-touch.

i'm not saying it's wrong to have compassion for your friends, but you've expressed plenty of resentment towards them. and maybe it's just venting... or maybe there's a real problem, unsolved?

my observation is that you tend to flee the problem by platonizing up a storm rather than tackle it.

so i don't see all the discussions of how many dancing dychotomies fit on the head of a pin being helpful to solve relationship problems. maybe it's a way of coping with the unsolvable, but it's not a solution.

[Alphaville]

Fair enough. Create a weighted average metric of the traits/preferences everyone has.

not to put words in your mouth but i think you're talking about holding similar or compatible values?

[7Wannabe5]

The science is pretty clear on this. We like people who are similar to us, not different.

Absolutely. They have even demonstrated this to be true of “like” even with infants. However, this is not true of “desire”, and this can also be scientifically validated by the many genetic studies that indicate that, unlike rabbits who will mate with their own sisters, humans are a very strongly outbreeding species. When our hormones kick in at adolescence, we venture out in search of “strange.” So, within the context of a relationship which we hope to be amiable but also erotic, how can we best split this difference. How do we avoid both the possibility of highly contentious divorce and the possibility of sex-dead relationship? I very well may be wrong, but it has been my observation that since most people do not consider both these unhappy possibilities when making choice, those who are long-term successful usually just got lucky one way or the other.

Also, adhering to any kind of masculine/feminine prescriptive norms based on your sex correlates with dissatisfaction in relationships. References available upon request.

I agree that “prescriptive” norms would likely have that effect. However, self-awareness about your own unique personality, temperament and practices, (however you might choose to categorize, label, or perform them in expressive dance) would likely have positive corrrelation with success. In my old support group, we used to say “self-aware is halfway there”, and however messed up I remain currently, I can assure you I was a whole lot more messed up previous to therapy.

[horsewoman]

and so i must protest. is protest masculine or feminine?

My comment was not in favour of the model 7wb5 uses, I did state that. I know nothing about it and I'm not really interested in that particular model so I'm not learning more, apart from skimming what 7wb5 writes here.
It just irks me a little that seemingly every discussion in which models like this, MBTI, Kegan, or the functions @daylen enjoyes, ends in quibbling about the utility/credibility/sense of using mental models.

Personally I'm not spiritual at all, but as long as 7wb5 does not try to persuade me to buy an online course this or that particular guru pitches for 1500 bucks I'm perfectly willing to read along, even though it might not resonate with me.

I enjoy reading about how other people think and tick, even if it might sound kooky to me.
It is of course perfectly alright to state your different opinion, but now and then a dog with a bone comes to mind...