So many thoughts to address in this response post. Apologies if they come out jumbled, well not really, if I cared that much I’d proofread.
The other day Entropy put up a post about how as his pick up skills have improved, he’s started to feel isolated in his dating life, because it becomes more and more difficult for him to find a woman who meets his standards. This post apparently caused a stir of comments, but at the time I wasn’t one of them because this is something I had been feeling for a long time, and it seemed pretty obvious to me.
Improvement in Skills -> More Options -> Better Experiences -> Increase in Number of Dealbreakers for Monogamy
Seems pretty simple, right? Well yesterday Entropy put up another post in response to the comments which made me realize how different the two of us are in our thinking on the subject. Entropy, I love you bud, but I’ve got to call you out. While I have no doubt that Entropy is worlds better than me at pickup, it is clear to me that he still has a long way to go in terms of inner game, or as normal people call it, emotional security.
In the response article, Entropy starts out by saying that he needs a girl who fulfills his emotional needs. This speaks to a core problem with his identity. Why do you have emotional needs? El Topo and I have spent hours on the phone talking about this very topic, and never once has emotional needs come up. Granted, him and I have both been through highly traumatic near death experiences and as a result have a unique appreciation for life, but as far as I’m concerned in order to be “dateable,” you need to have your shit together to the point where you are comfortable being independent. Entropy understands this idea from a validation seeking standpoint, but he doesn’t seem to quite be there yet emotionally (Side note, this could very well be as a result of depression due to his diet, I’m not sure how he’s eating, but he said he lost thirty pounds this year, which means he’s been dieting. For most people, this usually means eating some kind of calorie restricted low fat diet, which as we all know by now, leads to neurotransmitter problems in the brain that cause depression).
The next thing worth addressing is this idea of your reality being different from most peoples’ and that making it hard to find people who understand your reality. This makes sense on a superficial level, but the fact is that it is your job to bring people into your reality and help them understand it. When Steve spends all this time talking about Compliance Patterns and how they can be used to get women emotionally invested in your story, he’s doing it because his goal is to as early in the interaction as possible get a woman to understand his world. This quickly sets the framework for a deep emotional connection.
Entropy talks about celebrities like Brad Pitt having a very small number of options due to their status and women just not understanding the world they live in, which is why they all end up monogamous, but this is just one possible interpretation. Another possible interpretation is that in order to get to that level of fame you have to be desperate for that validation. In many cases, it’s to the point where you suck cocks or take it in the ass to get fame. This goes for both the men and the women. Once they attain that fame, the need for validation doesn’t go away. Would certainly explain Brad Pitt trading up from Jennifer Aniston to Angelina Jolie. I’m not saying that’s why he did it, just that it’s a possibility. Not that I pay very close attention, but I don’t really get the impression that their relationship is very happy. I get the impression that she is kind of in control and they resent each other for it. Maybe it’s why she adopts a million kids and he sleeps around?
An “obsession with physical beauty” is not something to be ashamed of. It is genetic. A man should never apologize for what he is attracted to. There’s a difference between wanting the hottest woman out there to impress other men and wanting the hottest women out there because you are attracted to it. For example, I LOVE Lady Gaga. She is so attractive in every way, not going into it now because I think it deserves a post on its own (I’ll make it happen someday, all it takes is a shot). But I don’t think anyone is putting her looks at a 10. Maybe an 8. Gaga may not be your type, but there are going to be certain girls out there who just do it for you, the thing is that they are rare. It’s just a fact of life.
I think the point is that there are other things that you want from another person, but there is a point which you can get to where there is nothing that you NEED. You keep people in your life because you want them there, not because they fill your gaps ala Rocky Balboa.
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Tags: Entropy, Rocky Balboa
Entropy
I’d argue there’s no such thing as a person without emotional needs. We all have them. They don’t go away. What changes is the strategies we develop to meet them and the strategies we adopt to deal with them when they’re not met.
A non-developed person will meet his emotional needs through addiction, dishonesty, and superficial ways. A more developed person will do it through community, connection, loving relationships, achieving goals, etc.
There’s a prevalent idea in the community that we should all “need nothing,” and to need anything is “insecure” as you put it. Again, we’re biologically hard-wired to have emotional needs. We’re social creatures and it’s part of our sexual survival instincts to meet others who help us with these desires.
I’ve met guys who have conditioned themselves to “need nobody” and in my view, they’ve always been tortured and lonely people.
Either way, thanks for your comments. Definitely agree to disagree here.
Hammer
Twitter: hammer86
Yes, everyone has emotional needs, but you don’t have to have emotional needs from the women you’re dating, and that’s what we’re talking about. When you need something from someone, you’re codependent by definition. Healthy relationships are comprised of two independent people who are choosing to be with each other.
Honey
My understanding of codependence is that it is when you prioritize the emotional needs of others to such a high degree that it negatively impacts your own quality of life. Normal, caring relationships (and the sacrifice they require) do not fall into this category.
Its opposite (a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy) is the definition of narcissistic personality disorder.
.-= Honey´s last blog ..How Likely Are You To Get Divorced? =-.
Hammer
Twitter: hammer86
Codependence is an internal need for something another person gives you that you feel you cannot get anywhere else, whether that be validation, emotional fulfillment, motivation, money, etc. Saying that the opposite of codependence is narcissism is like saying that the opposite of love is hate. The opposite of love is Indifference, and the opposite of codependence is independence.
“Normal” relationships suck. Most of them end, and most of the select few that make it to marriage also end. Healthy relationships don’t require sacrifice. You may do something that you normally wouldn’t do for that person, but the driving factor should be that you get personal pleasure out of pleasing the other person, not because it is some kind of compromise or trade off.
Honey
I think of it more as a continuum, since I think dichotomies are rhetorically flawed ways of viewing the world. On one end, codependence. On the other end, narcissism. In the middle, happiness and balance. If you really believed that you didn’t need anyone else for anything, then you’d live in the middle of nowhere raising your own food, instead of in the middle of one of the largest anthills of humanity on the planet
I think love, hate, and indifference are completely distinct emotions – the whole idea of “opposites” is too philosophically simple a way to view something as complex as human relationships.
It seems to me that a lot of people use the “we each give up something specific and quantifiable to reach equity” as their definition of compromise, and that’s not my definition at all. I think doing something you wouldn’t ordinarily do for someone else because you get more pleasure out of pleasing them than you do out of getting your own way is the definition of compromise.
Sometimes, Jake sacrifices so I can have my way, other times I sacrifice so he can have his way. But we are talking about issues like who picks the next TV show or whether to buy white bread or wheat. Sometimes we both give up something to meet in the middle, but that is rare because to me it’s only appropriate if something is a big enough deal to break up over, and we don’t face many of those issues (the best example of one that we faced was when he wanted to keep a dog that he found, and I said yes provided that we crate-trained her and she didn’t sleep in the bed with us). And no one sacrifices the core components of their identity – that’s not compromise, that’s an indication of incompatibility that, if you ignore just to be with someone, runs the danger of becoming codependence.
And we don’t track how often each of us has gotten our way or use past decisions on unrelated issues as reasons why we should get our way in any particular instance – that’s arbitrary and punitive. Instead, the more he sees me volunteer to sacrifice for his pleasure, the more motivated he is to go out of his way to make me happy, and vice versa. It’s a self-fulfilling cycle – similarly, with his last girlfriend the more rigid and demanding she became, the less he was willing to go out of his way for her, which only made her more frustrated and rigid, etc., until they broke up.
I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t view my relationship with Jake as “normal” – I think of it as spectacular!
.-= Honey´s last blog ..How Likely Are You To Get Divorced? =-.
Hammer
Twitter: hammer86
Codependence and narcissism are two sides of the same coin, not so different from love and hate or obesity and anorexia in that they seem completely opposite but have the same cause and fix.
Believing that you don’t need anyone else does not mean living in the wild, because first of all, we’re talking about not needing one specific person, and two just because you don’t need people doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy their company. You seem to keep making the same syllogism error in your logic.
Your definition of compromise is just plain wrong. Maybe that’s what you do in your relationship, but then what you’re doing is not compromising, which is good because as I stated above, compromising is unhealthy.
Entropy
What Honey said. Codependence is an unhealthy reliance on someone to fulfill emotional needs.
It’s impossible for two people to be in a long term relationship and remain 100% emotionally independent, that goes against the very definition of the a long-term relationship.
In the context of casual dating, Hammer, I agree with you 110%. But the articles I wrote were in regards to finding long-term girlfriend and/or wife material.
Entropy
I actually shared your definition of codependence back in Jan. 2008.
http://www.entropypua.com/blog/locking-in-an-mltr
Looking back though, there’s a lot I’d change about that article.
Hammer
Twitter: hammer86
It’s been about a year since my last LTR ended. She was the second girl who I have truly loved. I was head over heels for her, more-so than I had been with any other previous relationship, but at no point in that relationship did I feel that I could not live without her. That’s what it means to need something. She did not fill an emotional gap. Never in the last year since we have broken up have I felt that any of my emotional needs were not being met.
I loved her, couldn’t stop thinking about her. Other girls didn’t really exist to me during that relationship because they weren’t her. Every little thing she did turned me on. But I never needed her.
Honey
If that is what you meant, I think you didn’t articulate it very well in your original post. Not needing a particular person (which is just common sense – what if they died, or became a drug addict, or otherwise changed in a way that left them unable to be a part of your life) is vastly, completely different from not needing people in your life.
We all need people for a variety of reasons (companionship, sex, intellectual stimulation to name a very few), and may strongly prefer that certain needs are met by specific people, but I don’t think entropy or I were implying that it was healthy to not be able to live without one specific person. I certainly don’t think about Jake that way. I could have a great life without him and even be happy – but I prefer happiness with him to happiness without him.
Was there no one you needed when you were so ill in high school and early college? My mom was chronically, terminally ill for a very long time before she died when I was 18 – like many terminally ill people she also suffered from depression, and so the support of her family was definitely a need (both in terms of her physical and her emotional needs). Since there is a 50% chance that I will inherit what killed her, part of what I was looking for in a partner was someone that I could count on if I ever needed that kind of care.
.-= Honey´s last blog ..How Likely Are You To Get Divorced? =-.
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Gabriel
First timer on your blog, I have to say that this post merits a follower. I hope to read more entries of that type of calibre in the future.
Cheers.
Jennifer
“I loved her, couldn’t stop thinking about her. Other girls didn’t really exist to me during that relationship because they weren’t her. Every little thing she did turned me on. But I never needed her.”
That’s a funky definition of love. Is it not more like a crush?
Entropy
Hammer… I felt the same way and even wrote the same thing about my GF some time last year.
I’m thinking we’re having a semantics issue more than any real disagreement.
Jennifer
that was actually a serious question.. i mean, i thought this PUA stuff is meant to sort of “set you free” because you know you could pick any (well, not quite, but yeah) girl. So if in the end, you have a crush/ are obsessed, how did it help?
Hammer
Twitter: hammer86
Love is brain chemistry. As long as one is not a sociopath, he has the capacity to fall in love. That’s not something you are trying to avoid. The goal of learning pickup is to 1) develop the ability to get a girl who you love to love you and 2) satisfy your physiological needs in the meantime.
sand
Entropy is a great coach and great at what he does
what a quality problem eh?! 8 )
sand
Dude Hammer, the topic is PICKUP AND ISOLATION !!!!!
I thought you were going to talk about bathroom pulls and fast sex experiences like when Topo coached you??????
TSK TSK TSK TSK
You talk about Entropy??? about innergame???
Rename this thread here please its misleading thanks.