197. Infatuation, Dominance, Cruelty

Infatuation, Dominance, Cruelty
This continues entry 195 about cruelty and entry 196 about dominance.  

In entry 195 I described a man's cruelty as continued hurtful treatment for a woman in spite of knowing, that she feels hurt.   

In entry 196 I described domination as a man's usurping onesided privileges and advantages from a non consenting woman by using his innate physical strength or the threat thereof.   Would she consent rationally to let him have, what he wishes, it would not be domination.   Being coerced and intimidated hurts.  

That means, domination is a form of cruelty.    A man with caring love for a woman, for whom cruelty to the beloved woman is a taboo, logically does not dominate her.   He perceives, treats and considers her as an equal.   
Therefore the absence of caring love is the precondition enabling or determining a man's domination.  

A rational woman can avoid to be treated with cruel domination by avoiding to get under the power of a cruel jerk, she attempts to find a man with caring love.  
But if all women were as rational as that and no woman would ever get herself into the ordeal of being dominated, then by natural selection the greater physical strength of men and their ability to dominate would disappear.     Instead they seem to have evolved serving a purpose in the survival of the species, which unfortunately is paid for by the cost of the suffering of the individual. 

While a hypoanimalistic woman can use her brain to avoid dominating men, evolution has blurred the more instinct driven women's judgement by the combination of the procreation instinct and the trap of infatuation.  

Infatuation means a strong attraction of two bodies, while there is no or little other attraction.   If there were an attraction of the mind, the intellect, the personality, then dominating a woman and using her as a utility would be a contradiction to this attraction.    A man's attraction to a woman's intellectual capacities and personality leads to the logical requirement for a man to consider and treat her as an equal.    Only the absence of such an attraction and a considerable infatuation with her body allow a man to logically justify to himself to dominate her.     

A man gets infatuated with a woman's body for his physical needs without feeling caring love for her.   A woman with a breeding urge also gets infatuated, but mainly with some signals from a specific man's body by the instinctive choice of him having the best genes for the prospect of healthy offspring.   

An infatuated man hides his true intentions, he postpones domination and cruelty, until he has his prey trapped under his power.   The woman misinterprets his initial fake caring behavior as if he had true caring love for her, and her own infatuation leads her into the trap.    As soon as the man has control over her, the mask of care falls and the cruel domination starts.     If the woman is a breeder and a man has gained power over a woman, he can use this power to keep her vulnerable and depending by the coercion to procreate.  

There can be the less drastic case, when a woman loves a man, who is only infatuated with her body.   But she is not a breeder or she has not yet been made vulnerable by breeding.    If she only gets aware of his domination after having got involved by mistake, having had the delusion to be loved with care, at least she can end her being exposed to cruelty by ending the relationship. 

Infatuation is a trap for both genders.   A man's infatuation can get him into a lifelong obligation to provide financially for offspring that he never wanted.    But his trap is limited to the legal requirements.    His innate power to choose to dominate allows him to burden all the painful consequences of the fatal initial infatuation upon the woman.    

An infatuated man is a huge risk of suffering for a woman.    A man, who chooses a woman by her personal qualities without being infatuated, is much less of a risk.   

196. Equality or Dominance

Equality or Dominance

The laws of all modern societies proclaim equality for women, because women are mentally and intellectually equal to men.    In many African countries, polygamy is still legal.   But even while equality is prescribed by law, men's greater physical strength gives them one big advantage over women.   I already described it in entry 14. about threat and fear.   

Nearly all men are physically capable to strangle, beat up, rape or mutilate any woman with nothing but their bare hands.    Most women would need a weapon to have even a slight chance to defend themselves or to do any damage to a man.   
But a man does not even need to actually do physical harm to a woman.    Whenever he gets aggressive, angry, raging, just verbally and in his body language, this threatens, intimidates and scares her.    She can never know, how long his self-restraint will last, and when he will turn into a ferocious beast.   

Therefore a man has a choice, that a woman is lacking.    He can decide, if he wants to dominate or to behave as an equal partner.    Once he has a woman under his control, he has the power to force his domination upon her.  

The woman has one choice only, she can stay away from a man, if she knows early enough, that his choice is domination, and if the circumstances allow it, she can leave the dominating man.  But she has no means, no chance, no influence to get equality from a man, who decides to dominate.   Once she is under his control, she is at his mercy.  
If the woman is a breeder, she is even more vulnerable.   Except in modern welfare systems and countries with a very good labor market, a mother of small children depends on the man as a provider, while he does not depend on her.  

This has dire consequences:

1.   A woman, who is trapped by the power of a dominating man, is forced to practice external submission to avoid the risk of serious harm.    Of course, her enforced external submission is not a proof of her inferiority.   
The dominating man has two gigantic flaws in his thinking:
1.1.   He believes that being physically stronger means, that he is also intellectually superior.
1.2.   He believes that her submission is the proof of her inferiority, and in a vicious circle this belief enhances his belief in his justification to dominate.    

He grows into these believes from the role models he sees as a child.
It is tragic for the woman, that the man dominates her by physical strength, but believes to dominate by intellectual superiority.

2.   When someone accepts a compromise as fair, it generally is by meeting half-way between what both would want.    When a man is willing to compromise between his wish to profit from his innate privilege to enforce dominance, and a woman wants equality, then such a compromise would not be equality, but it would still be dominance, only less and in a milder version.    True equality means a man's renunciation of all privileges, that his superior physical strength gives him over the woman.    Many men are not willing to do so, because they are too much driven by instincts, while they do no value the intellectual and emotional benefits of equality.  

3.    Accepting full equality is subjectively in the man's experience the renouncing of the privileges of dominance without getting anything in return.   The woman has no privileges to renounce as her part of the bargain.   He feels like giving alms to the woman, when he gives up some of his innate privileges.    Often he expects to get something in return and the relationship becomes asymmetrical.   While he appears to have accepted equality, in reality he perceives to have bought from her the gratitude, that obliges her to put his needs above hers, and again, there is submission.   It is a subtle and different form of dominance under the disguise of equality.    

4.   The man has been born with the innate power to impose his conditions on a woman for the purpose to get privileges in a relationship.    Therefore his baseline of what is normal, correct and appropriate is not the same as the woman's baseline.    A man is often completely unable to even know, what true equality means for a woman.  
Even in the best of all situations, when a man does agree to be equals, without his having any privileges, many times men and women define and perceive equality as very different.    What a man sincerely defines as equality is in the woman's perception and experience just reduced domination.    What a woman defines as equality, a man perceives it as the woman's attempt to dominate him.    This leads to a lot of disruption.


To sum it up:   I assume, that the more a man is proud of his body and the more he identifies with his physical strength, the higher the risk for a woman to be dominated.    While a man, who identifies with his intellectuality, where he can experience women as equals, is more able to treat a woman as an equal.
Therefore, everything else the same, if there were two men, one a stud and a package of muscles due to spending 10 hours per week at the gym, the other has never seen a gym from inside and spends his 10 hours reading good books, being physically weak but intellectually strong, I would not hesitate one second to choose the intellectual.    I would be prone to trust the intellectual and to be scared of the stud.

195. Cruelty

Cruelty

Men are often driven by their instincts and physical needs to get infatuated with a woman's body.   Then they either are jerks, who consciously manipulate the woman to let them use their body.     Or they are immature or emotional morons (entry 156), who seriously believe themselves to love her.
They tell the woman dozens of times every day, how much they love her, they even do little things for her and buy her gifts.   Only from this behavior, there is no way to find out, if such a man's proclaimed love is caring love or selfish infatuation.

But there is a way to find conclusive evidence for the absence of caring love:   It is cruelty.   

 

Caring love and cruelty are mutually exclusive.
 

A man with caring love is never cruel to his partner.    A cruel man does not feel caring love, but uses a woman as a utility for his selfish needs.

The only realistic method to judge a man is judging him by the worst things that he does. 

The difference between cruelty and painful moments in a relationship is the attitude to and the perception of his partner's pain. 
For the cruel jerk, the pain of his partner is either of no significance, meaningless, indifferent, of no importance to him, or he even enjoys his power to be able to inflict pain on her.   He has no conscience about hurting his partner.
For the caring loving man, it is of paramount importance not to cause pain to his partner, he is very motivated to avoid everything, that would hurt his partner.    Having caused pain to his partner makes him feel unhappy, therefore he is eager to learn, what would cause her pain, before it ever happens. 


Cruelty implies three factors:

• A man's behavior causes a woman to get physically or feel emotionally hurt.
• He can know it.   That means, that he either knows already, what hurts her, or that she gives him feedback about it or that she asks him to stop an action, while he does it.     
• He continues or repeats his behavior.

Cruelty is,

• when a man feels entitled to do something, in spite or defiance of knowing that she feels hurt by his behavior.   
• when a woman gives a man feedback, that his behavior hurts her, and he continues his behavior as if she has never said anything.   
• when a woman gives a man feedback, that his behavior hurts her, and he tells her that it is her flaw and defect, that she feels hurt, and he continues or repeats the same behavior.
• when a man disregards her feedback and denies to take it for serious or to believe her, that she feels hurt, and continues or repeats his behavior.
• when a man commits a transgression, but does not feel guilty and does not earn her forgiving, because he considers the transgression as appropriate according to his depreciation, devaluation and disrespect for her.   
• when a man uses aggression and rage to intimidate the woman to give up her resistance to being the target of his hurtful behavior, and to coerce her to do what causes her pain when doing it.    
• when a man does not react, when the woman asks him to postpone some action and communicate about it.
• when a man refuses the woman's wish to communicate how to prevent hurting her in the future.

An example for cruelty is the public scene in the bus, as given in entry 190.   The man can see the growing pain of embarrassment in the woman's face, when she implores him with growing urgency to stop drawing attention from the spectators nearby.   To continue the scene with the intention to enhance her embarrassment is an act of so much cruelty, that I have no doubt, that this man does not love that unhappy wretch.  


It is not cruelty:

• when a man hurts a woman once by ignorance and is keen and eager to learn, how to never do it again.
• when a man commits a forgivable transgression (cheating is not forgivable) and feels as guilty as she feels hurt and makes all amends and restitutions, until she can forgive him, and he learns how to never repeat this transgression.

Example: A man commits a social blunder due to his lack of knowledge of cultural differences and it is embarrassing for the woman.   But he is eager to communicate about the topic until he has learned how not to repeat the blunder. 


It is obvious, that I do not want ever get near a cruel jerk, but I am aware, that learning how not to hurt each other is a process, that needs a lot of communication.  

194. Valued Partner or Lab Rat?

Valued Partner or Lab Rat?

1.  Knowing each other

To grow together in closeness and become a bonded, devoted and committed couple requires, that both know each other very well.    Based upon mutual appreciation and respect, they learn to know each other by asking questions, by listening to the answers and to all introspection, that is given without hesitation.    When their mutual understanding and evaluation over time is consistent with the experienced behavior, then trust, trustworthiness, reliability and predictability can grow and the relationship will become a safe haven.    Their method to know each other is communication.

A jerk is too bonding-disabled to participate in such a process.   For him, a woman is an inferior being with a limited mind and brain, whom he studies as Skinner studied his lab rats.   Skinner studied lab rats, the jerk studies a dog with benefits, as I have already described in entry 30.   
Knowing the woman to him means to observe her reactions, that he triggers for that purpose.   He probes her, he provokes her, he does anything to her, that he expects to lead to a reaction.    He does not listen to her feedback or her introspection, because he does not value them.   
He misses vital parts of her personality, all her values, attitudes, emotions and how she perceives and experiences him and his way of treating her.   He misses everything, that goes on in her mind, that cannot be observed.
With selective perception, he does not observe all, that is important, only what he likes to get aware to enhance his preconception and prejudices. 
Observed behavior allows many interpretations, and his are biased to what he wants to observe and to believe.
His bias is his wish to justify using her as a utility for his own benefits without any consideration and without having to bother about her needs.  
By not verifying his believes and delusions about her in direct communication, the longer he builds up his subjective impressions, the more distorted they get.  

This way, he will never know, who and how the woman really is.   He will never be able to treat her the way she needs to be treated to be happy with him.


2.  Treating each other

In entry 190 I gave the example of an embarrassing public scene.    The caring bonded guy does not want to hurt his partner by embarrassing her.    He would not only stop talking, when his partner whispers a reminder in his ear, he would also be motivated to learn, what causes her to feel embarrassed, and he would then attempt to avoid doing it, before she even says anything.   He cares for her feelings.  

The jerk is different.   He feels entitled to do and to get, what he wants, without consideration for others.   If his behavior is embarrassing her, he experiences her feedback as a nuisance, and he perceives himself as justified to do some dog training to remodel her.   Instead of stopping the embarrassing behavior as an act of consideration, he repeats it as often and as drastically as he can, for the purpose and expecting that by doing this he could habituate and desensitize her, until she would stop annoying him with her protest against his behavior.  He considers himself to be the one to set the standard of behavior.    When he does not feel embarrassed, then he automatically believes, that there is no reason for her to feel embarrassed.    The purpose of his drastic dog training is making her feel flawed because of feeling embarrassed.  
Instead of changing his behavior as an expression of caring for her, he attempts to change her with no consideration for her sufferings.
 

The caring couple communicates to adapt to each other, taking the other's emotional wellbeing into consideration.
The jerk considers a woman as some kind of raw material, that he can form, mold and emotionally mutilate by any means, no matter how cruel and malicious, until she is the utility fitting his needs perfectly.  
I do not want such a jerk, he is a nightmare for a woman like me.

193. Independence and Interdependence

Independence and Interdependence

Personal independence can be looked at as an innate personality trait of how much or how little independence a person needs to feel comfortable.    It can also be looked at as a description of the amount of entanglement with the social and material surroundings.

There are different areas of life where to be more or less independent:   Independent thinking, independent coping with practical every day life matters, and emotional independence.  

Independence is good, as long as someone can really supply himself with all that he needs without suffering deprivation.    But when interdependence adds quality to life by exchange, then it is preferable.   

Concerning a relationship, it is important that both partners have about the same need for emotional closeness.    I assume, that there is a bell curve.   At one extreme there are those, who are bonding-disabled, near the middle are those, who need a lot of independence, at the other side of the middle are those with the need for interdependence, and at the other extreme are those with the wish for a total fusion, that is not realistic.  

A couple of very independent persons may live peacefully as roommates with benefits, while people with a need for interdependence are those to form bonded, devoted, committed couples perceiving themselves as a unit.    But when one person with the need for independence gets involved with another person with the need for interdependence, this is bound for doom.

As this blog shows, I am an independent thinker.    Also I am very independent in practical matters, because I have accumulated enough survival skills.   Never in my life was I tempted to play the helpless female to instigate a man to do repairs for me.   Whenever necessary, I can be my own electrician, carpenter, computer technician or whatever else.   
But in contrast, emotionally I have a strong need for interdependence with a leaning towards as much fusion as is realistic.   When I am alone, I do not feel independent, but just lonely.  

Unfortunately, men who know me only superficially or who misinterpret and misunderstand my ad, often get a very wrong impression of me.    They jump to the conclusion, that a woman, who is an independent thinker and independent enough to be capable at DIY is also emotionally independent.  
As a consequence, the wrong men are getting interested in me, those who want a roommate with benefits and who assume, that I want the same.    But I do not want that kind, they are a nightmare.  

As I already explained in entry 105, it seems that I am intimidating and scaring off exactly the kind of men, whom I want most, those clingy, needy nice guys, who only feel alive as part of a bonded couple and who would be the perfect match for my own need for emotional interdependence.   

To reject the roommates with benefits is just a nuisance, but intimidating those, whom I am looking for is really tragic.  

Being a needy, clingy nice guy is unfortunately something, that does not correspond to the role model of successful masculinity in mainstream society.   They have very good reasons to be proud of not being jerks and to feel morally superior over those repulsive jerks.   Instead the most valuable men have the lowest self-esteem and that adds to their feeling intimidated by any woman, who appears to be strong and independent.  

Therefore they look for women, who are or who appear helpless enough, so that they can attempt to make themselves needed by doing the DIY jobs for the women.    They believe to only have value to a woman by buying her with services.   They are ignorant, that their emotional neediness and clinginess by itself can be of high value to a woman like me.  

I am using the words clingy and needy, even though they may be a bit stronger than what I mean.   I know, that they can in the extreme mean pathological behavior, when there is no balance between the needs of both partners.   Clinginess and neediness are only good, as long as the partner feels appreciated and loved.   When he feels annoyed and suffocating, then it is pathological, and of course I do not wish for it neither on the giving nor on the receiving side.    The limit of acceptable neediness is the reciprocal comfort for both, and this is a question of compatibility and of agreement.

The jerk's lack of needing a woman gives him the freedom to degrade and use her and discard her without hesitation.   The nice guy's neediness is the best guaranty, that he will treat her with care, consideration and responsibility.    So in the worst case, a too clingy nice guy is less detrimental than a jerk.   I just attempt to choose the risk, and suffocating under too much love is better than feeling pain by a jerk lacking caring love.   

While google mostly shows pages devaluing clinging altogether, I found one a bit more positive:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/health/06depe.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

"At least in the short run, dependent traits seemed to buffer the relationships in times of crisis, the authors suggest. Afraid of losing the relationship, “individuals high on dependency may actually behave in a more positive way to their partner, like being more complying, being more loving,” said Bénédicte Lowyck, "

"“But it is this love dependency that is the most adaptive,” Dr. Pincus said. “These are people that form very strong attachments,"

192. Protocol and Paradigm

Protocol and Paradigm

When someone sends information in the form of electrical impulses through a wire, and someone else at the other end wants to receive it in a understandable form, they both need to use the same protocol of converting the information, like TCP/IP, HTTP or SMTP.

Successful human direct interaction also needs to be guided by both using the same protocol.    In this case, the protocol is derived from their shared relationship paradigm.    

The relationship paradigm is the definition of the specific relationship based upon basic values, identity, needs, morals, attitudes, goals.    The relationship protocol are all behavioral rules derived from the paradigm, all obligations, requirements and entitlements.    The protocol rules the own behavior and also the expectations of how the partner will behave.    The protocol creates trust and predictability.   The protocol takes the individuality of both partners into account.  
Example:   The paradigm defines, what is a transgression and what is not.   The protocol defines the restrictions of specific behaviors to avoid transgression and how to earn forgiveness, if a transgression has occurred.   

While there are many possible relationship paradigms, when considering external circumstances, there is a preference for the paradigm, that fulfills most needs at the least emotional cost.    Therefore people cannot know the preferred relationship paradigm of another person, as long as they do not know that person very well. 
Each partner can have his own paradigm, even if it is implicit.   A protocol is an agreement and therefore a couple can only have an explicit protocol.    Behavior derived from the own implicit paradigm as an assumption of how to best treat the partner is not a protocol.  

People make a fundamental mistake, when they assume, that by entering a relationship, there is automatically an implicit consent about the paradigm of their relationship.    Beyond maybe the traditional marriage paradigm, that is prescribed by social norms and religion, most of the times a couple enters a relationship by both having implicit incompatible paradigms without being aware of it.   Instead having a protocol, they make wrong assumptions about how to treat each other.   This is usually the doom of the relationship.  

When a woman enters a relationship assuming it to be based upon the commitment paradigm, while for the man it is something like for example the male dominance paradigm, friends with benefits paradigm, polygyny paradigm, power struggle paradigm, then the woman is bound to experience a lot of pain.   

Therefore it is of paramount importance, that both partners agree explicitly on both the paradigm and the protocol of their future relationship, before getting involved.  


I am defining my own relationship paradigm as the egalitarian rational commitment, because it consists of three subparadigms for the identity, mutual valuation and communication method:

The commitment paradigm defines the identity of the partners as both perceiving themselves as a part of a bonded, devoted and sharing unit and not as to singles under the same roof. 
The egalitarian paradigm defines the evaluation of the other's equal rights as an appreciated partner in cooperation.
The rational paradigm defines the importance of constructive communication to solve all problems until an agreement is rationally convincing to both.   

I have already explained all this in detail in previous entries.  

191. Weird Internet Contacts - 1

Weird Internet Contacts - 1

I had been in contact with someone in France.   He even had a picture in his profile.   He looked like an average guy.   When I asked him about his profession, he was quite evasive.   It had something to do with people.   In the next mail, he was helping people.   But as I insisted to know more, he finally admitted the truth.   He was a catholic priest..........   I am still wondering, what exactly were his intentions to contact an atheistic woman several hundred kilometers away.   

190. Helplessness or Influence

Helplessness or Influence

I need a relationship to be a safe haven, and a safe haven to me is an emotional shelter, where I am never made to feel as helpless as a leaf in an autumn storm.    Situations, where others force unpleasant events upon people, are a part of life and often they cannot be avoided.   Therefore it is of paramount importance to keep the helplessness of being coerced out of a relationship.    I need influence on everything, that happens to me as part of a relationship.   

Influence is not domination nor is it control over the other, influence is not onesided but reciprocal, it means being allowed to participate in shared decisions on how to handle issues. 
Influence means, that what a partner does to me is inside the limits of a fair balance of giving and receiving, it means, that inside these limits all I have to do is tell, what I need and what hurts and disturbs me, and the other acts in consideration.   Influence means, that I do not have to defend myself against outrageous domination, that I am not pulled into a power struggle nor that I need to fend off coercions.

Influence means, that there is a considerate reaction, whenever I ask someone to do something or to stop or to refrain from doing something. 
The considerate reaction can be to just comply or to find an agreement for the issue by constructive communication.    Compliance means the motivation to comply, even if forgetting it sometimes.    Not reacting is denying influence.

There are two major ways, how a man can make a woman feel helpless by denying her any influence on his behavior: 
1.  By disrespect and not taking her for serious, by disregarding and ignoring her wish, not reacting just as if she had not said anything.  
2.  By behaving like a child with ODD (Oppositional Defiance Disorder), that means by doing deliberately the exact contrary of what she asked for. 

Examples:
1.  In entry 133 I already gave the example of the correspondent, who sent me a dozen emails full of gibberish from a translator in spite of my protest.    With a bit of the benefit of doubt, this can be defined as a non-malignant case of the man being so pleased with the translator as a toy, that he disregarded my advice and my annoyance with the gibberish, and it was only an act of disrespect and of taking me not serious enough.  
Influence would have meant, that telling him just once not to send me gibberish from the translator would have sufficed to make him stop doing it. 

2.  This example is more drastic.   A couple sits in a bus, where several people are sitting near enough to overhear their entire conversation.   At some moment, the woman gets aware, that the conversation is getting a bit too private for others to be allowed to listen. 
She therefore whispers a warning in his ear and she expects the man to postpone further discussion of private matters, until they are alone.    A decent and mature man would comply immediately.    This is the kind of influence, that I wish to have in a relationship.  
But the jerk with the adult version of ODD reacts to her discreet whispering by protesting, that nobody listens, loud enough to draw attention.   When she repeats her whispered suggestion to be quiet with some more urgency, his reply, that they were not talking about anything private, is again loud enough to be heard by everyone. 
After a few more repetitions of such sequences everybody stares at a very embarrassed woman and it has become a public scene.    Such a guy is not just a jerk, he is a cruel and malignant jerk with some psychopathic tendencies.    He uses the power of the circumstances to get her into the helpless situation of either being driven into a public scene or having her private matters discussed on front of strangers.  

A relationship with such a jerk would be a nightmare.   My mindmate will be someone, who concedes me influence on how he treats me, who protects our privacy and who avoids embarrassment and public scenes.    
I described in entry 178 the importance to spend an engagement phase together before getting involved.    During that time I want to find out, if the man allows me to influence him to change his behavior, whenever I feel hurt.    If I cannot influence him, then there will be no relationship. 

189. Rice

189.   Rice
I really like this web page:  http://www.freerice.com
It is a site, where people can improve their knowledge of several subjects, and thus they bring traffic to the page.   The sponsors donate rice to hungry people, 10 grains for every correct answer, at 48 grains per gram.    It helped me to learn some English vocabulary, my actual favorite topic there are famous paintings.   
More info in this video:   http://www.wfp.org/videos/freerice-reaches-bangladesh

The people, who live and starve now, need food, there is no doubt, and I am far from being a cynic about it.   But fact is also, that people are lacking food partly because the population of this planet is growing faster than both the production of food and any political development towards more justice and more fairness in the distribution.   
In poor countries, people often have a dozen starving children in ill health, doing child labor instead of attending school.    If there were only 2 children in a family, their parents may be able to feed them and send them to school.  
But this disadvantageous fertility is not only due to cultural traditions, the couples also lack the means and often the knowledge how to avoid pregnancies.

Donating rice alleviates the immediate needs.   But seen on a long term basis, donating any means for family planning would be at least as important as food.   It is nice to answer 4800 questions correctly and to know, that some people get a kilo of rice.    Maybe there should be an alternative of also being able to contribute to the donation of means for family planning.   Instead of 10 grains of rice per correct answer, it could be 10 minutes of any method of contraception, 4320 correct answers would make it a month.   

Bangladesh as is mentioned in the video is a good example of the urgency of the problem.   The country is very low.   If the level of the ocean would rise because of the melting of ice on the poles, then considerable parts of the country will disappear under water.   Where will the growing population move too?
If giving rice to people encourages them to produce more children, then what is humanitarian in the moment is adding to the catastrophe in the future.    Rice should be given with priority to those people, who in return are willing to limit their fertility.  

188. Snow

188.   Snow

We did not have so much snow in this low part of Germany in decades.    These pictures show my snowed in garden.

187. Right or Wrong in Cooperation and Competition

Right or Wrong in Cooperation and Competition


This entry is not about moral transgressions, it is about being right or wrong concerning knowledge and decisions for actions based upon that knowledge.  

There is a fundamental difference between the meaning of being right or wrong for couples having a relationship based upon the ERCP and couples based upon the hierarchy enforced by a dominating man.

1.  The cooperation of the egalitarian couple

For an egalitarian couple, the temporary disagreement, who is right and who is wrong, is an emotionally neutral situation.    The difference between being wrong and right or between being less and more right is merely the difference between the available amount and quality of relevant information about an issue.     Being wrong is the situation of ignorance before embarking in a process of learning and collecting information.  
When the partners in an egalitarian relationship disagree, who is right or wrong about an issue, this requires cooperative learning by verbal communication. 
The first step is comparing notes, sharing and pooling the disparate knowledge about that topic and maybe researching additional information from external sources.  
The second step is evaluating together the new aspects and draw new conclusions, until the new knowledge is convincing to both.   They both learn something and enjoy it, and nobody is wrong anymore, instead they are both right by consent.   The final conclusion may well be different from what each had thought before.   The focus is on finding and enlarging the common ground.    This way, people can grow closer by communicating. 

2.  The dominating competitive man in a power struggle with a woman

For a jerk, who perceives a relationship as a power struggle for dominance and superiority, being right is connected with strong emotions.   For him, being right as often as possible is an important source of justification of his entitlement to dominate, because he is giving evidence of his superiority and of having been successful in his dominating behavior.    He has an urge to believe to be right, and when he does, he feels good, even triumphant, while not being able to feel right causes him anger and frustration.  
Believing himself to be right means automatically also his believing her to be wrong.   Since his main need is the justification of his dominance, a disagreement about some topic is not the beginning of a learning process.    He wants to maintain his believe of being right, in oblivion of reality.

If he really has the better information, he is not motivated to give up, what he perceives as his superiority.   Therefore he has subjectively no reason to share his advanced information in a convincing way by giving evidence, so that the woman could rationally agree with him.   If she would come by her own thinking to the same conclusion as he, based upon the same information, he could not consider himself as right anymore in contrast of her being wrong.   To be able to rejoice in his superiority, he needs to be able to claim that she is wrong by his contradiction and defiance of her opinion.  

If his belief to be right is a delusion, then he is even more motivated to maintain it.    Her information, her reasons would jeopardize his justified superiority and domination, so he is strongly inclined not to allow her to convince him. 
No matter, how right or wrong he really is, as long as he believes himself to be right, communicating about the conflict has not the least advantage for him, it would only be a risk to his allegedly established superiority.   From his perspective, his obstruction to communicate or to solve the problem rationally, is very logical.     He already firmly believes to be right, so he has no reason to listen.   All he considers as needing to do is utter his claims and enforce by coercion, what he considers as right.   

The woman feels bad, because she feels depreciated and disrespected by being considered and treated as inferior without any chance to ever improve her position. 
If she is wrong, he deprives her of the evidence allowing her to learn, and if she is right, she has no chance to ever convince him.  
They are stuck in an impasse, they cannot grow together, their mental distance is maintained by the distance created by the hierarchy.  

186. Clarifications

Clarifications

1.  I had got an enthusiastic email from someone in Greece.   He used words like 'incredible' and 'unbelievable', me or my blog were 'something to sweep' him 'off his feet'.   He called it 'an incredible experience to come across such a personality' as mine.......    He assumed, that I were Greek.   When I replied to his question, that I am German, I never heard from him again.    

 
I am not Greek, where marouli means green lettuce.    

I am not Asian, where obviously Maruli is a common first name in some country.    

 

I am German, but not teutonic.   I have chosen my Internet name of Maruli, because I feel comfortable with how it sounds.   It is to be pronounced Ma-roo-lee, with the emphasis on the second syllable. 

There has been some interesting research, how the sound of the name of people alters the perception of them and their alleged personality. 

http://www.handbag.com/relationship/your-life/friends-family/how-does-your-name-influence-your-life-101956

http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040809/full/news040809-4.html

Interestingly enough, the sound of Ma as in car and of li as in lee are the sounds in names, that are supposed to be an advantage for men, while the ru like in room with the emphasis upon it is supposed to be an advantage for women.   Without having known of that study, I started to identify with the sound of a name, that is fairly consistent with my having some kind of a slightly androgynous personality in a female body.  I do not feel very feminine but without being masculine in my dislike of violence, aggression, competition and instinctivity. 

To me, Maruli is a good name to go along with my identity.   Would I have written the identical blog under a very teutonic name like Kriemhild Rachschwert (which of course is not the name in my passport), the impression of my person would be very different, even distorted.  
I am a citizen of the world and not at all teutonic.   I can choose my nickname to my represent my personality, but I do not want to change my personality to fit a teutonic name, that I have not chosen.
   
Also, if a man would be attracted to someone with a personality as teutonic as appears Kriemhild Rachschwert to be by her name, then I would be definitely not his mindmate.   Not only am I not teutonic, but I would be not at all compatible with someone, who wants a woman to be teutonic.   

Therefore I am Maruli.  I am German, but not teutonic.  

2.   There are links to this blog in several dating-sites and I have managed to get it entered in several blog directories.    Also it can be found by googling.  
But if someone sees a link to it in sites in some Asian language, in sites about restaurant guides, sanitary installations and such, this is nothing of my own doing.   Some automatic bot has done this. 
Also I have not myself entered the URL of this blog into a German site for people, who like to dance.   I lack the talent to learn controlled dancing steps and do them as fast as the music requires.  

185. Commitment Governance

Commitment Governance

Sometimes I attempt to put my thoughts into words, but later on I come across better ways to express, what I had meant to say.

I just read about the expression Enterprise Governance in economics, and how it consists mainly of Corporate Governance and Business Governance and is supported by IT-governance.    http://www.continentalsoftware.com/enterprise-governance/

The same principles are also required in the enterprise of living as a happy and devoted couple.
When I described the engagement pact in entry 176, I really meant by this, that a couple agrees on the Commitment Governance for their future relationship.   

What in economics is the Corporate Governance, for the couple it is their Affinity Governance of sharing values, attitudes, ethical principles, opinions, goals and such.   
What in economy is the Business Governance, for the couple it is their Lifestyle Governance of an agreement about how to organize their joint life practically and financially.  
What in economy is the IT-Governance, for the couple it is the Communication Governance of constructive communication solving conflicts rationally by convincing and evidence.


What kind of a Commitment Governance someone can agree upon, is an expression of his personality, therefore only compatible people can find consent to the same Commitment Governance.   Two persons, who do not agree on a shared Commitment Governance, should not get involved.    Relationships are doomed to fail, if there is no consent to a shared Commitment Governance.


This blog is an elaborate explanation of the Commitment Governance, that is an expression of my personality.   My mindmate already shares it, before he starts reading the blog, he just discovers, that we share it, because sharing the same Commitment Governance is a part of what defines, that we are mindmates.    Nobody can decide to adopt my Commitment Governance, if it is inconsistent with his personality.   Nobody, who would attempt to adopt my Commitment Governance in contradiction to his own personality, is my mindmate.  

184. A Sad True Story

184.   A Sad True Story

Some while ago, I was corresponding with someone in England.  After a few weeks of being interested, I had not yet discovered a dealbreaker according to my criteria.    But he had the dangerous hobby of riding a motorcycle and one day he told me that he was off to see a friend.   
Then all of a sudden, I heard nothing from him for over a week and started to get worried, that he could have had an accident.   Knowing his real name and his location, I found his telephone number.  
The phone was answered by his wife, a very unhappy woman, who had a full time job earning the living for the entire family including two sons, while he was unemployed and not only enjoyed his life on her expenses but also played games with other women.  

Sometimes I am getting disheartened and paranoid, that there are only jerks everywhere.   Then I remind myself that there have been exceptions like André Gorz, and I continue my quest for a decent, hypoanimalistic and mature mindmate. 

183. Cultural Differences and Mate Selection

Cultural Differences and Mate Selection

What I said about my appreciating a man's shyness and reticence as an indication of his lack of routine in approaching women may well be more valid in Germany than in some other countries and cultures.  

One of the cultural differences, that I noticed between the USA and Germany, is the German reticence and the American lack of inhibition to talk to strangers anywhere without any obvious reason like asking for directions.  

When I grew up, it was considered as plebeian, uncultivated and rude, if a man would approach an unknown woman in the street, and a woman with self-respect would reject such behavior.   People got in contact mainly at school, university, courses, at social events or leisure activities. 

Some days ago, I watched a documentary about a pick up artist guru giving lessons to a wanna-be-jerk about how to approach unknown women in the street.   It was obvious, that this was just about improving the success in something, that has culturally in principle been already acceptable there.    I got the expression, that in the USA it is considered as normal behavior, that a man approaches a previously unknown woman, asks her for a date and she accepts.   If she does not, it is because she does not like the guy, not by considering it an insult to be approached like this.  

This leads to a very interesting question.  On http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsWorld.shtml, there is a list of the 'Percentage of New Marriages which End in Divorce, in Selected Countries (2002)'.   
For the United States, the percentage of 45.8 is much higher than that of 39.4 for Germany.

Could this considerable difference be a consequence of the different method of mate-selection?   Could it be, that Americans get into contact based upon liking each other's look, by agreeing on dating as strangers in the street, while Germans get to know each other more as a result of the occasion of already sharing something, be it a hobby, a sport or a career?  
Does the attraction by mere looks lead to more infatuation, that cannot last, while people, who meet by having something in common, get less infatuated and more attracted by some similarity in their personality?

182. Shyness, Reticence and Confidence

Shyness, Reticence and Confidence

I attended the opening of a new exhibition, which was more of interest to my age group than to younger people.  I stood there in a corner, sipping a glass of wine and observing a crowd of about 150 people. 
First I was pondering about how this was about the closest to the kind of real life situation, where people are supposed to find a mate.   Yet I, neither ugly nor overweight, was standing there as a wall flower wondering, how many single men were in that crowd, and how many of them would be compatible.

But then I looked at it from a different point of view.   Would I really want a dare-devil with no inhibitions just walk up to me and start talking?   The truth is, no.   If a man would not hesitate to approach me, then he may have been picking-up women so often, that it has become a routine.    
My kind of guy is reticent and shy, because he has no routine of approaching women.  He does not expect any benefit from approaching unknown haphazard women in an exhibition.   So I ended up silently appreciating every single man, who was too reticent to approach me, because of his rationality and wisdom to rather look on the web for a mindmate, of whom he knows that she is looking for someone like him.  

Exhibitions are real fun, when shared with a mindmate.   But to find someone, real life is the most improbable place to look for him.  

I do not consider shyness and reticence as an expression of the lack of self-confidence.   Self-confidence means to me the awareness of one's own qualities as measured by one's own standards, values, attitudes, ideal self and aspirations.   Self-confidence does not automatically mean boldness with other people.   A confident and sensitive person, who is so different from average people, that the contact with them bears a high risk of rejection, hostility and aggression, may well be wise in shying away from them with reticence to avoid unpleasant experiences.   

I am like this myself, and I see a possible kindred mindmate in somebody, who has self-esteem and confidence, but is shy and reticent with those people, with whom he has not much in common.

All this does not mean that being shy and reticent are in any way requirements in my search.  Real life boldness is not a dealbreaker, just a warning sign, that a man may be a pick-up artist.  It is more that I assume, that if a man is the kind of person, that I am looking for, hypoanimalistic, mature, sensitive and intellectual, then his experiences in a world of hostile and different people most probably have formed him in a similar way as myself.   His being shy, reticent, but self-confident would be a consequence.  

181. Honesty and Capitalism

Honesty and Capitalism

For christians, absolute honesty is required as obedience to their god.   If christians are honest, they expect to be rewarded in the afterlife, and if they are honest with detrimental consequences, they expect a bonus reward for it.

Rational people evaluate the feasibility of honesty depending on the social context and the circumstances.   For people, who want to be honest, capitalism is a harsh world, where one has to control the personal and spontaneous inclinations as a necessity for self-protection. 

There are basically two different kinds of social relationships and interactions:

1.  Private relationships between mates, spouses, friends, family members, that are based upon benevolence, based upon the principle of fairness and the caring for the others' wellbeing and equal entitlements to benefits and advantages. 

There can be no doubt, that caring and benevolent relationships between private people require absolute honesty and sincerity, trust and trustworthiness, without hesitation and exceptions.   

2.  Business relationships of any kind, where both sides attempt to ruthlessly get as much profit and onesided advantage from the other as they can.    People doing business cannot be honest by the very definition of business, because honesty would jeopardize the profit.   They are as malevolent as they can while still succeeding to profit.  
Business interactions are quite often asymmetrical in the distribution of power.    The powerful person dictates the conditions.   Therefore a person with economical power doing business is automatically the other's ruthless enemy.
2.1.  The powerful business enemy decides the price of something, that the other needs.
2.2.  The powerful employer enemy decides, how much he pays for the work.

In business, there is a limit of justifiable honesty, beyond which self-defense against the enemy is vital and honesty self-damaging.    Absolute honesty with the enemy cannot be rationally justified, because the enemy is not honest.   

It is a difficult task to draw a line.   But when honesty would facilitate and enhance the honest person's exploitation, then this justifies to limit honesty in self-defense.    Nobody is obliged to contribute to being taken advantage of.   Of course, this is no justification to become as ruthless as taking advantage of others as an over reaction.  

In short, reactive reduced honesty to the dishonest business enemy is not the same as dishonesty by own initiative and a voluntary decision.


Someone gave me an example of a moral dilemma.   He got offered a 30% discount on glasses as a member of AAA without even being required to show the membership card.   

But to me, the moral dilemma is not about just being tempted, but that there is no fair deal.   

In this example, I see two scenarios:
1.  AAA pays money to the optician to compensate for the discount.   People join AAA to get help with their car, not to pay for other people's glasses.   When AAA pays money to opticians, this adds to the membership cost and this is money stolen from their members.  
2.  AAA does not pay money to the optician.   Then the people, who are not members, pay a higher price to compensate in the optician's calculation for the discount given to the members.   Again, this is stealing some customors' money.   Shops should calculate the lowest possible price for all customers and make them only pay for what they really want. 
An example: The optician calculates the minimum price, for which he considers to be able to sell glasses without a loss for himself.    If the glasses would cost 120$ for all customers, and he would sell them for 30% discount to every third customer at 93$, then the other customers would have to pay 133$ to compensate for the loss.  

Therefore in scenario 2, the dilemma of the customer is not just that between being honest or being dishonest, but between either taking advantage or being taken advantage of oneself.    I have no answer, maybe the best way is to make one's own average with the world by saying yes to the membership questions only once in a while.    

Sometimes I check, if the prices are correct on the paper slip from the cash register.   Lately, I discovered, that instead of 12 items, they had only made me pay for 2.   It was not a big thing, maybe 4€, that I had paid less.    Prices in supermarket are calculated in a way, that all the losses by some people's shoplifting are paid by all the not stealing customers.    Therefore I did not feel any obligation to go back and pay for their mistake.   Instead I felt that for once I got a compensation for all the money, that I had paid over a long time for the dishonesty of others.    I have no choice to pay the price, that they calculate, without buying food I would starve.   

The optician calculates the price of the glasses by costs, like raw material, equipment, the shop location and expenses like taxes, that are outside his influence.   But he has two own decisions:  How much interest he decides to get from his investment in the business and how much wages he pays to himself compared with what he pays to his employees.   
So if an optician calculates on a basis, that his income is 5 times that of his poor customer, is he honest?    The customer may have to live on potatoes and spaghetti for a month to afford the glasses.   If all opticians use their power to decide to earn that much, the customer has no choice for a cheaper price elsewhere.    


There are these food store chains, who sell food for low prices.   They use their economic power to press the farmers to sell their produce for prices so low, that it is nearly their ruin.   Poor people go there and count the coins in their pocket, if they rather can afford bread or milk.    But the owner of those supermarkets get rich, some of them have become multimillionaires.    Are they honest?   Or are they thieves, who got rich by using their power to steal money from the farmers, from their customers and from their employees?  


We have a choice to limit private relationships to those people, with whom there is a basis of trust and unconditional honesty.   We have a choice to select our contacts for where we have the safety of being able to be honest without risk.  
But unfortunately, survival in a capitalist society requires to carefully dose honesty with the business enemies, whom we cannot avoid, else we perish.   
In capitalism, honesty gets punished.    For any person, who prefers honesty, this is one more reason to loathe capitalism as inhuman.

180. Gist of this Blog

A woman, who lives near Cologne,
a virtual bottle has thrown,
to find her mindmate
not just for a date,
but to never again be alone.

179. Winter

Winter

I just added some phrases to entry 178.

This is winter in Germany:

178. Creating Commitment - 3 - The Engagement Phase

Creating Commitment - 3 - The Engagement Phase

This is the continuation of entry 176

The purpose of the engagement phase is to verify during a lengthy period of time, if the behavior of the partner is consistent with his verbal agreements.    A man could have agreed to the framework, conditions, obligations, definition of unacceptable behaviors for several reasons:
1.   He could have consciously lied to manipulate me to accept him.
2.   He could have agreed sincerely but without having a clue, what he had agreed to or what it means to me.
3.   He could be gullible and easy to be superficially influenced.   He could have sincerely meant his answers at the moment of agreeing, but not as a real expression of his own personality, and other influences can just as easily have changed his mind before meeting or while being together.
4.   He could have agreed in full theoretical consent, but having too many weaknesses and personal issues, he is not able to comply with what he would like to do.
5.   His subjective baseline could be so different from mine, that we both define and interpret the same behavior in an incompatible way and therefore every agreement based upon using the same words was a misunderstanding, as the words do not mean the same.

In all these cases, a man's behavior would be inconsistent with my expectations based upon the engagement pact.    Therefore the best method is spending at least a month together in a nice and quiet place, where there are not too many distractions.   Getting tired by daily sightseeing may lead to the experience, how someone behaves under stress, but it impedes deep communication.    If one month is not enough, then this could be repeated or if the distance is not to long, then again there can be many days spent together.

For me, the purpose is to verify the theoretical answers from the decision phase :

1.  Do we really share values and attitudes?
Do we really agree in our definition of commitment and what obligations it means?  
Are these obligations a strong intrinsic motivation to self-control and accepting discomfort to be true to agreements?
What determines his behavior more, impulses and desires or moral imperatives and the preserving of his self-esteem as a decent person?
Is being bound by an agreement a moral imperative for him?
Does he ever hesitate to fulfil obligations or adhere to an agreement?
Is equality of the genders a high intrinsic value for him or does he only treat me as an equal for extrinsic reasons?
Does commitment change his subjective identity, does he stop perceiving himself as a single man with a woman attached and start perceiving himself as half of a bonded devoted couple?
Do we agree on a common baseline in evaluating behavior, attitudes and entitlements to fulfilling needs as being either a fair deal or selfish?

2.  Does the man have a conscience?
How does he react, when I give him feedback, that I feel hurt by something that he has done?   Does he react at all or is he indifferent?
Is my feedback for him enough reason to consider to change his behavior?
Does he feel responsible for the consequences of his actions?
When he commits a transgression, does he acknowledge it and does he feel guilt and contrition?
Does a transgression make him meek and humble, until he has earned to be forgiven?
Is he eager to earn forgiving? 
Does he suffer, as long as I have not forgiven him?

3.  Can I trust him to be reliable and predictable?
Does he consider himself bound by the obligations of commitment and by agreements under all circumstances or is he easily excusing himself for breaking those obligations?
Can I trust him, that if he has agreed to do or not to do something, that he will really stick to this?   
Is he sincere and honest or does he hide important information from me and act slyly?
Does he make himself predictable by keeping me informed about his circumstances, plans and ideas before acting?
Can I feel safe with him without the preoccupation and worries of unpleasant surprises at any moment?

4.  Is he not only capable but also comfortable with constructive communication?
Is he capable and comfortable with solving all conflicts by using rationality, logic and giving evidence?
Does he voluntarily talk about every topic, until there is a solution, that is rationally convincing to both, no matter, how long it takes?
Does he show signs of how he experiences and perceives profound communication about the relationship, each other's personality and introspection, the dynamics of the interaction and such?   Is such communication more a joyful part of commitment and closeness or an unpleasant chore for him?
Does he make claims beyond his own introspection about facts but does not give evidence? Does he bother to convince me rationally or not?
Can he be influenced by rationality, logic and evidence, does he listen with interest?
Does he say, what he means and mean, what he says?
Does he trust me enough to reveal his true self without attempts to pretend being someone, who he is not?  
Does he admit his weaknesses and accept support?
Do unresolved conflict bother him, until harmony is restored or does he just get distracted and is not bothered?

5.  Does he value, respect and appreciate me and consider me as truly equal?
Does he attempt to please me for the purpose to lure me into bed as fast as possible, or does he show, that he values, appreciates and needs me predominantly as a true friend, companion, mindmate?  
How much does he express his need for a relationship, how important is a relationship for him?   When he is without a partner, does he suffer from loneliness or is he content?   
What price is he willing to pay for having a relationship and is the price in accordance with his need for it?  

How much does he value and appreciate my personality, how much does he need me for who I am beyond my body?
How many benefits does he expect to get from being with me and am I worth to give me benefits in return?
Does he make attempts to dominate, do I have to resist and to defend my equality?
Does he express his wish to dominate or does he feel entitled to dominate, while he does not dare to attempt it?
Does he take me for granted or is he motivated to invest efforts and sacrifices in kindling and improving the relationship?
Does he attempt to be right and does he want me to be wrong or is he more motivated to cooperate to find convincing evidence and information, so that both can learn?  
Does he cooperate or compete?  
Does he compare himself with me to experience himself as better or superior?  
Does he take my statements for serious and at face value?   Does he acknowledge, that I mean, what I say and say, what I mean?  
Does he receive and react to what I say, or does it bounce off unheard?

6.  Does he share all decisions?
Does he share all decision, that have an impact upon me or upon the relationship?   

Does he inform me of all external facts and introspection about needs and emotions, before deciding?   

Does he also ask for all my information concerning the decision?   
Does he accept to decide by rationality and logic and participate in it?

7.  Does he care for my needs as much as for his own?   
Does he care, is it important for him, that the relationship is as beneficial for me as it is for him?   
Is he interested to know, what I subjectively experience and perceive as beneficial?   Does he ask, when he does not know?
Does he notice my emotional reactions to how he treats me?    Does it matter to him?
Are sharing joy and supporting each other valuable benefits for him?
Is he motivated to avoid hurting me?
Am I a utility or are my voluntary acts of caring appreciated and wanted?
Does fair compromising include to first communicate to make sure, that we are fully aware of each other's true needs?
Does he trust me and take it for serious, when I inform him of invisible emotional needs, even when he does not know them and therefore lacks empathy?
Does he act impulsively driven by his own needs, desires and whim or does he consider me first, before acting?
Is it possible to reach agreements and compromises, that he perceives and experiences as much as I do as a fair deal ?   Is he as a consequence content with what I do and give voluntarily or does he keep on feeling entitled to get more?

8.  Can I feel at ease, relaxed and safe with him?
Do I feel under pressure with him?   Do I feel stress and tension?   Can I influence him to reduce pressure and stress?
Am I the target of anger, rage, aggressively expressed demands, intimidation, blaming?
Does he have the patience and trust to allow me to care for his needs as much as I can, when I can and as much as it appears fair?
Does he feel justified to use coercion to get, what I am not supplying voluntarily?
Does he act in defiance to what I ask and suggest?
How does he behave under stress and discomfort?

The above are certainly not everything, that I would need to find out, but the gist of it.   This phase is finished, when both reach intellectual and emotional intimacy.   Intellectual intimacy means to be satisfied with the checking the answers.   Emotional intimacy means to really feel at ease and close together, without any nagging awkward feeling caused by overlooked red flags or denials and wishful thinking.   

When there is real emotional and intellectual intimacy, the time has come to seal the bond of full commitment by getting physically involved and start the third phase of being a unit.  

177. The Jerks' Fascination with NLP

The Jerks' Fascination with NLP

Some time ago I was in contact with someone, who seems to be a bit too much fascinated and interested in NLP.    Then I was wondering, what he got from it and I suspected, that he hoped to improve his skill to manipulate people. 
When then googling for scientific information on NLP, I somehow overlooked something, that now I got aware of, when reading that book on how to abuse women mentioned in entry 175. 
Since NLP was mentioned in that book, I google for 'NLP seduction', and I got 221.000 results. 
All of a sudden, I understood:   That guy did not study NLP just with a vague hope to gain influence over people, he wanted to become a pick-up and seduction artist, but of course he did not admit that to me.   If there were no other reasons, why I am not in contact with him anymore, attempting to become a pick-up artist is by itself already a good reason to call it good riddance.   

1.  Parts of NLP are as scientific as snake oil. 

http://knol.google.com/k/neurolinguistic-programming#
http://skepdic.com/neurolin.html
http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Neurolinguistic_programming

But I also superficially read two NLP books, which that guy had recommended to me, one by Bandler, the other by Hall/Bodenhamer.

It is obvious, why NLP has so much attraction for emotional morons, jerks and especially for those who wish to become pick-up and seduction artists. 

- It follows an egocentric approach, where every unpleasant or painful impact upon others is considered as collateral damage, when applying NLP on persons, whose consent was not ascertained first.

- It claims to lead to big and fast results with little effort.

- It promises self-improvement, but that means the power of manipulation, not to become a more ethical person. It promises purely selfish benefits to be gained from others, not to become more likable, lovable, bearable, pleasant to others.

- It is based on an asymmetrical situation. The powerful superior practitioner modifies an inferior submissive or ignorant and unsuspiciously trusting target. This fits his need and presumption and insolence to dominate.

- It is a compilation of many simple tricks, easily to memorize for someone with a good memory for small modules of information but trouble with complex interconnections and theories. There is no abstract, deeper theory, just little chunks of tricks to memorize like a shopping list.

- NLP is a mixture of pseudoscience and banalities. But those are banalities only in the perception of mature people, but could have had some surprising novelty for an emotional moron.

- As a cult, that has been compared to Scientology, it lives by selling the illusion of fast success in the form of selling expensive seminaries, books, courses to the gullible. By encouraging self-overestimation, they earn money and keep their disciples.    

 

2.   Richard Bandler's book has the title 'Get The Life You Want'.   That already tells, for whom it was written. Not for serious skeptical people, but for the easily gullible ones, who are willing to spend money on improbable claims. It sounds like a TV commercial encouraging people to consume products on credit.

I have often wondered, what a lifelong exposure to TV-commercial has on gullible people.  If someone hears countless times, how easy it is to solve any problem by just buying something, if all such claims are simplified and exaggerated, can this change the baseline of what appears reasonable?  Having seen hundreds of thousands of commercials during a lifetime, could this habituation to commercials desensitize people so much, that they do not perceive anymore, how absurd it is to expect to get the life they want from one book?

Reading that book, and reading between the lines, I got more and more aware of the background: Bandler's advice is written for persons, who are self-centered, having only shallow emotions directly connected with the strife for selfish well-being. Bandler's advice was meant to be suitable to all average people, not to a limited target group, so obviously Bandler considers everybody to be like this. I started to suspect, that Bandler was thinking, the whole world were like himself. Most of the book could have been included into a training program for jerks. I would retitle the book: 'How to be a successful jerk.'

So I googled Bandler, and bingo, he was called a sociopath, and he sounds quite narcissistic in some descriptions. No wonder, that such a book and author appeal so much to superficial people, who want an easy life.   A pill is a fast remedy against any ailment, an NLP trick is a fast remedy against any person resisting to be used and abused.

According to Bandler's book 'Get The Life You Want', people are supposed to trick themselves into changing unpleasant feelings without evaluating the cause. It is exactly, what exploitative sociopaths expect from their victims: They should not rebel, protest, they should accept, whatever is done to them, repress their natural emotions and trick themselves into not suffering.   But the jerk does not only expect this, he uses his NLP tricks for his attempt to manipulate and coerce the victims into acquiescence. 


3.  The book 'Figuring out People' by Hall and Bodenhamer also was interesting to read.  It is partly pseudoscience and partly big words for common sense and banalities, that any psychology student learns in the first year.  Bandler's book is worthless on the first glimpse, Hall and Bodenhamer succeed to appear scientific on a superficial level.

Reading Hall and Bodenhamer, I had the strong impression to read a guidebook, a cooking book for emotional morons.   It was all there, simple, easily memorable recipes suitable for persons with weak central coherence, easily to follow for people, who take everything literal and have problems with too much abstraction, completely egocentric perspective, a list of simple, mostly dichotomous items, easy to memorize and mentally apply item by item.

But it is even worse than that, the NLP authors are encouraging ruthless dishonesty, when they tell people to act and be fake and pretend any behavior for the purpose of eliciting information from human lab rats. They tell people to get information from others while hiding themselves behind pretensions. On page 203, I found the whole inhuman essence of the book: "So we first pace, then we lead." How much more cynical can someone be in teaching others to become jerks? No healthy person wants to be lead, so who leads but the ruthless, the amoral, the sociopath who happen to be accidentally in a position to use advantages to gain power. What a role model, when someone uses his prestige as a doctor to encourage people to be jerks? Bandler's diagnosis as a sociopath is known, but I wonder, how much Hall and Bodenhamer also are sociopaths or at least narcissists.

That guy called Michael Hall his mentor. The belief in NLP being unshakable by scientific evidence makes Hall appear more like a guru of a cult than a scientific mentor.   I do not doubt, that Hall is extremely clever, but he is ruthlessly making money with methods based on an unethical paradigm.
I doubt that Hall feels the least moral responsibility for the effect on emotional morons by his books.    Many people fall into a mental trap, that who is clever has also high ethics. Hall obviously has none, but for the gullible emotional morons, Hall's being clever leads to the erroneous assumption that Hall is morally qualified to be an ethical guru.   When an alleged ethical guru teaches the methods to be a successful jerk, this appears to justify to be a jerk.

One thing is certain:  If ever again anybody talks favorably about NLP, this is a huge red flag for me.   Decent, mature and educated people do not fall for that stuff.    

176. Creating Commitment - 2 - The Engagement Pact

Creating Commitment - 2 - The Engagement Pact

This is the continuation of entry 174.

The Engagement Pact

The decision phase ends with the engagement pact.   Such a pact includes an explicit agreement to refrain from any behavior, that has been defined as a transgression, and especially from dumping.   
1.  That means, that just as becoming engaged is a shared decision, ending the engagement also has to be a shared decision after discussing all issues.   Ending the engagement without a discussion can only be justified as a reaction to a serious transgression of the other.  
2.  All contact with deactivated intimate partners has to end.   All close platonic friendships with persons of the opposite gender, that are ok for a single person, especially if they had also been potential mates, have to either end or to be explicitly reduced to emotionally distant acquaintances, they are informed of the pact and of their restricted role henceforth.   

If someone perceives this pact as a sacrifice or as a constraint, then we are either not compatible or not yet ready for that pact.    This pact can only be justified, when both partners perceive its conditions as consistent and congruent with their own value system and needs.  
The main justification for expecting a man to agree to this pact is his own need, that I also adhere to the pact.   If a man would only agree to such a pact to please me, that would not be a valid motivation.  
A man's valid reason to agree on not dumping would be, that he would want to feel safe from being dumped himself.    A man's valid reason to remove competition would be, that he would feel rightfully jealous himself in situation of such a competition.   
In short, the pact is based upon enough mutual interest, appreciation and value, that we both would feel hurt if dumped and feel jealous by inappropriate contact with other persons of the opposite gender.  

If a decent hypoanimalistic man does not feel comfortable with this pact, then I am not the woman, whom he really wants and he better continues to find her elsewhere.  
If any man cannot appreciate, respect and value me enough to accept such a pact as a logical step towards committed and devoted bonding, then he probably is a jerk, who would never be trustworthy and who would never be committed and bonded.  

More to follow in another entry.   

175. The Jerkish Recipe Book

The Jerkish Recipe Book
I have spent 5 months writing this blog to explain in detail, what I want from a man and what behaviors I recoil from.    But it had all been written before in many websites and books.   

There are male seduction artist gurus, who write cooking books for male animals filled with the advice of how to lure female animals into bed.  

I just skimmed over 270 pages of such a text.    I am too disgusted to honor the author with free publicity, so I do not give the link.   Even though that text gives me a desire to puke, it was interesting, because in a weird way, that book backs up my idea, that men are either jerks or nice decent guys.   Only in my dream world, all jerks would be converted to become nice guys.   That book is all about recipes, how the nice guys should convert themselves into jerks.   
   
But if someone takes every claim from that text, that is describing women in the perception of a male animal, and writes down the exact contrary, then the result is a good description of me.  
And If someone takes every advice from that text about how to treat a woman and writes down the exact contrary of this advice, then this is a good cooking book how to win me.
In short, if everything in that text would be converted into its precise opposite, it would be a book about me and my search.  

Fortunately for women like me, the difference between nice guys and jerks is not just learned behavior, but in my understanding also the absence or presence of high instinctivity. Therefore such books will not be convincing to all nice guys, only to those, who are already emotional jerks, but had no yet learned the real jerkish skill.  A few of the nice guys will always stay true to their decent nature and continue to be nice guys and possible mindmates for me.  

174. Creating Commitment - 1 - The Decision Phase

Creating Commitment - The Decision Phase

I see the development from an online contact towards commitment as a process consisting of three phases.  
The first phase is the decision phase to find out, if there is basic compatibility and if there are no incompatibilities, that are dealbreakers.  
The second phase is the engagement phase, which starts with an engagement pact.   This phase serves to verify the basic compatibility and the consistency between verbal agreements and actual behavior during direct personal contact.   This phase creates emotional and intellectual intimacy.   
The third phase is commitment, that begins with the commitment pact, which is the beginning of physical intimacy.


The Decision Phase

During the decision phase, I want to find answers to the following questions and topics, and maybe a few more, that I have omitted.   The other has certainly his own list, but here I am writing from my personal perspective:
1.  Is there basic compatibility according to my mindmate checklist?
2.  Do we agree on and share basic values, attitudes and ethical rules and what we consider as right or wrong?
3.  Does this include equality of women and an intrinsic motivation to object to the use of a woman's body as a utility?
4.  Do we agree on what we define as transgressions, that are not acceptable in a relationship?
5.  How important is a relationship compared with other areas of life?    What value has a relationship to him and what price does he consider as worth for having it?
6.  Do we agree on the meaning of commitment and what obligations are binding?
7.  What needs does the other have, that I would be a means to fulfill them?   Are those needs something, that I would gladly do as a part of caring or would I risk to feel used?
8.   Are my own needs something, that the other perceives as caring or as too much of a sacrifice?
9.   Would a relationship be a fair deal of giving and receiving for both?
10. Does he agree to rationally discuss every conflict and topic, until there is a solution, that is convincing to both and that this is necessary?    Does he agree on rationality and logic as fundamental for communication?
11.  Does he consciously accept, that he has neither a right nor a justification to dominate?
12.  Does he agree with Epicure's principle, not to harm and not to be harmed?  
13.  Is he motivated to be not only generally honest, but also sincere in revealing his true personality with all weaknesses without a mask?
14.  Does he accept the importance of mutual support?
15.  Does he accept the paramount importance of sharing decisions?
16.  Are there practical obstacles that impede to be together for the rest of the life?
17.  What interests, activities, hobbies would we share?
18.  Have we understood each other in all the above correctly without misunderstandings, misinterpretations, jumping to conclusions, implicit assumptions?


If we are at a short distance, during this phase we could spend several entire days together.    If the distance is too long for such meetings, then there should be a meeting somewhere for about a week before deciding to continue with the second phase.   

More in future entries.