601. Anecdotal Evidence: How Instinctive Urges Blur, Distort And Deactivate A Man's Reason

601.   Anecdotal Evidence:  How Instinctive Urges Blur, Distort And Deactivate A Man's Reason

A few days ago, a man's profile gave me the impression of his being a nice, decent, and considerate guy.    He used words like honesty, sharing, loving, kind and compassionate in his profile.   He told me, he were fitting my own profile, where I have explicitly mentioned, that I do not want any contact with promiscuous men.   

He seemed interested in further contact with me.   We exchanged a few emails and he agreed also with the importance of communication and of intellectual compatibility.   

But when I had another look at his profile, I was really puzzled.    He had changed his declared intention from actively seeking a relationship to dating but nothing serious.   When I asked him about this unexpected and seemingly incongruous change, his answer was so different from what he had appeared before, that he appeared like a different person.  
.   
He wrote,
1.  that he was "totally discouraged with online dating"
2.  that he now intended to have "a hookup, nothing serious. Dinner, movie, and sex."

For a moment I was speechless.  When he wrote this, it was morning in his time zone.  Had he written this in the evening, I would have suspected him to be drunk.  
  
1. Even by not being his dream woman, according to his initial interest, the contact with me could more logically have encouraged him.
  
2. Something is strange, when someone with this man's profile decides on such a project.  It is not something to achieve with honesty.   Most women, to whom a man would unequivocally suggest "a hookup, nothing serious. Dinner, movie, and sex" would feel insulted by this objectification and disrespect.  They would consider him a ridiculous fool for having such expectations.   
Most men, who succeed in getting "a hookup, nothing serious. Dinner, movie, and sex", do this by lies, manipulation and other methods of misleading a woman to consent based upon the false hope of beginning a relationship.    This is abuse. 

It seemed incongruous and inconsistent, that a man, who had declared himself as valuing compassion and kindness, suddenly plans coldblooded abuse.   It is incomprehensible, how someone suddenly decides to abuse a female body as a toilet for his body waste in spite of his claim of wanting intellectual compatibility.

The following are of course only speculations, as there is no way to find out the truth. 

Desensitization to full comprehension for how much a woman gets hurt, when she is used and discarded is not enough to explain this contradiction.  Desensitization to harming others works best in the absence of compassion.    

The most plausible explanation is this man's overreacting to a state of strong physiological dishomeostasis.    The guy seems to have been reduced from a thinking and feeling human being to a mere animal, being completely under the power of overwhelming instinctive forces.   In this state as an animal, all his human reason appears blurred, distorted or deactivated.    

Any option for behavior guided by human compassion and kindness seems to be concealed behind the predominant urge to copulate like a dog in the gutter, and behind the drive to be a predator and to ruthlessly hunt for prey.   This state as an animal lasts until homeostation restores humanity.

I replied, that a man, who objectifies women, is not worthy of me.    His reaction was "F**k you, you crazy broad. Go back to the asylum."    I was merely blunt, but the animal in him became vulgar.


While I am scared of men's dangerous instincts, I also feel sorry for them.   They are afflicted with instincts, which destroy for them the chance to get, what is most beneficial to their human cognition, especially in the case of men, who are intelligent and educated, and only deranged when they experience dishomeostasis.   

This guy is just one example.   Without being deranged temporarily by his instincts, he could have a happy symmetrical committed and bonded relationship with a woman like me.   But his instincts reduce him to a disgusting beast, who temporarily sinks so low as to intend to abuse women as a toilet for his body waste.   No decent woman with dignity and self-respect wants anything to do with such a man.   

It is very difficult for me to imagine, how men's specific physiological sexual dishomeostasis of needing to get rid of body waste feels.   Biologically, women's bodies do not provide this same experience of dishomeostasis.   
My best attempt to comprehend the magnitude of men's problem is to compare it to the urge of an addiction like alcoholism or even an extreme deprivation as is starvation.   Sometimes an extremely strong craving deactivates and overrides all higher cognitive and moral consideration.  The craving person ruthlessly applies any atrocity, which allows him to restore homeostasis, even killing, stealing and robbing. In the case of men, it can be abuse and rape of women.       

Those jerks, who always copulate like dogs in the gutter, oblivious of the damage done to the abused women, are just animals, who have never really become fully human.  
But assuming, that the guy in this incident knows the full meaning of the words used by him in his profile, like kindness and compassion, makes me wonder, what happens after he had his night in the gutter.   How will he feel, when he is back temporarily in a state of homeostasis, becoming fully aware of what he had done to the woman by luring her into his gutter?    Will he feel the same shame and regret as the addict, who in the state of homeostasis wishes to be free from the addiction?

575. Propinquity - Significance - Importance -1

575.   Propinquity - Significance - Importance -1

I just got aware of a word, that suits to be used in my quest: Propinquity.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propinquity

"In social psychology, propinquity (from Latin propinquitas, "nearness") is one of the main factors leading to interpersonal attraction. It refers to the physical or psychological proximity between people. Propinquity can mean physical proximity, a kinship between people, or a similarity in nature between things ("like-attracts-like"). .....just as two people with similar political beliefs possess a higher propinquity than those whose beliefs strongly differ. "

Propinquity as the psychological proximity depends on the identity by what is subjectively experienced as constituting the essence of the personality.   

Perceiving propinquity means having an awareness of the own identity and having knowledge about the similarities with the other's same traits and attributes.

Experiencing propinquity means the additional knowledge of the other's sharing the same identity.     

Propinquity is cognitive or intellectual between those persons, who identify with the same cognitive essence of their personalities.   They share similar cognitive preferences as are attitudes, opinions, convictions, beliefs, values, morals and world views.   Cognitive propinquity is often not obvious but requires profound knowledge about a person's cognitive preferences.   Ignorance or misinformation impede it. 

But the subjective perception of the importance of areas of propinquity can vary widely.   People can for example also identify by their looks, by their physical fitness, by their fertility, by their religious delusion, by their artistic abilities, by a shared passion for a hobby or by congenital traits as ethnicity and nationality.   

Propinquity creates attraction, and attraction contributes to the perception of people as significant.    But attraction can also have other causes, which then lead to the perception of people as only important but not as significant. 

Significance and importance are not the same.   Any inanimate object and any person can be important as a source of benefits, while remaining insignificant as an individual specimen.  
When any smashed regular car is replaced by another, the new car becomes equally important for giving the equal benefits as a vehicle.  But the last remaining specimen of an antique car is significant, because it cannot be easily replaced.  
The same with persons.   When a man is attracted to a woman's body due to obtaining a lot of pleasure from using her, she can be very important for him as long as he gets, what he wants.   But when he dumps and replaces her with another equally attractive body, this body becomes just as important.  These women are important, but they are not significant.   
But when a man is cognitively attracted to what he shares with a woman's unique brain and personality, then she is more than important, she is significant for being herself, and when lost, she cannot be easily replaced.  

Significance is more than importance.  People can be important to each other without propinquity, but only propinquity makes them significant. Therefore propinquity and significance are correlated, while importance can have many reasons.   

People can even be negatively important.  It can be very important to avoid those, who are unpleasant, repulsive and aversive.

There are several constellations of reciprocity or asymmetry concerning propinquity, significance and importance.   This will be continued in another entry. 

543. The Symmetry Or Asymmetry Of Men's Basic Attitude Determines Their Behavior Towards Women

543.   The Symmetry Or Asymmetry Of Men's Basic Attitude Determines Their Behavior Towards Women

In my reply to a comment on entry 540, I explained, how I can only prevent to be harmed and abused in a relationship by the reciprocal conscious choice of a partner, who realistically can expect to get his needs met without hurting or bullying me.   

I have outlined extensively in this blog, how I need to be treated and what treatment and behaviors are not acceptable.    This serves the purpose of enabling any interested man to check reciprocal suitability without hurting.   

This leads on to the problem of predicting the probability of being hurt as early as possible during any contact.    It is futile and even ridiculous to ask any man the direct question, if he commodifies and abuses women.    No man ever would reply in the affirmative.   Some men are not even aware of their own hidden real attitude.   What they believe to be justifiable behavior is experienced as abuse by women.

A man's real basic attitude towards women is more reliably inferred from his behavior.  Basic attitudes are usually congruent with the strength and predominance of instinctive needs and urges.   These attitudes are invisible or hidden, but the behavior is an observable expression of the attitudes.  

Men's basic attitudes towards women are either symmetrical or asymmetrical.  

A symmetrical attitude can be expected, when a man's innate needs are balanced, when his conscious non-physical needs for intellectual and emotional intimacy, activities and a safe haven shared with a bonded companion are at least as strong as his physical instinctive needs for homeostasis.    

Experiencing only or predominantly those instinctive needs leads to the asymmetry of the basic attitude.   

1.   Asymmetrical basic attitude.   

Commodification, objectification and peripherisation are asymmetrical varieties of the basic attitude, they all determine men to hurt and abuse women.  
These attitudes are expressed by the secondary attitude of implicit or explicit claims of entitlement, which are inappropriate, because they aim at acquiring onesided benefits only for these men.   Feeling entitled to benefits not otherwise available they also feel entitled to hurting and harming behaviors as the method to acquire the benefits.   
1.1.  In the case of the entitlement delusion, abusers are oblivious, that what they believe to be their entitlement, is considered and perceived as outrageous and preposterous by others.    Therefore it does not even occur to them to hide their entitlement delusion, to the contrary they are surprised, when the women disagree.    They get angry and aggressive bullies and they consider any woman as defective and flawed, who refuses to let them have, what they feel entitled to get.   They are the least hazard to women by being easily recognizable.
1.2.  The entitlement is combined with the awareness, that others disagree.   This makes them a hazard, because they use manipulations, tricks and pretense to get, what they feel entitled to but which is otherwise not available.   

1.3.   Sometimes men are not aware, that their behavior expresses entitlement.   Their fallacy of believing to be in agreement with a woman's symmetrical expectations makes them also a hazard.   More about this follows below.

2.  Symmetrical basic attitude.

Egalitarianism and bonded monogamy are varieties of a symmetrical basic attitude, which determines a man to have more reasons to protect a woman against being hurt and harmed than to inflict it upon them.    
These basic attitudes are expressed by secondary attitudes, as are for example responsibility, consideration, commitment as including obligations, caring, reliability, predictability, trustworthiness.    People often declare these attitudes explicitly as forming their value system, which they identify with.   But even without being consciously chosen, these secondary attitude determine specific behaviors.    


Unfortunately, things are more complicated.     The behavior is usually a fairly good indication of and congruent with the real basic attitude.   
But any verbal declaration of secondary attitudes cannot be relied upon, because they are influenced considerably by social, cultural and educational influences.   Someone's mere claim to be responsible does not imply, that he really knows, what responsibility means and what behavior expresses responsibility.      

As a consequence, when a man agrees with or even offers proactively to behave according to specific secondary attitudes, this is far from a guarantee for a woman to really be treated according to her expectations.   
In the case, that the man is not purposefully manipulating her, this is caused by the man using words without comprehending their full and correct meaning, which eludes him due to his lacking the corresponding basic attitude.   The man agrees with something, because he knows it to be expected from him or as the condition for being accepted.     But he agrees to give, what he has misunderstood as the meaning of the word, not what the woman expects by using the same word.   


Commitment is an example.     

Entitlement and feeling obligations are mutually exclusive.    When someone feels entitled to a benefit, this means he feels no obligation to give something back.  Whenever someone already considers something as his property or his due, he sees no logical reason to earn or acquire it by a deal.
Accepting an obligation is the contrary, it is the recognition of another person's entitlement to get benefits in return for what is given as part of a deal.

1.   A man with an asymmetrical basic attitude misunderstands commitment as a method of establishing entitlement by ascertaining his control over a woman.    This serves to get benefits from the woman at his convenience.  

2.   A man with a symmetrical basic attitude agrees on a deal concerning the benefits of the relationship for the woman as equally valid as his own.   He accepts commitment as including the obligation to fulfill his part of the deal in return for the benefits he gets.   

Both use the same word, commitment, but they do not mean the same.    When a man gets subjectively committed by feeling entitled and a woman subjectively gets committed with the expectations of a man being bound by obligations towards her, this will lead to serious suffering for the woman.   


The symmetry or asymmetry of the basic attitude depends on fairly stable innate traits as are the instinctive and the intellectual needs.  As long as men succeed to enforce getting benefits from commodification, they have no logical reason to give up their privileges.    Therefore it is rather improbably that a man's asymmetrical attitude changes into a symmetrical one.   

Appropriate treatment of a woman comes only natural, when it is grounded in a man's symmetrical basic attitude, while a man with an asymmetrical attitude is innately oblivious of how to treat a woman without hurting her.   

Such a man has a serious problem even when he is so much attracted to a specific woman, that this motivates him to attempt to treat her how she wants to be treated as the price for being accepted.    

He has not clue, how to behave, unless he gets a recipe for every situation.   He experiences, that every behavior, which is logical for him under the premise of his entitlement, fails and is rejected by someone, who expects him to fulfill obligations.

Whenever he is ignorant of the suitable recipe, he is prone to relapse to the inappropriate hurting behavior derived from his alleged entitlement.   
This causes a very fragile situation:  The woman is not respected as an equal, she is only a commodity temporarily treated as if she were appreciated and respected.  
This can only last, as long as this gives him subjectively more benefits then bullying her to usurp his alleged entitlement to benefits.   

She cannot be happy, because happiness requires to be perceived as an equal partner in a symmetrical relationship.  But due to his relapses she is fully aware of the indignation and degradation of not really being appreciated and respected, even though his attempts create the intermittent appearance as if. 

A woman's happiness requires a man's symmetrical basic attitude.     

468. Reactions To Alleged Flaws

468.   Reactions To Alleged Flaws

The topic of entry 466 was the implication, that ascribing a flaw means the indirect claim of the allegedly flawed person's inferiority.   There is a clear distinction between a friendly and respectful noticing of someone's peculiarities and the devaluation of ascribing a flaw. 

1.  My definition of a flaw:

A flaw is a peculiar attribute, that is   

• detrimental to the own life of the flawed person or
• detrimental to the targets of flawed behavior

1.1.  A flaw is not trivial. 
It is a significant detriment according to the evaluation or experience of the one calling it a flaw.  Without being detrimental, it is a peculiarity and not a flaw.   Ascribing a flaw is a devaluation, calling something a peculiarity is not. 
Alleging a flaw without consent is always an insult, even when someone recognizes having the peculiar attribute, but disagrees to evaluate it as detrimental.  
When the alleged flaw concerns attributes or traits contributing to the person's identity, then it is not only an insult, but a rejection of the person. 

1.2.  There are detriments, that people cannot agree about, unless they share some basic values and attitudes.  

1.2.1.  A good example is the reciprocal disrespect of christians and atheists.  
For an atheist like me, a christian is flawed, because his behavior is often detrimental to others not sharing his beliefs.   Christians' belief in the reward in the afterlife is their justification to hurt others.  

Christians believe atheists to be detrimental to themselves as they are believed to suffer in hell.  

Atheists and christians can never agree on who is flawed, because they derive the logic for their mutual evaluation from incompatible premises. 

1.2.2.   When people share basic values and they are mutually significant as equals, then flaws are experienced as disruptive for their relationship.  This goes both ways, because they want to respect and to be respected.  Apparent flaws are a problem to be solved.   Both partners communicate, until there is no more misunderstanding and misinterpretation leading to the allegation of non-existing flaws.  

1.2.3.   There is a difference between permanent irreversible and temporary flaws.  

A person's real but temporary flaws like irritating bad habits or states of stress can be overcome, when the flawed partner accepts support from the other.    This requires agreement concerning the detriments and disadvantages of the flawed behavior.  Based upon this agreement, the partners can cooperate towards reducing the flaw and restoring equality. 
Innate promiscuity is an example of an irreversible flaw.    Innate promiscuity is an incurable detriment to any person with the quality of innate monogamy.    

2.  The target's reaction to the allegation of a flaw depends on the social roles and the reciprocal personal significance.

2.1.  People are usually not bothered about flaws alleged by insignificant persons.   Not sharing basic values or the awareness of each other's disrespectful opinion impedes any attraction between people.  They do not become significant. 

2.2.  There are specific problems of disruptive entanglement in family constellations, where the significance precedes the allegation of flaws.  Examples are siblings, of whom one is a christian and the other an atheist or one is a soldier and the other a pacifist.

2.3.  Situations of asymmetrical significance can be very painful.   People wish to be reciprocally considered and treated as equals and as significant by those, who are significant for them.   A person's significance determines, how much his allegations of flaws are experienced as insults, humiliations, degradations and indignities.     It is a very disruptive situation, when a person does not reciprocate his significance to another, but instead claims his superiority by alleging flaws and expecting acquiescence.   
    

2.3.1.  Between men, such an insult often provokes aggression, fighting and even bloodshed. 

2.3.2.  When women are men's targets of the same insult, they are supposed and expected to react with acquiescence.  The implications of this upon women as partners in a relationship or when choosing a mate are the topic of the next entry.  

411. The Myth Of The Nice Guy Syndrome

The Myth Of The Nice Guy Syndrome

"A typical nice guy is perceived to put the needs of others before his own, avoids confrontations, does favors, gives emotional support, and generally acts nicely towards women." 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice_guy

This description makes a guy attractive as a long-term monogamous partner.   In spite of this, there are countless web pages spreading the myth, that women prefer jerks and that there were something wrong with the nice guys.   

I disagree with this myth.  The problem is much more complex.

1.  Evolutionary biology.

Subconscious instincts for choosing a mate have most probably the same strength for men and women.  But they differ in which instinct is predominant.   The average man's predominant instinct is the recurrent need for sexual homeostasis.  The average woman's predominant instinct is the urge to procreate.   
As a consequence, man's instincts are indiscriminately focused upon a momentary use of any female body.    Woman's procreative instincts are selective and focused upon the genetic fitness and abilities as a long-term provider for their progeny.   
This causes the natural asymmetry of men as predators frequently approaching a variety of prey and getting rejected regularly.   Monogamy reduces the predator prey problem only for those, who are committed couples.    

2.  Attitude towards women.

  
Jerks and nice guys share the same instinctive automatic reaction of consciously or subconsciously drooling over women's bodies, especially when they are not in any relationship.    But their attitude, moral and value system are fundamentally different.

Nice guys respect women.   They take them for serious, they take a no for a no, they respect a woman's wishes and they are honest.  
 

Jerks do not respect women.   They consider them as existing to be used at their convenience.   Jerks feel entitled to use a woman's body by hook or crook.   If a woman rejects the undisguised attempts to be used as a one-night object, jerks lie and manipulate, until they have made the woman yield by the false belief to have found a long-term mate.  

3.  Female stupidity is one cause of the myth.  

Therefore nice guys' observation, that the jerks get the women and they themselves are left over, is not caused by female preference but by their stupidity.   The claim, that women prefer the jerks, is a myth.   This myth is based upon the combination of the jerks' emotional psychopathy of ruthlessly tricking women and the women's stupidity, immaturity and inability to avoid being tricked into a jerk's bed.  

4.  Nice guys' stupidity is the second cause of the myth. 

Those nice guys, who experience being rejected too often, are also in a way stupid and/or immature.   They do not choose wisely, whom they approach.   They are not aware, that they are morally superior to the jerks and that they deserve a good woman, who can appreciate them.   They approach indiscriminately all the women, who subconsciously trigger their instincts, no matter if the women do deserve the nice guys or not.   They get rejected too often by unworthy women, and being sensitive, they get discouraged.   

The less someone is intelligent, mature and self-aware, the more he is a helpless and unaware victim of uncontrolled instincts.   This is true equally for men and for women.   

     
5.  Business

Markets for goods and services grow, where there is a demand and where there is money to buy the goods or services, that are not available for free.   

Men's instinctive needs for recurrent sexual homeostation, which are not met due to the asymmetry between male and female instincts, have created a market of sold services.     This is enhanced by the fact, that financial power has traditionally been controlled by men.   

For jerks, the market sells prostitution and pornography.  This is based upon the conscious acceptance of using women as commodities and merchandise.     

For nice guys, there is also a market, which has been created by PUA (pick-up-Animals) trainers, who are propagating the myth, which they describe as the nice-guy-syndrome.   They have created this market by deliberately blaming the failure of nice guys to find a mate on an alleged deficiency in their personality and behavior,
  
These trainers take advantage of the nice guys to make money, because nice guys have also an urge for sexual homeostation, but they are too decent to even consider buying the use of women's services as a commodity like jerks do.  
These trainers are a big fraud.   The methods to successfully lure a woman into bed for temporary abuse of her body and the methods to successfully get involved into long-term monogamous commitment are very different.    The temporary use is based upon disrespect for women, commitment is based upon respect for women.  
These fraudulent trainers are themselves successful jerks unable to even value or appreciate monogamy.   Instead they make the nice guys believe, that they can learn how to be successful to find a woman for the long-term monogamous relationship they really want by paying for the training of how to become a jerk and learn the tricks how to gain access to the use women's bodies.  
Just as a disrespecting jerk is unable to be committed in monogamy, also a respecting nice guy cannot apply disrespectful behaviors for the respectful goal of commitment.    

Therefore as long as a nice guy continues to respect women, jerk training does not do him any good.   While he may suffer less from outright rejections, he will instead suffer more from painful entanglement of failed relationship with incompatible women.  

6.  Tit-for-tat strategy:

True love and affection are reciprocally interdependent.    Perceived affection and care reinforce and strengthen affection.   Therefore a healthy mature relationship is based upon the proactive tit-for-tat strategy.   Each partner gives as much affection, care, benevolence as a first step, hoping to reinforce the other's genuine wish to give as much back.    This of course is based upon a careful choice of a compatible partner.   This means, that they reciprocally appreciate what they get, because it is congruent with their real needs, wishes, tastes, interests.  

When both partners are guided by this principle, they have a good chance to find committed long term happiness.   But if only one partner gives first, and the other is selfish and takes advantages, this leads to a lot of suffering for the nice partner.    

The constellation of the mismatch of selfish, abusive jerk and a giving woman is unfortunately so common, that nobody ever has called it a nice woman syndrome and nobody has ever offered a training to convert nice women into jerks.    Feminism teaches women to claim equality, not to become selfish jerks.  

But when the man is the perfect caring nice decent guy, who has the bad luck of being rejected by stupid immature women, then fraudulent jerks attempt to manipulate him to pay money to become like them.      

A nice guys is just right as he is.   All he needs to do is choose the right woman, who appreciates him and who gives him in return, what he gives her.  

I am such a woman.   I appreciate only nice guys.  

408. Embarrassment And Conformity

Embarrassment And Conformity

In entry 151 I narrated my experience, when someone was making a fool of himself without feeling embarrassed at all.   

Today I read about an interesting research about embarrassment:

"Subjects who were more easily embarrassed reported higher levels of monogamy, according to the study.

"Moderate levels of embarrassment are signs of virtue," said Matthew Feinberg"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110928180418.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fscience_society+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Science+%26+Society+News%29

   
But embarrassment is too vague a concept.   Its real complexity needs to be analyzed further, especially concerning the difference between conformists' and non-conformists' embarrassment.    Conformists are guided by the expectations of the surrounding social environment, while non-conformists are guided by their own values, attitudes and standards.    As they compare the actual behavior with different ideals, they logically also experience very different behaviors as either appropriate or a transgression.  

1. Embarrassment can be triggered either explicitly by behavior like bad manners or implicitly by an attitude, value or trait, that is hidden but can be revealed by observable behavior.   Sometimes observed behavior leads to the wrong appearance of embarrassing attitudes or traits, that are not real.   
2. Embarrassment can be a consequence of either not complying with the expectations of others or of acting in contradiction to the own standards and attitudes.    Both can be either congruent or mutually exclusive.    Conformists and non-conformists feel embarrassed for very different reasons.   
3. Conformists feel embarrassed when they appear to fail conforming.   Non-conformists feel embarrassed, when they are not correctly represented and perceived according to their own standards, they feel more embarrassed when they wrongly appear to conform than when they are perceived as behaving according to their own true standards and personality.  
4. Embarrassment can be either direct or indirect, it can be triggered either by the own behavior or by being in some personal connection with the misbehaving person.  
5. Embarrassment depends on the importance of the person witnessing the behavior.

A few examples.  

For a minimally cultured and sane person in western societies, burping is considered bad manners and a person burping accidentally feels embarrassed.    Basic manners are not a question of conformity.   In this case the expectations of others and the own standard of behavior are congruent.    A person burping without feeling embarrassed is considered as at least weird if not deviant.   

In our western societies, it is normal to eat using both hands.
There are cultures, where burping is considered as neutral or even good manners expressing appreciation of a meal. 
There are cultures, where only the right hand is suitable for eating, touching food with the left hand is considered bad behavior.     
Most western people would still feel inhibitions to burp, even as guests in a burping society they would still perceive this as embarrassing behavior.   

Would they be informed guests in the country with the left hand eating taboo, and they would forget themselves and accidentally use their left hand eating, they would not feel embarrassed by the blunder of using the left hand.   But they would feel embarrassed for the implicit rudeness of being inconsiderate.    
But the embarrassment of accidentally eating with the left hand as rude is restricted to the situation of being a guest with estimated people.   If instead eating with the left hand on a bench in the park, the strangers passing by are not important enough to feel embarrassed.

With attitudes, that are incongruent with the expectations of the majority, the situation is different.   For a non-believer in a christian society, there are variations of what triggers embarrassment.  
- The non-conforming self-confident atheist considers religion as stupidity and mental illness and reading religious books like the bible as a foolish waste of time.    As far as he is concerned about another person's judgement, he would feel embarrassed if seen with the bible in his hand, because he does not like to appear so stupid according to his own judgement, no matter what the other thinks about reading the bible.  
- The non-believer, who wants to conform, who has been brainwashed enough by his christian upbringing to feel deficient and flawed for his inability to believe, feels embarrassed, if he gets caught reading atheistic books.

In the hypothetical situation, that an atheist walks into a library to look for some quote in the bible, obviously the opinion of complete strangers should be irrelevant, even if they would mistake him for a christian.   A well known acquaintance is also not such a problem, because it is easy to correct a wrong impression by declaring the own atheism and reason for consulting a book as weird as the bible.   

Most embarrassing is the situation with those people, on whom one wishes to make a good impression.    Wanting to be respected by the librarian, who may be a fellow atheist, but being probably despised as an alleged christian would cause a lot of embarrassment.  

In a relationship the partner's stupidity is an indirect reason to feel embarrassed, the stupidity of being religious is just an example.   Getting involved with a stupid person means not to have chosen a sufficiently suitable equal partner but having sunk beneath the own standards and that is an act of own stupidity and a reason for embarrassment.   

When an atheistic man gets involved with a woman in spite of her stupidity of believing in a deity, the man usually does this due to his using her body as his compensation.    But a woman has no reason to ever get involved with a man, whose stupidity would cause her embarrassment.       

397. Recognizing Or Condoning Reality

Recognizing Or Condoning Reality

Corresponding with someone I expressed my outrage and frustration about some instances of injustice and exploitation.    He replied with the suggestion, that I should be realistic and see things as they are.   

But I did disagree with his contrasting attitude and realism.   Perceiving clearly, what is reality, does not determine, how to evaluate reality in comparison with a personal value system.   Being in the situation of participating by receiving advantages without having a choice makes me neither responsible nor guilty.   It is reality, I am aware of, and there is nothing that I can do about it.   Denial does not change the reality, only the awareness thereof.    This includes also the denial of the consequences of reality on others.

I personally would consider it as a form of moral bankruptcy, if I would condone or consider as justifiable any fate of the victims, only because it cannot be changed or because I cannot change it.   Even when I am completely powerless to change things, at least I have to keep up my own standards of evaluating, what is right and what is wrong. 

The best example is consumption of food and other consumer goods in the time of globalization.   A lot of what is sold in supermarkets comes from poor countries, where the prices and wages for those doing the labor are so low, that their basic necessities of life like clean water, healthy food etc. are not met and they live in a misery, that is outrageous.   

Those persons with economical and political power, who decide this, are out of my reach or influence.   Donations are no solution, the outrage is that people are deprived of what they have rightfully earned, and alms instead are adding an insult to the injustice, if they even reach those, who are exploited.

  
There is nothing that I can do.   Boycotting most everything sold as food or consumer goods would get me into malnutrition and would not change the situation.   But the denial of the injustice would make me feel ashamed of myself, because then I would be in league with those, who are guilty of the exploitation.  

386. Criticizing - Love - Respect

Criticizing - Love - Respect
This continues entries 385 and 382.  

Beneficial criticizing by giving and accepting feedback concerning specific behaviors and habits is an important part of the process of a couple's adaption to each other.   
As long as a couple's mutual respect is due to shared basic values and attitudes, they have no reason to criticize anything, that is part of the core personality of the other.   All criticizing is supportive concerning habits.    Beneficial criticizing implies the respect, that the other is able and motivated to improve some peripheral imperfections.  

When infatuation is experienced as the selfish love for the benefits of using another person's body for instinctive homeostasis, this does not require respect.   Bonded, committed and caring love between adult and mature partners is not possible without mutual respect.  

Bonded love is expressed by behavior aiming to enhance the subjective wellbeing of the partner.    The beloved partner perceives proactive acts of caring as deliberate and voluntary favors, not as duties, dues or something to be taken for granted.   

This has a strong impact upon the perception of being criticized.  The difference between experiencing the other's beneficial behavior as either an expression of caring love or of fulfilling a duty and serving a purpose is also the difference between perceiving criticizing as supportive and beneficial or disrespecting, devaluing and rejecting.   

When someone feels securely loved and respected by consciously perceiving the other's behavior as expressing care and affection, this enables him to interpret being criticized as supportive.    The expression of caring love is an expression of respect and nevertheless interpreting criticizing as disrespect would be a contradiction.   
Caring includes also the Epicurean imperative of not doing harm.    A person, who cares enough to have the wish to protect the partner from harm needs to be receptive to feedback.   To avoid harm to the other requires to know, what the other experiences as harm, and this is not always noticeable.   Sometimes only feedback can convey this information.  


But when a man considers and perceives a woman as a commodity and utility, whose purpose is to serve his needs, then he is unable to ever perceive anything of what she does for him as an expression of love.    He is deprived of the experience of being loved by his own entitlement delusion.   This makes him perceive criticizing as expressing disrespect and this makes him feel even less loved.    As a consequence, he is inclined to use control and coercion to get his needs met, because he projects and believes, that otherwise she would also use him selfishly for her needs.    As long as he feels entitled to the priority of his needs, wishes and whims over hers, he is realistic in his evaluation, that he cannot get this by any other means except control and coercion.    

If her baseline is getting as much as giving, then giving more than she receives is from her point of view an expression of love.    

If his baseline is getting all his needs met before bothering about hers, then he experiences even all her expressions of love only as deficient compared with his baseline, and he feels justified to use pressure and coercion to get, what he cannot get otherwise.  

The result is a very unfortunate vicious circle of deterioration.    A woman, who feels loved, cared for, cherished and appreciated has few reasons for peripheral beneficial and supportive criticizing, and he can appreciate it and do his share in improving the relationship.   
But the man, who uses her as commodity, dominates and coerces her to ascertain his selfish benefits gives the woman real and serious reasons to criticize him and even to lose respect.    He needs much more improvement and he needs much more feedback.  But instead of accepting her support, he blames her for daring to criticize him at all.    His denial and defiance to accept feedback and learn how to treat her destroys the relationship.  

Feeling loved, respected and supported by criticizing is a congruent experience in a bonded couple.   

Without the reciprocal perception of expressions of caring love by the other, there is no respect and no trust, that criticizing is benevolent and beneficial.   This effect is independent of the reason of not feeling loved, either by not being loved by a man confounding infatuation with love and domination or by being oblivious of being loved due to confounding expressions of love with fulfilling a purpose and a duty.   

382. Disrespect And Criticizing

Disrespect And Criticizing


Expressed conscious disagreement with any attribute in another person can be either hostile, neutral or benevolent criticizing.  

1. Hostile criticizing is a part of the rat race of people, who are driven by the hierarchy instinct to fight for higher positions for the purpose of gaining power and control over resources.   But this is not my topic, because this blog is mainly about how a relationship can be made a safe haven against the outside world of hostility.   

2. Neutral distance: In entry 377 I suggested that it is possible to disrespect someone for being either morally or intellectually not suitable for close contact, but that by avoiding close contact, people can be civil and courteous with disrespected persons. 

3. In entry 164 I explained, that a couple can only get close and bonded, if they share the same basic values.   If the behavior of each partner is logical, but based upon different values, then criticizing is futile and cannot solve the conflict between incompatible values.   In entry 379 I looked at the difference between disrespect in a couple due to being a mismatch, and feeling disrespect or feeling disrespected by mistake.

Disrespect kills every relationship, except if its purpose is consciously restricted by mutual consent to using or abusing each other.  While discovering incompatible values and losing respect after having got involved by mistake with a mismatch cannot be remedied, it is very important to prevent both, feeling disrespect and feeling disrespected, due to misunderstanding, misinterpretation, misperception.

Only in fairy tales, a couple lives happily ever after having conquered the obstacles of getting together.   Every real life couple has disagreements and conflicts at least once in a while, and the older people are, when they get together, the more they have become individual personalities, the more initial conflicts they have to overcome.  

A person, who wants to improve his behavior in general and as a partner in a relationship, needs the other's sincere feedback.   Feedback includes both the spontaneous non-verbal expressions of how behavior is experienced, and the verbal feedback of either criticizing or approving the behavior.  
Non-verbal feedback is for example the expression of pain in the face.   Criticizing is verbally telling someone, that a specific behavior is hurting.  
As a part of adapting to each other, a person has the choice to focus the attention on observing the non-verbal expressions, to listen to criticizing and to ask for criticizing.   The partner has the choice to give feedback by not censoring his non-verbal expressions and by offering verbal feedback, whenever it is either asked for or when there is a behavior to be modified by feedback.  This concerns both, behavior perceived as disruptive, disturbing and hurting or pleasing behavior, of which more is welcome.   There is the choice to receive or to ignore feedback and to give or to deny feedback.  

Constructive conflict solving to prevent disrespect means, that both partners cooperate as both, the motivated recipient and the sincere giver of feedback, they apply the method of beneficial criticizing.    

Beneficial criticizing is a vital part of the process of getting bonded.    Beneficial criticizing means to name, describe or define a specific attribute of the other, either a behavior or an expressed thought, and to offer support in improving it.   Beneficial criticizing means the full respect for the other based upon the assumption of sharing the same basic values and attitudes.   It is based upon the premise, that the criticized attribute is either something independent of the basic values or something, that is a contradiction to the basic values and the other is either unaware of this or is struggling with it. 

Beneficial criticizing can concern:

1. Disturbing habits, like for example burping and cursing
2. Self-damaging habits like eating too much.  Example: The supportive partner distracts and interferes with getting fat. 
3. Behavior damaging the welfare of the couple:  Examples:  Criticizing for wasting money by buying household items without asking first, if it is needed or already on stock.    Criticizing for spending money on himself with priority over spending it on shared benefits. 
4. Helping someone to correct errors of contradiction with the own value system.   Example:  Informing someone, who is a skeptic and atheist, that NLP is not a branch of psychology, but pseudoscience and a cult.  
5. Correcting morally wrong behavior.   Example:  A man with the basic value of equality has grown up with the role model of a macho father.   Or he has been mislead by reading and following the detrimental advice of PUAs (pick-up-animals)   He is not aware, that when he makes a solitary decision and forces the decision upon the partner, he is acting in contradiction to his value system.   He needs to be informed, what a woman expects from him as being included in the process of sharing decisions.     

All the above are examples, where beneficial criticizing is not an act of disrespect, but an attempt to improve the bonding by measuring the behavior by its being in accordance with the shared values.  

If the criticized partner resists, refuses and reproaches the other, each of my examples indicates, that something is dysfunctional in the relationship.  

1. Disregard and lack of care for how the partner feels.  
2. Not valuing the other enough to want to be attractive and healthy.
3. Selfishness and devaluation.
4. Probable incompatibility either because he is not a real skeptic or because he is unable to comprehend.
5. Probable incompatibility because there may be psychological troubles impeding the man to treat a woman as an equal. 

Beneficial criticizing is not an expression of disrespect, to the contrary it is an attempt to remove reasons for potential disrespect.    But if there is refusal to react to beneficial criticizing, this destroys the respect of the supportive partner.  Feeling disrespected leads to the reaction of also losing respect.  

Beneficial criticizing can also be a method to avoid misinterpretations and misperceptions and of giving someone the benefit of the doubt before jumping to unfavorable conclusions. 

An example:  A man spends money on buying something, what the woman perceives as very selfish and as an act of disregard for her equal valid needs.  Only be criticizing him, she can find out, if he really is as selfish, as she assumes.  

• In the case, that he was so convinced, that she would also enjoy his purchase, that he omitted consulting her first, maybe meaning to surprise her, he is not selfish.   This misunderstanding is a step of learning to be more cautious about his assumptions about her.      
• If he insists, that it is his right to buy, whatever he wants without consulting her, even though they share expenses and he spends indirectly half her money, then he is disrespecting her and his selfishness gets her disrespect in return.

By criticizing him, she makes a step of progress towards either improving their relationship or learning that he is not suitable for her.   Would she keep silent, she would continue to doubt him for being selfish, and he would not even know.   This would undermine the relationship.   The more often someone does not express experienced criticism, the worse it gets.      

Beneficial criticizing is a vital part of creating a bonded and committed relationship.   

353. An Incompatible Man's Incompatible Behavior

An Incompatible Man's Incompatible Behavior

Both, whom to initiate contact with and how to react to initiatives, are guided by the attitude towards a person as a partner.    A wise and mature person in full awareness of reciprocity checks not only, if the other complies with his own criteria, but also, if he complies with the expressed criteria in the other's profile.   
Therefore on dating sites I have listed my own criteria in my profiles and also the suggestion to read this blog.    I am far from having any narcissistic intention or delusion of pouring out wisdom onto the web for others to greedily inhale it.  There are enough good contributions from others making my addition superfluous.   

My only purpose for writing this blog is to find a mindmate, and whoever else enjoys reading it, is just welcome.    Only a man looking for a female mindmate craving intellectual intimacy can logically be expected to be someone very interested and motivated to read this blog.   He would not read it to learn something, but to compare our values, attitudes, goals, needs, identities.    If a man is not interested in reading this blog, this tells me that he is willing to get involved with any haphazard woman.   Even if he appeared interested in me, this would not be because of my deep thinking as I have presented in what I have written here.

Unfortunately, there are just too many men, who would accept any haphazard woman.    A recent example:
A few days ago, I initiated contact after discovering someone's profile indicating the possibility of compatibility.   Therefore I expected that he would look at my profile and check himself against my criteria and me against his before replying.  

I was a bit taken aback, when his only reaction was asking me to send him a photo.    Giving him the benefit of the doubt, that this were just a thoughtless reaction, I wrote back a lengthy explanation, why I do not want to be chosen or rejected by my looks as a body from a catalogue.     This led to the exchange of several emails, in which I attempted to explain, that I am a person, for whom it is important to be taken for serious as having a brain.    Being so very different from the prototypical female, I considered it important to give an outline of my way of thinking.   
This was meant as proactive explaining, to preclude misunderstandings and misinterpretations, especially because some men not only jump to conclusions from assumptions, projections and previous experiences, but also take them so much for granted, that they do not even explicitly mention them.    He mistook my proactive explanations as if I were excusing myself.   I have no reason to make excuses being myself, but being different from some men's expectations and preventing misunderstandings. 

He claimed to take a woman for serious and to respect her as a person.   I wonder, what this really means in his own interpretation.    After a few emails, he did send me a picture, on which he was clean shaven.  But he did not make any comment about the discrepancy with my profile, where I clearly stated my looking for someone bearded.     That made me ask him directly, if he had ever read my profile.  As it seems, he did this only after that question.    

In his next email, he finally came up with some facts.   While in contrast to the picture, he does have a beard, he also has children.   So one of the main reasons, while I had contacted him at all, was at least incorrect, if not a lie.   

It is disheartening, how I get led on into false hopes and disappointments by men, who are unable to take me for serious.         

283. Urges, Cognition and Psychopathy

Urges, Cognition and Psychopathy

The following are speculations after pondering over the jerk's claim for his convenience in entry 282. 

As mentioned in earlier entries, I think that the human behavior is the result of the relative strength of cognition and instincts.    When the cognition is stronger than the instincts, then the person is able to act rationally, when the instincts are stronger, the person uses the cognition as a powerful tool serving the instincts.   

So far, I had been using this concept on the major instinct of breeding and the auxiliary instincts of sexuality, ingroup-outgroup and hierarchy to acquire resources.   
But I think I can broaden this concept to include the relative strength of hedonistic urges for food, drink, sexual homeostasis and general comfort compared with the strength of cognition.    People, whose cognition is stronger than their hedonistic needs can live in a fair exchange with other people, acknowledging their needs as valid and accepting fair deals.   They can evaluate, that sometimes other things are more important than physical needs and self-control can be very beneficial.   
But those hedonists, whose urges are stronger than their cognition, use whatever intelligence they have as a powerful tool to fulfill as many of their urges for the least price and with the least delay.  

This can also explain the behavior of psychopaths, because it seems obvious to assume that psychopaths are driven by hedonistic urges.  I cannot imagine an ascetic psychopath.  Urges strong enough to override all control and cognition like in an animal are usually physical.  

While their predominant cognition enables people to see themselves as interacting with others for the equal benefit of all, while they can understand justice and the rights of others, the psychopath only has the intelligence to know these things by rote, as methods, but not concerning himself as guidelines for the own behavior.  His urges are so strong, that his knowledge of the rules of social interactions is derailed to only serve his selfish purposes.    

The psychopaths can have the complete knowledge how to make a woman believe in his sincere commitment, he can be able to lure and manipulate a woman to accept a relationship with him.    But his urges are stronger than his cognition, and once he has her under his control, he does not continue to use his knowledge for the benefit of a happy couple.   Instead he now uses, abuses and takes advantage of her by allowing himself every selfish impulse that he has.    

I also had already previously stated my assumption, that the predominant urges and instincts determine the identity and the value system of a person.    Those with a high breeding instinct develop an identity as dedicated parents, a value system based on the glorification of children and an attitude that their purpose in live is procreation.  They take this for granted and some of them are oblivious about how some people do not want to breed.

It seems that this is also the case with a psychopath, whose whole identity is determined by his need for physical pleasures and comforts, and whose value system is based upon taking it for granted to be entitled to the limitless supply of all the pleasures he wants.  The phrase 'at my convenience' of the jerk in entry 282 illustrates this.  For him, a relationship with a woman has to be at his convenience only.   The psychopath is just oblivious, that other people are not commodities, and he has no conscience, no matter, what he does.    He is oblivious, that it is practically impossible to have a relationship, that is equally at the unmodified convenience of both partners.   To be at the convenience of both as a couple, they need to find agreements and compromises.    But when the psychopath insists to get the woman entirely at his convenience, she is a commodity, serving his convenience paying the price of her own disadvantaged position.     

Maybe psychopaths are a kind of relapse to earlier phases of evolution, where even food was so scarce, that only those, who ruthlessly and without a conscience took, what they could get, had a chance to survive and to breed.   But when with agriculture and complexer societies the requirement for survival changed to the ability for mutually beneficial social interactions, cognition evolved to be stronger than the urge to eat all the food and let others starve, and psychopath became obsolete for the survival of the species.   Unfortunately for their victims, too many reappear once in a while as an anomaly.    

280. Subjective Reality - 2

Subjective Reality - 2

A viable relationship is based upon the common endeavour to spare each other pain and to care about each other's happiness.    This requires a mutually full awareness of each other's subjective experiences as valid and real.   It also requires the full unrestricted mutual disclosure of both partners' true innermost feelings.   What causes pain and how much is respected as a part of the partner's personality and not devalued as a weakness and a flaw. 

Both partners need the validation of their feelings as real and as appropriate.  They need mutually to accept, that each other's reactions are logical, in proportion and adequate to the severity of what they have subjectively experienced, even if they would not react the same under similar circumstances. 

One partner has either the empathy to feel the pain of the other or he has the trust to take any of the other's statements about subjective experiences as true.   Otherwise he is unable to care and to alleviate pain and discomfort.   Caring persons never assume or tell their partners, what they should feel and what not.   They are interested to know, what the other really feels, and this can only be found out by asking and by listening.  

When one partner respects and appreciates the other as an equal and as a person of rationality and intelligence, then not understanding the other's behavior or utterances is considered as a matter of communication.    Jumping to the conclusion, that all incomprehensible behavior of the other indicates flaws, shows disrespect.    Asking and listening until there is understanding shows respect.  
This goes both ways.   Not explaining, when the other does not understand, but expecting submission to incomprehensible behavior is also disrespect.    Appreciation is based on both, on interest in the other's subjective reality and on sharing the own.  

When such partners support each other with advice, suggestions and offering help, this is based upon the accepted reality of the other, not by redefining and reinterpreting it.

This requires, that both partners have full understanding of the dynamics between them.   It requires especially the full awareness of the difference between when one partner initiates an action, and when one partner reacts to what the other has initiated.    A completely logical reaction can appear incomprehensible, if mistaken for an action by the own initiative.     

This requires trust.   If one partner doubts the self-disclosure and statements of the other with suspicions of a hidden agenda or exaggeration for the purpose of manipulation, he can never know the true subjective reality.
  
It also requires mutual verification, that what one understands as the other's reality is the same as what was attempted to be conveyed.   

Undistorted knowledge of the other's subjective reality requires to beware and not to fall into psychological traps of doing the following without correction by verifying it:

• Projecting the own reality upon the other.
• Taking anything for granted
• Jumping to conclusions instead of listening
• Confounding wishful thinking with reality
• Avoiding the truth by denial

In short, it is important to avoid applying to the partner's reality the same defense mechanism, that people are prone to use in distorting the full awareness of their own reality.

The three steps to understanding the partner's reality are:

1. Acknowledging the own complete ignorance of the partner's subjective reality.
2. Asking, listening to and verifying in cooperation and communication with the partner without doubting the sincerity and accuracy
3. Accepting the partner's reality as equally valid and justified as the own

Accepting the partner's reality is not possible, when it contradicts the own basic values or needs.   In this case the couple is not compatible as mindmates in intrinsic commitment.    Tolerance and denial are not a solution for bonding.   
Tolerance only works for those couples, who have the mutual agreement of being only infatuated with each other's bodies, without a wish to deeply be bonded or of breeding as the main purpose of the relationship.   

Example:   When one partner's subjective reality is based upon religious believes, while the other's reality is based upon rationality and science, then the two can gain full knowledge of the partner's subjective reality, but they are incompatible, because the can never accept the other's reality as equally valid and justified as the own.   Their tolerance is mutual condescension.   The religious person often feels sorry for the nonbelievers lack of enlightenment and dire fate after death.   The rational person considers the blind belief as a deficit in rationality.  

270. Hierarchy of Conflicts

Hierarchy of Conflicts

When a couple has conflicts, many times there is one or a few very fundamental conflicts, that are on an abstract level and often hidden from the awareness of both partners.  

The many concrete, superficial and practical conflicts, over which they are fighting, arguing and competing are secondary conflicts, that are all direct or indirect consequences of the primary conflicts.    In the best case, the partners are able to bargain for a fair compromise, in the worst case, the man bullies the woman to get, what he wants and over time, he establishes domination.  
But the recurrence of the secondary conflicts will never seize and slowly undermine the relationship.   For long lasting peace and harmony, they need to resolve the primary conflicts with a general policy, with an agreement on a relationship governance.

Couples often have conflicts about how to spend money.    Here are two examples of a possible primary conflict in the case, that both contribute to the shared expenses and fight over what to spend money on.
1.  They have a different concept of their relationship.   The man perceives and considers himself as a friend with benefits with exclusivity, for the women, there is intrinsic commitment.    The man feels entitled to spend any money in his pocket and bank account as his own on whatever he wants as priority without consulting her.   The woman considers all the money in his and her pockets and accounts as a commonly owned resource.   She feels an obligation not to waste any money but to share the decision about what to spend it on and she expects and feels entitled, that he does the same.      
2.  The man is a hedonist and the woman an epicurean.    For the hedonist, physical pleasure like eating in an expensive restaurant is an important goal in life, and he does not hesitate to spend any money he has on his priority.    The epicurean thinks differently, she compares the price of the meal in the restaurant with how many hours she had to work to earn it.   When she comes to the conclusion, that the meal was not worth the investment of so much of her lifetime, then she feels disrespected and devalued by the hedonist, because he does not value her lifetime enough to refrain from wasting it.   

Therefore it is very important for a couple to share their basic values, goals and priorities in life and to communicate about them to avoid, that unsolved fundamental conflicts become a source of recurrent disruption.     

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.

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.