596. Commodification And Learning By Feedback - The Spell Checker Metaphor

596.   Commodification And Learning By Feedback - The Spell Checker Metaphor


While people can often improve their relationships by feedback and constructive criticism, those men, who commodify women are unfortunately out of the reach of improvement by feedback. 

The spell checker metaphor:

Using a spell checker when writing a text in a foreign language helps to find mistakes and to learn better spelling.   Without the spell checker, the same mistakes are repeated and become a habit.   

A spell checker offers to its user the choice to change his spelling, whenever and if he agrees to do so.  Ignoring the errors indicated by the spell checker can have the unfavorable consequences of reactions to bad spelling.   

The benefits of using a spell checker as a learning aid are limited by preconditions.   It is only a valuable tool to improve the spelling competence, if it is reliable by only indicating real mistakes and by finding (nearly) all of them.  

1.  Learning from a spell checker does not work, when there are too many false positives.   When the spell checker uses a wrong language on a text, this leads to so many false positives, that the real mistakes are lost between the many apparent mistakes.  

2.  Learning from a spell checker does not work, when there are too many mistakes.  
When someone's knowledge of a language is only minimal and below the threshold for writing correct text, too many mistakes are discouraging and beyond the capacity to memorize all the corrections. 

3.  Relying on a spell checker, which overlooks mistakes, is worse than not using one.  Whatever is not indicated as an error is wrongly assumed and reinforced as correct.   This leads to learning mistakes.  


Feedback as a behavior checker:

Being influenced (entry 594) by the feedback of the partner concerning the preferred behaviors and especially concerning what hurting, annoying and disturbing behaviors need to be avoided is an important method and part of the learning process for improving a relationship. 
The partner's feedback indicates inappropriate behaviors.  Accepting feedback can be seen as using a behavior checker.   Feedback offers the choice to change the behavior in the case of agreement with the necessity to do so.    Ignoring and rejecting proffered feedback can have the unfavorable consequences of strong reactions to the persistent criticized behaviors.

The benefits of feedback as a tool to improve a relationship are limited by preconditions.   Feedback is reliable, when it is welcome by the recipient as justified and when both partners agree, that and how the criticized behaviors need to be changed.   

1.  Learning from feedback does not work, when there are too many false positives of unjustified and irrational criticisms.   When a commodifying man's entitlement delusion causes him to have absurd expectations and make inappropriate demands on a woman, which she refuses to comply and submit to, then his criticizing her for not serving his delusion is not justified.   Under an overwhelming pressure of his absurd and unwarranted blames and reproaches she has no chance to ever discover and consider those few instances of justified feedback.   

2.  Learning from feedback does not work, when there are too many justified reasons for criticism.   When a man has very many hurting, annoying and disturbing habits and attitudes, then getting too much justified feedback is more than what he can cope with.  This can happen, when someone is immature and ignorant, or when he is suddenly exposed to new expectations after having been considered as unfit for learning by feedback as in 3.

By the reaction of blocking and denial to overwhelming criticism he avoids any change.  But giving too much justified feedback is in such a situation not the woman's fault.    Her feeling hurt and annoyed is real and shifting the suffering upon her to spare him is not an improvement for them both as a couple, only a redistribution of the burden.   Her refraining from giving justified feedback is not a solution.  

Whenever there is a persistent conflict, because there is only the choice between him suffering from her feedback or her suffering from his behavior, they are a mismatch and not suitable for each other.    

3.  Not giving feedback reinforces habits, even though they are hurting or disturbing to others.   This happens, when someone gets the fool's or insane's license, not being taken for serious but instead considered as a weirdo and too deranged to change.  While he himself remains ignorant of his unfavorable reputation as a hopeless and incorrigible case, he believes to be respected and accepted.  He misinterprets the absence of feedback as if his behavior were experienced by others as correct and appropriate.  

4.  Learning by feedback does not work without agreement concerning the justification of the feedback.  
Making a relationship work requires a process of adapting to each other.   But not all people are suitable to reciprocally adapt.   When people's basic attitudes and values are too disparate, they cannot agree concerning which behaviors are acceptable and which are not and thus they also cannot agree, which feedback is justified.  They cannot adapt to each other, they are a mismatch and doomed to accumulate more and more unresolvable conflicts.  

5.  Feedback does not work, unless it is understood by the recipient as it was meant by the sender.   When feedback is incomprehensible or distorted by dysfunctional communication (entry 595), it does not help to learn and does not lead to improvements..  

The commodifying men's fallacy:

Spell checkers compare written text with an internal dictionary of correct words.  This dictionary represents the generally agreed upon correct spelling of a language.  Some spell checkers allow people to enter additional own words as correct into this dictionary.     Any fault entered as correct into the dictionary would no longer be found by the spell checker.  But entering faults is of course a completely irrational method of avoiding to notice the own errors by distorting the spell checker.

Yet the method applied by commodifying men, when handling women's feedback is as if someone would adjust the spell checker by feeding mistakes into the dictionary, until all the mistakes are hidden.   Text thus only appearing as if correct is then believed it to really be correct. 

But the dictionary of correct behaviors is in the woman's head, outside the commodifying man's control.  Feedback concerning his outrageous behavior and his absurd attitude towards women does not elicit the appropriate reaction of his correcting his behavior. Instead he believes the dictionary of correct behaviors in the woman's mind to be faulty.  He reacts with attempts to fix the woman, which for him means to make her modify her allegedly wrong feedback and the faulty concept of correct behaviors causing this feedback.   

Whenever by any method, threat, coercion, exhaustion or domination he succeeds to make her discontinue her feedback, he interprets this as having successfully fixed the woman.  

By this mechanism, men commodifying women are out to the reach of being influenced.    

595. Communication: The Importance Of The Correct Conveyance Of Information

595.   Communication:  The Importance Of The Correct Conveyance Of Information

Communication is a process of conveying non-obvious information from one brain into another.   Cooperation, agreement, consent require the availability of the same information to all parties involved.   

Whenever information does not reach the recipient (listener or reader) unaltered from how it was supplied by the sender (speaker or writer), the result is distorted communication and subsequent unsolved and unsolvable conflicts.  In this case, relationships are doomed by the accumulation of more and more unsolved conflicts.   

Communication works best, when the information sent is neither redundant nor insufficient but conveys just all, which is really needed based upon a realistic evaluation of the targeted recipient's knowledge.     
Communication is distorted, when the information contained in the sender's statements does not match the needs and expectations of the recipient.

The cause of distorted communication and incomprehension can be on both ends:

1. Information provided by the sender does not correctly reach the recipient.  

• The recipient fails to listen.
  
  • He believes to know already, what will be said, based upon his assumptions, prejudices, preconceptions and misinterpretations.   
  • He underestimates the sender and does not consider his statements as worth to listen to.
  • The topic does not interest the recipient, no matter how important it is to the sender.
• The recipient confounds, what is really said, with what he only imagines as said or has heard elsewhere.   This creates a false memory, by which the recipient believes to have heard, what in reality was never said.  
  
  
• The recipient receives only a selection of the information sent. 
  
  • He listens not for the purpose of receiving information, but for the purpose of finding something to contradict and to believe himself to be right.
  • He listens for the purpose to find a hidden agenda or hidden truth in the distrusted sender's statements.   The interpretation is believed and confounded with what is really said but lost.
  • He filters the conscious reception of information to avoid hearing, what would make him feel bad. 

2. The sender fails to communicate well.   Too much redundancy forfeits attention, in which case also important information is lost.  This has a similar effect as has insufficient information, it leads to incomprehension.  

• The sender can have a memory problem. 
  • He forgets, what he has already told and repeats it too often.
  • He confounds, what he only thought about and intended to say, with what he really had told.

• The sender overestimates his own importance and expects the recipient to have paid attention and to remember everything told just once.   

• The sender is generally unable to evaluate, what information is required to be understood.
  
  • He cannot distinguish between general information to be expected from the target recipient, and specific information only available to himself.
  • His statements are omitting some information replacing them with  implicit interpretations and conclusions, which are not comprehensible, unless the recipient shares some cognitive common ground of shared values and attitudes.   
  • He is influenced by hidden and invisible sensations and emotions and is not aware, that the recipient cannot mindread and does not share his state.  

3.  The sender conveys a specific level of informational content, which is suitable for preselected recipients only,   

• He fails to adjust the level of information correctly to the recipients.
  
  • He overestimates the recipients cognitive ability and knowledge, and this leads to incomprehension.   
  • He underestimates the recipient's comprehension and ability to remember, what was already told,  The redundancy bores the recipient.  Too banal and obvious information can appear as the assumption of lacking intelligence.   

• The recipient overestimates himself and chooses communication situations, where his incomprehension is unavoidable.   

Communication can only be constructive, when both partners are both able and motivated to make it thus.   

When the communication is distorted with dynamics like described above, then a couple can spend years together and never find out, who and how the other really is.  

Instead of getting to know each other better, they reciprocally create false alleged personalities of the other.  With every conflict and misunderstanding the false image gets more extremely distant from the misjudged person's reality.   Being treated as the alleged false personality can be very painful and the relationship is doomed.

579. The Rotten Apple Metaphor

579.   The Rotten Apple Metaphor

Apples can rot inside and remain perfect on the outside.   They look and smell very appetizing and appealing to bite into them.   But the first bite into the invisible rot causes to puke and to spit.   

Putting the apple on display with the bite on the hidden back side, the apple continues to appear appealing to the senses in spite of the cognitive knowledge of the eating experience.   It is the classical case of an appetence-aversion conflict, which is best solved by discarding the apple from the vision.

There are men like this.   They appear perfect, when it comes to similarities in values, hobbies, interests, attitudes and tastes.   They radiate pseudo-propinquity.    But as soon as a woman gets involved, she gets harmed.   It is her moment of truth, of experiencing the rotten jerk inside, who hurts and disgusts her with abuse, domination and commodification. 
As soon as she distances herself out of the reach of immediate harm, he continues to appear as appealing as before due to the same attributes, but she is cognitively cured by her knowledge of what she experiences by getting near him.  Such a man also brings a woman into an appetence-aversion conflict, which is best solved by severing all connections.  

There is just one difference.   The rotten apple mercifully destroys itself by rotting entirely and no second person is tempted to have a bite.  Those rotten jerks continue to harm women.  Whatever harm they do to them has no impact upon the jerks themselves, whose misleading appearance as nice guys does not get damaged.     

416. An Epicurean View On Conflict Solving

An Epicurean View On Conflict Solving

On a forum about relationships, I read about a conflict between a couple.   While having a cat before, the husband had experienced this as very unpleasant, especially due to feeling disgusted by the smell.   After moving to a new house, the wife wanted to have another cat and he did not.   

What surprised me very much, was the following discussion based upon a general evaluation, that it were a conflict between two equal positions and equal needs.    The discussion centered about the difficulty of a compromise between having a cat and not having a cat. 

But the positions in this conflicts are far from equal and therefore not a basis for a fair compromise.   A compromise means finding a fair balance of giving and taking for both sides involved.   But in the cat example, the wife wanted a onesided benefit only for herself, for which only the husband would have to pay by suffering discomfort.  

In the sense of Epicurus' principle of not harming and not be harmed, his moral right to maintain a life without discomfort is a stronger right than her wish to get an additional benefit.  The wife is already in a situation of wellbeing and without discomfort.     A cat is not a necessity, that causes dishomeostasis when there is none.   The husband's need are much more basic, he wants to maintain the homeostasis of not suffering as a part of daily life the discomfort of disgusting smells.   
 

The fair solution is the reciprocity of consideration.   While she owes to him to refrain from a wish causing him discomfort, he owes her the same consideration of not causing her discomfort or pain.    The balanced reciprocal avoidance of harming and hurtful behavior is much better than balancing sacrifices in the form of suffering for each other.    

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.   

364. Suggestibility Is A Hazard To Rational Conflict Solving

Suggestibility Is A Hazard To Rational Conflict Solving
In entry 358 I described, why a gullible man is a hazard to a rational woman, his irrational and incomprehensible believes making his behavior unpredictable and unreliable.  A woman can never be in a safe haven with a gullible partner.   He is prone to do hurtful and detrimental things out of the blue.    I listed examples of dangerous believes, but I did not point out explicitly, that in this context not the believes by themselves are the hazard, but the man's treating the woman according to them.   
 

Suggestibility to external influences in a more general way is also a serious hazard to a relationship.

 
In entry 361 I explained, why conflicts can only be solved by shared premises, and how communication is the only viable method for reaching consent about premises.    

This concept can only work, when both partners can mutually influence each other.     They need to be responsive in persuasibility but without being mentally derailed by suggestibility to irrational external forces stronger than the motivation to solve conflicts.   (More in entry 362) 

Influencing is the first step in rational persuasibility.  Influencing means to be reciprocally able to convey all information considered as important correctly into the conscious mind of the other.    Information is anything going on in the sender's mind, that s/he wants the receiver to know, values, attitudes, wishes, needs, suggestions, introspections, emotions, feedback, attributions, clarifications, subjective perceptions.   The information of what is a reaction and what is proactive behavior is especially important, when the behavior causes a conflict to be solved.  
Information can be conveyed verbally, written, non-verbally in gestures and facial expressions.
Influencing does not mean to manipulate the other to do anything.  It only means to convey every significant information to create the shared premises pool, which then enables both partners together to arrive at the same logical conclusion and therefore at a shared decision and an agreement for actions.
This of course only works, when both are motivated to tell everything without holding back, to make sure to express it well, and when both are also interested to receive the information from the other and both value the information as important.  

When there is suggestibility instead, it is a hazard and disruptive.   When a man's premise is an irrational belief, prejudice, preconception, that fulfills his own needs only, but is not convincing to the woman, then this impedes sharing it in a premises pool.   
If as an example a suggestible and immature man's belief in the inferiority of a woman is his justification to consider her purpose as being a commodity, then this belief is a premise that cannot be shaken by reason due to allowing him to gain selfish benefits.
When the woman attempts to tell the man, how she needs to be treated, which is an information to be included in the premises pool, the place for this information in the man's mind is already occupied by his own contradictory belief about a woman's purpose.     As a belief, it is immune to reconsideration.  

The persuable man motivated to include into the premises pool, how to treat the woman in accordance wirh her own needs, is permanently perceptive and receptive to information input from her.   If he is too busy or distracted, then at least he deliberately focuses regularly on asking her.   He listens, because he wants to know.

The suggestible man has subjectively no reason to listen to the woman.  He already does not doubt the validity and priority of his own premises not only for himself but also for her.    He treats her as a commodity according to his belief and for him, there is no need to change the premise, to which the woman is supposed to submit.     
Therefore the suggestible man has no interest in what she wants to tell him.    He either refuses to listen or he externally pretends to listen, but she is talking to a wall.  What she says, bounces of and never becomes an information entering his conscious mind.     His believes have made him oblivious of the need to be influenced.   He is not aware of a conflict, but of a dysfunctional woman, who refuses to share his belief. 

When a man is suggestible to external influences and holds believes, that are incomprehensible and inacceptable to a rational woman, conflicts will not get solved but aggravated.     A suggestible man is not suitable for a rational woman.

361. Rational and Irrational Mental Processes as Premises of Observable Behavior

Rational and Irrational Mental Processes as Premises of Observable Behavior

In entry 338 I defined consequencity as a form of rational behavior logically derived from premises in contrast to gullibility as behavior determined by believes.   

In entry 355 I declared:   I am convinced, that when two partners in a relationship are mature, rational and sane and when they share the same relationship paradigm, the same basic values and attitudes, all information about the needs and feelings of the other, then it is possible to solve conflicts rationally by using logic upon the shared information as premises. 

But I want to take this one step further.   I speculate, that all human behavior is based upon chains of if-then contingencies, that are logical in the conscious or at least in the subconscious thought process.    The difference between consequencity and gullibility are the premises used when starting the sequence.   Gullibility includes believes as premises, consequencity does not.

An example:  
Premise 1.   Getting wet is unpleasant.
Premise 2.   It rains.
Behavioral contingency:   The use of an umbrella, wearing a raincoat, not going out or something else.

Irrational Premise 1:   Young Children sometimes believe, that they grow in the rain.
Premise 2.   It rains.
Premise 3.   The wish to grow. 
Behavioral contingency:    Going out unprotected into the rain for the purpose of growing.

Using if-then contingencies in comprehending human behavior is not the same as dealing with the requirements of the observable material world by applying if-then contingencies.   It is quite obvious that when a glass falls on a hard ground, if breaks and that once a glass has been broken into shards, it cannot be restored into the unbroken state.    The same observable contingencies on the humans like a cut causing bleeding are obvious and therefore excluded from further considerations.  

 
Observable human behavior is much more complex and often determined by internal realities only directly perceptible to the individual himself by emotions or introspection.    Observable behavior does often not indicate, if the premises include irrational believes or not.   The same behavior can be caused by empathy and introspection or by a belief.   
An example:  A person can be faithful in a monogamous relationship

• based upon the belief, that a deity will punish cheating
• by the knowledge and empathy, that being cheated upon hurts and that the own refraining from cheating is a method to prevent being cheated upon in return.     
• by only needing bonded commitment

These reasons are very different, but an external observer cannot know them without precise knowledge about a couple. 

A person's valid rational premises for consequencity are genuine expressions of the own identity.   Many differences are personal choices, that are neither right or wrong, just personality traits.    Tastes, interests and needs can all be genuine personality traits as premises leading to behavior.   Emotions are also valid premises, that are different between individuals.    So are attitudes if they are derived from the identity.   (I am omitting the problem, how much people are aware of their genuine needs and how much they are manipulated.    This will be the topic of a further entry. )

Rational premises are equally valid to explain proactive behavior and to explain reactions to external stimuli and impacts.    Actions and reactions are both sequences, that can either include irrational believes or not.  

The behavioral sequence of consequencity is a direct if-then contingency.   The person perceives a need, either by feeling the emotional urge or by introspection, and acts rationally to fulfill the need.  
The behavioral sequence of gullibility inserts an intermittent belief as an additional step into the if-then contingency.  

An example: 
A student has the wish to get good marks.   The rational sequence is investing enough effort to study.    The irrational sequence is the belief, that a deity helps and that praying will equally lead to the result of getting good marks.     

If two friends in the above example both pray and go to a party, then they both probably fail.   If both study hard, they can succeed.   But if one friend spends 10 minutes in prayer and then attempts to instigate the other, who wants to study, to go partying instead, then they have a conflict.   

This example may be a bit too extreme, but it illustrates, how a conflict cannot be solved by a compromise, because as a conflict of premises, there is only the dichotomous choice between gullibility and consequencity.   Tolerance also does not serve.   If one disrespects the other as an irrational fool for praying instead of studying, and the other pities the non-believer for lack of faith, tolerance only covers fundamental differences.   

Therefore the real challenge in resolving conflicts is the difficult task of ascertaining to really use the same premises for behavior.  This can only be done by constructive communication.  There cannot be viable compromises while remaining ignorant of each other's premises.    

I consider conflicts between gullibility and consequencity as not solvable (more in entry 358), but as a clear indication of incompatibility.    Only genuine needs as derived from traits with equal justification can be solved by compromise.    In contrast to the conflict between praying and studying, there is no question of right or wrong, there is no belief implied, when for example one partner prefers art exhibitions, the other movies as a leisure activity.    

To sum it up:   Conflicts can only be solved by communication about the premises.     

355. The Mind Messenger - Pooling Premises Mediation

The Mind Messenger - Pooling Premises Mediation

I am convinced, that when two partners in a relationship are mature, rational and sane and when they share

• the same relationship paradigm
• the same basic values and attitudes
• all information about the needs and feelings of the other

then it is possible to solve conflicts rationally by using logic upon the above information as premises.  

Solving a conflict is a two step process.   

• Step 1 is information collecting and pooling, until both share the same premises and both agree that no significant information is omitted.  
• Step 2 is using logic until either agreeing on a fair compromise or ending the relationship by consent as the result of incompatibility.

If by these two steps the conflict cannot be solved, then at least one of them either have some interfering personal psychological troubles or does not value the relationship enough to continue.   


The most common cause of a conflict is lacking information and the use different insufficient premises leads to conflicting conclusions.    Only someone aware of lacking information can ask and acquire it.    But if at leat one is using wrong information or is oblivious of lacking important information, then the conflict can become an impasse.     

This is often the consequence of the choice of a partner by physical infatuation in ignorance of compatibility or incompatibility.   
 
Reasons for using wrong or lacking information as insufficient premises of can for example be

• jumping to conclusions
• misunderstanding
• misinterpretations
• projecting
• previous experiences
• lack of introspection
• prejudice
• denial
• emotional reactions to the conflict

In the situation of such an impasse, people usually either fight over the same issues again and again, break up without being able to solve the problem or go to couple's counselling, which is aiming at far more drastic changes than filling the deficit of shared information.    

Help for only the first step of conflict solving does not exist.   This help could be called 'pooling premises mediation' and the mediator could be called a mind messenger.   I have experienced myself, how it is to talk to a wall, and in this situation I had wished I had a mind messenger to help me send the bouncing information to the other side of the wall.   

It is probable best to have one such mind messenger for each of the partners A and B.  That makes is easier to transfer the information unaltered.   Keeping two conflicting versions apart and remain impartial is difficult.   
The role of partner A's mind messenger is to decry all information from A, that needs to be added to the shared premises pool.

• General information like A's relationship paradigm, values, needs 
• A's unfulfilled needs and wishes 
• A's feedback, experience, perception, introspection, emotions in reaction to B's behavior
• A's rational evaluation of B's behavior 
• All other information, which A considers important to be known by B. 

The mind messenger checks carefully to have understood the information correctly, before he then explains it to B.  He also checks carefully, if B has really understood everything.    It has to be very clear for B, that the mind messenger reports impartial information about A, without any own opinion or attempt to influence B.   The information has to be accepted by B as valid to be integrated into the premises pool.       

A mind messenger to help pooling premises does not need as much qualifications as a counsellor.  His job is to impartially collect and correctly transfer information and nothing else.  Any person, who is able to listen and understand, think logically and explain in patience, can fulfill this role.    

If this form of mediation does not lead to an agreed upon premises pool, which is good enough for the second step of agreeing how to solve the conflict, then it is time for either counselling or for ending the relationship.   
In addidtion to rationality and maturity, the only requirements from both partners are motivation, cooperation, compliance with the procedure and recognition of the underlying principle of the premises pool.    

330. Homeostasis and Compatibility

Homeostasis and Compatibility

When people experience dishomeostasis, it is an unpleasant state of discomfort, which causes urges, drives and compulsions to restore homeostasis.    Homeostasis is a neutral state.  
The process of restoring homeostasis is called homeostation.     Attempting to change from the neutral state to a state of pleasure, joy or bliss is not homeostation.   

Focusing in this entry on homeostasis does not in any way deny the importance of a couple sharing fun, joy, pleasure, bliss or any form of happy feelings as an additional benefit of a relationship.   But homeostasis is needed as the base line.   No matter, how much pleasure and joy a man may bring to a woman, there is a disruption, as long as he also causes her dishomeostasis.    A couple needs to first create homeostasis for both partners, before they can start attempts to add happiness to it.

Dishomeostasis disturbs, disrupts or disabled other motivations, interests, perceptions, behaviors, even morals.  
An example.   A very hungry person has difficulties to focus the attention on processing any information like reading or communicating.   Hungry people steal or become cannibals in extreme situation.   A person, who is not hungry, is capable to rationally decide at any moment, if he prefers to spend money on food or on a book or a concert ticket.  

Homeostation can be:

1. painful:
   Being freed from tooth ache requires the painful treatment by the dentist.
2. neutral
   Headache can be ended by taking a painkiller.
   In the case of an addiction, what previously caused pleasure, only reduces the suffering of withdrawal.
3. pleasant
   Eating is usually experienced as pleasure.
   Solving puzzles, a good book or a movie are reducing the dishomeostasis of curiosity and need for information.
4. stressing
   When someone ends a situation of danger by flight or fight, this reduced the dishomeostasis of fear.
   When two persons solve a conflict by communication, this improves the relationship, but can cause a lot of stress.

I claim:
One requirement for compatibility of a couple is the successful homeostation for both partners.  
Two persons are incompatible, when there are unsolvable conflicts between their homeostations.    

A compatible couple shares activities, that serve the homeostation of both and fulfill the relationship needs of both.   The homeostation of only one partner is of no or of little cost to the other.   
It is banal to mention, that eating together, physical contact and enjoying a good movie together and communicating about everything enhances shared homeostasis.    Also it is obvious, that the homeostation by visiting a dentist or by taking a pain killer is not interfering with the other.   Spending time with differing hobbies and interests can also be neutral, if it is balanced, not expensive and based upon agreement, like for example when one wants to go jogging and the other prefers to read a book.  

An incompatible couple has conflicts, because either the homeostation of one partner causes dishomeostation of the other or they compete over limited resources for the homeostation of either of them.   One partner is not able to supply the other's homeostasis by fulfilling the relationship needs.   
Example 1:   A man has a costly and dangerous hobby, like riding a motorcycle or climbing Mount Everest.   For him as a thrill seeker, this reduces his need for stimulation and is homeostation.   But it creates dishomeostasis in a woman, if she is someone, for whom it creates fears and worries, while she needs the homeostasis of feeling safe with a man, who is reliably there for her.    It also is a competition for money, which she wants to invest in something else, that reduces her fears, like having her own car to be safe when working late at night.   
Example 2:  A woman wants a monogamous relationship.  A man wants a form of polygamy, either by cheating on her or by continued contact with exes.    If he is driven by his instincts towards the other women, this is his homeostation, which causes dishomeostasis in the woman, who wants to have mutual exclusivity.  
Example 3:  One partner has the need of the emotional homeostasis of harmony by resolving conflicts by communication.    The other wants the harmony of avoiding conflicts.    For one partner, the attempt to communicate is the attempt of homeostation, which is causing dishomeostasis in the other.   For the other partner, the avoidance to communicate is an attempt of homeostation, which is causing dishomeostasis in the other.   

Homeostation conflicts can only be avoided by a wise choice of a partner.  

1. The partner has the same needs, interests and hobbies, so that the main homeostation in the relationship is by shared activities.
2. The relative importance of a relationship compared with other aspects of life is about the same for both partners. 
   

   2.1.  The partner is someone, for whom being a partner in a relationship is of vital importance.   He is someone, for whom the relationship, the partner have priority over anything else.  He resolves conflicts in favor of the relationship and experiences this not as a sacrifice, but as the fair return for the benefits of being together.  
   In my examples above, a wise choice for a woman like me is to avoid a man, who needs his dangerous hobbies, who needs his exes and who does not value the relationship enough to invest time and stress to resolve problems by communication.   

   2.2.   Equally for both, the partner is only of minor importance. 
   For example, if only one partner has children, then the homeostation of the partner, who is emotionally addicted to the contact with the bearers of his genes, reduces the place available for a partner in his life.    For a childfree partner, this creates dishomeostasis in the relationship need of being important.   But when both have children, there is a balance, because both get their homeostasis from their offspring and do not expect it from a partner.

3. The partner is aware of his own individual dishomeostasis and of the effect of it upon others.  
   
   
   

  

292. Poofing and Dumping

Poofing and Dumping

Once I was contacted on a dating site by a German, who had emigrated to some far away country as a young man and was considering returning to Germany.    I exchanged a few emails with him.   I got suspicious that he may be a new 'reincarnation' of someone else under a different name, whom I had been in contact with.  Therefore I googled my new contact, I will call him C.    I found a touching appeal of a distressed woman, asking if anybody has any information about a man with the name of C.   

I talked with the woman on the phone.  She told me the story.   C. had been staying with her for a few weeks.   When he left to return to his home, he disappeared into thin air at the place of a stopover.    She never heard from him again.   She wrote him emails, tried to call his land line and his cell phone, wrote him SMS, but he never replied.    She was so worried, that some accident could have happened, that she even contacted the embassies.   
We compared notes and she had no doubt, that my new contact was her C.    At that time I shared her impression, that he was an extreme but rare case of a jerk.  By now I have got aware, that such jerks are unfortunately by far not as rare. The behavior has even a name, it is called poofing and others have told their stories on dating forums.
  
Dumping is principally similar to poofing, but at least the jerk spares the woman to worry about him, as he declares to her in some short but unambiguous way, that he has no intention to continue the relationship.   He prefers email, SMS or maybe the phone, but usually does not bother to have a personal talk about his reasons.  He decides to dump, and the dumped woman has no influence upon his decision. 
As long as the contact is platonic, I do not call it dumping.  While two persons are still attempting to find out, if they are compatible enough, each has still the moral right to decide not to enter a relationship.   But as soon as they are intimately involved, ending a relationship, that both had agreed to enter, by dumping is cruel, brutal, and a very serious moral transgression.   

I consider poofing and dumping as the logical consequence of the spreading of the emotional plague of promiscuity as a socially accepted behavior and a social norm in modern western cultures.    (More about this in entry 104, Promiscuity is Emotional Psychopathy and entry 101, Promiscuity is a Scourge of Humanity.)  
Men have always been afflicted by an instinctive urge to promiscuously use women's bodies.   But as long as monogamy was considered the social norm and the only morally acceptable way to maintain sexual homeostasis, men usually had at least the theoretical knowledge, that using a woman's body without commitment is doing emotional harm to her.  
Since the fatal so called sexual liberation, unfortunately that knowledge has been widely lost.    Today even men, who want to be good, caring and responsible men, have the fatal delusion, that if they use a woman's body for a night without being personally affected and forgetting her the next day, the woman experiences it the same way.  They are oblivious of the harm done.  This delusion causes serious damage to women, poofing and dumping is part of it.  

Poofing and dumping men are either ignorant or unconcerned by a lack of any conscience, that when a decent and sensitive woman allows them the intimacy of her body, she entrusts her dignity to him, she trusts him, that she is valued as a bonded partner and not degraded to be used only as a body and a commodity.   She trusts, that by taking possession of her body, he accepts his obligations and responsibility.   

1.  As long as they are not physically involved, he is responsible to be guided by the usual rules of correct behavior between true friends.   But by getting intimately involved, he is responsible for not hurting her dignity and her feelings.   He is responsible for every pain she suffers as a result of being with him, if he uses, devalues, degrades her to be a commodity at his convenience and not an equal partner in intrinsic commitment.    He is responsible not only for what he does deliberately, but also for what he does accidently.    He is responsible for everything experienced by her as a result of becoming intimate.    A decent and mature man, who does not want this responsibility, has the moral obligation to abstain from getting involved. 

2.  His obligations from physical intimacy are to do anything possible to make the relationship work.    If he feels an impulse to end the relationship, his duty is self-control over his impulse, his duty is to communicate with the woman about his impulse and to give her a fair chance to influence the reasons for his impulse.   

• There can be a misunderstanding, that can be cleared. 
• There can be a conflict, that can be solved by a compromise. 
• He can have a personal or psychological problem, for which he needs to ask and accept her support.

In short, he owes the woman a chance for a shared decision based upon an agreement.  The agreement can either be the decision to continue the relationship as a result of his making efforts to change his reasons for his impulse, so that he wants himself to continue the relationship.    Else he owes her to communicate until she is convinced herself, that it is also better for her to end the relationship.   

Physical intimacy creates both partner's duty to stay together, until they both agree to end the relationship.    Of course, the intention or agreement to end the relationship can be expressed peacefully and decently by direct communication, or it can be expressed indirectly by committing a very grave moral transgression.    A man, who cheats, implicitly agrees to end the relationship, even though it is not his conscious intention.    Not cheating was an implicit or explicit part of the relationship deal.   Breaking the deal is an implicit intention to end the relationship.     That means, that when  the victim of  a serious transgression decides to end the relationship, this is not dumping but agreeing to the end a relationship already destroyed by the transgression. 

The man, who dumps the woman, only superficially and technically ends the relationship by leaving her.   In her experience, the end of the relationship is really caused by his serious moral transgression of forcing his disrespectful solitary decision upon her instead of communicating for an agreement.  This destroys her trust and therefore the foundation of the relationship.  

The jerk, who dumps a woman in search of a better commodity, but who believes in the back of his mind, that she will be available to be hoovered back at his convenience (entry 285), is not aware, that his behavior is a serious moral transgression.    The woman, who allows to be hoovered back, has been desensitized to feel appropriate outrage.   

It is not only sad and unfortunate, that so many jerks, psychopaths and emotional morons consider promiscutiy, dumping and poofing as acceptable behavior, it is even more sad, that many women have lost the perspective of what is acceptable behavior, they have been desensitized to consider being dumped as bad luck and not as an outrage.   They believe that entering a relationship is accepting the risk of being dumped like being out in a thunderstorm and risking to be hit and hurt by a flash.   Therefore too many women allow to be hoovered back by worthless psychopaths.

284. Trust

Trust

A bonded relationship with intrinsic commitment is based upon mutual trust and trustworthiness.    This requires two partners, who both are able and motivated to make the fair balance of giving and receiving the basis of the relationship.   
Trust implies, that one partner can tell his true innermost feelings to the other and the other will never use this knowledge for selfish purposes.   
Trust implies, that one partner can influence the other in constructive communication to treat him the way he needs to be treated. 


1.  There is no trust, when two persons do not know each other well enough and are not interested or bothered to do so, because they both limit the relationship to be superficial and physical, like being friends with benefits and other arrangements for convenience based upon physical infatuation.    But the lack of trust is not a problem, if it is by consent.  

2.  There is no trust, when there is a power struggle or domination, and it is a tragic problem.  
In a power struggle, both are fighting to get, what they subjectively believe, that they are entitled to get.   
In domination, one had the better weapons and has established a hierarchy of power.

A power struggle can happen:
2.1.  When someone like a narcissist has the delusion to be entitled to special privileges and is not aware, that this impedes the other from getting a fair balance of giving and receiving.  
2.2.  When two persons have contradictory needs and are not aware of it.   They both believe to rightfully struggle to get a fair deal from someone appearing to claim onesided privileges.

The power struggle ends either with ending the relationship or:
1.  When the narcissist has established his domination and is able to apply his power to press his all his needs out of the subdued victim.    
2.  They gain mutual awareness of each other's needs and find a compromise to fulfill them and establish a trusting relationship.

Dynamics: 
A jerk or psychopath establishes domination, because he knows, that he is not trustworthy and that no woman in her right mind would trust him and accept her role in his life as to be used and abused.   For him, domination is the only way to have a relationship to fulfill all his needs and privileges, that he feels entitled to.   He knows, that with trust, he cannot get this.

A sane and mature man knows, that he cannot have a committed relationship without trust, and he attempts to build trust.   If he cannot trust a woman, he does not get involved with her.

An emotional moron does not know, what trust means.   He also does not know, where and when his selfish needs curtail the equally justified and valid needs of others. 

As a consequence, he believes, that every relationship is a power struggle, and that he can only get his needs fulfilled, if he is able to become the dominating male in a relationship and to limit the subdued woman's allegedly selfish taking advantage of him.  
An emotional moron is someone, who believes in his privileges as he believes, that the woman's purpose and even own wish is to serve his needs at his convenience.   He enforces domination in full oblivion of the woman's perception of it being abuse, he enforces domination as establishing, what he believes as correct.    An emotional moron believes in sincerity, that a woman exists for his convenience, as I have explained in entry 282.   He sincerely believes, that there is something wrong with a woman, if she resists to serve his convenience.   Logically, every woman, who insists to be a partner and to get a fair balance of giving and receiving, is considered as warranting to be forced into her right place by domination.  

An emotional moron is pathetic figure stuck in a dead end.    He is caught in his false belief of an entitlement to so many selfish onesided privileges in a relationship, that no mature woman in her right mind will ever concede them to him as justified.   He projects his own selfish entitlement of privileges onto her and believes, that if he does not struggle, he will get nothing.    

==> Every attempt he makes to have a relationship leads automatically in a struggle, when the woman defends herself against his unjustified claims of entitlements.   
==> Due to his belief, that without struggling he gets nothing, he never yields, when a woman struggles in self-defense.   Thus he can never experience, how much he would get without struggling for more, if instead he would take, what the woman gives him deliberately.  
==> Being deprived of the experience of how much of value he can get without struggling, he is unable to correct his unrealistic and unjustified expectation.   He cannot learn, what expectations are fair enough to get them from a woman without struggling and domination.  

He has no chance to learn, what is a fair deal, and he cannot learn to trust a woman to get a fair deal from her.  

277. Bonded Love

Bonded Love
My purpose for writing this blog is to find my mindmate to spend the rest of my life with.   But I hardly ever use the word love.    Love is such a fuzzy, evasive word.  It has too many different meanings under different circumstances and for different people.

Love is a word like weather, which can mean sunshine, rain or storm.   

People call it love, when they mena

• infatuation with a body
• attraction to benefits
• the closeness to a sibling
• the addiction of a parent to care unconditionally for a selfish, even unworthy child
• the adulation for a person far out of the own league or out of reach
• the attraction to a delusional entity like a deity   

And it can be the emotional expression and perception of intrinsic commitment.    That is, why I prefer to talk of intrinsic commitment as what I am looking for and not of the love that comes along with it.    I could talk of love and implicitly imply, that intrinsic commitment comes along with the kind of love that I want.  But this would not be obvious.    

For the purpose of clarity, I will call it 'bonded love'. 

When a man tells a woman, that he loves her, this statement by itself conveys very little information.   It tells only, that he has a reason for wanting to interact with her.  What kind of love he feels can only be inferred indirectly from the way he behaves and treats her as a result of his attitude towards her.     

There are several indications, if a man feels bonded love or not:

1. Trust
   With bonded love, a trusting man shares his innermost feelings and expects support but never any bad consequences or selfish motives.
2. Esteem
   If a man in bonded love makes a mistake in his evaluation of his beloved, he overestimates her by worshipping the ground she walks on, but he does not underestimate her.  
3. Care
   He cares for her wellbeing at least as much as for his own.   He feels even driven to make sacrifices for her, for which she does not ask at all.   He only feels good and happy, if it is the same for her.  
4. Unit
   He has the identity of being half of a unit.    He cooperates with her to make the relationship as beneficial as possible for both of them together. 
5. Importance
   She is an important part of his life.  
6. Affection
   Affection is an ingredient of bonded love.   Affection is usually noticeable in the tone of the voice, facial expression, body language and gestures.  

Just as in science, a woman can suspect, that a man's love is not bonded.   She cannot prove the absence of bonded love.    But when a man claims to have bonded love for her, she can disprove his claim, if she experiences the evidence of behavior, that contradicts the above list of indications. 

An example of such evidence is a man's use of rage and intimidation to bully a woman to do or to allow, what he wants, but what is unpleasant, annoying, uncomfortable or painful for her. 

This is a clear disproof of a claim of bonded love, if he has made such a claim.   Otherwise it is a disproof of her assumption of  his declared love being bonded love.   She cannot really know, what the word love means to him, therefore she cannot disproof the claim of love by his own definition.

1. Lack of Trust
   He does not trust her, that she is motivated to be fair and caring.  He does not trust her to compromise based upon a consideration for his needs as equally valid to hers.   
2. Lack of Esteem
   He has not enough esteem for her to honor her with rational communication until she is convinced, that they have solved a conflict in a fair way.   
3. Lack of Care
   He does not care for her needs, she is a tool for the purpose to fulfill his.   
4. Not a Unit
   He perceives and considers himself as a single man competing and struggling with her to get selfish benefits..   He wants to gain power to ascertain his control over the benefits.   
5. Lack of Importance
   She is not important enough to convince her of what he wants, by bullying he can procure it faster and with less effort.
6. Lack of Affection
   When a man says 'I love you' and 'I love peanut butter' in exactly the same way, this most probably means, that he has no affection for the woman.  

I am looking for bonded love as a logical side effect of intrinsic commitment, and I do not take words for it, if  contradicted by behavior.   

But I am always willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt.    It is possible, that I experience a man's behavior as bullying, and he has no clue of the impact of his behavior upon me.   Then it is a conflict that needs communication to solve it.    

If I after my explanation of why I felt bullied he still considers the bullying behavior as his entitlement, then this is the verification of the disproof of bonded love.  

If he acknowledges, that he made a mistake and needs to learn, how to treat me better in the future, then the conflict is solved and bonded love is not disproved.  

276. Needs, Habits, Consideration and the Relationship Deal

Needs, Habits, Consideration and the Relationship Deal
As already mentioned several times, a viable relationship is based upon fulfilling each other's relationship needs.   A relationship deal is an agreement about which needs each expects to be fulfilled as the purpose of having the relationship.   This also requires, that they agree about how much the fulfillment of every need costs the other.     This means that both partners evaluate, if they can principally fulfill all needs, and if the subjective costs of all the needs of the other are in proportion with what can be gained in return.

There are very different kinds of needs.   Some needs are

• practical, concrete and material, while others are emotional, abstract and immaterial.
• fulfilled by actively doing something, other needs are fulfilled by abstaining from doing something.
• very costly to fulfill, others are easily fulfilled or even cost nothing.
• simple, others are complex on different levels of abstraction.
• subjective and individual of the partner, other needs are based upon general obligations or consideration between decent and civilized humans.

1.  Subjective and individual needs:

Examples:

1.1.  A man snores horribly, whenever he drinks alcohol.    The woman has the need to sleep undisturbed by the snoring, so she asks him not to drink alcohol in the evening.  
This is a practical need.  It is a need for abstaining.  It costs him something, how much depends on how much he needs to drink something to relax, assuming that he is not an alcoholic.   

1.2.  A woman has the need to share as much as possible.   She wants to share activities, this is a practical need.   She wants to share decisions, this is an emotional need.  On the practical level, when money is limited, an important shared decision is the question, what to spend money on.    For example, she wants to spend money on vacations together.   
This is a material need.   Going on a vacation is an action.   The subjective cost can be high or low, this depends on how much the man feels deprived of having more money for personal purposes like buying an expensive car for himself.
It is also an emotional need.   Sharing and consulting her before every decision, that has consequences and any impact upon both her, is an expression of respect, of appreciation, of equality, of closeness, of being important enough to be included in his life.      
It costs him nothing, if he is bonded and sharing is also for him a basis of the relationship.    It is a very costly need, if he is someone considering himself as entitled to dominate.       

2.  The need for the partner's acceptance of his obligation to overcome disturbing habits.

Example:

A man has bad habits like using the f-word or burping, and this disturbs the woman.   When the woman asks him to stop those habits, it is not expressing a need in the sense of a favor to please her.    Overcoming disturbing bad habits is an obligation of politeness and civility.   This obligation is a part of commitment.  

It is important to be explicit in the relationship deal about the obligation to overcome bad habits and to agree, which behaviors are bad habits and which are to be accepted and tolerated as the partner's basic rights to be himself.      

3.  Considerations

Considerations means fulfilling individual needs of the partner, that cost nothing but are important her.
  
Example:

A woman dislikes everything Teutonic, because she associates it with the Nazi history and Auschwitz, and this includes names like Kriemhild (more in entry 186).  She has a strong aversion to be called by such a name.   
Not hearing the name is an emotional need of hers, which costs him nothing to fulfill.    It is an act of consideration.   Considerations are similar to overcoming bad habits, they are included in politeness and civility and therefore a part of the relationship deal.   


When a man fulfills all the woman's needs, that he has accepted in the relationship deal, and when he shows the civility to fight his bad habits and when he has considerations for her, then she can interpret this as an expression of his caring for, respecting, appreciating and valuing her. 

But if the men in my examples continue to drink in the evening, buy a car without consulting her, consider burping and calling her Kriemhild as their entitlement, then this expresses something fundamentally deficient in the relationship.    All these behaviors are clear indications of disrespect, depreciation and lack of caring.    By denying her her needs, civility and consideration, he denies her her most basic emotional need of being treated and perceived as a cherished equal valued and cared for partner.   

If the man appreciates her, and he fails to do something, that she rightfully expects, then he welcomes her feedback as a reminder for him to do, what he wants to do or feels an obligation to do.
But if the man depreciates her, and he fails to do something, that she rightfully expects, then he perceives her feedback as unwarranted criticizing and even as nagging.       

Therefore, the relationship deal and all agreements of a couple need to be carved in stone for both of them, until and unless they both agree unequivocally to change it.   Otherwise the relationship is doomed.   

274. Men's Worst Urban Legend - 1

Men's Worst Urban Legend - 1

There is an urban legend between men:   When a woman says no, she means yes.   

 
I as a woman consider a man, who consciously believes this, as a moron.  If his behavior is determined by this belief, while he consciously believes to respect a woman, he is an emotional moron.   He is too immature and stupid to understand, what this belief really means and implies.   

If a man does not take a woman's statements for serious, he does not take her for serious, he does not respect her at all, he does not perceive or consider her as an equal.   

It is not only an outrage of disrespect, but it also impedes any solution of conflicts and any healthy development, if a woman makes a statement, and the man cannot be influenced by her statement and continues to behave, as if she had never even opened her mouth or as if she has said something very different or even the contrary.   Constructive communication requires both partners to react verbally and in their behavior as precisely as possible to what the other really says and does.   

When a woman says 'no', a mature and decent man, who respects her as an equal person, accepts it as a 'no'.    He has the choice to leave it as this and not insist any further, or to ask her, what he can do to gain her 'yes'.   After she has told him her conditions, he either accepts to comply or he acknowledges her 'no' as valid and final.  

Emotional morons, who never take a woman's statements for serious, are usually clueless about the emotional consequences of this.    A woman with self-respect and self-esteem expects to be respected and taken for serious as an equal partner.    Asking a man, if he respects her as an equal is not enough to find out the truth.   An emotional moron my sincerely believe to respect her, even if he does not.    His true amount of respect or lack of respect can only be experienced by his behavior in reaction to her statements.    When a man takes her statements for serious, this indicates that he takes her for serious.  
When being respected as an equal is a woman's crucial need in a relationship, every experience of the man's disrespect hurts her very much.    But the emotional moron has no clue, that his disregard of her statements hurts her at all.   

There are several kinds of how an emotional moron hurts a woman by his disrespect

1. She says no, and he behaves, as if she had said yes.   She says something, and he behaves, as if she had said something different or the contrary.    She says something, and he does not react, as if he were deaf.
2. She tells him her condition, when he wants something from her.   He continues to pursue his demand as if she had never told him her condition.
3. He accepts a condition or agrees to fulfill a need of her.   He does not comply, but he feels not as if he is breaking a promise or breaking his word, because he just did not take her statement for serious, that the condition or the need were really something of vital importance to her.   He believes his breaking a promise as omitting an insignificant trivial.    He had mistaken her condition for a suggestion.
4. She asks a man not to do or not to repeat some painful, disturbing or annoying behavior.   He continues the same behavior as if she had not said anything.    He even continues the behavior after she has asked him dozens of times to stop.
5. He does not believe her statement of feeling pain, when she attributes the pain to his behavior.
6. When he accepts her statement of feeling pain, he refuses to accept her attribution, that his behavior was the cause.   He denies her to have a sound judgement to perceive, consider or define his behavior as inappropriate in her subjective reality.  
7. He does not react, when she attempts to convince him of something with rationality and logic.   He does not attempt to convince her.   Her agreement and consent are irrelevant and insignificant for him, he does, what he wants, no matter what she thinks about it.   If he is able to interact rationally and logically, he reserves this to those persons, whom he respects, while he dominates the woman.    Respect impedes domination.    Domination is an expression of disrespect.
8. When he dislikes her behavior, he begrudges her without any reaction to, consideration of or interest in her explanations of her reasons, her perceptions, her needs, her subjective reality.   He considers only his own subjective reality as valid, but he does not concede any value to her subjective reality.
9. His disrespectful opinion and attitude translates whatever she says automatically into something, that confirms his prejudice of her.   While his ear hears the sound of a 'no', his mind receives 'yes' as the expected message.   
10. He himself does not honor others by expressing his true meaning in his own statements.   He makes statements verbally or by his actions, but he does not really mean, what he expresses and he projects his own game on others.    He sometimes says 'no' but wants the other to take it for a 'yes' and assumes the same from a woman.    He sometimes expresses things for the purpose of extorting and manipulating.    He projects this on the woman.

I am a woman, who says, what she means and means, what she says.   If a man is not able to take my statements as true at face value and myself for serious, then he cannot be my mindmate. 

273. Subjective Reality - 1

Subjective Reality - 1

A bonded intrinsic committed relationship implies, that both partners share a common reality.   

The conflicts of my examples in the entries 271 and 272 are extreme situations, because one partner is an emotional moron.   But those examples illustrate the extreme situation, when each partner in a relationship has a different reality, is ignorant of the reality of the other, either denies the existence of the reality of the other or rejects it as unsuitable for himself to adapt and compromise.    The meaning of the shared realities of mature people will be the topic of another entry.

The woman's reality is based upon her value system, that having a physical relationship is inseparably connected with sharing and intrinsic commitment, and that from the beginning of physical intimacy on, both have mutual obligations to each other.  One of these obligation is to consult each other and share decisions and never ever force solitary decisions upon the other.    Her reality is determined by her strong sensitivity for abstract and complex emotions like dignity, respect, equality, humiliation and such.
In the man's reality determined by his impaired abstract thinking, every woman in a relationship is a friend with benefits, if there is not marriage, and if he accepts any obligation, it is the one not to cheat.   He has no doubt, that he is justificed to decide alone, because he is a single man and therefore she is not a part of his life, but only a peripheral addition to it.    

Every time, when he imposes a solitary decision upon her without consulting her, she feels extremely hurt, while he believes to be a good man doing nothing wrong.   

In the worst case, they both are clueless about each other's reality.  They both project their own reality upon the other and take it for granted, that the other has the same reality.  Therefore they have wrong expectations of each other.
She is extremely hurt, because she perceives his behavior as betrayal and she considers him as a jerk, as selfish and abusive.    He is annoyed about her incomprehensible behavior, because he cannot understand, that she has reacted in a logical way to his behavior.    The visible behavior of a person can be immediately understandable as the pain and outrage after having been hurt, while it would appear puzzling and weird to someone ignorant of her pain.

This couple has reached an impasse and a dead end.    Each other's behavior based upon the subjective reality is hurting or disturbing, and neither of them knows why.   

Theoretically, they could either both become friends with benefits, or both become committed.    But this is not a real solution.  

Even when the woman has enough insight to find out, that he is an emotional moron and not a jerk, and that he does not intent to hurt her due to having not the slightest comprehension, that and why she feels hurt, and even if she can see, that in his way of thinking, there is no commitment without marriage, this does not mean, that becoming a friend with benefits is emotionally an option for her.   She would only exchange one extreme pain, that of being disrespected and betrayed by the refusal to be a partner in making decisions, with the other extreme pain of hurting her dignity and self-respect by allowing a man to use her body without giving her the respect of commitment.    She would jump from the frying pan into the fire.  
Therefore she is trapped in a relationship, that will always be painful.  

In entry 272 I described the mechanisms, how the emotional moron with impaired abstract thinking is trapped by his own impairment and immune to being influenced by the woman.    With the man described there, the relationship is doomed, he will never stop to hurt her without knowing, what he does.     He is moron variety A, who lacks trust and who attributes failure to others rather than to himself.  

But there can be a different kink of the emotional moron with impaired abstract thinking, I will call him variety B.  

• He fully trusts the woman and takes at face value, what she says.
• He acknowledges his limitation in understanding her abstract way of thinking and feeling.  
• She is very important to him and he acknowledges and admits it.

Moron A is convinced not to do anything wrong, and attributes all her incomprehensible behavior to her flaws.   What he does not know, does not exist.    He does not trust her.   Whatever she says, he doubts it, because he suspects her of having a hidden agenda of attempting to take advantage and dominate him.  He thinks that she exaggerates as a part of her agenda.  When she attempts to tell him, that she feels very hurt by his behavior, he reinterprets this as if she said that she feels a tiny bit uncomfortable.   But most of the time he is not bothered to listen at all, because from a flawed person he does not expect anything worth listening.     That is, why he cannot help it but to start the spiral of causing her more and more pain and interpreting her more and more devastated behavior as her being more and more flawed.

Moron B is very different.   He has accepted that his impairment makes it sometimes very difficult to understand people's abstract and complex reasoning and emotions.    He is aware that he has the problem and needs supportive people to explain things to him with patience.    He acknowledges, that her reality is sometimes different from his, because of her abstract and his concrete thinking.    He does not blame his failure on others, he does not project his own deficit on the woman as her flaw.  
When she tells him, that she feels pain, because he had excluded her from the decision, he takes this at face value.  He accepts, what she tells him, without doubting it, even though he takes being friends with benefits so much for granted, that he himself also does not expect from her to consult him prior to a decision.    He neither doubts the magnitude or her pain nor that he is the cause, even though he did not intend it.    He is willing to take responsibility.
He attempts to understand her explanations, but even if he cannot, he asks her, what she expects him to do.   He does not want to cause her pain.    He is an emotional moron and his abstraction ability is impaired, but caring for her is important for him.   He cares for her wellbeing without projecting, and due to his being limited by concrete thinking, his guidance in caring is her feedback, what of his conduct is good and what is painful for her.  
If he does not understand, what betrayal, commitment, obligation, responsibility mean in the world of abstract thinking, then he just asks her for instructions of how to treat her.    In this example, they can agree on a simple rule, that whenever there is something to decide, they talk about it first and that he never decides anything without consulting her.  Slowly, rule by rule, he can learn to behave exactly like a committed partner, even though he cannot understand the abstract concept of intrinsic commitment.   
This can work, but only, if he entrusts himself without restrictions and hesitations to her guidance. 

Not all emotional morons are doomed to remain alone or drive a woman into despair, but when they have the additional affliction of narcissism and distrust, then it means disaster for the woman.  

272. Emotional Morons and Impaired Abstract Thinking - 2

Emotional Morons and Impaired Abstract Thinking - 2

This is a continuation of entry 271.

2.  The emotional moron with the abstract thinking impairment cannot be influenced

A mature and decent persons acts responsible, when

• he is aware of the effect of his action upon others, because he has either noticed it himself or he perceives information
• he attributes the effect upon another as the consequence of his own action
• he agrees, that the effect upon the other was not appropriate
• he makes amends
• he changes his behavior, if it was not an accident

Like everybody else, an emotional moron with concrete thinking can take responsibility for practical actions.  
If he looses a borrowed book or damages the neighbour's fence, he is able to take responsibility and make amends for the damage.   

But the situation of the two examples in entry 271 is different.  

• In the first example, the women experiences pain, because she perceives some behavior of the man as embarrassing.   She feels additional pain, because she feels betrayed by his broken promise to never embarrass her.  
• In the second example, the women experiences the pain of being devalued by being excluded from the man's solitary decision imposed upon her, and she experiences the solitary decision as a betrayal from a man, who has appeared to enter commitment.  

In both examples, the man has a clean conscience of subjectively not having done anything wrong.    He has no clue, that he is embarrassing her, and he feels entitled to behave like a single friend with benefits.    But the woman is extremely hurt.  

If the woman looses her countenance in a visible way, he is sincerely puzzled, what is happening to her.    He is unable to see any connection whatsoever between his conduct and her reaction.  He experiences it not as a logical reaction, but as a weird behavior.  He has bluffed himself into believing to know, how to treat a woman.    He firmly believes, that there is neither anything wrong with him, nor that he has done anything wrong.    Logically, he takes no responsibility at all for her incomprehensible state.

As for the emotional moron, who he is, he can think of only one possible explanation for her apparently weird demeanor.  He starts to believe, that there is something wrong, flawed and deranged with the woman.    

She is alone with her pain, she cannot get support from the man, who hurts her, but whom she had chosen as someone to support her in the safe haven, that the relationship was meant to be.  
But there is no safe haven, not support, no amends, not change of behavior from him.   When he embarrasses her the next time, when he forces his next solitary decision upon her, she gets worse, because the new pain just adds to the old pain, that could not heal without his cooperation.   The stronger her pained reaction, that he is unable to understand, the more he considers her as flawed and the spiral of deterioration of the relationship has started to turn.

If the woman's pain is not visible on the outside, if she has the self-control to stay calm but feels a need to avoid a repetition of his painful behavior and attempts to talk about it, he is unable to understand, what she means.    Since he firmly believes, that there is nothing wrong with him and that he has done nothing wrong, he perceives her incomprehensible feedback as distorted thinking, unwarranted criticizing, and her repeated attempts to discuss the topic as nagging.    In this case too, the spiral of deterioration start to turn, when he blames it on her flaws, if she continues to insist to communicate and solve the conflict.   

As explained in entry 271, if an emotional moron with impaired abstract thinking has a very good memory, he is able to compensate his impairment by memorizing so much of other people's thoughts, including advice how to treat women, that he can bluff himself and others to appear intelligent and able to think abstractly.   But of course, when women get to know him better, they do notice that they cannot get the kind of communication they want and they reject him.    Getting rejected by women but not knowing why, he is prone to react by becoming a narcissist.  

The woman's situation, when the man cannot understand her pain, even though he has caused it, is bad enough, when she attempts to make a non-narcissistic emotional moron aware, that she needs his cooperation to improve the relationship.    But if he is a narcissist, then the situation is even worse, because as a narcissist, he already has the belief, that a woman is inferior.    Her incomprehensible reaction of pain is not only perceived by him as indicating a limited flaw.   For the narcissist, it is one more piece of additional evidence enhancing his belief in her inferiority and the justification of his domination.     


To sum it up.    An emotional moron with the impairment of abstract thinking does not know, how to treat a woman, but he believes that he does.   He can not be influenced by the woman to learn, how to treat her.    If she gets harmed by his behavior, he considers it as her flaw.