653. Different Approaches To The Process Towards Knowing Someone Better

653.   Different Approaches To The Process Towards Knowing Someone Better

With whom to spend the rest of the life together is a very significant decision.  Mistakes can have very grave, long lasting, irreversible and extreme painful consequences.   

In entries 174, 176, 178 and 185 I developed a model for the process of getting to know each other.    The decision phase in entry 174 can be further divided.  
The preliminary phase is the phase of corresponding and talking over the phone to find out, if there is enough in common to rationally justify a personal meeting, the main decision phase follows the first meeting and includes further meetings.  

The duration of a phase includes a certain number x of hours of time spent by focusing the attention upon interacting by telephone, correspondence and even pondering over the prospects.   These x hours can be distributed over many months of only a short time daily or even weekly, or they can be spent with priority during a short period of time of intensive and extensive interacting.     
 

The more someone is an individual and not average, the more difficult it is to find someone suitable.  Therefore these phases, especially the preliminary phase, are usually repeated with several or even many different possible matches, before two persons find each other suitable enough for considering and attempting a relationship.   

There are principally two different approaches towards how to proceed:

The reciprocal absolute-cooperative approach: 

Goal:
 

This approach has the goal of finding just the one partner, who is minimally suitable for a relationship, but also sufficiently suitable to impede any further interest in others.   In this case, the most rational approach is to focus on only one intensive and extensive contact with one person at a time and to postpone considering and evaluating other contacts to after the possible failure.

Who:
 

The absolute approach suits and attracts those persons, who know themselves and their own needs well enough.  They are aware of what they are looking for in a partner and what they cannot accept.  

The absolute-cooperative approach only works, when two persons choose it as an option.  

Cooperation and consistency:
 

This approach is a form of cooperation.  Both share the task of discovering common ground and affinity and welcome finding them.   Every consent about any topic benefits both in getting them nearer to their goal, no matter if it is a trait, attitude, interest, habit, attribute.   The situation is transparent and to a certain degree reliable for both of them.   

No matter if the consent is more like tolerance by indifference or more like enthusiasm, as long as it is a consent between two persons, who want the consent, both can reasonably expect the other to be consistent.   Consent will not be easily converted into a reason for rejection out of the blue. 

Trust:
 

Growing reliable consent creates trust along with the growing probability of being compatible.   This reinforces and motivates to open up and to share more personal matters, which are also important for compatibility.   

Reinforcement:
 

Trust, consistency and discovering affinity and common ground reinforce the reasons for focusing upon exclusively this one possible match.  This then again reinforces the creation of trust and further affinity.

Emotional risk:
 

Every contact is of course emotionally risky.   But the risk of the absolute-cooperative approach is not so much the risk of an incomprehensible rejection.   It is mainly the risk of ending a contact by agreement because of discovering clearly defined lacking or intolerable traits and attributes.  By accepting someone's having rationally comprehensible criteria, an agreement of not meeting the criteria is not even really a rejection but the consent to be not compatible.  


The reciprocal relative-competitive approach:

Goal:
 

This approach has the goal of finding the best of all possible matches, not just one good match.   Nobody can really know, who is the best unless after having scrutinized every one of them.   As this cannot be done, every good match is considered with the doubt, that there could be a better match yet to be found.    The rational procedure for this goal is to prolong any phase and to explore and to compare many possible matches simultaneously.

Who:
 

The relative approach is often an expression of immaturity, ignorance, lacking self-awareness and having a limited theory of mind.   Some people enter the contact with haphazard persons without a clue about how little there is in common nor what they really want.  Some are attracted by looks, but beyond this they are not able to find out, what they do or do not want, unless and until they are confronted with it.  They only experience incompatibility by noticing the contrast in comparison with someone else.   They need to compare to find out, whom they want.  
Being vaguely discontented but not knowing why leads to a process of recurrently and endlessly probing, discarding and moving on attempting to find someone better.  They continue like this, as long as they are unable to decide, what and who is good enough for them.  

Whenever one person chooses the relative-competitive approach, the other has no choice to get anything else if preferred.

Competition and no consistency:
 

In the relative-competitive approach, there is not consistency.   Consent about a topic is not a reliable step forward towards a wider common ground, consent is only temporary and easily annihilated onesidedly, as soon as someone else appears to be better.   Being accepted or rejected does not depend primarily upon one's own traits and attributes, instead it depends at least as much upon those of competitors.   

These competitors are unknown powers in the background.   Ignoring both their number as well as their traits and attributes makes losing the other's consent by being compared with a successful competitor an unpredictable event coming out of the blue.    

When people are competing to get a job, they do know, that they are competing and they have some idea, what is required.  They have a clue about the qualities for being the best   This gives them a chance to attempt appearing as the best.

The person in the situation of competing against unknown competitors for an appealing partner is in a much less advantageous situation.   Due to not knowing anything about a potential match, there is no way to influence the comparison with others nor to attempt to appear being the best.  Who is perceived as better is determined by the lottery of who happens to be there to be compared.  

Trust:
 

When the rejection can come at any moment out of the blue and cannot be predicted, there is no reliable consistency.   This impedes trust.  The relative-competitive approach keeps contacts superficial and less personal.   The possibility of a rejection out of the blue does not motivate anybody to open up and get more personal.   

Reinforcement: 
 

The fragility of a contact adds to the maintenance of some mental distance.    Being prepared for a pending rejection at any time makes the own relative-competitive approach the most reasonable behavior.   If the rejection by the preference for someone else can happen at any time, then it is beneficial to also have other contacts to fall back upon.   The fragility and superficiality of the relative-competitive approach also reinforce it by preventing trust and closeness.   
 
Emotional risk. 
 

The main emotional risk is the unpredictability of a onesided incomprehensible rejection at any moment and for unknown reasons.   Having such a rejection imposed upon oneself without having any part in causing it is much more painful than an end by agreement.


When the situation is asymmetrical, then the person following or preferring the absolute-cooperative approach is the one having all the disadvantages.   

Jerks play games and pretend to follow also the absolute-cooperative approach, until they find the someone to prefer and then they reject the flabbergasted other out of the blue.  

When the situation is clear, the person with a preference for the absolute-cooperative approach has two options, either to recoil directly or to go along while also continuing to search, but not to find someone better but someone, who shares the preference for this approach.     

The relative-competitive approach is probably enhanced or rather aggravated by the social norm of the lifestyle in capitalistic countries, where people are encouraged and brainwashed towards consuming and discarding, towards the greed of wanting always more and always something better.    

When people are made to buy a better car, a better computer and a better cell phone every few months or years instead of using things until they break, then it is not really astonishing, that they generalize this consumers' attitude also to human relations. 

550. The Irrationality Of Diatribes In Personal Interactions

550.   The Irrationality Of Diatribes In Personal Interactions

Whenever I am the recipient of a diatribe or angry rant, I am puzzled about why people bother to approach me in this way, even though this is not a method to gain anything.   The last good example is a comment to entry 549.   

http://dictionary.reference.com

Diatribe
noun:  a bitter, sharply abusive denunciation, attack, or criticism:
Rant
noun:  ranting, extravagant, or violent declamation.
noun:  a ranting utterance.

The following is not about the benefits of people sharing the same grievances against any third party while being in harmony with each other, nor is it about someone finding relief by telling grievances to a sympathetic friend.   Many important social and political movements have been initiated by a few justified diatribes. 

It is about the irrationality of sending me diatribes by email or blog comments.    Such diatribes are as irrational as is the man's behavior in Watzlawick's story:

A man wants to hang a painting. He has the nail, but not the hammer. Therefore it occurs to him to go over to the neighbor and ask him to lend him his hammer. But at this point, doubt sets in. What if he doesn’t want to lend me the hammer? Yesterday he barely spoke to me. Maybe he was in a hurry. Or, perhaps, he holds something against me. But why? I didn’t do anything to him. If he would ask me to lend him something, I would, at once. How can he refuse to lend me his hammer? People like him make other people’s life miserable. Worst, he thinks that I need him because he has a hammer. This is got to stop ! And suddenly the guy runs to the neighbor’s door, rings, and before letting him say anything, he screams: “You can keep your hammer, you bastard.” (Paul Watzlawick, “The Situation Is Hopeless But Not Serious: The Pursuit of Unhappiness”)

There are many reasons, why any man and I are not suitable to have any beneficial contact.   The rational reaction of such a man is to zap without wasting any further thoughts on me, when while reading this blog or my profile on a matchmaking site he notices such reasons.
In the case of doubt, a friendly question invites a friendly clarification.    Any provocation on my part is not intended and it is no invitation to hostile arguments.    There is no rational reason to express anger by attacking me with diatribes.  

The irrationality of sending diatribes indicates, that the sender has some problems, concerning both the cause of his anger and his hostility when coping with it:

1.  Entitlement and grandiosity delusion. 
A man feels entitled to get anything and this is justified for him by nothing more than his wish to have it and/or he believes himself to be god's gift to women, who cannot have a valid reason to reject him.    Therefore he considers the choice of a partner only justified by his own selection or rejection. Being rejected is not acceptable to him.   Even anticipated rejection due to my clearly expressed criteria is for such a man a reason to be angry.   A woman's disagreement with his grandiosity is also a reason to be angry. 
2.  Displaced anger.   Something in my text triggers anger, which is caused by his own experiences and has nothing to do with my person.   This something can be either a provocation by any real attribute of mine or it can be something misunderstood and misinterpreted.   

3.  Paradoxical coping with the anger.   The devaluation of what is not available as in the fable of the fox and the sour grapes are a valid coping strategy as part of realistic resignation.    Attacking someone with the declarations of devaluation by email is absurd.    

When people write emails, they enhance the probability of getting a reply by showing as much appreciation for the recipient as they can do sincerely.   In the case of intended manipulation, appreciation is insincerely exaggerated.   

An email of devaluations is supplying the recipient with reasons not to reply and not to communicate.   Therefore there is no reason to ever bother to write devaluing emails, while not writing has the same effect without wasting time.  


The diatribe comment on entry 549 gives examples.   His (assuming the commenter to be a man) attacks me for being German.   This indicates displaced anger about Germany or German culture or maybe some German individual.   Now he attacks me for being German in spite of my explicit declaration of not identifying with being German.

I cannot know his level of formal education.   But his attack on my valuing a university degree makes it obvious, that he has none but does not accept this as a reason to be not suitable for me.  

He calls me 'dogmatic, unscientific, irrational, dictating, intolerant, sexist, emotional, arrogant'.   These being obviously all unacceptable attributes in his opinion, I can fully agree with him that any woman, whom he subjectively perceives as having such attributes, is not suitable for him, no matter who and how she really is.   I have no problem with being perceived as not suitable by an unknown commenter.   But his bothering to write a comment, which forfeits any communication, is weird.  


Expressing and sending a diatribe is a distorted method of counterproductive communication.    Constructive communication motivates the recipient to reciprocate an interaction perceived as beneficial.   Diatribes create antipathy for the hostile sender, who presents himself as someone to be avoided, not as someone to interact with.    Everybody writing and sending diatribes just wastes his own time and gains nothing.  

1.  One possible interpretation of diatribes is to see them as related to real life bullying.    

Based upon his physical strength, a man can sometimes succeed to get his will by intimidation.  A woman cringing under outbursts of anger does not dare to resist.   The woman suffers and is driven away by this bullying.    

Men with long term thinking and wisdom learn, that bullying gets them nowhere and nothing.   But when they are only learning short term direct effects, they are mislead to learn, that expressing anger is a successful method to get their will.    Bullies misinterpret the success of their outburst of anger as if this were a method of influencing the victim's thinking.   They mistake enforced apparent acquiescence with agreement and they believe in their power to obtain agreement by expressing anger.         

As a result of this distorted learning these men are oblivious of the limited reach of the weapon of anger.   Anger and aggression only work in direct contact, when the intimidation triggers spontaneous fear, elicited not in accordance with the probability of a physical attack but by the mere possibility.    

Therefore expressing anger at the target by email is the futile attempt of distance bullying.    Due to not eliciting fear, this does not work.   Diatribes are the consequence of a man's overestimation of the power of his anger without physical intimidation.   

2.  Diatribes are an indication of an asymmetrical attitude to women and of the intention and purpose of a relationship for getting advantages by commodification.   A man pursuing a symmetrical relationship appreciates the information of any woman's needs and preferences for his own evaluation of possible symmetry.   Finding out that he cannot give her, what she needs, is not a reason to get angry and even less to send a diatribe.   For him it is a reason to accept incompatibility.  

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.         

334. One Year of This Blog

334.   One Year of This Blog

Yesterday a year ago, I started this blog.   I have been adding an entry nearly every day, on a variety of topics.   I was expecting the consequence of the increase in text as being found more and more often in google searches.   Thus I was hoping, that my mindmate would be interested in the same topics as I do and stumble upon my blog.

But so far, all my expectations were wrong, and I am still alone and lonely.   Even though there was a steady increase of text, there is no increase in the number of page views.    During one year, there were on average about 550 page views per month, both from google searches and from links in my profiles on matchmaking sites.    But with the exception of a peak in the months of October, November and December, the number of page views continues steadily around and slightly below 500 per month.   Also page views are only indications, that someone has clicked on a page, this of course is not revealing, if the page was also read.     

There is nothing wrong with me.   But I am one of the victims of the gender misalignment.   While there is roughly an equal number of men and women in western societies, the matching by equality is as distorted as is a wrongly buttoned coat.    I already described the problem in entry 211.   Too many men are driven by their instinctive wish to dominate to choose a mate, who is less educated and financially weak, and by their instinctive wish to procreate to chose a mate, who is younger.   

From entry 211:  "As a result, there is a disequilibrium in the availability of mates.   On the low end, all the stupid, uneducated and in some other way undesirable men are left without a mate.  On the high end the educated and intelligent women cannot find a mate, who is adequate, an equal and has emotional intelligence."
Of course, I include in the category of low end men as indesirable also narcissists, psychopaths, emotional morons and all other kinds of jerks.

I see no solution to this unfortunate situation, all I can do is continue my search for one of those rare men, who value equality, not only in theory, but also in their behavior and their mate preference.   As lonely as I may get, I will never sink as low as accepting someone from the low end.   
But in my personal value system, money does not contribute to my subjective definition of the low end.  That gives me one advantage over the majority of high end women, who want only a wealthy man.     If someone is all of what I want in a man, I will gladly accept him, no matter, how poor he may be, even if he is on welfare, as long as he has no debts and is responsible in his spending habits.  

266. Inexactitude, Trust, Manipulation

Inexactitude, Trust, Manipulation

A few days ago, I was contacted by someone, who indicated his age in his profile as 65, but revealed in his email, that he was two years older.    As I consider 67 as the age limit of my search, the difference by itself is trivial.   It is more an inexactitude than a serious lie, but still, he had deliberately told something not exactly correct.  

Trust needs the expectation of being always told the exact truth.   After that admission, how could I have learned to trust someone like him?    For the doubtful gain to get a reply from women, who may not reply to his true age, he forfeited the possibility of trust.

But it is worse than that.   Attempting to get a reply by an incorrect information is outright disrespect and manipulation.    When a woman has made her own decision about the accepted age range and other criteria of a match, this is her legitimate own choice.   A man with respect for her takes her choice for serious.    If he does not, this shows, that he does not take the woman for serious.    I admit, that I have no sympathy for the kind of men, who believe, that when a woman says yes or no or whatever else, she does not mean it.    I dislike this kind of game players.

There is something absurd in the thinking of such a man, who believes that if he only manipulates the woman to accept contact with him in spite of her own criteria, then she will be so swept off her feet by his grandiosity.  Some men really believe, that a woman forgets and gives up, what she really wants, just because he happens to be interested in her.     

 

He replied, that lying about the age is common behavior, and it seemed as if for him, there was nothing wrong about it.   Obviously, he was willing to accept a woman, who lies about her age and was not much bothered about issues of trust and trustworthiness.    I doubt, that such a man wants a woman as a close companion for intrinsic commitment.    If he only wants her body, than for this purpose, the body of a liar is as good as the body of an honest woman.

250. Eight Months of Blogging

Eight Months of Blogging

In spite of having written 250 entries by now, I am still not getting as many pageviews by google searches as I wish.   So I keep on writing entries.

My latest experience:
On a German paying site I got the special offer that I was allowed to contact other members for free during one entire day.    I was informed in advance, so I had enough time to scrutinize over 1400 profiles, who had been logged into recently.
Those profiles had been suggested to me as alleged matches, but there was no way to select for childfree atheists, who are really singles and not only separated.   
About a year ago I had contacted their customer service and suggested to them to include childfree and not religious in their search criteria.    They treated me as if I had suggested to include green skin and pointed ears.   

Therefore I had lost interest in this dating site due to their refusing to install the additional search options.    I was only contacted a few times, mostly by men, who were beyond 70, the oldest was 80.  At 61, I am looking for someone to grow old together, not for someone to make me a widow soon.  

But now I had one day of free contacting and so I started a gigantic task.   The first click is to open a profile, then scanning if they have children or not, scanning for religion or not, scanning for separated or single.   The second click to remove the unsuitable profile from the list, the third click to confirm the removal and the forth click to go back to the list.  
After handling about a dozen profiles, it became a routine, I managed to remove about 3 profiles per minute.   It was a dull routine, I felt like working on an assembly line.   By listening to an ebook I avoided feeling bored, while I worked myself through all those profiles.   

After hours and after more than 5000 clicks, there were about 100 profiles left, that met my basic criteria.   Having carefully read them, I contacted about 10 men.    None of them was someone especially appealing as a mindmate, but I contacted them, as I only had one day to do so.   Of those, so far two replied with a polite rejection.   

This is searching for a needle in a haystack without even knowing, if the needle even is in this particular haystack.  

They gave me one day for free.   At first I perceived it as an opportunity.  After 5000 clicks, I started to get aware, that the real benefit was not for me, but for them.   Every time someone on that site opens my profile, I get notified by email of someone's interest.  
Therefore as a result of my completed task, more than 1400 men got an email as if I were interested in them.    They cannot know, that instead of being interested, I just removed them as incompatible and that the alleged interest is fake as a result of insufficient search criteria.  
The site got a boost of activity out of me, making the site appear more beneficial for the men than it really is.      It seems that they deny better search criteria for the purpose to make more people look at incompatible profiles.

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.  

176. Creating Commitment - 2 - The Engagement Pact

Creating Commitment - 2 - The Engagement Pact

This is the continuation of entry 174.

The Engagement Pact

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

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

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

More to follow in another entry.   

174. Creating Commitment - 1 - The Decision Phase

Creating Commitment - The Decision Phase

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


The Decision Phase

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


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

More in future entries.  

154. Pages Added

Pages Added

I have added two pages that are shown now as tabs above.    One contains the Mindmate Basic Checklist, that has already been published as a blog entry.  
The second page is new.    It is the Mindmate or Jerk Questionnaire.   It is a compilation of what I had written when comparing suitable and unsuitable men and behaviors.  I put it in the form of questions.  They are meant for introspection and for checking out, whom I would consider a jerk, and whom not.  

102. Preparing Commitment and Preventing Unhappiness

Preparing Commitment and Preventing Unhappiness

While any expectation to onesidedly be able to make a partner happy or to be onesidedly made happy by a partner, are illusions, the real task for a couple is to cooperate to avoid making each other unhappy.   There is a lot, that they can do to prevent unhappiness.

As mentioned before, for hypoanimalistic people with an intact promiscuity inhibition, commitment is sealed by physical involvement, but it is preceded by the creation of emotional and intellectual intimacy.  

A part of creating emotional and intellectual intimacy is an active endeavour to define together the future relationship.  This is done by a conscious working through a list of commitment essentials and finding agreement and consent on the balance of giving and taking for each.   Both partners need to put on the table, what they have to offer, where their limitations are, what they expect and what they need.    If they are both aware of the paramount importance of this to avoid suffering pain later, they will be motivated, sincere and unrestricted in this process.   They need to be very explicit, not to take anything for granted, but to avoid all misunderstanding and misinterpretations very carefully by verifying all assumptions and not jump to conclusions or get trapped in projections.  

As an example, mutual trust is a vital basis of commitment.   But that requires both partners to be trustworthy persons and also that both are capable to trust, to entrust themselves.   Trust needs to be earned and trustworthiness deserves to be honored, both needs to be balanced.  Preparing commitment requires here for both to agree on how much convincing  the other of the own trustworthiness is fair and reasonable and when to trust. 

The following is a list of other essentials, that need consent as a fundament of a relationship.   People are different, so what is consent for one couple could differ very much from the consent of another. 
This list is different from the mindmate checklist in entry 83, which is a preselection of being compatible or not.    The focus in this list is on finding consent, but if no consent is possible, then again it indicates incompatibility.    

This list contains, what is important to me.  For other people, there might be more or other topics on their list.  

• reliability and predictability
• responsibility and caring
• obligations of commitment
• defining exclusivity and priorities
• using combined resources
• respect, appreciation, equality
• gender roles
• sharing information and decisions
• how to handle conflicts
• rationality, evidence, convincing
• earning forgiveness and what cannot be forgiven

While I am writing this, I am daydreaming of sitting at some beautiful spot, like the shore of a lake, talking about these topics with my future partner.    Where is he?

91. French and English Profiles

French and English Profiles

There is a dating site, that bases matching on some elaborate tests and allows to see the results on the profile.   One item in the test result is the attitude towards fidelity.   Since this is of paramount importance, I always look at it in every profile.  
This dating site has two interfaces, one in French for France and one in English for the UK.   But everything else seems identical.    I made a search on both interfaces, in my age group, for an atheist without children and with a university education.    In both sides, the result were several hundred profiles.   

But then it got interesting.   I did not bother to count, but the difference was really remarkable.   Of the English profile, around half showed complete fidelity in the test, but only about one in ten profiles had any text.    Of the French profiles, about one in ten indicated full fidelity, but about 9 out of 10 had some text, some of considerable length. 

So the French appear to be verbose cheaters, while the English appear taciturnly faithful.   There can of course be many reasons for this difference, even the translation of the test causing the difference.  

But still, explaining everything in life with hard-wired brains is certainly a simplification, that can be misleading.   

83. Mindmate Checklist

Mindmate Checklist

I have moved the contents of this entry to a separate page and I have deleted the original entry here to avoid problems with Google finding duplicate content.  

18. Choice and Availibility

Choice and Availability

I suggest to read the chapters on Tolerance and on Rationality, Evolution, Neanderthals, Asperger's Affinity first.

I deserve to be chosen, appreciated and accepted, because I am the deep thinking person, who writes this blog.

I refuse to be tolerated as an available substitute by incompatible men in spite of who I am.

The majority of men are driven by high instinctivity, and there is no age limit for men to sire progeny. So by instinct, even seniors (men of my age group around 60 and older) still want a young, healthy, beautiful recipient for their genes. Only this is not reciprocal. As much as high instinctivity women are attracted to men, who are strong, tall, rich and have a high status, they only accept them 15 or 20 years older, if they are extremely rich, powerful or famous, else they prefer someone closer to their age.

But even when they do not wish to have more offspring, high instinctivity seniors are still driven by physical needs to women. There are many high instinctivity women seniors, who had a hard life raising children, some staying with a man, who mistreated them, as a sacrifice for procreation. Their experience in a union of two incompatibles for the purpose of procreation was bad enough to go through once in a lifetime. When they get widowed or divorced, it means relief and they are less inclined to go from the frying pan into the fire.

Therefore, even though in the age group of seniors, women outnumber men, there seem not enough women available for men driven by physical needs.

So here I am, neither ugly nor beautiful, deliberately natural and anti-seductive, never publishing a picture, non-flirtatious, declared emancipated and anti traditional gender roles, but admitting to be lonely, and attracting the contacts of incompatible men like honey attracts flies, no matter what I do to discourage them.

My profiles on the dating-sites are explicit enough, what I want and what I do not want. At my age, there is not so much risk of superficial attraction leading to infatuation strong enough to impede both from directing their focus on the emotional and intellectual intimacy. So being a senior is rather an advantage facilitating a relationship based upon the ERCP.

But those high-instinctivity men only see, that I am available, and since they mainly want a body and consider tolerance as a method to deal with all differences, about which they probably are not bothered at all. From their point of view, I am an old hag, and by my way of thinking and behaving differently, because I am not driven by instincts, I am also weird. They contact me with the condescending tolerance, that a weird old hag should be grateful for being accepted even as a substitute for what they really want.

They are so much driven by their instinctivity and their attitude of tolerating incompatibilities, that they lack any respect to take anything in my own search for serious. They do not consider me as having a brain, who is capable to decide myself, what is good for me. In their weird mind, if a woman is anyhow only a substitute, then it makes no real difference, who she is. If a man of 50 wishes a 30 year old beauty, but cannot have her, then to him it makes not much difference to contact a woman of 50 or of 60 as an available substitute. They expect me to feel pleased to be considered a suitable substitute.

But the most pathetic are the youngsters from the Islamic world, who contact me on french sites, even when they are less than half my age. They obviously have the delusion, that just because they have a young male body, any old woman would be grateful to pay her alleged wealth to have them with her in Europe.

I am sick and tired of being contacted with the condescension of the tolerance of mercy, because I am a senior and different from the majority in my own evaluation, and an old weird hag in their opinion.

If the incompatibility is obvious, they are just a nuisance stealing my time.

But if someone seems acceptable to me, for example by being childless by circumstances instead of child free by choice, and he considers me a substitute to tolerate, then this hurts my pride and my dignity.

The worst nuisance are the dishonest ones with some kind of grandiosity delusion, who believe that if they can lure me by lies and omitting facts into extensive contact, I would sooner or later fall for their irresistible charm and accept the mutual tolerance in favor of their instinctivity.

I want and I deserve to be chosen for who I am and not tolerated as a substitute for what a man really wants but does not see in me.

The kind of man, whom I am looking for, have most probably made the complimentary experiences. High instinctivity women have rejected them as weirdos, nerds or whatever, and they have in vain been looking for a woman like me. Women like me are scarce and hard to find for those, who are compatible. At least some of them might dream of a woman like me, but after searching in vain, they might have given up the active search and are hidden somewhere as reticent and shy mavericks behind a pile of books.

2. More About My Quest

1.  Dealbreakers Due To Detrimental Irrational Instinctive Urges

When a person is driven by irrational urges, and his own rationality is too weak to allow him to control those urges, then a partner in a relationship is automatically the target of the consequences of irrational actions. In such a situation, a partner is helpless, because the urges are stronger than the ability to consider the issue in a rational discussion.

Here is a list of some urges, instincts, impulses, which are deal breakers as hazards and threats, if the rational self control of a man is not stronger.

1.1. The hierarchy instinct.     
It is the instinctive urge to compete and acquire a high position in a hierarchy. This in a mild degree may be a requirement in the survival in the professional field.

The dealbreaker: The urge to compete is strong, and especially when the professional experience of success reinforces it, then the partner in a relationship is also prone to be fought down into a lower position and to be dominated. For every success and won competition, there is the complementary person, who has lost. There is no winner without a loser as collateral damage. Every successful men leaves behind him a trail of unhappy persons deprived of what they might have deserved just as much as he.

My mindmate: With a low level or absence of this urge, someone cooperates and shares options and resources. He might be poor and less successful, but he has not hurt others. If he has no urge to compete, he has no urge to force a power struggle upon me as a partner.

1.2. The procreation instinct.  
This instinct determines the identity as someone perceiving himself not predominantly as an individual, but as the bearer of genes to survive.
 
The dealbreaker: The man has felt compelled to procreate, he has sacrificed his individual well being in favor of the survival of his genes.  This means that he values children as entitled to be given priority over adults.  A partner will also be automatically considered as less important than the own genes, and logically will have the sacrifices forced upon her too.

Once someone has become a breeder and accepted to make sacrifices in favor of the genes, this inclination will never end, even when the brood is out of the house. The sacrifices will also be made for the grand-children, as they also are bearer of the genes. Since raising the brood is such an act of self-damaging sacrifices, the perceived ties to and the value of the brood is gigantic and no love to a partner can compete with it, because the partner is not genetically related.

In the hypothetical situation of a catastrophe, when a man would have to decide, whom to save, most men would save their offspring and let the partner die. Being aware of this, I could never trust a man with offspring.

Men with progeny also tend to spend their time with work to amass wealth for the purpose of making them inherit it, rather than spend their time with a partner.
In short, the attachment of a parent to the child can be compared to alcoholism, it creates an irreversible craving in the brain.   While the alcoholic craves for alcohol, even though he does not drink, the parent craves to care for his brood, even when they are grown and far away.  To compete against the brood of a partner is futile.   It is a lost endeavor, even though the offspring do not even need to actively compete.   Their emotional priority is carved in stone. 

My mindmate: He is childfree, we are each other's most important person, and nobody is allowed to interfere with it. He knows, that death is the end of the individual life and there is not rational reason to be bothered about the genes.

1.3.  Male promiscuity.
Sexuality as an instinctive urge can contribute additional benefits to a bonded monogamous commitment.   Friendship is based on emotional and intellectual affinity.    When a couple sharing innate monogamy start as each other's best friends based upon intellectual and emotional intimacy, then for them adding and entering physical intimacy creates a very special bond, that can never be undone except by ending all contact.        
For a person with innate monogamy, entering physical intimacy and changing the subjective identity to feeling the commitment of being half a couple are inseparable experiences, two sides of the same coin.   But innate monogamy is a special gift and talent, that is lacking in many men and in some women.   

The dealbreaker:  Any man, for whom copulation with a female body does not automatically create committed attachment, is not suitable for me.
This includes not only men, who cheat, favor polygamy and any kind of non-monogamous arrangements, but also all men, who wish to have 'no strings fun', 'intimate encounters', 'friends with benefits' and other euphemisms used in profiles for being animals from the gutter, lacking true emotional humanity.   
This includes also men consuming pornography, as this is also an expression of the degradation of female bodies as disrespected utilities.
Continuing contact with ex-partners is another indication of a man's promiscuity.    If a man continues the contact with one or several ex-partners, and defines them as friends the same as if there had never been anything more than a platonic friendship, this clearly indicates, that for him physical intimacy is not creating a special bond.         
Would I enter a relationship with a man in persistent contact with exes as friends, I would enter a harem.    He would be one man in relationships with several intimate partners.  The only difference between them would be, how long the physical intimacy has been deactivated.   
Also I cannot trust a man, who ends the relationship with a woman, even though he still respects and considers her as qualifying to be defined as a friend.   If he ends the commitment for such trivial reasons, he is too big a risk for me.    There are jerks, who consider sexual dissatisfaction as a sufficient reason to end a relationship.    The friendship with an ex is a red flag for this.     

My mindmate offers me a symmetrical relationship as a result of his innate monogamy.   For him, I am as important as a person as he is for me.  His wish for physical intimacy derives from his own priority of wanting a companion for emotional and intellectual intimacy.   This is inseparable from his respecting me as an equal partner and as a person.  
He does not get infatuated with a mere body in defiance or oblivion of the woman's brain and personality.   For him, physical intimacy is also the symbolic bond of establishing commitment.  From then on he feels innately bound by the obligations of commitment.

He has no contact with any of his exes.   For him, women can be acquaintances, but there is a clear distinction between this and the bond of the combination of intellectual, emotional and physical intimacy.  For him, not cheating includes also not emotionally cheating.  

1.4. Gullibility or skepticism

The dealbreaker: Gullibility and credulity make people consider claims or appearances for true without any doubt. Since there is no doubt, there is no need for evidence, for verification. Gullibility in combination with strong wishful thinking due to a need, especially to reduce fear, can create beliefs and delusions strong enough to compel to very irrational actions. When there are such compulsions, the partner has no chance to discuss the matters rationally, but has to suffer the impact of the irrational actions. 

When people believe in a god, astrology, dowsing, homeopathy and such, this usually leads at least to wasting the couple's common resources of time, effort, money, if there is not worse and more direct damage. This includes also beliefs in the form of entitlement and grandiosity delusions, or the delusion of male superiority, that would make someone dominate me.
In short, such a believer is immune to be influenced by any attempts to protect myself by constructive communication.   Being with such a man is a high risk of being harmed.

My mindmate is an atheist, apistic, rational and a skeptic. He makes no claims without giving me evidence, he does not demand me to believe anything without convincing me. He has no beliefs to force the consequences thereof upon me.  He does not demand trust, he knows that trust is the calculated probability of trustworthy behavior in the future as a consequence of all his behavior in the past.

He can talk rationally about every conflict with no exception.

5. Other serious lack of self-control.

The dealbreaker: All addictions bad enough to be beyond control. That includes serious overeating with the result of obesity.  

My mindmate is rational enough to know, that self-control is important.   Obesity is detrimental to the health and makes him unattractive to most women, so he controls his eating.  He can limit indulgences to moderation.   
My mindmate is more an Epicurean than a hedonist.  I prefer the man, who does not struggle against temptations, because he is not tempted due to not being attracted to the tempting stimulus.   A man, who is by instinct attracted to other women's bodies, but who has the moral strength and willpower to never cheat, deserves admiration for the strength of his character.   But he still is a risk causing alerts and stress.  Nobody can know with certainly, if he will always be strong enough to withstand the temptation.   
Only a man, who is predominantly attracted to my brain and who does not notice other women's bodies is really someone, with whom I can feel at ease, relaxed and safe.   

2.  The Meaning Of Commitment And Marriage

Legal marriage is merely a signature in the townhall, that has legal consequences, but it has no influence on how a man treats a woman.   A man can be either a considerate, caring and responsible egalitarian partner or a cruel jerk, this is entirely independent from the difference between legal marriage and cohabitation.    
Legal marriage does not create emotional commitment.    Legal marriage in the absence of emotional commitment can be very detrimental.  If legal marriage can protect women at all, it is only against financial disaster, but it is no protection against being hurt.    In this case, it instead impedes immediate appropriate reactions.   Therefore, for two persons from the same country or the EU, legal marriage is obsolete.

The important step is consciously entering commitment as a mental change of the identity. It transforms a single person into perceiving himself as half of a couple, as part of a unit. The two partners form a special kind of ingroup against the world around as the outgroup, independently of their legal status.   Life is a struggle against inclemencies.  The partners in an ERCP-relationship can create a safe haven, where both partners can feel relaxed, secure and sharing an emotional home supplying support for each other.   

The meaning of such commitment and the behavioral dealbreakers are extensively described in many of the following posts of this blog.   The purpose of this blog is to find a partner as a wise choice.   That means especially to notice all dealbreakers before making the mistake of getting involved with the wrong man and getting hurt as a consequence of the mistake.     

Updated on December 17, 2011