670. The Compartmentalized Mind

670.   The Compartmentalized Mind

This continues entry 669.

There is one more pattern, which on a subtle and hidden level can be even more devastating to unfortunate victims.   

A person has learned a system of rules, values, morals or psychological concepts, which to him are logically convincing.   He accepts them as generally valid and as a wise basis and guideline for human interaction. 
But he nevertheless excludes himself entirely from applying this system upon himself.  He does not do this consciously, he is unaware of the compartmentalization of his mind.   He has and pursues the same goals as George Simon's (entries 629 and 661) disturbed characters.   These goals are derived only from the subjectively alleged entitlement to the unrestricted fulfillment of all own needs.  

I call him a robot, because he is controlled by two programs.    The main program is the goal program, which determines, that he always pursues his own needs and wishes with unhesitating priority.   The second program is the auxiliary methods program.  It contains all general human rules of interactions and expectations needed as instrumental intelligence.    This program is to be applied only selectively, whenever it serves to get advantages from others.   

This robot lives in a divided mental world, where real and virtual or distant people are perceived as categorically distinct.  

The robot theoretically accepts rules as generally valid for all humans but fails to ever recognize any person in real life as a human of the quality to whom to apply the rules.   Instead he experiences himself as only interacting with entities, whom he mistakingly perceives as mere commodities existing for his convenience.  He experiences them as either functioning, when they serve his needs or else as being flawed, when they refuse or fail to function.  

In the robot's perturbed minds, none of those entities, whom he meets in real life, is ever considered as a human suitable to mentally apply the system of accepted behavioral rules to. He is unable to recognize such humans, when he meets them.   Instead, the robot experiences humans as elusive abstract sources of text or other creative and intellectual stimulation.    A robot's real world is populated by commodities, while humans to be treated with respect and consideration are figures from fairy tales.   

A robot with a good memory can become an excellent bluffer as described in entry 287.   He can reproduce learned thoughts of others to an amorphous audience, while he himself does not understand any of what he is theoretically talking about.   Due to his inability to recognize real humans as non-commodities, he deprives himself of ever experiencing in real life, what he reproduces verbally like a parrot.      

The robot is impeded from the benefits of feedback.   He considers the commodified victims as too insignificant and flawed to take any heed of their disagreement.   Abstract distant humans, with whom he may have contact, are ignorant of his commodifying real people.    

The robot does not attempt to hide his intended commodification, as he is not aware of the disagreement to be elicited.  People usually are able to avoid harm from such a robot, when they meet him in real life and are immediately and overly treated as commodities.      


On the internet, such a robot is a high risk for a woman.   By any form of initial communication over any distance, a woman is represented mainly by emails, a few pictures or at the most a voice over the telephone.   Thus she is abstract and not real, as long as she is not in the direct reach of the robot's commodification.     

Under such circumstances the woman elicits initially the robot's response and behavioral disposition for humans.   She is prone to be mislead, when he talks convincingly about things, which in reality he has no comprehension for.   She develops wrong expectations, she hopes to be treated by him as in reality only the author of the parroted books would have treated her.

 
Meeting him means disaster for her.    As soon as she appears as a real person in his life, she is automatically redefined in his perception to be henceforth a commodity like every real life person.   Everything of what he had expressed to her as to someone being considered a human, is instantly annihilated.   Nothing of it remains valid.   As a commodity, she now is outside the scope of any previously accepted obligations to her.    Now he expects all to be at his convenience.           

629. George Simon's Book 'In Sheep's Clothing' - Comment 1

629.   George Simon's Book 'In Sheep's Clothing'  -  Comment 1

This continues entry 628 about the immature theory of mind.

In entries 615 and 618 I already mentioned and commented on George Simon's excellent approach to the problem of disturbed characters.    I just got and read his fascinating book 'In Sheep's Clothing'.

Reading it was an excellent reminder of the utter futility of any attempts to reduce being harmed by disturbed characters.  Someone with a character disturbance cannot be influenced any more than a moving steam roller.   He is determined to get by hook or by crook, whatever he wants.  Nothing can stop him from running over anybody standing in his way.   The only protection is avoiding disturbed characters.  

For me personally, contact with one of them is doomed to lead to an impasse and to unsolvable conflicts.   While I am not prone to be a submissive victim accommodating a disturbed character's objectives, his ruthlessness gives him nevertheless enough power to impose sufferings upon me, to which I react with protest and outrage.  But a disturbed character is out of the reach of any civilized and moderate influencing him by constructive communication.  His mind is surrounded by a wall, any attempts to make him change his behavior bounce off and fail without any effect.

 

According to Simon, all exploitative and hurting behavior can be explained by only one of two cognitive dynamics, either the neurotic avoidance of too much painful emotions or the disturbed characters' conscious method to gain selfish advantages.  
I see another possibility, which I am missing in the book:  It is the incompetence to behave in an appropriate and acceptable way in spite of being motivated and believing to do so.    

Therefore I like to add one more type of a disturbed character to Simon's list: 

The self-righteous aggressive disturbed character.    This type also behaves as a wolf, just as Simon's other types, but he does not put on a sheep skin.   Instead he believes to be a sheep.   Due to his immature theory of mind and to the subsequent lack of getting or comprehending blatant feedback, he is unaware, that he is perceived as a wolf.   (More in entry 628)  

He behaves as a wolf due to immaturity and interpersonal incompetence: 
1.  He is incompetent to know and evaluate the limits of what is rightfully his due.  Thus he is unable to accept as a fair deal to give enough back in return for what he receives.   Others do not consider as justified, what he feels entitled to get.   This can be as bad as an entitlement delusion.  
2.  He lacks the communicative skills to obtain, whatever he wants, by any form of rational convincing, even when it is justified.   When what is not justified is not available, he is too incompetent to apply manipulative tactics.   His competence is so limited, that he resorts to use drastic and primitive methods of power, dominance, aggression.  

This type is very different from both the unbridled aggressive and the channelled aggressive as described in the book.   The self-righteous aggressive usually accepts simple and clearly defined rules and laws, when he understands them in spite of his immature theory of mind. 

The self-righteous aggressive is not malicious, he is just not aware of his incompetence nor of how much his behavior is selfish.   As far as the self-righteous aggressive comprehends another's needs, he is able to care.   For example, he can be a caring master to a dog, if he acquires the knowledge about how to care for a dog.   The success with the dog then reinforces his false belief to be a sheep.   He is unaware of behaving as a wolf, when he forcefully applies the very same form of care and treatment, which is appropriate only for a dog, also upon a human being.       

 

Both the covert-aggressive and the self-righteous aggressive consider themselves as justified to pursue what they want with any means, believing to be entitled to get it.   

But the covert-aggressive has a mature theory of mind enabling him to be realistic about and aware of what obstacles and resistance to expect during his pursuits.   He takes the disagreeing and resisting persons for serious enough to rationally choose the method of aggression, which promises the best success.   In the case of the covert aggressive, this includes hiding his true intentions as a part of using manipulative strategies.   He is realistic about the powers of his opponents, would they discover his aggression and true goals and react by fighting back.  

The self-righteous-aggressive lacks a sufficiently mature theory of mind.   He does not take resisting people into account as individual opponents with real or at least subjectively valid reasons for their disagreement.    He perceives them as merely amorphous obstacles to be best confronted with outright, indiscriminate and open aggression.    The self-righteous aggressive perceives any disagreement with and resistance to his allegedly entitled goals automatically as an indication of others being flawed, wrong, dysfunctional, while nothing makes him doubt his own entitlement.   Who resists is believed to be bringing aggression upon themselves as a legitimate consequence.   

By applying the same generalized standard methods of aggression to all allegedly flawed obstacles, the self-righteous aggressive character is also not able to improve his immature theory of mind.   He notices and reacts to obstacles without understanding, perceiving, evaluating or distinguishing any specific reaction or feedback.   This impedes him from learning successful manipulation strategies.   

Even the self-righteous aggressive may sometimes apply a few of the manipulative tactics described in Simon's book, when he is aware of the probable unpleasant reactions to be avoided.  

The essential difference to the covert aggressive is the self-righteous' lack of any hidden agenda.  Instead he bluntly expresses his claims and demands and what he intends to do to ascertain to get it.   Lacking any comprehension, why others disagree with his entitlement, he does not know nor learn, what to hide and what utterances and behaviors are counterproductive to his goals.   By blurring out his true intentions he provokes resistance, to which he then reacts with enhanced aggression and bullying.   This is a spiral of fast deterioration.  


The covert aggressive misleads others, while the self-righteous aggressive is himself mislead.   A wolf, who believes to be a sheep, causes not less devastation than a wolf, who knows to be a wolf, but hides beneath a sheep's skin.     

In the case of the covert-aggressive, it is the victim's task to find out, that there is a wolf under the sheep's skin.   The wolf knowing to be a wolf has therefore theoretically the choice to change, if the victim refuses to remain in that role.   

The self-righteous aggressive openly behaves like a wolf and nevertheless believes his bullying and coercing as the legitimate behavior of the sheep, which he wrongly believes himself to be.   Any change is not probable, because someone believing to be already a sheep does not comprehend, why he should change to become one.   A wolf cannot decide or attempt to change into a sheep, unless he first becomes aware, that he is a wolf.  
In this situation, the victim is powerless.   A self-righteous aggressive wolf does not experience his victim as significant enough to influence him.   This impedes him from ever discovering the reality of his being a wolf, instead he continues to consider the victim as being so flawed as to warrant being bullied. 

628. Theory Of Mind, Empathy, Society And The Media

628.   Theory Of Mind, Empathy, Society And The Media
 

As told before, I consider not to harm others as the core principle of any acceptable moral and not to be harmed as the core principle of basic human rights.  

To be successful in avoiding to harm others requires more than the acceptance of a moral principle.   It requires also sufficient knowledge of what others experience as harm.   While recognizing visible immediate harm is easy, this is not the case with invisible and delayed harm.

The reliance upon empathy and the working of the mirror neurons is limited to situations, when someone can spontaneously feel with the unlucky person, for example someone, on whose foot a brick has just fallen.   

But when the harm is invisible and caused by complex and abstract cognitive experiences, then empathy is not enough to prevent hurting another person emotionally.   Avoiding emotional and future harm by broken trust, by injustice, by depreciation, by commodification and such requires a mature theory of mind.    

"Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from one's own."

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

While children usually develop a basic theory of mind by innate maturation, the more complex and abstract theory of mind is a learning process enabled and enhanced by experiences of interactions.   

Nobody can know for certain, what behavior causes invisible harm to another person, unless this is based upon acquired information.    This can be achieved by either learning from the reaction and feedback by the harmed person and/or by any observing third party, or by asking the target person's advice before acting and by listening to such advice when proffered.  

It is the fallacy of immature people to deny the existence of anything, that they are ignorant of and to think that it is enough not to do to others, what they would themselves feel hurt by.   
It is also a fallacy to overlook the biological differences between women and men in evaluating the impact of behavior.   

 

An example.    Some men in the state of sexual dishomeostasis feel an urge to copulate like dogs in the gutter with any haphazard female body without getting attached.   

Those being immature believe women to be like them.  Whenever they mislead women to consent by unjustified expectations of attachment, immature men abuse women's bodies with a clean conscience.  They do not understand attachment and believe women to be stray dogs the same like themselves.  

Men with a mature theory of mind are aware, that women do get attached much more easily and rapidly and how important attachment is for women.   Jerks have no conscience and manipulate women to be used and dumped, they are not deterred by not reciprocating attachment.   Jerks consider women's getting attached as an annoying flaw.

Mature men with morals are able to acknowledge, that not getting attached is their own deficiency.    They are responsible to not make others the victims of their own deficiencies and to accept the obligation of using self-control to abstain from hurting women.  


The development of a mature theory of mind depends upon the society and culture.  

Unfortunately the modern western societies impede and thwart the moral maturation of people.   The influence of the ubiquitous media is the main factor in this.  

Desensitization:   The media are full with realistic representations of the most horrible agonies and atrocities.   But as the human brain had evolved without realistic pictures, it cannot really distinguish between TV and real life.  Watching TV is not very different from people partaking in the spectacle of public hanging and beheading.  

The consumption of the media leads to a desensitization towards suffering.   As a result, a 'mere' emotional betrayal appears as if it were only a trifle compared with the magnitude of the frequently watched atrocities both reported from real life and in the imaginary world of movies.  

Misunderstood tolerance.   Tolerance is important to protect minorities and people with special needs from any avoidable disadvantages.    But if alleged tolerance embraces also the protection of behaviors, which cause harm, it is not tolerance, but irresponsibility and a failure to protect the victims.    

Misrepresentation.   There are many perversities and deviant behaviors, which seem obviously harmful to most people, who would immediately refuse to expose themselves to be thus harmed.    Yet in the uncensored web, nearly every perversity and deviance has its adherent proponents, who propagate it publicly from their subjective distorted view as a minority right and behavior while omitting, denying and trifling the harm to the victims.   

Desensitization, misunderstood tolerance and misrepresentation have an impact not only upon the person behaving unknowingly as a transgressor, but also on the victim and on any other possible source of corrective feedback.  

Victims getting hurt are irritated and confused as to how much their felt outrage is justified.  They are often misguided to attribute their own healthy reaction instead to an own weakness.    They submit and endure instead of protesting, because they are manipulated into.self-doubt as if they were failures lacking to adapt the socially prescribed pseudo-progress.

Acquaintances are not involved enough to suffer as victims, but they often notice behavior as potentially harming to closer relations.   Would they react sincerely and show their true disapproval, this would serve as helpful feedback towards a better theory of mind.    But instead they shrug their shoulders and avoid any conflict.   

Constructive feedback can only be given by people with a mature theory of mind, who are aware of the importance of not hurting others.   People who are immature themselves are less prone to give any feedback and they are even less able to give feedback of supportive value.    What makes role models in the media attractive to the masses is often an expression of immaturity, which is then imitated. .  

Therefore some of those people, who hurt others, never had a chance to reach sufficient maturity to get aware of what they are really doing.   

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.    

535. Commodification, Inappropriate Behavior And The Dynamics Of Escalation

535.   Commodification, Inappropriate Behavior And The Dynamics Of Escalation

I am using burping in the following thoughts as a prototypical inappropriate behavior.    It is a placeholder for many other similar behaviors, this is not specially about burping in particular. 

• Burping is generally considered as inappropriate behavior in most western societies, especially at the dinner table.
• Everybody with a minimum of culture, education and intelligence is aware of burping being considered as inappropriate.  Most people agree.
• People feel embarrassed, when they burp accidentally.  They are anxious to avoid it. 
• The magnitude of the embarrassment depends upon the subjective importance of the witnesses' good opinion.

Therefore the common reaction to be expected after any accidental burp is a more or less embarrassed apology.  How much someone feels embarrassed depends upon the subjective significance of the witness.   Burping is experienced as less embarrassing, when the other at the dinner table is a sibling than when it is the boss to be during the interview for an attractive job. 

 

Someone (unless this person is seriously retarded or disordered) burping freely and without any sign of the least embarrassment is thus sending a significant message concerning the attitude towards the witness.   This message tells, that the witness's opinion is insignificant, that the witness's perception and experience do not matter.   
 

For a woman in the context of searching for a mate, being thus burped at is a big red flag indicating the man's attitude of commodifying women.  
Nobody sane feels embarrassed, when the witness present during burping is only a utility like a vacuum cleaner.  When a man burps freely in the presence of a woman without feeling embarrassment, this is a very strong indication, that he does not really distinguish between a vacuum cleaner and a woman.   Both are commodities perceived as only existing to serve him without any significance as persons.   


When traditionally two persons have a date while knowing very little about each other and thus having few misguided expectations, a woman would probably notice the uninhibited burping as a sufficient reason to refrain from meeting again.   She may not consciously recognize the commodification due to not even be bothered about the reasons for his inappropriate behavior, which suffices by itself to recoil. 

But the situation is different with online contacts, when two persons meet personally only after a long phase of correspondence.   Nobody can burp by email.   When in this situation the woman experiences the man's uninhibited burping during dinner for the first time, this is to her not an unambiguous red flag.  Instead it conveys a message, which is very contradictory to her expectations.   

While the correspondence has triggered her to expect being appreciated and respected, the burping makes her experience the emotional effects of being commodified.   She feels disrespected by what appears to her as a lack of either manners, consideration or politeness.    
Her goal is being shown by his behavior as much of the alleged appreciation, as what she had deducted from his emails.   As long as her focus is upon his burping as if it were a mere bad habit and not on the more serious and significant message of not valuing her enough to feel embarrassed, she attempts to influence him by showing feedback.   

As long as she is oblivious of his underlying attitude of commodification as the true problem, she is mistaken to think that she can influence him to correct his behaviors.   She is mistaken to attempt to be supportive to a shared wish to improve the relationship, while the absence of sharing is a part of his attitude of commodification.   Her feedback is meant as support to enable him to directly improve his behavior as his contribution to his alleged shared goal to improve the relationship.  

Her feedback starts gently and subtly, but gets more and more drastic, whenever it elicits no reaction.   The lacking reaction magnifies her discomfort and suffering from experiencing her insignificance.   
The first hint may be just a frown, followed by a disgusted expression, the next step being a polite remark to please stop burping, repeated in less polite tones and words.   If this escalation continues without any improvement, it ends with her calling him a pig and a plebeian or whatever is the worst word she has in her vocabulary.  

 

But these dynamics are much more than the escalation of her becoming impolite and offensive in her language, it is also a shift of her attitude towards him.   She starts with the attempt to influence him towards solving the contradiction, as long as she still is considering him able to express as much appreciation by his behavior as she had expected as a result of interpreting his emails.  Her goal is the reciprocity of the expression of as much respect and appreciation as she has for him.   

When the escalation reaches the point of her calling him a pig and a plebeian, the contradiction has been resolved the opposite way.   Experiencing the persistent lack of respect in his behavior has caused her to also lose all her previous respect for him.   Her emotional counterpart to being commodified is loathing and detesting him as unworthy.   

Behavior based upon the attitude of commodification forfeits the victim's respect in many ways.  I used burping as an illustrative example.   There are similar escalations, when a man forces harm due to irrational behavior upon a woman and does not react to any rational discussion until she calls him an idiot, and when she cannot stop him from hurting her by transgressions until she calls him an a**e.    The kind of harm due to his behavior differs, when he drives her to consider him either a pig, or an idiot or an a**e.   The dynamics follow the same pattern.


Escalations due to not reacting to the feedback from someone mistaken for and mistreated as a commodity, whose opinion, experience and perception does not matter, destroy a relationship.   The one, who feels offended and blames the other for name calling, instead of asking himself, what he has done to provoke the escalation, is the one, who dooms the relationship.  

500. Statistics Of My Quest

500.  Statistics Of My Quest  

This is the 500th entry in this blog.   When I started blogging, I did not expect to write so many entries.   But by looking at the endeavor statistically, it is no surprise.   Nothing in life comes without efforts.   Happiness like everything else has to be earned, and not only by investing efforts in making relationships work, but also by investing efforts to find a suitable and compatible partner as a match.   

In entry 69 I already estimated by rough statistical assumptions, that maybe 1 in every 10,000 men in my age group is a suitable match according to my search criteria.   

By the algorithm of sequential searching, a ratio of 1 in 10,000 requires on average to look at 5,000 until success.  

The result of having written 500 entries about a variety of topics is a growing number of google search hits and of daily page views.    The overall number of page views since I started this blog in July 2010 is close to 14,000.   But some persons read multiple pages (every entry has its own page URL), and the visitors are persons of any age and of both genders.    Probably even 14,000 page views do not indicate, that there had been more than 1000 men in my age group being unique visitors.

Statistics and estimating probabilities supply nothing more than numbers.  But this is nevertheless a rational way to be aware of reality and to continue my efforts without losing hope.    My task to earn happiness includes the task to get notoriety for my blog.   Every person reading the blog for the first time could either be my mindmate or at least know him and get us into contact.    


Writing more entries contributes to increased notoriety.    But sometimes help comes from unexpected sources too.   A few days ago, someone involuntarily did me a great favor.   The guy meant to present me on his own blog as some kind of an oddity.  
As a side effect, I got an amazing boost of publicity.   This guy sent lots of visitors to my blog.   Suddenly, on one single day there were more page views than there had been in some entire months.   
Not all people are gullible and immature and automatically share that guy's attempted mockery.  Some of these visitors are certainly able to appreciate my blog as independent thinkers.   

He labeled me as the 'finalized product of feminism'.    Calling me a mere product of feminism is an underestimation.   I did not need other feminists to gain my insights about what is obvious to any woman with dignity and intelligence.  I had my ideas, attitudes and values concerning egalitarian interactions between the genders and the logical baseline of equal rights and obligations long before I ever had even heard the word 'feminism'.  

But I appreciate being called a 'finalized feminist'.   Finalized means considered as perfect due to being finished without any need for possible further improvement.  
It is encouraging to be presented as the prototype of a feminist.  This involuntary and accidental compliment is a reliable, valuable and genuine feedback.  According to an old proverb, children and fools speak the truth.   In this instance, immature men can be included either with the children or with the fools.   But this is also an example, that while immaturity does damage to those close enough to be victims, immature people can also do unintended favors.  

I do hope to get more publicity of any kind.   When my mindmate will have found me, it does not matter, if his finding me was enabled by praise or by mockery.

391. The Definition Of A Jerk

391.  The Definition Of A Jerk

A jerk is a man,

• whose behavior or attitude causes a woman harm, pain, discomfort, annoyance
• who does this because he has some serious personality problem
• who is in denial, that he has such a problem
• who reacts with defiance to feedback about his behavior
• who attributes the woman's disapproval of and reaction to his behavior as her problem

A man is not a jerk,

• who takes responsibility for harm, pain, discomfort and annoyance caused by him
• who is realistic about his own personality problems
• who acknowledges to need the support of a partner
• who is motivated to find out from her, how the woman needs to be treated
• who follows her advice and guidance when needed  

If a man experiences failure due to his personal problems and reacts as compensation with the narcissistic entitlement and grandiosity delusion, then a woman experiences him as a jerk, no matter how miserable he feels himself.    A relationship with such a jerk is toxic for a woman, and there is nothing, that she can do to improve the situation.   His narcissistic strategy enables him to reduce his own sufferings by making the woman suffer instead.   As long as he can reduce his own pain by this method, he has no motivation to change himself.      His reactive narcissism is a logical relief for him, but a deterrent for a bonded relationship.    Having compassion for a jerk is not a reason to expose oneself to toxic behavior. 

Fixing someone is certainly not a role that would attract me to a relationship.    But being the victim of a jerk in a toxic relationship is even worse.   Therefore I am willing to support someone, who wants to fix himself as his contribution to prevent hurting me.    
But I think, that men in my age group should have learned their lesson and have grown mature.   Who at this age is still a jerk will most probably die as a jerk.    Unfortunately many of those jerks, who have not learned how to treat a woman, have learned during a lifetime to hide their troubles and their being jerks.    

The real issue is not so much to offer my support to who would want and need it, but to spot the red flags and avoid the hidden jerks in the disguise of a mindmate.   

386. Criticizing - Love - Respect

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

382. Disrespect And Criticizing

Disrespect And Criticizing


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beneficial criticizing can concern:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.    

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.   

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.  

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.

233. A Blog is Not an Autobiography

233.   A Blog is Not an Autobiography

Someone asked me in a private email:

" ...  you have had some crappy relationships with men. Personally I would have slapped the creeps and broken it off immediately instead of being subjected to indignity ...."
"How did you ever get yourself in those predicaments. I don't take you as naive? You seem too smart for that."

These are good questions, and I do not want to give the wrong impression, as if I were easy prey, prone to linger too long under outrageous treatment.    

A blog is not an autobiography.   It can be sometimes, when I tell explicitly, what has happened to me, from the snow in my garden to explicitly labelled true stories.  

But the main purpose of this blog is to find my mindmate by making clear, what is important to me.      

Examples, scenarios, metaphors, analogies are methods to add clarity to my thoughts.   Their purpose is not to rant with the truth of an affidavit about bad experiences, but to illustrate, what I want and accept, and what not.   
Some of them are modified own experiences, but some are the experiences of others or my own creation and imagination, maybe inspired by something that I have read.   

So please do not confound me with a sheep ready for the next jerk.   

231. Seven Months of This Blog

Seven Months of This Blog
Looking at the blogger stats shows the average number of daily page views over the entire existence of this blog as about 20.   According to the google webmaster tools for the last month, this blog was found by 93 different search queries, and 46 times somebody clicked on it creating a page view.  That means, there are less then 2 page views per day as a result of a google search.   
There are links on some dating sites and in a few blog directories.  But there are obviously some regular readers.    
If you are one of them, please give me some feedback:   What do you get from this blog, what do you think about it?    Any suggestions for topics?    Any questions?
marulaki@hotmail.com

By what I have written until now, a man can know, if he could be my mindmate or not.    My English may be faulty and awkward once in a while, but I know that I can explain my thoughts in a comprehensible way.  
Therefore, any man, who has read most of my blog until here and does not comprehend, what I am looking for and what not, cannot be my mindmate.    He either lacks intelligence or emotional intelligence or both.  
 

For the purpose to explain my quest, I could stop writing.   But I am enjoying to write blog entries.   The more I write, the more often I am found by google searches.   Less than two searches a day leading someone to this blog are not enough.  

I would just like to get more feedback instead of monologuing.  

172. Reactions to This Blog

Reactions to This Blog

This is my personal blog for the purpose to find a mindmate.   I have no mission on this earth to convince anybody of anything.  I am neither a guru nor a relationship advice auntie.   I do not even expect anybody, who reads one entry and disagrees with my goals, ideas, opinions and attitudes, to continue reading.   
I want to find a mindmate, whose brain is wired like mine, so that he agrees spontaneously with me.  That is, why he would be a mindmate. 
And if on the way I would make like minded women friends, that were just an extra benefit.  

I do enjoy positive feedback and I appreciate questions, because they give me inspirations to write more entries.    If I have already answered them on the blog, I can just give reference to which entry to read.  

But if somebody wants a serious discussion of my thoughts, if someone finds reasons to criticize me, then I expect, that he first reads and checks the entire blog.   
I just got a long message on a dating-site from someone, who is making a strong point attempting to convince me, that humans are driven by instincts to mate.   The gist of it was criticizing me for allegedly denying this.    Obviously, he had only read a tiny part of what I have written and got it all wrong.   He wasted a lot of time criticizing me for something, while I already agreed with him.   

There is only one difference between his opinion and mine:   He seems to be convinced, that all humans are determined by their instincts.    I am convinced, that this is true only for the vast majority, while there are some precious exceptions out there, who are in my definition hypoanimalistic individuals and Epicureans, and this blog aims at finding one of them.

Therefore, I do not expect anybody, who disagrees with one entry of this blog, to waste his time to read more.   But if somebody disagrees and wants to tell me this, then I suggest, that he reads all of the blog first.   

166. Five Months of This Blog

Five Months of This Blog

Tomorrow it is five months, since I have started this blog and according to the blogger stats, there have been over 850 page views in November.    Page views does not mean, that anybody reads the page, but at least there is some hope, that my mindmate will also find this blog.   

Usually I am writing my entries without any constructive feedback, especially since having been attacked with some hostile comments made me deactivate the commenting option.

I admit, that positive feedback makes me feel good.   Therefore I appreciate the email I received from a guy, whom I will call T.  He is not my mindmate, one of several reasons is that he is too young.    But what he wrote, is encouraging:

"I found your blog very human and touching."

"I completely agree with you about rationality, social egalitarianism, religion, tolerance, liberalism, nonmaterialism, nonviolence, childlessness by choice, and lots more.  I think you're a very thoughtful and sensitive person who is very deserving of love. "

Writing in a foreign language, I know, what I am saying, but I am not aware of the more subtle connotations of how I am expressing myself.   Therefore such feedback is a much appreciated reassurance.
I am trying a difficult endeavor to find the middle between encouraging the right kind of men and making it very clear, what I do not want.
 
By now, I have already said about everything, that is needed to enable my mindmate to recognize himself.   The problem is to find him, and therefore I need to continue to fill this blog with text, so it would come up more often in google searches.    Thus I have been filling the entries with whatever I could think of and after being a bit inspired by reading books on psychopathy and narcissism, I have lately written a lot about the behavior of jerks, and I was aware that I may appear a bit too negative and harsh.  I know, that not all men are jerks or emotional morons.  
 

"I wish I could have met an articulate woman with as much self-awareness and clear thinking as you have when I was younger, but I really didn't. "

I was not always as self-aware as I am now at my age.   I paid a price of pain for gaining self-awareness by some experiences.  

But now I am very determined to stick to what I have learned and not repeat any painful mistakes from the past.   The first experience of some painful behavior leaves a scar, but would I repeat the same mistake, then rewounding an old scar would hurt much more than creating it.  It is a way of getting emotionally allergic to some behaviors.  Therefore I am very careful now not to expose myself to the same experiences again.  

I appreciate T's questions and I will reply to them in the next entries.  

159. Commenting Deactivated

Commenting Deactivated

I have deactivated the possibility to leave comments.   

Rational, constructive and polite feedback by email is welcome: marulaki@hotmail.com. 

139. A Jerk is Spitting With Rage

A Jerk is Spitting With Rage

So far I have got some positive feedback from people, who find this blog impressive and interesting.  

The following is a comment to entry 138, which was about men, who use a partner as a scapegoat for their displaced aggression and rage.    That was obviously so much a mirror to this commentator, that it has pushed his button to out himself as a case of evidence.   Thanks to him for backing up my point.          

This feedback is so far the best compliment for my writing.   His wrath shows me, that I am describing jerks and emotional morons so well, that they recognize themselves immediately.  

This comment is hilarious.   Enjoy the laughter.   

dear what's your name?

what makes you think that after you go on and on and on about what jerks men are... how every aspect of a man repulses you, how there are 5 kinds of jerks with 4 subtypes of problems each? what makes you think you shall ever find a man who possesses the kind of capacity and self esteem you seem to call for in your online blog advertisement thingie here to get your dream mate?

And when it comes to taking out a person's shortcomings on their mindmate, what makes you think you are any less likely to do that than all the men you seem to blame for STRAPPING your energy as a woman. Could it be that like in the quote you lack such interpersonal skills that you are incapable of having a social life AND a professional or personal life within the norms of human behavior without continually henpecking a man to death?

Or do you suppose that you will only find men who would allow you to beat them up psychologically before they ever arrive at your front door. And if any man should decide to give you a whirl, could you suspend all judgement and live in the moment, forgiving and forgetting minor indiscretion as mature adults do, or should you or would you be forever picking his eyes out, measuring him against your ideal concept of what your dear Philemon should be?

these are important questions you should ask. they may determine whether you ever find your mind mate or get a former one back if you indeed have any former boyfriends. i seriously doubt it. you sound possibly like a 61 year old virgin with no imagination for an enjoyable sex life, social life nor anything but simply sitting in front of your computer writing rules for fools to live in your world by. could this be the case?

i do not pity you but wonder if you yourself have the capacity to live a happy life even if Philemon should arrive from half way round the world committed to stay with you for a lifetime. Or if he should walk through your door from down the street. Either way you will have to show maturity and self control yourself and with a sense of humor strive to get along with your mind mate and i hate to suggest this to such an opinionated woman, you may actually have to make concessions yourself!

I know that it is not very kind to make fun of a pathetic creature like this commentator.  I should pity him for being such a moron.  Further comments from him will be deleted unpublished.  

127. Four Months of This Blog

Four Months of This Blog

Today is the last day of October, this is entry 127.   I have written a lot during the four months, since I have started this blog.   I keep on writing, because the more I write about a variety of topics, the more this blog shows up in google searches.  

By now I have said enough for my mindmate to recognize himself when reading this blog.   He has not found me yet.   Bad luck for him and for me, life together would be so much better.   It is not good to be alone.   But it is still better than to be with an unsuitable man.  

Blogger has a page, where I can check the number of pageviews and from which country they come.   In the month of October, there has been a total number of about 750 pageviews. 

Obviously, some people are looking at this blog.  I have no clue, how many of them are actually reading the pages after opening them.   I have also no clue, how many are considering this blog as a lot of mental diarrhea.  Those who do, do not bother to telling me so. 

Besides the few comments, I got a bit of positive feedback in private correspondence.   When I am daydreaming, I am hoping, that one of these days someone stumbles upon this blog, who has access to some very popular and highly frequented webpage.   Even if he would recommend this blog only as an amazing curiosity, it still may catch the attention of my mindmate.   

But reality is not like this.   I am neither impressive enough nor weird enough to achieve, that this blog can be distinguished from thousands of others.   
Every new entry is like throwing another bottle into the ocean.   Only I am not throwing one bottle into a vast ocean, I am throwing one more bottle between millions of other bottles floating there already.