672. Avoiding Commitment Is Unhealthy

672.   Avoiding Commitment Is Unhealthy

Often people, who are not in a relationship, especially those, who had been hurt, cope with this situation by distributing their emotional and social needs over a variety of sources, children, family, colleagues, buddies.   What first starts as a method of substitution, sometimes reduces or eliminates all subjectively felt need to find a partner and the situation is perpetuated. 

  
Women in such a situation often claim to not need a man at all.  Thus they at least do not harm anybody.  
Men in such a situation unfortunately are also a jeopardy for women needing a companion, because while they can fulfill all their emotional and social need by combined substitutes, they continue to have physiological needs.  They restore their homeostasis by the temporary abuse of female bodies, but refuse commitment.   

According to this research, such a system of substitutes does not suffice to maintain optimal health:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130703101607.htm

"New BYU research finds that people in happy marriages live less "in sickness" but enjoy more of life "in health."

In a 20-year longitudinal study tracking health and marriage quality, BYU family life researcher Rick Miller found that as the quality of marriage holds up over the years, physical health holds up too."

This has unfortunate implications.   The more people feel a deficit, the more they are motivated to change this actively.   Men on dating sites, who have settled in such a system of substitutions, are often not motivated to make the least efforts towards finding a committed relationship, while they are still healthy and fit.   They make the big mistake of waiting passively and with inertia, until some perfect dream woman would falls from the sky directly into their bed.    

In my age group, these men's mistake can be fatal.   They are in denial, that once they have undermined their health and are already sick, frail and in need of a caring woman, then it is too late to find one.   Few women are interested to start a relationship as a nurse.        

506. The Harmful Effects Of Pornography On Jerks And On Emotional Morons

506.   The Harmful Effects Of Pornography On Jerks And On Emotional Morons

As shown by a lot of scientific evidence in entry 505, exposure to pornography converts men into hazards to women with emotional needs.   

When men are knowingly harming women. they are ruthless jerks.   Others are emotional moron, who want to be decent and moral people, and who have a clear conscience believing to do nothing wrong.  They are oblivious or in denial of the real damage done by them.
This is a general observation, but it is also the case, when men harm first themselves by pornography and whose harming women is a direct consequence of having damaged themselves.  

When damaged men are outspoken in their refusal to commit, women have at least a fair chance to avoid being abused by them.   

But those men are the most dangerous, who appear, pretend or believe to want a companion, and whose bonding-disability is hidden until the discovery as the consequence of actually getting involved.   Women are mislead to agree to intimacy, which for them is the beginning of commitment.  They give and expect affectionate physical intimacy.  All they can get from the damaged men is being an object used in their mechanical copulations.  

These are two examples:

1.  The jerk:
 

I read somewhere on the web the desperate complaints of a guy, who has not only damaged himself by too much pornography, but who has reached the consciousness of suffering from it.    He describes with words, that resound his genuine pain and distress, how much he would want to have a woman as a companion.   But every time, when he wishes a woman to become his companion, the desensitization overrides everything else.  Physical involvement automatically converts the attempted mating into the subjective experience of another instance of his habitual abuse, and the woman meant as a companion is perceived as just one more degraded object and utility.    
This guy is a jerk, because he has recognized this effect upon himself, but in spite of knowing, what he does, he repeats his futile attempts to have a companionship.    Every time, when he tries again, he harms a trusting woman without feeling responsible.  
He is also jerk by being very selfish. His extreme exposure to pornography is the result of his making a good living by selling it.    He admits, that he continues his profitable business, knowingly inflicting the same harm upon others, in spite of being aware of having harmed himself.

2.  The emotional moron:

Recently I have corresponded for a while with a man, whose denial is remarkable.   He told me quite convincingly, that he really wants a long term monogamous relationship, and how much he is interested in communication and in companionship.   He put emphasis on his alleged appreciation for women.   He told me, that he never had a one-night-stand, and this of course made him attractive to me.  
When I asked him about his use of pornography, I thought it was merely a routine question.  I really expected a negative answer.    Instead I was consternated and horrified, when he admitted to having been consuming pornography habitually since over 40 years, whenever he was not in a relationship.   After 40 years, it is most probably an addiction.    

He naively considers pornography as a harmless everyday habit.   I have sent him the links to scientific articles about the harm done by pornography listed in entry 505.   Reading these articles had no impact upon his complete denial.   He claims that even if everybody else gets harmed by the exposure to huge amounts of pornography, he continues to believe, that he alone is the one exception, who has not been damaged.  

My mindmate to be found is neither a jerk nor an emotional moron.   He has no life history of abusing women, he has not desensitized himself neither by promiscuously using real bodies nor by exposing himself to the pornographic representations of abused bodies.

505. Science Indicating The Harm Of Pornography

505.   Science Indicating The Harm Of Pornography

For emotionally unharmed people, monogamy, commitment and exclusive pair-bonding are basic cognitive and emotional human needs. 
Promiscuity, polygyny, cheating, dumping, degrading and abusing others as mere bodies cause serious emotional harm to people.   

While the emotional benefits for individual human beings derived from the exclusivity of monogamy are the topic of romance in novels and movies, scientific research instead focuses mainly on general social, economic and evolutionary benefits of monogamy.  

Whenever I am reading men's profiles and the ubiquitous promiscuous and perverse wishes and goals, in addition to some feedback to this blog and to my own profiles, I sometimes feel as if I were an alien from another planet thrown into a filthy gutter.     

But luckily, I am not entirely alone with my evaluation of the damage done by the artificial social norm of an oversexed society.   There are learned and knowledgeable scientists studying the serious harm done by pornography.  

When already repeatedly expressing my disgust about the ubiquity of jerks openly pursuing promiscuity on the Internet and about the general oversexation of society, I had omitted to put special emphasis on pornography as the core of the problem.  Promiscuity is more an abstract concept, while pornography is its real life representation.  
The entire detrimental effects of the general oversexation including the subtle and indirect damage are like an iceberg, of which only one seventh is visible above the water.   This visible part is pornography, of which the harm can be shown most easily.     I already have called promiscuity a scourge of humanity, and so is pornography as its most visible expression.
 
While I was fully aware of the kind of damage done to users' brains by the exposure to pornography, I had not been aware to which extreme extensity and pervasiveness pornography had grown along with the ubiquity of the Internet.    While I cannot avoid being exposed to the general oversexation of daily life against my will, the access to pornography on the web requires proactive behavior.    By being able to avoid it, I was not fully aware the real magnitude of the problem.    

I attributed promiscuity directly to men's being physiologically driven by their strong animal instincts, this being aggravated by their having lost first the sensitivity to appreciate an emotional safe haven and subsequently also lacking the motivation to use self-control.  
Those promiscuous jerks and emotional psychopaths, whom I described throughout this blog as prototypes from my worst nightmares, have probably not become obnoxious and disgusting merely by an innate disposition.   Instead it is more probable, that the additional exposure to huge amounts of pornography has magnified their innate predisposition, until all their human qualities had been destroyed.  

It seems that pornography converts potential jerks into irreversible jerks.  

There has been done a lot of research on the different aspects of the harm done by pornography, and learned people have expressed and explained it much better, than I could do.   The following is a list of a some very good sources for further information.

Patrick F. Fagan: 
A Poison In The Home
http://www.diolaf.org/documents/Marriage%20and%20Family%20Life/Pornography%20Resources/a%20poison%20in%20the%20home.pdf
 

Patrick F. Fagan, Ph.D.
The Effects of Pornography on Individuals, Marriage, Family and Community
http://www.wifamilyaction.org/files/trya.campaigntoolbox.org/downloads/FRC_PornStudy_0.pdf
 

Mary Eberstadt  Mary Anne Layden 
THE SOCIAL COSTS OF PORNOGRAPHY
http://www.internetsafety101.org/upload/file/Social%20Costs%20of%20Pornography%20Report.pdf

Dr. Victor B. Cline:  
Pornography’s Effects On Adults and Children
http://www.stop.org.za/Victor%20Cline%27s%20Study.pdf

Ana J. Bridges 
Pornography's Effects on Interpersonal Relationships
http://www.socialcostsofpornography.com//Bridges_Pornographys_Effect_on_Interpersonal_Relationships.pdf
 

Jackson Katz: 
Pornography And Men's Consciousness
http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/genderandmedia/assignments/katz001.pdf

Rebecca Whisnant: 
Confronting pornography:  Some conceptual basics.
http://stoppornculture.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Whisnant-Confronting-Pornography.pdf

390. The Emotional Anhedonia Of Jerks

The Emotional Anhedonia Of Jerks

This continues entry 389, where I defined hedonists as persons, whose pleasure center is more or less insensitive and imperceptive to emotional and non-physical stimulation.   
One of the emotions, that hedonists are deprived of, is feeling affection.  Affection is the stimulation of the pleasure center by the mere inactive presence of a significant and valued other person, even while this person does nothing beneficial and is at this moment not physically stimulating to the pleasure center.  
Affection between a couple logically leads to the wish to be together, because this causes good feelings.    Affection is an important part of caring love, affection causes a couple to feel bonded and to enhance this feeling reciprocally.   

Commitment means to be bound by certain obligations like sharing decisions and being reliably and predictable there for the other.   Affection causes a partner to be bound by intrinsic commitment.   When feeling intrinsic commitment like affection as a positive stimulation for the pleasure center, then what otherwise would be defined as even burdensome obligations, is instead experienced as a natural own wish to express love, care and affection.  


As long as I made the mistake of projecting on men my own innate reaction, that getting physically involved automatically creates affection, bonding and commitment, I have been puzzled, why and how it is possible, that so many men are jerks, who ruthlessly use a woman as a commodity without feeling guilty.   

By now I have come to the conclusion, that the core problem is their inability to feel affection for a partner.   What I called bonding disability before, it is the lack of feeling connected by affection, in spite of getting sporadic or recurrent benefits in the form of physical pleasure from her.    While affection motivates a couple to care reciprocally for their emotional and physical wellbeing, without affection there is onesided exploitation and abuse.    

Unfortunately for the woman, in the beginning of a relationship, before both partners know each other well enough, the behavior of a man driven by strong sexual dishomeostasis to gain access to the woman's body shows behaviors, that are easily confounded with affection.     Once he has succeeded and is in a state of temporary homeostasis, the truth becomes obvious.    The bonded man continues to express affection, the man in control over a source of benefits seizes the behaviors, that had appeared as affection, because he has reached his goal.  

Anhedonia is described as a symptom of several clinical disorders, when there is a general insensitivity to feeling pleasure in spite of the presence of stimuli.   But I did not find any information about any form of innate anhedonia as a personality trait, which is only partial and limited to non-physical stimulation.    So this is my speculation:  There exists an innate emotional anhedonia, which includes an inability to feed affection, and which as a consequence makes instinct driven men use women's bodies without commitment.   

Emotional anhedonia deprives hedonists of the ability to experience affection both as a motivation for the own behavior and also when expressed by the partner.    This does not only cause the hedonist to perceive a woman as a commodity, it also deprives the hedonist from the major information input about what to expect concerning the partner's motivation to remain with him.   The hedonist cannot calculate the probability of her staying with him by the information from her expression of love and affection, because he is mindblind to perceive them as such.    

Therefore unfortunately for the woman, the hedonist, who gets benefits from her as from a commodity, knows only one method to ascertain her future availability.   This method is  domination by power and control over her. 


Hedonists are not automatically jerks.   As long as hedonists are aware of their limitations, they can choose fellow hedonists as partners.    Hedonists can be realistic and rational and accept the principle of earning and of a fair balance of giving and receiving.    A hedonist can agree upon extrinsic commitment.   He can get from a woman all the physical pleasure that his infatuation enables him to perceive, and he can decide to give her in return, whatever she asks as a fair deal.  

But when a hedonist gains domination and control over an epicurean victim, who does not get, what she needs and wants, then he becomes a jerk and a hazard for her.   Therefore jerks are hedonists with a victim.   

There are variations of the dynamics, why a woman perceives a hedonist as a jerk due to his treatment of her. 

1. The emotional moron is simply oblivious that she suffers from the restricted and humiliating role in his life, because he projects and believes to give her the same as he wants and gets.    In the latency times between the homeostations of his needs, the woman is of no interest to him.   He calls it his personal space and is willing to allow her the same.    He is not aware that her affection for him causes her the wish to share more than he wants.
2. The psychopath knows, that she suffers from the restricted and humiliating role in his life, but he has not conscience and is as unable to feel guilty as he is to feel affection.
3. The narcissist also feels no affection for her and considers her as a commodity for his physical needs.    But he also feels a primitive non-physical dishomeostasis in his need of narcissistic supply.   When he does notice her behaviors meant to express love, care and affection, he misinterprets it as her agreement with his entitlement and grandiosity delusion.   But when her expressions of appreciation and her caring acts for his wellbeing are not received with responsiveness and reciprocity, but mistaken as fulfilling her purpose, duty and due to him, this causes her also to be a suffering victim.    When this destroys her affection and her motivation to express it, he considers her as flawed.     The narcissist wants more benefits from the woman than the psychopath and emotional moron, but it is also humiliating her by only using her as a commodity.        

In previous entries I had already speculated, that maybe those men, who in our times appear immature, selfish, cruel and irresponsible are just genetic relapses to earlier stages of evolution.   This can also include the relapse back to when affection and monogamy had not yet evolved, when men procreated purely by physical infatuation with the body of a woman.    Epicureans have a brain evolved for abstract cognitions, abstract emotions, non-physical pleasures and the joy of being bonded by affection and are therefore the farthest advanced in the evolution towards the ability to strive for individual subjective wellbeing.    Hedonists were and are still so much driven by instincts and dishomeostasis, that while they were very successful in multiplying the human species, the price for this was paid by the suffering of the women, who were used predominantly as breeding bodies.     

389. The Pleasure Center In The Brain - 2

The Pleasure Center In The Brain - 2

This continues entry 388.  

In previous entries, I have already been describing the difference between the instinctive and the intellectual relationship paradigm, between infatuation and caring love, between the bonding disability of emotional morons and the bonded commitment of mature men.   
I described the behavior, the impact upon the partner, the viability of such a relationship but without explaining its causes beyond the vague attribution to a difference in the wiring of the brain.

Looking now more closely at individual differences between the sensitivity, perceptivity and responsiveness of the pleasure center to different kinds of stimuli enables me to speculate more plausibly about the dynamics between the partners of compatible and of mismatched couples.   When comparing the pleasure centers of two different brains, one wired to be hedonistic, the other wired to be Epicurean, the different treatment of, the attitude towards and the kind of a relationship with a partner can be logically explained. 

The following does not include survival homeostation by very basic needs of air, water, food under starvation, it is restricted to analysing the dishomeostasis and pleasure center stimulation under the circumstances of every day life.

Based upon the differences between which stimuli are perceived with predominant sensitivity by their pleasure centers, hedonists and Epicureans experience their social and material environment, including a partner in a relationship, very differently.

1.  Hedonists

• The hedonistic pleasure center is very perceptive, sensitive and responsive to any physical stimulation, while non-physical stimulation is either not perceived at all or if, then only by rough and primitive emotions like the pleasure of having power and be able to dominate.   
• Auditory, olfactory and visual stimuli only serve as the information of the presence of agents, which can be used for physical stimulation of the pleasure center.
• Dishomeostasis is a strong force and it is nearly always physical.   Any emotional dishomeostasis like frustration or anger are a reaction to not being able to restore physical homeostasis. 
• Physical dishomeostasis is usually a recurrent cycle.   The perception of the dishomeostasis triggers behavior of homeostation, followed by a latency period of saturation until the next perception of dishomeostasis restart the cycle.   
• Physical dishomeostasis is usually endogenous, its cause is independent of the social and material environment, while homeostation depends on the availability of resources in the environment.

The hedonistic brain experiences both the social and material components of the environment as sources, tools, utilities or commodities existing for the hedonist's convenience to fulfill physical needs, when he perceives dishomeostasis and or discovers something, of which he expects stimulation of the pleasure center.    Whatever causes high pleasure stimulation is experienced as something, that the hedonist loves.    There is no reciprocity between a hedonist and his commodity.    It is the control of the user over the availability of the commodity.

• Due to the cyclic dishomeostasis, in the moment of perceiving the dishomeostasis of being hungry, the hedonist loves cheese.   In the moment of feeling pleasure by riding a bicycle, the hedonist loves his bicycle.    In the moment of sexual dishomeostasis, the hedonist loves the woman's body, with whom he is infatuated.   
• In the moment of saturation, all the commodities, the cheese, the bicycle and the woman become temporarily insignificant and he has no reason to focus his attention upon them.    He wants to have them available in storage for the next use.    When in the state of saturation, any focus of attention on the commodities causes no pleasure or only the pleasure of being in control and of having the power to repeat the use in the future.
• Sometimes the hedonist values the pleasure of using those commodities enough to pay high prices for cheese and for a bicycle and he pampers the woman with expensive gifts to ascertain her availability.   
• The hedonist is aware, that taking care of good maintenance prolongs the usability of his commodities.   The cheese needs to be stored in the fridge, the bicycle needs greasing, and the woman needs food, shelter and health care.    The hedonist considers it as his option, how much maintenance he invests in expectation of how long he wants to keep the utility ready to serve him.  
• Neither a bicycle nor cheese have any feelings and own needs, and the hedonist assumes the same also to be the case with a woman as a commodity.   
• A dysfunctional commodity can make the hedonist angry, but a commodity does not hurt the feelings of a human.   The hedonist feels no personal or emotional connection with the commodities as entities.   His love for the commodities is the love for the benefits.    He feels no affection for a commodity.
• The magnitude of the stimulation of the pleasure center of a hedonist depends only on his needs and his perceptivity and the quality of the stimulus, but not on other commodities.   The piece of cheese does not taste any better, when eaten on the bicycle or in presence of the woman.  
• When a hedonist feels the dishomeostasis of being hungry, then a woman is experienced as either functional, when she contributes to his getting food, or dysfunctional, when she impedes him from getting food. 

2. Epicureans

• The Epicurean pleasure center is very perceptive, sensitive and responsive to any intellectual, emotional, auditory, olfactory and visual stimulation, which overrides physical stimulation in its impact.   
• Emotional dishomeostasis is a stronger force than physical dishomeostasis.  
• Emotional dishomeostasis is usually a persistent state of unpleasant feelings, that lasts, until the reason has been removed.   
• Emotional dishomeostasis is often exogenous, it is triggered, caused or modified by the interaction with the social and material environment.   

For an Epicurean in a bonded commitment, reciprocal caring love and affection has very strong effects upon the pleasure center.   The Epicurean feels bliss, joy and happiness by nothing more than being together with or near the beloved person, while there is no emotional dishomeostasis.     The perception and knowledge of being loved, respected, appreciated, cherished, significant, cared for stimulates the pleasure center.   Reciprocal proactive expressions of caring and loving behavior as described in entry 385 enhances this perception.    Being together is experienced as triggering affection and is a permanent stimulation of the epicurean pleasure center.    

• If there is emotional dishomeostasis, it is very disruptive and a very serious problem.   
• The Epicurean joy and happiness depends on reciprocity, it depends on triggering the same emotions and attitudes from the other as one feels oneself.    Getting the contrary of what one gives and expects causes pain and feeling hurt and this leads to a state of dishomeostasis.    The more one partner has and expresses respect, appreciation and significance for the other, the more s/he feels hurt, when experiencing disrespect, depreciation and insignificance in return
• Emotional dishomeostasis is a serious problem needing to be dealt with, no matter if the trigger of it is real or only perceived as the result of a misunderstanding and misinterpretation.   
• As soon as one partner feels emotional dishomeostasis, this impedes feeling affection, joy and happiness in the presence of the other and as a consequence it also impedes further expressions of love.   
• Emotional dishomeostasis of one Epicurean partner leads to emotional dishomeostasis of both.   Communicating about all conflicts, until mutual respect, appreciation and significance are restored, is a task of paramount importance for an Epicurean couple's bonding and closeness.  
• The Epicurean pleasure center gets stimulated by the intellectual joy of visiting an interesting museum or watching a fascinating theater play and by being together with a beloved partner.   The pleasure stimulation by both sources not only adds its magnitudes, but multiplies it.   
• The Epicurean joy of being together often compensates for discomfort of any kind.    Bonded committed Epicureans are sometimes oblivious of physical discomfort when they are absorbed in the joy of being together.    

3.  Epicureans and hedonists are mismatches.

Both relationship principles are as incompatible as the differences in the responsiveness of the pleasure centers.   

A hedonistic man and an Epicurean woman are a tragic mismatch.   

Being Epicurean does not preclude the occasional indulgence in physical pleasures like delicious food, it is a known experience of little importance.    But the hedonist is ignorant and oblivious of the intellectual and emotional stimulation of the Epicurean's pleasure center, which he has never experienced due to his lacking the perceptivity and sensitivity.    When the hedonist keeps a woman in good maintenance, allowing her the same amount of physical stimulation of the pleasure center as he wants for himself, he firmly believes to be doing the right thing for having her as a long term commodity.    He is void of feeling affection.

Hedonists cannot be blamed for lacking affection due to lacking the perception of emotional and intellectual joy in their pleasure center, just as deaf persons cannot be blamed for not hearing music.    A deaf and a hearing person cannot share the joy of listening to music and the deaf person cannot be motivated to go to a concert, that he cannot hear.  
The hedonist cannot imagine the joy of bonded togetherness just as a stone age man could not imagine to hear the high quality sound of an entire orchestra played from a tiny box into his ears.  
A hedonist and an Epicurean cannot share the joy of being together and of sharing intellectual and emotional stimuli, because this does not stimulate the hedonist's pleasure center.  There is nothing to motivate him to participate in behaviors that contribute to kindling love (entry 385).   He does not feel affection and he does not recognize affection for him.  The hedonist has no reason to be together with the Epicurean woman, except when he needs her for his homeostation or any other purpose.  
Therefore the hedonist is clueless, that she perceives her restricted role as a commodity for his physical stimulation as humiliation, indignation and devaluation.   He is often completely oblivious, that he is causing her emotional dishomeostasis in growing magnitude, until the relationship has become toxic.   If he notices at all, that she has reached the limit of her endurance, he cannot comprehend, why and interprets this as her defect and flaw.

299. Emotional Cheating

Emotional Cheating
If a jerk or an emotional moron accepts not to cheat, he does this, because it is such a common simple rule, that even he can understand, that he risks to loose the woman and therefore the control over his commodity.    But an emotional moron often has no clue about the meaning of emotional cheating and the boundaries of discretion and exclusivity.
   
In entry 253 I described, how an emotional moron can be someone, who is his only one-man-ingroup, and everybody is outgroup, no matter what social roles they have, and that a woman in his life also is outgroup.   He may share with her the bed and the roof, but other than that, he does not value or perceive her as someone special, with whom he would share exclusive intellectual and emotional bonds, of which the rest of the world is excluded and which is protected by discretion.  

The behavior of the emotional moron depends upon his general level of trust.   He may be so distrusting, that he refuses to share his innermost feelings and the truth about his motives even with his partner.   I described, what happens in this situation in entry 297 about The Backlash of Not Trusting.

The emotional moron often has no perception for boundaries and the subtle differences of social roles.   He does not know, whom to keep how much emotional distance of.   He lacks any sense of discretion and tells to outsiders details of the relationship, that he owes to his partner to keep private.    He does not even bother to inform her or to ask her permission before his indiscretions.   He is violating her trust and this is a form of betrayal.   It is emotional cheating, when he shares details of his relationship with other women.    He commits a transgression.

When he tells private details to a third party in her presence, she at least has the chance to correct wrong impressions by adding her own point of view.  
But if a man tells others about their private life without her knowledge, then she is prone to meet his friends or acquaintances, being oblivious of what he has told them and what wrong ideas they have about her.   She meets people, with whom he has ruined her reputation with onesided accounts of conflicts and she cannot correct it.

A couple's life needs to be kept discreetly from all outsiders.    If an intrinsically committed partner tries in vain to communicate with a bonding disabled other, and she is in so much distress, that she needs support, then she may have no choice but to confide in a close friend, but this is only acceptable as an exception from the rule of exclusivity.  

Emotional morons are a hazard to a woman in many ways.

295. Intrinsic Commitment and Emotions

Intrinsic Commitment and Emotions

A viable relationship has to be a fair balance of giving and receiving, according to the relationship deal.     I can only last, if both partners feel satisfied with the relationship.    

Entries 262 and 98 are about the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic commitment.   But there are some more differnces:

• How the satisfaction with the relationship is measured.
• If and how information about satisfaction or dissatisfaction is conveyed and shared.
• How a partner handles dissatisfaction.   

Extrinsic commitment is based upon the balance of material and practical benefits and services.   In extrensic commitment, the compliance of the deal or the dissatisfaction of the failure thereof can easily be claimed and evaluated.     If a man demands a  specific service or benefit from the woman, no matter if by agreement or by his entitlement delusion, it is easy to specify and to blame her for what he did not get.    

A man, who considers the woman as a commodity, has the power to bully her to do and to comply with what he wants.    Bullying it the man's method to deal with his dissatisfaction, that the woman does not agree to be a commodity.   She has only the power to leave, and that is, where his power ends. 
Bullying as a love killer (entry 294) therefore only happens, when the bonding-disabled man establishes extrinsic commitment.    Bullying happens, when either the woman wants intrinsic commitment or accepts extrinsic commitment, but as a fair deal and not as his commodity.  

The man remains ignorant, that the woman's dissatisfaction is caused by the imposed role of a commodity, he is deaf to her complaints and blames her dissatisfaction instead upon her alleged flaws.    Bullies are unable to trust, that makes them such a hazard.   The man does not trust the woman, he never believes any of her statements about her feelings, he cannot be influenced to alter his using her as a commodity.  When she tells him, how much a specific behavior is hurting, he believes, that this behavior cannot hurt anybody, because it is his entitlement.   He attributes her feeling hurt as her own flaw and continues his hurting behavior.   Her pain accumulates, until the relationship has no more value for her and she leaves.  


Intrinsic commitment is about emotions, the relationship deal is giving each other the feelings of wellbeing in a safe haven. Nothing can be gained by power.   A man can never bully a woman to love him.   If he wants to be loved and his wellbeing to be cared for, he can win her good will only by treating her the way she needs and wants to be treated.   

The conscious measurement of satisfaction with the relationship is the perception of pleasant and unpleasant emotions elicited by the partner.   While extreme emotions are usually visible, more moderate emotions are often not visible on the outside, but have nevertheless a significant impact upon a person's general wellbeing.   This impact can accumulate.   A person can feel either content and happy or hurt most of the time, but this can be hidden from the awareness of the person causing these emotions.    Therefore sincere communication about the true innermost feelings is the only way to find out with certainly, if the partner is satisfied with the relationship.   This means to ask, to listen and to trust, that the other tells the truth.  

Each partner evaluates the relationship very subjectively by what he feels.  These emotions are real and valid, they are the true measurement of the quality of the relationship, because the only purpose of intrinsic commitment is to be more happy and less unhappy than alone.   The partners can compare notes about the dynamics of their behavior, but the emotional reactions are subjective.   People can react very differently to the same experience.   What is extremely painful for one person can be of no significance to another.    In this case, the subjective experience has validity, no matter, if the cause of the experience has empathy, understanding and insight or not.  
Therefore intrinsic commitment requires absolute trust in the truth of the other's declarations of how he feels, and it requires taking everything said for serious and at face value.    It requires to ask and show interest in the emotional reactions of the other as a result of the own behavior.   Intrinsic commitment is the never ending endavor of making each other perceive the relationship as emotionally beneficial.   

Whenever a woman tells a man, that she feels hurt because of a specific behavior of his, he knows that he needs to change the behavior.   If he continues his hurting behavior and she reaches the point of feeling more hurt than happy, then the relationship has become worthless for her, and she has no reason to stay.  

A sane, decent and mature man in intrinsic commitment is aware of these basic facts:

1. The emotions of a woman are real, true and valid for herself, no matter, what others think or claim that she should feel.
2. The woman's evaluation of the relationship is based only upon her own subjective emotions, as she experiences them.
3. Disagreement, claims, denials, accusations, interpretations can influence and distort, how the man perceives and interprets the expressed and declared emotions of the woman, but he cannot influence, what the woman subjectively feels.  
4. If the man wants to influence the emotions of the woman, he can only change his own behavior, that causes the emotions.   If he wants her to feel happy, he has to treat her well.
5. The only way to make a woman stay in a relationship of intrinsic commitment is to treat her in a way, that causes her to feel happy, and to abstain from all behavior, that hurts her.    
6. A woman has no rational reason whatsoever to be or to remain in a relationship, where she experiences more pain than joy and happiness and the pain is a result of the man's behavior.  
7. Pain caused by hurting behavior cannot be annihilated or compensated with any other benefit.    Such pain can only avoided by stopping the hurting behavior.  

The jerk or the emotional moron asks, how good he feels because of having control over a woman as a commodity.    

The wise man asks, how good he can make the woman feel, when and because she is with him.

288. The Distorted Memory of the Emotional Moron

The Distorted Memory of the Emotional Moron

Some emotional morons seem to have a very specific distortion of their memory.     They store every blame, grudge and devaluation of a woman in their memory as carved in stone for eternity.   But they store the explanation and information in favor and defense of the woman as if written with chalk on a slate, that gets washed off by the next rain.    She has no chance to ever counterbalance his wrong perception and opinion of her, which gets from bad to worse as a consequence of the distorted memory.   

When a woman experiences something distressing, some disappointment, something hurting, no matter if caused by the emotional moron himself or by someone else, and he does not understand, what is going on, he automatically jumps to the conclusion, that she is a drama queen, hysterical, flawed.  
As an emotional moron, he is oblivious, that someone can experience anything, which he does not know of or which he would not be affected by at all.  In his simple mind, what does not exist for him, cannot exist for her.   An emotional moron not only lacks empathy, but he lacks any knowledge of the fact, that other people have very real and valid feelings and experiences, even though he himself has never even heard of them and they are beyond his imagination.    He is completely oblivious, that he cannot evaluate other people's behavior without sufficient information about their invisible emotional reality, and this information can only be obtained by asking for and listening to their introspection.   
Instead, he believes in his wrong assumptions based entirely on observations.  As a result, he observes the woman's incomprehensible distress without the shade of a doubt as an indication of her flaws and he stores this observation and interpretation in his permanent unmodifiable memory.    It just does not even occur to him to wonder, what really is the matter with her, let alone ask her a respectful question about her subjective experience.  

The woman wants a relationship to be a bonded intrinsic commitment based upon sharing the innermost feelings and understanding each other.    When she gets aware of his unfavorable evaluation of her distress, she makes efforts to explain to him everything she has experienced, felt and thought, in the hope to gain his understanding and his appreciation, that her distress was an appropriate reaction to her experience.  
Being an emotional moron void of any understanding about intrinsic commitment and such abstract needs of her, he has no clue, why she is so anxious and driven to explain herself to him, why it is important to her at all. 
If he finds no way to avoid it, he sometimes does listen with reluctance, he even tells her that he has understood her explanation and her introspection.  
But the next time, when he finds a new blame to put on her, when he starts another rant about his new and all his already accumulated grudges and blames, he is back at repeating his original claim of her being a hysterical drama queen, just as if she had never attempted to make him understand her feelings and her reality.    His grudges and blames accumulate, her explanations disappear without any effect.  

She might even write her explanations down, print them and hand them over to him to read.   This way she wants to give him a chance to make an attempt at his own speed, ease and convenience to understand her better.   It is all futile.  There is no way to influence him.   Her distress in previous episodes will forever be in his mind as an indication of her being flawed, and he will again and again repeat this to her.   

The question remains, why then did he claim at one moment to have understood?    There are several possibilities, and they are probably all of them sometimes valid.
1.   He temporarily understands but does not store this in his memory but forgets it immediately or very soon as if she has never said anything.
2.   He pretends to have understood, because he is not at all interested in her explanations, he is bored and wants to end the discussion.
3.   As a narcissist, he appreciates every indication allowing him to believe in her being flawed, but her explanation is not welcome, so he only pretends to listen and to have understood. 
4.   His ability of abstract thinking and of understanding mature emotions is so impaired, that he is unable to understand her explanations, but does not admit it.    He only pretends to have understood.
5.   He does not take her for serious or does not trust her to tell the truth.    He believes his own interpretation of his observations more than he believes her introspection and explanation.   He pretends to have understood, because he did not value her enough to listen.

This accumulation of unfavorable interpretation of more and more instances of her behavior has a very detrimental long term effect upon the relationship.    Events, that are incomprehensible only to an emotional moron and make the woman appear in an unfavorable light, happen in every relationship and cannot be avoided.    The longer this goes on, the more he devalues her, and she has no chance of stop this process.

She has no influence on what the emotional moron thinks of her and as a consequence, she also has no influence, how he treats her.   Since his opinion of her determines how he treats her, devaluing her serves to him as his justification for domination and bullying.   Along with the accumulation of grudges and devaluation, his treatment of her deteriorates.      

Every once in a while, when something pushes his hostility and anger button, he starts to declaim his whole database of blames and grudges like pouring a flood of mental diarrhea over the woman.    It is a known psychological fact used in commercials, that the more often something is repeated, the more people start to accept it as true.  The emotional moron obviously believes, that by repeating his claim of her alleged flaws often enough, she will finally agree to be flawed.    But as long as the woman's self-esteem remains undamaged, his repetition of his same old grudges and blames is just a painful nuisance for her and the harm done by it is indirect.   His ranting about her deficiency has the effect of convincing himself, and with every of his repetitions, he believes more in her flaws.  

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.  

264. Procrustes

Procrustes

The effect of an immature emotional moron upon a sensitive woman is emotionally, what Procrustes did physically to his victims.   

"he had an iron bed in which he invited every passer-by to spend the night, and where he set to work on them with his smith's hammer, to stretch them to fit. In later tellings, if the guest proved too tall, Procrustes would amputate the excess length"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes

The emotional moron believes, that everybody is like him.   He thinks this even about women, as long  as the differences are not obviously noticeable.    His interaction with a woman is determined by projection and by taking the validity of his projections for granted.  

• He projects his needs upon her. 
  If he wants to be caring or give her something as his part of the relationship deal, he fulfills his own needs upon her, even if she protests and resists, because what he wants as good for himself is painful for her.    He is ignorant of her needs, if they are different from his.    It does not even occur to him, that she could have needs, that he is not aware of.   
  
• He projects his denials, delusions and sore spots upon her.  
  
• What he does not want to exist, in his mind also does not exist for her.    When he thinks, that something does not exist, he also cannot accept it as a problem for her and if it is, he considers it her flaw.    If he has an entitlement delusion, he expect to get his alleged due from her.    If he has sore spots, she takes it for granted that she knows without being told.   If she ignorantly touches them, he blames her.
  
• He projects his own weaknesses and troubles upon her, depreciates her and even attempts to fix her.
  
• He projects his own reaction patterns upon her.  
  Whatever she does, he believes that she did it for the same reason, for which he would have done it.    If he is not sincere, he also does not trust her.
  Whatever he does to her, he believes to know, how she will react.   If she reacts differently and he dislikes or does not understand it, he considers her as being flawed.    He does not doubt his prediction.   He does not consider to change his behavior to get the reaction, he wanted and expected.
  He does not take responsibility for his own actions, if she suffers from what he considers as correct behavior by projection.    He blames and considers her as flawed, when he confounds her reactions with independent actions.   
• He projects that what is good for him is automatically good for her. 
  If she suffers, he firmly believes, that there is something wrong with her, he does not doubt, that what he has done was appropriate.    He never evaluates his own actions by taking her reaction into account. 
  If he is bonding disabled and perceives a woman automatically as a friend with benefits, he projects this on her and believes, that she is content when treated as such.
  If for him a relationship serves the purpose of gaining homeostasis for the urges of his instincts, he projects that he has to be a stud for her and nothing else.  
  
• He projects also his attitudes on her, where they define complimentary behavior of the two genders.
  If he believes in the gender roles of male dominance as natural and correct, he projects on her her compliance to submit and feel content.  
  If he is a narcissist, he projects on her to be content as a co-narcissist. 
  If he sees a relationship as a complimentary deal, then he considers money and material benefits as a sufficient price for her maintaining his homeostasis.

Whenever he projects something on her, he takes it for granted, that she knows, what he wants and what not without explicitly talking about it.    If she does not fulfill his expectations, then he considers her as at fault, he does not consider any need to communicate explicitly.    If she does not comply with his expectations without being told, he begrudges her and gets angry.  

According to his projections, a woman can only be right, when she does, what he expects, or wrong otherwise.   He feels no need to get any information input from or about her.   That makes him a robot, who is determined by his innate projection program and cannot to be influenced from outside to adapt his program to any specific woman.   His program treats all women as one prototype.    He believes so much in his projections, that he is immune to any attempt to influence him by proffering information and feedback.   

For him a relationship is not a deal based upon each explicitly telling the other the own needs and checking, if the needs of the other can be fulfilled.    The emotional moron condescends to mold any haphazard woman, if he happens to get infatuated with her body.   Due to his projection, he has no doubt, that she will fulfill his needs and he hers.    If there are conflicts, he experiences her as a faulty copy of the prototype, not as a mismatch.  

He believes so much in his projections and in treating her how she should be treated, that he cannot acknowledge or admit, that she could ever be unhappy because of him.   Even when she outwardly shows serious indications of unhappiness or distress, he is unable to perceive it as such.    Instead he interprets it as behavior for the purpose of manipulating him.

He does not consciously search for a woman, who is as much like him as possible, so that she could be treated as the prototype of his program and be happy about it as is would be congruent with her person.   Instead he gets involved with any haphazard woman, whom he takes for granted to be only raw material to be reformed in a mold to fit his projections.    He believes her in need of molding, until she not only resembles his projections, but also expresses her approval.

262. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Commitment and the Relationship Deal

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Commitment and the Relationship Deal

I already described the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic commitment in entry 98.    I described the problem of a mismatch between a woman in search of intrinsic commitment with a man, who offers her anything except this, in entry 256.    Also there is an extra page about what kind of relationship deal I am offering to my mindmate.

A relationship is a deal, and when people are entering a monogamous relationship, this decision is based upon the evaluation , that what they offer and what they expect to get is a fair balance.    A man often enters a monogamous relationship for the purpose of acquiring a steady method of maintaining sexual homeostasis, when he subjectively wants to be decent in not abusing women or when he prefers this over the efforts needed to regularly chase new prey, of both.   In return he offers, what he has to offer, what he is willing to offer, and what he believes that the woman wants.  

Both intrinsic and extrinsic commitment start like this.    But from then on, what women experience from bonding-disabled men limited to extrinsic commitment, and what they experience from mature high quality men able to give them intrinsic commitment, is very different.   

1.  Identity:   

An intrinsically committed man changes his identity.   By getting committed, he starts to experience and to perceive himself as half a couple, as part of a unit, as an ingroup consisting of two partners.   He merges into being incomplete without the other half.

An extrinsically committed man experiences and perceives himself as continuing to be a single man with a woman attached, who requires some price to be paid regularly to keep her there.     She is peripheral to his life.   He does not need her, she is a body, that can be replaced.    He experiences himself as someone protecting and defending his boundary and his space against someone, whom he wants to keep at a safe distance.   He wants her body to be available, but she is supposed not to interfere too much with his life.

2.  Deal:

For an intrinsically committed man, the calculating, how much he gives and how much he gets in return, ends with the subjective merging into a unit.   From then on he experiences himself as acting in the best interest of the couple, who has joined forces in the shared competition with their environment.    In his talking and in his thinking, he replaces 'I', 'me', 'mine' by 'we', 'us', 'our'.  

An extrinsically committed man continues to evaluate the benefits of the relationship by book keeping, by which he keeps record, if he gets enough and does not give too much.     He is ready to end the deal at any moment, when he experiences it as no more beneficial for himself.

3.  Obligations:

An intrinsically committed man considers the obligations of the relationship governance not as restrictions or as a burden, because his partner and her behavior is important enough to value her being bound by the same obligations.     He adheres to rules like not cheating, being bound by agreements, being honest, because it is for him the method to ascertain, that his partner's behavior is reliably determined by the same rules.   He perceives not lying as a very fair price for his own need of a partner's honesty as a basis of mutual trust.     He experiences mutual obligations as a part of making the relationship a safe haven for both of them.

An extrinsically committed man may consider it as a burden, when he has to pretend to be honest and try not to be caught lying., even though he is completely unconcerned and uninterested in what the woman says, be it honest or a lie.   Her honesty has no value, because all he wants is her body.    Not lying or not being caught lying is therefore for him an unpleasant price to pay to keep the woman available in bed.   It is not a price that he perceives as worth paying for her honesty, if he does not care about it.    He perceives all obligations as a restriction to his liberty, that he grudgingly pays to have her in bed.

4.  Caring and Consideration:
An intrinsically committed man perceives his partner's wellbeing as equally important as his own.   Whenever he is at the point of doing something, he automatically considers first, what impact his action would have on his partner.   If he cannot know it, he asks her.  He trusts her word, that she means, what she says and is honest about it.    He feels responsible for every impact, that he has upon her.    He cares to spare her pain and to fulfill her needs.  

An extrinsically committed man thinks economically.   He wants to get as much advantages as possible from his partner for the least cost, that makes her stay.    He cares about a woman's wellbeing only, when she explicitly asks for it as a part of the deal.  He ignores and denies her needs unless he is risking to loose her services in bed.    When  he cannot avoid caring for her needs, such a man bargains to get as much and pay as little as he can get away with.  

5.  Time Together:

An intrinsically committed man wants to be together with his partner and share those activities, where he can rejoice all the qualities, that she has in his evaluation.    He clings to being with her, because being with her is rewarding.

An extrinsically committed man wants to have the woman in his bed in the night.   If he shares other activities with her, this is not of any emotional benefit to him.    As long as he gets his homeostasis, he can be content to spend a lot of time without her.   

6.  Being Together:

An intrinsically committed man would not even think of dumping a partner, because he perceives her as an essential part of his life, of himself in his identity as a merged unit.   He feels only complete when being with her.  It would not even occur to him to incomplete himself, to amputate an essential part of his life.

An extrinsically committed man does not hesitate to dump a woman, as soon as he does not get anymore, what he wants from her.    

7.  Sharing Resources:

An intrinsically committed man accepts, that he joins assets and resources with his partner and that these are then joined property to be used only by joined and shared decisions.    Whenever the resources are limited, they both give priority to spending money on what is of benefit for them both together.    Spending money benefiting only one is based upon a shared decision.  

An extrinsically committed man considers a woman as a commodity and a tool to add as much benefit to his life for the least cost, he does not enter a relationship for her benefit.   Such a man spends as much money on himself as he has to fulfill this own selfish needs first.    Only if it pleases him to feel good about doing it or if he has the misguided wish to give something back for the woman's service in bed, he decides to spend money on her.    But no matter, if the spends money on himself or on the woman, he reserves the decision for himself and excludes the woman from it.

8.  Sharing Decisions:  

An intrinsically committed man has chosen his partner for her intellectual and emotional qualities.    Whenever he wants to do something, he expects to get some additional valuable input from her.   Therefore he talks about his plan and discusses his suggestions with her until they can agree and share the decision.    With this attitude towards her, consulting her before deciding anything is an automatic reaction.    Whenever some idea occurs to him, his next impulse is the question, what she thinks about it.   
Therefore such a man shares decisions with his partner as a method of enhancing the qualities of his decisions and the quality of the life of both.    He does not feel limited by this behavior.

An extrinsically man is convinced, that he knows best what is good for him.   He is focusing only on gaining his own benefits in competition with her and in using her.   He expects the same selfish goals from her too, he considers her as competing with him for resources.    Logically he does not trust her advice or her being a fair partner when sharing decisions.  

He wants the availability of her body and nothing else from her.    Therefore he decides, what he wants for himself, then he just does it without any consideration for her.   If she is involved in the execution of his decision, he uses, whatever means he has, to make her comply with his decision.
When she asks to be included in making decisions, that impact her, he perceives this as her attempts to control him.   

9.  Communication:

For a man with intrinsic commitment, who has chosen a woman for her intellectual and emotional qualities, deep unrestricted communication about his and her innermost feelings and thoughts are a rewarding activity of joy.   Trustful self-revelation and shared introspection enhance bonding, togetherness. belonging and feeling close.    Accepting each other's support is a welcome and asked for part of the commitment.    Such a man values his partner's support as he appreciates her personality.    Therefore, he feels good to tell her everything that he feels and thinks, spontaneously and without hesitation or restriction.

An extrinsically committed man has chosen the woman for the benefits of her body.   He is not really interested in her personality, he expects nothing from her.    He does not want to communicate with her, her attempts to communicate annoy him.    He considers his own inner life and his feelings as his private matters and none of her business.   He perceives her attempts to talk about it are as a violation of his boundaries.    He feels an urge to protect his private life from her, because he perceives her as a competitor for resources, for power, for control, and the more she knows, the more she becomes dangerous.   
He either avoids communicating or he derails all communication to topics, that he does not consider as dangerous, while he keeps all real important information about himself hidden from her.  



Of the above list of the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic commitment, only the first item of the man's identity is hidden  from direct experience and only accessible by the man's own declaration.   Everything else can be experienced by how the man behaves and treats the woman.  
If a woman wants intrinsic commitment and there is the question of getting married, she is wise, if she first makes sure to experience his ability to offer her the intrinsic commitment, that makes a relationship for her to be a safe haven of mutual trust, reliability, predictability and security.

261. Commitment and Pseudo-Honesty

Commitment and Pseudo-Honesty

Commitment requires unrestricted and uninhibited honest communication about the true innermost feelings, based upon mutual trust and enabling mutual support.   

Bonding disabled men often believe themselves to be honest, because they tell no direct lies.    But by hiding things, that would be important for their partner to know, they are not sincere.   When the partner of such a man experiences few or even no lies ever, she trusts his honesty much more than is justified.    This form of pseudo-honesty is a trap and can be very misleading to a committed woman.     Either she wrongly assumes that he is really sincere and what he tells her is all there is and there is nothing hidden.   Or she projects her own commitment upon him, filling the untold gaps with what she takes so much for granted, that she omits to be explicit about it.    Both mistakes often have very painful consequences.

1.  Such men omit telling the woman things, because they perceive themselves as singles with a woman peripherally attached, and therefore they consider a lot as their own private matters and as none of her business.     But a woman, who perceives herself in a committed relationship, feels the need and considers herself as entitled to know.   
As an example, a bonded couples decides together, what to spend their shared resources of money on, while a single man considers his money as his personal property, even when they share expenses, and he perceives it as his unlimited right to buy, whatever he wants to buy, without consulting her.   

There are two varieties of such a disruptive situation:
1.1.   The man does not talk with the woman about important issues, because it does not even occur to him, that it could be important to inform her.    He believes to be telling her everything she has a right to know.   
1.2.   The incompatible situation of a non-bonded man with a committed woman expecting commitment from him leads to conflicts, and he feels it as his right to slyly and sneakily keep information from her to avoid unpleasant arguments.   He is unaware of the fact, that by this method of avoiding conflicts, he also impedes any improvement of the relationship.   

2.   Sometimes bonding disabled men believe to be sincere, because they have some kind of psychological trouble, that either makes them unaware themselves of what they hide from her, or they lie to themselves and then expect the others to share their believe in their own lies.    When they are in denial of unpleasant realities or when they project their own problems upon others, they are dishonest with themselves.   
Narcissists are a good example.   They are emotional weenies behind a mask of bullies on the outside.   They firmly believe in their own grandiosity and expect reverence and adulation even from people, who are more skilled and better educated.    They hide the vulnerable, anxious weeny from themselves and therefore they cannot reveal the truth to a partner.   

In all these cases, there is a vicious circle.    Lack of sincere and unrestricted communication impedes bonding, and lack of bonding impedes sincere and unrestricted communication.  

My mindmate is someone, who reveals his true self to me, who shares his innermost feelings with me, who wants me to know him as he really is, with all his strengths and also all his weaknesses.   He is someone, who can accept support from a partner and who asks for support.   He is someone, who does not feel any need to play a role and hide himself behind a mask.     He is someone, who needs a relationship and a partner, and who is able to admit it.    
My mindmate is someone, who is not only honest by not telling lies, but who is sincere also in not hiding anything from me.  

260. Instincts and the Cognitive Dissonance of Intellectual Men

Instincts and the Cognitive Dissonance of Intellectual Men

This continues entry 256.

Animals and stupid, uneducated men enjoy their indulgence in what their instincts determine them to do, because they are not able to do anything better with themselves.    They are hedonists, because they lack the ability to be Epicureans.    They do not experience instincts as a force in themselves, their identity is determined by their instincts.   They copulate like dogs in the gutter with any consenting female body as a good way of life without even having any awareness of the alternative of considering women as persons available also as companions.   

But not only the alley dogs, but also most other men experience the lack of sexual homeostasis more or less strongly as a cognitive disabling affliction, making them temporarily dysfunctional due to the obsession and compulsion of the need for homeostasis.   

Rationally seen, the mere physiological experience of copulation for the purpose of restoring homeostasis is a very banal, dull and boring activity, if compared with intellectual pursuits.    The true value of physical intimacy is enhancing the bonding and the feeling of belonging together as a committed couple.   But enhancing means, it cannot create bonding, if the bonding is not the result of intellectual and emotional intimacy.  

Those men, who are intelligent, educated, cultivated, are prone and at risk to experience cognitive dissonance between the urges of their instincts and their cognitive interests and abilities.  

Wise mature intellectual men acknowledge that their banal need for restoring sexual homeostasis is an unwelcome affliction, that is detrimental to their intellectual life.    They would not want to waste time an energy to get only homeostasis, this would make their cognitive dissonance worse.   Therefore these men get committed to a companion, so that they have homeostasis as a side effect, while the companionship gives them something much better.   Such men want to enhance the feeling of being bonded for both themselves and their companions, and they appreciate, that this also keeps them in the homeostasis, which they need.   

Bonding disabled men avoid experiencing cognitive dissonance by one or both of the following methods:

1.  They accept the banality of sex by degrading women to instruments and commodities.    They experience the need for sex similar to constipation, and women are not more to them than a laxative.    They buy women's services as they buy the laxative.    This impedes them to experience, perceive and consider women as equals, as companions, they are not able to respect and appreciate the mind and personality of women.  

2.  They are in complete denial of the fact, that sex is dull and banal.   They idealize it as if it were the most beneficial and rewarding purpose of their life.    They identify with their instincts and are proud to be studs.    As absurd as this is, they are proud of their animal instincts.    Whenever they are at risk of experiencing sex as banal, they consider this as a challenge to invest resources into getting more thrill out of it.   
These misguided fools choose a woman not for her emotional and intellectual qualities, but for the amount of infatuation, they can get from her body for a limited time.   After that time, they discard her and replace her by another body, where they get more thrill.   

In their pathetic hunt for sexual thrill these fools pay incredible sums of money to a vast market of selling anything between sex toys and pornography in the vain attempt to get excitement from something too banal for the intellectual needs of mature men.        

As soon as a man is wise and mature enough to acknowledge, that sex by itself is a banality not worth to allow his life to be determined by it, he is ready to become a bonded companion.  

If bonding-disabled men would spend their money not for the temporary thrill sold by the sex business, but on therapy and counseling in how to learn bonding and finding homeostasis as a part of commitment, they would do less damage to themselves and to many of their female victims.    They would even find the happiness, that they can never find, as long as they focus on finding sexual thrill as a pathetic substitute. 

_______________________

I just added a new page with the tilte 'The Relationship Deal'.   I am explaining, what I offer and what I expect in return from a partner, this includes also the topic of homeostasis in a relationship.

256. The Relationship Deal and the Reciprocally Wrong Currency

The Relationship Deal and the Reciprocally Wrong Currency

A viable and happy relationship is based upon a fair balance of giving and receiving.   That implies that both partners give and receive, what they mutually really need.   If one or both give, what they wrongly believe that the other wants or needs, this leads to disruption.    While one does not get, what s/he really needs, the giver perceives the receiver as ungrateful for not appreciating, what is of no value to her or him.  

As a consequence of biological differences, men and women have different needs in a relationship.  If they are not aware of this, they reciprocally project their own needs on the partner and then they are puzzled, when this does not have the expected result. 

It is biological fact, that the average man has a considerable higher physiological need for sexual homeostasis than the average woman.    

Lacking homeostasis disturbs men's functioning in their every day life occupations, it diminishes and even deactivates their full use of their reasoning capacity and their ability to focus on what they wish or need to do.    

Lacking homeostasis reduces even highly intelligent and cultivated men to mere animals. 
Lacking homeostasis derails their focus from intellectual pursuits of higher value to activities aiming at regaining homeostasis.  This need for homeostasis is so strong, that men are willing to pay for it.  

Of course, this is not the same for all men.   Like many other human traits, it is distributed along a bell curve on a scale from high needs (HN) to low needs (LN).    At one end, there are the men, for whom the need of homeostasis is extremely high, driving them to behavior very detrimental to themselves and their female victims.  At the other end are the asexual men, who are either not interested in women, or who want a woman as a true buddy, companion and committed mindmate.  

 

Men are physically stronger and dangerous as predators, who can force their will upon women.   Also men have used their greater physical strength to gain control over the access to means of survival.    As a result, many times women have no choice but to pay with their bodies for having one man's material providing and protection.  

What women expect in this deal is also distributed along a bell curve on a scale from material interests (MI) to non-material interests (NI).    At one end, there are the promiscuous women, who sell their bodies for money.   At the other end are the decent women, who are not at all interested in money, but who trade physical intimacy only in exchange for non-material benefits like commitment, bonding, intellectual and emotional closeness and a relationship as a safe haven. 

As long as a man and a woman have similar positions on the respective scale, they both get from the deal, what they want.   Else they are a mismatch.  

A predominantly LN man and predominantly MI woman are usually capable to mutually avoid each other, as they can easily get aware, that their needs cannot be fulfilled.    A man, who refuses to pay, and a woman, who wants to be paid, make no deal.

Real problems start, when a predominantly non-materially interested (PNI) woman gets involved with a predominantly high need for homeostasis (PHN) man.   In entry 255 I already explained, what she subjectively experiences.    When the man consciously takes advantage of the woman, then it is outright abuse and not a deal and therefore not in the scope of the topic of this entry.    If the PHN man is aware of the true needs of a PNI woman and knows, that he cannot give it to her, he can refrain from getting involved. 

Therefore the real problem are PHN men, who are bonding disabled either by immaturity or otherwise, and who therefore are not aware, that any woman would ever expect anything immaterial.  They enter a deal with a PNI woman by ignorance, willing to pay a fair price but in their own currency.  

Such a deal is tragically imbalanced.   The woman gives the man the sexual homeostasis, that he needs.    But he does not get committed and bonded.    She experiences this as only giving and not receiving anything in return, that has value for her. 

She projects her own needs for sharing and commitment, for caring for each other's emotional needs upon him.   When she offers him bonding and sharing, she makes the mistake of believing to offer him, what he would also want, need and appreciate.   She feels hurt and betrayed, when he does not bond.    She perceives giving him his needed homeostasis only as a secondary extra benefit, while she considers the bonding as her major offer.    She is not aware, how much he values his homeostasis, that it is the only benefit, that he wants from her, and that he is oblivious of anything else that she has to give.

As a PNI woman, she is capable to survive without being financially provided for, and when the man makes her gifts, invites her to expensive activities and offers her material benefits, this is meaningless to her.   Some men are even as dumb as projecting their physical needs on all women.   Such a man sincerely believes, that if he attempts to be a good stud by making enough effort in his physical performance, this were of such a value, that he would owe nothing else to the woman.   The PNI woman makes him the gift of his homeostasis, and he believes to be pleasing her.  

Whatever it is, that he believes to be giving to her, he expects her appreciation of the price, that he pays and that he subjectively considers as a fair.    Bus she cannot be grateful for what has no value for her.   Therefore he gets, what he wants, but he does not experience, that what he subjectively is giving, is received as a payment. 

This is therefore a really tragic constellation.    She fulfills her part of the deal, but does not get back, what she needs.   He gets his needs fulfilled, but is unable to give her, what she needs, while what he thinks to give is wasted, as it is not welcome.   

255. Why Decent Women Stay Too Long With Jerks - 1

Why Decent Women Stay Too Long With Jerks - 1

It can be explained by their attempt to avoid cognitive dissonance.

"For the same reason you keep spending money to fix up an old car when it just doesn't work - or keep investing in the same company when it's failing. Humans throw good money after bad all the time. When we have invested a lot in a choice that turns out to be bad, we're really inept at admitting that it didn't make rational sense. Other research has shown that we romanticize our relationships with spouses and partners significantly more when we believe we have sacrificed for them."

http://healthland.time.com/2011/03/04/why-having-kids-is-foolish/print/#ixzz1G3NlULbe

The following does not apply to promiscuous women from the gutter, for whom physical intimacy does not create or enhance emotional attachment.   They cannot forfeit a dignitiy, that they do not have.  

But a decent monogamous woman makes a huge emotional investment, when she allows a man the intimacy of her body.    She makes this investment for the purposes of getting commitment, bonding, devotion, a reliable safe haven.    She risks a lot of pain in the case of having the bad luck of accidentially getting emotionally attached to someone, who himself does not get committed.   
Decency adds to a woman's self-esteem and self-respect, but it has its price, it makes women very vulnerable.   


During the engagement phase (entries 178 and 252), both prospective partners are driven by incongruent motivations.   

• Even a decent, considerate and monogamous man is unfortunately often too much afflicted by his instincts.  When his need to restore his sexual homeostasis is strong, this blurs his clear thinking, sound reasoning and his long term rational judgement.  This can be as bad as detering him from a wise choice of a partner.   
• The woman wants to ascertain, that her emotional investment of allowing physical intimacy leads to the payoff of acquiring commitment.  As long as she cannot be sure, she recoils from precocious intimacy.   

In this situation, a woman's only choice is between two risks.  

• If she postpones physical involvment too long, she risks that even a decent man is driven by his need for homeostasis to choose another woman, who is less reluctant to accomodate his instincts.  
• If she allows a man the access to her body and discovers only when it is too late, that he has used her body without feeling committed, this is a very painful and severe shock.   She suffers remorse and shame for having sunk as low as allowing a man to soil her dignity in his gutter of promiscuity.   

When she gets aware of her mistake and ends the relationship, this does not undo the humiliation of having been used instead of respected.   He moves on without feeling guilty.   Instead he subjectively experiences it as the success of having found satisfaction for his instincts.  
This is very different from experiencing the failure of a relationship, after two partners with mutual respect had tried their best to make it work.  
    

As a result of this difficult choice between two evils, women who have fallen in love sometimes get physically involved with a man before they really feel comfortable to do so based on their own long-term need of commitment.  

At the beginning of every relationship there is a lot of reciprocal adapting required and of learning how to treat each other.    Conflicts, by which one partner gets hurt by the other accidentially and without any bad or selfish intentions, are unavoidable.   Solving such conflicts by constructive communication is an investment into long-term happiness and harmony for both.   
When the man is decent, mature and caring and they are mutually committed, they solve their conflicts with agreements and general consent to avoid similar conflicts in the future.   They learn, how to make each other happy and how to avoid hurting each other.

When a woman gets herself involved prematurely with a man, based upon her expectation of giving him sexual homeostasis in exchange for his full rational attention and cooperation in improving their bonding, then she is at risk to invest a huge amount of pain, stress and endurance before she finds out, that she got involved with a man, who is not committed.   

• An emotional moron learns nothing and there is no progress.   Conflicts are not solved, he does not understand, what he is doing, and he is not capable to communicate.   
• A narcissist learns how to dominate and gain power to get narcissistic supply.    There is no communication, as he feel entilted to get his needs out of her.   
• A psychopath and malicious jerk learns, how to hurt the woman on purpose, whenever he wants to do this.  

As soon as his behavior gets bad enough that she cannot but start to doubt, that the man is not feeling committed and bonded, a decent woman gets into a state of severe cognitive dissonance.  

She does not want to feel humiliated, she does not want to reproach herself for having got involved with a man not worthy of her, she does not want to loose her self respect.   

Therefore she clings to the illusion of the man's commitment, as long as she can.   Instead of seeing his hurting behavior as an indication of his bonding disability and his lack of commitment, she continues to interpret it as conflicts to solve and she continues to invest the endurance of suffering into futile attempts to improve, what she misinterprets as a committed relationship.    She lingers in her denial to acknowledge, that he uses her body again and again without this ever making him feel bonded and belonging together.  

Having choosen the man as similar to herself in what she perceives as his values, his tastes, his interests, it is an easy mistake to wrongly assume, that emotionally he experiences getting physically involved similar to how she herself experiences it.   She falls into the trap of projecting her own automatic committing upon the man, even though she knows theoretically, that there are many men from the gutter, who copulate like dogs, but succeed in pretending to be decent.   It is difficult for her to connect this theoretical knowledge with a man, whom she has choosen as appearing compatible and similar to herself.    It is somehow beyond her imagination, that men from the gutter can share the same physical intimacy, but just not feel the least commitment, bonding or belonging.    

As a consequence, she invests all that is in the scope of her endurance and resilience into the one goal of a payoff, which is to spare herself to feel humiliated by acknowledging, that her body has been used by an non-committed man.    She invests and invests in the goal of finally experiencing the unequivocal proof of his being committed.     She invests in preserving her self-respect of being a partner and not an object.     She invests in gaining his expression of respect for her.   

When she finally gets aware, that the man either is not able to improve his behavior or that he even has learned how to abuse and take advantage of her, she has invested already very much.    She has invested so much, that it is very hard to accept, that there will never be commitment, that there will never be a payoff for all her pain.  
 
Instead of being consequent and leaving the jerk, she lingers and clings to the illusion, that after investing so much, she just needs to invest a little more and the final payoff of commitment will come.  She lingers, as long as she has the illusion, that the payoff depends on her competency and her efforts.  

But when the man does not feel commitment, all her investments are in vain.   If a man is disabled to feel committed, there is nothing a woman can do to gain commitment.
Only when she finally wakes up to see the jerk and emotional moron really as the hopeless and bonding disabled case, who will never commit, she is free to give up.