Is There an Ideal Way of Acting and Being in Male-Female Relationships?

[Andromeda]

Hey Andromeda, When you say "basic and general emotional attraction" that is featured in older movies, what are these obvious principles? I ask because as a younger man, and even now that I am happily in a relationship but watching other younger/single people, these things never seemed so obvious to me. I was often frustrated by my lack of knowledge in this area and with the generic statements like this that emotional attraction for women is "obvious". I'm not saying I'm frustrated now, and I think I grok what you mean, but can you please spell them out for me so I can be clear as to what they are? Posts like Corvus' seem to echo my younger self in an attempt to grasp what these fundamentals are in a more crude and wrongly (manosphere) influenced way. Perhaps it would be useful, particularly for men, to clearly spell out what these are? FWIW

Okay, barring ladies who have been damaged/programmed and actually seek out genuinely 'bad' guys or losers, and barring ladies who just want the biggest and richest fellow on the block so that his power can reflect on her, ladies are attracted to nice men with heroic tendencies.

The problem, I have recently reasoned, is what the definition of a 'nice' man is. It seems that most guys, and even some ladies, define a 'nice' man as something like a weak and dishonest man. When most women say that a nice man is what they want, they do have their own specific variations of meaning, depending on the woman, but generally it boils down to the same thing: A man who is kind, generous, honest, intelligent, humble when called for, and brave. Some bad boys show a few of those characteristics (usually the easiest ones to fake) and get the girl because there aren't actually many nice guys showing themselves. And women, like men, aren't always experts at discernment. They fill in the blanks a lot.

But, we are talking about the general criteria for basic emotional attraction. Deeper emotional attraction is much more specific to each person.

When I say obvious, those are things that anybody could pick up from watching movies, listening to popular music, or reading stories. The guys are almost always portrayed like that for a reason. Or, that is what they become in the story. Groundhog Day is a good example there. Pride and Prejudice is another. What about Robin Hood? I'm pretty sure most people have seen that one. The list could go on.

Men seem to focus on the theme that the heroes are always rich and influential, but that is not what gets them the lady. It's nice to have that, and does show evidence of some traits that are attractive, but mainly it makes for a better story because...... imagine the opposite!

 

[Joe]

Well, to be fair, some women are just mellow and deferential by nature without it being caused by any pathology or deficiency on her part. But I'm pretty sure that that is rare.

I'd say most women are that way by nature as compared to men (although many men can be that way too, both by nature and more recent social programming). The problem arises, I think, when men don't understand that as something that is very valuable - that that passivity or deference is a function of a natural ability to perceive nuances and complexity (i.e. a deeper truth) in a given situation, especially when it comes to human relationship dynamics and human beings in general - and instead see it as a kind of inability to be decisive or figure things out. i.e. a weakness.

Basically, a man who understands it as the former would be more likely to value and seek out the input of his female partner about a given situation than a man who sees it as the latter. That makes for a much better chance for a successful intimate relationship between two people.

I think it might all come down to the extent of a man's knowledge and awareness about himself and women in general, and his partner in particular. If he has only superficial (and perhaps self-centered) understanding, he will be less likely to come across as someone who admires, respects and loves women in general. Someone who comes across that way, will very likely be a 'hit' with all women because, after all, it's hard not to love someone who loves us. So to all the "knights of manosphere", if you want women to love you, find a way to get over all the ignorance and obstacles within you that are preventing you from genuinely understanding and loving them first. No mommy issues allowed.

 

[Turgon]

And then he tries to skip out by claiming it was just "bait for dumbasses", which, even if true, in itself makes him a disingenuous idiot.

There's a high value male trait. Post something contentious and divisive, then run away with your tail between your legs after it doesn't go the way you intended.

 

[nf3]

I would like to know what some of these 'uncomfortable' truths are. So far I have only seen some basic truths, mostly not even news, and some really perverted interpretations of what they mean and what you should do about them.

The biggest one is that more and more young men are being raised to be "prostitutes in trousers" as Gurdjieff called them.

Their physical development is neglected and so they lack even the most basic willpower required to be fully functioning adults.

Their emotional development is directed mostly by single mothers who, struggling to do their best to raise a boy, still manage to unconsciously develop in him emotional habits more proper to women than to men.

Questioner:
How can I stop having this attitude whereby systematically and beforehand I accept whatever others impose upon me. For instance, to say "No." I am incapable of doing this.
Gurdjieff:
Excuse me, do not get angry, but for me, three sexes exist, masculine, feminine, and intermediate sex. Excuse me, but from the beginning, you have been on the list of the third sex. There are five or six people like this, neither men nor women.
Questioner:
Do I have to remain like this to the end of my days?
Gurdjieff:
No.
Questioner:
What shall I do? What I am looking for is not to impose my will like a sorcerer. It is to impose my will on myself, so that I can be seen as I am, capable of answering yes or no.
Gurdjieff:
I pity you. It is not your fault. It is the fault of your education; education is merde. Your society, your customs, the "what will they say?" They only give you exterior things.
[Mr. Gurdjieff tells of his anger, when he gives a sweet to a child in the street, and the father or mother obliges the child to say thank you, saying to him, "What does one say?"]
With you it has been like this. The result is extraordinary, neither man nor woman, but—
[Mr. Gurdjieff uses a Russian word which no one succeeds in translating, and which signifies "prostitute in trousers."]
If you wish to know what to do, come and see me.
Questioner:
You told me that I lacked organic will. From where can I get this impetus which will give me an organic will?
Gurdjieff:
Only one means can help you; you must suffer organically; for instance, not eat enough. Or this: your organism does not like the cold, endure cold water. The same thing with hot water. Do the opposite from that to which your organism is accustomed to do. Make it suffer. It will not be a psychic suffering. We have seven qualities of suffering; for us organic suffering is necessary: with your intellect you can direct your organism without mercy, force it to suffer.
It is the unique means of getting this thing which you lack. In you two parts work, but not the organism. Have you understood your emotion? If you have constated, if you believe me, do this, struggle, suffer. Afterwards we will speak again. Then you will be capable of working on yourself. I am glad that you have come to this question by yourself.

And so what a lot of us have been doing is simply teaching young men to get physically fit so that they can become fully functioning adults.

We don't have millions of followers like the popular cointelpro influencers, but we make a difference.

Most of us are just family men with modest social media followings who act as surrogate fathers to these lost souls who never had a dad to play with them, get them involved in sports, and develop the 'organic will' that is missing in them. After they do that, only then can the usual advice to just "be yourself" start to make sense to them. Before then, it's cruel to tell them that. What self? Everything they think and feel that they are, up until that point, is completely external to the self.

 

[Michal]

@hlat I think I would not call Sandra or anyone here snowflake but I would leave it to Joe. To me snowflake is having rather negative connotation like rainbow nowadays. I am not sure how bad it is treated in English speaking word especially US being called a snowflake? I trust that Joe had a reason snowflaking Sandra.

 

[Michal]

The biggest one is that more and more young men are being raised to be "prostitutes in trousers" as Gurdjieff called them.

Their physical development is neglected and so they lack even the most basic willpower required to be fully functioning adults.

Their emotional development is directed mostly by single mothers who, struggling to do their best to raise a boy, still manage to unconsciously develop in him emotional habits more proper to women than to men.


And so what a lot of us have been doing is simply teaching young men to get physically fit so that they can become fully functioning adults.

We don't have millions of followers like the popular cointelpro influencers, but we make a difference.

Most of us are just family men with modest social media followings who act as surrogate fathers to these lost souls who never had a dad to play with them, get them involved in sports, and develop the 'organic will' that is missing in them. After they do that, only then can the usual advice to just "be yourself" start to make sense to them. Before then, it's cruel to tell them that. What self? Everything they think and feel that they are, up until that point, is completely external to the self.

Hi nf3,
Where is this citation from Gurdjieff coming from? Could You point to source of it?

 

[nf3]

Where is this citation from Gurdjieff coming from? Could You point to source of it?

It's from the wartime meetings.

https://selfdefinition.org/gurdjieff/Gurdjieff-Wartime-Meetings-1938.pdf

 

[Beau]

And so what a lot of us have been doing is simply teaching young men to get physically fit so that they can become fully functioning adults.

How does being physically fit help a man become a fully functioning adult? I mean, I know it can help train one to be disciplined by sticking to a regiment, but I have known plenty of male gym rats who are not at all very good at being an adult human. It just seems like another superficial trait that the manosphere people think is important in getting a woman (pretty girl like big muscle).

 

[iamthatis]

I like the Knight and Lady metaphor. A common understanding in fairy tales is that a young man needed to be tempered like a sword through a process of intense heating and cooling and constant hammer blows to make him into a 'young blade' - someone who was sharp, willing and able to defend the community, neither too flexible nor too hard and brittle. It was cool to see that this image showed up in the recent season of the Mandalorian where the matriarchal blacksmith tells this to Grogu - that Mandalorians are not born, but shaped on the forge of life.

The point of this forging of men in medieval stories seems to be primarily as preparation for marriage. Only once the sword was crafted could he find his home in the sheath. In another pop culture reference, I noticed Halime Sultan says this very thing to Ertugrul - "I will be the sheath to your sword." It's not just men, either, there are plenty of tales of women's initiations. Sometimes he saves her, sometimes she saves him.

The main idea that I've been picking up in these kinda stories is that men and women were to be consciously made, and made for each other, like in this session snippet recently posted in the Romance Novel thread:

Q: (L) Okay, I think the next question on everyone's mind is what was this incident that Perceval had last night?

A: Slippage of defenses

Q: (L) And why are the defenses slipping?

A: Recent breach in energetic union.

{break to search for Laura's glasses}

Q: (L) Any follow ups? (Perceval) Do you want to know what that answer was? (L) Well, you're the one that had the issue? (Perceval) No, but do you know what was said in the last answer? (L) I dunno, what was it? (Perceval) "recent breach in energetic union" (L) What do you mean by recent breach in energetic union?

A: A man draws his energy for battle from his "lady fair." When he has this energy, he is supposed to utilize it not only for battle, but also for "building the castle”. When there is any break in the chain, he not only loses his "battle energy" but also his castle. Why do you think the legends of the "grail" speak of these things? And also fairy stories? A true warrior cannot be strong against the enemy without the lady. The lady cannot provide the energy without the castle and the "bower" of love.

Q: (Mr. Scott) What's a bower? (L) I don't know. A bower is... (Ark) German? The builder, yes? (L) Well, what I always heard of as a bower was a place in a garden where you had like a structure that flowers grew on and you had like little chairs and tables and you'd sit there and it was nice and pretty and pleasant. (Perceval points to tapestry behind on wall) (L) Well yeah that's like a bower. Is that the right idea for a bower on the picture behind me?

A: Yes. And the warrior on his knees aiming to please is also a part of the dynamic. After all, it is honorable to bow before the author of the force for good. You don't need the ruffles though. (laughter) Study fairy tales to discover.

To me, all this looks very different from the info in the manosphere (although I admit I'm pretty unfamiliar with the material). If those dudes were to read something like this, would they see no reason to build a castle only to become a simp within it, or something like that?

 

[Jimmy Ssaz]

I like the Knight and Lady metaphor. A common understanding in fairy tales is that a young man needed to be tempered like a sword through a process of intense heating and cooling and constant hammer blows to make him into a 'young blade' - someone who was sharp, willing and able to defend the community, neither too flexible nor too hard and brittle. It was cool to see that this image showed up in the recent season of the Mandalorian where the matriarchal blacksmith tells this to Grogu - that Mandalorians are not born, but shaped on the forge of life.

The point of this forging of men in medieval stories seems to be primarily as preparation for marriage. Only once the sword was crafted could he find his home in the sheath. In another pop culture reference, I noticed Halime Sultan says this very thing to Ertugrul - "I will be the sheath to your sword." It's not just men, either, there are plenty of tales of women's initiations. Sometimes he saves her, sometimes she saves him.

The main idea that I've been picking up in these kinda stories is that men and women were to be consciously made, and made for each other, like in this session snippet recently posted in the Romance Novel thread:



To me, all this looks very different from the info in the manosphere (although I admit I'm pretty unfamiliar with the material). If those dudes were to read something like this, would they see no reason to build a castle only to become a simp within it, or something like that?

Thank you for this very interesting.

It reminded me of Perseus and the liberation of Andromeda but this is achieved thanks to the winged horse Pegasus.

 

[nf3]

How does being physically fit help a man become a fully functioning adult? I mean, I know it can help train one to be disciplined by sticking to a regiment, but I have known plenty of male gym rats who are not at all very good at being an adult human. It just seems like another superficial trait that the manosphere people think is important in getting a woman (pretty girl like big muscle).

Having the 'organic will' that Gurdjieff was talking about doesn't guarantee that a man will work on himself, but not having it does guarantee that he cannot work on himself, no matter how well he knows the need for it or how much he feels that he wants it.

Even Gurdjieff put on the kid gloves when he was talking to the guy in that passage I quoted. Gurdjieff, who never missed an opportunity to shock his students to help them observe their reactions, went easy on that guy because he didn't want to cause him any more useless psychic suffering than he was already experiencing. And how relieved he was at the end when he said "I'm glad you came to this question on your own" as if that were the only sign of hope for the guy he pitied so much.

For men damaged in this way, physical suffering is the key the that opens the door to further growth. Mental and emotional suffering are already far too abundant and nothing useful can be done about any of it until they develop will over their bodies.

 

[mariowil7]

@hlat I think I would not call Sandra or anyone here snowflake but I would leave it to Joe. To me snowflake is having rather negative connotation like rainbow nowadays. I am not sure how bad it is treated in English speaking word especially US being called a snowflake? I trust that Joe had a reason snowflaking Sandra.

So @Michal in that circumstance we can not call: A Spade A Spade?... Why not ?

Definition. "Call a spade a spade" or "call a spade a shovel" are both forms of the figurative expression which state that the speaker should call, or has called, a noun by its most suitable name without any reservation to the strained formalities that may result.

 

[mkrnhr]

There is a possibility that this fakeness of surface manliness is a manifestation of the general fakeness of almost everything (fake food, news, jobs, ideas, males, females, people, etc.) but more specifically, within the narrow framework of male-female relationship in the post-modern world, it mirrors what is plastic surgery for fake body parts in females. Or maybe in a less dramatic fashion, pick-up artistry for males mirrors make-up artistry in females. Could be wrong of course in seeing an analogy where there's none.

 

[Joe]

Seems to me that the "manosphere philosophy" purports to help men understand women, but in doing so it tends to highlight the differences between men and women, and not-so-subtly present female characteristics in a negative light, often to the point where men would be forgiven for coming away thinking that women are like a hostile alien species.

In that case, why would men bother even trying to interact with women? The answer, of course, is that this hostile alien species possesses something men wnat and 'can't live without' i.e. sex, and the only solution therefore, is to war-game the whole situation with a 'winner takes all' objective. Cool!

 

[Joe]

After they do that, only then can the usual advice to just "be yourself" start to make sense to them. Before then, it's cruel to tell them that. What self? Everything they think and feel that they are, up until that point, is completely external to the self.

Great points in your post! I never liked the "just be yourself" advice, because my first thought was always "what if I'm an asshole"? Try to be a really good asshole perhaps? No one ever qualifies that advice by saying: 'By "be yourself", I mean figure out your true nature under all that crap and make it manifest'.