Can life have meaning if your dreams are unattainable?

I can honestly say that you haven't said anything that has made me stop and think.

Nor have you made any "strong arguments". Mostly you toss around over-generalized stereotypes that have no ring of truth, at all, for me.

Your desert island examples are just ridiculous. Let's get real. You're not on a desert island, and you have no problems procreating.
You can go earn extra cash as a sperm donor and "father" who knows how many children. You can still father children in your 60's and 70's and 80's. You can procreate every day of the week, every week of the year. Women can't do those things, can they, MichaelJ? It's men who have the advantage of spreading their genetic endowment around, not women.

You're not limited by your biology, you're limited by your failure to even get involved with women, by your problems approaching women, by your lack of dating women, by your problems forming relationships with women--all of which are due to your feelings of inadequacy when you compare yourself to other men, as well as your various other hang-ups and anxieties, all of which are within you, and indicative of your particular personality problems, and are quite unrelated to any of the pseudo-sociological things you are babbling about "women".

I think you're afraid of them because they are more emotionally mature than you are. So, you figure someone 10 years younger than you are won't expect as much from you. Trouble is, that 10 year age difference is a whopping difference (10 years is almost half of her life) and then you seem surprised when those younger women act their age.

But someone who goes 6 years without dating any women, doesn't seem to be very interested in or attracted to women at all. And you weren't anxious to get involved with Ms. Poppins either. And you now come up with all sorts of excuses not to get involved with women again, and you express considerable anger toward women. You don't sound like a guy who really likes women, let alone one who is really attracted to them. Maybe you really don't want to be involved with a woman. Maybe all you want is a female uterus/egg donor to incubate your child, conceived by artificial insemination, in a paid business arrangement. Then you'd have your "dream" child without having to deal with a relationship with an actual woman.

Men who really like women make every effort to get involved with them, to meet them, to date them, they try to make themselves attractive and interesting to women. As far as I can tell, that doesn't sound like you. I'm not even sure you have strong sexual desires for women, or that you find being with a woman sexually satisfying. You might fantasize anout wanting a child, to fill your own needs, but I really don't think you want a relationship with a real life woman.

And, truthfully, after listening to you in this thread, I can well understand why a woman wouldn't want to get involved with you or to remain in a relationship with you. And I'm not sure most men would want you as a close friend either. Everything about the way you relate, and your defensive maneuvers, serves to drive people away.

I think vikorr has displayed the patience of a saint with you.

You see,

Women have so much sway in society that if you dare point out their obvious hypocrisies, you are then labeled a "sad sorry douche", or you are speaking "nonsense". You are likened to a drug addict.

The two islands point can't be disputed. Woman exploit their god given advantages. They are the be-all, say-all in society. Gaining the approval of the female sect society proves you worthy of existing.

How dare anyone speak an opinion that doesn't support the pro-female ideals that also subjugate the male gender!!

Of course me being unsuccessful with women is a product of me not trying!!!! Of coarse I haven't tried at all in all those years!!!! It has nothing to do with women having unrealistic ideals!! It's all because I didn't try at all!!

Bullshit.

And of course me speaking out against women manipulating men means that I don't have sexual desires for women. " I'm not even sure you have strong sexual desires for women, or that you find being with a woman sexually satisfying" .

Right, so I'm gay because I call women on their bullshit. No, you're completely right. Makes perfect sense.

Of course me being unsuccessful with women is a product of me not trying!!!! Of coarse I haven't tried at all in all those years!!!! It has nothing to do with women having unrealistic ideals!! It's all because I didn't try at all!!

Bullshit.

And of course me speaking out against women manipulating men means that I don't have sexual desires for women. " I'm not even sure you have strong sexual desires for women, or that you find being with a woman sexually satisfying" .

Right, so I'm gay because I call women on their bullshit. No, you're completely right. Makes perfect sense.

If I'm afraid of women my own age because they're "emotionally more mature than me", then why did the women closer to my age also treat me like a thing to be used and thrown out? 3-4 yrs isn't that big of a gap! Was that also because of their "emotional maturity"?

Women are more emotionally mature... I guess that's why they use men?? I'm trying to understand."Trouble is, that 10 year age difference is a whopping difference (10 years is almost half of her life) and then you seem surprised when those younger women act their age. "

The guy Mary Poppins ran off with is older than me!!!! And I'm sure money had nothing to do with that at all!!

I'm sure "she acts her age" to him too, but then it's nice to live a comfortable life now isn't it?

Any man who speaks up against women must have no sexual attraction to them.

Makes perfect sense.

How dare that man call us women on our selfish bullshit, he must be gay!

Well, you are sad, you do make a hell of a lot of apologies for yourself. Calling you a douche is hard. I don't think that was a woman who called you that though.

That said - as I pointed out before - because you can't substantiate your jaded view of women when it comes to relationships, you are resorting to wider arguments that are irrelevant to your situation - it's a distraction technique when other things are failing.

The thing is - you know that your views lack any balance. You know that you focus on the negative to the absence of positivity so strongly that your views can't be taken seriously (except by your own warped mind).

Reality is there is a hell of a lot of positives in life...something you choose not to acknowledge. This is for you to fix - no one can actually talk you into being positive. You wonder why your counsellor couldn't help you - it's because deep down you didn't want to be helped. You make the noises, but as soon as your first layer of protection fails (the philosophical), your second layer (extremism and mantra) pops up.

Certain aspects have never been disputed - they are the only ones capable of having babies for example. So? A few other aspects too...yet you expect people to acknowledge this, while you never once acknowledge the positives? Life if full of negatives & positives, it is full of advantages and disadvantages...it's not all good, it's not all bad...so the defining thing in our lives is our attitude to the goods & bads.

A male is the only one capable of 'having' 100 babies. So?

Is it evil to use your strengths? Or perhaps they should just ignore their strengths?

Poppycock.

This statement is utterly ridiculous.

Lot's of people dare - with balanced arguments. Your views are reviled by many because it has no balance at all, and isn't motivated by equality, but hate.

Do you know, by the way, that some pick up artists are ugly? Read up on Ross Jeffries some time. He's regarded as having discovered 'speed seduction' (in the 80's if I remember right), which he adapted from NLP. Nature didn't do him any favours in the looks dept.

right, i'm a man

no wife no kids, by my choice, i get that buddy here is disappointed, but his blaming women for all his problems is annoying, to say the least

Oh I don't blame you for calling him one - it's rather understandble - but still hard.

As I said to Michael quite some time back - all our actions (or in this case words) have consequences. One of them is that his views bring other people down, and sap energy from others, and are plain unattractive. People who choose to engage a more positive life will handle such outcomes on their own lives in various ways - some by calling him a 'douche' or the likes.

For myself - I work in an industry that exposes me to dealing with a very wide variety of personality types, so I have developed a somewhat different view on peoples lives (as compared to most people)...and that is that we are responsible for our : lives, emotions, decisions, self-awareness, and basically who we are. Others contribute & influence, but we hold responsibility for ourselves. From that perspective, I also think that who we have in our lives (the quality & number of our friends, and the nature of our intimate relationships) is very largely a reflection of who we are (and remember we are responsible for who we are). Taken further, and in reverse...we can contribute to & influence others, but we can't take responsibility for them - that is entirely up to them.

In other words - although I offer my perspectives, questions & advice, I don't hold any responsibility to 'change' Michael - that is his responsibility (should he choose to change). In that way, patience is a lot easier to achieve.

I express an unpopular opinion and therefore my opinion isn't valid to you.

I don't care if I'm called a douche or not. My views ARE valid. My mind isn't warped just because I refuse to accept the manipulation by the female gender without calling them out!

There may be a hell of a lot of positives in life, that's beside the point. My argument is that because procreation is so intrinsic to human nature, and because one half of the human race has an unfair advantage over the other ...therefore those other positives in life become less meaningful.

"A male is the only one capable of 'having' 100 babies. So?"

Yep, ONE rich male.

"Is it evil to use your strengths? Or perhaps they should just ignore their strengths?"

Nothing wrong with using your strengths, IF it's not to hurt others for your own selfish gain.


"Gaining the approval of the female sect society proves you worthy of existing."
"This statement is utterly ridiculous. "

You just saw how because I expressed a non female approved view I was told by firefly that I must not have a sex drive! Hmmmm....

"Do you know, by the way, that some pick up artists are ugly? Read up on Ross Jeffries some time. He's regarded as having discovered 'speed seduction' (in the 80's if I remember right), which he adapted from NLP. Nature didn't do him any favours in the looks dept."

THAT'S WHAT'S WRONG WITH SOCIETY!!!!!! Only SUPER skilled pick up artists have a leveled playing field to try to find women THEY ACTUALLY LIKE and pass on their seed with SOMEONE THEY ACTUALLY LIKE!!!!!

I'll repeat this to all women and feminist males out there:

How dare that man call us women on our selfish bullshit! He must be gay!!! He must be warped!!!

Excellent logic. Excellent.

Bravo.

...you are a walking epic fail and you love it ! on my part this thread is close and you ignored...attention seeking psychos like you should be put aside without a second thought...you are worse then selfish you behave like a worm, Goodbye !

"Do you know, by the way, that some pick up artists are ugly? Read up on Ross Jeffries some time. He's regarded as having discovered 'speed seduction' (in the 80's if I remember right), which he adapted from NLP. Nature didn't do him any favours in the looks dept."

Pick up artists ARE that ONE guy on the desert island with 100 women. It's the same thing!! Remember, I told you Jack was ugly. He was GREAT with women!! because of the bullshit, pick up artist ****!!! Because of the manipulating and mind gaming!!!

That's what women want! Bullshit that feeds their egos and presents a "hard to get" challenge!!

Thanks.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Michael,
first you say women munipulate men, woman gets to decide.

and then you stated Ross Jeffries manipulating women.

I can only assume that you are saying there are different types of women?

You are willfully blinding yourself to what (I did say, and what) I've said many, many times – which is that your views lack any balance, and any positivity. In the absence of acknowledgement of any positive side, your views are warped. They are unhealthy for you, and they are deceiving you (because you are presenting them as the whole when they are not), and they are leading you to depression.

Your opinions aren't 'invalid' because they are unpopular (another self deception - because you do know this somewhere inside you), and your thoughts aren't warped because you are "calling women on their 'bullshit" - if a woman engages in bullshit, it's fine to call her on it. But that is not what you are doing.

You are offering Yin without Yang. You are trying to sell a construction crane that has no counterbalance (they all over without counterbalances), claiming it is perfectly normal & logical that no counterbalance exists on the crane - ie. you are claiming that your allegations are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth...which is a lie, for there is a positive balance that you try your very best to ignore, and you contribute to your 'unfair' life with your attitude, which you also try your very best to ignore.

Do you not understand the concept of self-esteem at all? Self-worth? These concepts aren't dependant on other peoples acceptance of you. They are dependant on YOU. Why don't YOU have self-esteem? Have you ever worked to set your own sense of self-esteem / self-worth?

Your reply has little to do with your first statement, which remains clearly ridiculous. Your self-worth is determined by yourself. Your social worth is determined by who you are (as the people in your life is determined largely by who you are, as is your job and most aspects of your life). Your worth to individual women is determined by many things which include :
- their own strengths/weaknesses/attitude/values
- their genetic attractions/callings
- their own concepts of beauty/handsomeness (which varies widely among women)
- what makes those individual women happy (which varies from woman to woman)
- what turns them on (which shows a fair amount of variation from woman to woman)

Oh no – I was talking about the male on the desert Island. Silly example that it is, for it will never happen. Although I do recall that the guiness book of records world record for the most (known) kids was held by a guy in a 3rd world country– somewhere around 60 kids. Personally I don't see any point contemplating this sort of thing.


As a generic statement that is quite accurate, though there are examples were it wouldn't apply. Say one of your strengths could be assertiveness, and (depending on your sex) you decide to leave a guy/girl who is bad for you. You know it will hurt you, but there is no long term future, so you leave...that hurts the guy/girl. It’s unfortunate that the person is hurt, but better than staying in a long term unhappy relationship.

Others feelings are as important as your own, but not more important. If a line had to be drawn, I would say 51%49% (with your own welfare being just slightly more important).

As an aside to this, as many people don't understand - the more important we consider our own feelings, the more important we can consider other peoples feelings without disturbing that 51/49 balance.

We can actually achieve greater 'unconditional' care by loving ourselves more...than we can by not loving ourself a great deal - because to then achieve the same amount of care of another person (as a person that places great importance on the value of their own feelings) could require a figure like '30/70'. Long term in the face of such a figure, we start railing against such situations, because 'we deserve care too' or 'I've given so much love to them, and not received hardly any back' or 'why is it always me doing the giving'...

...that situation doesn't have to exist, ever...so long as we respect our own value and grow it...and grow our care for others at the same time (usually if people object to how it works, it's because the miss this last bit).

The point is that you were railing against the advantages that handsome men had, when from Jeffries example, you can see that is not the be all and end all.

Jeffries by the way, used NLP to quickly establish 'deep connections'...but oddly, from what I've read, one of his rules was : don't hurt women - leave them having experienced a better life (or something to that effect). He was most denigrating of men who hurt women for no reason at all.

That was from 'The Rules of the Game' by Neil Strauss (if I remember right). Interesting read. One of the other points emphasised very clearly from the story was that 'Mystery' who Strauss considered the greatest pick up artist ever, had crap for self-esteem, and was deeply unhappy. And from his description, may even have been bi-polar.

Well, they certainly want hard to get, as do men. Easy to get doesn't hold the same value, for anyone. Never has, never will.

As for the ego - both many men, and many women have ego issues.

It doesn't matter how much you try and justify your views - they lack balance - they are warped, and they are keeping your in your state of depression, your state of victimhood.

You want a better quality of life - start finding the positives as well. You don't want a better quality of life - don't. It's up to you.

The women don't have unrealistic ideals--but they do expect a man to behave like a grown-up. Other men will expect you to behave like a grown-up too. You're no way near being a grown-up--emotionally. You have no insight into yourself at all. You have no understanding of adult relationships. You have no understanding of other people--male or female.

You look at people who can find happiness and satisfaction and emotional connections and purpose in their lives, and you haven't got a clue what makes these people more successful at living than you are. So you assume they must have some special advantage that you don't have, that you've been short-changed, that you've been cheated, and that makes you even more jealous and angry, and you pull that hat lower over your eyes, and engage in more bullshit intellectualized rationalizations, and you get drunk and wallow in self pity and convince yourself you're helpless and your situation is hopeless.

You resent the fact you have to take care of yourself, that you're responsible for yourself, that you have to satisfy your own needs. In your mind, everyone else has it easier, things just come to them, they have "options" and you don't. Whine, whine, whine.

What I said was you avoided dating women for 6 years after the breakup of your first, and only other, relationship, and you really didn't want to get into the second briefer one with Ms. Poppins, and a good part of this thread has been an angry rant about women--and that doesn't sound like a man who's all that interested in, or attracted to, women. I can't imagine why you'd want to be involved with a woman given the way you feel.

Your comments about other men are really just as bad as your comments about women--you just don't like anyone.

And you've avoided talking about the topic of sex. Since you appear to have problems with every other aspect of your relationships, and you see yourself as physically unattractive, and not generally meeting the expectations of women, it's fair to assume you might have some problems in the sexual area as well. Do you? Is there a reason you've avoided talking about sex?

The only thing in this world you can control is yourself--and that's the one thing you don't want to control. You justify your infantile emotional reactions, you almost take pride in your self defeating negative attitudes, and you rationalize your self destructive behaviors, like your excessive drinking. The barrage of bullshit "philosophical arguments" you level at those who try to get through to you, including your two previous therapists, as well as most of the posters in this thread, is just incredible, and, what's worse, is that you actually appear to believe that crap, because it keeps you from having to look at yourself and having to take some responsibility for turning your life into a self-fulfilling prophecy for failure.

You're not helpless at all. You'd just rather throw a tantrum, or get drunk, than do what you need to do to turn yourself into an emotional adult who isn't plagued by feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, and rage.

I'll back Firefly on her post - because I've said it previously - you are entirely responsible for your emotions, for your self esteem, for your self development, for your maturity, for your attitude, for your skills, for your happiness etc. All of these are withing your control and are your responsibility.
............................
For myself - Generally I spend about 30min to 1hour (total) each day on any of the following :
- practicing new things
- refining (through practice) things that I find difficult
- mentally reframing old attitudes
- recognising fears and reframing them
- working out how my mind moves, and training it to move in new ways that serve me.

That hour can be a total of : when I'm waking up, when I'm going to sleep, when I'm driving to work (or anywhere), or just plain because I have spare time, or an idea struck me.

As I learn things and integrate them into my 'system' (I prefer a systems understanding of life), I then find I learn other things that I had not been aware of before.

I only started down this particular path about 4 years ago.

That is to say - it is never too late to start.

Let's keep in mind that DSK is a very old not very attractive fart, and yet he does great with the young ladys. An explanation is called for. You will not get one from Firefly, as she is ignorant of the interplay between the sexes, locked as she is in her Utopian fantasy's.

sure DSK is rich and powerful, there are women who will go for that, but i see lots of folks (of all descriptions) with nothing much to offer, walking around with kids, so this magic passing on the lineage bullshit this guy seems to be pedaling is happening and could happen to him if he really wanted