Can life have meaning if your dreams are unattainable?

K, maybe it's not yet "over" for me.

I like firefly actually I like everyone, "don't judge"... Is a rule I live by.

So, she doesn't know you... Does she?

You going to let a "woman" let you down again?

Tell us about your Christian beliefs.. Tell us about things we don't know......

Or we do.

"I don't believe you Michael... Why ? Because your punctuation is better than mine when I have had a few to drink, comma's, full stops"

That's why I had to get a bit drunk. So much to say, I was frustrating myself. Needed to loosen up haha... otherwise it would have been too rushed...

"Thanks to those on A2k"

Thank you to those people. I'm not an ungrateful bastard. I'm sorry if that's what came across.

" She slept with you.. Not to hurt Jack per say alone, think about it. If you were as you claim "an ugly man" she couldn't sleep with you.. And, to get Jack back? You had to be "someone" or else the process is pointless, he had to be jealous. Did you ever think of that? ...Selling yourself very short "

I guess I hadn't thought about this. I'd really like to believe this could be true. But more than that I hope that she REALLY had some of the feelings she told me she had for me. I hope that at some point during it she really did love me as she said, because I really loved her...

That was a kind thing for you to say FS, whether it's true that she really thought I was "someone" or not...

"Tell us about your Christian beliefs.. Tell us about things we don't know......"

Not sure what you mean by this. I'm not religious... unless that was sarcasm...

Just a bit insulted to be called boring. I may be a lot of unpleasant things, but I don't think boring is one of them...

Maybe not boring - but sort of predictable.

I also said this that you're choosing to ignore

You are not going to understand your own inter-personal difficulties by seeking the explanation in terms of any views of "women" as an entire group--not only are women not a homogeneous group, which renders what you are saying about them virtually meaningless and inaccurate, you have similar problems in other types of interpersonal situations, such as your past relationships with therapists, and the way you choose to respond to, and interpret, what people have been posting in this thread. You seem oblivious to the amount of distortion you engage in--you twist what's said to you, you avoid looking at how you try to manipulate and control, and you avoid the possibility of real insight into your difficulties because you engage in endless rationalizations and bullshit intellectual arguments.

And I think your views regarding money are just as immature, and out of touch with reality, as your views about women. Money is a necessity of life--it enables food, shelter, and all the creature comforts we both want and need in our lives to have a decent quality of life. Having a "fun job" that doesn't pay all that well, or even provides health insurance, or even has long term prospects for paying enough to cover more than the bare minimum, might be appealing if you're 19, but it's a really questionable choice when you're 33 and should be well aware of how lack of money can limit your life, multiply your problems, and add to stress, particularly if you want to marry and have children. If you choose to live that way fine, but don't be surprised if other people aren't anxious to share that sort of financially precarious lifestyle with you. I think most people would view you as rather lacking in ambition, or initiative, and just as immature in your thinking about money matters as your thinking is immature in other areas, and just as passive when it comes to trying to improve your lot in life money-wise as you are passive about trying to improve anything else in your life or your functioning.

You're the kind of person who always sees his glass as half empty rather than half full, and who imagines that others magically have their glasses continuously refilled for them. People fill their own glasses--that's what vikorr has been trying to tell you. If you don't know how to turn on the faucet, learn how to turn it on. You're insisting the faucet is broken, and can't be fixed, rather than realizing you're too clumsy to operate it, or don't know how to work it, and that the solution involves improving your dexterity and understanding why you have problems learning how to work the faucet. Instead, you rant and rave, and blame the faucet, and, in the process, knock over your glass, so now it isn't even half full--that's how your own distorted thinking and emotional reactions serve to make your situation even worse for you, and actually prevent you from finding solutions to your problems.

You know you have personality and emotional problems that interfere with your functoning, and that you've got to overcome those problems in order to have a shot at what you want out of life. You know that, MichaelJ, you really do, and that's part of the reason for your low self esteem, you are aware of your inadequacies, and insecurities, and anxieties, and how they hinder you, and how they make life harder for you.

What you don't seem to realize is how you reinforce all those feelings of inadequacy, and insecurity, and anxiety, with all your maladaptive coping mechanisms--and those maladaptive mechanisms include all your bullshit intellectualized rationalizations, your selective perception, your distorted arguments, your excessive drinking, and your passivity--so you wind up feeling hopeless and helpless.

You are victimizing yourself, MichaelJ. You are at the mercy of your own emotions and your own crazy thinking. You can learn to control those emotions and learn to look at things differently, but you really need professional help in doing that, and you've got to be willing to let go of all those maladaptive coping mechanisms so you'll be able to acquire new and healthier ways of functioning that will allow your strengths and potential to emerge and develop. That's what will give you a sense of mastery and result in real self confidence, something you are sorely lacking in right now.You can control what goes on inside your head--and you've got to learn how to control it. It's what's going on inside your own head that's making you miserable.

Find yourself a shrink. Get a second job in order to pay for your therapy, if that's the only way you can get to see a therapist. Act like it's important to learn how to feel less miserable and to learn how to function better--make it important to yourself, and work to make it possible. All of this is within your own control.

Meaning is found by you, not by what you do. As for finding the best woman - if she has several others competing for her, how can it NOT be a contest. If you don't contest, you rule yourself out. The sheer fact of contesting by the way, displays certain traits that she may find attractive, and may only identify in a contest (said in my best David Attenborough voice)

The fairness or unfairness of it - however you choose to view it - to me is irrelvant. As I will always say - take life as it is and make the best of it.

There’s a difference between creative intelligence (the ability to join all the dots between the end point & the start), and wisdom, and creativity (the ability to think outside the box). The reason I used the term ‘creative’ intelligence, is that I recall reading that most of the greatest scientific thoughts were made by people prior to their 30’s, and that significant discoveries become quite rare after that.

Wisdom on the other hand, never ceases to be able to be acquired. New skills never cease to be able to be acquired.

Creativity – is about access to your subconscious, and about spontaneity, and about training ourselves to look at objects/words from multiple angles. Creativity is as much about motivation as it is about personality.
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Which brings me to a subject I’ve been meaning to broach, as it has multiple applications to this thread – that of ‘being real’. Being ‘yourself’ suffers from a very jaded view here in the west. Have you ever seen someone ‘trying to be funny’, or ‘trying to be smooth’ or ‘trying to be someone he/she is not’? The silly thing is – none of that means a person isn’t ‘being themselves’ or ‘isn’t being real’ or ‘isn’t being genuine’.

When people talk about other people ‘being themselves’ – they mean ‘that seems very naturally a part of who they are’, right? The issue is – virtually everything that seems ‘naturally a part of who they are’ has been, or can be ‘learned’.

When you first learn a new skill, you are awkward at it and it doesn’t seem natural. If you did it in public in your very early stages of learning it, it would not seem ‘a part of who you are’. But as you practice it more and more, much of it becomes subconscious...and the more that becomes ‘automatic’, the more it seems ‘natural – a part of who you are – you’

The part that actually makes something non-genuine in my view, requires that you understand that we have two different aspects to us – our individual self, and our social self (throw in spiritual self if you are so inclined, but that’s neither here nor there in this discussion).

Our individual self is the foundation of everything in our life. What we contribute to any relationship (friendship, colleague, intimate) is built on our individual self. The richness that we contribute to other people in this world, is our individual richness, and the strength of that richness.

Because it is a construct in our mind, we can view our ‘life’ as ‘our world’, and it is ‘our world’ that we contribute to others world...it is what we are treasured for by others.

As we interact with others, because we are both individual & social...and because our individual self is our foundation - we reach out socially (through our social selves) while being supported by the foundation of our individual self.

Those that ‘aren’t real / aren’t genuine’ reach out socially, do so while ignoring their individual self. They are doing so to be liked for someone they are not.

But that doesn’t mean that someone who ‘is trying to be funny’ can’t be ‘trying to be funny’ because it is a skill he wishes to learn, knowing that he will suck at it for a while, because he becomes better, and before it eventually seems like a natural part of him.

It basically comes down to this - if what you do socially finds its foundation in who you are, it’s real (even if it isn’t yet natural). If it doesn’t, it’s not real (even if it looks natural)

You could look at it from a ‘what’s your motivation’ perspective, though that would muddy the waters a little bit.
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I’m not suggesting stupidity in this – I’m suggesting a lack of knowledge / understanding regarding what makes you long term happy in a relationship (as opposed to short term heights of passion)
I’m talking about compatibility, from which perspective I’m inclined to disagree still.

For her - this girl is someone everyone describes as ‘crazy’ (if I recall right). It seems from what you’ve described that she was highly impulsive, never settled, said things she thought were true (but never gave them much thought), loved variety & doing things, and never sat still. I’m guessing her conflict resolution skills were almost none existent, apart from her manipulative abilities. And a lot of the conversation came down to ‘it’s all about her’.

You on the other hand, seem to prefer :
- Stability (despite your previous creativity – which is different to Mary P)
- To not engage in gameplaying (which by the way, has a positive & very healthy side as well – namely : flirting, word games, fun games, seduction, bedroom games etc) – whereas I daresay she LOVED gameplaying
- Absolute trust (nothing wrong with this – just pointing out that it’s probably highly different to mary p)
- Saying what you felt (the lovey dovey stuff) – which became predictable while she wanted unpredictable
- You weren’t standing up for yourself (which made you predictable, and in her view less of a man – as men should stand up for themselves & go after what they want...which as a benefit makes men unpredictable to women...as they just aren’t stimulated by predictability)
- Someone to mother you & love you unconditionally (which she doesn’t ever want the first, and the second in her eyes is always conditional)

Some of that may be wrong – it’s purely impressions that I get. The point of it is the incompatibility the two of you had. It would have it’s heights, but damn would it have some fights, and you were ALWAYS the one that was going to end up getting hurt. You chose the wrong person – passion without stability.


No two people approach improving their life in the same way. I even stated this a while back. Yet whatever way is learnt – self responsibility, self honesty and understanding are ALWAYS found at the base (ie. The foundation). If we don’t have any sense of responsibility for ourselves, we don’t bother going about improving our lives. And true Improvements can’t be built on lies to yourself.

Michael – I qualified heavily that statement, because it’s not all women, and the percentages change as women get older...which shows it’s about learning who you are. So - it is ‘somewhat’ warped thinking, but it’s not done from nastiness, but from lack of understanding.

I called your thinking warped, because among many warped things you KNEW it’s not right. You KNEW that a positive side exists (but refused to acknowledge it). You KNEW it keeps you depressed etc...but you insistently continued to reinforce it.


Well, that’s one way to look at it - not to far from some things I've stated elsewhere. Do you understand though, that men **** women up in the head a hell of a lot?

I’ve often noted (though not necessarily on these forums) that during our younger years men **** women up mentally and women **** men up mentally. It changes as you get older, and people start working the bullshit out from the real stuff – but when you are young, you don’t have access to that information or experience
No it wouldn’t. Robert Greene already wrote a book called ‘The Art of Seduction’which categorises a whole swathe of human vulnerabilities in the realm of seduction. If you read Amazon reviews, around 90% of people found the book repugnant.

When I read it – obviously from a different perspective – I found it incredibly intelligent, articulate, and interesting (that said, it was also still somewhat repugnant reading)...and something I think everyone should read, purely to better understand their own weaknesses.

But the majority of people aren't interested in reading such things, unless something motivates themt to.


When I was 18, I woke up one day and found that I didn’t like myself. I was unable to ‘feel’ anything. I didn’t even know what I was feeling at any particular stage. I felt like I had somehow 'shut myself down'. If someone asked me why I did something, I couldn’t even tell them. I knew something was wrong – but I had no idea what.

Now my parents were good parents – they were kind. My brothers and sisters were kind. School I had no problems with. So why was I like this?

Bizarrely enough, that lack of feeling had its foundation in a particular strength of mine that is on the rarish side. As a generalisation, people experience the world in 3 ways – visually, auditory, and through their feelings/touch senses. This may seem obvious, but the point is – one of those ways always dominates. And of the dominant trait - for most people Visual experience is by FAR the most dominant.

As I child, most of my memories are of feelings - feelings were incredibly dominant in my childhood. The problem with that is that EVERYTHING to do with human interaction then has a meaning & feeling attached to it. Every movement away by a loved one, or every even slightly harsh tone has a feeling associated with it...and as a child who doesn’t have enough experience to put things in context – that can be absolutely devastating. The result was that I shut my feelings down so much that I could not even recognise them anymore.

Can you comprehend how hard it is to make changes when you know that a problem exists, and even the general nature of it - but can’t identify your own feelings on anything? Feelings are not just the foundation of motivation, but the foundation of human interaction - they are the foundation of knowledge of why we do anything.

I could have stayed ‘permanently broken’ – but for me, that is not my way. I determined that I would fix the problem, even if it took decades. Now, I’m well & truly past that...but even now, I still find ways to improve – purely for the sake of growing (as I said, my belief is – if we aren’t growing, we are dying)

But the simple fact is – anything in our lives is able to be changed...even when we have no idea where to start. We just put take one step at a time, heading for our goal. The rest innevitably & eventually takes care of itself.

Mary flittered from one to the other. She "had" to have found the person attractive, or else she would not have been able to sleep with him. Very few woman are that smart to say "I love you" to keep a man, unless he's rich and is paying for everything for her, a motive and therefore, if he accepts, most likely he already knows he's buying her. Your only problem Michael is that she loved Jack.

Everyone has one person in their lives that they feel they loved more than anyone, it could be their current partner, but it could also be a past partner.

She had not gotten over Jack, simple. This is not about you. You went out with someone who had baggage. Did not have closure. Was not "finished" yet, with someone, Jack... I'd say she meant those words but on a deeper level, it was always Jack... Maybe she thought he'd never go out with her again, she had to move on. But, she couldn't.

Be grateful you "were" loved and acknowledge that her heart wasn't ready to move on at the time she met you, it's as simple as that.

vikorr, I need to think about everything you've said in this post for awhile before I say anything about it. There is a lot here I want to explore on my own, in my own mind. You've given me a lot of food for thought. I want to re-read what you've written a few times and really think about it before I ask any questions or comment.

I do want to comment on this subject immediately though:

"For her - this girl is someone everyone describes as ‘crazy’ (if I recall right)."

Yes. Is it weird though that I thought that was kind of sexy? Which also leads me to she was the best sex I've ever had, by far. I mean I hated her craziness, but it made her passionate. Like when I get angry I'm passionate. I'd never experienced being with someone who was like me in that aspect. It was pretty awesome, two people very similar in that way coming together. Even if it caused other problems. My fiance was not at all a mood flipping person, and she was also a virgin when I met her. I'm not at all saying that I didn't love my fiance, but even when I say Mary was a slut, I think I'd rather be with a crazy slut who has fire inside her then a level headed girl, who had all sorts of weird sexual hangups and insecurities. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes it's nice to be with a woman who has enough fire inside to enjoy throwing caution to the wind while being with her man, and to know that he enjoys it too.

"It seems from what you’ve described that she was highly impulsive, never settled, said things she thought were true (but never gave them much thought), loved variety & doing things, and never sat still. I’m guessing her conflict resolution skills were almost none existent, apart from her manipulative abilities. And a lot of the conversation came down to ‘it’s all about her’."

You are correct here.

"You on the other hand, seem to prefer :
- Stability (despite your previous creativity – which is different to Mary P)
- To not engage in gameplaying (which by the way, has a positive & very healthy side as well – namely : flirting, word games, fun games, seduction, bedroom games etc) – whereas I daresay she LOVED gameplaying
- Absolute trust (nothing wrong with this – just pointing out that it’s probably highly different to mary p)
- Saying what you felt (the lovey dovey stuff) – which became predictable while she wanted unpredictable
- You weren’t standing up for yourself (which made you predictable, and in her view less of a man – as men should stand up for themselves & go after what they want...which as a benefit makes men unpredictable to women...as they just aren’t stimulated by predictability) "

Correct here too. Although I think I did stand up for myself SOMETIMES, and sometimes I let the euphoria of what I felt for her stop me from standing up.

"Someone to mother you & love you unconditionally (which she doesn’t ever want the first, and the second in her eyes is always conditional)"

Here you're wrong though. I don't want someone to mother me contrary to what firefly says. And my second comment is: Isn't all love from women conditional???


The rest of what you posted I need to let set in for awhile.

Thank you

I think most of what you're saying here is inaccurate.

Also "Very few woman are that smart to say "I love you" to keep a man, unless he's rich and is paying for everything for her, a motive and therefore, if he accepts, most likely he already knows he's buying her."

Dear God, what do you mean by this?

The same thing I was telling you.....if you want one of the best of women you need to either get willing to give her what she wants/needs (play the game) or else have enough money that she does not care that you suck because she can now buy what she wants. It is either-or pal, play the game or throw money at the problem...which is it going to be?

Do you at all understand what's wrong with what you're pointing out here?

Again what you're saying is sickening to me. And it is not something I will accept as OK, even if I agree it's true. But I don't even care tonight because I'd rather think about other things, like a lot of what vikorr had to say...

I get it....you are unwilling to do what is required to get what it is that you say that you want. Either you dont really want it or else you are too much of a pussy to go get it. You really should figure out which one it is.

OR...

REAL love shouldn't have anything to do with how good of a game player you are, and it shouldn't have a price tag either. Anybody who accepts love with a price tag, or as a prize at the end of a never ending maze as acceptable isn't someone I'm going to agree with.

I agree it appears women want both game playing and money (even though there's no reason they can't get their own ******* money or at least put half in to match their partner). But I'm not happy this appears to be true. It shouldn't have to be this way...

If you stick around you will see that I have a deep hostility towards the utopia builders, those who insist that their fantasies should be reality, and wont rest until they are (which will be never). When we get to the parrellel universe called " the world as MJ thinks it should be" kindly give me a nudge. Till then I will operate according to the rules of the real world, and in this world mating is a competition, where the best mate with the best and the also rans with the also rans. You are willing to do nothing to improve your value to a female, all you do is sit there and whine "I should be good enough for you!!" That is the logic of a 5 year old, so we see here that every once in a blue moon Firefly is right about something.....

Oh good grief.
Here we go again!

As per usual you simply can not follow along...the take away is that we are all telling MJ the same thing, which is "suck it up buttercup!"....

"mating is a competition, where the best mate with the best and the also rans with the also rans."

Life has less inherent meaning if being born with a vagina means you don't have to work as hard to win at the competition. It means women are also the enemy. That means that society is not only living as virus destroying the earth (which is a living thing too), it's also oppressing itself. This would make any logical person question existence.

I could care less about utopias. But if you can look at how society works and not think to question why that's fucked up, there's something wrong with you.

Oh I am definitely "following along", hawkeye, "as per usual".

But please ... do carry on!

Exactly how am I predictable?

UM, I am a radical and am a former revolutionary. Check out the rape thread, where I have been arguing for years that the corrupt partnetship of the state and the feminists has been at war with individual freedom and the freedom of men in particular. But here is the thing....you seem to be insisting that you should get points for playing the martyr, and that aint never going to happen. I decry the status quo to be sure, but I also take an honest evaluation of how things are so that I can do the best to get what I need/want and to also stay safe. I for instance routinely do things to women that Firefly wants to see me in jail for, but I make sure that I as best I can only play with women who would never turn me into the state for sex crimes. You on the other hand refuse to do what works because you are morally opposed to what works. Please explain how in the hell that is ever supposed to work out for you...