Got trolled a little today after I made the following tweet:
The guy deleted, but the gist was pretty simple: “you have more important things to do than her, pay attention to her only when she behaves”
For the record, I am not necessarily opposed to the above. There is truth to this, and its applicability (as always) depends on the context.
But what’s clear about this response is said person did not understand mine.
He was spouting some parroted ideology.
Which is a reason why you need to be careful about what you consume in the manosphere.
Because there are a lot of guys here who experienced bad things with women as a result of shitty beliefs, and decided the solution was not to think critically, but to simply do the exact opposite.In other words, they decided to change one problem for another.
Let’s take the above content today as an example, and imagine two situations:
Situation #1: Guy is overly available and acts like a lapdog for his wife. He does most of the housework, takes care of the kids, works hard for the family — yet his wife does nothing but complain and act emotionally and sexually distant from him. He wants her to change her behavior so he gives her a lot, but his needs are not getting met.
Situation #2: Guy is distant and buries himself into work and friends, ignoring his wife when she asks him to do things or spend time with her. Fights are frequent, but he yields to none of her demands, often becoming even more unavailable. Sex is intermittent. He wants her to change her behavior so he gives her little, but his needs are not getting met.
Anybody with half a brain can realize that these are two completely different dynamics and thus call for completely different courses of action. And yet in the manosphere the myopic retardation gets so extreme that people forget situation #1 is not the only cause of relationship failure out there.
I’ve generalized these two different dynamics broadly as desire-issues (#1) and comfort-issues (#2). Desire and comfort are the two sides of attraction; guys who have problems with women without exception struggle with one or the other.
“So all we need to do is accept there are two potential issues with women, not one — is that right Pat?”
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
Because relationships in practice rarely have only desire or comfort issues. The overall dynamic may skew one direction or the other… but on the micro it’s usually desire is strong in some areas, comfort in others…
And most importantly, increasing desire without losing comfort (and vice-versa) can be a very delicate process.
Which is why I STRONGLY do NOT recommend people attempt to use boilerplate “rules” to fix their love lives.
You are as likely to kill a relationship as you are to save it.
It is quite literally like emotional surgery.
The only question is — which sort of surgeon will you use?
You can either work with a civil war battlefield “guru,” who will stiffen your resolve with a swig of fiery rhetoric, and chop off your wounded limb with a hacksaw…
Or you can work with a specialist who will level with you about your chances, spend hours cutting piece by piece of the gangrene out, apply healing salves, and preserve as much as possible…
If the latter sounds more appealing, apply here: www.patstedman.com/application
– Pat
