i am

I'm sure I do more of the whole "making yourself attractive to the opposite sex" thing than I like to admit... But my response to all this kind of stuff is "so what?" I'm going to do what makes me happy, not what makes me attractive. I'm working on becoming LESS self conscious, not more. And that's self conscious in the social way, not spiritual It's a bit of a catch 22...but the more you do what you do and don't care what people think, the more attractive you become. But it doesn't work (necessarily) to pretend you don't care so that you attract people. It's when you really stop giving a shit that you become more attractive. Unless not giving a shit to you means stained wife beater and sweat pants and smelling bad and just completely letting yourself go... Though I'll admit there is a population of females who seem to be into this...

Yurts available for rent all over the west. Or buy a small piece of land and buy one! Cheaper ones are only a few thousand. Some of my friends in Idaho live in one year round. Another friend sets one up near a ski hill every winter in Montana and stays there over weekends, or for a couple weeks at a time. It's nice around here. You can rent old forest service cabins in the winter, or yurts. Some you have to ski into, others you can drive up to. None have electricity or running water, most are wood stove heat. And you can rent fire lookouts that aren't staffed anymore in the summer. The great thing about it all, the backpacking, camping, lookouts, yurts and cabins, is that it makes you feel like royalty but it's all dirt cheap. Of course not the kind of royalty with servants and clean sheets...but experience and scenery, yes.

Just a liiiiitttle bit further south. But not much.

This is in my neck of the woods.

There's mostly a lot of good advice in this thread. You could probably just take this advice and call it good.

Ok....^ Anyway, probably a couple things. Approaching a person with a dog in a new place can cause some aggression. I would say this is 80% previous and current owner caused, and 20% you, to completely make up statistics I'm on the trail with my dog all the time. I ran into a guy a couple times who was clearly afraid of dogs and had had bad experiences. He "knew" my dog was going to react badly to him. So much that he already had a retractable club out and was extending it as we approached... Now tell me...if you approach someone on a dark street, and they just walk by confidently...no biggie. But if they start acting weird and defensively and even start reaching for something...you are going to be on edge. That guy probably had a couple bad experiences early on with dogs, and then CREATED every subsequent conflict by bringing it out of the dog because he just knew it was going to react badly to him and so his body language freaked the dog out. How could I tell him that HE was scaring my dog, not the other way around...? So..self esteem and self love issues? Well, that won't necessarily set off any animal, but it doesn't help. Animals respond well to confident, assured people. But there are some animals, and people, who just react badly for whatever reason. My experience has been to appreciate when a new animal likes you for apparently no reason, and brush it off when they don't. If you had no bad intentions when you walked into that room, then it's the dogs problem (possibly caused by other people), not yours. My dog has never been abused. But for the first three years of his life, he would bark at men with beards. He wouldn't come near me if I put on a hat (I rarely wore summer hats). He would bark, and wouldn't come anywhere near my brother or mom, who he met separately, until they had been in the same room for a while then he would slowly, and cautiously approach them... If he had been an aggressive, rather than fearful dog, those situations may have been much worse... My family are all dog people.

But I agree with your experience. Even at 36, I'm usually one of the youngest people in a class, when I go to one. Some of that has to do with my town, though. I'll tell you...between my hobbies, passions and job, and interacting with the older people in all those places, I sure know how I'm NOT going to be when I get older. I'm not going to sit around telling the young people "just wait till you're my age...oh it gets worse...oh do that stuff now before you're as old as me...oh aren't we lame being here on a Friday night...oh just wait your metabolism will slow down..." Etc. I can't scratch my head without someone making one of these comments, much less walk across a room or speak. Ah...the joys of not living in a college town, and being surrounded by old people... There are a few good examples who don't make excuses, apologies, and clearly aren't extremely unsure of themselves. But it's way more rare than I'd like. Kinda sad when you hit your late thirties and see so few role models in the older generation. I know they're out there...but there are too few around here.

I've been interested in this kind of stuff as long as I can remember. And I mean yeah, I can say "I wish I started younger", but as with lots of other things, I wasn't ready. A head start would have been nice, but I was absolutely not ready for real cultivation in my teens, twenties, and even early thirties. It's still a struggle and a bit of a balancing act right now between old friends and habits, and the life I see myself wanting to live. But not nearly as hard as it would have been even five years ago. It happens when it should..

I'm glad we didn't get the worst of this storm. 5 degrees F for the high here today. Back to the 30s tomorrow. The first winter I moved here, we had seven days straight of lows in the -30s F and highs around -15F. Started getting little pockets of frost on my inside walls...

edit: this one might be worth posting lyrics... Truth. The truth is that I never shook my shadow Every day it's trying to trick me into doing battle Calling out 'faker' only get me rattled Wanna pull me back behind the fence with the cattle Building your lenses Digging your trenches Put me on the front line Leave me with a dumb mind With no defenses But your defense is If you can't stand to feel the pain then you are senseless Since this, I've grown up some Different kinda figther And when the darkness come, let it inside you Your darkness is shining My darkness is shining Have faith in myself Truth. I've seen a million numbered doors on the horizon Now which is the future you choosen before you gone dying I'll tell you about a secret I've been undermining Every little lie in this world comes from dividing Say you're my lover say you're my homie Tilt my chin back, slit my troath Take a bath in my blood, get to know me All out of my secrets All my enemies are turning into my teachers Because Light's blinding No way dividing What's yours or mine when everything's shining Your darkness is shining My darkness is shining Have faith in ourselves Truth.

There's a guy around here who regularly likes his own posts. Not sure if you want to emulate him, though...

I just saw something that scared me!! I liked a Sloppy Zhang post, and what it then said was "you AND Dorian Black like this". Could it be true?? Maybe it's time to retire

Hard to argue with anything there.

I guess we started splitting hairs and going down the rabbit a hole a while ago. Getting into talk of "is anyone really ever genuine" is a very different, though very related, I'll grant you, conversation. And everyone sees it from their own perspective. Because you know your motives, don't presume to know mine. No, they aren't too far from each other, but don't project what you know of yourself and your group of friends on me. Maybe it is just an age thing. Why should I worry about the games kids have been playing since way before my time to get laid? Just because I'm over it doesn't mean someone ten years younger than me should be. I just have issues with the "power hungry, status seeking, notches on the bed frame, I want to be a god to women and men" type spirituality. It combines odd versions of what it means to be a man, with some metro-sexual, narcissistic tendencies, a little objectifying of both men and women...somehow with "spirituality"... Whatever it is, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

You're doing a very good job of missing the point. My "issue" is the talk of acting out a role of dominant male to trick women into going home with you, or humiliating other men so that you look better by comparison, or similar things. Like the thread awhile back about a guy wanting to use his energy to manipulate women into sleeping with him. That's spiritual development? Of course sex is part of spirituality. But to me, sex for sex sake, when you don't give a shit about who it's with, and just want to score as much as possible, and will even belittle or trick people to get it, is NOT. The original point of this thread was cool. The direction it's taken is a bit sad for a place like this. I'll talk sex with you all day if you want to talk about the kind that respects everyone involved, and happens out of genuine, truthful interaction and a undeniable urge to be with a person you just seriously connected with. To equate my arguments with being against the talk of sex or calling sex non-spiritual is to really see in black and white.

Nice

Yeah...but where's all the scoring with club women and societal acceptance for playing the movie star role of "dominant male" and having media-culture young immature women swooning over you??? I'd say you're seriously missing out.

Yep. Cool thing about this kit is that all you do is hook the jumper cable attachments to the battery terminals, aim the panel toward the sun, and you're done.

I agree with bax on this one. Being who you are is completely different than playing a role to get laid. Bad boy does not equal douche. But I think we're in agreement. Genuine, true people are where it's at. Whether they're self conscious, submissive, dominant, somewhere in between, bad or good. Not people playing a role, thinking that how many girls are attracted to you is what makes your life worth anything.

Guys playing the dominance game to attract women are, to me, just as silly to watch, from the outside, as some dork making a fool out of himself self-consciously hitting on a girl. And in fact the dork at least has a chance of become desireable as his confidence grows and he decides to be himself, and let the women who like who that genuine person is come to him. Rather than being out to get laid when WHO THE GIRL IS doesn't even matter...

And other threads like it, which pop up now and them, with the usual suspects. It's strange that you see so much of this on a spiritual forum. I guess the people attracted to the power and immortality side of spirituality are often some of the same people who like the "monkey dance", in the sense Rory Miller meant it, and in broader ways you can use it as an analogy to the way people live out of the lower, rather than higher centers of themselves.

I've found that on most forums, good and bad, you can't say "it's a beautiful morning!" without someone arguing with you... Anyway... My solar panels are on their way! Along with a small inverter. Who knows how long the payoff will be before I'm saving money...but I don't really care. Being able to park my rv and not move for weeks at a time is worth it.

Well I've found there's a place between "douche" and "predictable boring dork submissive male". This would include someone who is smart, willing to take chances, won't tolerate shit from other men or women, is extremely confident WITHOUT the ego, and will not lie to you, cheat on you, belittle others or you...basically a man, confident in himself but not "into" himself, secure in who he is, who doesn't need to play games or mess with other people. And the kind of women who are into men like that and see through the bullshit of the others are quality women. But we're talking about different things. Getting laid and finding a quality women are not necessarily in the same universe, though they can and do mix. Being a douche in order to pick up women is a game (unless you just really are a douche), and though most people do it to some extent, it's acting out a lie in order to get laid. When being a content person is more important than scoring, you'll see the difference. It's a completely different lens you view the world through when you're just out to be a good person and enjoy life, rather than trying to be a certain way to attract women. But we've had this conversation before. Some want to be the dominant male, gain power and ass and play some version of a man they see in the movies, since they've spent more time in fantasy than real life (but they're in good company, these days...so many people acting out a version of reality supplied by Hollywood and thinking its genuine). Or they just are that way. Some believe women to be power and energy hungry greedy moochers and avoid them. Others are happy to stay out of all the silly games and just live life, connect with people, and hopefully evolve a bit. I know a couple guys who are great people, strong, confident, secure, and the greatest guys you'll meet. They had their time out at the bars bringing girls home. But never did they deceive, lie, or play games. They were themselves. They didn't put other guys down to make them look better. And before they went past a certain point, they made sure the woman knew what they were after in the night (not a relationship). And they did WELL. So...am I looking for the average, "I like douchebags" women? No. So I don't really much care about the statistics. Being nice, genuine and secure is not necessarily being submissive and boring. When you get past the games of dominance and become a man who could be dominant but chooses not to be, then you're an enviable, attractive man. It's been touched on here already. If you ARE dominant, there's no need to make a show of it. Other dominant men give you a nod and respect. Less dominant people naturally give you space and often help. And cool women, when they see you are dominant AND nice, with nothing to prove, come out of the woodwork. But yeah...most drunk teen and 20-something women don't have the appreciation for maturity yet. They're still playing the game.

Nice title change! That's definitely where this thread is currently at. Fortunately for douches, there are plenty of shallow or otherwise confused or just horny women who this stuff works perfectly on.

Thanks. With the portable kits, everything on Amazon looks like terrible quality... I know it would be cheaper to source and put together the parts individually...but I've completely gutted and rebuilt this camper, plus doing a lot of engine and suspension work, and I've hit my burn-out point with researching, asking questions, researching, learning, finding the best deal...buying stuff, learning how it works and how to install it, etc. So I'm going with an expensive, but quality kit from a company in AZ.