Taoist Approach to Dating

[RiverSnake]

Be a real human being...have a real conversation...get to know the other person.

 

If your a guy or girl whom just wants to have sex then its probably just better to get a prostitute or a male escort, that's what their there for...that way no one's time is wasted.

 

-My 2 cents, Peace

Edited March 16, 2012 by OldGreen

[zanshin]

Yeah, I can go for over 15 minutes! (hula-hooping), that and jump rope are the things I can do to impress people of all ages. More fun than usual gym stuff anyway. I can also fly a kite pretty well, next I may need to develop my yo-yo skills.

[JohnC]

[Jetsun]

So much of PUA tactics and strategies are attempts to avoid certain things from happening, that they interpret a certain way and feel bad about. Usually cause they are scared shitless and their sense of self is at stake. I would know, as I knew most of the guys that started the whole thing: style, eban, etc..

 

So they create layers of tactics and persona's in between them and the women, to insulate themselves, over complicating things with endless thinking and pursuit.

Faking who they are and what want, and add more layers of bullshit on top of their current conditioning. Rather than deconstruct their conditioning, to assume less, challenge their beliefs about what is really happening, and the like.

 

Nice post, all the PUA stuff is probably as far removed from a Taoist approach as you can possibly get, it's all about contriving your image, control and manipulation.

[JohnC]

Nice post, all the PUA stuff is probably as far removed from a Taoist approach as you can possibly get, it's all about contriving your image, control and manipulation.

 

 

Thanks,

Yea all that said there are some quality guys wanting to help men and women have better relationships in general.

 

Off the top of my head the likes are:

Zan Parion

Authentic world (authentic man program)

Dan Savage I think...

 

John

[三江源]

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Edited July 23, 2014 by cat

[三江源]

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Edited March 18, 2015 by 三江源

[三江源]

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Edited March 18, 2015 by 三江源

[Mokona]

I say, dance your heart out and love it. You'll find someone. I feel that my dancing might just be horrible, but I love doing it, and I get complemented or ladies come up to dance with me.

[Sloppy Zhang]

 

I get the feeling most people are missing the real fundamental aspects of "game" or "dating" or interacting with humans. They are seeing the real superficial aspects, and are missing the aspects that can transform it from a superficial process of hiding your true self, to turning it into a process of examination to find your true self, and to bring the true self of other people out.

 

People say "just be yourself". People say "this will only work on insecure people".

 

Well guess what?

 

People are pretty fucked up. Tell them to be themselves and watch them enact YEARS of subconscious conditioning, react without thinking to various stimuli, avoid certain people or situations for reasons they can't really explain ("it's just my personal preference") etc etc etc etc.

 

And the people you interact with? Most of them are fucking crazy! Insecure women abound. Beautiful, successful, intelligent, smart, funny women attracted to psychotic killer assholes? What the fuck?

 

Learning this pickup material (for me) is less about learning a routine to create a persona to bed women, and it's more about examining factors about myself and about others.

 

What kinds of things do I go into a situation carrying with me? Thoughts, expectations, fears, assumptions, habits, etc etc etc. Learning game material has taught me to examine my own behavior and my own thinking process. How do I act vs how I THINK I act?

 

Learning game material has also helped me to understand others. Sometimes people are turned OFF by genuineness. They aren't used to it. They don't know how to handle it. As the song goes, "some of them want to use you, some of them want to be used by you. Some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused." Someone who has lived their life by being degraded and exploited won't know how to handle kindness and compassion. It will be foreign. They won't know how to interact. And they will be strangely attracted to what is familiar- exploitation and abuse!

 

Learning game lets you navigate the interaction between yourself and others. When you make an action, it is an action you CHOOSE to make. Some guys flirt with girls constantly and don't know that they are doing it. Some guys think they are flirting but are really sending massive "stay away" signals. People of any gender wind up falling into patterns of behavior they can neither understand nor control.

 

Game concepts teach how to understand and use these principles of human interaction. And that's pretty damn empowering.

 

If you want to manipulate and exploit people with that? Well, it happens.

 

If you want to use that knowledge to help foster healthy relationships with people, understand why they are healthy, and understand how to keep them healthy? Well good for you.

[Birch]

Hum. Where's the relationship if all you're trying to do is get everything your way and your choice? And even worse IMO if you have to lie to the other person and to yourself to afford yourself said choice.

Yes, people are fucked up. Another reason to be kind:-)

[Sloppy Zhang]

Hum. Where's the relationship if all you're trying to do is get everything your way and your choice? And even worse IMO if you have to lie to the other person and to yourself to afford yourself said choice.

Yes, people are fucked up. Another reason to be kind:-)

 

That's certainly one way to spin it.

 

It's certainly one way to play the game.

 

But it's definitely not the only way to live life, and it's not the only way to use the things you know about human nature.

 

Again, it depends on how you view it. You very well COULD "build up" a stage persona and fuck (with) people as if they were props on your stage. Whoopdee doo.

 

Or you can "break down" your behavior and the behavior of others to understand it and direct it.

 

Now I would say one can (should?) direct it to a positive direction.

 

Others can (and probably will) come in and say that you can (will?) direct it to a negative direction (they'll probably use the word "manipulate" there... scandalous!)

 

As the saying goes, "don't hate the player, hate the game!"

[Birch]

IMO that was far too many words for far too little sentiment Mr Slopps.

No "spinning" this one IMO/IME - although of course you may. But just try to be honest with yourself in there somewhere. Personally that's IMO/IME the hardest and the (aw shucks) awesomest way to go...

 

This being said, the little I know of you means I expect to be called on such a statement for rationalisations and justifications. Really, I'm not sure I can with this stuff. Maybe I should.

[Aetherous]

This is actually extremely funny. It is so horrendously wrong. I can imagine it being written by at least 1001 men I have met in my life all of whom are deeply misled about their levels of attractiveness and about what ' sexual tension' between men and women means. Some of the most tense atmospheres are created by sexual revulsion. Sexual tension ( gender tension) means 'you are cross gender from me'.. and the rest of that sentence could be 'and I would rather eat dogfood for a year than have you lay a finger on me'.

 

This kind of propaganda is tripe, dangerous tripe. It reminds me of the endless times me and my friends have been hit on and then asked if we were gay when we expressed a wish to be left alone.

 

I hope I never randomly run into you somewhere and decide to hit on you.

[RiverSnake]

Way of the Superior Man is a excellent book. I recommend it too all men.

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Way-Superior-Man-Challenges/dp/1591792576/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332074837&sr=1-1

Edited March 18, 2012 by OldGreen

[Sloppy Zhang]

IMO that was far too many words for far too little sentiment Mr Slopps.

No "spinning" this one IMO/IME - although of course you may. But just try to be honest with yourself in there somewhere. Personally that's IMO/IME the hardest and the (aw shucks) awesomest way to go...

 

This being said, the little I know of you means I expect to be called on such a statement for rationalisations and justifications. Really, I'm not sure I can with this stuff. Maybe I should.

 

Not quite sure what you mean here. As with all things human, it is a complicated situation. As much as I'd love to leave a sentimental one liner, I find that I can't. Maybe after another 22 years I'll have one for you

 

I'll just say that learning "game", learning psychology, understanding how people work, and using that to navigate social interactions has allowed me to connect more to myself and to connect to others.

 

People have let me into places (not just women, and not just physically you pervs ) that they would not have let me into unless I had used what I knew on them.

 

Sure, I can run around acting like a super compassionate super Buddha. That's great. But a lot of people won't (in my experience, at least) open up to that because it is foreign and strange to them. They are too insecure to let themselves be helped.

 

Sooooooo sometimes you gotta help without letting on that you're trying to help. And the only way you can do this is is if you learn to understand them.

 

If you insist no being super genuine buddha on them, you're just forcing your Buddhahood onto them, and they're just going to run back into the same self destructive behavior they've always done

[Birch]

Yeah, I dunno Mr Slopps. My personal experience with people who express an interest in 'gaming' (or as I like to call it 'manipulation') of others - whether those ends are expressed on their part as 'positive' or 'helpful' in intent towards the other or not - has not often been particularly positive. Your experience seems like it has been. I suggest as a consequence we're looking at a 'zero-sum game' from alternate sides.

[daojones]

Sloppy Zhang, I think it makes a lot of sense to treat different people...differently. Communication is complicated. Messages are received and interpreted in different ways. I think understanding how people operate is a much more intentional approach than just 'being yourself'. I think actually being yourself involves introspection and understanding of how you operate and how you are received by others. While being yourself in a shallow way is just thrusting (excuse the pun) your so called authentic persona with all its unexamined flaws onto another person. I don't think this is fair to your self or to the self of another. It is very easy to get in messed up situations because of this. Two people who are interacting 'authentically' can be acting just as manipulative as individuals who learn manipulative tactics...they just aren't aware of what is going on.

 

So yes, like you said acting infinitely nice to everyone is not what is needed for each person. In fact it may be unhealthy for the person who is acting this way, as it may evoke unhealthy behaviours with your SO or whomever. Good advice...thanks! Made me realize how far I have to go in being authentic to my self.

[三江源]

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Edited March 18, 2015 by 三江源

[三江源]

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Edited March 18, 2015 by 三江源

[三江源]

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Edited March 18, 2015 by 三江源

[de_paradise]

Bah, I'm just a hermit. What is dating for? I cant remember. Wouldn't that interfere with cultivation too much?

[Sloppy Zhang]

Bah, I'm just a hermit. What is dating for? I cant remember. Wouldn't that interfere with cultivation too much?

 

I can't disagree more.

 

I've made ridiculous leaps and bounds in cultivation thanks to the people I have dated (especially who I am dating now). The stuff I have learned about myself and her helped me progress and work through things in a matter of days/weeks/months that I had been working on for years.

 

But that's just me.

[de_paradise]

I can't disagree more.

 

I've made ridiculous leaps and bounds in cultivation thanks to the people I have dated (especially who I am dating now). The stuff I have learned about myself and her helped me progress and work through things in a matter of days/weeks/months that I had been working on for years.

 

But that's just me.

 

Really? Like what kind of stuff specifically, (if you are not embarrassed to say)?

[Sloppy Zhang]

Too scattered.

Edited March 20, 2012 by Sloppy Zhang