Sitting Next To Girl...

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Well, in Central Europe it is close to the French version but less flirty. I mean you live in mixed circles, do activities, go to parties, etc. in mixed groups and you just spend more time with the people you like more. It's not considered dating to have a coffee or beer with someone of opposite sex. I regularily dine with my coworkers (mostly males because I work in a male-dominated place) and everybody knows it's all just about having a nice company, I'm married and in Poland by default it means I'm not to be considered at all.
It usually takes months of having non-dating time together before two persons decide to go to the next step. When they call it a date, it is considered a begining of a relationship. Sex, at least in my social circle, requires another few months of dating, but I know some other social circles have it different. However, hugs ang cheek kisses are not exclusive to your romantic partner, but don't expect anything more.

Hmmm. I think I'm going to have to find myself a European man.

British men do that hanging out with you thing, but it never goes anywhere.

What if I find a nice European man. How do I know he's interested and not going to get snapped up by someone else during this slow courting period?

I’m not Brit, so I don’t have a clear answer. I suspect he’d make his intentions fairly clear when the time came, otherwise you just keep waiting.

Human beings all operate according to needs and desires. Becoming aware of this is the first step in understanding why people do anything. The way I see it, men don’t owe you anything, and vice versa. What matters is what you value and why.

That’s why for you I stress maintaining ongoing relationships with as many men as you reasonably can. If it’s a problem, you just say, “so? I happen to have a lot of male friends. How is that any of your business?”

What will happen is one or more will gravitate to you and occupy your time more so than others. What you do at this point is violate his personal space, make physical contact every chance you get, open yourself to being kissed, and boom...you’re IAR. The way you know it’s time to turn up the heat is you both pretty much only spend time with each other anyway. In America, we have the 3-date rule. In Europe, it looks like it’s more the 3-YEAR rule.

The best advice I can give you is build a circle of friends that is almost entirely men. Or at least try. This is a matter of what happens when you shoot for the moon and miss. You may not end up with THAT guy you fancied—but the guy you end up with is likely much better.

Not that you need me to say this, but for anybody else out there with the same issue: just watch out for creeps. There are ways of handling narcissists that will work in your favor, for example (being an object of desire gets you what you want, for instance, and you are more concerned with physical pleasure versus emotional attachment). But I think we are more conditioned towards autonomy than that. Knowing a man as friends long enough to know what he’s really like when he doesn’t think anybody’s watching can only help you.

I usually give advice from a male perspective because that’s always who’s asking. It works both ways, though. Lately I say women have someone waiting in the wings and jump from one relationship to the next. Men have done this for ages. It’s just presently we are more often demonized than we were 100 years ago. If someone wants to slut-shame you for doing the rational thing, remember this: you aren’t asking for approval, nor do you need it. Go ahead and make friends with the guy with a gf. Spend every moment you get alone with him. If he prefers your company to hers, suggest he break up with her. If HE makes the decision to cheat on his gf with you, that’s HIS problem to deal with, not yours. He probably won’t cheat; I’m just saying it’s not your battle to fight. When SHE finds another guy she likes better or they have a fight, guess what? You’re already there.

So you put an arm around him and tell him everything is ok and you’ll be there no matter what. You’ll make eye contact while you’re already uncomfortably close, and he’ll kiss you. Won and done.

Let’s flip this around from my usual pov: My advice works because people are easily manipulated. My advice depends on a man’s ability to manipulate women. Well...guess what? Men are easily manipulated, perhaps more easily than women. If it sounds like I’m suggesting you manipulate men and situations dealing with us, it’s because I am. That’s why I always say I’d love to go out with you just once...I’d like to see exactly what you’re capable of! You have more power than you think. Claim it.

I think we now all know what Mr AngelRho's "specialist subject" is!

My primary area is music. Education is secondary to that. Music is all about affecting emotions and communicating to an audience what they are supposed to feel, what you WANT them to feel. Education is about modifying cognitive behavior.

I love women. I make no attempt to hide that fact. I surrounded myself with women’s media from an early age, reading my mom’s magazines and romance novels. I spent so much time around girls at school that guys called me names. A guy once hit on me, not realizing a) I had a gf and b) I was NOT in denial. I don’t do dudes. I can see where the confusion comes from, but women are simly a special interest.

I’ve reached my ultimate goal with women and reproduced. I have no desire to partner with anyone again after my wife. Women are no less a fascination for me, but at this stage I only admire them from afar.

I am here and post things I post because I’ve transcended my interest in women in favor of an interest in humanity. I see two as inseparable. Relationships are relationships, regardless of their more specific nature. A=A. The only thing that changes is the level of intimacy. It gives me pleasure to see people succeed in the same ways I have. I like winners. I post stuff because I think people who listen will become winners. If it didn’t make me feel good about myself, I wouldn’t do it.

I wasn't being condescending, I think some of your deeper ideas (not the dating nonsense) are actually quite interesting, though not original. I used to be an Ayn Rand fan too, though I've since grown out of it. Brilliant novelist, but mediocre thinker - which I think, rather perversely, was her dictum on Tolstoy.

Ah yes. The one who notices that you're feeling down when it hasn't worked out with the one you fancied and asks you how you are, when the one you fancied never once asked you how you were and you wonder why you even liked him in the first place. Hmm.

And then you realise he was the one who invited you into the group of guys in the first place. And out of all of them he was the one who asked you to hang out with them the most often.

He's the one you end up chatting to in a corner at parties because you don't really like big groups of people.

The one who comments on your social media posts and asks you questions. The one who bothers to message you out off the blue.

He's the one.

I think Rand is shortsighted on some issues. Her conclusion on God is a non-sequitur. She was on a late night show once, long ago, handwaving her conclusion on religion because “one cannot be called upon to prove a negative.” Her “logic” is merely a transcendental argument based on the axiom that she’s right and everyone else is wrong.

My faith in God is axiomatic, btw. I’m not against axioms. But that kind of thinking takes us back to Anselm. The question becomes: If we cannot possibly be proven wrong, how does we know with certainty that we are right? The way I answer for myself is I do know with certainty what I experienced, therefore the fact of God is undeniable. Therefore, it is not for me to defend my beliefs, but rather for others to demonstrate why I should believe differently. For others, rather than attacking their faith or lack of it, my question is why do you choose to believe as you do? The answer is NEVER a rational one.

Rand doesn’t get a free pass. WHY she chose to believe as she did is as broken and irrational as the rest of them. So what you have left are the conclusions themselves and whether they hold up to any rationality.

Her position is basically everyone is good, or if not, there is no good/evil. Virtue is acting within rational self-interest.

I hold the view, like Rand, that there is an objective morality. But I see humankind as broken and inherently evil. The question of God isn’t effectively settled in Objectivism; it’s merely an unproven assertion.

That said, there is much merit to be found in Objectivism. Christianity is not altruism, something Randian Objectivists claim. Christianity has been corrupted by altruism, and the Catholic Church is guilty of perpetuating this backwards thinking. Jesus died fulfilling a divine value. The plan was never that we should HAVE to die. “Take up your cross” is a death to blind, irrational focus on one’s myopic values and a call to value something greater than self: God and man. Rand ENCOURAGED love as a means to which humans valued each other and work towards self-interests of others as our own. She’s basically echoing Jesus and Moses. She was just too hung up on the Church and Religion as a means of control to recognize it.

I don’t obey a Pope or a pastor on the basis that they are important religious leaders for their own sake. I listen, I consider, I draw my own conclusions, then accept/reject/tweak according to my own conscience. It doesn’t make me popular, but since when does popularity have anything to do with it? I think Rand might have been proud of me, not that I really care what she thinks, for arriving at those conclusions on my own rather than being nothing more than one of her sycophants.

To be honest, I think the topic of the existence of God is one of the few upon which she DOES talk - or did talk - sense. I remember seeing a clip of the interview you mentioned quite recently, and I was completely behind her; it is absolutely absurd to claim that God exists because we can't DISprove his existence - look up Russell's teapot if you're not already familiar with the argument.

That said, despite being an atheist, I still have immense respect for the Bible as a work of literature. This is where I differ from Rand on THAT front.


You're absolutely right there.


I don't see what you mean here; nobody denies the validity of axioms; they're the logical atoms that make up any system.



I'm sorry to tell you that - alas - the argument from personal experience is no better than any of the others, and perhaps worse. All the evidence suggests that those having personal experiences of God are victims of hallucinations. In fact, I heard a few years ago that scientists can actually induce NDE effects (the tunnel, light and so forth) by stimulating the parts of the brain activated at the time of death. Of course there are other spiritual experiences than NDEs, but it's an important example.



You've got her totally wrong there; she was unequivocal about the fact that good and evil do exist and that the overwhelming majority of people are evil. Again, I think I agree with her here.



Christianity is of course fundamentally altruistic (love thy neighbor as thyself, etc). I don't see how you can deny this, unless like Rand you simply MEAN SOMETHING DIFFERENT by the term "altruism" than what everybody else means.

The Church is a means - was a means - of control, and this was it's value. The overwhelming majority of human beings were not meant to be Nietzschean Übermenschen like Howard Roark (I know she claimed to have repudiated Nietzsche, but she was fooling herself). The majority of people both need and - while they might not admit it - want to be controlled. And they still are controlled in the post-Christian world, just by the advertising industry rather than the Church. I think they were better off before; society certainly was.

Good vs Evil is relative to a man’s consistency regarding his self-interest. For Rand, there is no such thing as suffering because suffering and pain are meaningless. Evil is a problem that lacks meaning and is thus irrelevant. So what does Rand REALLY believe about evil? If Rand says that most people are evil, I’d say she hasn’t gone far enough.

Re altruism: “Love thy neighbor” is anything but altruism. People who believe that need to go back to Sunday school. Go back and read it in context. Jesus framed reciprocity as resulting from sinful human nature. He compares the willingness of sinful parents to provide for their children to that of a good God who would also provide for those who ask. “Love thy neighbor” isn’t about being good for goodness’ sake. It’s about getting what you want from people. The best way to do that is by serving their needs.

Ayn Rand never directly addressed generosity, but it’s not inconsistent with Randian thought. Everyone wants or needs something. Everyone has something to offer in return. Investing in human potential is perfectly rational. Christ, Rand...irrelevant. Reciprocity WORKS.

But it is NOT altruistic. Altruism expects nothing in return. It is unquestioning, unqualified sacrifice of the self. In practice, people tend to feel cheated when promised their needs are met on an even playing field, and yet they discover some people are “more equal than others.” People living under Soviet control were often suspicious and resentful towards each other under state-mandated altruism. If you go back to the book of Acts, you see what happened at a time when the early church practiced altruism. It didn’t end well. In America, some early colonists practiced altruism. It failed and a colony was almost lost.

That doesn’t invalidate “love thy neighbor.” It just means that it doesn’t work the way most people understand it to work.

Randian Objectivists completely miss this when it comes to Christianity. They are too blinded by religion as a means of control to see its value. Catholicism and certain Protestants have weaponized religion, but it is not fundamentally a means of control.

Becoming a Christian isn’t altruistic act, either. It is a means to a personal, individual end. Either one expects an eternal reward or seeks to avoid the flames of hell.

There is none who is good, no, not one.

Axioms are problematic because all I have to do is declare something is an axiom and I can defeat any argument I dislike. It’s stupid to go about arguing God exists/God doesn’t exist because despite God’s existence, there is no argument that one whose wishful thinking prevents him from admitting to a belief in God can’t return with a counterargument, and there are no refutations of God that can’t be refuted. If you don’t want to believe, you’re not going to. It’s more interesting to explore motives behind taking one position or another.

*yawn*

There’s a reason I don’t post to PPR. I’m already bored. Back on topic:

I only bring up Rand and Christ in contrast because reciprocity is the cornerstone to my views on relationships. This is less Rand and more Dale Carnegie. Less philosophy, more motivational writing/speaking. Getting a bf or gf will depend on how you act on your values. THAT is the Rand bit.

The problem it seems to me with some aspies here (not calling names, not referring to any specific person) is we sometimes value the benefits of a mate over the mate herself, or himself. We see a gf as a mom, or a maid, or a cook, or a sex slave. We don’t see her as a person with values of her own or needs to be met. Loving a person entails reciprocity, among other things.

My apologies for allowing myself to get off-track. I’m done discussing philosophy, but I will say any thinker who has covered relationships in meaningful ways is worth the read. I like Rand. I like the Bible better. Doing your own reading and finding your own path will only help in the long run.

You said “He’s the one.” I would say “he’s only one.” If you are in a position to pursue that, then setting things up such that he kisses you and seeing what happens might be worth it.

Be prepared that it still might not work out. It might end in rejection. It might end in a breakup later on. You might end up friendzoned (I hate that term) or ghosted. It’s tenacity and persistence that count here. Repeat the process. It takes time, but you will eventually get what you want. WHAT, as in a relationship. Not WHO, as in the first guy you fancy or appears to fancy you.

Fancy...I love British lingo, btw, almost as much as I enjoy southern United States idioms. I hope the way I say things makes the most sense. Our English is barely recognizable as such.

So did you accept that one?

Are you dating him now?

Of course I accept.

There has been no verbal confirmation.

^^ *Playing violin**

I think AngelRho described the process quite well. The point is to know the person quite well before making any further decisions. And the process, at least in my country, is optimized for stable, long-term relationships, official or not.
Rejection is always a possibility, there is no way to avoid it. Or making mistakes. Predation, sexual or emotional, too. If the world could be totally safe, it wouldn't step past Ediacaran period.

Have fun with your date!

Ok. So as a fall back if this doesn't work out, build up a friend group of male Europeans and maybe something will grow out of that in a year or so.