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Bel's thoughts
P.S.: The quoted post that I quoted poorly was the previous one on "not-inferring".
Thank you Lucio,
it's a great point.
Expanding on that in the context of attraction:
this scene from Californication that I referred to before is enlightening on this concept of "not making a show of inferring motives and decisions".
The premise is that Hank Moody, the protagonist and teacher, already knew that these three ladies were falling for him.
However, when the three of them go on and tell him that they are falling for him emotionally, instead of exposing the fact that he most likely already knew, he does the exact opposite and - on purpose - makes a small show (all in body and mostly facial body-language) of being somewhat surprised:
Him making a small show of "not having inferred" - or, otherwise stated, of being "open to influence" and being "open to trusting people to convey information" - highlights a marker of maturity (that, coincidentally, makes it more likely that the attraction will increase).
Quote from Bel on April 17, 2023, 11:29 pmBOOM! Thank you so much, Lucio!
It's a stellar improvement.
It even removes the possibility that she may "get angry" because I'm "manipulating her into paying for just a word dilemma".
Reworded as follows as per your suggestion:
Me: Good day Ms. ..., I hope all is well.
It is not possible for me to provide answers or assume professional liability on matters so complex and delicate via text or phone; since the matter is complex, one wrong or misplaced word or concept could be sufficient to derail negotiations or potentially render null and void an agreement, and open the door to future lawsuits.
Kind regards
I reworded and sent the text a bit more higher-warmth.
The client ultimately asked for my fee quote.
Before sending it to her, I now had a phone conversation with her, where she told me "I understand your point, and I want to engage you to be my lawyer, as I need you". I anticipated the fee quote verbally to her, and she didn't flinch nor object: she was instantly ok with it.
So pushing back on the "request for free advice via text" seems to have:
- increased her respect
- renegotiated power in the relationship
- made it subconsciously ok for me to quote a higher fee than I would probably have otherwise
- and made her (so far) accept it without flinching.
The message response thus seems to have worked wonders so far.
Awesome, let us know how it develops, Bel.
I did not like it when you looked at yourself in the mirror
This is something I got from Bella in a store.
I started thinking: why did she not like it?
I then came across something online that basically said that the masculine polarity is less concerned about "looking good" than the feminine polarity.
Then I realized that she was probably trying to communicate to me: "be more masculine".
So I started thinking: if looking at myself in the mirror subcommunicates the wrong thing, would "not taking the chance to look at myself in mirrors", on the contrary, subcommunicate the right thing and increase attraction?
I think so.
Sometimes it's about what you don't do, rather than about what you do
This idea also ties with some principles I was reflecting on about work and dating.
Not calling too much, waiting, not pressuring people... these "omissions" all communicate loud and clear.
I remember a woman I went on a first date with many years ago where I kissed her, and later invited to lunch for a second date.
She refused and disappeared, only to reappear more than one month later out of the blue.
I now see that my mistake was inviting her to lunch as a second date.
Subcommunicates all the wrong things.
Power dynamics (like dressing well) works because it's subconsciously picked up by other people
Most people (especially of the opposite sex) can differentiate a person who dresses well from one who doesn't.
But most people also don't know how to dress well.
They, still, can differentiate a well-dressed person from a badly dressed one.
It's the same with power dynamics: all PU and TPM's teachings work (mostly) outside of consciousness. That's why they are so powerful.
If one puts the power mover in his place, most people are not going to be able to dissect the interaction and realize the power dynamics showdown that took place.
But they still are going to be able to account for "who won" and "who lost".
Very interesting, Bel.
I think that "lookin at oneself" is a bit more nuanced -rather than "man who cares about tehri looks being across the board less attractive-.
And here's a very different point of view now.
There may be a further, bit darker reason why some women don't like their men being "overly" caring of their looks:
A man looking after himself is a man who raises his value (to other women as well).
And, the subconscious fear creeps up, maybe a man who is looking to "share" that value, too.
The man who looks after himself may be more "feminine", in a way, but he's also often more of a player (another reason why this website puts a lot of caveats to the "be more masculine" red pill approach to seduction).
A few women laughed at my wardrobe or my self-attention as the "Italian wardrobe" or something like that, but there was a hue there of "oh, you're such a player".
If you read Casanova's memoirs, Casanova most likely a narcissist, he was almost obsessed with his looks and clothes.
So, on the opposite, a man who doesn't care too much about himself is a lot safer to a woman just like a woman who is submissive, not overly ambitious and caste is safer to a man.
Women may be especially (subconsciously) susceptible of men who increased the level to which they take care of themselves, as that may be a signal of a potential fling, or interest in a fling.
Thank you, Lucio.
It’s an awesome insight, and I agree on the possible subconscious motive in play.
I believe that the best possible combination is to look after oneself without making it obvious: “not (visibly) looking at oneself in mirrors while out” while “continuing dressing well”.
(Visibly) looking in mirrors while out, on the other hand, does seem to subcommunicate being “worried about appearance”. We wouldn’t look at ourselves in a street mirror while approaching - even if it was there - in fact we would purposely show being indifferent to the mirror.
Unrelated but related story; there was a high-power, likely narcissistic, partner in my first former law firm who always dressed well.
Once, I saw him in a client meeting of 20 high-power people with his necktie twisted in a strange position, likely by accident.
All the time, during the meeting, I thought: “he’s surely going to put it back in the correct position soon”.
But he never did. The meeting went on for 4 hours and he stayed with his tie twisted in front of everyone, and at the end he exited and saluted all these high-power clients with his tie still twisted.
I suppose his stance (of not caring) was on purpose, and it was stronger than the stance of “oh, I need to take care of my tie”.
Quote from Bel on April 29, 2023, 2:38 amUpdate on this about "stopping free work" with a potential client:Quote from Bel on April 17, 2023, 11:29 pmBOOM! Thank you so much, Lucio!
It's a stellar improvement.
It even removes the possibility that she may "get angry" because I'm "manipulating her into paying for just a word dilemma".
Reworded as follows as per your suggestion:
Me: Good day Ms. ..., I hope all is well.
It is not possible for me to provide answers or assume professional liability on matters so complex and delicate via text or phone; since the matter is complex, one wrong or misplaced word or concept could be sufficient to derail negotiations or potentially render null and void an agreement, and open the door to future lawsuits.
Kind regards
I reworded and sent the text a bit more higher-warmth.
The client ultimately asked for my fee quote.
Before sending it to her, I now had a phone conversation with her, where she told me "I understand your point, and I want to engage you to be my lawyer, as I need you". I anticipated the fee quote verbally to her, and she didn't flinch nor object: she was instantly ok with it.
So pushing back on the "request for free advice via text" seems to have:
- increased her respect
- renegotiated power in the relationship
- made it subconsciously ok for me to quote a higher fee than I would probably have otherwise
- and made her (so far) accept it without flinching.
The message response thus seems to have worked wonders so far.
I sent her a proper fee quote after having anticipated it to her on the phone.
The next day, she called me.
"You increased the fee quote"
She told me she wanted to know why I increased the fee quote with respect to the one I gave her on the phone.
I told her I had given her exactly the same amount on the phone.
She told me "Oh, I must have heard wrong".
"You don't need to examine all the documents"
Then, she asked me if the quote was "just to prepare the settlement" or also "to examine the documents".
I told her I had taken into account the need to examine all the documents to prepare the settlement.
She then said she didn't want to "burden me" with examining all the documents "she had already examined".
I immediately sensed she was trying to get a discount by implying that, since I didn't need to go through all the documents, I could reduce my fee.
I said:
Me: Well, Ms. X, I'm a lawyer. If you wanted to get a settlement agreement form, you can download it from the internet. I'm doing something different here: I'm assisting you to make sure that, since you're paying a substantial amount to your counterparty, you don't risk being involved in a lawsuit on this ever again. That's why I have to ask you to send me the documents anyway. And I'll gladly examine them. In fact, since you told me you already went through them to isolate relevant parts, I don't expect to have to spend lots and lots of time sorting through them. But, in quoting my fee, I chose to bear the risk that I may find something that warrants closer examination, and that I have to expend more time on that.
After saying this, I thought: Lucio would probably be proud of me here.
Then, I basically told her to take her time to decide whether to proceed.
100% proud :).
Nice one Bel, plus doing that in real-time, great stuff!
Some days ago I had a call with a bank for a project I'm following where I'm basically assisting my very own parents (hopefully not for long anymore).
I was speaking with the bank employee.
All of a sudden my father (who was there in person - I was on the phone) started speaking:
Him: Can I intervene?
Me: Yes.
Him: This is inadmissible! What the bank is asking us to do is basically a crime! It's a misappropriation! WE COULD BE ACCUSED OF MISAPPROPRIATION!!!
Me: (trying to interrupt him as I realized he was going on with one of his crazy moments) Excuse me, excuse me. Let's focus on the result here. What we should do...
Him: (gets up and out of the bank; I wasn't there but heard the sound)
So I basically ignored him.
Later at the end the bank employee said, most likely as a power move on me:
Bank employee: I'm sorry for your father's...
Me: Let's focus on the task at hand and on getting to the result.
This was a basic modus operandi of my father BTW. Whenever I would be assuming a leading or professional role, he would always find a way to behave crazily to destabilize me, try to ruin my standing (even if only by association) and take the spotlight.
This also used to happen, for example, when I would invite friends to my house when I was a kid.
Later after the above call, I called my mother to discuss some aspect of this project.
I chose not to say anything about my father's behavior.
In the past, I would have protested. In fact I used to protest with my mother for what my father would do every single time, to no avail. It only served to reinforce her standing beside him.
This time, I suppose, my message - ignoring him altogether - came louder and clearer. I basically don't want to have anything to do with him anymore.
On a related note, I thought my grieving for past suffering was done, but I'm continuing to. Yesterday I had a really bad day in this sense, though I also had work to do; and, combining the two was rather difficult for me.
I'm only now getting full emotional knowledge of the real price I paid for what some people (including my father) did to me in my life.
But, getting rid of all this is good. I'm going to finally be emotionally free.
I used to have this belief that I was basically an outcast. A person left out of real life.
Now I know it wasn't me. I was simply a good person, who had the misfortune of having really crappy parents.
And now I'm also, finally, strong.
