My Journey to Power

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on February 7, 2023, 2:31 pm

Nice, John!

Happy for you, and also glad to read there are so many specializations available.
That one you mention sounds very interesting to me as well.

And P.S.: thank you for helping to normalize psychotherapy as the self-development tool that it actually is.

Quote from John Freeman on February 8, 2023, 8:09 am

Thank you, Lucio!

That was also part of the goal while sharing it: being vulnerable here.

Quote from John Freeman on February 10, 2023, 9:36 pm

Social mistake: don't reveal women's nature in a social context when women are present

I was at a dinner yesterday and I started to talk about women's nature. That is their attraction for men with resources, and the different reproductive strategies of men and women. I did a first mistake by going with a teacher's frame (working on it) instead of vibing. I also held court and talked to much (working on it as well).

The two women laughed when I used the words "men and women have different reproductive strategy". I then went meta and said that them laughing proved this was taboo to talk about. Her BF said that nowadays what is taboo is to say anything negative about women.

I don't think it's negative that women look for men with resources as it makes total sense for a child-bearing human. I even said that I love women even more by understanding them better. I also moved on from generalising to "most women" and that "exceptions confirm the rule". I provided examples and facts. I talked about dating markets and dateonomics citing myself as an example of having different value based on the dating market. I talked about how men and women look for different qualities in one another. How women are the choosers, etc.

I pointed to the fact that women will also bet on a man that he will be able to acquire and keep resources. One of the woman took advantage of people talking between themselves to admit that it is what she did with her current BF (the one who commented earlier). I fist bumped her as she admitted. It was socially savvy of her as no one heard her.

While the other one maintained she only chose "poor men". This is a blatant lie as my friend who invited me at his house for the dinner recently bought this house with her and is the wealthiest friend I have.

At the end of the night, the first woman who fist-bumped me, wished me "Good hunt" and everyone laughed. This was to shame me. I replied clumsily that I call it "love" but it did not ring out. She "won" by framing me as a skirt-chasing man, which is low value, and I did not defend properly.

Analysis

I made several mistakes here. The most important one is to talk about a topic which makes women look bad in current social norms. Looking for resources is framed negatively still. Even if everyone does it. So I broke a social taboo.

I made the mistake of believing this was an open discussion but it was actually a debate. I lost it because I invested way too much in wanting other people to know all this information. So I was speaking most of the time and she was asking questions. So in terms of power dynamics I was at a loss.

I decided in the past not to talk about this topic with women as it backfires as it did. I am committing to this again. Even though I talked about what men are looking for, this topic puts people in a difficult position as it exposes their social strategies. So it's a bit of a "let's remove the masks" dynamics.

Most women will resist this as their reputation is of utmost importance for their social success. I also threatened the "madonna" image by talking about women being interested in resources.

So good lessons learned and I will share this topic only with male friends in a 1-to-1 setting. The other mistakes I already analysed above (teacher frame, etc.).

Happy to read your thoughts.

Quote from John Freeman on February 11, 2023, 6:37 am

She also shamed me by turning to the host and associating me with a friend's host who's looking for a rich guy (and has nowhere the value to attract him):

With (host's female friends) you have friends with high standards

Implying something negative as if I'm going above my league or something like that.

So by doing that she ostracized me and lumped me with this low value woman. This was also typically passive aggression as she did not address me directly even though I was in front of her.

All in all, not an agreeable interaction with this woman.

I stayed quiet but I think I should have addressed this and change topic back on her: "so what do you like to do in life?" or something like that.

I also underestimated the effect of lack of sleep on cognition. For the past 6 months or so, I was sleeping 4-6 hours a night, waking up at 4-5 am to workout/study (and going back too late. However this did not go well and even though I did not burn out I now see that it affects quite a bit my memory and cognition. So I'm back to aiming at least 7 hours a night. One can function with this amount of sleep, the key word being "function" but high performance is not attainable I think. I'm talking about this as it also affect one's ability in social interactions (who demand high levels of cognitions). I'm not blaming it on the lack of sleep: I'm realizing being tired prevents me from performing at my best, at work and in social situations.

Let's analyze that specific actions I should not have done:

• I should have identified she's a feminist (she has extreme left friends with whom her husband does not get along)
• I should not have gone in teacher mode, who cares if these people are interested in these topics or not.
• I should have changed topic as soon as they laughed at "men and women have different reproductive strategies"

When she lumped me with the other friend, I should have surface it: "I'm in front of you, you can talk to me." and "what do you mean?" then I could have gone in: "I hope you also have high standards in life" but this would have already been gone in the "you" vs "me" talk.

Also when we started to talk she was fascinated with me being a pediatrician. I saw here 4 and 5 years old were stuck on IPads so I say as a general statement: "yeah just be careful with the screens" and we talked a bit about the negative effects of screens on children in a light way. Well, they spent the whole night on the IPads. One of them fell asleep on the IPad. Of course the children did not socialize nor talk with us even at the table, even when joking around with them. As they were basically coming to get their food and getting back to their screens, which is sad to me. All this to say that some people will judge our behaviour and have not so much to show for it.

This is funny as we talked earlier of moral superiority talking about her extreme leftist friends. So also when I talked about it I attacked her friends who did not seem very tolerant as her husband did not like them much. So I should have thought that by association she shares their views a bit. So here behaviour should not have come as a surprise to me but I was naive on this. I walked right into it. I did not know her well enough, it was the first time I saw her so I should have been more cautious. And my friends laughing at her saying "good hunt" was low as they took the side of a stranger against me. Not cool.

Anyway, lesson learned.

Also my male friend told me at this dinner I was being discrete with my love life as in "you don't let us know". I was and I was right to be. So now I will also talk about it only 1-on-1 with close friends. She started to give me advice on my love life when I said what I was looking for. So all in all a disastrous interaction.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on February 11, 2023, 8:20 am

Quote from John Freeman on February 10, 2023, 9:36 pm

Social mistake: don't reveal women's nature in a social context when women are present

I was at a dinner yesterday and I started to talk about women's nature. That is their attraction for men with resources, and the different reproductive strategies of men and women. I did a first mistake by going with a teacher's frame (working on it) instead of vibing. I also held court and talked to much (working on it as well).

(...)

Great analysis, great lessons learned, great experience to go through, and a great case study.

Deserves its own thread, I think -something like "honest sexual marketplace talk: when to, and when to avoid"-.

Just a few quick notes on my side:

• Your self-analysis is great, you got your own learnings (just one I personally wouldn't necessarily always apply, see last point)
• Exceptions frame Honest "exchange talk", be it social, workplace, sexual or whatever is most often thorny and best prefaced with a lot of "in general" and "exceptions apply" which is both true and more palatable to larger audiences
  • Help people feel like they can be the exception, even when they're not
• Win-win frames, always reminding people that collaboration and win-win are both real, possible, and good -otherwise civilization as it is wouldn't have even emerged in the first place-
• Positive frames "it's actually great women care about men's resources. Imagine if all women instead preferred poor men: the children would pay the price for that choice. So it's a good thing".
  This is SO important because it avoids the "gold digger frame" that most women push back against (you may have this misunderstanding)
• Normalization frame: it's normal, it's just nature. We're animals, and animals seek to maximize their returns. Men do it too and have their own preferences to maximize returns.
  You need to avoid the "red-pillish" frame of "women are untrustworthy by their nature". That's what women (righteously) dislike with these type of arguments
• Once it turns win-lose debate-style, WIN IT

I'd have pushed back on this big time:

Quote from John Freeman on February 10, 2023, 9:36 pm

While the other one maintained she only chose "poor men". This is a blatant lie as my friend who invited me at his house for the dinner recently bought this house with her and is the wealthiest friend I have.

Such a cheap move BS.

Even if it's only a debate/converastion, accepting that means accepting a nasty win-lose because she's lying just to win (and save face and prove you wrong, whichever one it is, it's still not good).

An easy way to push back:

You: you only chose poor men? How about your current partner...

That would be enough to prove her full of BS.

If you wanted to go equally nasty, you could even say "that's offensive to your partner, to be honest".

And a potentially strong argument:

Also, that argument doesn't apply much here. There aren't that many poor men in Switzerland, so to date truly poor men here you either were hanging around homeless shelters, or you were still dating the world top 5%

This argument also uses a "sarcastic frame" power move.

At least people around the table would be nodding as you say and maybe even smile -if only "within them", but still a major win for you-.

After that, absolutely, go back to more collaborative -actually, it's crucial t go back to collaborative or you ruin it for everyone-.

No biggies for not having done this because this is a very difficult, tightrope to walk.

You need to be strong and dominant to check the BS and win, but without anger -call it maybe "intense"-, and with the ability to then go back to win-win and friendly.

Still, worth a try next time.

• It's possible to talk about it...

Albeit in some situations it's indeed best to avoid, I wouldn't necessarily say "never more".

These topics are super interesting to discuss and if done well, can frame you as smart and high-value.

So it's more about how to discuss them, than avoiding them altogether (maybe a topic for its own thread).

Quote from John Freeman on February 11, 2023, 3:54 pm

Deserves its own thread, I think -something like "honest sexual marketplace talk: when to, and when to avoid"-.

I added it to the thread Bel created.

Quote from Zathrian on February 12, 2023, 6:59 am

Thank you for the story, John

I completely agree with Lucio and I'm glad you're aware and share this information with us, but I also have another angle where being blunt can help. 

I don't mean this in an offensive way but you came off as really autistic. Imagine pulling up to a table and someone you just met randomly brings up "reproductive strategies" especially in a mixed gender group where there are many couples. Overall lots of "weird" vibes and a lack of empathy and social awareness. Imagine if you were a third person observer watching someone else do exactly what you did. 

Of course women will defend against you implying that they are after resources only aka being gold diggers especially when their partners are there. It's not even a woman thing but anyone with self respect would push back against what you're insinuating by taking these broad and offensive cultural implications and implying that they apply to all women. You mention that you said exceptions exist but then why bring up this topic in the first place then? Especially by using yourself as an example it comes across as really pick me and defeating the whole purpose of bringing up exceptions in the first place. Imagine if someone says an offensive stereotype about an identity group you have no control over, and then says that exceptions exist and they're one of the exceptions(ie a white person says that all people of this skin color are untrustworthy, manipulative, etc(while there are people of that skin tone at the table who are partners of white people) and then proceeds to state that, they themself doesn't conform to white stereotypes in an attempt to say that the stereotypes about the people of the skin color aren't actually applicable.) On top of all of that, women and men are two identity groups that are contrasted in opposition to each other, and what you imply threatens the relationship status of multiple people at that table. 

You mention that your mistake was that you should've vibed more, but this conversation topic is inherently a discussion based one, and also inherently confrontational considering that there are women at the table. If your goal was to vibe you should've chosen a different topic that has lots of opportunity for jokes and something that supports positive emotions and harmony instead of contention. 

The "good luck hunting" joke is something that you called upon yourself. Given all of the analysis and evidence above, you gave the first impression to many that you're really weird and an outsider who is socially unaware. Them laughing is "not going down with the sinking ship". As Lucio talked about in PU, your status level is relative based on who you associate with. 

I got the impression as well that this is a group of acquaintances or someone you meet for the first time, considering you called the woman a stranger. No one "normal" tries to have conversations about "sexual reproductive strategies" especially at a function where there are kids and many strangers. Even amongst most normal friend circles this topic usually wouldn't appear and certainly not amongst strangers. The only place I think this topic would appear would be in very niche social groups (like very intellectual circles or manosphere circles). 

Overall you seem really weird and socially oblivious but even if you can pass it off as normal and not offensive, you come off as trying to sound smart by lecturing and citing studies especially given there are strangers at this dinner. As Lucio mentioned in another article, the goal of group conversation is to "vibe" as a social lubricant, especially at a dinner with kids on their iPads and people meeting each other for the first time.

I think this goes far beyond "don't talk about women's true nature when women are there" but having some empathy and social awareness given the setting you're in, the people you're with, and the social norms and customs in the interaction that takes place. 

Again, not trying to attack you but I think you made a lot of errors in this situation and by laying it bare on a discussions based internet forum -where the stakes are zero- all of us can learn to socialize better in the real world -where the stakes are much higher-.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on February 12, 2023, 9:46 am

Strong feedback, but great post, Zathrian!

That "no-holding-back feedback" can be the gold that most people refrain from but that sometimes is exactly what one needs.

I wasn't there, but Zathrian's description of a hypothetical scenario where someone explains things that nobody asked for and that end up being divisive and creating bad vibes is spot on.

In some circles of philosophers and/or people who enjoy debating that can still be good.
But in the majority of socialization, it's not.

And it's especially not so good in those types of slightly more formal dinners where the hosts care about having that type of "higher-class successful dinner".
Successful in those cases is defined by something like "a good time where they can show off their cool house, their cool, high status, and socially smart, friends, and have everyone leave happy and satisfied".
Those dinners and their topics tend to be more on the "safer" and PC side, so if you're at one of those, it's important to tread carefully outside of those "safe" paths.
A dinner that doesn't go according to that plan reflects badly on the hosts as well, and they won't like the people who derail their plans.

Quote from John Freeman on February 12, 2023, 10:16 am

Quote from Zathrian on February 12, 2023, 6:59 am

I don't mean this in an offensive way but you came off as really autistic.

Thank you for your feedback, Zathrian. Yes I'm aware of this as highly sensitive/gifted adults may have slightly autistic traits. That is part of the reason I'm on this forum, because learning social and power dynamics skills is more of a challenge for me than for other people. We talked about it with my therapist and he said that having had a series of trauma as in my case can also do that. So we're going to figure out which is which.

Imagine pulling up to a table and someone you just met randomly brings up "reproductive strategies" especially in a mixed gender group where there are many couples. Overall lots of "weird" vibes and a lack of empathy and social awareness. Imagine if you were a third person observer watching someone else do exactly what you did. 

Totally, I agree.

Of course women will defend against you implying that they are after resources only aka being gold diggers especially when their partners are there.

True.

It's not even a woman thing but anyone with self respect would push back against what you're insinuating by taking these broad and offensive cultural implications and implying that they apply to all women. You mention that you said exceptions exist but then why bring up this topic in the first place then? Especially by using yourself as an example it comes across as really pick me and defeating the whole purpose of bringing up exceptions in the first place. Imagine if someone says an offensive stereotype about an identity group you have no control over, and then says that exceptions exist and they're one of the exceptions(ie a white person says that all people of this skin color are untrustworthy, manipulative, etc(while there are people of that skin tone at the table who are partners of white people) and then proceeds to state that, they themself doesn't conform to white stereotypes in an attempt to say that the stereotypes about the people of the skin color aren't actually applicable.)

Some people did recently (moroccans in the Netherlands) and I did not take offense as it is a fact. There is a problem with moroccan population integration in NL but I'm not taking it personnally. Same with men. I talked about my behaviour to normalize the behaviours we might have for some reason. It's like saying that I'm an animal therefore I need to eat. There's no shame in this.

On top of all of that, women and men are two identity groups that are contrasted in opposition to each other, and what you imply threatens the relationship status of multiple people at that table. 

Yes. In my mind and I could be wrong, a mature woman would say: "Yes, of course. For me I want a man with resources! Who would want a poor man? That being said I love X for who he is, he's a caring individual a great father and my best friend".

You mention that your mistake was that you should've vibed more, but this conversation topic is inherently a discussion based one, and also inherently confrontational considering that there are women at the table. If your goal was to vibe you should've chosen a different topic that has lots of opportunity for jokes and something that supports positive emotions and harmony instead of contention. 

Yes, I agree!

Given all of the analysis and evidence above, you gave the first impression to many that you're really weird and an outsider who is socially unaware. Them laughing is "not going down with the sinking ship".

True.

The "good luck hunting" joke is something that you called upon yourself.

Yes, I'm aware of it.

I got the impression as well that this is a group of acquaintances or someone you meet for the first time, considering you called the woman a stranger. No one "normal" tries to have conversations about "sexual reproductive strategies" especially at a function where there are kids and many strangers.

True.

Even amongst most normal friend circles this topic usually wouldn't appear and certainly not amongst strangers. The only place I think this topic would appear would be in very niche social groups (like very intellectual circles or manosphere circles). 

Yes, or between close friends talking about men and women.

As Lucio mentioned in another article, the goal of group conversation is to "vibe" as a social lubricant, especially at a dinner with kids on their iPads and people meeting each other for the first time.

Kids were in the living room.

I think this goes far beyond "don't talk about women's true nature when women are there" but having some empathy and social awareness given the setting you're in, the people you're with, and the social norms and customs in the interaction that takes place. 

Yes, I agree.

Again, not trying to attack you but I think you made a lot of errors in this situation and by laying it bare on a discussions based internet forum -where the stakes are zero- all of us can learn to socialize better in the real world -where the stakes are much higher-.

Yes, I agree: I acknowledge my errors that is why I come here to share, learn together and improve. Your feedback is helpful, thank you!

Thank you very much!

Edit: correction