MysterionMuffles

Hello again! So I finally got to sit down and have a chat with the "Man Hopper" I mentioned in this original topic, and by golly am I surprised at how it turned out. From the very first week I grew frustrated about her, I wanted to have this conversation for the sake of philosophically winning over her lack of reasoning (which would ironically be anti-philosophy I think). Like I intended for it to be my way of defriending her very harshly and officially, but over time I started to think of it as an opportunity to grow. A chance to have an open and honest discussion about what's been going on between us and seperately. When I thought there was only a 20% chance of our friendship growing, I didn't expect it to be the outcome I received. Anyways, I want to keep this as short as possible, so I want to briefly touch on the things I've learned and how VALUABLE AND GREAT REAL-TIME RELATING REALLY IS!!! RTR was my main weapon in this and that prevented me from being a judgemental, over bearing disapprover like this woman's parents. Which is of course the stem of her dysfunction. Her parents are very hard to please, she feels unlovable, so it's pretty obvious that she can only seek love through these men she gets into relationships with. That much is simple, and so is the next point, but just wasn't an easy idea for her to ever realize. Her lack of self worth derives from her parents, yes, because they are over protective and disapprove of everything she does. When I would judge her about her romantic choices, I just became another parent and she was honest with me for once saying that it frustrated her when I got into lecture mode about--well just about anything that had to do loving your self first. She knew that intellectually...but it's something she didn't really take into full account until today. For you see, I told her that I felt like she lead me on. I opened up about how when she first broke up with her previous boyfriend, that there was a week or so where I felt like I wanted to tell her that I MIGHT like her, and that we should spend more time together to see if our friendship can be anything more. I held back on doing so because I didn't want to enable her man hopping habit, but she enacted it anyway with the guy she's with now, and for me that stung. Even though I wanted to spark that with her only out of convenience and proximity...it still hurt. Then she told me that if there was a time in the future where she fully loved her self (so glad she was on the right track during this!) because she doesn't right now, and we were both single and we were still friends, she would give us a shot. Because on her side of things, she admitted that she was also attracted to me during that period but felt unworthy of me because of my philosophical insight. She felt like she could never add up to my level headedness, and I admitted that I could never add up to her sexual experience. It was just a very mutually levelling experience to see what we feared in each other and why we wanted so desparately to keep our friendship strictly platonic. We both resisted the change for our own reasons. For her it was lack of worth being with someone of my emotional intelligence, which she was right about because I KNOW myself enough to know that I would feel insecure to be in a relationship with someone with that habit. I would have to constantly be trying to please her to ensure she doesn't find a fall back guy. For me it was my fear of not being sexually sufficient enough for her (since I've never had sex, but she's had plenty) and of course of the innate jealousy that I have. I'm more mature about it now, but it doesn't make it go away. ANYWAYS I broke my promise and made this very long. I just wanted to share the basics of what happened. There is so much more about it that I can't even verbalize right now because I am just so greatful and happy how understanding we were to each other. And of course how awesome RTRing really was! So like I said, it was no longer about letting her go as a friend harshly, but she suggested that I take my time to digest this all, do my own thing, and contact her again when I'm ready. She knew exactly what I needed when I couldn't even state my own preference at the end of the conversation. I am just really happy that I know my input made an impact on her for once. Thanks for reading and feel free to add your input or ask me anything else about it.

I was wondering if anyone had instances in their childhood where they--even if for a brief moment--grasped the concept of anarchy and/or atheism. A memory just came to me today that I'm becoming very fond of. I remember walking around a Wal-Mart and looking at the video games I want to buy. I could have only been 5-8, but looking at the prices, and I muttered to my self, "that's not the real price. I WISH it was only $50, but I know I'm gonna have to pay TAXES. Who the hell are these people taking all this extra money out of my pockets?" And a more congruent memory that I've been conscious of for a while is every birthday and Christmas in my childhood, I would get loads of money from my family. Without even a negotiation, my mom just told me she was going to take a huge chunk of it to put in my school fund. I appreciate the sentiment that she thought I would go through that conventional route in life of doing well in school and post secondary to live the rest of my life living off the career I learned about IN that post secondary experience. Which I found really odd because that was around the time I was already skipping so much school because either my teachers were bullies, I had no friends, or the school work just didn't challenge me enough. SO it is beyond me why she would take my money against my will towards something that didn't even seem likely BACK THEN. Anybody else have experiences or flashes of insight when the were young in which you understood atheism/anarchy? Please share! For me, the concepts were always there, but thanks to FDR, they've been verbalized and attached to reason, so I'm able to understand these beliefs much better now.

Hell I even believe that non fiction can very well be fiction if it fails to do what its supposed to: which is retell real life events in the most accurate manner. What constitutes fiction is the intentional use of made up people and made up situations that may sometimes resemble real life people or situations, but it is deliberately delivered in a sequence separate from reality. I can create characters that resemble people in my life, but just because I portray that character to closely resemble their behaviour and even put them in similar situations they've been in in real life--its ultimately fiction because I choose to make them do or say what I want. If I put their real name however and try my best to objectiely portray events as they had happened, that would make it non fiction. But I say non fiction can verge on fiction still because we only do have subjective perspectives so we may twist things to our bias if we were to write an autobiography.

I finally took the time to watch the whole thing and damn man...Parker is one brave lad. That psycho mom is manipulative, crying out of convenience to try and win sympathy points from the cop. Whats awkward is when shes calling the cops herself theres a brief instance shes asking what they did over the weekend, and her first reaction was to insult him before letting him continue. Just disgusting what she did. I cant even describe the many insane tricks she tried to pull. I admire Parker's ability to stay calm 90% of the time but when he did snap at her it was utterly shocking. So much buried angst hes trying to keep away but she pulled it all out of him after probably instilling that anger into him based on his reports of abuse.

At an age of language acquisition, I can see how this can be very very helpful. I am excited to actually put this all into practice when my neice learns how to speak, but she can't yet. How could I possibly apply these principles to a toddler who hasn't learned how to speak yet? The best I can do so far to deal with "misbehaving" was this one time she was pulling DVD's out of a shelf very recklessly, and throwing them onto the floor behind her. I stopped her and showed her how to place them down gently in a neat stack, and she quickly learned how to stop throwing them and instead trying to place them as straight as possible. But of course there are times where she wants something she shouldn't have like sharp utensils, and she won't stop crying for them.

Baby steps. I think you can RTR by saying you feel uncomfortable about the subject, and the first person to ask you why without insulting you just might be someone who might agree with you. But of course only conforming to the crowd. Its suicide taking on a whole group but if you feel strongly after the initial conversation maybe try talking to at least one person you know to be at least a bit intelligent and open minded. Aaron its great that it worked for you and that youre lucky it did, but you need to consider that expressing virtue is sometimes too much for peoples mythologies. I agree you need to speak up but you also need to pick your battles. Jay I think you did the right thing keeping silent if you really need this job for the next two weeks. If you dont have any personal or close to personal connections with your coworkers then it shouldnt be too much of a problem to graciously leave them believing in their indoctrination long after you leave the place.

You should mention this during a call in show for everyone to sign, I oughta sign and I need to see the summary's on the site to see how bad it is.

Yeah that is very manipulative. The whole, you gotta live in the moment, the now, movement is tricky. Being present really has its merits, but when an interaction is strained and brings up harsh feelings, being present can only take you so far. Interactions in the prese are a result of continuous interactions over time, building upon eachother the very fabric of tone future interactions to come. You tug on that fabric to see if its made of solid material, and maybe it unravels and comes undone because each weave was not as carefully knit as you may have thought it had. Simply put yes you cant live in the past, but the people who tell you not to in a moment of emotional vulnerability is insulting your capacity to act within the context of present interactions being a result of past interactions. Whats worse is that they unconsciously touch wounds of old to make you react in such a way. Or maybe its conscious but either way, they use that forget the past tactic to avoid responsibility. Sorry if Im not telling you anything new and that Im beating around the bush with metaphors but...i guess its just tough for me to simply say that Im sorry that you have been subjugated to such subtle cruelty--and that I can totally empathize with you. When I bring up things to my mom and what she did to me as a kid she says that she doesnt remember, which I would try to forgive if only she wouldnt go so far as to say I just imagined these things. What an insult to my sense of memory and absolute disregard of my feelings right? This kind of storytelling is counter productive. Your best bet and my own really is to RTR as to "tug on the fabric" of our relationships. Best of luck to you when you have that conversation.a

Yeah thats the route I want to go now. I did downright defriend her a few years ago for the same reasons, but this year I actually bonded with her and it would be quite douchey of me to just ditch her. Or worse continue judging her actions until she naturally gets fed up with it, or I tire of her submissive agreements to those judgements.Either way Ive let go of my desire to change her because I find that to be abusive, instead I want to just understand her better. I clearly have no interest in her romantically, so its about time I stop acting like a jealous ex or bestfriend in the way that is all too familiar to love triangles. My gut told me not to tell her I like her after she broke up with the previous guy, because I would just be enabling her dysfunction--and it was right.Shes just horribly misunderstood, and based on a phone call I had with her earlier this weekend, Im starting to see why she enjoys power over the hearts of men. The damn narciccistic parents man...I wont detail any further. Thanks again everyone. Your input has helped me guage the value of empathy and loyalty

1. Yeah it's easy to understand intellectually that all adult relationships are voluntary, but a whole different difficulty in living that way. I can understand that you've grown up to believe in the high reverance of parents, but ultimately, if they suck at their role, they should not get the respect they have not earned. Now I don't know much about your family so I'm not going to say that you should downright ditch them. However, the fact that you have some ambivelance towards them, do you feel there's a chance to improve your relationship with them? 2. Is it worth cutting costs in other things you have to pay for in order to make this sacrifice? Like you say it's not impossible, but I sense it may be difficult, so try to see if you can continue with therapy without their financial support and if you can cut some of your expenses to make it a little more possible. 3. You may be like me and have only a handful of friends that you can count on one hand...is that the case? If you have a small number of friends do you feel that their friendships are strong enough to want to move in with one of them to a place of your own?

Is the content of the yelling abusive? Do they call the children names or give threats? If thats the case I would voice my discomfort. If its reasonable stuff like yelling to get the childrens attention before doing something dangerous, ask why they cant do the same thing calmly or by simply lifting the chilld out of the siutuation. Hell I would go so far as to sit down withnone of the women and one of the children who seems to get yelled at a lot, and ask the kid in front of the woman how it feels to be yelled at. Hopefully that child has not normalized the yelling and justify it as being looked out forr their best interest. It sounds like it may be the case but still worth a shot.

It would be a typical case of wanting vengeance but if thats the case, why do you suppose that would happen? How can one still have image issues if they were even average level of attractive?

This is truly tragic. I can't imagine how physically unattractive she must have been as a child or worse an adolescent. Not to mention any abuse that must have crippled her self esteem. To some degree she's right, anyone who hates on her may have crappy lives they're trying to avoid, but for me I have absolute sympathy. I looked at some pictures and thats scary. She looks more alien than human. I dunno. After looking at her I kinda mess subtle blemishes on the average woman. A smooth face is a great plus in attractiveness in hygine but Valeria's skin...looks too plastic. I mean I saw a before photo of her and she was actually quite pretty. The Barbie body I wont lie looks nice, but in total she is a butter face.

Those sound like good books Id like to read myself. A couple of them by Nathaniel Branden? I would suggest them since shes a reader but I dont know if theyd even have any effect on her. Its worth a shot. Its funny though as willing as I was to go through with this dumping process...Im feeling ambivelant if I should just break contact with her from this point on without much a whimper.

My hope is that my genuine curiousity can open a gleam of introspection in her, if not a complete overhaul of her values. I get that it's not my job to be changing other people, but this is also something I need to do for myself. I want to develop self assertiveness by being able to tell someone that I do not enjoy being treated as their shoulder to lean on that gets not a single thing back. It is selfish of me I know, and I usually don't ask for anything back--because most of my friendships these days have implicit agreements to give back what you get. However, with her, there is no value she has returned to me as of yet. It's been take take take. She has known that I've had an interest in one of her friends for a long time, and instead of giving her friend even the littelest nudge towards me, she goes on about her own problems and even goes on about how I would not be attracted to her friend in the long run. Whether that's true or not, I find that pretty unfair of her to do. Like I didn't expect her to ever hook me up with a date with her friend, but at least a "hey, I've been hanging out with Marlon lately and he seems to mention you sometimes. How do you feel about him? Personally I think he's pretty cool..." You know, just to give her a friend at least some incentive to come hang out with both of us casually. I have no other way of contacting her friend, but it's no big deal. Anyways I'm getting too much into useless semantics. Basically, I've given her philosophical insight on how unworthy her last boyfriend was due to not caring about her emotions, and how much he rejects her help and attempt to understand him. I've even given her personal insight on how hard it was for me to become an Atheist and come out with it to my mom (lol as Stef says, Atheist is the new gay), because this friend of mine...she has grown skeptical of Catholicism. I can see how much she is suffering as she sits on the fence about her faith. Personally I would respect her if she just committed to either being religious or Atheist. I'm highly aware that I'm setting expectations of her to be worthy of my friend, and I know that's unethical, so that's even more reason to why I need to let her go. But I can't let her go without knowing if my friendship ever meant anything to her. I've spent too much time with her this year to simply stop contacting her. I want to let her know that I've been hurt and that there is context to my future ignorance of her. So thanks for all your support guys, I really appreciate it. You have all helped me to see it through many different angles that I did not consider before. I was going to be stupid and judgmental towards her, but you helped me become more curious than in the business of one-up-manship.

Makes you wonder why hes reacting so strongly. As if his own father ia frutrated at being married to this boys heartless mother.. recording his humiliation to get cheap laughs on the intetnet. Wtf

Has anyone seen this disgusting video? Most people are finding it cute and funny but I find it downright abusive. The abuse here is very subtle and I will give my two cents on it later, but for now see for yourself and share your conclusions with me.

If I can stay calm and refrain from lecturing...I want to be curious and understand just what the hell shes thinking. And to see if my friendship even meant anything to her as I was the first guy friend to have never shown romantic interest in her.

I thought I did, but her lack of virtue makes it impossible for me to be genuinely interested in her beyond my hero complex. Ive processed this as a past version of myself who may have pursued this as such outbof desperation. And of course its amongst other personal things my brother helped me process when it came to our own mothers inconsistency between words and actions. I dont think I need to get into that any further especially here. Why this concerns me still is because I really do want to dump this woman as a friend but not through a declining lack of contact. I want her to understand that I dont take our time together for granted and why it must end in the vain hope it gives her some pause whrn it comes to treating men the way she has.

I am very pleased that I peaked your interest in the show. I hope its turning out better than I can ever present it. If anyone is having trouble downloading it and really dont want to go out of their way to get the DVDs (I would if I had the resources to or if stores still held them), you can always go to http://www.cbc.ca/beingerica to still watch it for free on its official broadcast channels website.

From our text chat before we met up, she was complaining about aesthetic preferences. She likes the Big Bang Theory, he likes Family Guy,. She loves out doors, he is afraid of bugs. She wants to cuddle after sex but he cant do that without tv on. When I asked her why she even hooked up with him in the first place she said he turned her on. Instant facepalm for that being the basis for a two year relationship. When we met up she went on about how he woulf reject her help and when she needed it he would ignore her. Being the white knight I am just said if he was virtuous and really loved you he would be curious why you felt a certain way. But I have a feeling she actively seeks out men who clearly dont care about her as much as I did platonically. Note the past tense.

I thought that may have something to do with it, but I never considered actually talking to her about that so thanks.And yeah I have talked to her about this once but she seemed to have swept it under the rug. I asked if she was aware of the cycle and how she felt about it, she said she was disgusted with herself. But then she went on to justify how bad her current relationship is based on very aesthetic differences. A week later she broke up with her bf and told she wanted to focus on herself now I felt she only said that to appeal to my own narccissism by saying what I wanna hear based on my philosophical rambles about self worth that clearly do nothing for her. How I know this is because she didnt take my advice in telling the back up boyfriend that she needs to sort herself out first and promise they can date later in the future. Instead she got caught up in seeing him so soon, hanging out with his kid who was the result of female on male rape, having to deal with the psychotic baby mama.Yikes! Right? This new guy has a really tragic history that he had no problem in sharing tooo early on. Its nice like "nice to meet you? I witnessed sibling on half sibling molestation, reported it and somehow got in trouble for doing so." Anyways these are just baseless semantics but she basically seems to go for very broken guys. Judging from when her relationship was going well and her and I justnhung out as buds, I could honestly say that...she CAN do better. She seems very bright and creative on some levels, but immensly stupid in terms of romantic choices.

I have a friend (who might not be my friend any longer) who likes to man hop. And by that I mean she will get into a relationship with a man, but at the first sign of distress, she seeks out back up boyfriends she can fallback on shortly after breaking up with the previous guy. She has done this for the past seven years now with five different guys. I...just feel horribly sad for her inability to stay single and be happy. What are your thoughts on this kind of behaviour?

I just watched this clip wanting to share it too. It is a horrible display of denial. Good for her for being successful but jeez how lightly she can tell the story with the crowd laughing. Its a denial fest. I really hope Conan doesnt hit his kids along with the other celebrities whose work i enjoy. It really makes you wonder who does or doesnt.

Have you read UPB, DaVinci? An easy way to expose immorality is to attempt to universalize it. People get fazed quickly when you ask why THEY dont get the right to tax the government back and enforce violence if they dont comply. They might make the excuse the government provides services but hey....so dont you create value in society with the job you work for?