If you don’t enjoy the company of members-of-your-preferred-sex, what do you want a relationship for (that you couldn’t also get from one-night stands or even prostitutes), anyway?
You don’t enjoy company of most members-of-your-preferred-sex, but are hopeful that there are people out there that you could spend your life with. The problem is that finding them is painful, because you have to spend time with people whose company you won’t enjoy during the search.
By hacking yourself to enjoy their company you make the search actually pleasant. Though hopefully your final criteria does not change.
By hacking yourself to enjoy their company you make the search actually pleasant.
“We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.” ― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” ― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
“We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.” ― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
I don’t think that changing your preferences is the same thing as wearing a mask.
If you want to increase your enjoyment of the company of women you might start to do gratitude journaling where you write down everything enjoyable that happens while you are in the company with women.
You could also do another CBT intervention of finding mental distortions. You might find that you are frustrate in the company of woman because they frequently do stuff you don’t consider rational*. Under the terms of the feeling good handbook that reflects that you suffer under the mental distortions of using “should statements”.
You have expectations of how they are supposed to behave. You could switch those expectations against a more realistic expectation. Women are complex systems and studying how the systems work is an interesting activity.
I think most of the people who speak about hacking enjoyment don’t think about what practical steps it entails.
Disclaimer:
*I’m not saying that women are irrational. I’m saying that there are guys who would be more happy if they would let go of a few expectations of how other people should act and switch to become curious in using their intelligence to discover how other people act.
I recall in the whites lies thread a discussion about women lying to men who ask them out. I remember when my friend was lied to by a girl. She said she liked someone else but didn’t, she wanted to let him down easy. He was quite upset about being lied to and I thought he was unequivocally right.
Later I discovered and pondered the perspective of women. Either trained to avoid upsetting men, or fearing possible retaliation to a blatant refusal, plus guess culture. He wouldn’t have done something bad based on her direct refusal, and she wasn’t really from a social place where she had likely encountered violence because of such a refusal, and I know this because I went to school with her all the way from kindergarten. So I attribute it to social conditioning.
Although this is a less persuasive argument than safety, I decided that not having a problem with this action would benefit me in interacting with women, although personally I was never in that situation. What has making this change cost me? Nothing. But it, and many other updates, have allowed me the chance to be less bitter about women should I encounter these circumstances.
As far as your quotes go, yes, deciding to believe this resulted in it becoming a true belief over time. I looked at my terminal goal, and decided to pretend things that made it more likely. Sure those beliefs are now true beliefs of mine, but so what? Has that hurt me somehow?
You could argue the opposite: if you expose yourself indiscriminately to people who don’t share your values, they’ll have a better chance to change them. I think I operate under this assumption. Most people wear some kinds of masks in various situations, and I think some people who insist they shouldn’t just lack basic skills in deception and lie detection. I’m not implying people are more malicious than some people expect, I’m implying deception is generally thought of as a lesser evil than some people think.
If we talk about really hacking your preferences on some deep level, I agree with the danger of unintentionally becoming someone else.
You don’t enjoy company of most members-of-your-preferred-sex, but are hopeful that there are people out there that you could spend your life with. The problem is that finding them is painful, because you have to spend time with people whose company you won’t enjoy during the search.
You seem to be assuming a model where one can only meet a potential mate selected at random from the population, and one’d need to spend a lot of time with her before being allowed to rule her out.
Someone could e.g. enjoy the company, but be so desperate for a relationship with intimacy that any non-intimate interaction with potentially interesting people would be a painful reminder of what they were missing out on. (By “intimacy”, I don’t mean just sex, but also things like trust and a permission to be open with your feelings, hold hands, kiss in a way that mainly denotes affection rather than desire, etc.)
If you don’t enjoy the company of members-of-your-preferred-sex, what do you want a relationship for (that you couldn’t also get from one-night stands or even prostitutes), anyway?
(Possibility of having children in the future?)
You don’t enjoy company of most members-of-your-preferred-sex, but are hopeful that there are people out there that you could spend your life with. The problem is that finding them is painful, because you have to spend time with people whose company you won’t enjoy during the search.
By hacking yourself to enjoy their company you make the search actually pleasant. Though hopefully your final criteria does not change.
“We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.” ― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” ― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
I don’t think that changing your preferences is the same thing as wearing a mask.
If you want to increase your enjoyment of the company of women you might start to do gratitude journaling where you write down everything enjoyable that happens while you are in the company with women.
You could also do another CBT intervention of finding mental distortions. You might find that you are frustrate in the company of woman because they frequently do stuff you don’t consider rational*. Under the terms of the feeling good handbook that reflects that you suffer under the mental distortions of using “should statements”.
You have expectations of how they are supposed to behave. You could switch those expectations against a more realistic expectation. Women are complex systems and studying how the systems work is an interesting activity.
I think most of the people who speak about hacking enjoyment don’t think about what practical steps it entails.
Disclaimer: *I’m not saying that women are irrational. I’m saying that there are guys who would be more happy if they would let go of a few expectations of how other people should act and switch to become curious in using their intelligence to discover how other people act.
I recall in the whites lies thread a discussion about women lying to men who ask them out. I remember when my friend was lied to by a girl. She said she liked someone else but didn’t, she wanted to let him down easy. He was quite upset about being lied to and I thought he was unequivocally right.
Later I discovered and pondered the perspective of women. Either trained to avoid upsetting men, or fearing possible retaliation to a blatant refusal, plus guess culture. He wouldn’t have done something bad based on her direct refusal, and she wasn’t really from a social place where she had likely encountered violence because of such a refusal, and I know this because I went to school with her all the way from kindergarten. So I attribute it to social conditioning.
Although this is a less persuasive argument than safety, I decided that not having a problem with this action would benefit me in interacting with women, although personally I was never in that situation. What has making this change cost me? Nothing. But it, and many other updates, have allowed me the chance to be less bitter about women should I encounter these circumstances.
As far as your quotes go, yes, deciding to believe this resulted in it becoming a true belief over time. I looked at my terminal goal, and decided to pretend things that made it more likely. Sure those beliefs are now true beliefs of mine, but so what? Has that hurt me somehow?
You could argue the opposite: if you expose yourself indiscriminately to people who don’t share your values, they’ll have a better chance to change them. I think I operate under this assumption. Most people wear some kinds of masks in various situations, and I think some people who insist they shouldn’t just lack basic skills in deception and lie detection. I’m not implying people are more malicious than some people expect, I’m implying deception is generally thought of as a lesser evil than some people think.
If we talk about really hacking your preferences on some deep level, I agree with the danger of unintentionally becoming someone else.
Don’t Believe You’ll Self-Deceive
You seem to be assuming a model where one can only meet a potential mate selected at random from the population, and one’d need to spend a lot of time with her before being allowed to rule her out.
Hm, somewhat, yes. What do you believe?
I mean it’s not purely at random, of course, but surely you need to go out and meet a lot of people.
Well, not necessarily. ;-)
Social status
Someone could e.g. enjoy the company, but be so desperate for a relationship with intimacy that any non-intimate interaction with potentially interesting people would be a painful reminder of what they were missing out on. (By “intimacy”, I don’t mean just sex, but also things like trust and a permission to be open with your feelings, hold hands, kiss in a way that mainly denotes affection rather than desire, etc.)
I see.
I assumed you meant e.g. men who like to act misogynistically when among other men and find it effortful to not do so around women.