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?
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?