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Life Changing Books on Sex and Relationships

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Re: Life Changing Books on Sex and Relationships

#41

Post by jesterson »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #21
jesterson wrote: post #6

The Rational Male - Rollo Tomassi. I know it likely going to be a hated example, but nonetheless I strongly suggest to read it if you are confused or unsure about certain aspects of relationships.

As someone who has occasionally stumbled across the community around this book at Reddit, I do wonder why so many of these men keep trying. When I reached, from relationship experience, my own conclusion that any partner in a relationship would inevitably have different and incompatible goals, motivations, and outlook from own, I simply chose to live alone from then on. Obviously people might crave companionship. But…

I would suggest one perspective - curiosity. Often i like to observe relationships not from standpoint of having it or getting in, but from standpoint of evolutionary game, which it is. Surely sometimes it’s easier to recluse yourself from situation or a problem. But it won’t be fun :)

Re: Life Changing Books on Sex and Relationships

#42

Post by jesterson »

sa-code wrote: post #30
GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd agree, Rational Male is a life changing book. It works on a number of levels: - Confirms many young man's (usually wrong) biases about women. - Provides a convenient post-hoc rationalization to men who cannot get laid. - Further mystifies the idea of women by building convoluted pseudo-intellectual structures.

It definitely changed a friend's life for the worse, and he's gotten even worse at relationships than he previously was

It doesn’t say anything about the book quality. The book gives knowledge, whether or how to apply the knowledge is absolutely different subject. People tend to be stick to their biases and delusions, with relationships particularly so.

Re: Life Changing Books on Sex and Relationships

#43

Post by jmathai »

rgoulter wrote: post #8

Tannen's "You Just Don't Understand". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Just_Don%27t_Understand Key idea in the book is that a lot of argument and disagreement arises from mismatched social attitudes/communication between men & women, similar to how cross-cultural assumptions can cause offense. Presents a model that (typically) men socialise with a focus more on competition, independence, and status, whereas (typical…

This is one of the big 5 personality traits (agreeableness).

I found that these cover most everything and the combinations are the most interesting and useful.

As I get older, I find that people closer to the middle across these traits are the ones I enjoy being around.

This helps me know what areas I can work on to be a more pleasant human being :)

https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/docs/230/2014/25Soldz.pdf

Re: Life Changing Books on Sex and Relationships

#44

Post by jesterson »

prepend wrote: post #33
jesterson wrote: post #6

The Rational Male - Rollo Tomassi. I know it likely going to be a hated example, but nonetheless I strongly suggest to read it if you are confused or unsure about certain aspects of relationships.

I had this book recommended to me so many times, I read it and really disagreed with it on so many levels [0]. Generally I don’t like how the author acts like everything is rooted in science and everyone is forced to act out their biology. And I don’t like its oppositional nature of men vs women in a zero sum game to get what? Married? Laid? It’s not a useless book, especially if you want to be an alpha and pick up g…

Please don’t take it the wrong way - but from what you say I tend to sense some idealistic attitudes.

The book doesn’t teach how to “be alpha and get laid”. The most important aspect of it is knowledge of opposite gender games. If you understand it - you will never ever be confused of relationships. If you don’t - you will be constantly confused.

The truth, like God, doesn’t care if you disagree with it or not. It’s just there, whether you like it or not, whether you believe in it or not.

Things like game exist and will always be because it’s necessary for evolution. On other hand, things like “genuine connection” do not exist outside of your imagination.

Re: Life Changing Books on Sex and Relationships

#45

Post by lxgr »

jesterson wrote: post #44
prepend wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this book recommended to me so many times, I read it and really disagreed with it on so many levels [0]. Generally I don’t like how the author acts like everything is rooted in science and everyone is forced to act out their biology. And I don’t like its oppositional nature of men vs women in a zero sum game to get what? Married? Laid? It’s not a useless book, especially if you want to be an alpha and pick up g…

Please don’t take it the wrong way - but from what you say I tend to sense some idealistic attitudes. The book doesn’t teach how to “be alpha and get laid”. The most important aspect of it is knowledge of opposite gender games. If you understand it - you will never ever be confused of relationships. If you don’t - you will be constantly confused. The truth, like God, doesn’t care if you disagree with it or not. It’s…

> Things like game exist and will always be because it’s necessary for evolution. On other hand, things like “genuine connection” do not exist outside of your imagination.

Nothing exists outside of your imagination. Reality is a soup of particles interacting with each other, and your mind is trying to make sense of these through a complex layer of abstractions and modeling.

"The game" is no more or less real as a concept than "genuine connection". They're essentially both attempts to model reality, and arguably, they are not even trying to model the same aspects of reality.

So, sure, be aware of our biological needs and constraints, as neglecting them means fighting a hard-to-win uphill battle. But I wouldn't make the mistake of seeing biology as any more or less real than psychology and culture. They're different models for different levels of our stack, and arguably, meaningful relationships necessarily span many more of these layers.

I wouldn't expect biology (alone) to give me meaningful relationship advice just like I wouldn't expect psychology and sociology to tell us how to cure cancer.

> but from what you say I tend to sense some idealistic attitudes.

What's wrong with a bit of idealism, ideally mixed with a heavy dose of pragmatism? Knowing exactly where you already are is important, but it doesn't tell you where to go next.

Re: Life Changing Books on Sex and Relationships

#46

Post by prepend »

jesterson wrote: post #44
prepend wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this book recommended to me so many times, I read it and really disagreed with it on so many levels [0]. Generally I don’t like how the author acts like everything is rooted in science and everyone is forced to act out their biology. And I don’t like its oppositional nature of men vs women in a zero sum game to get what? Married? Laid? It’s not a useless book, especially if you want to be an alpha and pick up g…

Please don’t take it the wrong way - but from what you say I tend to sense some idealistic attitudes. The book doesn’t teach how to “be alpha and get laid”. The most important aspect of it is knowledge of opposite gender games. If you understand it - you will never ever be confused of relationships. If you don’t - you will be constantly confused. The truth, like God, doesn’t care if you disagree with it or not. It’s…

> The truth, like God, doesn’t care if you disagree with it or not. It’s just there, whether you like it or not, whether you believe in it or not.

I think I understand this and I disagree.

Maybe I am idealistic, but I’m ok with that. And there’s many situations where I’ll stay idealistic despite reality, but I think there are many valid outcomes while going my own way and not using anything in this book.

It’s hard to compare outcomes, but I’m content. And, anecdotally, it’s not like there’s shining data for people following this approach.

It’s pretty easy to show that games are necessary now as we don’t need to evolve. Humans aren’t slaves to biology and in many ways transcend what evolution wants us to do.

Re: Life Changing Books on Sex and Relationships

#47

Post by GaryNumanVevo »

jesterson wrote: post #44
prepend wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this book recommended to me so many times, I read it and really disagreed with it on so many levels [0]. Generally I don’t like how the author acts like everything is rooted in science and everyone is forced to act out their biology. And I don’t like its oppositional nature of men vs women in a zero sum game to get what? Married? Laid? It’s not a useless book, especially if you want to be an alpha and pick up g…

Please don’t take it the wrong way - but from what you say I tend to sense some idealistic attitudes. The book doesn’t teach how to “be alpha and get laid”. The most important aspect of it is knowledge of opposite gender games. If you understand it - you will never ever be confused of relationships. If you don’t - you will be constantly confused. The truth, like God, doesn’t care if you disagree with it or not. It’s…

> On other hand, things like “genuine connection” do not exist outside of your imagination.

Really telling on yourself here.

Re: Life Changing Books on Sex and Relationships

#48

Post by sirspacey »

NB/monogamous

Didn’t see them here so:

“Our bodies, ourselves.” The old school primer on exploring your sexuality

“The multi-orgasmic man” a significant change in how to experience sex

“Conscious loving” one of the most effective books in shifting out of fear and into play to growth through relationships

Re: Life Changing Books on Sex and Relationships

#50

Post by jesterson »

lxgr wrote: post #45
jesterson wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don’t take it the wrong way - but from what you say I tend to sense some idealistic attitudes. The book doesn’t teach how to “be alpha and get laid”. The most important aspect of it is knowledge of opposite gender games. If you understand it - you will never ever be confused of relationships. If you don’t - you will be constantly confused. The truth, like God, doesn’t care if you disagree with it or not. It’s…

> Things like game exist and will always be because it’s necessary for evolution. On other hand, things like “genuine connection” do not exist outside of your imagination. Nothing exists outside of your imagination. Reality is a soup of particles interacting with each other, and your mind is trying to make sense of these through a complex layer of abstractions and modeling. "The game" is no more or less real as a con…

> "The game" is no more or less real as a concept than "genuine connection". They're essentially both attempts to model reality, and arguably, they are not even trying to model the same aspects of reality.

There are key differences - "the game" is real, it's mechanisms were arguably as long as evolution out there. It's been developed as a part of evolution process and likely be there for a while.

Now we need to clarify that "game" is not "being alpha and get laid" as some may speculate, it's a much wider definition.

On the opposite, constructs like "genuine connection", "love" and sorts do not exist and are solely a construct being used for whatever reason out there.

> I wouldn't expect biology (alone) to give me meaningful relationship advice just like I wouldn't expect psychology and sociology to tell us how to cure cancer.

Noone is denying that. If you have only absorbed biological context out of the book, perhaps it's time to reread.

> What's wrong with a bit of idealism

Nothing. We are entitled to have any picture of our world. But the more distant it is from reality, the more confused and frustrated it will leave us when - inevitably - the discrepancy hits us on head hard. Nature doesn't care if you believe in this or that, it just follows it's laws.

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