[Nas]

I’m a bit lost now on what Standing is actually asking…..or is it just me? 


Same, I’m unclear what question is being asked at this point, but I picked out two points to highlight.

***

So if we were to go back in time, in your life (or maybe some other woman's life) 12, 13, 16.... something. Were you crazy about guys? Sure you were. I've never met a girl who wasn't.... some more than others, but a defining characteristic of a girl/woman is that. Can it change? Sure. If we are to examine what changes so a woman no longer desires that..... what is behind that change? Life experience? Needs? Desire? Social conditioning? Instruction? Let's strip all that away for a moment and ask "without damage, without social engineering, without disappointment..... what would NAS (or some other woman) be like today?

Your question as stated is asking me what would I (I can’t answer for any other woman) be today if, between the age of 12 and now, I hadn’t *lived a life*? I guess I’d be …I don’t know, dead? 🤷‍♀️
When I was 12 I had not lived life. Of course I viewed “boys” and “love” differently. There would be something seriously wrong if I never evolved or learned anything new and still viewed things the same way I did as a child or as a teenager, or even in my twenties or thirties. What you are calling damage, social engineering and disappointment is literally just the trajectory of “real life,” which includes growing up, embracing or rejecting beliefs, emotional growth and maturity, learning from mistakes. I have only ever lived in the real world, where the difficulties and disappointments of life have contributed in part to how I approach situations and relationships. Name me a person in middle age who isn’t shaped by their past experiences.

***

Let's say you fell madly in love, and he was good to you.... someone who didn't let you down, someone who didn't hurt you, and someone who was worthy of admiration and respect..... an idealized man.....


No one is the ideal person. So if I am idealizing him, it’s unhealthy, and I’m unhealthy and delusional. So this is a nonstarter for me. We can project whatever we want onto another but they can never be everything to us. I don’t deal in fairytales or fantasy. Whether or not I would be happy with this hypothetical Rick Astley you describe is a moot point because if I’m placing responsibility for my happiness on him, I’m already in trouble and so is he. In fact, he should RUN from this fictional scenario, and if he’s not self-aware and emotionally intelligent enough to run from it, he’s definitely not a good fit for me.

SS, I personally think you also do yourself a disservice when you rigidly assume that every man or woman you meet is this way or that way, because they must be because they are a man or a woman and this or that is how ALL men and ALL women think and feel. You miss out on really getting to know people on a deeper level. You make multiple assumptions in your posts and leave no room for the possibility that you might be wrong. Imagine how many people you know only your assumed version of that is potentially incorrect in multiple ways.

[readytofixmyselffirst]

Hello,

I think we could spend a lot of time on this statement:

No one is the ideal person. So if I am idealizing him, it’s unhealthy, and I’m unhealthy and delusional. So this is a nonstarter for me. We can project whatever we want onto another but they can never be everything to us. I don’t deal in fairytales or fantasy.

Yet, our MLCers often fall into this trap. Why do they see the alienator as the ideal person and everyone else sees a living trainwreck? My ex swore up and down that OM was perfect until he wasn't. If we see the inherent fallacies of falling for the perfect person, why do we even contemplate the existence of such a person?

Marvin noted our culture and society has created roles for men and women and the commercialization of our world has created an unhealthy appetite not only for products, but having the newest and greatest things ever. Even our social networks are filled with images of perfection. It all puts us in some hyper state to match.  In many ways, I liken it to the slot machines as you walk out on the floor in Vegas. You can hear the machines going off, coins dropping into trays and it seems everyone is winning. You just want to rush to your room, drop off your bags, and get out on the floor before all the money is gone. It's all fantasy and the casino is the one that makes the money, every hour, every day, every month, and every year. Yes, casinos go broke, but that is from the huge operational costs of the entire operation- not winnings going out the door.

So Nas, I would go one step further that not only are we sold the false notion of having the ideal mate, but having the ideal life. My feeling is that part of the identity crisis of the MLCer is that, how they are currently constituted is wrong, and through drastic change, they can be back on the path to an ideal life.

Let's say you fell madly in love, and he was good to you....

Once again, my opinion- no facts involved, that all of MLC is about feelings. Depression is being devoid of all feelings. MLC and depression seem intertwined.  So, its not about sex, its about feeling sexy, and it is not about love, but feeling in love again. The MLCer even recognizes it, but like any other drug addict, they cling to it. "I know she/he is a mess, but it's how she/he makes me feel."

From my own perspective from these well written words, I took my own mantra, "Ready, you'll never have the ideal wife or life, and you are not that ideal either,  just appreciate and love what you have."

Sometimes when you read the words of others, it can take you off the high horse you may find yourself sitting on.

There is also a lot of gold in this statement:

I think what I valued most about the man in my life then were two things….a feeling that I was part of a team where someone would do their best with good intent on good days and bad. And a feeling of being held in deep regard, of being uniquely special, being treasured in all my imperfections such as they are. The first requires things like courage and honesty, words and actions matching. The second requires a kind of empathy and caring enough to look and listen, I think. And I do miss having those things in my life, that’s true. But I honestly believed - and took thousands of big and small actions over decades - that I had chosen to marry someone who valued my uniqueness enough to never intentionally cause me profound harm. And it turned out I was wrong about that.

I believe the same. It is not about the ideal, it is loving the imperfections and realizing that we loved them despite their flaws and they loved us back despite all of our flaws. After years, I have come to accept that my exe's actions were not about me or our marriage. My ex now talks to me like we were long lost buddies. Tells our kids I was a great father and husband.

My gut feeling is that your h didn't give up on you, he gave up on himself.

Have an awesome day,

(((Ready)))

[Curiosity]

This is such an interesting discussion. On the one hand, sure, people born biologically female will tend to produce larger amounts of estrogen and progesterone than testosterone, and the reverse will be true for those born biologically male. But it’s not all or nothing. And it’s not really even binary - there are people whose sex chromosomes are something other than XX or XY, but even within those two groups, there are wide variations in absolute hormone levels. And then there is the social construct of gender, often conflated with (or at least overlaid on) biological sex. What all of this means to me is that it’s far too complex a subject to ever be able to pigeonhole all people into one of two groups.

There are nuances to gender, and there are individual variations in our personality traits that are based on a combination of our biology, our environment, and our psyche. I can be a nurturer and a loner and a leader; I can be a breadwinner or a homemaker (though realistically, most of us take on both of these roles). Much like hormones can exist and cycle to varying degrees in all people, personality traits can exist to varying degrees in anyone (and can change over the course of a lifetime). Society has decided that certain traits are masculine and certain traits are feminine, but humanity isn’t anywhere near that simple. There probably are some aspects of our personalities that are affected by our biology, and by the way our biology changes over the course of a month as well as the way our biology changes over a lifetime. But the labeling of our traits as inherently feminine or masculine is, I think, an oversimplification… albeit an oversimplification that is hammered into our minds from every direction from the moment of birth (and in some ways, even before birth).