What About MEEEE?
Narcissism never escapes notice and is socially crippling
For some reason, presumably their complete lack of empathy, narcissists of both sexes and all SSH ranks appear to believe their comprehensive self-absorption is invisible to others. Even the most harmless and least offensive form, Delta narcissism, is completely obvious once you’ve recognized the pattern.
I always find it amusing when a Delta informs me that he doesn’t care about the overall mission, what anyone else thinks about his job, or anyone else’s responsibilities. I never know what to say, because it’s like someone telling you that water is wet. “Yes, I know you don’t care about anything but your one task at hand, that’s literally what narcissism is.”
Can you imagine Narcissus lying there in the woods, eyes locked onto his reflection in the pool of water, informing Gladiola the dryad that he doesn’t care what she’s planning on wearing to Pan’s next soiree?
It might surprise readers who weren’t around in the old Alpha Game days, but Sigma Game has only recently caught up to the traffic that its predecessor used to have. I shut it down because a) I hadn’t fully comprehended the extent of the SSH’s utility and b) I was exhausted of the constant and repetitive demands of fly-by readers to know about themselves. Hence The Incessant Inquiry, in which I expressed my thought on what apparently is the most important question on everyone’s minds.
What was, what is, and what shall be?
These questions are, obviously,
The essence of philosophy.
Yet never do these questions, three,
Give answer to the heartfelt plea:
Whatever shall become of me?
Boku Watashi, Q.E.D.
A recent exchange reminded me of just how annoying and tone-deaf men can be on the subject. One older commenter was concerned about how he might be able to find a female wing-man.
Any tips on how to build such friendship with such women? Normally, the topic of my interaction with my colleagues just circle around family (child education, parenting) and current affairs. Seems superficial... Anyway, at around my age, usually most attractive women have already married...
1. Elevate your status. 2. Hang out with an attractive woman to whom you're not attracted and will not pursue under any circumstances. Most men can't be friends with women because they always fall for any woman who is in their vicinity for a while.
The problem with no. 2 is that those women are my students. For peers, I notice only two and both of them have already married. I don't think it is a good idea to approach and befriend them. Computer science is not the faculty with a lot of attractive female professors... This advice may be good if you are in environment where most people are single (school, college) and gender proportion is balanced, but not so much in corporate male-dominated environment.
The advice is always good. The fact that it may not be applicable to you in your current situation doesn't change that. It's clear from your comments that one of your problems is your self-absorption. Unless and until you get a firm grip on that, nothing you do will help very much.
If you are me, what would be your strategy in life? I understood that you write for general public, but I still need to somehow incorporate parts of 'mainstream' advices into my life, if you want to socialize, which is hard. In most churches, they formed cell group based on your marital status but no cell group for widow/widower. Of course, I can join either single or married group, but neither looked helpful.
I wouldn't be you. And this site isn't about you. It's remarkable, though all too predictable, that you would respond to an admonition to be less self-absorbed with "what about meeeee?"
The truth is that no advice is going to help a self-absorbed man like this one. Whether he is a Delta or a Gamma, his narcissism will not permit him to befriend any woman, much less one sufficiently attractive enough to help him raise his status in the eyes of other women.
This is where the mid-status and low-status man’s lack of empathy becomes very obvious. Their total focus on themselves and their interests, their total inability to even conceive of the possibility that the interests of others are every bit as important to those others as their own interests are to them, and their utter disinterest in compromising with anyone else is obviously crippling in a social context and accounts for a considerable quantity of their loneliness.
I can’t tell you how many lower-status men who have asked for my advice that I have told to go and do something that is of interest to someone else, be it watching television, visiting a dog park, or going to yoga class, only to have them laughingly dismiss the idea because it’s of no interest to them. Yeah, dude, that’s the entire point!
When I was a single man, I used to occasionally participate in a high-energy aerobics class and I would regularly hop on the exercise bike after working out in the weight room. I didn’t really need the cardio, since I was actively doing martial arts several times a week, but it allowed me to become acquainted with the gym bunnies who never entered the free weights room.
My familiarity with them seemed like magic to some of the weightlifters who were at the gym more than I was, but it wasn’t a mystery. They never left the weight room! So, of course they never met anyone who was on the track, at the pool, on the basketball courts, on the tennis courts, or on any of the dozens of cardio machines.
Get over yourself. Learn to at least respect the interests of others even if you can’t appreciate them. And above all, never imagine for one second that the intensity of your self-absorption escapes the notice of others.
Imagine the women are like your children, or what your future children would be. You do the things FOR THEIR BENEFIT. You go to the parks FOR THEM. You do the other things FOR THEM. But, also, you balance it with a mindset of asking women to join you. If you're doing it right, you're asking women to join you in a lifestyle that they match up with you - because the women simply fits in your life. So, you're doing things you enjoy as well, and are not too much out of the way.
As in Vox's example - he's doing cardio he doesn't need, but he's already in the gym. Not out of his way, not something he doesn't enjoy, they fit into his life, him into theirs.
How hard is this people? You have to become, literally, the type of spouse that the man or woman that you want to marry, would actually marry! That means you have to think, and put yourself in their shoes, for at least a little while.
If you want to marry a traditional type of woman, you have to be a traditional type of man. You have to do those types of things - have a job, stabile, not do crazy things, put yourself out there as one, be in the situations where SHE CAN SEE YOU DOING THOSE THINGS, and then attract her as DOING THOSE THINGS.
If you want a gym bunny, you have to be attractive. You have to go to the gym, be in shape, do the lifestyle things of that - the health, the food, the whole shebang. You then have to, as Vox says, PUT YOURSELF WHERE SHE'LL SEE YOU DOING THOSE THINGS. And ATTRACT AND SPEAK TO HER doing those thing.
If you want to, for some stupid reason, attract some bar wench or theatre girl, the same things would apply. You go to the bars, you do the things. Or the theatre.
People seem to imagine that they can just go to the bar or something, and meet the Church girl. No, that's where you meet the bar girl.
You meet the park girl at the park
The gym girl at the gym
The Church girl at Church.
And, if you're being a full, legit human being while doing things at these locations - you'll meet people. You'll sympathize/empathize with them. You'll fall into groups there, and can develop some social credit there that will place you in a hierarchy that she can see and judge you on.
And if you, being you, don't match up your lifestyle to what she expects - then that disconnect will be enough to drive away many women. It will GET the attention of many, so you'll stand out at least. But due to women's in/out grouping, and the average delta's complete inability to understand how to navigate social dynamics - this attention is almost always completely negative.
To have a friend first be a friend. To be appreciated first appreciate others. To be loved first give love. The mirror will never love you nor will it ever have your back.