I have been dealing with the emotion of desperation recently.
It's known of in the PUA community and is considered the antithesis of Getting Some. I don't believe in PUA, but they were right in this, if not in their attempts at a solution.
Desperation was also explained in this article:
Nonmonogamy for Men: The Big Picture freaksexual Which I mentioned above and which I really liked.
I've come to realise that desperation comes from not respecting women. That is, not respecting their boundaries or their need to have
agency in the decision of whether to engage in sexual or romantic interactions.
It's a sort of entitlement coming from frustration, panic, with the idea that women just won't give you what you need. This in turn is social conditioning: one of the most hideous social conditioning patterns that exist. In its extreme form, it results in marriage, prostitution and rape.
There's a twist of dark humour in comparing marriage to rape, and I know I'm going to piss someone off with this, but I actually do think that all of these things come from different levels or gradiations of the same emotion or social conditioning pattern.
So I worked out that I could totally eliminate the sense of desperation I'd had doing two things.
First was to not take the emotion seriously, and try to "float above" it. I'm liking this technique for negative emotions in general and have applied it since then to issues with money. You realise that the emotion doesn't have any real reality of its own, and just allow it to take care of itself or burn itself out naturally.
Secondly was as I said: cultivating a deep sense of respect for the woman.
It wasn't hard for me because it would be what comes naturally to me; the only thing is I got too into PUA and filled my head with ideas that we shouldn't respect women. I was basically going down the wrong path, not because of my own hurt or malice, but because I had been taught to do so and hadn't come round to challenging this false teaching.
OK, I'll rectify that: I had had desperation in me, which was what first gave me curiosity for PUA, but PUA took that and expanded it way out of proportion with its teachings.
I did forswear PUA a long time ago, but every so often I do still encounter a pattern which I still need to clear. I think this pattern lasted so long because I never knew what to replace it with.
So instead of feeling desperate to get something out of the woman you like, you remain honest to the positive and real side of that desire, while being very clear on the need for your interest's permission for something to happen. Of course you usually have to take initiative at some point, but at most you only have to test the boundaries to see if they let you in - most definitely not try to push through the boundaries.
Cultivating an absolute sense of respect and boundaries and the need for mutuality in the interaction - this destroys the emotion of desperation permanently. Try it.