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Originally Posted by pyrogen  Manipulation? I still don't think it's manipulative. I fail to see how passively screening for specific IOIs is manipulative; you're not forcing the other person's hand or influencing their behavior in ANY WAY.
And as for gifts - "romantic" doesn't necessarily mean they buy you a diamond necklace and shower you with flowers and goopy stereotypical stuff. It means IMO that they pay attention to your individual preferences. Which a person in love will do. |
Maybe you and I didn't read the same book. The bestseller, "The Rules" by Ellen Fein and Sherry Schneider, outlines a plan for deliberate inauthenticity to the point of lying, programming into self expectations for material gain, limitations on intimate interaction, stifling full self-expression, and a focus on *getting* -- in particular, *getting* marriage, with the assumption that even though men SAY they just want sex, WE know them better than they know themselves, and they'll never REALLY be happy until we artfully lead them to self-knowledge and fulfillment, against their conscious wishes. We're doing them a favor, actually -- it's for their own good. They should be grateful.
I can see how someone might not see that as manipulative or going for a win/lose outcome. But the manipulation of self encouraged by The Rules -- purposely become a creature unlike any other, except for all the other women who value marriage over authentic intimacy -- is that so difficult to see?
It looks like a perfect pair with the win/lose-style PUA's, who do pretty much the same thing -- squeezing themselves into some inauthentic attitudes and behaviors for the purpose of putting some X's on their spreadsheet, at the expense of authentic intimate relating, avoiding giving the woman what she wants (marriage or a LLTMBR), and telling himself he's doing it for her own good. And just as the Rules Girls often denigrate women who don't follow the rules (They're overeducated, bitchy, unfulfilled as women, sad), the Win/Lose PUA's often denigrate men who aren't interested in PUA (*******, wimps, not real men). Same stuff, different gender.
Not that there's anything wrong with it.
I'm not saying that everything about PUA or The Rules is manipulative or inauthentic, and some of them are probably really good ideas. They just don't look like effective
systems for getting your heart's desire, unless you really have win/lose intent as your core value. I just don't think many people do -- I think most don't feel completely congruent with a win/lose approach -- there's something just a little off, something that feels missing that would make a difference, when your life purpose is committed to winning at the expense of others, or at the expense of your own authentic life. Especially in the realm of human relationship. I've never encountered a truly joyful, satisfied and fulfilled win/lose person; have you?
By the way, one of The Rules' authors got divorced. The grounds? He "abandoned" her.