2022.01.19. Toxic Attachment II.

I’ve had several interactions with women this year. Some clearly reflect interest, others repugnance. I accept both. I’m starting to wear my rejections with pride.

As I build frame and put myself up for rejection, I’ve made progress. But my defeatist mindset occasionally surfaces. When it does, my imagination starts to suffer from inflammation. Toxic attachment. It manifests itself deep in the core of my psyche, which refracts it into my imagination. I idealize (pedestalize) women who have shown me approval. And in some instances, I get emotionally attached to some among them.

Yet for now, I still don’t have feelings for any women in my orbit. Let’s zoom out on this bad habit.

It is a willful belief in a lie: that some woman who seems to like me would never betray me, never beta me, and never look at another man with more approval. They would. They do. For most of my life I’ve instructed them to do so… by idealizing them.

First lie, I idolize the attractive woman who shows interest in me. I make a god of her. Second lie, I assume she has a basic virtue based on the approval she gives me. I make a saint of her. Third lie, I resent her because my greed for access to her means the validation she gives me is never enough. I make a devil of her.

Sidebar. Idealization (pedestalization) has psychological valence with resentment. Whatever I idealize, or idolize, I resent. They are inseparable. The dynamic of attachment forces it to rebound into resentment. To hold onto an emotional rope means to get dragged wherever it goes.

Fourth lie, I contemporaneously resent the woman who doesn’t like me. I make a devil of her too.

It’s not enough to call these mood swings. Each improper attachment is a failure to maintain my mental model and I must treat it as such, no matter how temporary. I must be vigilant in refusing to attach to women who refuse attachment.

Regardless of cultural idealization of the feminine, women do not want these attachments. They don’t want them even when they say they do or express a desire for it.

Women may accept and extract benefits from a man’s attachment so long as she can do so from a comfortable distance. She will do so and not feel remotely guilty for taking said benefits. She was not designed for this guilt over taking advantage of men willing to be exploited.

Men (like me before and still at times), will ignore the distasteful effects of our attachments and idealizations. Our idealistic nature becomes blinded by the perception of seeing those ideals validated.

A girl in an undisclosed location broadcasts feigned adoration over the internet to a naïve man who gives fawning attention to her, and possibly cash. She remains comfortably distant from him, but gives him the right emotional signal. Though he remains alone, he attaches. He feels validated for awhile. He may commit suicide in middle age when he finally realizes this counts for nothing.

How does she live with herself? Easier than you think, young man. Much easier.

A beautiful woman makes loving eye contact with me. Or becomes intimate with me, even in a small way. If I desire her, her overtures validate my desire, and suddenly I attach.

For women, the man’s attachment is, at best, irrelevant. If she has a neutral orientation toward him, his attachment will push her away from him far and fast. Even if she wants the man, she will be suspicious of his sudden attachment to her.

Though some women get trapped. I suspect if you ask any woman who lives with a man she has punished into a beta idealist, her frustration with his attachment to her outweighs even grand material benefits.

This is so difficult for men. Or maybe just me.

* * *

Proper mental model. My needs come first. The rest are borderline irrelevant because they will resolve themselves with or without my participation.

Proper perspective. Accept and embrace the grim fact that, like all men, all women are easily capable disinterest. Harsh, cruel, disinterest. Or worse. At the drop of a hat, they’re gone. Perhaps they saw a better opportunity. But more often than not, you pushed them away by attaching the wrong way.

Not you. Me.