So, there are a few things that come to mind for me on this.
If we are talking about capitalist society where people are raised to view relationships as transactional, then sure, we have to be grounded in what we’re dealing with there, that expecting people to value others intrinsically when they may not is probably not going to get what we want in life.
Luck does factor into it some. I don’t see how not. Romantic feelings can just sort of happen and people aren’t always into the ones who are going to be the best to have around. Cause it’s feelings. Plenty of romantic relationships are a thing in spite of having aspects to them that are unhealthy. So I think it’s safe to say some people are finding love just fine, in spite of what ails them, even if it’s sometimes a bit of a mess.
I struggle to see the connection between viewing yourself as desirable and being desirable to others. As a mental health issue, I definitely want people to value themselves, don’t get me wrong, and I’d be right there with you saying it’s important for a healthy relationship. I have a post in this thread of my own that touches on that. But where my mind goes is to confidence and how people say confidence is attractive. Supposing that is generally true, what if you do value yourself, but you don’t actually project that outwardly? Maybe you have internalized certain ideas about humility and so you downplay yourself in presentation in order to feel more morally upright. Now compare this to a narcissist, who can be extremely insecure, yet still project confidence and greatly impress upon others what their value is. Unless the person experiencing this from the outside is able to get deeper info behind the scenes, will being more attracted in relation to how much a person values themself cause them to go for the person who values themself or the person who projects value of themself? I would think they’d go for the 2nd. This is not to say everyone who projects value of themself is secretly “bad” - far from it. It’s just an example to illustrate outward vs. inward. That working on yourself is important, getting the support you need is important, but I don’t think people should be expecting that it will translate to being more attractive to others.
If people are attracted to specific things, they have to be able to perceive those things to feel attraction towards them. This can go very poorly, granted, when people take this line of thought to a shallow and marketing-obsessed level and lose sight of authentic connection (I think of the movie Hitch for a fictional example of this). I just don’t want people thinking that others have mind-reading to be turned off toward them because they secretly have some insecurities and the only way others will ever love them is if they first resolve those insecurities. Even openly stated insecurities can at times be endearing, depending on how it is said, who is doing the listening. We are all human, after all.
If we are talking about capitalist society where people are raised to view relationships as transactional, then sure
Seeing value in someone doesn’t have to be transactional. “Value” can be something as simple as a feeling of “I like to be around this person”. A person who is nice to be around is valuable.
what if you do value yourself, but you don’t actually project that outwardly?
People’s mental state affects their body language, their demeanor, and humans are pretty good at picking up on those cues. You might not be able to put it into words, but you can feel a person.
The “outward” can be having the confidence to approach someone. If you view yourself as lesser-than and think you need luck or some sort of “trick” to get with someone, then you might either be hesitant to approach a person or if you do approach them you’re doing it with the mentality of “I am bothering this person, but I hope they’re nice enough to talk to me”, as opposed to approaching someone with the mentality of “we’re equals, I am in fact creating an opportunity for both of us to meet each other because I have a feeling we might be good together”.
Seeing value in someone doesn’t have to be transactional. “Value” can be something as simple as a feeling of “I like to be around this person”. A person who is nice to be around is valuable.
Right, but why does one person “like to be around another”. That part is important. There’s no such thing as a person who is universally nice to be around. “Nice to be around” can be many things to many people. For just one example, a hyperactive extrovert might be the life of the party to one person and an annoying and draining to another.
People’s mental state affects their body language, their demeanor, and humans are pretty good at picking up on those cues. You might not be able to put it into words, but you can feel a person.
The “outward” can be having the confidence to approach someone. If you view yourself as lesser-than and think you need luck or some sort of “trick” to get with someone, then you might either be hesitant to approach a person or if you do approach them you’re doing it with the mentality of “I am bothering this person, but I hope they’re nice enough to talk to me”, as opposed to approaching someone with the mentality of “we’re equals, I am in fact creating an opportunity for both of us to meet each other because I have a feeling we might be good together”.
Overall, this sounds to me like law of attraction magical thinking type stuff. Although it is true that a person’s mental state can be expressed outwardly, some people become very adept at hiding it. As an example, consider masking in people on the autism spectrum: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/behaviour/masking
Some people go to great lengths to hide what’s going on inside (sometimes without even realizing they’re doing it) and sure, they’re not going to hide everything, but I see no truism here that internal will be picked up on externally. People can’t mind-read. They can make educated guesses based on past experience and infer from it. If they know a person really well, they can learn various tells. They can also make (sometimes drastically incorrect) judgments based on how a person seems to land within their worldview and experiences. People pick up on stuff, but what they pick up on is not necessarily reliable or consistent from person to person. The parable of the blind men and the elephant comes to mind here.
There’s no such thing as a person who is universally nice to be around. “Nice to be around” can be many things to many people.
Well yeah, seeing value in others is subjective. It’s what a person values about another person. If they feel like they like to be around that person, that is perceiving value in that person. I’m not talking in universals.
this sounds to me like law of attraction magical thinking type stuff.
It’s not though.
As an example, consider masking in people on the autism spectrum
I’m on the spectrum. And when I let my guard down I get judged. I got banned from the Linux community here on lemmygrad for “bigoted speech” (or whatever) because I looked at the Hyprland fiasco from a different angle. I don’t use Wayland or Hyprland, I have no dog in the race, I just wanted to see the issue from another perspective. I do that often, rather than picking a side right away I like to look at an issue from many different angles. But that’s what happens when people on the spectrum lower their guard and feel like they can speak their mind, they get judged. Like you are doing right now, you’re accusing me of promoting “magical thinking, law of attraction type stuff”. It’s really tiring to have to keep going “I said” and “what I actually said” because people don’t want to give the benefit of a doubt, but want to read something in the worst possible way so that they can then be outraged and just give their usual response.
Some people go to great lengths to hide what’s going on inside
Preaching to the choir.
I see no truism here that internal will be picked up on externally
Where did I say it was a truism?
People can’t mind-read.
Of course not. That’s why I said people’s attitudes can reflect in their body language, mannerisms and demeanor that people can pick up on. How can people sometimes feel when there’s something really wrong with a person or how people say that some people “look like pedophiles” and then those people turn out to be pedophiles. Nobody can read their minds to see that that person is attracted to children, but a lot of the times they can just sense that sort of vibe. I’m not saying it is 100% infallible or that it is on the mark every time, but sometimes it is. I’m not saying it is an exact science, or that it is true for every single situation, it just tends to happen.
People pick up on stuff, but what they pick up on is not necessarily reliable or consistent from person to person.
Of course not, and I never claimed it was an universal law. But generally people who are happy and content with themselves do give off a carefree vibe that people like. You know when people describe someone as “chill”, what does that mean? Is that person cold? Is that person going around trying really hard to project that they are “chill”? Of course not. Because guess what? When people try to pretend they are relaxed and carefree, they usually come off as opposite.
This all comes from my own observations. You mentioned masking, well a big part of that is trying to figure out what people are thinking, why, because you can’t mask yourself or hide things well unless you know what you should mask. Like for example certain fears or neuroses, people don’t want to hear that stuff, yet it actually helps me to vocalise something to then be free of it.
It’s really tiring to have to keep going “I said” and “what I actually said” because people don’t want to give the benefit of a doubt, but want to read something in the worst possible way so that they can then be outraged and just give their usual response.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like you are taking this comment of mine personally, which was not intended as personal. If you believe I have used language that implies insult or outrage, please point it out to me exactly so I can reflect on it. Communists cannot afford to be afraid of criticizing an idea because a person might take it as criticism of themself or as too aggressive; in spite of this, I have tried, whether it shows or not, to approach this diplomatically and navigate through the weeds of the reasoning we are discussing, providing examples of what I’m saying along the way.
As far as I can tell, you are now saying that your position is not a universal law, that I was misinterpreting in responding to it as if you had said it was, but are nevertheless insisting it is generally true. I’m disagreeing that it is generally true also. I don’t see evidence that it is.
I tried before to find within myself, and express, the heart of what I’m saying:
I just don’t want people thinking that others have mind-reading to be turned off toward them because they secretly have some insecurities and the only way others will ever love them is if they first resolve those insecurities. Even openly stated insecurities can at times be endearing, depending on how it is said, who is doing the listening. We are all human, after all.
As far as I can tell, this part was not responded to. Misunderstanding can go both ways. The fact alone that we seem to be, to a point, continuously talking past each other, only furthers my point about the limits of accuracy in what we perceive from the outside.
If you have the patience for it with me after all of this, since you said you like considering different angles, let’s try considering this as analogous to building working class power. Suppose you further someone’s class consciousness, but this person is not the type to talk politics with others and they are very busy, so although they are now slightly more sympathetic to the cause should conflict arise, they do little with this. They haven’t been brought into organizing or discussion spaces, they haven’t been involved in any kind of political action, they just sort of have some increased class consciousness now. I would say that has some value, but without follow-through, with the constant influx of anti-communist propaganda many of us are wading through every day, they may slip into an area you didn’t want. Their internal state changed somewhat, but because the external state was not worked with in tandem, there is no reliability of meaningful change having been accomplished. In the weeds of the reasoning, this is part of what I’m trying to get at. The inward could translate to outward in the way that you hope or it could not. Without evaluating the factors involved for the individual, there is no way to predict which way it will go. And so, even as a generality, it is unreliable. For it to work as a generality, there needs to be enough predictable consistency across different people and backgrounds, and I’m not seeing the evidence to support that with the generality about valuing yourself making others value you more. And if it is not reliable, then what purpose does it serve as advice when there are other, more specific ways a person can look to, to fix problems they are having in dating? I would think there is more value, for example, in saying that a person who has trouble saying no needs to learn how to say no; which is implicitly a kind of valuing yourself, but is also more specific, more actionable, and has the assurance of being something others will see in their interactions with you.
it seems like you are taking this comment of mine personally,
Maybe a little. I get defensive when I think people are interpreting what I’m saying in a bad way or in a way I don’t agree with. I’m sorry if I overreacted.
they secretly have some insecurities and the only way others will ever love them is if they first resolve those insecurities
Then we arrive at the crux of the issue, because depending on the insecurity a person may have, it might be very hard that insecurity. Take for example someone who is overweight. An overweight person might be hesistant to go to the beach, or wear a t-shirt when they are at the beach. Is this not a signal that they are insecure about their weight and don’t feel comfortable in their skin? They haven’t said they are insecure, but their actions and behaviour point to it.
Misunderstanding can go both ways. The fact alone that we seem to be, to a point, continuously talking past each other
I do sometimes have trouble expressing what I think because I try to be as concise as possible, otherwise I could write paragraphs and go on and on about it. I try to avoid that.
I’m not seeing the evidence to support that with the generality about valuing yourself making others value you more
But that isn’t my claim, perhaps I misspoke (miswrote?) A better way to say it would be that unless you recognise value in yourself, it will be harder for others to recognise it in you. Recognise is a better word because it implies that value is there, it just needs to be seen. If you have some things about you that you like, and you identify them, then you might be inclined to highlight those things. A silly example that comes to mind is that if you think you look good in a particular colour, then you might be inclined to wear that colour more often. Or going back to the overweight example, if there are certain clothes you can wear and look at yourself in the mirror and think “you know what? I look good in those clothes” you might wear them more often, and put yourself out there, rather than hide yourself because you think you look unattractive no matter what.
A personal example, I think I have a tendency to talk to much and about things that people may not care about. So instead of feeling outwardly insecure (which I am a lot of the time) I put effort into actively listening and then talk a lot about what the person is interested in. I guess I opened this can of worms when I used the word “value”, but to continue with it: I try not to see myself as an annoying person, but as someone who likes to talk about things, has broad general knowledge and I show this value by engaging with what the person is saying and being a good conversational partner.
I would say that has some value, but without follow-through
But that’s my point, that there should be follow-through. Recognising value in one self -> presenting that value to others. I see now that value was perhaps the wrong word, but I homnestly can’t think of a better one.
Maybe a little. I get defensive when I think people are interpreting what I’m saying in a bad way or in a way I don’t agree with. I’m sorry if I overreacted.
You’re good, I just wanted to make sure it was clear I was not in it to attack you and was doing my best not to go that route. And I can relate, for what it’s worth. I couldn’t begin to count the number of times it has seemed or felt like I’m Sisyphus trying to communicate something; as in, it can feel like I’m trying very hard to go nowhere. Sometimes things just click and sometimes it feels like I’m communicating in another language, and anywhere in-between.
That said, in trying to read closely what you have said most recently, it sounds like we are mostly agreement on the spirit of it, but might disagree in the implementation somewhat. If I try to drill it down to how I feel most strongly about it, I’m thinking about this from a standpoint of individualist vs. collectivist, rugged individual success vs. communal interdependence - and what I primarily take issue with, which may never have been your meaning in the first place, is when advice appears to land on the individualist side of those things. I know that whether it’s myself or someone else, simply having the kind of views we have here does not make us immune to propaganda or make us suddenly clear of all individualist tendencies of thinking that have been instilled in many of us from birth. So some part of me is a bit wary on that being validated further rather than unlearned. And I find that in my understanding of things, dating and romance still appears to be an area heavy with individualist rhetoric and a sort of unspoken “become a better rugged individualist and then you’ll get yours”. I may have overreacted in caution to what you said because of similarities I thought I saw in it relative to other rhetoric I’ve seen.
is when advice appears to land on the individualist side of those things
I totally get that. The internet has been poisoned by the MGTOW and Jordan Peterson shit that any kind of mention of “working on yourself” may remind one of the “clean your room stuff”. And I am not coming from that angle at all.
And I find that in my understanding of things, dating and romance still appears to be an area heavy with individualist rhetoric and a sort of unspoken “become a better rugged individualist and then you’ll get yours”.
I really do avoid stuff like that and that’s not what I meant at all. I tried to emphasize others “seeing value” in a person and used an example of “nice to be around” which in my mind is not a rugged individualist trait (because I assume that rugged individualists are not nice to be around). I tried to convey that it is important for others to “evaluate” one, but that it starts with that one liking themselves. I mean, to me it makes sense that if you don’t like yourself then it’s going to be hard for others to like you. People who do think low of themselves tend to show that to the world (by being more withdrawn, speaking less, not “putting themselves out there”, etc.) so it’s not like others can read another person’s mind, but they can sense when someone is feeling down.
So, there are a few things that come to mind for me on this.
If we are talking about capitalist society where people are raised to view relationships as transactional, then sure, we have to be grounded in what we’re dealing with there, that expecting people to value others intrinsically when they may not is probably not going to get what we want in life.
Luck does factor into it some. I don’t see how not. Romantic feelings can just sort of happen and people aren’t always into the ones who are going to be the best to have around. Cause it’s feelings. Plenty of romantic relationships are a thing in spite of having aspects to them that are unhealthy. So I think it’s safe to say some people are finding love just fine, in spite of what ails them, even if it’s sometimes a bit of a mess.
I struggle to see the connection between viewing yourself as desirable and being desirable to others. As a mental health issue, I definitely want people to value themselves, don’t get me wrong, and I’d be right there with you saying it’s important for a healthy relationship. I have a post in this thread of my own that touches on that. But where my mind goes is to confidence and how people say confidence is attractive. Supposing that is generally true, what if you do value yourself, but you don’t actually project that outwardly? Maybe you have internalized certain ideas about humility and so you downplay yourself in presentation in order to feel more morally upright. Now compare this to a narcissist, who can be extremely insecure, yet still project confidence and greatly impress upon others what their value is. Unless the person experiencing this from the outside is able to get deeper info behind the scenes, will being more attracted in relation to how much a person values themself cause them to go for the person who values themself or the person who projects value of themself? I would think they’d go for the 2nd. This is not to say everyone who projects value of themself is secretly “bad” - far from it. It’s just an example to illustrate outward vs. inward. That working on yourself is important, getting the support you need is important, but I don’t think people should be expecting that it will translate to being more attractive to others.
If people are attracted to specific things, they have to be able to perceive those things to feel attraction towards them. This can go very poorly, granted, when people take this line of thought to a shallow and marketing-obsessed level and lose sight of authentic connection (I think of the movie Hitch for a fictional example of this). I just don’t want people thinking that others have mind-reading to be turned off toward them because they secretly have some insecurities and the only way others will ever love them is if they first resolve those insecurities. Even openly stated insecurities can at times be endearing, depending on how it is said, who is doing the listening. We are all human, after all.
Seeing value in someone doesn’t have to be transactional. “Value” can be something as simple as a feeling of “I like to be around this person”. A person who is nice to be around is valuable.
People’s mental state affects their body language, their demeanor, and humans are pretty good at picking up on those cues. You might not be able to put it into words, but you can feel a person.
The “outward” can be having the confidence to approach someone. If you view yourself as lesser-than and think you need luck or some sort of “trick” to get with someone, then you might either be hesitant to approach a person or if you do approach them you’re doing it with the mentality of “I am bothering this person, but I hope they’re nice enough to talk to me”, as opposed to approaching someone with the mentality of “we’re equals, I am in fact creating an opportunity for both of us to meet each other because I have a feeling we might be good together”.
Right, but why does one person “like to be around another”. That part is important. There’s no such thing as a person who is universally nice to be around. “Nice to be around” can be many things to many people. For just one example, a hyperactive extrovert might be the life of the party to one person and an annoying and draining to another.
Overall, this sounds to me like law of attraction magical thinking type stuff. Although it is true that a person’s mental state can be expressed outwardly, some people become very adept at hiding it. As an example, consider masking in people on the autism spectrum: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/behaviour/masking
Some people go to great lengths to hide what’s going on inside (sometimes without even realizing they’re doing it) and sure, they’re not going to hide everything, but I see no truism here that internal will be picked up on externally. People can’t mind-read. They can make educated guesses based on past experience and infer from it. If they know a person really well, they can learn various tells. They can also make (sometimes drastically incorrect) judgments based on how a person seems to land within their worldview and experiences. People pick up on stuff, but what they pick up on is not necessarily reliable or consistent from person to person. The parable of the blind men and the elephant comes to mind here.
Well yeah, seeing value in others is subjective. It’s what a person values about another person. If they feel like they like to be around that person, that is perceiving value in that person. I’m not talking in universals.
It’s not though.
I’m on the spectrum. And when I let my guard down I get judged. I got banned from the Linux community here on lemmygrad for “bigoted speech” (or whatever) because I looked at the Hyprland fiasco from a different angle. I don’t use Wayland or Hyprland, I have no dog in the race, I just wanted to see the issue from another perspective. I do that often, rather than picking a side right away I like to look at an issue from many different angles. But that’s what happens when people on the spectrum lower their guard and feel like they can speak their mind, they get judged. Like you are doing right now, you’re accusing me of promoting “magical thinking, law of attraction type stuff”. It’s really tiring to have to keep going “I said” and “what I actually said” because people don’t want to give the benefit of a doubt, but want to read something in the worst possible way so that they can then be outraged and just give their usual response.
Preaching to the choir.
Where did I say it was a truism?
Of course not. That’s why I said people’s attitudes can reflect in their body language, mannerisms and demeanor that people can pick up on. How can people sometimes feel when there’s something really wrong with a person or how people say that some people “look like pedophiles” and then those people turn out to be pedophiles. Nobody can read their minds to see that that person is attracted to children, but a lot of the times they can just sense that sort of vibe. I’m not saying it is 100% infallible or that it is on the mark every time, but sometimes it is. I’m not saying it is an exact science, or that it is true for every single situation, it just tends to happen.
Of course not, and I never claimed it was an universal law. But generally people who are happy and content with themselves do give off a carefree vibe that people like. You know when people describe someone as “chill”, what does that mean? Is that person cold? Is that person going around trying really hard to project that they are “chill”? Of course not. Because guess what? When people try to pretend they are relaxed and carefree, they usually come off as opposite.
This all comes from my own observations. You mentioned masking, well a big part of that is trying to figure out what people are thinking, why, because you can’t mask yourself or hide things well unless you know what you should mask. Like for example certain fears or neuroses, people don’t want to hear that stuff, yet it actually helps me to vocalise something to then be free of it.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like you are taking this comment of mine personally, which was not intended as personal. If you believe I have used language that implies insult or outrage, please point it out to me exactly so I can reflect on it. Communists cannot afford to be afraid of criticizing an idea because a person might take it as criticism of themself or as too aggressive; in spite of this, I have tried, whether it shows or not, to approach this diplomatically and navigate through the weeds of the reasoning we are discussing, providing examples of what I’m saying along the way.
As far as I can tell, you are now saying that your position is not a universal law, that I was misinterpreting in responding to it as if you had said it was, but are nevertheless insisting it is generally true. I’m disagreeing that it is generally true also. I don’t see evidence that it is.
I tried before to find within myself, and express, the heart of what I’m saying:
As far as I can tell, this part was not responded to. Misunderstanding can go both ways. The fact alone that we seem to be, to a point, continuously talking past each other, only furthers my point about the limits of accuracy in what we perceive from the outside.
If you have the patience for it with me after all of this, since you said you like considering different angles, let’s try considering this as analogous to building working class power. Suppose you further someone’s class consciousness, but this person is not the type to talk politics with others and they are very busy, so although they are now slightly more sympathetic to the cause should conflict arise, they do little with this. They haven’t been brought into organizing or discussion spaces, they haven’t been involved in any kind of political action, they just sort of have some increased class consciousness now. I would say that has some value, but without follow-through, with the constant influx of anti-communist propaganda many of us are wading through every day, they may slip into an area you didn’t want. Their internal state changed somewhat, but because the external state was not worked with in tandem, there is no reliability of meaningful change having been accomplished. In the weeds of the reasoning, this is part of what I’m trying to get at. The inward could translate to outward in the way that you hope or it could not. Without evaluating the factors involved for the individual, there is no way to predict which way it will go. And so, even as a generality, it is unreliable. For it to work as a generality, there needs to be enough predictable consistency across different people and backgrounds, and I’m not seeing the evidence to support that with the generality about valuing yourself making others value you more. And if it is not reliable, then what purpose does it serve as advice when there are other, more specific ways a person can look to, to fix problems they are having in dating? I would think there is more value, for example, in saying that a person who has trouble saying no needs to learn how to say no; which is implicitly a kind of valuing yourself, but is also more specific, more actionable, and has the assurance of being something others will see in their interactions with you.
Maybe a little. I get defensive when I think people are interpreting what I’m saying in a bad way or in a way I don’t agree with. I’m sorry if I overreacted.
Then we arrive at the crux of the issue, because depending on the insecurity a person may have, it might be very hard that insecurity. Take for example someone who is overweight. An overweight person might be hesistant to go to the beach, or wear a t-shirt when they are at the beach. Is this not a signal that they are insecure about their weight and don’t feel comfortable in their skin? They haven’t said they are insecure, but their actions and behaviour point to it.
I do sometimes have trouble expressing what I think because I try to be as concise as possible, otherwise I could write paragraphs and go on and on about it. I try to avoid that.
But that isn’t my claim, perhaps I misspoke (miswrote?) A better way to say it would be that unless you recognise value in yourself, it will be harder for others to recognise it in you. Recognise is a better word because it implies that value is there, it just needs to be seen. If you have some things about you that you like, and you identify them, then you might be inclined to highlight those things. A silly example that comes to mind is that if you think you look good in a particular colour, then you might be inclined to wear that colour more often. Or going back to the overweight example, if there are certain clothes you can wear and look at yourself in the mirror and think “you know what? I look good in those clothes” you might wear them more often, and put yourself out there, rather than hide yourself because you think you look unattractive no matter what.
A personal example, I think I have a tendency to talk to much and about things that people may not care about. So instead of feeling outwardly insecure (which I am a lot of the time) I put effort into actively listening and then talk a lot about what the person is interested in. I guess I opened this can of worms when I used the word “value”, but to continue with it: I try not to see myself as an annoying person, but as someone who likes to talk about things, has broad general knowledge and I show this value by engaging with what the person is saying and being a good conversational partner.
But that’s my point, that there should be follow-through. Recognising value in one self -> presenting that value to others. I see now that value was perhaps the wrong word, but I homnestly can’t think of a better one.
You’re good, I just wanted to make sure it was clear I was not in it to attack you and was doing my best not to go that route. And I can relate, for what it’s worth. I couldn’t begin to count the number of times it has seemed or felt like I’m Sisyphus trying to communicate something; as in, it can feel like I’m trying very hard to go nowhere. Sometimes things just click and sometimes it feels like I’m communicating in another language, and anywhere in-between.
That said, in trying to read closely what you have said most recently, it sounds like we are mostly agreement on the spirit of it, but might disagree in the implementation somewhat. If I try to drill it down to how I feel most strongly about it, I’m thinking about this from a standpoint of individualist vs. collectivist, rugged individual success vs. communal interdependence - and what I primarily take issue with, which may never have been your meaning in the first place, is when advice appears to land on the individualist side of those things. I know that whether it’s myself or someone else, simply having the kind of views we have here does not make us immune to propaganda or make us suddenly clear of all individualist tendencies of thinking that have been instilled in many of us from birth. So some part of me is a bit wary on that being validated further rather than unlearned. And I find that in my understanding of things, dating and romance still appears to be an area heavy with individualist rhetoric and a sort of unspoken “become a better rugged individualist and then you’ll get yours”. I may have overreacted in caution to what you said because of similarities I thought I saw in it relative to other rhetoric I’ve seen.
I totally get that. The internet has been poisoned by the MGTOW and Jordan Peterson shit that any kind of mention of “working on yourself” may remind one of the “clean your room stuff”. And I am not coming from that angle at all.
I really do avoid stuff like that and that’s not what I meant at all. I tried to emphasize others “seeing value” in a person and used an example of “nice to be around” which in my mind is not a rugged individualist trait (because I assume that rugged individualists are not nice to be around). I tried to convey that it is important for others to “evaluate” one, but that it starts with that one liking themselves. I mean, to me it makes sense that if you don’t like yourself then it’s going to be hard for others to like you. People who do think low of themselves tend to show that to the world (by being more withdrawn, speaking less, not “putting themselves out there”, etc.) so it’s not like others can read another person’s mind, but they can sense when someone is feeling down.