🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (58 tweets)
“It’s sexy when a man doesn’t change himself to please you.” Why though? https://t.co/aZHWMDXNuy
I may not like whatever it is I see. There are some things that are reliably sexy. Having passion. Sincere, earnest interest. Competence. Working with hands. Talking shit about physics. Telling me how beautiful that painting is.
That moment you’re in a group conversation, and your crush is laughing and looking elsewhere, and they can’t see you, but you’re looking at them, that you can form desire. https://t.co/LvWhGkxEVh
There are some gender-specific patterns to being a woman. Male attraction isn’t bad. But being a hot girl, and having literally every man reduce you to your body gets old really quick. https://t.co/Timiq9rPpB
I’ve heard many women use that word, “objectification,” and really mean it sincerely—it carries resonance for them. As a hot girl, it really, really does get tiring to have people turn into people who need your approval.
The problem with you trying to change to please me is I’m not so free to feel how I want to anymore. I have to feel a certain way for you to feel ok. And that can be exhausting. https://t.co/CIilv6tF9k
@liminal_warmth As smn who was that guy once, my life changed when someone explained to me, in kind and patient terms, that when I got overly attached, the problem was they as the other person weren’t free to feel whatever they wanted to anymore They had to feel a certain way for me to be ok
It can be exhausting, because there is leaky energy. It’s tiring to be around people who are asking you to essentially save them, or legitimise them. I don’t know how to manage my own energetic boundaries well enough to know what to do with it. https://t.co/ZvWrb8hwzn
That “going away” is interesting. I don’t feel them there anymore. It’s related to their connection to their deeper emotional truth being gone, and they are just disembodied and disconnected, and that feels sucky to connect with. https://t.co/JVtgRLgIqY
To effectively pretend to be a certain way, you have to really believe it, or be aware of it. This impedes any access you might have to how you actually feel. So you live in a fake world, a world “above”, and have no connection with the below. https://t.co/QJlEryFSzi
And I made him do that. I don’t even know how to stop it. What’s especially crushing is a guy I otherwise know or who seems fine and then I go on a few dates with can then become this way. It’s fine, then goes down, and this seems like a common female experience with dating too
With someone who doesn’t change for me, I get to play a subtler game [a different one than the one I usually play]. A fun one, one I actually want to play. There’s tension, there’s flirting, there’s no shortage of changing and tuning and adapting. https://t.co/nADSWkAMCG
There is still *change* and there is still pleasing me. But pleasing me is not so bad when you have already pleased yourself first too. https://t.co/iC3AKMNUoo
When men assert a boundary, it is INCREDIBLY hot. E.g., pulling away from a kiss, or embrace. Not just because it heightens desire to have less of it, instead of sateity. Not just because it shows responsiveness and attunement to my in-the-moment needs.
But also because I feel safer to desire You for a moment, instead of feeling the unyielding boring desire of you to escalate all the way from a kiss to sex, a process that I then have to manage and feel somewhat alienated by.
@AskYatharth good and fun thread. I think you'd like this one too: https://t.co/ffjOHolSaz
@AskYatharth @empathy2000 and I were talking about people-pleasing just yesterday. I think there's a kind of typically masculine power+risk dynamic here, where people-pleasing narrows your possible outcomes to a mediocre middle, whereas holding your ground either works well or badly.
@AskYatharth @empathy2000 he compared it to whispering: if you know you've got something good to say anyway no matter who listens, saying it quietly is a signal of power that pulls people in (read: causes people to push themselves in, vs. talking loudly, which pushes oneself onto people).
@AskYatharth @empathy2000 thus refusing to people please means taking power at the cost of some risk. as with all power grabs, some men do it well, others do it poorly. everyone want to see that you can do this well; they can't see this if you're not claiming power to begin with. https://t.co/sbRbI8RcZh
@AskYatharth @empathy2000 (the above isn't meant as explanation, more to connect it to other archetypically masculine ideas and roles. on its own it's a little the "dormitive potency" of explanations; indeed looking directly at it's emotional effects, as you do, has much more explanative power.)
@AskYatharth @empathy2000 It's a reference to a line from an old play, where the protagonist asks a doctor, "how does this sleep medication work?", and is wholly satisfied when the doctor replies, "it has a dormitive potency." It's a non-explanation posing as one, merely shifting the mystery from A to B.
@ElodesNL @empathy2000 Yes, I wanted the phenomenology of it. It is rich, interesting, and speaks to my own experience with gay men, and hot girl energy. https://t.co/5FohshLvN2
@ElodesNL @empathy2000 push vs pull https://t.co/NvQ9FqqHUV
@ElodesNL You have introduced me to one of my favourite followers. BIG THANKS ELODES!!!!!!!! :)))) <3 https://t.co/CHVV6QuHMw
Seduction is the art of walking up to a person and communicating: 1. Hey, you don’t necessarily like me yet [and I see that]. 2. AND also I think you just might. That’s both confident/intriguing [what does he know that I don’t] and responsive/attuned [he knows where I am]. https://t.co/3wSCpNLReX
When people try to change to please me, I don’t get any of that. Because the people trying to change often feels themselves worthy. Ask them deep down, and they feel a bit unworthy. If they don’t even think I might like them . . . I feel confused, and it’s harder to like them.
When someone doesn’t change to please me, then there is the ability to say: 1. Hey, this is someone who I am 2. AND I’m willing to change/meet you a bit to seduce you. Changing to please me isn’t the problem. It’s having no firmness in the first place.
I don’t want to trade in generalities about men & women. I’m not trying to write a best-selling book. What I do want is to get what it is about the dynamic I am missing, so that I kno . . . https://t.co/LJoNizYEKs
@liminal_warmth As smn who was that guy once, my life changed when someone explained to me, in kind and patient terms, that when I got overly attached, the problem was they as the other person weren’t free to feel whatever they wanted to anymore They had to feel a certain way for me to be ok
Once I knew, and got why the other’s experience sucked on a visceral/gut level, I didn’t have to think as much anymore. I could just more naturally adapt and respond. https://t.co/3PZPr6Iivk
Here’s a QT-thread from @shrinetothevine along the popular lines of “indicates strength.” https://t.co/wHTVmoZgev
Here’s another uncompromosingly human take. It’s uncomfortable when people are fake. Maybe they are trying to do the right thing. Maybe I’d like to not be mean to someone, another human being, doing their best. Maybe I don’t have that capacity, appetite, or desire right now. https://t.co/yGRGQsmxn0
Another relevant thread: Changing not for someone, but because you admire the aesthetic. https://t.co/XFfRZ7G8f0