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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3672 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for November 16, 2022

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

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  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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It occurs to me that reading dating-related content here makes me feel a sense of despair I wouldn't normally feel around the subject. I'm not sure why that is, exactly, since normally if it comes up, I can more or less shrug it off with close enough to apathy. What sorcery are y'all performing that it suddenly feels desperately important when I read discussions here, and pretty much only here?

I want to now go off into a lengthy tangent about my general feelings/history on the subject, but that seems pointless and narcissistic. (But if I should go ahead and post validation-seaking narcissistic ramblings, say so? 😟)

I actually get a similar sense of despair from other relationship forums, particularly on Reddit. Here not so much.

Reddit dating forums are just lonely bitter people justifying being a loser with whatever popular internet ideology (red pill, PUA, female dating strategy, progressivism..) they can latch on to. Here at least a good amount of relationship posts are from somewhat well adjusted people who dare to voice their honest opinions. Those opinions often go into the nastier sides of male/female relationships but at least it’s usually an attempt at seeking truth

One hypothesis is that the rest of the internet is more adherent to progressive niceties, e.g., triggering language = violence. So when you go from an environment that promotes concepts like beauty-at-any-size, to here where rationalists mince few words to tell you that yes, people are indeed shallow no matter what they tweet, that can feel super jarring/despairing.

This is probably why I'm the exact opposite to OP. There's lots of essentially platitudes on this topic in progressive spaces that deeply frustrate me to read in an irrational way and just sour my mood.

It also feels like some people appoint themselves the conductors who make sure the discussion stays on the ideological rails and no one says anything "problematic" in a way that makes you feel managed, which is a deeply annoying feeling for an adult.

Meanwhile it's much easier to just hear someone on the motte say something spicy without feeling any which way about it, even if I don't like the implications.

My experience is that progressive spaces tend to be actually very negative about relationships themselves, seeing them more as conveniences to be ditched as soon as there's any conflict. And their positivity takes the form of vague platitudes.

I get a sense of despair too, but I just power through it because I like this community. But, the despair completely prevents me from watching Jordan Peterson videos. (Quite ironic given I'm the stereotypical target demographic). I've also noticed that in any sort of fiction, I'm far more interested in relationship dynamics than any other plot or character elements. Maybe that's normal, but I suspect I'm trying to live vicariously through the characters.

If I had to guess at a reason not listed here, maybe there's more blackpill takes here, and your lizardbrain is just associating that despair with this place. If you want to narcissistically go off, you could try finding a question and posting it here, under the guise of wanting other people's input. But really you're just venting.

As ever with such discussion, there's a huge selective sampling effect in who longposts on it. Mottizens posting on it at length probably combine writing styles that appeal to you with personal urgency in a way that other places are missing at least one of. I don't post about relationships much precisely because my own is intensely boring to anyone that's not part of it, which I regard as working exactly as intended.

Maybe you see mottizens as your ingroup (moreso similar SES) and what they say holds more urgency because it could be you?

I usually am okay reading such content, but find it very distressing when its in my city subreddit. Something to do with the monster coming near you.

Go off, king. If there's anywhere to do it, it is here. Motters tend not to be gentle, but it's perfectly acceptable.

But if I should go ahead and post validation-seaking narcissistic ramblings, say so?

It's Wellness Wednesday, after all!

But odds are good I'll just tell you to either join a club or a church.

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