I prefer to just hand women a note that says "I like you. If you like me check this box[ ]."

@IceCream

Thought you stood me up for a moment there

I'm not going to quote that huge passage. I noticed, though, that you used

words like weird and creepy when describing the feeling you get when you

think someone is trying to manipulate you. If you read over your entire

passage, I think, what it's saying, at least to me, is that you are OK

being manipulated so long as you don't think you are being manipulated. I,

of course, could be wrong. Or at the very least, you seem to be OK with a

person 'accidentally' doing these things but not with them doing them on

purpose. With the truth being, people rarely do these things "by accident."

Another interpretation is that manipulation is good, to an extent.


The guy you talked about above is a perfect example. He said all the right

things, and made you laugh and you felt comfortable enough to go to bed

with him. With your description of him going psycho, it tells me that he's

probably made the same jokes and said the same thing with other females,

only, you, in particular, made him 'crazy' or (or more so than usual). Of

course, this is just my impression. This tells me that it's not the fact

that the guys are out to get in your pants that bothers you, but the facts

that the 'creepy' guy's actions have no congruence, ie his body and his

mouth are saying two different things. Like if I were to give you the

finger (with authority) and say 'I love you.' I can understand how that

could be creepy... not really knowing where a guy is coming from.

Unfortunately, if I've mistaken this guy's case, and he was just being all

naturally interesting and stuff (just how you like it) it means that, in a

way, being naturally interesting is almost more creepy than approaching

interaction systematically. Because it wasn't until "after" everything had

happened that you noticed he was "psycho." To me that's far "scarier" than

a well scripted one night stand, assuming someone is good enough to

actually pull it off.


The fact is, though, that guy, and virtually every other guy you'll meet

has "practiced" their interactions whether, through simple everyday

conversation or through more "set rules" like in the Game. The point of

separation lies in personality type and the amount of "practice." Should an

extremely introverted guy (little practice) approach you you'd almost

always get that "creepy" feeling. This is because that extremely

introverted guy is performing an action he has no experience with and is

thus "giving mixed signals." He's not conveying that he's a man who does

this sort of thing a lot. Some women like this, they think it's cute. Many

"don't," though. Or if they do, they get bored soon after, they dread

having to lead "all the time," etc, etc. So, until this guy creeps out enough

women to get to the point where he no longer creeps them out he 'will' give

women the creeps (make sense?). No amount of words said, no lines can save

this man until he saves himself.

If the girls in the book knew that someone else had prepared their

whole conversation, every single detail about their meeting, including the

angle that the guy approached from, for the specific purpose of getting

them to sleep with them, do you think they would still do it?

Depends on the girl, doesn't it? But here's a question, how many guys just

talk to females without any intention of sleeping with them? Married men

excluded (or not), you (female) are either good conversation (unintentional

practice) or he's trying to get you to bed. Man. Binary. I speak only for

myself of course. What I'm saying is... you might have gone to the club

to blow off some steam, but the guy you're talking to didn't.

Also, a man using all these rules with your knowledge, if he does it well,

is far less creepy than an introvert, whose friend told him to seize the

day, trying to making interesting conversation. In fact, you won't even

notice because he interacting with you like every other guy, only there's

"just something about him."


On having friends edify you: I find this point hard to argue with. I've

been doing this to my brothers and friends my whole life. You've probably

done it once or twice yourself in middle school or high school. "'So,

you're Bobby-Jane's friend huh? Is she really, uh, crazy?' 'BJ!? No, gosh,

she's the nicest girl I know.'" Though, when added in with a whole hell of

lot of incongruence, as in, they've never said a single positive thing

about their friends their whole lives, I can understand the creep factor.


On NLP: Few people are competent enough to use it effectively so, I

wouldn't let it keep you up at night.

there's a big difference between "learning to communicate

effectively" and "learning to communicate in a way that brings about a

certain effect".

Me man. Results. 分かる分かる. JK. Seriously.

"'Honey, I need you to fix the damn hole in the stairs.' 'OK' Three weeks

later, the hole is still there.'"

"'Hey Bobby-Joe, when I asked you to fix the hole in the stairs and you

just ignored me, that made me feel genuinely rejected. As if nothing I say

matters to you.' 'Oh, sorry I was busy and didn't even notice.' The stairs

get fixed the same day."


Real conversations don't often flow like the second example. The first

example yields no results.


At its core, a joke is made to produce a laugh. Being interesting makes

people interested in you. Being "hot" makes you valuable. Every human

engagement is a form of manipulation on some level. There is no line, it's

an all encompassing circle or nothing at all.


On Darren Brown: Not creepy. But I'm a guy so, I might not be picking up on

the same things you are.

It's not two way. Other examples are hustling and swindling.

Human's are not rats, though. You can't "make" them do something they don't

"want" to do. All human relationships are two way. They're is a constant

"push and pull." Without it, the relationship "falls apart." However, one

is usually more dominant than the other. Without responding to the other

person's needs, regardless of how many watches you dangle in a person's

face, the relationship will end.


On Neil Strauss and the Rules of Engagement: First, I like that you know

exactly how a man need perform in order to interest you. I find that's a

good quality in a woman . Now, from a female perspective the rules are

creepy. Much like from a man's perspective "The Rules" are creepy. The book

itself exists to whet the appetites so-to-speak so that you'll want to

learn more (as a guy). Many of the characters were made to look off or

creepy to make them more interesting, and make Strauss look like more of a

hero (normal guy turned ... ). I can only go by what I hear, but if what I

hear is right, he has the rules of engagement down extremely well. He just

doesn't outline them extremely well, because then he'd have nothing to

teach.


Lets take your logical outline a few steps further: Instead of just

magically spawning a good funny story out of your rear like we all know

real interesting people do, why not prepare the story ahead of time and

work on the punchline -like creepy folk do?

I should try to not say things which might bore her, or stay on one

subject for too long.

This line here, clearly illustrates the difference in perception and

interaction between men and women. The man has to entertain the woman. The

man has to stimulate  her, in a way. She knows this. She accepts this, and

she will respond accordingly. Unfortunately, she does not do the "effective

communication" thing, ie. say something like "hey, let's talks about

something a bit more interesting," "if you don't lean in so much I don't

feel as weird about you," or "if you smile a bit more I might not be so

afraid." Instead, there is "I have to use the bathroom," "wanna buy me a

drink," or "I have to get back to my friends." * this one doesn't seem at

all familiar does it * So the interaction and how it plays out is mostly

the responsibility of the man.


If he bores her, is it really only his fault? Depends on the case, but without

"effective communication" he has no means of knowing. So all he can do it

work on his points, and minimize the chance of the interaction going sour.

Thus, he assume responsibility for his lack of success.

Now, all of this, if you're thinking about it for yourself, should

be reasonably obvious. But the way in which you put across all these

things, IT HAS TO BE YOUR OWN.


You have to want to learn to do all this stuff, not just for the end

result, but, because you actually like doing it. You shouldn't ever be

saying or doing something you think is stupid or boring, just so you can

sleep with a girl. Choose your own sense of style . Find jokes and stories

that you find funny. If you're not capable of making them up on the spot,

its ok to prethink it. And, i think everyone repeats jokes, stories, ideas,

that they've heard other places. But, not whole conversations. And you're

going to have to learn to be flexible with it too.

Good advice. And I'll add practice makes perfect. I don't think anyone is

remembering entire conversations, though... unless they're in the hypnotism boat,

which will probably sink very fast.


I'm a pianist (non-practicing ). So repeating the lines of other people

before I can take the substance behind them and form them into something

all my own  is just something natural for me. I can understand why it might

seem creepy. Much the same way a piece sounds like "hell," before it's

polished, a man looks like a weird mishmash of mixed creepy signals before he

internalizes any information pertinent to this subject. But just like that

painful cacophony, one day he will * too lazy to come up with good simile *.

PS You will now fall hopelessly in love with me ... kazelee

kanjiwarrior wrote:

I prefer to just hand women a note that says "I like you. If you like me check this box[ ]."

Damn, that's genius. Simple yet effective.

This is like, officially, my longest post ever, though I think I may have something to

do with the weird spacing.

Last edited by kazelee (2009 July 20, 10:26 pm)

Hehe. Nice follow! (笑)

For a person not born in Japan or having no experiences of living in Japan, the journey of finding love is absolutely an eye-opening experience.

You may find as a shy person in your own country, you become a man-whore in Japan.  Or you have plenty of confidence and women flock to you but when you come to Japan, you can't get a date, and cry yourself to sleep while masterbating to the latest romantic comedy you downloaded from the Internet.

Or you wonder why you were infatuated with Asians and end up meeting the American girl who's a few fries short of a Happy Meal and repeat the same mistake of hooking up as you tend to only attract the crazy ones with Daddy issues and you can't seem to break away.

As there are many more possibilites than the ones mentioned above, just remember to be yourself and see where life takes you

TheTrueBlue wrote:

Interesting name there pal...

When I was in college, I was the first and only person in my groups of friends to have an Asian girlfriend.  Thus, one of my friends dubbed me so.

woelpad wrote:

To get off the virgin thread, I'll just list some random gripes I noticed that didn't get much attention yet, but could be important for people marrying in Japan to a Japanese, and that not only goes for the OP.

I've never been to a dancing in Japan. They don't seem to exist outside of gaijintown in Tokyo. If Japanese love music, it's because of karaoke and concerts.

お見合い exists, but young people are more interested in 合コンs. No idea how they are organized, but the prototype seems to be some kind of blind date between typically 5 boys and 5 girls, where both groups don't know much about each other beforehand.  I hope some more knowledgable people can fill us in on their effectiveness and customs.

Group excursions are a good way to engage with people and initiate friendships. Japanese love to travel their own country on short trips. Combine this with the obligatory お土産 and I get the impression they're pretty self-sufficient when it comes to tourism inside Japan. Still, since it's a trip, people tend to be more willing to open up to each other.

One reality (in Kanto) is that Japanese work in Tokyo, but typically don't live there. If your target is the "library" or the grocery store, you'll need to take the train (or set up base) and go out to cities an hour away: Yokohama, Saitama, Funabashi, Chiba, ... Still not 田舎 though, more like middle-class.

Japanese families typically have 1 or 2 kids. The biggest obstacle against a third that I've heard is the fear of not being able to afford getting them all through higher education. They also have a strong sense of preserving the family name (related to maintaining the family grave etc.). Given this, chances are you will be propped to change your name to that of your fiance's instead of vice versa, or that both keep your respective names, which might lead to the kids taking on the name of the mother.

Coming to live in Japan means you'll be far from home and your own family, but your wife won't. Unless you move to another part of Japan, she'll still have all her friends, family and schoolmates. This inevitably creates an imbalance in the relationship, which may be a source of friction. She may be spending a lot of evenings/weekends away from you for social obligations, like weddings (rarely are partners invited), get-togethers, お見舞い, 社員旅行 or 飲み会s, leaving you home with the kids. Play therefore your cards wisely. Don't commit to living in Japan without at least hearing her out about a possible future elsewhere on the planet. That should at least give you some perspective for when the pressures of society take a turn for the worse.

On the same note, don't expect her to make learning your language a priority, unless she is already fluent before she met you. Apart from talking with you, who are already adapting to learn her language, what big incentive is there for her? She doesn't need it to function in her environment, which didn't change. Educating the kids in a second language is evidently your task. That's unless you intend to travel a lot together to (fill in your idiom)-speaking countries or invite over/mix with your (idiom)-language friends every so often. There are couples though that raise their pre-elementary school kids in the less common idiom exclusively. But with the couples I know or read about, usually both parents are already fluent in that language to start with.

On the subject of close relatives, how far will you live from her parents? It's custom here to move in with the (wife's) parents the first three months after the baby is born. Nannies are hardly an option, for babysitting you're mostly reliant on day care (up to 8 in the evening, less long in weekends) and the grandparents (on both sides, but since yours are an ocean away...), another reason to keep the distance between your and their house short. It's not abnormal to live in the same 二世代 house, what with the ground prices being sky high over here. You think you can/are willing to cope with that?

Your wife will also make you attentive of paying respect (お礼) to this and that person, usually with some standard phrase, like her boss when a kid is born (thanking him for giving her time off), and of returning a present with a present of typically half the value of the original. She will do that repeatedly, which can turn into nagging, because you never seem to learn.

And, since it's night time now, you know that kids sleep with their parents until they reach elementary school age? It's considered an important part of family bonding. I can't count the nights that I spent at least partly on the couch because kids that don't fall asleep immediately tend to roam and push and shove until someone leaves.

Just a couple of things from my own (limited) experience that were something of a surprise to me and might be for other westerners, insofar as they're not unique to my situation. No need to have your answers ready right away, but if it helps you to shape your image of the place you're going to, I think I'll have accomplished something.

This is important.

Also...

TheTrueBlue wrote:

To those people, I reccommend a mid-life crisis fund, when they're 35 or 40 and realize how pathetically normal their life was, so they can afford that sports car, leather jacket, and tanning salon bills. All that burst of an effort when it could've worked 20 years earlier. And now that time is down the sh*tter. Time spent living a life that subconsciously and now openingly is acknowledged as simply not what they want in life. Sucks to be them, and I don't plan on it one bit.

This is exactly what I think when I look at your posts. You're 23-- in the prime of your life and you're sitting on a forum on the internet talking about how it's your life goal to go to Japan and find your lifelong mate because girls in the States just don't cut the mustard. All "that time [going] down the shitter" when you could be, you know, dating other people, enjoying a romp in the sheets now and again, and living life, you're instead pooling your cash and preparing for a potential lifestyle that you can't say with any certainty whether or not you even want, because you haven't been there or done that and are instead simply following the stars in your eyes, sure that it's going to turn out in the end (like it did in that one dating sim...)

个

nadiatims wrote:

个

Hey...that's my...!

liosama wrote:

I would expect my spouse to learn my mother tongue if she is from another country. This is purely out of respect as I would learn hers too. Because marriage is a family activity after all and I deem it most respectable to learn their language. Practical day to day usefulness is out of the question, it should be done, and done so out of respect and love.

I'm talking in the general sense here (finding a partner anywhere), but even if I do happen to go and marry in Japan, I'd expect her to learn my language too.

That will be pretty daunting if your spouse speaks multiple languages as his or her mother tongues. You do know a lot of people in the world speak two or more languages as their first languages, right?

Last edited by magamo (2009 July 21, 5:58 am)

IceCream wrote:

um... sorry if i've offended you, but what are you actually referring to?

You didn't offend me, also I said I am not particularly speaking of your post only. If you can't tell what I might be referring then I don't know if you even know what academic slander is. We aren't all Academics in training so it is easy to commit the academic equivalent of crimes on here and be just fine, I've done  too, just because it is that easy, no one will jump you on the slander, they'll just backfire with more slandered claims etc. But I wonder if there are any "public"(I'm sure there are forums at some Academic Institutes that requires a certain degree type/level of credibility to even post on) forums where that is not tolerated. It would be cool if we worked hard to make this one that kind of forum, I think, so basically that is why I posted that, because I think in comparison to other public forums, we aren't too far off.


Then again, being academic about everything would be very long winded, and not necessarily enjoyable for most people here(Including myself, I think I would post far less, and only on topics I were completely passionate and interested in, or if I had a question because I would know that those who would reply to it would do so with the utmost academic responsibility, and just by effect of taking that level of care in a post, they would in effect have to be helpful), since it would take some effort. 

Just I wonder if such a forum exists?

Last edited by Yonosa (2009 July 21, 6:55 pm)

"Most of that post i made would be suitable for a degree level philosophy essay. "

This is exactly what I mean, have you taken a degree level philosophy essay course? I have not so I am not sure what is expected, but from my other course work I certainly know that anything near that type of writing is not only unacceptable, my professor would likely have me meet him in his office to talk for an hour if I turned any sort of essay in that used the style of reasoning in that post....Come on, even you know that what you said is not Degree level work, so why did you say it? That is exactly what I am talking about with "academic slander" except this time you are slandering, what might be expected of a degree philosophy essay, other than some particular field of Academia, I hope you can kind of understand now that I specified a specific example.

Pretty much talking without any prior research of experience, like you probably don't have in  degree philosophy essays, maybe you took some entry level philosophy course, and I agree CRAP IS ACCEPTABLE, but degree work?  Yeah I don't think so, at least not in most Univs in the developed world I would assume...
That kind of talk is considered slander, because you are not only making statements that aren't for certain know to you to the best of your ability, but also that damage the views others might on what you are talking about, say if someone agreed with you but your reasoning is skewed, than you are damaging the subject matter by intent or ignorance, and therefore "slandering" the said subject, preventing others from understanding your view on the matter, since the matter is not being presented appropriately to begin with. meh.


Also, I think it is appropriate, to post it on this sort of thread because we all seem to be posting about psychology as it is easy to understand, psychology is one of the most difficult thing to understand, and the science is just now getting underway in its true form, and it will be awhile until Human brain emulations can be set to run and show us all the intricacies of the human psyche(assuming the brain can eventually be emulated as is expected, like other hardware, which although organic, the brain is)

But I cut all replies to this subject at this point. Wasting too much of my time.

Last edited by Yonosa (2009 July 21, 7:39 pm)

A random now you know moment...
When quoting another user, it is possible to delete parts not relevant to a response

IceCream wrote:

TheTrueBlue wrote:

IceCream: Nolite to bastardes carborundorum.

xxx
yonosa, read my post above again. i do, have a degree in philosophy (from one of the best universities in britain). yes, the post above isnt in such a serious style as i would hand in an essay, or as detailed. but the reasoning is the same.

In a philosophy essay, there isn't any slander. the whole point of philosophy is looking at reasoning, argument, and definitions. If any slightly skewed rationality was slander, then to be honest, most of philosophy wouldn't exist, as western philosophy is a lot about how you can pick logical holes in almost any argument, unless it's x=x. where i've made points i'm not sure on, i've generally qualified them as that, same with my opinions. Since philosophy and argument isn't objective truth, there is no "subject matter" to damage. The entire point is the reasoning process. I assume you're coming from a very different academic background. As for people misunderstanding the viewpoint, well, fine, but im not soooo bothered, so long as its in the general direction of what ive said. hope that clears things up.

I guess that is because philosophy itself seems to have evolved from a time when man tried to understand himself, when the right tools weren't yet available. I am personally in love with quantifiable data(a huge part of why I love the SRS so damn much) but I wonder how the field will be affected when research/experiment heavy based sciences steps to bat on the human thought process proverbial ball-field. It will be interesting to watch the developments huh? Maybe we can even turn today's form of philosophy into an art major or something in the future huh.