I've found myself to be getting in passive and reactive mode in the last month, more than my usual. It felt like the nice guy in me was taking over. I know the reason (a girl I've been dating that I see as LTR material) and I was partially aware of this. But last tuesday I was listening to No more Mr. Nice Guy and, at some point, it hit me that I was doing it wrong.
I immediately snapped myself out of that mode and yesterday I could notice a surge of confidence in myself.
I’m interested in this phenomenon: do you guys notice something similar? How do you get yourselves out of it?
Also, is this something that I’ll have to live with? When I say needy and reactive this is still a much less invested version of me than my old AFC.
Hmm, I'm not 100% sure what "passive and reactive mode" exactly compromises of but from my experience I know that I myself, when interested and pursuing one particular woman I'm less interested and aggressive with other women. Call me old fashioned or something but I call this having a crush or falling in love. I go after that one lady and aim to spend as much time possible with her. When on earth did this become unnatural? I don't fret about it. I enjoy.
Being perfectly frank I up to this point never found myself wanting to 'snap out of it'. Why would you? It's one of the best emotional feeling i've come across in my life. But okay, maybe I'm reading you wrong and you're not acting like mr nice guy 'cause you caught the love bug. Why was your confidence down?
The following might be perceived as a rant ... but being "needy" is actually only negative when a woman refuses to satisfy your needs and doesn't recipricate the neediness. Only at that point do desires/wishes/plans becomes labled as needy. Wanting something from a specific person, i.e. spending time/sex physical attention/emotional connection is not negative or undesired by females. The dig it if you want them. Just like you like it when someone wants you.
This whole attitude that you shouldn't allow yourself to fully be consumed by emotion for one women at any given time stems from guys who a.)never met anyone they liked enough or loved or b.) by some guy who got rejected or ditched so painfully, he's living his life in fear of the episode repeating and therefore not allowing himself to go there again while advising everyone else not expose themselves to such emotions. It's total PUA bollocks. Abstracted: it's a defensive coping mechanism based on emotional trauma. And in my view it doesn't hold any kind of universal truth or value.
I notice myself some weeks I'm far less interested in women, some i'm pepetually horny and notice looks and connections everywhere, sometimes I'm very focussed on one particular person. I allocate that to biorhythm. Call it your mood ... your mojo ... whatever, it's a fluctuation I take it to be natural. I doubt there's a cognitive switch i can hit and go from one to the other through mental exercise.
Thanks for replying. Yes, you've got me wrong here, there's no love here, yet
By neediness, I mean being more invested in other's perceptions of you than in your own. It's not just the girl's perception, it permeates through my life. It also probably relates to me taking on more challenges than I had before.
Let me see if I can explain it better: imagine when you acquire new habits, you're good at it, and somehow you start taking them for granted. You slowly get out of the new, healthier, habits and go back to your old ones. At some point you wake up and realize, darn, I'm back to my old self and take effort to go back. To me, this is what I think it happened with my mental habits. What surprised me was that I was able to reinstate positive habits without much effort, without having to make a plan and take steps to reach the "new goal".
The operating systems in a computer is the analogy. You install Ubuntu with dual boot, it's great and your pc is much faster. After a while you start using windows at times because there is one or two programs that are easier to use there... Soon you're back full time on windows (and your Windows 7 is nice and way better than the old XP) until one day you realise that you're not using Ubuntu at all. You stop what you are doing, reboot your pc and go back to Ubuntu. It starts again, without much hassle and working perfectly.
This is what I'm wandering. Can you hold two sets of beliefs or "operating systems" in your head, or am I just fooling myself?
Ok got it, you caught yourself worrying too much about what she might be thinking about you and how you need to be in order for her to dig you. This ultimately not being helpful.
I think you can have multiple operation modes in you, yes. But if they can happily co-exist I think depends on how radical the change was and how harmful the changed behaviour was. For instance, you can't have a drug addiction, quit, and then have intermittent bouts of drug use, going from junkie to being clean. You need to shed it for good. At the same time you can make a conscious decision to work harder, then a vacation comes around you slack and slob for a few weeks, catch yourself and get your head right again. So when taking big leaps they probably have to be permanent, but if you're going up a ladder you can be stepping up and down a little.
So your boost in confidence came from being in control of your attitude and motivation?
I'm not sure I can fully relate. I guess it also somewhat depends on how your character works, if you can have ambivalent attitudes that alternate and have an "oh it's happening" experience.
Personally, I can't get no rest when I'm doing something half heartedly or not at all and know how it should be done properly. I'm just restless and can't be at ease till i've done it to the best of my ability. I'm not always aware I'm not doing my best but when someone points it out to me I have that urge to set it right. I guess I'm more the compulsive neurotic type of personality. I get guilt when somethings not right.
So your boost in confidence came from being in control of your attitude and motivation?
Does it come through in the writing? I couldn't tell for sure but I guess I have my own blindspots. I do know that I overvalue security. For the last 1,5 years I've been focused in creating a secure environment for myself, where I am in control and can move forward step by step. While having a good environment is still fundamental, I realized a while back that I was also underexposing myself. The trick now is to find the appropriate exposure, too much will get me wishing to retreat to my room, to little and I'll be doing the same rounds while probably fooling myself.
The vacation example of yours is perfect: that's what it happened last summer with me. But then it took me a while to overcome the resistance and to accept that I'd need to work to get rid of those bad habits, it wasn't a lightning fast cognitive switch. Maybe it's like you said, we're just wired different. I certainly enjoy overanalysing this stuff in my head
IF I understood what you are trying to say, change takes time; nobody changes over night. Sometimes you are going to be your old self and sometimes you are gonna be your new self. I think what it's important in those cases when you go back to be your old self you need to be aware of what's going on in your mind ahd shif it for the new belief you have. Easier said than done but that is what works for me. It's hard because sometimes your old beliefs hijack your mind but that's when you have to be aware and get out of that thought and replace it for another more apropiate thought.