Some thoughts on dating

This is a very vast subject,
And no matter what I write here,
I’d still only be scratching the surface.

In my understanding,
All relationships/dating/romantic pursuits,
Are about mutually fulfilling needs.
At a broad level, the needs might be:
Emotional, Social, Psychological (Companionship),
Physical, Financial…and so on.

I feel the root of all of these needs starts from early childhood,
From the relationship with the parents.
How did the parents reflect the child?
In the formative stage,
A child knows itself only by parental reflection/mirroring.

If the parent treats the child like a satellite,
(Like an extension of themselves instead of an independent entity),
That has to revolve around the planet,
Which is the parent in this case,
Then that creates the co-dependency dynamic.

If the mother/father is herself/himself profoundly needy,
They may project the role of the hero/savior/martyr to the child.
Due to this, a role-reversal would take place,
Causing the child to be the caretaker/peacemaker/emotional-regulator for the parent.
This would create the hero/martyr/savior dynamic.

In other cases,
The child may be conditioned to be overly dependent on the parent,
And the parent would encourage that to keep them dependent/enmeshed.

An opposite kind of enmeshment is also possible,
Where the parent depends upon the child from an early age,
Causing the child to be unusually independent early-on,
And assuming adult-like responsibility from a very young age.

There are many more cases like this,
Which then create a plethora of possible dynamics.
I feel it is these dynamics that are once again enacted in romantic relations.
The role-plays conditioned early on,
Perpetuate themselves in future relationships for most.

Whether negative or positive,
The dynamics go on unless deeply introspected.
Essentially the holy-grail sought in these romantic relations is:
If original dynamic was positive: To perpetuate that same successful dynamic with the other, and have that pattern simply live on.
If the original dynamic was negative: To once again find someone to trust, and then attempt to get our narcissistic wounds healed through their positive reflection of us.

Generally, I observe, that if the original dynamic was positive,
The person has very little trouble finding a partner and continuing it.
Trust comes easy, it happens seamlessly somehow,
And suddenly in a wink of an eye,
You see them all settled, happy, continuing their shtick(lol).

Most of the drama however, happens in the latter case,
Where the original dynamic was negative.
I feel the reason why this case is so difficult is because,
Not only was there a lack of trust to begin with from both sides,
But also, each of them continues to be still attached to their parent(s) in a negative way.
After enduring huge amounts of narcissistic injury, they buried all of their hurt/shame/anger/sadness…and so on,
And all this buried resentment and unprocessed parental enmeshment/attachment,
Makes both of them project their own ‘unfulfilling-parent’ onto the other.

For each of them:
The real quest is to get a cocktail of the following validations from the other:

Intelligence/Status…and so on.
It is a quest for redemption:
To be seen in a positive light,
And granted entry into a better world,
That is now finally safe for them to enter.

But in order to get the above,
They first have to become vulnerable to the other,
And open themselves up to a new internalization.
But to have history not repeat itself, and double the hurt,
They would have to test each other first.
And this testing part is where things break off eventually.
1. Usually nobody passes their tests (far too steep).
2. Secondly they attract partners who resemble their parents (the ones who created the issues to begin with).
It then becomes a sort of negative-prophecy that keeps repeating.

The quest could be worded as:
“How do I find an other,
Who is safe/trustable/adept/and wants my best interests?,
Who gives me the positive-reflection of myself I have longed for,
Who thereby opens up a new safe world for me to start thriving,
Which is the opposite of the hellish in-between ambivalent place I am in now.”
Most of the time, such an other is never found or never passes the tests,
And therefore results in “serial-monogamy” or other forms of disguised-despair.

Imo the only way out of a negative illusion like this,
Is to wake up (to awaken).
Unfortunately, it is not as easy to change a negative illusion to a positive one.
The only way out is to make EVERYTHING conscious.

Life drive vs Death drive

Desire for activity vs Desire for quiescence
Desire for sound vs Desire for silence
Seeking social expansion vs. Retreating from social interaction
[Family children relatives friends business work expansion] vs [retreat recluse hermit isolation ascetic]
Becoming/learning vs Withdrawing/fading
Descent(into form) vs Ascent(back into formless)
Health(body wanting to live) vs disease(body wanting to die)
[High amplitude cycles of wake-dream-sleep] vs Near flat-lining of these cycles
Interest/passion/libido/hedonia vs Disinterest/dispassion/anhedonia
Exploration/Expansion vs Contraction/Self preservation

On Social dynamics

Let’s take 2 cases:
1. When you are in your own space.
2. When you are in a shared space with others.

When you are in your own space,
Various interests bubble up into your mind,
And the strongest one usually gets your attention/focus/investment/energy.

When you are in a shared group-space with others,
Then the different people are in a relationship with each other.
The following questions come up:
# Who is going to set the frame?
Will there be multiple smaller frames between the people?
Will the frame organically emerge or will it be a chaos?
# Who is naturally receiving? Who is naturally emitting?
# Who is open/malleable? Who is rigid/closed?
# What are the intentions/expectations of the various people around?
# Where are each of these people coming from?
# What is the common larger frame? What are the expectations? cultural structs? societal structs? governing that.
# What can I say, what can I not say?
# What are the set of possible topics I can speak about?
All this can be sensed.
All of these come under “social dynamics”.
This invariably happens when a group of people get together and create a group space.

Social interaction and Energy tuning

This is a really vast topic.
I’ll try to summarize some salient points.
Social interactions, camaraderie, and group eros, are mostly about energetic tuning. Everyone tunes into a similar energy space/context.
The words and activities then exchanged, are all a play, happening within the common context.

If you can harmonize, tune in, to the other’s/group’s energy signature, then you can say whatever you want, and it will be globally accepted.
On the other hand, if your energy signature does not tune into the other’s/group’s energy, then your very presence itself will feel awkward, even if you choose to say nothing.
So the essence of social interaction is = “energy/context tuning/harmonization”.
It is a certain trance, a certain absorption.

You bridge the distance between: Where you are, and where the other is.
There are different combinations possible:
# You go all the way to them [Codependent]
# They come all the way to you [Narcissist]
# You go all the way to them and then they come all the way to you [My preference].
# Both meet somewhere in the middle [Common dissociation, The general social reality and formal situations fall here].
So essentially all interaction/communion = is about bridging the distance, and closing the gap.

So really, the capacity you have for communion in social interactions depends on your conditioning/investment/interest or desire.
If you are relatively de-conditioned, then you have to make the stretch to meet the conditioned others. Often they cannot come to you. You go to them.
Situational friendships are because both the people are tuned to a common context, which is like the 4th combination in my list.
These friendships fade, when the common context is vacated.
A person permanently in the societal frame, has substantially repressed his individuality, and entirely invested in the middle ground. He enjoys communion at all times, but at the cost of his deeper individuality.
On the other hand, a hermit might happen when his conditioning is such that meeting others is too much of a stretch. So he lives in his own space/authenticity, until the other comes to him.

The limitations of time – Social/Clock time and Existential.

Supposing you moved to a paradise island,
With no humans around,
And no watch or time keeping device with you,
You would be free of clock time.
Clock time is also Social time.

But one would still not escape time itself,
Because there is also existential time,
Which is kept by the body itself.

So what is existential time?
Existential time is of the body cycles.
How long can I sit?
How long can I stand?
How long can I meditate?
How long can I talk?
How long can I be silent?
How long can I work (Physical and Mental)?
How long can I enjoy?
How long can I be creative?
How long can I be awake?
How long can I sleep?
How long can I be healthy?
How long can I socialize?
How long can I be alone?
How long can I stay at home?
How long can I be outside or travel?
…and so on.
So these cycles would still happen,
Even after you remove yourself,
From all civilization, social environments, and the clock.
Now, is it possible to overcome these existential limitations?
Is it possible to be and stay conscious of that dimension?
That is the next contemplation.

The seduction of social media images

Pictures are extremely limited information.
They are all porn and seductions.
They are all “A PART disguising itself as the WHOLE”.
The wholes/actuals/depths are millions of times vaster.
That is why, social media: facebook, tinder, twitter, linked in, blogs, instagram -> nothing really shows more than 0.01%.
It is all an alluring bait.
A carefully created MASK, to HIDE from and substitute for the whole ocean of the truth.
Taking the best parts(tapping the collective human fantasy coming from the collective shame, insecurities and illusions) and further heavenly-fying it [super enhanced 0.01%].
It is marketing, advertising, deception, masking, and it is conveying a specific message.
What is the picture that everyone is attempting to convey?
To advertise that their life is great, that they are secure, they know their shit, that they are sought-after, significant, popular, loved, admirable and worthy?
And people try to die into these socially created images, and lose themselves into it.
So that, this can serve as a perfect antidote/mask for all their shame and insecurities.
The origin of this is SHAME, both individual and collective.
I see it as a form of escapism and narcissism, all narcissism is after all rooted in the shame (the same root).
To narrow oneself into what is celebrated and acceptable, and disown all the other parts of oneself, and make-believe that image is all one is, and invest one’s whole life into this extraordinary limitation.

The game of masks


The game of masks:
Some people wear an [identity/mask/role/act], enjoy it, and then remove it.
And once alone or in a safe place, they remove the mask and then reflect on the act/mask/identity/role from their Real Self.
Some others NEVER remove the mask of identity/role.
They want to wear it 24×7 and lose themselves into believing they are that.

Someone like a sociopath has a very tough and thick mask, because it has been created from very early in life from “extraordinary levels of shame”.
So accordingly, since structure = power, they exude more confidence, charisma, and power.
And then, they try to play the game of masks with others, lose themselves into their game, and a corollary/extension of that is that “they apply the same principle in terms of what they are interested in when it comes to others”.
Since they themselves are actors and are trying to find the ultimate act to lose themselves into, they are always on the lookout for how to make the mask stronger.
So they look at other people wearing masks, and are attracted to them, and they are always curious about what mask/act to wear.
Because that is their very mission statement “Find the greatest personality/mask/identity/structure/role, that will give the greatest rewards and goodies from everyone.” More importantly they want a mask that is invincible and indestructible -> because all masks are “inherently insecure” and are really dependent upon others and social systems for their mere survival.
So really, they are enslaved to what is allowed/tolerated/celebrated in the matrix because their entire identity/mask/role is really a socially and other-conferred one, and rests on mercurial flimsy ground.

They are living off the alms of others, in the most fundamental sense.
They are aware of this, and that is why there is a heavy investment in manipulation and defenses – so that not only are they never detected, they also do a preemptive offensive attack on anybody who even attempts to disillusion them of their act/role/mask/identity.
They try to secure love and admiration everywhere, shaping themselves into whatever it takes to get the maximum of that, as a permanent antidote to insecurity.
They are constantly on the lookout for conventional positions of power, because then with that stable position, they have much greater security, and people are far more likely to tolerate their whims, tantrums, oppression and so on.
They are also hyper-controlling of everyone around, they frame control everything everywhere, because really THIS is only an extension of the REAL frame control they are constantly doing to themselves in order to constantly make them believe in the mask.

A kind of self-hypnosis, that becomes automated in them to such an extent, it then extends itself into controlling all of their environment and all of their interactions – inevitably coming across as oppressive to others.
To make up for that, they go into episodes of love-bombing, great people-pleasing, gift-giving, inflating their value etc. something to compensate, something such that the pros outweigh the cons, to keep up the idea that it is worth/valuable/great living with them, and that they are great people basically.

Underneath all of that is toxic shame.
A shame so terrible, they would do anything rather than look at that.
Isn’t that the reason anybody would choose to wear a MASK 24×7 and choose to never ever remove it?
Imagine if someone close to you did that one day, wearing a full mask the whole day, what would you ask them? “What is wrong, did you get mumps? some lip infection? some acne? some other skin infection? some scar? some injury?”
Would you not associate this with something along the lines above?
This is the basis for all those who wear masks and never choose to remove it.
The shame behind those is so much, that it turns off self-reflection irrevocably/totally/completely.
Even if someone with that level of toxic shame reads this whole essay, it will still not motivate them to look at the source of his shame.
Rather he might try to use all of this information as TOOLS to manipulate someone else, to strengthen the mask itself, rather than USE THIS TOOL for his OWN reflection.
Such is the power of shame = More often than not, they will choose death over self-reflection.
Is shame worse than physical death? = Is a good question to ponder.
One thing is clear though, the deepest origin of all MASKS (when one chooses to lose themselves completely into it) is SHAME.

From a more abstract level:
The individual is the microcosm, while society is the macrocosm.
An individual suppresses/represses things depending on the severity of shame present.
The same holds true for the larger collective we call society.
Society suppresses/represses things in its own scale and this affects all the individuals too.
There is shame at the level of the collective/society itself.
Look at the criminals in jails, asylums etc.
They all represent what society has rejected.
Certain behaviors/potentials of god are considered acceptable, while certain others are simply not-tolerated/suppressed/shunned/or even attacked.