- Joined
- Jul 5, 2013
- Messages
- 182
Hello everyone,
It's been a while. I've been super busy traveling and working so haven't been active on the forum lately. However, yesterday I had a conversation with a man and it opened up an interesting topic that I thought I would share the story with y'all.
Our friendship is only a few weeks old and we mostly talk about really deep things like the nature of personhood and "why people do what they do" type stuff. I always enjoy our conversations, and often leave having learned something or discovering the seed of some idea or concept that I was not previously aware of.
But yesterday on our walk, while talking about "the game of life" (touchy topic for most people, already), he started talking about how if anyone is fighting on the streets or anywhere he will automatically break it up. He's not a very physically strong person (he used to be -- now he's kind of fat), so I playfully call him out on having Superman Syndrome and joke about how he must go "save girls from all the cruel men in the world!" He didn't like that.
Turns out he really does feel this way and I offended him. He truly sees it as part of his calling to stop any sort of violence. Certainly admirable, but I think in practice it mostly is a mating strategy (read: white knight), judging by his history of past relationships, but I didn't want to point that out, suspecting that that would only exacerbate the problem.
In a way I admire the whole savior mentality, but there's something there that I don't think he's aware of. It seems rather anal to me; I get the image of a "clenched" character; not open to his dark side and a bit desperate to change the "tides of time". He's a very smart man, but that of course doesn't mean there aren't burrs in his character still.
He told me about a rape he once broke up (kudos to him, though he was using it as a moral policing trump card) and how he always gets in the way of punches, no matter if he understands the situation or not. I think it's a little extreme (the latter of the two), but he seems to think that it is an age thing (he is much older than me) and that it's experience talking. I don't really buy that though.
Nonetheless, his assumptions based on what he knows about me ({I know women love sex and dominant men, and also am in touch with my shadow (in a Jungian/Ursula K. Le Guin sense)} has made him identify me as a bad, privileged, misguided, peace-hating man (ironically we argue on what a society seeking our modern notion of "peace" would lead to). I tried to address the issue further but he "clenched up". I've been smart enough to keep my background in seduction outside of our conversations, though it wouldn't take a genius to figure out that I'm an active and conscious seducer, and he definitely resents that about me -- ignorantly fearing I'm a potential dangerous man for women (read: edgy).
This whole exchange made me think about the nature of a white knight. I used to see it as any guy who would defend arbitrary conformist rules in the sexual sphere, usually to protect himself, build up his ego, status jockey, and, behind all of those motives, increase his chances of finding a mate (settling for being the benefactor -- seeing attraction as caused by level of investment + number of good deeds). Now I'm not sure I can draw so concrete a line though. He's a white knight grown up and integrated with a fuller character, and he has taken on characteristics and mindsets beyond your typical (young) white knight -- and I'm not used to dealing with this type of character.
One thing this reminded me of is the material covered in this post by Chase: https://www.girlschase.com/content/socia ... -seduction. I reviewed this post before writing this and it addressed the situation well, and I would recommend checking this article out again to you if you're not yet at the level where you've wholly internalized its precepts.
I'm going to cut this guy out of my life, but I'm now imagining situations where that's not easily possible (like if it's your boss who's doing this). This has motivated me to step up my social control and to focus more on seeming natural, and not opening up to people so quickly, even if they seem like genuinely open-minded folk. There usually will be some kinks and insecurities in their somewhere.
Hopefully you found this story useful!
Cheers,
Oskar
It's been a while. I've been super busy traveling and working so haven't been active on the forum lately. However, yesterday I had a conversation with a man and it opened up an interesting topic that I thought I would share the story with y'all.
Our friendship is only a few weeks old and we mostly talk about really deep things like the nature of personhood and "why people do what they do" type stuff. I always enjoy our conversations, and often leave having learned something or discovering the seed of some idea or concept that I was not previously aware of.
But yesterday on our walk, while talking about "the game of life" (touchy topic for most people, already), he started talking about how if anyone is fighting on the streets or anywhere he will automatically break it up. He's not a very physically strong person (he used to be -- now he's kind of fat), so I playfully call him out on having Superman Syndrome and joke about how he must go "save girls from all the cruel men in the world!" He didn't like that.
Turns out he really does feel this way and I offended him. He truly sees it as part of his calling to stop any sort of violence. Certainly admirable, but I think in practice it mostly is a mating strategy (read: white knight), judging by his history of past relationships, but I didn't want to point that out, suspecting that that would only exacerbate the problem.
In a way I admire the whole savior mentality, but there's something there that I don't think he's aware of. It seems rather anal to me; I get the image of a "clenched" character; not open to his dark side and a bit desperate to change the "tides of time". He's a very smart man, but that of course doesn't mean there aren't burrs in his character still.
He told me about a rape he once broke up (kudos to him, though he was using it as a moral policing trump card) and how he always gets in the way of punches, no matter if he understands the situation or not. I think it's a little extreme (the latter of the two), but he seems to think that it is an age thing (he is much older than me) and that it's experience talking. I don't really buy that though.
Nonetheless, his assumptions based on what he knows about me ({I know women love sex and dominant men, and also am in touch with my shadow (in a Jungian/Ursula K. Le Guin sense)} has made him identify me as a bad, privileged, misguided, peace-hating man (ironically we argue on what a society seeking our modern notion of "peace" would lead to). I tried to address the issue further but he "clenched up". I've been smart enough to keep my background in seduction outside of our conversations, though it wouldn't take a genius to figure out that I'm an active and conscious seducer, and he definitely resents that about me -- ignorantly fearing I'm a potential dangerous man for women (read: edgy).
This whole exchange made me think about the nature of a white knight. I used to see it as any guy who would defend arbitrary conformist rules in the sexual sphere, usually to protect himself, build up his ego, status jockey, and, behind all of those motives, increase his chances of finding a mate (settling for being the benefactor -- seeing attraction as caused by level of investment + number of good deeds). Now I'm not sure I can draw so concrete a line though. He's a white knight grown up and integrated with a fuller character, and he has taken on characteristics and mindsets beyond your typical (young) white knight -- and I'm not used to dealing with this type of character.
One thing this reminded me of is the material covered in this post by Chase: https://www.girlschase.com/content/socia ... -seduction. I reviewed this post before writing this and it addressed the situation well, and I would recommend checking this article out again to you if you're not yet at the level where you've wholly internalized its precepts.
I'm going to cut this guy out of my life, but I'm now imagining situations where that's not easily possible (like if it's your boss who's doing this). This has motivated me to step up my social control and to focus more on seeming natural, and not opening up to people so quickly, even if they seem like genuinely open-minded folk. There usually will be some kinks and insecurities in their somewhere.
Hopefully you found this story useful!
Cheers,
Oskar
