Days 92-96: The Rules - part 1

22-26122012

I've been going through my behavior in romantic relationships, and I noticed that even though I have known “The Rules” of the relationship game to be manipulation and thus abuse and dishonesty, I have lived according to them anyway. “I know I'm living as The Relationship Game, and I know it's fucking sick, but what choice do I have? I'm going to end up alone if I don't.” So my excuse for doing it has been the fear of ending up alone and the belief that not having a partner is a “bad thing”.

So I decided I would go back to a book I once read, despised and nevertheless – utilized. It's called The Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right. This book was once given to me accompanied with the statement: “Remember: the existence of this book should always stay a secret to men, so do NOT show this to any male! Only share it with other women!” I recognized the inequality and absurd separation within those words and didn't refrain from talking to men about the contents of the book.

However, the contents of the book were such that I, in an emotional turmoil after a major break-up, read from cover to cover. I read about tactics and tricks I had been using and which had been working, and the book explained it's reasoning behind why this happens; and I took this as evidence that these “rules” actually work. What I did not consider was that even though these “rules” work within the social construct of dating, it doesn't mean they have anything to do with the reality, as they are simply a social agreement based on dishonesty that ceases to exist when one stops participating in it.

And so I ended up using these tricks of the trade, most of them unconsciously, because I complied to the relationship construct which I perceived to be “beyond” me, an entity I have no control over, not realizing that it is always I who creates my relationships through my choices and actions even if such an entity exists.

So I will now start going through the rules of the book one by one with self-forgiveness and self-corrective statements to release myself of this entity we have all created and sustained for far too long. I will try to not make this into a book review as my writing is mainly about how I have utilized what I have read and interpreted [a note to self].

Part 1 – Introduction (chapters 1-4)

The introduction chapters lay out the following concepts:

• getting married as an ultimate goal
• finding “the one”
• “men love challenges, so we become the challenge” - the foundation of The Game
• pretending disinterest to “drive the guy crazy” - manipulation
• being the best you can be = enhancing one's looks and behavior to “get the guy”
• compromising oneself to present a “mysterious” personality
• ladylike politeness and friendliness
• The Rules are a secret from men

In the book all of this is justified with the fear of ending up alone. “You don't want to end up alone, do you? You want to get married, right?” The fear is seen to be valid and “ending up alone” a genuine concern, while “finding the one” is overtly glorified to odd extents.

When I first read this book I was an ideal target for all this provocation. I allowed the words of the book to magnify both my fear and desire and also bought into the false hope it presented. Thus all of the tricks it suggested did not only make sense to me but seemed tempting because of the fear/desire. This is why I did not question the tricks – all that mattered was that I could find a way to escape loneliness.

I will now briefly go through some of the points on the list I gathered above to map out where I stand concerning these points.

-- Getting married as the ultimate goal --

As this book was conceived and written in the cultural environment of the USA, marriage is seen as an unquestioned goal, and it is glorified by painting ideal visions of a happy and fulfilling marriage. When I first read this book the concept of marriage seemed very distant to me as it is no longer such a strong cultural feat where I live. What I did relate to, however, was the envisioned ideal of family life and partnership.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to envision a future image of having a family, thus creating an expectation to fulfill the image, not realizing I am binding myself into a behavioral loop which will result either in disappointment or satisfaction (which will in turn become dissatisfaction), not allowing myself to live as breath in each and every moment, creating my experience HERE instead of predetermining it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I create an image of the future in my mind I have already decided how to live all of the upcoming moments in favor of that image to become created, and that I thus do not in fact live in any of those moments as my directive principle is the mind that is trying to bring forth the image.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that an image is two-dimensional and never takes into consideration the entire reality, and that this is why focusing on an image will not bring forth the desired outcome as it never considers what needs to be done to get there – and this “there” is not fully realized as what it would be in actual reality as it is only an image that lacks a multitude of real-life dimensions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to buy into the family/partnership ideal that the society around me promoted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire this ideal image of a family life because I was dissatisfied with who I was, wanting to escape and not face who I have accepted and allowed myself to become, believing I could “fix” my misery by getting to the ideal – not realizing that had I managed to get myself a family from this starting point, the issues I have not faced would still be there.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the reason for my loneliness was my surroundings instead of seeing and realizing I am the one who creates the experience of loneliness as I am the centre of my being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame my surroundings for “making me” lonely as I have misinterpreted the reason for my loneliness to be the fact that there's no one around me, this actually being the consequence of my own behavior, being and actions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the root cause for my loneliness lies within me as it is my loneliness which no one else is able to experience or in any way access.

-- Finding “the one” --

The book promotes the belief that there is “the one” for everyone – meaning that the purpose of dating is to find a one single person that you can spend the rest of your life in a relationship with, hence the insistence of getting married. This doesn't necessarily include the belief that there is only one person on Earth who's competent for this position, but it simply states that only one person is necessary, and that it is valid to place one person in a “special” position. “The rest of one's life” is also never properly addressed, as it is something “beyond” the dating period – whatever happens after you hook the guy is not considered.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe there is “someone out there for me”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, as I have been lonely, to make myself feel better through hope by thinking there is “someone” in the world who is “right for me”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to comfort myself with an imagined picture of the future, not realizing that comforting here is an act of escapism as I refuse to face what's here and instead immerse myself in pictures of happiness, stability and love.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not look for solutions to bring out happiness, stability and love as who I am right here and now instead of believing there's a magic fix in the shape of another person who will create these attributes for me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility to create my life into a livable state of being and instead expect others to fix my life for me.

-- “men love challenges, so we become the challenge” - the foundation of The Game --

The Relationship Game as a social agreement of dating and courting is often described to be “hunting”, and this description pretty accurately follows how this book sees it. The thesis of this book is that “men love challenges” - that if anything comes too easy they will soon be bored and move on to something else, and that only when things get challenging enough does their interest become solid – and so to “not be the easy one” women are advised to “become the challenge” in order to maintain the interest of “the one”.

I can see how and why this may have actually become an issue with some people. The dating culture itself in some cultures may be so fast-food-like that it is easy to miss the people that would actually be a “match”, as you're in a hurry to go through as many people as you can, anxious to find your soulmate, allowing first impression and guesswork to be the judge of who another person is. So I can see this rule above to be a response from the women who believe they are unfairly judged and skipped.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to be “a challenge” as I have not wanted to be “easy”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define willingness to communicate and interact openly and honestly to be “easiness” and assign this a negative value.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define holding back on communication and interaction to be “a challenge” and assign this a positive value.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe being “a challenge” is a good thing to be because I believed this is what others want of me in the context of dating.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to consider what I believed to be the opinion of others before myself considering my self-definition, behavior and actions in the context of dating.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not communicate openly about my experience because I have wanted to maintain the “mysterious” “challenge” persona which I believed to be what I needed to be within the context of the dating game in order to “make it”; and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stay within this persona because I felt safe within it as I didn't have to face and expose myself (at least not right away).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I need to live as the “mysterious challenge” persona because I would not “make it” within The Game if I didn't.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in the “hunt” by becoming “the hunted” by giving as little of myself as possible in order to maintain the interest of another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even if I communicated openly about all that I experience right from the start of a relationship, there would still be shitloads of dimensions to my experience that would take more than a lifetime to share and that what I am will thus never “run out” - here now seeing the fear that I am not interesting enough and need to withhold “who I am” as my self-image because I fear there's too little of it to keep people interested – here now realizing that I have misunderstood what it is that people find interesting in each other and also the whole concept of “interest” itself, as I have not understood who I am and what a human being is and who we are as social beings.

-- pretending disinterest to “drive the guy crazy” - manipulation --

This is one of the major themes in the book: pretend you're not into him and he will be crazy about you, because that's when you become “the biggest challenge” and the trophy he just “has to” win over. So all kinds of tricks are introduced, from not contacting him in a certain number of days to pretending to be busy when you're actually not. This is for me a major point because I still behave according to this advice. As I once noticed it worked (to a certain extent) it has been difficult to shake off and even locate.

For example, I have recently noticed that I have a tendency of pretending I don't see a person approaching or entering a situation in order to appear “busy” or “lively” or something, busy with other people or the stuff I'm doing to present an image of independence, and to give them a chance to spot me first and approach me. Within this there's also fear of rejection – not wanting to be the one to initiate contact, because “what if he rejects me?”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to appear as an image of independence instead of living here and expressing myself according to my actual experience.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pretend I haven't noticed a person I know even though I actually have, because I have wanted to appear a certain way and because I have feared rejection.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify passiveness because I have “known” the other would eventually initiate contact with me despite me ignoring their presence, this “knowledge” as an understanding of how the Relationship Game works as a social agreement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is valid to pretend disinterest towards people I am interested in, not realizing this is in fact manipulation and self-suppression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the extent of the harm I cause myself as I suppress my self-expression as wanting to acknowledge the presence of another person / contact another person / interact with another person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I create relationships from this starting point of fear and passiveness, I lay out a foundation for that relationship to be a place for me to express and live as fear and passiveness.

-- being the best you can be = enhancing one's looks and behavior to “get the guy” --

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to change my physical appearance and behavior according to what I perceived others to prefer within the misconception that “being the best I can be” meant that I had to mold myself to fit a certain predetermined ideal, not realizing that this image of “the best that I can be” had in fact nothing to do with who I actually am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself believe that I was “less attractive” in terms of what I looked like and how I behaved and that there were others who were “more attractive”, and that in order to compensate for my lack of attractiveness I had to put on more layers of masks, not realizing that the reasons I was left alone (which I misinterpreted to mean I was unattractive) were such that needed to be stripped off – that the issues weighing me down were extra baggage that needed to be let go, and that putting on more masks would not fix the problem and would instead simply make my baggage heavier and increase the work to be done.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need to be “the best I can be” in every situation where there's a possibility to interact with potential dating partners in order to “never waste a chance” to charm someone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to wear make-up, do my hair and choose my clothing from the starting point of desiring to make a good impression by appearing “attractive” (= according to the beauty ideal).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to behave in a pleasant way (= avoiding conflict) to make a good impression by appearing “friendly” (= according to the social agreement of not confronting others).

To be continued.