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| “A man never knows how to say goodbye; a woman never knows when to say it.”
Gone; out flying.
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| Do not assume that all say what is true; instead, assume that all are liars and say what is socially acceptable.
Do not rely or trust in friendships with your kind, for they will eventually learn your vision, and separate themselves from you. Soon you will have an adversary treading your footsteps on the battlefield.
Do not destroy your enemies; trust in them. There is no one more honest, than one who outwardly has it out for your neck.
Men are like dogs; the only way to truly seduce one, is to feed it from your hand. Do not rush such an endeavor; your hand may end up missing fingers. Instead, slowly coax him through daily rituals of feeding from a distance, each day moving closer. When you finally feed him from your hand, you have a slave for life. Don't forget to give him a bone(r) now and then for his loyalty.
Women are like mirrors; each woman's true self, is hidden within her reflection. Learn to witness her true self through her outward chess moves, and invert it. Learn that, and you will have a part of her soul forever. Never miss the fine print; it could cost you dearly. They are much more dangerous than their male-counterparts, for their level of vanity is higher. There are three things I have yet to see; true freedom, a UFO, and a woman born with an instruction manual.
Learn to keep secrets; life itself as you know it, depends on perception. More often than not, it relies on another's perception of you. Sometimes, being honest can work in your favor. Sometimes, being honest can cause you to become a "favor".
Accept and admit your mistakes, when caught. It is better to hold a minor amount of virtue within your character, than to hold none at all.
You must choose in life, how you want to live it.
- To live with your mind, disconnected to everything but personal profit.
- To live with your heart, disconnected to everything created solely for profit.
Only once this decision is made, will you understand how your law of attraction works.
(Personal note)
Do not ever in your complete existence, believe that being aware of the evils around you, make you any less susceptible to them. Being aware of them, only in turn allows you sight.
Godspeed.
P.S. Working on a story in the meantime.
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| What does it mean to have a close friend? by Roger Baumgarte, Ph.D.
There are 4 dimensions of friendship relationships. Which one do you fit into?
First dimension: Independents vs Interveners
Cultures differ in the extent to which it is considered normal for close friends to actively intervene in each other's lives. On the Interveners end of this dimension, friends feel responsible or even obligated to advise, aid, protect, take care of, instruct, or influence their friends in a positive way. One expects to be taken care of by close friends, even when one feels more competent on the issues at hand. Such interventions by a friend are usually perceived as warm and caring, and are a critical aspect of feeling close to a friend. On the other end, Independents expect that even close friends feel a strong sense of independence from one another. Closeness is derived from feeling comfortable to talk about any topic, even personal problems, which may be followed by verbal expressions of support. However, active intervention into a friend's life would feel much too invasive, smothering or disrespectful of one's individuality. If a friend tried to tell another what to do or how to live, it would feel threatening to one's personal freedom, even denigrating and potentially detrimental to the friendship.
Second dimension: Includers vs Excluders
Includers are open and friendly to nearly everyone, even relative strangers. They have a small number of people they think of as "close friends," but when actual behavior is examined, only weak distinctions can be seen between the interactions of close friends versus acquaintances. They appear open and friendly to everyone. Excluders, by contrast, tend to make sharper distinctions between friends and non-friends. They feel and behave differently when in the presence of a close friend compared to acquaintances. There may even be noticeable personality shifts, from a relaxed playfulness with friends to an unsmiling, even antagonistic approach to others. In these cultures, close friends are thought of as a very exclusive in-group, not unlike family members, and often family labels are used to refer to them, such as "older brother".
Because of their approach to daily social situations, Includers tend to develop social skills for superficial interactions. They are comfortable carrying on conversations with relative strangers while waiting in a grocery store queue, for example. Their ready smiles, warm eye contact and open manner facilitate these interactions. These mannerisms may trigger in others a sense of ease at reciprocating their advances. They know how to bring out agreeable exchanges with others, and everyone feels at ease. By contrast, while they are skilled at most social situations, they are much less comfortable spending extended periods of time with a friend. They have difficulty dealing with the closeness that stems from prolonged contact. They often find, for example, that best friends don't make for good college roommates. Excluders, by contrast, tend to have the social skills required for these kinds of situations. They have social skills geared toward closeness. They can take a two-week vacation with a friend and remain friends at the end of it. They are able to negotiate the daily compromises and conflicts that arise from spending lots of time together. They have an approach to friendship that allows them to overcome such problems.
By contrast, Excluders feel much less at ease in dealing with superficial relationships, managing them in a fashion that renders the other party at ease.
Includers also tend to have a high need for social approval from others, even those with whom they are not well acquainted. They want everyone to like them. Their social skills for the superficial are at work throughout the day as they interact with people who are both well known or strangers. Their identities and self esteem are based in part on exercising these skills successfully, rendering all of their social interactions opportunities for positive feedback. A crossword, for example, from a checkout clerk at a grocery store can be upsetting. Excluders, by contrast, focus their energies and caring on a select few, who meet their social needs. It is irrelevant whether strangers like them or not. They don't expect strangers to be friendly and thus are not bothered by the lack of positive social feedback.
Third dimension: Idealists vs Realists
This dimension focuses on how we think about our close friends. Idealists tend to respond to surveys about their friends in glowing terms. They rate their closest friends as intelligent, charming, interesting, and willing "to do anything for me." In cross-cultural surveys, they rate their friendships as closer than do those from other cultures. However, they rarely exhibit behavior reflecting direct involvement in the friend's life. They distinguish sharply between close friends and others, but these distinctions are mostly sentimental and cognitive idealizations. Realists tend to see their close friends in more realistic terms, both the good and the not-so-good. Like siblings who are close in age, their friendships contain jealousies and disappointment in addition to fun, love, caring and loyalty. On surveys, they may rate the friend in both positive and negative terms. Yet they are more likely than the Idealists to become directly and actively involved in the friend's life when needed.
Fourth dimension: Justifiers vs Amenders
When a friend does something that is hurtful, such as not following through on a promise, how does he or she deal with the transgression? Giving a clear, detailed explanation, with a sincere apology would qualify one as a Justifier. The apology would be long and believable, perhaps even dramatic as the promise breaker explains all that happened. An Amender would explain things only very briefly if at all. It is assumed the friends will understand-- after all, they know each other well. A detailed apology would seem insincere and may even indicate distrust. The promise breaker may make an extra effort, if it is felt necessary, to reinforce the relationship by saying or doing things that let the other know how to ensure that the friendship is on good terms, that no harm was done by the broken promise.
Justifiers reflect lower context cultures, where putting things into words, explaining the events that led to the broken promise would be expected and appropriate. Both parties will feel better once everything is understood. Amenders use their knowledge of the friend, their long history together, to put the broken promise in context. There is no need to explain. Perhaps the friend habitually breaks promises, in which case the overwhelming sentiment would be reassurance that they are still close friends. If there is an explanation it would be quite brief and humble.
Also relevant to the last two dimensions, it has been found that Idealists and Justifiers tend to show a higher degree of what social researchers refer to as relationship maintenance. There is an extensive literature on relationship maintenance and when we examine the measures used to assess this construct, we find that the primary emphasis is on communication issues. These measures focus almost exclusively on talk, the kind of talk that tends to reinforce the relationship. The assumption is that one can't have a good relationship without good communication. In marital relationships, where the construct is studied most often, it refers to expressions of love and affection. In friendship, it tends towards ego-boosting talk. Realists or Amenders, by contrast, see less need for frequent ego building of their friends. They tend to see their friendships as givens, something over which they have little control. Indeed, they may have a somewhat fatalistic notion of friendship--"these are the friends I have to learn to live with." However, they are more likely than Idealists and Justifiers to intervene in the life of a close friend-- taking care of the friend is part of one's role of being a good friend. "After all, my friend would do the same for me!"
Conclusion:
Recall that classic notions on cultural differences in close friendships hold that people in collectivist cultures have fewer and closer friendships. Direct, empirical tests of these assertions often fail to support them. The resolution of this paradox lies in an examination of these four dimensions and their implications for what it means to have a close friend. THe last dimension, for example has strong implications for the interaction patterns of close friends, not only with respect to how they deal with conflicts and apologies, but also how closeness develops. Friends become closer by revealing increasingly personal things about themselves, resulting in social penetration or increasing closeness. Relationship maintenance is based almost entirely on verbal expressions of support. Self disclosure and verbal expressions of support may not be the most critical facilitators or indicators of closeness in cultures outside the U.S., especially collectivist, high-context cultures.
While self disclosure and expressions of social support do enhance friendships in these cultures, there may be other equally critical elements for closeness, such as a shared, common history. having experienced critical or memorable moments in their lives together. Closeness may also be indicated by the extent to which friends feel comfortable intervening in each other's lives. Gradually augmented and mutual interventions over time serve to solidify the relationship and each friend's commitment to it. Since common measures of closeness and relationship maintenance emphasize self-disclosure and verbal expression of support, friendships in individualist cultures are frequently assessed as closer than those in collectivists cultures. Caring and actively intervening in a friend's life are not represented in the Western psychological literature on friendship, if one excludes studies focused on verbal expressions of support. People in individualist cultures also score higher on measures of close friendships because of their tendency to "idealize" close friendships. This idealization reflects how they think about and feel about close friends. While these thoughts and feelings are very real to them, they represent a complex set of psychological phenomena which attempt to reinforce their own self concepts, a critical need among people in individualist cultures.
Perhaps most importantly, the four dimensions provide a way of deconstructing the individualism-collectivism dimension as it applies to close relationships. At a practical level, one can gain insights into the interactions with one's closest friends, especially when these friendships cross cultural lines. Closeness and caring in one culture are expressed verbally, by expressions of support which may seem very lame or even insincere to people in another culture. Others might express closeness and caring by actively intervening in the affairs of te friend, taking some control over aspects of the friend's life, a move that might appear condescending or invasive to someone in another culture. It is all a matter of what it means to be a close friend.
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| This is to all of you, that I know. I could not think of a title for what I am about to say.
I would speak on the behalf of my fellow men, but I choose not to, based on the "Speak for yourself" analogy.
I choose not to possibly throw dirt upon my own beliefs, by generalizing all males to be equal.
"I was raped."
"I had an abortion."
"I had a stillbirth."
Each one of you, have gone through something that no matter how much I attempt to fathom experiencing, I cannot. Moments change lives, as we are all affirmatively aware of. For some of the women, I was the first person they shared their tribulations with, before helping them along their routes to recovery. For others, I was their only confidante, and still am.
To both groups, I am equally unmoving.
The weight.... The weight.
It never lightens, only camouflage itself.
The hugs stop, the bright smiles and glowing eyes, soon fade into glazed, melancholy stares. The bags underneath your eyes, only hint towards the baggage in your mind. I've been supportive through the late-night crying, through the painfully rhetorical questions.
"Why me?"
"What the fuck am I supposed to do now?"
"How to I tell my family/boyfriend/husband?"
"What will they think of me?"
"Did I deserve this?"
"What else was I supposed to do?"
"What if I had of kept him/her?"
"What will I tell my next child?"
As the view you once held for yourself slowly deteriorates, and you slowly start to believe that something is "wrong" with you... I am still here. Quietly listening, watching. Waiting. I cannot change what's happened. As much as I may wish that I could've made the sacrifices necessary to change the events that have occurred, I cannot do that either. In truth, I can't do anything.
I can't make it right, when your relationships start to fall apart.
I can't change how your boyfriend/husband begins to see you differently.
I can't change how your family and friends begin to see you as a victim, or treat you as if you were handicapped.
But I will stay. I will stay up all night with you, and I won't let you go when I hold and comfort you. I will listen. I won't try to fix anything I have no ability to. I will not judge. I will help you when you desire such help and reaffirm how special and strong I believe you to be; how special you should believe yourself to be. Yes, you are different, and you will forever be. Your view of life has distanced you from those of your kind, who haven't experienced such atrocities and tribulations in life. In all honesty though, as much as you may believe and even attempt to convince yourself otherwise..
You ARE STILL worthy of TRUE Love.
Let my unmoving compassion, and support of your emotional and mental needs, be a testament to that belief.
Let every breath you inhale and exhale, be a testament of the strength in your heart, and resilience in your soul.
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| I know of a woman, in her twenties; she is one of the most captivating women I know. She isn't the prettiest, but she is attractive, and makes great usage of her appearance. She doesn't have the most curvaceous body, yet she does know how to accent her figure, and it is a nice one. Overall, a bit above average but not drop dead sexy.
She granted me the pleasure of watching her in her private sector. I'm always curious to learn from another, male or female. I to this day, still dissect her actions, both blatant and subtle. After a week of constantly mentally recording and analyzing, I figured out what made her seem so alluring, so magnetic. So mysterious... It was her choice of silence.
She would make a quiet, nearly secretive entrance. When you spoke, she would listen with wide eyes, and a churning mind, followed by giving a personal summary of your speech making sure she understood what you were both saying, and your intentions.
(1st note: She would give no immediate facial expression. She would make a great poker player. The strength within her straight visage, hid her interests. With no facial expression, you cannot witness what she enjoyed or found disturbing. This gives her a sense of power over her situation, over the conversation. Over the overall direction of momentary events.)
She would not often speak of her own interests, but would delve into your own.
(2nd note: When I noticed this, I smiled from ear to ear. I saw multiple things happening, all at once. By delving into your personal interests, she:
- Kept the focus off of herself; thus keeping herself in a position of control.
- Gave the illusion of being genuinely interested in you and/or your information
- Could keep a mental note of how selfish/arrogant you are, based on how you talk about yourself.
- Read your body language, and watch if it matches your speech.)
Soon, I was given the offer of watching her speak on the phone with a male whom was interested in her; he had been for quite sometime, and she told me of him and his desire to date her. I could sense her lack of interest in dating him. But he was a good and very reliable friend to her, and this she needed. As they spoke, she put her cell phone on speaker. I could hear the urgency in his voice, as he tried to help her with her momentary problem. I was awed by her choice of action. She didn't deter him. She didn't root him on. She didn't make any immediate decision at all, she simply left the option open.
(3rd note: It wasn't just the open-ended questions and actions that awed me. They didn't until I sat down and thought about its effects.
- She had the option to do what she desired to; until she said "yes" or "no", he waited. By having him wait, she could better analyze her situation, and furthermore, his place within it.
- She kept his emotions at bay, but never attempted to get rid of them; we all know when you're interested in someone, you are quicker to come to their aid when needed, than if they were simply "friends" of yours. Not many are truly kind, and most that are, are considered fools or opportunists. Every opportunity isn't a profitable one.)
In both watching her, and my personal experiences with her, she would both arrive, and depart, without prior warning. This to me initially wasn't noticed; I am the same in this method of spontaneity. The difference would be, she would depart for days, weeks, even months at a time, before returning, most likely either "ruining" an event, or more like being received as a higher priority. She'd be missed, and desired among other things. Never gone for too long, for she didn't want to lose position in that person's life, nor be forgotten.
(4th note: This reminded me of a Law and Order episode I watched sometime ago; A serial killer, cloaked from head to toe in black, broke into the house of a prestigious family. The most noteworthy characteristic of this individual, was that there were no noteworthy characteristics of this individual, at all. Black goggles meant no eye color. "It" was fully clothed, from head to toe. It held the gun with one hand, and pointed with another, not speaking a single word throughout the entire endeavor. The husband eventually lost his mind, being captivated by terror. He offered his car, his money, his jewels, his bonds, even sexual offers with his wife, to no avail. Though she and the serial killer as far as I know are nothing alike, the traits are very similar;
- Her silence, allowed for others' personal thoughts, to surface through imagination. A.K.A She was seen as mysterious.
- Along with personal thoughts, came emotions, intentions, hopes, fears. By being silent, even momentarily, she controlled you by provoking your subconscious mind.
- As mentioned before, when returning, she'd be seen as a higher priority, than other people/social outings. Time with her was rare, and most only appreciate what will knowingly be lost sooner, than later.)
What I got when I combined all of her traits together, was one ridiculously strong and sexy woman. One of refined tastes, and impeccable manners. She through listening to so many different types of people, gained a vast amount of knowledge, information, and entertainment. She is someone sweet, caring, un-judging, yet who took notes meticulously, not forgetting to cross one 't' or dot one 'i'. In essence, a man's living, breathing, walking fantasy. A work of art, to be admired. If I've learned anything, I've learned that she WILL be admired.
Where the majority of the population feel the need to be outspoken, she knows and taught me the value of silence.
(Editor's note; If you have a twitter, you should close it and slap yourself upside the head, for even joining that site. Don't let your narcissistic nature get the best of you. That is all.)
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