Lou, I don't think it's limited to gender. I scored high 30s myself I had that thought in mind about most LD W's. I can guess BB would have scored in the 30's too by her way of thinking. I can imagine BB saying some things were a 3 or 4 in her mind for her, but I would think she displayed a 1 or 2 in actuality towards me.
You and I both came from impoverished backgrounds. We learned to "not want". Correct me if I'm wrong, Add, “don't even think about asking” unless it was to prevent serious injury. Asking my stepfather about some things was almost sure to start him in anger mode sometimes. I asked something a bout a baseball game and he belittled me for not knowing.
The news, baseball, Sunday evening regulars, along with some other adult oriented programs were all that he allowed on his TV set.
When men act this way, it can derail their masculinity and can produce a "princess syndrome" in the wife. I have to see how to get out of that mess.
Being in the service industry might have added to the problems I have today.
I will keep reading here and on the “Nice Guy” site. I might read the book.
I think the cardinal error would be that the Nice Guy is that he does not know himself and is not comfortable with himself and is looking for someone external to make him feel good about himself. Pretending he does not have wants or needs is merely one way to get that result.
I think you are right.
Originally Posted By: fearless
I think this is more about understanding wants versus needs. And how we should be cautious of letting our wants get out of hand. Think about it. As a society we all seem to want to have MORE things and in order to have more we want things to be cheaper. And therefore we are implicitly okay with letting people in other countries work 12 hour days 7 days a week for dollars a day in order to satisfy our wants.
Certainly we should be cautious about letting wants get out of hand, or more to the point, we should prioritize them properly. A "need" is simply a stronger want. We want oxygen very badly, but we might not always get it. So you're always making decisions about prioritizing your wants. Do you want a big-screen TV or do you want a larger house or do you want to spend lots of time with your kids and get enough sleep nearly every night? Choose wisely... you only get one life, and the clock is ticking.
And preventing people in other countries from working all those hours isn't going to make them better off, unless we've got reason to believe they are all making bad choices. We didn't run their economies into the ground and eliminate the better opportunities that they should have had. (Maybe you're starting from the assumption that we did. That's a whole nother discussion. Suffice it to say that we as a society are implicitly okay with other people in other countries generally doing whatever they think best unless they pose a threat to us or try to forcibly stop still other people in other countries from selling us things we really want. This attitude has good points and bad points.)
a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
To be clear - wanting to be with a woman that loves and desires you is absolutely healthy; NEEDING a woman to want and desire you in order to feel like you are acceptable and validated is not healthy. Can you see the difference?? I see the difference.
The Co-dependency movement tried to eliminate some of the wanting to be with a woman that loves and desires you is absolutely healthy;
I don't think it takes an impoverished background. Just caregivers that hammer home the notion that "no one cares what you want!"
Yeah, that does it too.
The impact for me included:
- To even ask would make my parents feel bad because they couldn't provide it.
- So, I seldom asked and every request expressed came with a nice crunchy coating of guilt for asking and wanting in the first place.
I guess the lesson was to keep needs minimal and make few requests with lots of caveats and "outs" so that the other person could refuse without losing any sleep over it.
However, I think when we do this, we "gray" ourselves out as individuals.
Quote:
(Unfortuately, when my 6 year old son was whining a never ending litany of "I want... I want... I want", I snapped and explicitly said in a fairly loud voice "No one cares what you want!" I wish I could take that back. Maybe I can with better messages given over time. But most of the time, children don't and shouldn't get what they want, so it's kind of tricky)
With the smell of the baggage of our upbringing everpresent in our nostrils , NOP and I both would tell our daughter that we loved her, that we strove to do the best/right thing in our parenting and that we were both sure there would be things about our parenting that she would look back on and say WTF?
And preventing people in other countries from working all those hours isn't going to make them better off, unless we've got reason to believe they are all making bad choices. We didn't run their economies into the ground and eliminate the better opportunities that they should have had. (Maybe you're starting from the assumption that we did. That's a whole nother discussion. Suffice it to say that we as a society are implicitly okay with other people in other countries generally doing whatever they think best unless they pose a threat to us or try to forcibly stop still other people in other countries from selling us things we really want. This attitude has good points and bad points.)
This is off-topic but I admit I did write it to see if it would get a response. As to running other country's economy's into the ground, check out the book "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins if you want a real eyeopener.
I'll give a quick response here and if you want to continue it elsewhere, let me know.
I am not talking about preventing others from working. I am talking about consciously choosing to buy things made by people that are paid a living wage. Of course this is MY choice (and I am certainly not 100% good at it by ANY means) but it does bring up the point of where that line is for different people. Some people truly don't care how others have to live or work as long as they get what they WANT. What if there really is slavery in some of these countries? Would that be a line you would draw for cheap clothing, etc. or not? I am not talking about government decisions here; I am talking about all of our personal ethics.
I have always preferred to try to hire people directly - carpenters, painters, plasterers, etc. because I prefer to pay the person doing the work $15-25 per hour to do the work rather than pay the contractor the same amount of money and have someone paid minimum wage to do the work. Just MY personal quirk. To be clear I don't expect others to feel this way.
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
but they just don't "get" that the Hs are much more impressed by a good SL than they are with a squeaky-clean house (generalizing here, I know).
Yes, but if the SL lacks, then shortcomings in other areas like a not so clean house tend to get magnified out of proportion. I suppose that only reinforces the notion that maintaining a good SL is not as important as maintaining a Beaver Cleaver household.
Mrs NOP To be vulnerable may lead to rejection. Rejection leads to pain. Pain leads to withdrawal Some of the steps I have taken.
Withdrawal leads to emotional isolation. Doing that some times, but I get out of that state too.
For me it is control - to receive is to concentrate on yourself. If you're concentrating on yourself, you are being selfish. Ok, I relate to that. I call it leadership. She calls it control. BB clues in on the control factor.
If you're being selfish, the other person may not be having a good time. May so maybe not. What is the cut off point. Not having a good time because they don't like the activity, can't/won't allow it because the activity was not their idea.
It's your fault because you got them to do it. Fault leads to pain. Pain leads to emotional isolation. Some/lots of times it appears to go like this.
I don't think it takes an impoverished background. Just caregivers that hammer home the notion that "no one cares what you want!"
Absolutely!!
I grew up on a dairy farm and we had very little money. My mom said at the time we qualified for food stamps but they would not accept them.
And yet I don't have the issues Mrs. NOP, DIY and others talk about. I think it is because it was just so clear that the money was not there. But they gave us everything else that they could. And my parents did not get mad at us for asking as much as you could tell how hurt they were they couldn't give us much. I always said that was probably part of why we grew up never believing in Santa Claus. because then how could you explain that we did not get much at all for Christmas!!?? Oh but don't feel sorry for my brothers and me at all because we had great and lovely Christmas's!! When I was in first grade, they found my Dad's old bike in the hay mow and painted in for me for my Christmas present. I was just happy with family, good food, a few presents and the Christmas story
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
Isn't it the cardinal error of the Nice Guy that he pretends he has no wants Where did that idea come from. No wants??? Get real!
Nice guys have wants. They commonly work too long, hard or expend too much effort to acquire the wants. some NG's settle for too small a reward/payback.
