https://markmanson.net/how-to-grow-up

having a stunning and sweet as a bucket of fudge 19 year old girl leaning on you in love kissing your chest and softly rubbing your body after another glorious kissing session, is better than having a very brief row with her, walking off and leaving her for the sneaky French barman to steal who caused the row in the first place during what he spied as his last chance to intervene, and who would later mock you by asking if your heart hurts and convince her to dump you and treat you like you were just another customer.

"As a result, an adolescent learns that strictly pursuing your own pleasure and avoiding pain can cause problems. Actions have consequences. You must negotiate your own desires with the desires of those around you. You must play by the rules of society and authority, and then you will, more often than not, be rewarded."

if only this were true though sann. it's always the dirty sneaky caants that get the prize.

Adolescent > Principles > Pleasure

Do you know what Bales ? I had this exact process (except for the ado, ha, err....) the other day with her. I went back to her bar after the row and she came outside for a minute to speak to me. She didn't blow me out then, she just looked at me with love written all over her face and all over her eyes, and told me to come back in 20 minutes. I went back in 40 minutes. I don't think those extra 20 minutes were crucial, but what I thought was going to happen during the 40 minutes never did, because I didn't see that love again and I never got it, because the sneaky French fkcu who took her off me 2 nights before had had a word in her ear and it had worked again.


But in those 40 minutes, I sat in another bar thinking that I was just about to fall completely in love with a girl who I suddenly realised I wasn't even 100% sure was even 19. And I sat there thinking long and hard about it on my own on the corner of the balcony in silence, almost in shock.

Do you know what ? I don't even know for sure what I decided. When I went back to the bar, before she finished it, I did double check her age. it was the first thing I did. "how old is she ?" I demanded.. What age would it have had to have been for me to change my mind though ? I don't know. 18 ? 17 ? I honestly don't know, because when I sat there in that other bar running it through my mind, almost in shock at what I thought was about to happen, listening as billy jean came on in the bar, "be careful what you do, don't go around breaking young girl's hearts....and the lie becomes the truth", I thought, I can not turn that joy down, when it seems so right.

So I did apply my principles, and I chose to take the girl who so far as I then knew still also planned to fall in love with me, even though she was only 19, and probably for the next few hours still a virgin.

oh no hang on. she wasn't a virgin. she'd already lost it, approximately 43 hours earlier.

it's always the dirty sneaky caants that get the prize.

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That's just not true. If that's what you see regularly you're surrounding yourself with bad people. Probably best to skip past adolescence at this point and move on to the adult bit. Just my two cents.

anyway, i'll read on...it's good so far...

"You can’t live your entire life this way, otherwise, you’re never actually living your life. You’re merely living out an aggregation of the desires of the people around you. To become an optimized and emotionally healthy individual, you must break out of this bargaining and come to understand even higher and more abstract guiding principles."

do that already

"The most precious and important things in life cannot be bargained with. To try to do so destroys them."

you know another thing the barman (who is also her boss) said when he came out during my pathetic I could have loved you if you'd only told me the truth speech ? he said, that he can give me anything I want. whatever my problem is he can sort it out for me. and I looked at her and I said no you can't. I didn't fall for that one, because it is true that, and I'd already told her the same thing which is EXACTLY why I walked out when I did.

"If you have to convince someone to love you, then they don’t love you. If you have to cajole someone into respecting you, then they don’t respect you."

oh my god that is SO true.

"An adult will be honest for the simple sake that honesty is more important than pleasure or pain. Honesty is more important than getting what you want or achieving a goal."

OH MY GOD THAT IS SOOOO TRUE. THAT IS SO TRUE.

"An adult will give without expectation, without seeking anything in return, because to do so defeats the purpose of a gift in the first place."

That is so true, and it's like when she bought me a shot for my birthday night. She arranged for the bar staff to set it alight like a birthday cake, and she paid $4 for that drink out of her pocket.

I gave her $4 tip and she told me next time that she bought some medicine with it. why ? because she wanted to me know that she'd still paid for my birthday drink with her own money.

agghhhh

"People get stuck on the second adolescent stage of values for similar reasons, although the results are less severe. Some people are incredibly good at playing the bargaining game. They are charming and charismatic. They are naturally able to sense what other people want of them and they are adept at filling that role. Put bluntly: they’re too good at manipulating people to get what they want. And because their manipulation rarely fails them in any meaningful way, they come to believe that this is simply how the whole world operates. Everyone is like this. Everyone is manipulative and controlling. Love is bullsht. Trust is a sign of weakness."

completely agree again. this is A LOT better than the other thing you posted Bales. However, I am NOT like this, and I DON'T get rewarded. But I still do it. After years and years of not being rewarded, I still do it, because I BELIEVE it is right to do the right thing. Sadly this is NOT how the world works.

comment by Bales (U22081)
posted 14 minutes ago
it's always the dirty sneaky caants that get the prize.

----

That's just not true. If that's what you see regularly you're surrounding yourself with bad people. Probably best to skip past adolescence at this point and move on to the adult bit. Just my two cents.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

am reading it all. it's good. it IS true in the world i've been in for the last 20 years. it really is. what this guy is saying is RIGHT, but it's not how the world I've seen works.

anyway, reading on...

I'll just pause for a minute then and take this back to prostitution. obviously prostitution is a transactional thing. you give the girl money, and she sleeps with you.

i'll tell you this, if I thought a girl didn't want to go with me (as well as having the money), then I wouldn't go with her. there's barerly any exception to that. there's one girl here who for some reason it seems can't go with me, even though I find her STUNNING and I believe she fancies me too. I don't like her too much though as she's treated me like a caant. but I would still fack her. and even if I thought she didn't like me, I probably would still fack her for money if she'd take the money, but that is an exception.

normally if I think the girl doesn't like me, I wouldn't even want to go with her, money or no money.

normally I think the girl is getting more than money out of it. she's getting money and a good time. should I be paying her when she's having a good time ? not really, but this is south east asia so that's just the way it is. some of them have gone with me regularly for nothing or for next to nothing, and that's just fine. you know then that it's not about the money, but odd as it seems there are other times where you still know that (Eg the last one I took 2 nights ago), but if they want $50, $80 as well then that's just life and you don't sweat it too much apart from what it's doing to your bank account.

with this 19 year old girl, it felt like we were falling in love of a kind at least. I believe she was going to give me something special to her. that's EXACTLY why I felt I could not have paid her. at least a significant amount. because it shouldn't be like that. I actually believe that just like the other one whose wedding photo I saw the other day, she wasn't going to ask for any money. it was just a bit of a game at that point, likely suggested as an act of sabotage by the barman. would sleeping with her have been worth $100 or $200 to me ? yes it would, but I am 100% I wouldn't have paid her like that in those circumstances, not only because it was likely her first time, but because it felt like it was heading towards a relationship. and that's exactly why I walked out when she mentioned sending money to her mum. i'm convinced now that she didn't mean it (she virtually threw $10 at me I left on the table afterwards asking why i'd left it), but even her saying it as a drunken, barman-abetted joke just wasn't right in the circumstances.

I honestly believe that taking girls from the bars is not necessarily incompatable with the values set out in your article in some circumstances.

"It was he who first suggested that I get to decide what is cool and not cool, that people shame non-conformists because they are afraid of not conforming themselves, and that daring to not conform and empowering yourself to be who you want to be is what gave others permission to do the same."

I COMPLETELY agree. You should make your own judgements, not let society make them for you based on their one size fits all rule book. That is exactly the process I went through when deciding that it WAS OK for me to fall in love with the 19 year old, even though unbeknown to me it was already too late by then.

" The reason a drunk driver hitting another car is so unethical is not because people got hurt — it’s because the drunk driver is far more culpable than the other person — i.e., the transaction was unfair."

this again was exactly the same dilemma I considered with the 19 year old. was it too easy for me to make her fall in love with me ?

I actually wrote about that on here, and I took it into account as a factor. in the end I decided that we were both going into it with open eyes and that I could take the responsibility of not taking advantage of her.

in the end it was the barman who took advantage of her, and it was me who took the moral high ground resulting in her experience not being what it should have been.

this guy makes a lot of very good points, but the practicality of life is not as simple as he makes out.

if what he describes is really being an adult then I am as adult as anyone out there, and more adult than 99% of people. the reality is that it isn't. being an adult also involves making practical decisions which suits your best interests, and it's there where my life falls down, not in being able to make moral judgements or having empathy for others.

Anyway, I'm not that bothered about the 19 year old, I was just saying.

Sunday plans?

For me, I'm going to see the 19 year old for a quiet post relationship drink.

OMG. I had a dream last night that I was playing cricket in my mum's garden with my youngest nephew. first time i've thought of him in months and months.

just asked my brother how he is, and he says he was staying at my mum's last night !

the state of all my underpants

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woke up at 5am thinking im going crazy.

girl from 2 night ago messages me asking if im at my hotel am I with a girl.

I message her back saying I think im going crazy.

10 minutes later she calls me and says she called by accident. I say "oh ok babe" and hang up.

5 minutes later message her to tell her she can come round if she needs a bed for a few hours. she's offline.

you're going to believe this.