4 ms·

A therapist is recommending therapy to improve men’s relationship skills and to stop watch porn. But the author says the “problem” (for lack of a better term)

• theGnuMe 4y ago
  I'm partial to the Sofa Theory of Dating: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/understanding-narcissism/202302/the-sofa-theory-of-dating https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/understanding-narc... I would pay attention to demographics more than anything and make sure you live somewhere where there the odds are in your favor. Since more women go to college these days, it makes sense to go to college (as a male). But the most important thing is to figure out who you are. That is the key super power in dating. You know who you are, your values and what you want. It is OK if it is a work in progress but therapy really helps.
• atoav 4y ago
  I mean it is both. When most men have different expectations of a relationship than most women that means there will be less relationships over all. As of the therapy question: As someone who is in a happy relationship for more than a decade and never felt in need of therapy, I'd still agree here. If you want a healthy relationship with good sex, both sides being at good terms with themselves and their sexuality is a must. Therapy can be a very good way to come to terms with things that you would otherwise have a hard time adressing yourself. If this is indeed a "supply side issue" that just means men must adjust to become the persons most women would like to share their lives with. Or even more simply put: They need to avoid being the person who women do not like to share their lives with: Men who are not on good terms with themselves, who have never reflected on who they are and why they have the desires they have, men who are desperate to get sex and don't even care anymore with whom, and when they get sex, the kind of sex they want comes out of works of fiction. There is a good supply of men like these and it turns out women are not in demand for that type. You will have men that fit that exact description and still get women, by means of having a ton of money, good looks and so on – so they found different ways of attracting a specific subset of women that seeks for that. But my advice here is: If a man wants a happy and fulfilling relationship, starting with the baseline of "A man has to trick women into liking him" is a recipe for disaster. You might find women who accept this, but you will never find someone who likes you for who you are instead of for what you are. Therapy is a good (but not the only) way to become a grounded, balanced, better individual and those tend to fare better in relationships.
• deleted 4y ago
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• BlackMask 4y ago
  You improve your relationship skills by being in a relationship, making 10,000 mistakes, and learning from each mistake. It's no different than learning how to write Python code or doing anything else for that matter. A therapist can advise you on behavior that: 1. you observe and tell the therapist about, or 2. he notices during the session. I've been happily married for +20 years. I went to therapy a couple of times: wasn't worth the time and energy. The best tool I found for debugging my life is a plain 3x5 pocket notebook. Every evening I take 30 minutes to summarize the events of the day and how I reacted to them. Then every few weeks I review the journal and it’s surprising how often I see patterns in my thoughts and actions and say “Oh I need to fix that.” Or “I handled that pretty well.” Basically I treat my journal like a server log for my brain: every event and its response are written to the log, then reviewed from time to time for patterns and anomalies. My journal is the same.
  • kevviiinn 4y ago
    >Every evening I take 30 minutes to summarize the events of the day and how I reacted to them. Then every few weeks I review the journal and it’s surprising how often I see patterns in my thoughts and actions and say “Oh I need to fix that.” Or “I handled that pretty well.” This is a really awesome method for self improvement