NancyLebovitz comments on Rational Romantic Relationships, Part 1: Relationship Styles and Attraction Basics - Less Wrong

48 Post author: lukeprog 05 November 2011 11:06AM

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Comment author: EphemeralNight 22 August 2012 06:32:20AM 5 points [-]

Others are involuntarily celibate; perhaps they can't find or attract suitable mates. This problem can often be solved by learning and practicing social skills.

What ought one do when the problem is not solved by social skills?

I seem to have a tendency to feel extremely inadequate about any skill at which i am not noticeably better than everyone I know about. Due to this quirk of my psychology, I spent a significant portion of my life believing myself to have horrendous social skills. And, for a long time, I attributed my social and sexual failings to that perceived lack of social skill, despite a gradually growing mass of evidence in favor of my social skills being adequate.

(relatively) Recent evidence and experience has now finished falsifying the premise that my social skills are not viable.

Unfortunately, having (a lack of) social skills ruled out as a cause of the problem leaves me, seemingly, without any more low-hanging fruit to pursue. And when even the woman who literally wrote the sequence on self-awareness tells me that she doesn't know why her interest in dating me suddenly evaporated, I begin to... worry, and that feeling of helplessness starts showing up.

(And this doesn't even touch the non-trivial problem of meeting suitable mates, which is obviously a prerequisite to attracting anyone.)

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 23 August 2012 10:00:47AM *  3 points [-]

I seem to have a tendency to feel extremely inadequate about any skill at which i am not noticeably better than everyone I know about.

I believe that this is a serious problem in itself. It's probably undercutting your quality of life in many ways,

In particular, it's probably on your mind when you're in relationships, distracting you from what's actually going on between you and the other person.

Cognitive behavioral therapy might help. It goes into detail about undercutting that sort of belief.

More generally, I believe that the crucial thing is to believe that it's safe to be on your own side. Getting to that belief can be amazingly difficult (believing that you shouldn't be on your own side is probably the result of gut-level fear from repeated attacks), but it's worth the trouble.

Comment author: EphemeralNight 23 August 2012 02:28:10PM -1 points [-]

I only mentioned that to explain the origin of a false belief. It is not currently a problem for me, just an annoyance.

Comment author: Strange7 25 August 2012 03:31:55AM 0 points [-]

By "annoyance" I assume you mean you still have the feeling but work around it?

In that case, it may be a problem in ways you're not aware of. Other people, prospective mates especially, can pick up on that feeling in tricky subtle ways and react to it.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 23 August 2012 03:55:21PM 0 points [-]

Ok-- sorry for unneccesary advice.