4.4 KiB
And she broke up with me.
They say that you can't trust someone two sigmas above you. But what if you are that someone, and are looking for, or desperately need, companionship? What if God is dead and human mating behavior is deterministic? What if you have difficulty walking the fine line between analytic and predatory? Then a number of judgement calls await you. Here are mine, and if you're reading this, it's because you're something more than a temporary fling, and I want to give you the power to reject me, and I think you're reflective enough to make that choice.
If you ask people whether they approve of the president, in a scale from -5 to +5, they will give a different distribution of answers than if you use a scale from 0 to 10. That's is so fucking scary. I think that something similar happens around consent, and that the concept breaks down at the edges: If the answer depends on the way the question is posed, is it acceptable to word it such that you want to answer yes and are comfortable with that? If love or attraction highjack your circuits, is it acceptable to purposefuly pursue them?
For short flings, I've come to the heuristic that anything which comes naturally to people is ok for me to replicate analytically if the person feels comfortable being around me. And yet if the question was asked autistically: "Are you ok with me touching your arm so that you'll like me more?", the answer'd probably be "Go fuck yourself". Nonetheless, I don't feel like being at a disadvantage because I am reflective. But know that when I touched you, the thought was in my mind that you'd find yourself more attracted to me because of it.
Some things I want you to know I've done: -> Dramatize this
- I've deepened by voice.
- I've told you about polyamory from the get go to prevent you from getting attached to exclusivity. If you'd assumed it, you might not have wanted to let it go.
- I've increased the self-confidence I project. I carry myself like a person with high status. I have increased the incidence of behaviors which indicate high testosterone. I've increased my extroversion. I've presented myself as an alpha.
- When I've revealed vulnerabilities to you, I've done so while thinking that secrecy is the currency of intimacy.
- I've used my big house to my advantage, because I know that a part of you is probably impressed by it.
- I've dazzled you with interesting stuff. I've sent you links, introduced you to fascinating concepts, shared songs. I've paraded my erudition.
- I've made clear from the beginning that I wanted a romantic relationship with you, because otherwise you'd have placed me in the friends ladder, and a romantic relationship would have been more difficult.
- I've not shown my sadistic tendencies around you. I feel an intense Schadenfreude when my enemies suffer, but I didn't mention that. I've reduced my childish impulses, and behaviors which you may have interpreted as needy.
- I've made myself more empathic, less judgmental, more accepting of the things you tell me.
- I've learnt how to respond to quips in ways you find charming.
- I've thought the probability of you liking or disliking something, and changed my behavior accordingly.
I think that the worst possible framing for the kind of things which I've done is: Exploit people's biases so that they like me or feel attracted to me. Relatedly, I still don't know how to cope with humans not being in very agenty, but that hasn't stopped me from pursuing relationships. I feel a need to write this that way, because a part of me thinks that only after reading that you'll be able to "truly" choose. I hope that you have the option of overcoming whatever repulsion you may feel.
In the end, if the question you're asking is "can you make me tingle?", the answer is probably yes, and it's all learnt and calculated behaviors. To some extent a façade, to some extent actuall self-modification, at which I've become somewhat capable; if there is something which you want me to change, you can ask. There is, though, a part of me which is always thinking in terms of probablities, and that part can't be shut down.
After reading this, you dumped me. You said that I was a deeply flawed person, that my masculinity was toxic. That's ok; I can always try something different with the next one.
[This is a fictional story submitted to r/rational's Biweekly Challenge]