discussion comment
21 hours ago
Grats. Resonates a bit, as I'd been mulling going cold turkey but have been waffling, despite having been away from this space for a while.
I tend to binge if I'm not careful. The kind of over-consumption where, when sustained, turns even big wins into big losses.
Now I just live vicariously through PM's and reading crap posted online.
Think my mind knows I need to do. Body just hasn't caught up, yet.
Again, grats.
discussion comment
3 months ago
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drewcareypnwnot the real drew carey, but I play him at strip clubs...
End of an era.
Gut feeling. Adding alcohol back into the mix is going to up the danger factor for some of the odd-ball edge case situations that random happen in the clubs.
Plus the need for additional security personnel.
Good for vanilla safety, but the double-edged bit is that there'll be more eyes on the "trading" floor in each of the clubs.
discussion comment
4 months ago
Reminds me of those hotel / motel setups that actually keep a copy of the bible within the nightstands next to the beds.
If I recall correctly, the intention was to stop whoever it was from killing themselves (apparently some folks get a room first, and this is somehow enough of a thing that they started putting bibles in the room to see if it would help any).
discussion comment
6 months ago
Diminishing returns, probably.
More specifically, marginal benefit (i.e. how much is one more of XYZ worth to you) is getting low. A lot lower.
It's kind of like how every now and then, the Elon Musks of the world tell everyone that "money isn't everything." (The next $ he gets isn't that valuable. He has a lot already.)
Or how some fictional movie characters might say "I'm sick of pussy." (Might have been Jack Nicholson in 'The Departed', I forget - mob boss is swimming in pussy. One more isn't that valuable to him.)
Or if anyone has too much supply of anything, getting a little more of whatever that is doesn't really do it for them.
At this point, if you take a break (and induce some artificial scarcity by deliberately not getting so much), the value will eventually climb back up again. Enough for it to feel worthwhile.
My guess, anyways.
discussion comment
7 months ago
It's going to get harder to maintain the divide. AI, facial recognition, and possibly mandatory 100% tracked digital currencies may force a change on fun-times in the near-future.
review comment
7 months ago
Pussflation. But wages never caught up. Sad times
review comment
7 months ago
Reeked of Corona when I first saw it. Then again, it wouldn't be too difficult to copy the style.
discussion comment
7 months ago
@Manuellabore
Reading your comment. "Tragedy of the commons" comes to mind.
If accurate and detailed information is the "lake of limited, but highly necessary and therefore desired resource"... then yeah, vague or low effort entries are probably the equivalent of folks sneaking a sip and taking more than their fair share.
(Probably guilty of this, at least in part- not a fan of full disclosures)
discussion comment
7 months ago
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shailynnThey never tell you what you need to know.
Saw a random reddit comment pitching the idea that bad, painful, and/or dreary memories, once it's largely past, tends to get grayed out in our minds and can oftentimes become much more fragmented and difficult to recall.
Might just be a fancy way to say "shit happens, sometimes your brain will try to forget."
Personally, some part of me feels like 5- to 8-ish whole epochs have come and gone since 2020. The tectonic shift seems to start buckling around 2016- an old "normal" had come and gone in that year.
Simultaneously, mind's been fuzzy on recalling certain details since 2020. Maybe a little sensory overload, so my brain pared back a bit.
discussion comment
8 months ago
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drewcareypnwnot the real drew carey, but I play him at strip clubs...
If you factor in what happened to society once social media truly took off (Facebook fully integrating and not just for undergrad students, OKCupid's reaching mass market acceptance, and eventually Tinder being unleashed and heavily distorting "dating" dynamics) about 10-15 years ago, I'd argue it's certainly less worthwhile now to go the civvie route.
Even if, depending on the guy's personal take, strip club ladies (or anything "hobby"-adjacent) are still considered "bad", they are significantly less bad than before when compared to the alternatives.
Course, none of this applies if you're tall, handsome, physically and mentally capable, and sufficiently well off in terms of personal finances. For those guys, it's probably up to personal preference on how little effort they'd like to put in, or maybe shore up any dry periods with spicier non-civvy alternatives.
discussion comment
8 months ago
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drewcareypnwnot the real drew carey, but I play him at strip clubs...
I get the sentiment.
Younger years, was probably more of a 90-10 split of alone time to need for some sort of social element. Getting on in years, starting to be more like 5-95 split of 5% socializing, 95% solitude. Even this has been blending into more of a 1-99 split on occasion.
Solitude, though. Not loneliness. Loneliness in my 20's, whenever I'd been isolated, perhaps. Nowadays alone time feels much more restive than it used to. Either that, or productive hyper-focused time. Can also do the vegetative-state, but with virtually none of the restlessness of my earlier years.
My problem is that solitude is actually too comfortable. I've gotten so used to it, I'm sure it's one of my core weaknesses. But that's assuming you buy into the idea that anything that feels too easy is probably some sort of lost growth opportunity.
Anyways, I think most men have it in them to pull off a life of solitude if they so choose (or if they find themselves involuntarily in that sort of circumstance). Wouldn't have believed it in my younger years, though.
discussion comment
8 months ago
Seconding Call.Me.Ishmael & stainglass.
Based on your own writing: "feels like expensive masturbation." Diminishing returns, at the very least. At this point - at least from what I can infer based on your activity in this general space - no one can say you didn't at least try things out. You've probably tried enough plenty of different types of girls, and in more than one setting, from the sounds of it.
Also, I understand that sentiment about the state of...well, I wouldn't call it the "dating" market anymore. God knows that ship has sailed. Let's call it the modern "flesh market", or perhaps the "flesh exchange".
Things have changed radically, and in a very short period of time - gender norms, sexuality, the "family unit". It remains to be seen whether there will be any serious consequences for where technology has gone, and how it's changed virtually everything in such a relatively short period of time. Plenty will argue that we're all "obviously fine", but I'd like to remind them that some things take time. We may all just be F-ing around, and we're going to find out. There just might be a big time lag before that happens. Years. Maybe a few decades (but it's already been a couple decades, arguably).
I'm ranting- but TLDR, I don't think it's just you, man. I think your self-proclaimed binging, as well as your current state of mind, is actually understandable. I think I might be in a similar boat, mentally.
review comment
8 months ago
RIP Kittens, man. She will be missed
review comment
8 months ago
Aye. All hail MILF pussy
discussion comment
9 months ago
Sometimes, can't help but think of it as a spectrum (with a slider bar).
On one side, you have 100% pure, transactional events. On the other side, you've got... traditional marriage, perhaps.
Doesn't have to be marriage. Whatever it is that makes the most sense for the "opposite" of the purely transactional- it would likely allow for the murkiest timing when it comes to payments and whatever upsides a man typically gets in a "relationship".
So you could be paying huge sums upfront for a lifetime of "relationship", or you could be paying big random lump sums all throughout (while the "relationship" lasts), or you could be paying a giant back-loaded balloon payment (the Western divorce law model that's all the rage these days). And of course, it could be a blend of all of these things.
In the end, you pay. Sure, the timing of payments could be heavily distorted to the extent that you can now call your togetherness "real" or at least more "real" than other folks where their payments fall closer to each micro-instance of "benefit".
Reason why I think this holds, even for most run-of-the-mill marriages -- just try losing your job while not having much passive income. Just try it, and see. Eventually, you're no longer holding up your end of the bargain (it feels this way to me, at least). You're failing to pay up. There may be a delay, but you'll often find yourself headed to the back-loaded balloon payment outcome in real short order.
Folks call it something else, sure. But you're still paying, more often than not.
Yes, there are exceptions, but I'm talking about the hump of the curve, where most of us will find ourselves.
discussion comment
9 months ago
One man's trash is another man's treasure. Or something.
Bro, there have been times where people insist "so-and-so" is hot as hell, and I take one look and my gut immediately ranges the 45+ year old woman somewhere in the range of negative 2 to negative 4 out of 10 when you factor in the likely upkeep cost.
Also, as others have mentioned, most folks will universally agree which women are 6's and 7's out of 10, but the 8-10 range becomes increasingly personal.
discussion comment
10 months ago
Why a person goes in the first place probably matters a lot.
I've noticed with myself, strip clubs feel a bit like a form of gambling. Gambling, as in a Vegas-stye roulette table or slot machine.
There's variance in the outcome. You don't strictly pay $100 and receive $100 in return. Often, it's a bust, and you'll end up with close to $0 perceived value for your theoretical $100. Other times, it'll feel like you hit the jackpot. Depending on the person, the payout might "feel" like well over $1k-2k in some rare instances.
I like Texas Hold'em. I like blackjack tables. Sometimes I'm just a bit addicted to the thrill of the potential payout (and yeah, the losses are actually a part of that experience). So long as there's that possibility of not getting what you want, there's just that added edge to the experience.
It's bad. But so good.
discussion comment
10 months ago
Slight addendum (more anecdotal pseudo-science incoming):
If you find yourself feeling pretty low- for the love of christ, stop masturbating to porn. Too much can easily lower your testosterone level over time.
discussion comment
10 months ago
I'm starting to think of it as a general testosterone profile.
There's a sort of range to this. When a guy is particularly victorious in life--however defined by that man's own subconscious and genuine desires based on his life goals--his mojo is high. A winner's profile generally has a lot of testosterone, and he's generally going to want to do something as a result of this.
Big-dick energy, god damn stud, call it what you will- a lot of women seem hard-wired to pick up on this. As you can imagine, visiting a club like this can make for seriously good times (or a spiced up civvie sex life as long as this mindset persists).
For me, when I'm sufficiently far away from this mentality (meaning I don't feel particularly "victorious", as defined by my own subconscious), any club visits or initiating sex with a girlfriend or fwb becomes sub-par or even semi-awkward (at least when compared to the "peak" winner's mentality).
TLDR: what FLAP3000 said -- if you're out of it, start working your way back towards a winner's mentality. Go and "win" some more. It'll often do the trick.
Examples (varies from person to person, as it's often self-defined by your own values):
- any form of strenuous exercise / gym (but with micro-goals); successfully hitting a # rep / weight target counts as a small win for folks (enough of these will put your mind and body back into a victor's mentality, since they are a bunch of consecutive "wins", however small)
- vanilla hobbies; incremental mastery of an instrument, achieving hyper-focused flow state when building something or creating art can do similar things for your mentality
discussion comment
10 months ago
@Call.Me.Ishmael
Second that on rule 6 - don't go to the club in a bad mood.
Some folks are quite sensitive (think of it as a form of street smart sixth sense) to this kind of thing. Other might react to it without realizing.
This can compound over a single visit, with you having a bad time. If you fork out cash, the whole visit can easily feel like a "bust" regardless of the physical outcome.
Also an easy way to ruin first impressions, which may or may not matter that day depending on your luck (and which girls you may come to "value" in future visits).
article comment
10 months ago
Wouldn't be surprised if the presence of high heels in a given culture would gradually nudge the average male height upwards over time.
One-two punch example (grossly oversimplifying, but you get the idea):
1. Most women prefer tall men (or, at the very least, men who are at least as tall as she is)
2. Women with, say, mid-high heels increase their height by maybe 3 inches. Another way to put it is if this girl was 5'7 before the heels, she has now systematically disqualified all men shorter than 5'10 (depending on how much of a constant those heels are in her life). If she has a subconscious demand that men be at least 2 inches taller than her, all men under 6' are now sexually invisible to her.
If that same 5'7 girl went with flatter shoes and kept the minimum 2+ inch taller than her requirement, a dude that's 5'9 will at least register on her radar from time to time.
Actually, if all the women always wear high heels when not alone (and has some kind of taller-than-me-by-x requirement), the eligible dating/fwb pool for each of these girls shrinks. Maybe the top x% guys will have an easier time building (or maintaining) their harems. Big shrug.