A rather typical result of people’s lack of culture and depth is an overall dullness so depressing that is has to be overlaid with a veneer of “style” to make them acceptable. And that, to anyone who is perceptive of real human values, just makes them all the worse. Now they are not just depressingly dull, they are also phony.

Awesomeness is not something you can lay on top of people like wrapping around a boring product. It has to be the source from where their actions and patterns come from.

Driven by fashion magazines and porn, millions of women subject themselves to acrobatic exercises at beauty spas to shave their pubic hair. They endure that gynecologic exam routine and leave happy with just a narrow patch (if any) of hair, very nicely called a “landing strip”, the harmless euphemism to suggest the destination of our desires. Pop culture, from fashion to porn, also created billion dollars industries of silicone, hair coloring, tanning, botoxes, implants, sexy clothing, and gym memberships, all trying to satisfy the cravings of millions of sexually charged consumers.

Looking at TV, magazines, mainstream movies and porn, in the rare occasions when you are not horny, you could easily see that matrix of perfection and performance that is far from the reality of normal human beings. Open any of the modern sexy magazines and all you will see are things. Things made of pure visual perfection, not women with doubts, shortcomings, and fears. All you see are girls competing for your very short attention span in desperate positions and absurd clothing, or lack of it. There is nothing left to be exposed. No cavity, crease, fluid or shape was left to imagination.

The virtual woman is out there to humiliate and destroy us. She raises us up with our dreams just to let us drop flat on the ground when we can’t find her in the real world. She is looking at us in the eyes, with her wonderful eyes and mouth like saying “Take me! I am always ready, I am always happy, always horny, always yours”.

Women want wealth, passion, connection, status, respect, and love. But the virtual one poses with an ostentatious attitude, or seductive vulnerability and pretends that it is you that wants her and that she is the top prize. The virtual woman suggests a disposition she doesn’t actually have in order not to bother her consumers with the inconveniences of her needs.

The virtual woman offers the ultimate experience, Nirvana packaged as orgasm. She is the goddess in a market paradise, the last stage of a video game that men can only reach by passing through a lifetime of stages where they need to acquire success, money, BMWs, Gucci, Armani’s and prestige. This woman is the final prize for a narcissistic lifestyle. She looks so perfect that she may even seem to not require any partner, able to be a lover of herself.

Unfortunately feminism has been followed by (or degenerated into) an expression of freedom that transformed women, and men, into replaceable objects with the purpose of sexual satisfaction. The competition, fueled by pop culture, creates way more anxiety and depression than any satisfaction, sexual or otherwise. Women no longer own their bodies, now their bodies own them.

Packaged in layers of fine clothes and jewelry and spray tanning, covering perfectly shaped breasts and the finest underwear that looks like the gift wrapping for divine pleasure… You can’t even see the real woman beneath all that! You are standing in awe in front of all this perfection, feeling insufficient with your ordinary life style, and impotent with your ordinary bank account.

Our sexual desires have been programmed by others, by industries that arouse our desires to sell us the promise of satisfaction, yet never deliver.

When you meet these girls, models, porn stars, strippers, escorts, dancers… you actually find women that are insecure or not, openminded or conventional, smart or dumb, but they will never have a chance to express their real values and personalities in the movies and magazines because there is no consumer demand for women that have loving husbands, happily taking care of kids, and solving problems in the real world. These women want to love and be loved, but need to spend their time laboring at virtual and real-life brothels.

Just like luxury cars, or consumer electronics, every year they come up more perfect and more intangible. We now have web sites, escort services, and gentlemen’s clubs full of girls with amazing robotic bodies and scripted conversations. These beautiful women are paid so they don’t exist but will rather be an impossible dream. They need no food or stupid conversation, or suffering, or connection, just your cash.

Freedom and lack of education seems to liberate women and make them free to choose, but that is an illusion. In a society plagued by prejudice, religious fundamentalism, and inequality like ours, we end up with objectified women thinking they are free. They are enclosed in avatars of sexual expression that only hide lonesome insecure women, hungry for love and wealth.

When a woman get all prepared and dressed up to go to a club, she is not doing it to impress anyone in particular, she is doing it to impress everyone! She is there to impress her friends, everyone else in the club, the bouncers, the bartender, everyone.

You walk into the club not particularly impressing anyone and then when you start talking to her if you switch into trying to impress her in particular you automatically project lower value subconsciously.

For a while I have seen a  top model and, from a physical point-of-view it was great. But I was not attracted to her in the same ways I have been attracted to other women that I have met. I did not expect to feel that way while I was with her, or even today, a few years later. So now my question is: Would I rather have a great experience with a woman to whom I am not attracted to or an “ok” time with a woman that looks stunning?

Well… in a way I think I already answered my question.

The phenomenon of sexual attraction is complex and highly personal. And as I found out, sometimes even when we get what we think we want it isn’t what we want. We’ve all been programmed to think beauty is the ultimate yardstick by which we measure our success in choosing a wife, girlfriend or lover. We may know better if we think about it, but our gut reaction is to always go for good looks.

But as our experience level increases, a lot of guys (and women) start to realize that the other dimensions of compatibility, sexual attraction and performance come into play, and in fact usually overshadow looks alone.

I learned this in two different ways.  First with this girlfriend that had stunning looks but was a poor lover and always left me feeling unsatisfied and even lonely somehow. Being with her was like seeing a tempting treat that was always just out of reach. I usually felt like a spectator even when I was with her because the connection we had was one-dimensional. The basis for our relationship was just physical.

I experienced the opposite situation with another girl that wasn’t my physical type in any way, but who won me over with her personality and enthusiasm, becoming a favorite of mine in the process. She was the opposite of everything I liked appearance-wise. The circumstances that put us together were out of the ordinary so I gave it a chance, and I’ll always be glad I did.

Once I got to know this woman our compatibility grew. I quit seeing her as the woman who didn’t look like my ideal and started seeing her as just a really great woman that made me happy. After all, wasn’t that the objective?

I realized at that moment I’d finally turned a corner and matured as a man because I had quit chasing the appearance ideal of the girls of my youth and started to enjoy the real women that were all around me.

I believe that coming into a relationship with just a romantic component is what most people do, and that is one reason those relationships tend to not last, and end bitterly. A strong relationship must be based on other components as well. I found out that a very strong component is mutual teaching. A mentor/apprentice relationship can be another very strong link between two persons and, contrary to what people usually think, both apprentice and mentor learn all the time when both challenge each other constantly.

In my relationships I expect only the best, and I demand it from them. My women also expect a lot so they challenge me constantly. They keep me on my toes and push me to improve myself, to learn at every moment, and they never let me become complacent.

I find it interesting that while many people agree that generally speaking, the man in a relationship should be “older” than the female, there is still such distaste for larger age disparities in relationships. Strangely enough, there are even rules about how to calculate the age that is “too old” or “too young” for you (the “half-your-age-plus-seven” rule).

Many younger women who seek relationships with older men are referred to as “gold-diggers,” by their critics. Clearly, the only thing attracting a younger woman to an older man is his money, right?

On the other hand, a young man lusting after an older woman is considered normal (the hot teacher fantasy). In fact, he would probably receive a pat on the back from his friends for accomplishing such a thing.

A large number of younger women will note that men their own age are often far less mature than they are. Women are also notably more attracted to powerful men, and younger men simply haven’t had the time to grow up and earn the same type of respect and power that an older man has. Combine that with the fact that older men are much more well-mannered, experienced and dependable, it’s easy to see why women are attracted to men ten or twenty years their senior.

This type of relationship holds the most appeal for both parties involved. The older men get the companionship of a younger woman who is all to ready to pamper him. Younger women get the attentions and affections of attractive, older and powerful men.

For many the word “daddy” conjures images of family, and, therefore, when used in romantic relationships, of incest. In fact, the phrase “sugar daddy” was coined specifically to inspire these kinds of thoughts. A younger woman simply should NOT desire the affections of a man old enough to be her father.

But the truth is, many women do look for the characteristics of a good father wheen seeking out a mate. They typically want someone who they see as a “father figure” (or at least who has the potential to be one to their future children). Generally speaking, the characteristics of a good father are also the characteristics of a good boyfriend or husband.

So why is it that seeking out someone who acts like a father is less taboo than seeking out someone who looks like a father? Why is it somehow more incestuous to call a man “daddy” than to have him act like a father to you? Don’t, in fact, most new mothers refer to their husbands as “daddy” once they’ve had children?

I loved that phrase from Al Pacino’s character Walter Burke, in the movie The Recruit.

I am a very good judge of value. After a few years studying human behavior and practicing, interviewing people for jobs and gigs, negotiating, and handling the volatile material that composes human interactions, I became very sensitive and capable of detecting the patterns of conversation and behavior that elicit what I want to know about people.

Most people have low self-esteem, but at the same time try [hard] to project more value than they have. Both women and men tend to have this shortcoming: They have value that they don’t know how to demonstrate. And they lack value that they try to bullshit you into thinking they have. That happens quite often actually; particularly by people hustling or bullshitting you.

I detect that fast, I detect it soon, and in general I avoid people like that.

For two reasons. The first is that most people confuse their self worth with their value to others, and don’t know that self worth comes from the inside. They look at their check book, their car, their house, and their relationships, and think that they are worth proportionally to those things they have. It would be a fine system when you are on top, making money, and playing around, but sucks when you are broke and things don’t go well.

Self-worth can mean different things to different people in different stages of life. How we assess our self worth is usually dependent on what stage or place we find ourselves at the moment. It can be a personal determination as to what we value the most; and if we don’t possess what we value the most, we can deem ourselves deficient and self worth plummets.

But aside from not understanding their own value, people also confuse it for a second reason: They think others are capable or perceiving their real value, whatever it is. That is not a good presumption. Others tend to be just as confused and blind about your value.

When you walk into a party and people see you come through the door, do they know you are intelligent and sensitive, and that you manage your money well, or that you take good care of your parents, or that you are honest and reliable and treat others with respect? They don’t notice any of that because there is no easy way to notice it. You need to use symbols, strategies, and language to get those values through. Many people get frustrated when they don’t see people appreciating and noticing what they consider to be their virtues, while it is their own responsibility to find ways to make others perceive those virtues and, consequently, perceive value.

People judge a book by its cover. They respect or discount you instantly based on your appearance. You can have the best personality around, but if you look sloppy, people assume you are sloppy.

Value does not manifest other than through symbols: Body language, spoken language, images, information about you, referrals, personal looks.

It’s unfair, your personality should be all that matters. Your ideas and work ethic should be the what people consider first. But they don’t. People respect those who look like they deserve respect. They spend money  on those who look like they already have money. And they seek relationships with those that seem to already have them or have already experienced them.

Value, for the purpose of the discussions in this blog, is the measure of how desirable, important, useful, or meritorious that person is from someone else’s point of view.

A persons value is the perceived worth in usefulness or importance to the beholder; utility or merit. The key word here is perceived. No value exists that is not perceived by someone. By separating and understanding independently what is your self worth, and your value to others, allow you to approve of yourself instead of needing someone else’s approval, while at the same time understanding how to project that value outwards correctly so people will notice it and will appreciate it.

Value is also relative. People will value you always in relation to how much value others can offer of the same kind and at the same time. Because uniqueness is the only value that cancel’s out this factor, the combination of being desirable and unique is so powerful.

People want to make money, they want to learn, and they want to have fun. Not necessarily on that order. When you have an emotional connection with a woman, help her make more money, teach her how to live better, and show her how to have more fun and more pleasure, she will surely be considering you great company to keep.

Most people lead boring lives.

Not so much stupid, as mind-dumbingly boring. I don’t hate everyone. I just find most people boring. Uninteresting. Predictable. I don’t know why, I’m not a professional psychologist, but I tend to spend most conversations waiting for the other person to finish her text-book database of opening conversations.

So when you do anything unexpected, anything out of the ordinary, you automatically get upgraded to the “top 1%” just because the other 99% are simple doing nothing with their lives other than working, watching TV, procreating, and accumulating debt.