Mr. Herbert on the origins of One-itis
From Ladder Wiki
Oldboy wrote:
SubIW wrote: So, to you guys, a direct question: Do you "brace yourself for impact" and go up to a girl with whom you would get hurt if you got rejected, or do you seek out girls you don't care about and try to get them? Have you thaught yourself to not give a shit?
I try to think of it as a very flexible game with alot more to win than to lose. Like in any game I think its good to care a little but not so much that you cant lose gracefully. The only real loss is not to play at all in this part of human interraction.
The point is to make moves quickly when you meet a girl before you fantasize her into something that she's not. If you create a fantasy world where she means all these things to you in your fantasy world or you fantasizing about the future, and she rejects you, then you feel hurt by that because you've lost your little pretend world. The point is to be realistic, not create these irrational fantasies about a girl. It's not about approaching girls you don't care about, versus ones that you do care about. It's approaching girls that you don't really know yet, with the intention that it's POSSIBLE for you to get to know each other/care about each other more in the future etc. The point here is that you have NOTHING invested in the positive outcome at all. You have nothing to lose. If you do succeed, then you've everything to win.
It's kind of like playing one of those games where you try to pick up the stuffed animal, or a ring toss or something. Anybody who isn't an idiot knows they're not going to win most of the time, but you still put your quarter into the machine or pay the two bucks or whatever. But when you DO win, hey look at that! I got a cool new stuffed beaver. Or whatever.
The point is that there shouldn't be any fear of rejection. The fear of rejection comes when a person has created a fantasy which does not exist, then goes and does something in the hopes that the fantasy will be true in reality, and when that doesn't happen, he/she feels rejected. If you just initiated something with someone with no pretenses that it's going to become some fantastical creation that you've been imagining for weeks/months/years, what is there to feel rejected about? Who cares? Not a big deal, move on, there's been NO LOSS to you at all.
The point is that it's a completely NEUTRAL/WIN situation. You can't lose, you just leave neutral. That's the problem with IWs, they fantasize about a relationship that doesn't exist, and hang on to any hope that it might exist some day in the future. They begin to feel that it actually WILL exist and thus it in their mind in some sense it becomes true, just in the future. When that fantasy bubble pops by realization that that is not reality, that's the feeling of being rejected. It's as if when the IW is rejected, he's actually broken up with somebody and a relationship has actually come to an end. In his MIND, that's true because his fantasy has ended, and he had such intense belief in it that it was almost actually true, but it just was going to happen in the future.
If you don't get oneitis and create this whole fantasy-relationship with someone that DOESNT ACTUALLY EXIST, then why is there a need to feel rejected? There is no loss on your part at all. If you don't succeed, you're in the same spot you were before, which is TOTALLY FINE. you're NEUTRAL. You didn't lose anything at all. If you suceed, hey great! Then you've won, good for you. It's neutral/win. It's not as if everytime a girl doesn't like you that she gets to steal your car. You haven't lost anything at all.
