Survival Guide to Modern Dating: Swiping Toxic Attachments, Manipulation, Fetishes and Matching Self-Discovery – The Better Way!24 min read

Note to reader: All I ask is that you entertain this post without accepting it, validate it, supplement it with your learnings & life experience, grow from it and then uncover your own myth. Apologies in advance for the modern day slangs and expletives!

There are many people that you will love, they are not necessarily the same people that you will make a life with – Are you looking for a LOVE story or a LIFE story?

Esther Perel

Sleeping in the same bed, doesn't make you close to someone. Living in the same house doesn't make you close to someone. The only thing which makes you close is - when you feel you can be open, when you feel seen and heard and understood.

Jay Shetty

Now, since I have you hooked on these poignant quotes and work of these competent, wise, and knowledgeable individuals – I wanted to relay the epiphany – that Esther Perel, Matthew Hussey, and Jay Shetty can relay the best sage advice and give you the map to find cupid’s silver arrow for most amazing, fulfilling, life enhancing relationship that we were all promised with our birth certificate.

Unfortunately, they can’t get inside of us to live our lives and cure the outpouring narcissism, psychological instability, destabilised self-esteem, need for external validation, constant comparisons, dysfunctional attachment styles, emotional mind maps – basically all the cognitive distortions and biases which come with a lifetime subscription/by-product of being human. 

P.S. In case you haven’t noticed, they’re not a charity, they have a commercial function related to creating this content in wake of the ‘great relationship dysfunction’ that we’ve been experiencing in real time. 

I know what you are thinking, who needs to learn about dating or relationships – because we are so fancy and now can say words like ‘gaslighting‘, ‘narcissistic triangulation‘ and self-love bubble baths is all we need as we are….ammaaazzzziiinngg….and…aaawaasssomee (yeah, that’s the subscription I mentioned earlier). Again, I don’t want to sound like a sanctimonious prick, but this one decision, kinda contributes to 90% of your happiness and unhappiness at times for most of your living years. Analogous to other fundamental things which define the quality of life for example health, financial literacy, self-awareness and mental health – Men and women put more thought into buying a phone case/cover than their relationships:

I like black, what are you, ohh yellow – naahhhh that’s toxic yeahhh. My uncle’s cousin’s daughter had yellow and it was like a feeevaaaar…

Ohh wait what is that, oh its Fuchsia and a Gemini – that’s so hot and I kinda get turned on looking at myself in it…

Let’s be together because I do not want to be lonely and share the burden of capitalism while wasting most precious things in life – our time and minds!

Disney/pop-culture has ruined dating for men and women and the subsequent relationships to a noticeable degree. It taught men that show your sword, kill a dragon, buy a house, tell her about your property portfolio, whisper the right words into her ears and elaborate charades (“ghosting,” “breadcrumbing,” “benching,” “cuffing season,” and “DTR”) around a commercial fallacy we’ve been planting in her head aka love. Also, she is not a human with her own emotions and needs – she is an object to be possessed, dominated, and replaced on a whim for a better shiny object. Simply, manipulate her by altering your personality so can get her walls down – and get closer to collectively mistaken promise land.

At the same time, said to women – listen up men are supposed to win you over, period – never forget that make sure you remind that every time they breathe and come to you. Also, keep wishing for your knight in shining armor to show up, who will make all your dreams come true and here you go memorize these dreams – these are the only ones you should have (“Love conquers all,” “Happily ever after,” “the ONE,” “I am a princess,” and “I am the top priority”), don’t bother finding your purpose, identity, self-worth, or any other means to evolve your consciousness, find greatness or importance in life. Also, don’t worry he will be everything you can imagine, tall, handsome, dark, rich as a prince, doesn’t get affected by inflation, cost of living, disease, and lifetime supply of BDE which you should never use and only utilize for meaningful relationship blackmail.

We don’t live in caves anymore, we live in echo chambers of eyeball driven commercial functions of our digital lords i.e., Instagram and Tiktok algorithms! This is what I love about capitalism, it started off for giving people giving prosthetic limbs and synthetic livers – now it’s our lifeline for dopamine hits, numbing existential pain, feeling of doing something with our lives by mindless scrolling, basis for gig economy – Deliveroo (I miss you), we have hundred flavors of toothpaste in the name of freedom, weaponizing outrage porn, broadening cancel culture and general polarization of political ideologies.

The post-covid era/ChatGPT era coincides with the ‘great relationship dysfunction’ – gender-based self-serving narratives which tap into the mindset and attention of both genders, without doing anything useful for their lives.

After selling p*rn to men and love as a be it all or end it all to women – it is time to supersize – where you tax both (mentally, emotionally but mainly financially) in new ways. When individuals and groups become entrenched in their own gender-based ideologies, they often fail to see the complexities and nuances of the other side. This can lead to a breakdown in communication, misunderstandings, and ultimately, a lack of empathy and respect for each other. In extreme cases, this polarization can lead to conflict, discrimination, and oppression.

On a personal note, I always get flabbergasted looking at the queues/focus at bookstore in the ‘Love’ section – which is only one gender.  The number of times, when some early-to-mid 30’s professional has justified past decade long meaningless relationships – without any introspection and usual suspect statements, he was toxic/controlling (boundary violations) and I wanted to travel (no compatibility), with a sigh and ‘I just love: love’ – so all is justified and acceptable. A part of me cringes and thinks, God forbids if a school shooter one day just stands and says – all is justified as it was love.

I have experienced people’s mental processors getting overclocked in slow-mo, real-time in 9k when I ask questions basic questions one asks before getting a car or home loan? What is the metric of compatibility (interest rate/terms)? How do you gauge chemistry?

I want someone to gag me with a soap, every time (which is most of the times) the response is along the lines of: 

I see how “I” feel about seeing them, you go for hikes/check out restaurants and for chemistry you “kiss” and stuff on 40th date (unless the ‘input fetish’ : white boy/girl fever, red/blonde hair, postcode/developer who is 6 feet, he’s in a band & travels– comes true then same night) and age-old f*ck-all “aunty conditioned statements” without the user manual i.e., actions speak louder than words.

I am like ‘Amen’ sis/bro – quick question – do you know how you spend your own time, like where have you spent past 2 years of your life? Do you know how to use emotions as productive & constructive actions for yourself & others? Also do you know your own past relationship narratives? The ones which will get you triggered every 18 minutes in an hour into ‘this is a great restaurant/boat/park babe’ routine?

For women on the other end, it is like going on a date with a guy, who has spent past decade on Centrelink (social security checks) and he says I am going to be astronaut. They will say, I acknowledge and respect the enthusiasm but have you thought about the educational, mental and physical dexterity required for it. He goes, Naaah, the boys say I should wing it – because I am a MAN yeah – also men are leaders, wolf, muscle bro and crypto/NFT babe.

People of earth – there are things which are more important than love, you will fall in love with multiple people over the period of your life, you will have healthy love and unhealthy love, but once you lose your identity, self-respect, psychological stability, and ability to trust – it will be quite hard to get it back - عدنان

The root cause of dating dysfunction:

We do not meet and date people in a vacuum; we have lived a life filled with personal interactions, experiences, conditioning, and emotional mind maps. More importantly, we all have cultural & social narratives around gender, love, sex, relationships, and marriage (Personalised Thermostats Or Negotiables & Non Negotiables). For example, you might have religious friends but you do not want to be with someone who pursues religiously stringently compliant life. Now this is where it gets, slightly complicated, we implicitly believe due to general personal inadequacy or negative life experiences that – there is a gap between our perceived value as a person and love, sex or a specific gender – which must be closed by performing some action or living up to some standard. This gap is called ‘Inferiority gap’ and the performed action is called ‘Performance Behaviour’.

For example, if a man feels that he is inadequate and he needs to become eligible & worthy for a female’s physical affection and/or sex or he is insufficient on his own and needs a woman to have status & esteem. He will perform certain actions e.g., the clingy and needy boyfriend, buying her gifts, getting her car fixed instead of going to work, waiting for her outside the coffee shop and automatically comply with batshit crazy requests and in part manipulate her cover that personal inadequacy. You can also see this as ‘Imposter Syndrome’ of relationships and ‘Behaviour Alteration’ to compensate that feeling of personal inadequacy – unlike actual constructive & positive action this is simply manipulation or Disney’s guide to how to f*ckup relationships – From men showering women with gifts so they’d sleep with them, to women acting weak so that men can save them. These charades are problematic because they lead to second-guessing and insecurity, reinforce low self-esteem, and inhibit actual trust. Great examples from one of the relationship course (link below) with my (crude & expletive) overlay are as follows:

Toxic Dynamic:

Responsibility for one’s actions and emotions are quintessential requirement for a healthy relationship. Because ultimately, taking responsibility for another person’s actions and emotions, not only does it fuck you up because you’re basically holding yourself responsible for something that you have no control over, but it disempowers the other person. You know, you’re secretly telling them,

“Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to be responsible for your own life. I’m gonna take care of everything for you.” You’re kind of like, it’s a very subtle (and actual) form of dictatorship and tyranny. Similarly, by not saying anything or buying into this arrangement (the other side) means you’re essentially giving away your autonomy to somebody.

Examples Dating Slang
The man who worships sexual conquest will not only objectify women he meets and behave in a manipulative fashion to get sex from them, but he will also objectify himself and treat himself poorly.
Rockstar and playboy/f*ckboi mentality – depending on fame, notoriety, wealth, title, and money etc – also victimisation addicts and usually psychologically unstable.
A woman who places falling in love above her own self-respect will sacrifice her identity to fulfill some romantic notion of how love should be, this destroying her relationship in the process.
Fantasy addict and easiest segment to sell useless shit – prime market always ripe for new cults
The man who puts women on a pedestal will objectify them and displays neediness and desperation, thus making himself unattractive to the women he meets.
SIMP, Codependent and generally needy men – who never learnt to be alone and worked on their self-worth, purpose, life!
A woman who believes that men are pigs and only want sex will feel entitled to behave selfishly and demonstrates anti-social behavior, this destroying her own chances at having an honest and trustworthy relationship.
The everyday malignant/covert narcissist (different by same core) and emotional vampires – usually, victimisation addicts and also psychologically unstable.

You're basically saying like, "You know what? I'm not able to make myself happy. So you better fuckin' make me happy." – this is where the toxic dynamic is born.

A Better Approach:

There is an equation to work out your taxes, superannuation, and car payments – there is no equation for a good, meaningful, and thriving relationships. Well, it’s complicated – kind of, the way most meaningful things in life generally are – however, the world that we experience, is MANIFESTED by the way we live our lives. As a mature, functional, and reasonable adult we should have the ability to know and communicate our needs in a relationship on a emotional, physical and spiritual level.

In my limited opinion there is a better way to get to know people which is more tenable to current day and age – عدنان's Six (6) Steps: Compatibility, Chemistry, Values, Attachment Style, Love Language and Becoming - (CCVALB)

A wiser and educated approach that will allow you to have a more productive conversation in getting to know people instead of self-fellatio focused useless statements like I am a foodie, cat or dog person and what kind of car you like babe (WTF!). 

You can get the step by step guide to my approach by short read, which on a conservative basis will save you the most precious things in life – your time and your mind and you will be closer finding THE ONE (if there is such a thing) or at a bare minimum you will live a better fulfilling life on your own – because you will leapfrog all the narratives, ironies, attachments, self-sabotaging patterns outlined in this article 

Unlocking Eternal Love: عدنان's Six (6) Steps to Find "The One" and Thrive Independently (Click to Read)

Scientific Narrative:

There is an equation to work out your taxes, superannuation, and car payments – there is no equation for a good, meaningful, and thriving relationships. Well, it’s complicated – kind of, the way most meaningful things in life generally are – however, the world that we experience, is MANIFESTED by the way we live our lives. As a mature, functional, and reasonable adult we should have the ability to know and communicate our needs in a relationship on a emotional, physical and spiritual level.

Again, It doesn’t matter what I say or for that matter what the currently reinforced social illusion is – there is an objective fundamental reality in the microcosm which reinforces and holds true irrespective of what we think or believe.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the one gender related stereotype and base narrative which is common across most faiths, social classes, literacy models, cast, creed and cultures – Men want Age & Beauty; Women want Money & Status (Read More) – the research and meta-analysis (10,000 Men & Women x 37 Cultures of what the opposite gender wants from each other.

Understanding and deciphering ideologies requires consciousness, thought, self-reflection and wisdom which is gained through life experience. The said consciousness is not there for young men and women and the experience based societal feedback loop/wisdom is FLIPPED for both genders.

This is where reality shows up at our doorsteps – there are fundamental physiological differences in the genders, which has led to this socially reinforced rule – to which I am sure there will be exceptions:

  • Men must find their PURPOSE, work on themselves INTELLECTUALLY, mentally, PHYSICALLY, emotionally to gain status and value. Men gain knowledge by building shit, dying in wars, or having emotional torment/purpose of expectations around ensuring there is a world for their generations and everyone else’s generation as well – this brings him VALUE, status, wisdom, intelligence and monetary benefits. Their biological make-up overtly features tendency to use violence for food, sex, and protection (Bad Men, David M Buss). Men have a long way to understand, develop compassion and integrating their emotions (energy + motion = superpower) into their lives. While navigating that the emotional enhancement doesn’t limit the ability to turn pain into meaningful sacrifice.
  • Women’s biological make-up generates a lot of hope, beauty, spirituality, peacefulness, purpose, and fulfilment (for self & others) by ability to CREATE LIFE. Women have SUPERIOR instinct/emotional intelligence, societal value due to beauty, but as they age – they also needs to work on their MIND to use superior emotions/intelligence as constructive & productive actions for herself and others around her. Which enables her to bring non-beauty based value/purpose to life, including status, monetary sustainability, WISDOM and coaching/guiding better life for the soul she created in addition to human’s created by everyone as well. MEN create their value and Women have to retain their value – as demonstrated by the scientific narrative.
  • This day and age is so freaking confusing for BOTH. Women, they are told, if you serve/focus on an employer/corporate lords, you are FREE. However, if you serve/focus on your husband and children – you are a SLAVE. Women have their work cut out for them due to inherent consciousness gap, also being targeted as the most easily exploitable target market and fallacy that men are the architects and perpetrators of their oppression – even knowing men are too dumb for that!
  • Men are burdened by the expectation to ATONE for sins they DIDN’T commit, stemming from a history of patriarchal evolution of world and sexual coercion. This UNJUST demand includes feeling sorry for their existence, facing DISCRIMINATION based on gender association, and justifying themselves through self-hatred. They are often overlooked and TAKEN FOR GRANTED, a profound by-product of cancel culture and virtue signalling. Men, for the most part, are not romantically interested in other men unless it aligns with their sexual orientation. The desired OUTPUT (protection, provision & sacrifice) from men is closely tied to their (human) need for acknowledgement, appreciation, and a feeling of importance. Rather than settling for a compromised version of themselves (women who show masculine traits), they keep on questioning the ‘dream’ society sells them (degree, skill, title, money, wife & a child – may be an early grave by war or sacrifice) which leaves them more HOLLOW and demonstrate NEEDINESS/DESPERATION and mostly SELF- HATRED – EVIDENT by the adult MALE SUICIUDE rate (75% of TOTAL suicides in Australia). Men got their work cut-out for them,  from AI P*RN to ONLY FANs to Addiction/Gambling, while validating themselves against the human needs such as reproduction/sex and their brain’s reward circuits being hard wired to beauty – in search of a meaningful, truth worthy and life enhancing relationship (which most of them don’t even have with themselves)
  • Our gender & identities influence and have role to play in our existence, however, each HUMAN is responsible for their actions and behaviours – we all know way too many a**holes from all gender, identity, class, creed i.e. HUMAN spectrum!

My Take on Dating/Relationship dysfunction: They BOTH need KNOWLEDGE not self-serving narratives by businesses (digital echo chambers) who clip tickets on every second you breathe and ruin your life by keeping you plugged into eyeball driven business models instead of working on OUR own self sabotaging patterns – constantly BLAMING the OTHER GENDER for their sub-optimal life quality, existence, struggle & choices.

Personal request – Foster or at least try to pursue: humility and unconditional trust, respect and empathy – which allows a safe & productive environment to have an open dialogue about these very antiquated topic which stay real across bell curve of human existence. This way you will have more FREEDOM to purpose-fit and ameliorate roles & tasks which fully utilise the COMPLIMENTARY & ENHANCING physiological traits (noted above) of both genders for a superior life experience irrespective of traditional and/or dysfunctional and/or functional social norms. This all convenient blaming, narrative projection and assassination by association for self serving & desirability bias of humans against each other – which simply is using ‘others’ to ‘your’ selfish end. 

Women are to Children – what Men are to Women!

o   In 2012, Colorado Aurora Shooting at the cinema screening of Batman 2: Dark Knight, three men threw themselves at their partners & girlfriends to save their life and died protecting them.

o   In 2023, police in Texas arrested a man who killed five of his neighbours. Among those who were killed include two women were found lying on top of two surviving children.

As for the elephant in the society (scientific narrative), I feel transactionality kills the sanctity of everything sacred in life. In simplistic terms, it means there is something else (familial, material, ideological, personal etc.) more important than the relationship itself.
 

Ask yourself – before getting into relationships where men trade sex & physical intimacy for love and women trade materialism & sustainability: 

  • What happens, when sex is forced and/or dries out? 
  • Or when you get fired, your industry gets disrupted, or the economy goes into recession?

The ‘Law Of Impermanence‘ impacts everyone and everything, the primary reason NO relationship is GUARANTEED. More importantly, what if the conditionality comes at the expense of MAN/WOMNEN’s humanity?

READ MORE: The Ironies of Conditional Relationships and Modern Love

Conclusion:

There is an equation to work out your taxes, superannuation, and car payments – there is no equation for a good, meaningful, and thriving relationships. Well, it’s complicated – kind of, the way most meaningful things in life generally are – however, the world that we experience, is MANIFESTED by the way we live our lives. As a mature, functional, and reasonable adult we should have the ability to know and communicate our needs in a relationship on a emotional, physical and spiritual level.

Personally, I believe that relationships and/or commitment is not a LV shop or a Ferrari showroom that you just go and GET a commitment or a person, we deserve what we bring to table – intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, peace, spirituality, strength, financial IQ, wealth, sustainability etc. It’s like throwing life down the drain for an anachronistic narrative that women have what men need, to be honest, even men themselves don’t know what they need and vice versa. The same way we can’t have a millionaire’s life with a minimum wage mindset, we can’t have a thriving relationship with a cult based dysfunctional attachment in the name of a commercial fallacy i.e., LOVE. Relationships with deep seated apathy, meaningless passive, and transactional trade agreements, not only disempower us by being or carrying dead weight, but it also waste the two most most precious thing in life e.g., mind and time.

Again, if you are unable to be happy and complete by yourself, you can never be happy with anyone else. The voids we fill inside us by using other people/external things make the voids bigger & worse – ultimately, you have to deal with it yourself.  True love is based on CHOICE not NEED. You might confuse them or mistake them to be the same. But if you’re filling a void and I mean any kind of void i.e. loneliness, companionship, affection, belonging, self validation, then it’s a need.

“I fundamentally believe that all dating/relationships advice is self-improvement. It all starts with self-improvement. If you want better dating opportunities, improve yourself.  When you improve yourself, you create a higher level of expectations and values in the people around you, and one of two things happens: Either those people rise up to those expectations, or they don’t and you lose the relationship. But ultimately, it’s a win-win situation for you, because you improve the quality of your relationships. And the relationships that don’t improve along with you, well, you’re far better off without them. The only way to FIND someone amazing is to BECOME someone amazing – Mark Manson.

Lastly, the most important element in a great relationship is KNOWLEDGE. All knowledge, self-knowledge, and shared knowledge to formulate a relationship which helps both people thrive. A knowledgeable person knows their self-defeating patterns, works on their purpose, self-esteem, kindness, wealth, and health. They know they’re ignorant of their own ignorance. They know billionaires also have to suffer through existential pain, uncertainty and hard work. Mainly they don’t oppress and manipulate others as part of their needs/desires – they don’t see others as ‘means to an end’. They only see others ‘as an end’, same as their own selves. – عدنان

P.S. Thank you for reading, I appreciate your time & attention. PSA STOP Bleeding On People Who Did Not Cut You – Until you realise, your GIRLFRIEND isn’t emasculating you, it’s your BS from your childhood like dad destabilising your self-image by physical/mental abuse. And your BOYFRIEND is not controlling/toxic, you have trust issues and commitment phobia and aren’t a right match for him but stick around till someone else comes along with higher dopamine supply (travel bug, weed, money, car) – It is better to part ways and seek help, find new values and live them with the right person.  

Disclaimer: Whatever I say comes from my subjective prism and personal conditioning, so ensure to uncover your own myth, it is about finding ‘what’ is right and not ‘who’ is right. There has to be a better reality that must be created that allows us to get the LOVE and ACCEPTANCE we all yearn in our lives. I have countered my confirmation and desirability bias while writing this article, make sure you do the same while reading it. Again, not all my words and sources are outlined below, I don’t have solution for everything, but learning without action is just intellectual and verbal m*****bation so let me know if you find a better way.

Sources:

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