A cry for help
alpblog.heroku.com
alpblog.heroku.com
I haven't thought about it much recently until now. The first time was in our second year. The second was when our son was a little over a year. Now he's nearly as tall as me, and we've been married almost 17 years.
Both times the stress of work and professional goals played a role. Getting our relationship working again helped with both over the long term.
http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/relationship-game-...
Anecdotally this has been radically more effective for myself and my friends than paying a third party to intervene. One response to marriage woes is to blame the other person or society or fate; another is to blame oneself and improve your appearance and behavior so that you are the man she fell in love with rather than an uninteresting housepet (I speak of a common scenario). That link is about the latter path.
It's kind of ironic, you went from trying to fulfill all her demands, to trying to guess her subconscious desires, and working to fulfill those instead. Either way, you're changing yourself to suit her, you're doing all the work. It sounds like you might have low self-esteem if you describe yourself as an 'uninteresting housepet'.
you're changing yourself to suit her
The key premise is that men are attracted to beautiful women just as women are attracted to high-status/confident/alpha men. The first half of that sentence is not controversial to articulate; the last half is where there's a conflict. According to society women should instead want men who are caring, sensitive listeners. Try that yourself and compare that to their response to an assertive leader who gives clear directions. That's all that "alpha" is; it really is an empirically large difference.
Wrong. Dead wrong. If you do everything to please your wife, you have a serious personality disorder. I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean it as a statement of something you might not realize.
I like dressing up because I like dressing up. I've worn a suit around the house on a lark, I wear ties to a n office where T-shirts are the norm. I absolutely do not do it because I'm trying to please or attract women. On the contrary, it probably seems stuffy and uninviting.
I work out because I want to be in good shape, so I can go on cycling trips, and live a longer and healthier life. I don't do it because I want women to stare at my abs (they're coming along, promise).
I saw a counselor while I was in a relationship to work through my issues independently. I ended up leaving my girlfriend, who I still love dearly, because I needed space to work through my own pathologies.
If I act assertive (and I usually don't), it's because I'm confident that I'm right, and I feel something is urgent. I don't push incorrect opinions on people just for the sake of being manlier than the other person. I try to be considerate of everyone's opinion, and make reasoned decisions. I frequently say 'I don't know', and then go and find out.
> According to society women should instead want men who are caring, sensitive listeners
The Ryan Gosling school of thought. Unfortunately, as much as you think you're working against society, you've just described a different caricature: James Bond. There are as many bad boys in movies as good ones, and the bad ones usually get the girl.
The whole premise of your post is that you live your life and define yourself to optimally please/attract women. If you define yourself only in terms of other people's opinions, you likely suffer for poor self-esteem. As much as the blog you linked is funny, it's not helping you work through your issues.
edit:
I forgot about
> Shrug.
You're honestly so afraid of a little introspection that you've resorted to writing out gestures of indifference. Rather than consider your own life and marriage, you're looking for a quick-fix that sounds like a movie ( Grease, specifically, but you're Oliva Newton John).
Give it a rest, "game" just means having an interpersonal dynamic that makes conversations and relationships more fun and engaging. It doesn't mean changing who you are, and it doesn't mean that everything you do is for women.
If a guy gets in shape and makes himself more fun and interesting to save his marriage, that's a bad thing?
That is not what the linked page describes. Here is one example:
> Just the other night, I called her to let her know I was coming home so she could time dinner to be ready when I got home.
I was dead tired from my martial arts training that day (I was doing full contact kickboxing training, very rigorous)…and I stopped at my friends house at around 5:00pm to drop something off that I had borrowed from them and have a quick drink before heading home.
After one drink, I lay down on my friend’s couch for a moment…and the next thing I know, it’s 2:30am in the morning.
I drove home, and got into bed. I thought she was asleep…but she promptly said in a real bitchy tone “Where you having fun tonight?!?!”
I simply said “I fell asleep on _____’s couch. I’m tired, good night, dear.”
And promptly rolled over and went to sleep. I don’t even remember what she said to me in response.
If you call someone (wife, partner, friend) and tell them you are on your way home at 5:00 PM knowing that they will begin cooking dinner and don't show up until 2:30 AM then not apologizing doesn't make you "alpha", it makes you a shit head.
Someone else already explained why "gaming" sounds like code for being an ass.
The whole premise of your post...little
introspection...serious personality disorder
Anyway, it's not your whole life, but if & when you want to attract women you are going to put in effort. That effort should be effective; game is about what works. Go ahead though and be a sensitive and non-assertive man who sees counselors and isn't interested in manliness etcetera, no one is stopping you. Or run the experiment, try heartiste.wordpress.com's 16 commandments for three months, and see what happens. We'll be rooting for you.
If I was trying to have a girlfriend, I would have stayed with my girlfriend. Once again, you're a man who defines his whole life in terms of women. Have you ever been single for a significant length of time, or did you fall in love with the first girl you saw and get 'married young'?
> if & when you want to attract women you are going to put in effort
Nope. If I have to jump through hoops to get a woman to notice me, I'm going to spend my whole life jumping through more hoops to get her to keep noticing me. Instead, I do things I enjoy, and I meet people. Some of them are men, some of them are women, and I treat them the same way. If I get to know a woman, and she's interesting/funny/attractive, I ask her out. Period. No games, no fucking around spraying myself with cologne and putting her down to increase my chances.
> That effort should be effective; game is about what works
I don't really understand 'effective', nor the three month promise. What'll happen in three months? Some women who are superficially attractive will be interested in me? Will I have to pretend to be interested in them because we have no common interests or basis for a real connection? No thanks.
> I don't mean that in a bad way
Yes, you absolutely do. The difference between calling my personality a shtick, and me recommending a counselor is miles. When I say 'I don't mean that in a bad way', it's because I'm against the stigmatization of mental illness. Everyone has some baggage that talking to a professional would help them unload, and the world would be happier for it. From the description of your relationship it sounds like you're used to passive aggressive people, I'd like to offer this for your consideration - not everyone interacts like that. Some of us just say what we're thinking, plainly and clearly.
EDIT - ok so I just read some of the article you linked, I can't really fathom anything about that, I couldn't ever be in a relationship like the ones described so I guess I'm not qualified to comment on how to fix a relationship like that. My relationship is a partnership - not to say that we're equal in every way, we each excel in different areas and support each other as needed.
That said, I still don't think that advice is applicable to a lot of people, going from being a doormat to a arrogant alpha seems pretty extreme and likely to undermine the basis of whatever the relationship was founded on (assuming it was founded on something like her being a demanding princess and you being a cringing sycophant)
The advice on this blog presupposes that your wife is just something you keep around to cook for you and sleep with you and be some kind of hunting trophy: "look, I bagged me one of these!" You can then keep her sweet with mindgames about how you're too good for her and she should be grateful you come home at all.
I hope nobody whose relationship fits in the former category is tempted by these anecdotes into thinking the latter is a better lifestyle choice. Do you really want to treat your supposed loved ones like this?
In addition, it's quite an insincere sentiment to think of status items only in terms of status. Numerous things can motivate dressing up or getting exercise, and finding the appropriate motivation for them is part of getting a "whole life" instead of just status accumulation. If sincerity is abandoned from the start, the relationship is just business.
Yes, "the man is not assertive enough to match the interest of the woman" is a pretty stupid initial assumption for every marriage on the rocks.
I would expect a well-developed person to think about things like this, and to have this conscious thought get compiled into reflexes and emotions: you notice a guy can cook really well, and you start paying attention to him more and maybe reconsider your evaluation of him; you notice a guy behave terribly without good reason, and your estimation of him lowers.
The picture I get from this blog post is that the husband and the wife are unaware of any admirable qualities the husband might have, and are unaware that they should expect any to exist. Or, if the husband has any good qualities, the wife doesn't care about them--e.g. maybe he writes blog posts well, but she does not do blogging and cannot admire his skill there. Why are they married? Why did she marry him? The author supplies an answer at the top: "I got married young". I guess she was young too and maybe it can be explained as a dumb youthful mistake. Anyway, the lesson seems to be that if you suddenly wake up married to someone because God knows why, and you have no idea what qualities of yours might appeal to her, then you can appeal to her in the lowest-common-denominator way: putting on behaviors that make you seem like an alpha male who can afford, socially, to carelessly hurt people.
That can be understood as an extremely limited form of "exhibiting admirable qualities": exhibiting some negative personality traits that, apparently, the unconscious mind has some hard-wired admiration for, because they are correlated with admirable qualities found in alpha males. ... Maybe it has some use, maybe I would use it if I were thrown into a primitive, violent society where you do not expect to have much interaction with potential mates before making your decision--but I can't admire this. I want much better. I'd like to enjoy and admire my mate with my full conscious mind. I'd like to pick a mate based on this desire.
Do people seriously not do this? (I expect there are people who come from primitive, violent societies who are unaware of anything else and will tell me "no, of course not; lol, this guy srsly believes in fairytales". This will not faze me. I'm basically soliciting input from civilized people here. Also wondering if there's anyone with a similar perspective as me who can explain the thought-processes of people like "Dave from Hawaii" in that blog post: has he simply not been brought up to think that this "idealism" is a serious possibility? 'Cause that was probably true once--that there weren't many admirable qualities to look for (if the most important things about a man are those that determine how he'll fare in a hunt, and maybe how large a section of the winnings he'll get--and how he'll do in tribal politics), and not much opportunity for a woman to observe them herself. Other personal qualities would be more important in a husband who goes homesteading and raises a nuclear family with you on a farm. So I expect some people come from cultures that haven't gone through something like the latter phase; that might explain the difference between them and me.)
Well, there's what you say and what you do/think. There are certainly neurotics who may choose to want partner on the extremes of weaker/stronger. Those play-games wouldn't make the interest or need healthy even with those "needs" met.
I should clarify that I am referring to dominance/submission of a different sense, not lifestyle fetishistic.
Being assertive and abusive are not the same thing.
> HER: “I don’t want to eat here.”
> ME: “What? I thought you said…”
> HER: “I never said I wanted KFC.”
I'm a divorced guy, and my ex-wife sure did have her faults (like, cheating), like I did have mine, but I thank the gods of marriage and divorce that she never pulled that kind of stuff on me. I find this kind of stuff very disingenuous, it's like the weight of the whole relationship falls on only one person.
One of the things I love about her is that she isn't inclined to take shit from people. Functionally, this includes me. My best friend isn't a bauble. She's a grown-ass woman.
For the rest which concentrate on technical/project issues:
Isn't that the actual objective of this thread?
Directing people to some loosely-but-not-really related XKCD comic adds nothing to the discussion. Neither does "the best comment" about marriage counseling for that matter, but I can see how that would be controversial.
Making unsolicited life-coachy suggestions to people whom you know nothing about isn't as noble as it looks at first glance. The project's developer didn't ask us to give him tips on how to improve his life, he said he was looking to hand off the project.
The situation would be different if there was an intra-community Ask HN from the developer, but we're talking about a blog post where this reason was given merely to illustrate why he can't work on the project anymore.
On your second point, there's an enormous difference between saying "I can't continue with the project, someone else want's it?" and "I can't continue, because of A, B, C...Z, someone wants?". When you add the personal touch to a question it's inevitable that someone is going to answer with a personal experience. The same rhetoric you use can easily apply on the inverse case. Making unsolicited comments about you marriage life to a crowd of technologists/geeks/whatever should not be noble (whatever this means in this context anyways) either then. If the project developer didn't want advice about his married life, he should have kept his marriage troubles out of the spotlight.
In any case, there's one important distinction to make: Giving such marriage advice is worth it if at least one person that needs it reads it. The original poster probably didn't give marriage advice because of the odd chance the developer will read it; I mean lets be realistic here, the poster/blog-author is not the developer with marriage troubles, so there's no reason to believe the developer will read this. He most certainly did because maybe someone here in HN could be going through a phase in his/her marriage/relationship that could use the couples therapy, and publicly acknowledging the benefit it had for him can have an positive impact on someone that actually needs that advice and is browsing Hacker News instead of attending to his significant other.
I wrote to entertain. Myself first, HN second. My post works because it's honest. And because I edited it. I've been trying to improve my writing.
I've been consciously picking subjects I'm interested in. The subject of my post is very interesting, from a personal standpoint - what with it being me. I've been trying to improve my writing.
What I wrote was consciously tailored to the post and the emotional state of HN in the wake of Aaron Swartz's suicide. Right now, the community is taking calls for help more seriously. I've been trying to improve my writing.
Noble? I don't care. I'm trying to improve my writing. That means being honest and writing for myself.
When you remove yourself from a stressful work environment, it soon becomes apparent that your attitude toward everything is being influenced.
She was a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. In Florida, where we were, this meant that she was qualified as a psychotherapist based upon testing, education, and work experience under clinical supervision.
The non-caveat is that we went together as a couple. The first time, although I bought into it, my wife brought it to the table. The second time, I was already forty-five miles down the road in my truck at the rest area, when I made the decision to go home suggest it.
It wasn't a magic pill. The therapist didn't fix us. She pointed each of us to some behaviors which would facilitate healthy responses in each other. And in ourselves.
Thanks for everyone proposed helping the guy I mentioned in the post with their comments in the post I had to delete.
> This is getting ridiculous: the Svbtle design is not open source, and I have never given permission for anyone to use it with Wordpress.
Dude. Without trademarks, patents, or copyright, there's not much you can do. There is no permission for you to give or not give, unless your actual code is being ripped off. There is no "open source" license that the Svbtle design could be licensed under even if you wanted to do so. You could probably get a patent on the design. Apple has patents on rounded corners and page turning, for example. Once you publish something or offer it for sale in the US, you have one year to file for a patent. You still have time, but of course, IANAL.
They're blatantly, outright, misleading. I had no idea it was a clone until now.
Also IANAL but I think it's more likely to be protected by copyright than a patent, which means there's no short-term limit like that.
Software and hardware cloning has always been at the heart of the tech industry.
It's one thing to clone hardware or software, but another to misrepresent it as being from the same source as the original.
He holds the copyright to the html code, css, etc, the moment he writes it. He holds the sole right to license his work. You (figurative "you") don't see a license? That means it hasn't been licensed to you and your re-use of it constitutes copyright infringement.
Isn't this unoriginal?
Yes, in the same way svbtle is unoriginal.
See the original ["inspiration" for svbtle].
I certainly don't agree with that.
I've stood up for Dustin on other matters, but I think he's in the wrong when he tries to call out people for stealing what essentially amounts to border-radiuses and an original, albeit poor UX, like button. That said, there is a brand aesthetic here and a reputation that goes along with it, so I do think it's pretty tacky for people to use the theme and misguide people reading their blogs into thinking they're a part of this internet cool kid's club, whatever your thoughts on invite-only blogging platforms may be.
All things said, there are so many better looking minimalist WP themes out there for me to believe most folks chose this one at random. If it trended on lists and blogs, it was because enough people who recognized the potential made it so.
I know many will argue it shouldn't matter, but it really makes me subconsciously think less of the blog author and the post's content.
Svbtle is a killer design. A true innovation, and it's impeccable. The writers aren't meeting the same standards though.
Just a thought.
EDIT: Add alpb to your network. He's good.
Did a view source. Yes the author is using Obtvse but I don't think the DESIGN BY @DCURTIS thing is from Obtvse.
To the author: thank you so much for dedicating your time and effort to this project, and I wish you all the best.
X-Forwarding over SSH for this use-case has been pretty annoying (mostly due to latency), and PHPVirtualBox has been a major improvement.
I hope the best for him.
https://code.google.com/p/phpvirtualbox/source/browse/trunk/...
" The process by which language libraries are maintained may have a bigger impact on language success than generally recognized.
A common event for developers is finding a bug in some crucial library function. The big question is, what happens then? There are several models:
1. The library is commercially supported. 1. The vendor is responsive to bug reports. The user submits a bug report and the problem is fixed. 2. The vendor is not responsive to bug reports. 2. The library is supported by volunteers. 1. There is an community supporting the library, with multiple people permitted to make updates. 2. The library is supported by a single person who is active in developing the library. 3. The library is supported by a single person who is not active, and no one else can change the code."
This clearly falls into his last category of 2.3...We are supposed to feel sympathy for some anonymous person on the Internet? I thought Hackernews was a venue for interesting ideas and innovative startups. (edited to include the first sentence)
And HN is not only about interesting ideas and innovative startups, its about anything interesting for a hacker. And that could include news about another hacker (or human) who has built a great product and is now in distress. And many would love to help him as a human (to reduce the suffering) and as a hacker (to keep the product alive).
So you may not be interested, but others might. And that is what this forum is about. And as you said, from the responses of many in this thread it is clear that many are interested in this news.
Guess I should have made a blog post about it :P
This is aslo not a part of the Svbtle network, for what it's worth.
Personally I'd just show the whole hostname and maybe prune a few common subdomains like "www.", "www2." or "blog."