It's been said a billion times before but bears repeating: Don't try to unplug other people.

Why?

 

  • Most people aren't ready to unplug.

  • Unplugging typically produces extreme, violent and unpredictable behavior within individuals. (Violent meaning extreme, not actually violent. (But sometimes that too.))

  • You more than likely do not possess the professional skills necessary to guide another human being through, what is essentially, a complete destruction and overhaul of their subjective identity. Unplugging is ego death.

 

When you've lived your entire life based around a core set of beliefs, any evidence to the contrary; any evidence that undermines those beliefs will usually be ignored or outright denied as false. Those of you who have truly unplugged know how it felt to finally be smacked in the face by reality.

Maybe it wasn't as violent and jarring for some of you as it was for others. Maybe for some of you, like it was for me, it was a pretty easy transition because you were more willing to investigate a different viewpoint on a topic (in this case intergender relationship dynamics) and also more willing to subscribe to a new, beneficial belief system.

I read the advice tons of times and I still tried to do it. And guess what? Nothing happened. It didn't work. I didn't unplug anybody. Specifically for the reasons I listed above.

 

I'm lucky that I'm not in some high level position of a company where my reputation would be at stake for trying this. I'm also lucky that the guy I've tried to help is one of my best friends and, frankly, is too loyal and dumb to ever really grasp the fact that he could do my reputation slight damage by telling people.

I've been dropping what knowledge I've gained and fully grasped in bits and pieces to him over the past year or so, and sure. He understands it logically. I think. (He can be really thick-headed sometimes.) But even though he can regurgitate to me the things I've been saying to him this whole time, I just have to look at his actions. Sure enough, he hasn't soaked it in. He still displays traits and acts in ways that signal to women that he's better suited for long-term provider material.

He gets laid every now and then sure. But even a blind pig finds a truffle occasionally.

I've learned to not give him advice on women anymore because all I'm doing is wasting my time and energy giving advice to somebody who clearly, whether he realizes it or not, doesn't want it. Instead, I just tell him what he wants to hear. "Yea dude. Totally. Take her out for dinner. She'll def bang you for that."

 

The words have sunk in deep enough to where he knows logically it's not the right thing to do to get himself laid, but that matrix programming is entrenched so deep that, at least for my friend, it will take a woman completely crushing his heart to finally get him to tell me that he's ready to listen. And sometimes, that's what it takes.

 

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't get them to drink.