How Much Empathy + Sympathy Should You Have for Girls?

[Chase]

Here's a delicate subject:

What's the ideal amount of empathy + sympathy to be using with women in pickups and on dates?

Quick differentiation:

1. Empathy: the ability to peer into another's mind and imagine what she's thinking.
   
   
2. Sympathy: the ability to feel sympathetic emotions for another person.

Going to the EXTREMES on either of these is COUNTERPRODUCTIVE:

• Too much empathy leads to bottomless attempts to mind-read a girl, where you slip into mind-reading after mind-reading, trying to figure out thought after thought of hers, to the point where you construct an entire mental model of what she is thinking based largely on conjecture (i.e., detached from reality). Over-empathy leads to analysis paralysis where you never take action because you're too busy trying to puzzle out her every thought, then project her many possible reactions to each action you might possibly take with her.
  
  
• Too little empathy leads to continually using 'one-size-fits-all' tactics with girls poorly calibrated or not calibrated at all because you have no idea what a woman might be thinking and haven't actually bothered to ask yourself (or might even think "it doesn't matter"). Under-empathy leads to ineffective approaches that nearly always fail when sooner or later the girl realizes you are just running a script with her, not actually seeing her for her, and starts to regard you as a 'social robot'.
  
  
• Too much sympathy leads to pushover doormat behavior. Your bleeding heart feels so, so bad for her, whatever she might want or need, that how could you deny it to her? If she asks for a drink, surely she must be parched! Don't be a skinflint -- get her it! If she asks you to wait while she goes and talks to her guy friend, then it looks like she's flirting with him, you must give her the benefit of the doubt -- after all, think how offended she'd be if you treated her good friend like a competitor! Over-sympathy leads to doormat behavior where you behave overly compliant with women, offer far too many concessions, and give yourself 'no challenge' sky-high attainability, losing you her interest.
  
  
• Too little sympathy leads to oafish closed-off behavior. Your heart is made of stone, and nothing she says can move you whatsoever. She needs to do everything on YOUR terms or else you're hitting the road! You won't tolerate even the slightest deviation from your plan. None of her reasons matter; you don't care. Women will say anything; who can believe them? Under-sympathy leads to closed off, unattainable behavior that makes a girl feel like you don't care about her at all, giving you rock-bottom attainability that causes girls to auto-reject.

You can actually self-diagnose to an extent by looking at these outcomes and walking it back to the source:

1. Are you locked up dealing with analysis paralysis? You are guilty of TOO MUCH empathy and need to spend less time trying to guess what's in girls' minds.
   
   
2. Do girls treat you like a clueless social robot and switch from interested to weird and uncomfortable at some point in the interaction? You are guilty of TOO LITTLE empathy and need to be more attentive to what women are likely thinking so you can calibrate to that.
   
   
3. Are girls being extra nice to you, treating you like a pushover nice guy whose feelings they don't want to hurt? You are guilty of TOO MUCH sympathy and need to be a little more distant, nonchalant, and asshole-ish with girls.
   
   
4. Are girls auto-rejecting you, turning ice cold and treating you like a jerk? You are guilty of TOO LITTLE sympathy and need to be warmer, more emotionally open, and less rigid compliance/investment-wise with girls.

So what is the ideal amount of empathy + sympathy?

It is whatever amount allows you to avoid ALL FOUR OF THE ISSUES ABOVE and have smooth interactions with women that lead to the results you want.

You will have to tweak this as you go.

But watch out for the signs of over/under empathy and sympathy, and use them to correct course:

• Stuck in analysis-paralysis? "I need to stop thinking about what girls are thinking so much and just clear my mind, make a move, and see what happens."
  
  
• Getting the 'girl suddenly turns awkward after previously being into you' treatment? "I need to be more attuned to what girls are thinking so I can adapt my approach to where she's at."
  
  
• Girls treating you like the nice guy doormat? "I need to care less about what women are feeling and be more of a selfish prick."
  
  
• Girls treating you like the inaccessible jerk? "I need to care a little more about what women are feeling and help them feel more understood and appreciated by me."

The better a job you do avoiding these issues, the closer you are to ideal empathy and sympathy levels in-field.

Chase

 

[jackgignac]

What about girls who try to force compliance against your will?

 

[Chase]

@jackgignac,

What about girls who try to force compliance against your will?

That's not an empathy/sympathy problem.

Depending on the situation:

• She might want you but feel like you're moving too slow so she has to take charge
• She might think you're weak and that she can extract what she wants from you with pushiness
• She might be angry at you and push you hard on something to punish you
• She might be sexually frustrated and behaving extra testy/pushy to try to find a guy who will put her in her place (then fuck her)

Gotta look at the context to figure out which one.

Chase

 

[HoofHearted]

This seems like a discussion of empathy/sympathy in the more pragmatic sense that informs our actions. As usual, it's very good.

I'm going to admittedly curve it a bit, and I'll thank you for your patience with that.

I'm going to say, particularly as I have grown from a young man who did not understand them, to having at least a modicum of understanding of the nature of women... my empathy and sympathy (well, particularly empathy) for them knows no bounds.

Sometimes I feel like a forest keeper who understands deer and tends to their greater good.

Sometimes this means if I'm hunting, I'll let one go if I think it serves. I had an incident last year where I was romantic with a beautiful woman but due to timing issues and some of my internal conditions, she ended up in a monogamous relationship with another man. And after dealing with the initial feelings of failure, I supported this -- this man was willing to give her something more stable and conventional than I would ever offer (I'm still a ho, after all these years), and I could see the emotional benefit this stability lends to her life. Go be happy and healthy, little deer.

From a certain perspective, you might say I sometimes take L's. And I do, as it suits me, because I'm strong enough to take them. And I feel I can do something with them. It all depends on whatever the calculus shakes out.

This is not to say I feel powerful over them, or I cry every time a woman gets a splinter, or that they need me. Women do not need me, I am a single man and I am infinitely replaceable. But if I come across a woman in the course of these lives we are living, and I can give her boost up and it really costs me nothing, I almost certainly will -- because I think it's hard to be a woman, and I would never want to do it.

Back to pragmatism. Being attuned to women has informed me of what they're really doing when they're interacting with me. It has become far easier to hear a valid request like "open the window please I'm hot" because she's uncomfortable and "open the window please" because she's trying to boss me around or see what I'm made of (this is a mostly real example). So in a way, I think a few of the examples in the post are more like misapplied sympathy/empathy due to misunderstanding of what these creatures are doing and what they really need.

Deer love it if you leave food out for them in one spot, and maybe like sugar cubes or salt licks rather than their normal diet. You can even condition them in this way. But this is not what's best, and the consequences can be dire. If you lack understanding, you might say "animals need food, it's good to feed them, and save them the trouble of grazing for themselves." If you have understanding, you might say, "Deer need to graze. Deer need to be deer."

I find, when I get too spun up in these feelings of what is another person's mind, this actually a manifestation of my own anxiety, and not a more genuine display of empathy. But I don't really want to distract from your practical, quality, value giving post with semantics. Maybe I'm just trying to offer a quality response as acknowledgement and thanks.