I have a lot of sympathy for girls (and guys) eyeing therapy because the impulse to become better is a noble impulse, people just consistently misunderstand what works.

Oh shit we are in dating discourse now. All roads lead to Rome.

Anyway therapy works a little. Usually it works best on very bounded problems, and the more bounded the better. Great for specific phobias, okay for depression, not great for leveling up as a human. This is what you would expect of any medicine, tbh.

If changing who you are were easy everybody would do it. They don’t, which means it’s not. There are very important reasons any organism resists change. Organisms that change too easily fall prey to CHAOS. and they die.

Word to your mother and your ancestors who conserved and passed on their genes to you, good friend.

Anyway all organisms also must have mechanisms for change. Fun fact adaptation has two technical meanings in biology and one is evolutionary and the other is neurological. Please ponder this.

All organisms have mechanisms for change BUILT INTO THE HARDWARE. The wristwatch you wear - do you still feel it? No, because your sensorium decided to filter that input. Can you ride a bike without thinking about it? Yes. And you can do this at scale.

You are not the first generation to want to be better and it turns out sages and saints were much more concerned with this than the fake and gay logic chopping that passes for philosophy nowadays but ANYWAY if you really do want to level up at least KNOW what’s been tried b4.

The first hack is habits. Habits are not formalities, they are literally rewiring of your brain. There are a lot of self help people on Twitter... we know them, we love them, we joke about them, but when they talk about habits leading to virtues they are correct.

The second hack is religion. Christianity is true and good but please note that every high functioning group who doesn’t have a true religion develops some kind eventually, just for the bennies. It’s boring at this point to dunk on Reddit atheism but they do cuck themselves.

The third hack is changing your environment, and it works very well with the first two. This is the human privilege. Animals don’t think “I want to adapt: drop me in deep water so I can learn to swim.”

I cannot emphasize enough how much some of you need to consider these hacks instead of therapy. Especially number 3. You will never get what you want being who you currently are in the place you are in.

Yes, this is dating discourse I hate it.

Your chances of attracting and keeping the kind of girl or guy you want and have so far been unable to attract without changing yourself are about the same as losing and keeping off weight without changing anything about your life.