First of all, everyone has mental problems.

Maybe not everyone has bipolar or schizophrenia, but everyone has some mental problems.

As far as self esteem issues, idk. I have mixed feelings about that. It really depends how people cope and adjust to life. There are girls with self-esteem issues who are the sweetest, nicest, most stable and well-adjusted people, but when you know them personally and privately, you’re shocked to find out how little they believe in themselves and how they just need someone next to them to reassure them that they can do it. I’m talking brilliant and intelligent women here. Beautiful women. Their self-esteem has just been torn down for whatever reason. These girls don’t fall for that alpha/machismo/RP bs.

It’s kind of like anxiety, there is no one singular flavor of low self-esteem. I have anxiety. But I dance, I’m social, I handle trials and oral arguments on appeal, I give presentations and am a natural public speaker with no Xanax or anything like that. So are the psychiatrists and psychologists wrong? Are they just milking my health insurance? It’s possible. But my very real panic attacks and constant worrying tell me otherwise.

Then, there’s a flavor of low self-esteem we have all seen, but we may not pinpoint or identity as low self-esteem. Has anyone seen X-Men, where the black cab driver with short hair and hazel eyes, tall thin/skinny dude, his superpower is to “adapt.” He puts his head under water and grows gills? Remember when Hans Von Duché fills his mouth with energy? What happened? He started to turn to rock/stone in order to adapt.

Well, this sort of transcends political ideology. You see this in conservative women, and you also see this in liberal women. I’m no psychologist, so the best I can offer is layman’s pop psychology. It starts off with a girl who is somewhat sheltered by her parents, and suddenly blitz rushed with all this information from the outside world. It challenges her self-image, how attractive and valuable she is relative to other girls, whether men would be interested in her (compared to other girls), etc. This is obviously emotionally painful stuff to a little girl, and it’s the parents’ mistake for not slowly EXPOSING her to this earlier and in gradual doses so she can have an easier time coping and adjusting. It’s also the parents’ fault for maybe being too busy or not caring in the right way and giving her the kind of parenting she really needed (e.g., instead of brainwashing her about religion and how precious all life is for as long as it’s still in the womb, conservative values, diversity and how women are always perpetual victims, or liberal values, maybe the parents could have asked her questions about what she’s actually struggling with in her young life and help her with coping and adjusting as a child). Without their help, and with what seemed like a flood of emotional micro-traumas, some girls cope or adjust by creating a hard, numb, confident exterior. It’s almost like they sever their nerves. They cultivate this persona, and disconnect their personality from the threat of external stimuli. Over time, the personality loses touch with external stimuli (the child has repeated onto itself what her parents had done to her). What “is” extremely well developed (because it has stood in the way of all the external stimuli) is the girl’s “inner parent” or “super ego.”

So, when you have these girls grow up to be teenagers and young adults, and their feigned shell 🐚 is developing by trying to emulate “strong” behaviors to prevent her from getting hurt by the external world, she will walk like a confident duck 🦆, she will look like a confident duck 🦆, but inside, she’s a suppressed, repressed, and sheltered chicken 🐓(and I don’t mean that in a demeaning way). This is a girl with a very strong and overpowering inner parent, but a severely underdeveloped inner child. She is the embodiment of what Kurt Vonnegut said, “We are who we pretend to be, so we must be careful about who we pretend to be.”

THESE women, they absolutely fall for alpha/machismo/RP stuff. They eat it right up all while protesting, “Haha, no way, only stupid women with low self esteem would ever fall for that.” You’ll even catch some of these women say things like, “I’m an alpha female, and need to be with a man who is stronger than me. If I can chew him up and spit him out, I’m just so turned off and not interested in him.” Again, this is true whether the girl is conservative or liberal. This transcends political ideology.

Here’s the thing. It’s going to sound very “meta.” When kids start developing their self-esteem, they’re very deferential and respectful, because they don’t know any better and are learning. When they’ve been beaten around with some experience, they have this sophomoric effect where now they “KNOW,” and either act jaded or what “APPEARS” to be egotistical and arrogant (but again, is just unresolved insecurities and self-esteem issues). Then, when someone is genuinely well-adjusted, genuinely 99.9999999% comfortable with themselves, has coped with life, etc., they’re deferential, quiet, low key and “nice” (easy going, not [TM]) again, but this time, because they’re just observing others.

When a woman is operating under a sophomoric defensive mechanism of a shell, she has no real emotional reference. It’s disjointed. All she has that’s solid is social script theory. She glues together stereotypes about men and “other” women and that’s her inner adult’s “personality.” That’s the only way her inner child can ever hope to find any kind of affection, attention or love from a man. She’s leading her interactions with men neither with her inner child nor her inner adult.

It reminds me of this hideous Jewish girl. Not even ugly. Beyond ugly. Just hideous. Her face was like the makeup and special effects team of Resident Evil was just given license to bring to life their pet project. She was obese. By some miracle, her community had found her a husband. With the “authority” of being a woman who found a husband, she began to “enlighten” guys and girls about “men.” A line just came out of her mouth that made me facepalm and roll my eyes. “Guys just want sex. So, why am I going to have sex with him? If he cares more about a relationship with you than sex, then he’ll wait.”

Now, we know whatever statement that was did NOT come from any kind of quality or quantity of personal experience of her and dealing with “men.” Yet, it still came out of her mouth with the kind of confidence and certainty of someone who had a PhD in male sexual behavior. And that’s how she operated her life. Emulating confidence and certainty for herself. Others may have confused it as either confidence, egotism, arrogance, etc. But that’s the difference between “action” and “motivation.” “What” someone does is not as important as “why” they do it.

The mental rule for me is, if a woman is leading with her inner PARENT, you can spot it a mile away. They don’t want a man who is leading with his inner ADULT, much less his inner CHILD. They can only relate with a man who is leading with his own inner PARENT. It’s no longer two real people interacting. It’s two defensive shells of social scripting software interacting, until the female determines, “Yes, this man is a very well put together software program replicating the ALPHA male,” and the spread leg protocol commences. RP doesn’t just WORK here, it’s a mandatory social script for relating to these kinds of people.

Women leading with their inner adult do NOT relate well with men leading with their inner PARENT, even a “nurturing” parent. But, they do relate with men leading with their inner CHILD (who they don’t really consider relationship material, but will entertain for fun/sex). These women DO genuinely relate best to men leading with their inner ADULT. Now, women are human. They are not immune to making mistakes. They are not immune to wishful thinking. They may date a man who fluctuates between his inner child, parent, and with what seems like hints of adult, in the hope that he eventually matured into operating with his inner adult. You know, dating an asshole thinking you’re going to be that one special woman who “changes him.” But I see those as one-offs. Even women recognize those were mistakes and don’t seek to repeat them. If RP works here, it’s by pure accident and circumstance. Momentary weakness and vulnerability because of life stress or regression as a defense mechanism.

Women leading with their inner CHILD, they’re open to anything. They like the thrill and high conflict between her and a controlling parent, especially if she’s an adaptive child. They like the older man / younger woman (or “little/daddy” or “kitty”) dynamic if the guy is a nurturing parent and she is a natural or creative free child. They also like a man that leads with his inner adult, especially if she’s a “little professor” child. Generally, however, women who still operate with their natural or creative “free” child prefer men who also operate with their inner CHILD. They are looking to explore their emotional and sexual world, literally like a child exploring a room full of new stuff. RP is a crap shoot here. You can run the hard machismo version of RP for thrill seekers. You can run the soft smooth version of RP for daddy seekers. Girls just want to have fun, and there are many flavors of fun. RP is just one of many flavors.