Insights gained from therapy.

Pedestalization begins with mom. She is self-centered and is too emotionally immature to understand or accept negative feedback. This is another way of saying she lacks empathy and cannot tune in properly, emotionally, to the child.

If you give her negative feedback, she reacts negatively to it. There is no way to express your needs without pissing her off. "Damn baby, you're so fussy!" and "Mommy needs a break!" would be reoccurring themes. Maybe your mom, like mine, was a depressed wreck of a person. You couldn't add to her burdens without overwhelming her.

So you learn to swallow your needs, self-censor the negative feelings you have, and just make every interaction a celebration, that she deigned to spend a kind moment with you. You wouldn't dream of asking for more, or expressing your negative feelings about being neglected.

This is the first step, when you learn to stop expressing or even recognizing your needs. Later on you will 'orbit' a woman for months, not acknowledging to yourself that you need her touch, her desire, and her physical love; instead, you will entrust these needs to a person who clearly does not care about or take them seriously.

Then it goes a step further.

Mommy loves being seen in a positive light. Mommy loves a happy baby. You learn to always be glad about what she does - because when you're sad, she goes away, punishes you, or doesn't register it.

Now you start projecting positive things onto Mommy that aren't really real. When she's gone, you dream about her, and the games you'll play when she gets back. You dream up reasons why she needs to be gone for so long, or why she stopped playing with you. Its not because she doesn't love you, its just because [reason here]. Mommy is so awesome. Remember that one time?

Congratulations, you have formed your first fantasy relationship!

She is so awesome, isn't she? You think, from the loneliness of your crib or room. Hours pass. She's back! She's here - for 10 minutes. Bliss! You just know she loves you, because she played with you for 10 minutes and it was a great time!!

Fast forward 20 years later. You meet a woman, who shows you a lukewarm interest. She thinks its cool that a handsome dude like you would be interested in her. Time passes, and she doesn't make herself available in any serious way, aside from minor flirtation or talking, and she doesn't demonstrate any emotional investment whatsoever. Yet your feelings deepen. You know she likes you. You know how awesome she is. You know that she's just not making time for you because she's stressed about [reason X].

Congratulations, you just formed your first romantic fantasy relationship! And its with someone who doesn't really care about you - a real winner!

She's so awesome though! OMG! What a divine being! Is there any end to the positive qualities that you are going to imagine she possesses? Basically, no. When it ends, or fails to meet your most intense and basic needs (sexual, primarily), you feel ashamed!

And then you're so ashamed because you read online articles about what a loser you are, what a beta simp you are, for idealizing another person before you bonded with them. You read a bunch of redpill articles about dudes tearing each other apart in the most vicious language - all just for making this really simple, and almost inevitable, mistake. Dudes call you, or imply that you are: a loser, chump, beta, chode, simp, wimp, cuck, mark, and a pussy. You struck out once or twice; they're all pretty sure you're going to strike out forever. Your sex life is going to be as dry as the mojave desert, the articles assure you.

Unless you reinvent yourself as Chad. And now you have to become this whole different person, just because of a silly bonding and relating dynamic that you learned as a kid.

curtain falls, end scene.