BP's "true self" meme

destinaito · 2018-03-09T20:03:55+00:00

Women don't want my genuine self, so if I want to have sex, I have to pretend to be someone else.

"Be yourself" only works if you're Chad aka your genuine self is already considered a valuable and attractive human being.

DarkLord0chinChin · 2018-03-09T20:49:46+00:00

I think "just be yourself bro" has only one meaning - don't be awkward, be comfortable in your own skin.

SpaceWhiskey · 2018-03-09T22:01:55+00:00

Q4BP: What do you mean by "true self"

In terms of dating advice, it means don’t lie about anything that could bite you in the ass. I’ve told this story several times, but here we go again.

I was friends with a guy in college who was a regular at this coffee shop, and most days he was in there he saw this girl reading poetry books. He decided to ask her out, and to charm her, told her that he loved poetry. She said she’d never met anyone who liked poetry as much as she did, she read for hours a day, regularly went to live performances, workshops, book signings, etc. He lied and told her him too about all of it. So they start dating and after a month or so every time I see him he won’t stop complaining about all the poetry stuff that she “drags” him along to. He wasn’t being himself, and it bit him in the ass. That’s what it means. Every time this thread comes up, BPers explain its about not lying about your interests, at least not about anything you aren’t willing to perpetually fake.

He didn’t have a fun breakup. He snapped at her one day when she told him there was a reading she wanted to go to. For her it was completely put of nowhere, he’d been pretending to like it with her their whole relationship. And when he admitted he lied to get with her and actually hated poetry she was angry and heartbroken.

theambivalentrooster · 2018-03-09T20:21:11+00:00

Your inner self is bullshit to the rest of the world. It's meaningless to us. All we see and care about and experience is how you interact with us.

I don't care if you are a hateful racist misogynist with the interior monologue of a serial killer if you treat people decently.

[deleted] · 2018-03-09T21:07:25+00:00

What do you think BP means by "true self"

Don't try to cheat the game, be of genuine quality. Don't try to weasel out of my evaluation of you as a human being with parlor tricks or pretense. Whatever's left after that is what BPers are talking about imo.

blackedoutfast · 2018-03-09T23:30:10+00:00

everything is a facade. there is no "true self." no fixed, immutable, permanent version of you. it's an illusion. just another mask that you wear internally.

you can change the masks you wear externally and change how others see you. but you can also change the masks your wear on the inside and change how you see yourself.

Feyra · 2018-03-09T19:54:32+00:00

Q4All: Define your "true self?"

I'm a self-important jackass, much like I imagine most people are when being truly honest.

Q4All: Shouldn't we all work towards improving yourself as much as possible towards whatever goals we may choose? (Which will inherently include changing your behavior and attitudes).

Well, yes. In fact, I think a lot of social problems in the world stem from people not being open to change or fear of the "different".

TheBookOfSeil · 2018-03-09T20:13:55+00:00

I think the majority of people say this because they have heard it elsewhere before, and they have no other advice to offer.

Q4All: Define your "true self?"

"I am what I am and that's all that I am" (you know the rest).

Q4All: Shouldn't we all work towards improving yourself as much as possible towards whatever goals we may choose? (Which will inherently include changing your behavior and attitudes).

There is nothing that anyone "should" do. They either do or they don't.

wracky272 · 2018-03-09T20:47:47+00:00

In my opinion, your biological imperatives could be more accurately said to be your "true self." The optimal male reproductive strategy of sleeping with multiple women on the side with a loving wife and mother at home would be closer to my "true self" than the culturally programmed gentleman women claim to like.

This made me smile.

Q4All: Define your "true self?"

My "true self" consists of things I naturally gravitate toward without active resistance. Laziness, addiction, and self-loathing. My routines are actually formed around not letting my "true self" take over.

Q4All: Shouldn't we all work towards improving yourself as much as possible towards whatever goals we may choose? (Which will inherently include changing your behavior and attitudes).

Yes. Women particularly are inclined to tell men to just be exactly who they are from the get go because it makes selection easier.

apube · 2018-03-09T21:14:58+00:00

The danger with putting on a facade for LTRs is that people are lazy. They'll drop that mask almost certainly, and suddenly their partner is stuck with your true self. Seems like a breeding ground for resentment. Let's say you based your relationship on say, loving movies and you don't actually love movies, you were just pretending. Well when you're infatuated, it'll be easy to watch movies with your boo. But then you get older, weary, you've got a job, limited time... You're not gonna watch movies with your partner, and If you do, it fills you with resentment. Your partner will understandably feel upset and confused over this change. It probably won't really matter because it's just movies, but if you do this with your whole personality... youre just setting your relationship up for failure.

Obviously short term relationships won't have this problem.

That would be like a criticizing a hunter for seeking a more experienced outdoorsman to learn how to be a better hunter.

This is learning, which is different from the LARPing I've witnessed TRP advocate. You can learn new techniques and skills. But your personality, your natural inclinations, your like and dislikes? Those are less learned, more innate.

Being yourself has advantages and disadvantages obviously, but I think for most people it's a better, more sustainable alternative to LARPing a whole new you. I'll admit that some people are fucking train wrecks and their true self won't get them happiness, but I suspect you can't LARP your way outta that.

"Be yourself" can also mean owning your mildly embarrassing idiosyncrasies with confidence rather than being a pussy about it. Which is sometimes good advice too, but depends on context.

MercedesBenzoAMG · 2018-03-10T01:30:02+00:00

There is no such thing as a "true self."

You are constantly changing. Who you were five years ago is not who you are today and who you will be five years from now will be different yet again.

You can control those changes if you care to. For example if you have a short temper you might make a conscious effort to be more relaxed and happy around people. If you make that stick, you've just changed yourself. Soon enough it'll become second nature to you and it'll no longer require effort.

The word personality comes from the Latin persona which literally translates as a theatrical mask. The whole origin of the concept of personality then was never meant to be related to some kind of inherent "true self." It's a mask you can put on, take off, and switch for a new one.

I will never understand people who cling to this delusion of the "true self." Who is this mythical "true self"? Is it who you were at 16? Or the (hopefully) totally different person you became at 21? Or did you only become your true self at 25? Or 30? You get the picture.

In order to actually live up to this idealistic nonsense you'd have to halt any kind of personal development and remain as you are right now forever.

It is highly beneficial to be able to evolve your persona throughout your life. Don't waste that gift.

"Man prides himself on being the only animal who can modify his nature, yet when he chooses to do so he is called a phony."

[deleted] · 2018-03-09T21:35:20+00:00

I think more of the issue with BP's theory of self is not so much the true self but such that the true self is permanent and not dynamic.

I have seen them say things like "If you like video games and anime, trying to workout or go out drinking won't work because your not being yourself" or something along those lines.

The mistake here is that, one's self, true self, whatever you want to call it is shaped by your experiences. It is not dependent on biology. A man who grew up being trained to be a college athlete will be very different in his "self" than a man who grew up with a single mother that handled everything for him.

[deleted] · 2018-03-10T09:46:59+00:00

They want authenticity in ways that benefit them.

This goes for a lot of female chiming in on dating/sex related topics btw.

Women say: be honest, but what they really mean is: be honest in a way that lets me sort out your true motives, and reject you accordingly if you plan to pump and dump me and/or are low value, and also doesn't frighten me by being too direct.

Women say: be yourself. What they really mean is: you will probably never get pussy... but that's not my problem, lol. All I care about is females like myself not having to get "gamed" into being fucked by a subpar male (you and everyone like you). Therefore, young man, go forth and be both honest and celibate.

Etc.

And this is why you don't ask women on advice for how to be successful, you ask men who actually went out and did it. How to achieve dating success as a woman vs how to achieve it as a man are two very different things. Women prioritize finding the right partner, and so that's how most of their advice is oriented. It's about getting the best deal, with the assumption that there are lots of easily accessible possibilities out there to choose from. Not being yourself is counterproductive to this goal, because it just results in you ending up with someone you aren't truly compatible with.

Meanwhile, men have to fight to even get their dicks wet at all.

You do the math.

Ascimator · 2018-03-09T20:13:53+00:00

My true self = acting in the way that feels most natural to me and causes the smallest amount of internal resistance. If I'm putting on a facade for a specific purpose but drop it when not trying to achieve that purpose, it's not my true self.

Maikowski2 · 2018-03-09T21:23:02+00:00

Once a woman experience's a man's true self, it is more likely than not that she will lose any attraction in him. Been there, done that. Now I reserve my true self only to myself. World was built on manipulation, not honesty. Honesty is appreciated when it benefits somebody, but all in all, honesty and "truthiness" is being not just shamed but suppressed and even punished by governments.

My true self is absolutely boring and lazy person who want to sit all day doing stuff that I like, eating in my bed, shitting 4 times a day, showering like whenever I go outside, so if I do not go anywhere, I can just be like this for at least couple of days. That's how I was born or how I "grew up". Oh, and my true self hates myself too.

Yes, we should improve constantly, otherwise nothing would get done.

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BiggerDthanYou · 2018-03-10T00:34:20+00:00

what they really mean is "be what benefits me (women) the most." Also, combined in this meme that BP often carries hints of a just world fallacy.

How does it benefit women the most if you be yourself?

In my opinion, your biological imperatives could be more accurately said to be your "true self." The optimal male reproductive strategy of sleeping with multiple women on the side with a loving wife and mother at home would be closer to my "true self" than the culturally programmed gentleman women claim to like.

Then be yourself and be upfront about your wishes and desires. Finding a woman that accepts you for who you are is better in the long run than being the gentleman that culture apparently programs you to be.

One of the main criticisms (behind misogyny) of TRP is that they are betas role-playing as alphas or not being their true selves. LARP-ing so-to-speak. And I don't understand this analogy either. That would be like a criticizing a hunter for seeking a more experienced outdoorsman to learn how to be a better hunter. This relationship would naturally entail changing his behavioral affectations to mimic and eventually duplicate the success of his mentor to where he eventually became a seasoned, successful hunter himself. Is this new hunter just LARPing as a successful hunter or is he now a successful hunter himself?

It's more like a vegan acting as if he loves hunting in order to impress someone.

Q4BP: What do you mean by "true self"

Let's say she wears a indie band shirt. You hate indie rock, especially that band.

But you think she's cute and thus tell her that you love that one song.

Later she talks about feminism and politics and you agree with her on everything and tell her how much you hate Trump, even though you actually admire him.

That's an example of not being yourself.

Being yourself simply means staying true to your values. It's better to be loved by someone that enjoys who you are than pretending to be someone else only to lose her once she learns that you've been faking it.

Q4All: Define your "true self?"

It's the way you are. Your values, your dreams, your ideas. The things you enjoy, the music you listen to, the things that make you laugh, the art that you find beautiful, the way you act around your closest friends, the niche you belong to,...

Q4All: Shouldn't we all work towards improving yourself as much as possible towards whatever goals we may choose? (Which will inherently include changing your behavior and attitudes).

Improving yourself isn't contradictory to being yourself. Achieving your goals is inherently being yourself

Your behavior, attitudes and values change all the time, but that doesn't mean that they don't define you at that moment.

kick6 · 2018-03-10T01:29:29+00:00

Rollo Tommasi talks about this occasionally. Inherit in the "be yourself" meme is the idea that masculinity is a mask, and that every man is actually a gooey sack of emotions hiding behind it, and if you'd just drop the mask...women would line up to be with you...just like they think women should be for them (but they're not).

nebyzark · 2018-03-10T05:19:37+00:00

The fact that red pillers divide men into either alpha/beta is retarded as fuck and quite frankly insulting to me, as a male. Such people are useless leeches and have way too much free time. Just my two cents.

BothWaysItGoes · 2018-03-10T18:27:33+00:00

Q4RP: What do you think BP means by "true self"

Well, they literally mean it. It is a primitive thought-terminating cliche that alludes to the idea that there is a neutral, almost agency-free, state of humans with a just-world fallacy vibe.

Q4All: Define your "true self?"

In the past people believed that vacuum is simply void (and this is the literal translation from latin), but nowadays we know that physics is more complicated. Now, vacuum state is defined as a state with the lowest possible energy. I think it is a good analogy, "true self" is a state of the least effort.

Mr_Smoogs · 2018-03-11T10:58:48+00:00

I see this meme quite often from BP types. "Be yourself," "be your true self," "why can't we all be our genuine selves." It appears to me that when women say "be yourself" or "why can't we all just be ourselves" etc..., what they really mean is "be what benefits me (women) the most." Also, combined in this meme that BP often carries hints of a just world fallacy.

Being yourself isn't much in the way of the just world fallacy. It's actually a very challenging thing to do - and most TRPers who discuss this are very clearly afraid of it. Being yourself means realizing - and openly communicating, both your strengths and your weaknesses. TRP/PUA involve lots of strategies designed to manage anxiety - specifically the anxiety that if someone sees who you truly are (if you show emotion or weakness), they won't like you anymore.

In my opinion, your biological imperatives could be more accurately said to be your "true self." The optimal male reproductive strategy of sleeping with multiple women on the side with a loving wife and mother at home would be closer to my "true self" than the culturally programmed gentleman women claim to like.

Most cognitive traits are strongly genetically determined. Acting in line with your biological "True self" would consist of embracing this, instead of trying to put on another persona. For instance, an introvert shouldn't think that he needs to become a people person in order to be "accepted" or desired by women.

I think these comments answer your questions as well. For the last question I would say that everyone should work towards goals that are congruent with who you are on the inside. Get good at stuff you've got talent for, be honest about what you can't do. For guys who want status and success(and access to women), this also means getting good at something which is beneficial to others and where proficiency is recognized as desirable. Guys who are taught this from a young age rarely struggle with women.

[deleted] · 2018-03-11T16:16:50+00:00

I think I’ve proven that you have a different definition of the term than most people. It doesn’t matter what you think “should” be the definition, most people will understand what this type of advice means, you’re the outlier.

Your overall discussion style has consisted of moving goalposts and repeating yourself, not actually coming up with any counterarguments - so I’m going to leave this as my last post in this discussion.

newName543456 · 2018-03-11T23:44:35+00:00

Q4RP: What do you think BP means by "true self"

Whatever act that lets you find any sort of LTR (but not casual sex!), whether it's satisfying for yourself or not, better be happy you got anything wholesome!

Q4All: Define your "true self?"

There is no static true self imo, it can be greatly reshaped/influenced by vatious factors.

Q4All: Shouldn't we all work towards improving yourself as much as possible towards whatever goals we may choose? (Which will inherently include changing your behavior and attitudes).

Sounds obvious. But note that what you may find as desirable goals, some might find despicable. Doesn't necessarily mean they're right about it.

Jammerly1 · 2018-03-10T02:48:27+00:00

I tend to think that being your true self is living in alignment with all of your thoughts and feelings and being able to express them well to others. Good politicians can do this - they can communicate who they are in a way that makes them easily understood by others. Bad politicians are empty soulless suits. Flip floppers and sycophants. When they rise to the top, we’re all disgusted with what we see. We want people to tell us the truth about who they are. Authenticity is key to inspire and motivate people. It is also the key to getting what you actually need from life.

Corporate America favors the soulless suit and extreme conformity. It’s terribly limiting.

Every bit you comprise is another piece lost.

Title	BP's "true self" meme
Author	Mr_Smoogs
Upvotes	6
Comments	179
Date	March 9, 2018 7:47 PM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/839j8z/bps_true_self_meme/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/bps-true-self-meme.263310 https://theredarchive.com/post/263310

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