Project Pansystellar

• (only including this because i think it's funny that the talk started with this) Some pickup lines to use "at your own risk" (these are paraphrased by me and I feel like I forgot some): I'm peace and I want to be with you; I was reading the book of Numbers and realized yours isn't in there; [some well known historical guy] had many wives because he didn't meet you; Bible says to feed hungry and give drink to thirsty so how about I take you to Chipotle; [something about rosary...] you can be my joyful mysteries for 5 decades
  • Someone said Chipotle isn't good, then the friar ask for a different place, and I wish I came up with the response "my basement" quicker so I could say it 😔
• Some guys struggle with connecting with other guys, then they just be with girls, and their lack of male friendships led to something (emotional sharing or something like that) being excessive with girls
• Better connection with men allows better connection with women
• Men should talk to each other about personal struggles, including struggling with chastity
• We should be "intentional" in seeking these friendships (in other words, try to develop male friendships)
• Important reminder of the different levels of friendship (pleasure, utility, virtuous)
• Differences between men and women, not very relevant here
• Just like metal sharpens metal, men strengthen each other (from Bible if I recall correctly)
• "The sharper we are, the more dangerous we are" (not in a bad way)
• Deep friendships can be falsely seen as homosexuality, but they are actually completely good and non-sexual
  • He said that John leaning on Jesus's chest was not sexual

In retrospect, God definitely guided me to go to this talk. Naturally, it was more likely that I would go to another event instead or use the time to work on assignments.

It's possible that God broke* my laptop's motherboard to make me come to this talk. Maybe I will explain this in a post in a different community.

*very indirectly, but saying it this way is so funny

I came up with this idea today

I just realized that a lot of my personal improvement in understanding the formation of romantic relationships can be described as discerning the boundary between what's common and what social norms require. When there were too many things that are in the common category but were not known by me to be in it, I could not always be myself, and I had a narrow view of the acceptable paths I could take (which was especially bad in my situation with girl 4, in which none of the truly socially acceptable paths (including abandoning the situation) were part of what I thought I could do).

[migrating to design docs]

It's possible that after being told that girl 3 (the "McDonald's girl") had a boyfriend, I forgot that my overall interaction with her was good by itself, not just as a step to a goal. This could be a contributing factor to my feeling of shame.

Previous attempts to describe things about the mindset shift (dates of notes are for the last edit, and names are redacted):

• May 12, 2024: journal/log entry written on the day of the mindset shift

  decide to seek platonic friendship with girls almost for its own sake

  • Use of the word "platonic" here might not be completely accurate
• May 19: 3 excerpts of an early draft of the group chat messages

  I used to have a tendency to have excess focus on one girl, taking the next step in pursuing her, etc. I was afraid of not maintaining that focus enough. This kind of habit actually slowed me down and was bad for me.

  To be clear, if you have a crush on someone and you are afraid of saying hi to them, focusing a lot on doing it is a good thing. You are more likely to focus too little, rather than too much, when fighting against shyness.

  Thinking about the entire path to having a girlfriend and ultimately to marriage is useful for maintaining courage, but not for much else. Instead of thinking about how the details of what you do affects the bigger picture, just try to make the present moment good. This can make you more free and make your personality more visible.

• May 20: group chat message

  I suggest that all of you should try to deeply know many people, make your whole personality seen by many people, and focus on making the present moment good.

  This is part of a change to myself I decided to make a week ago. I'm still working on an explanation of the whole thing, but I wanted you to be able to follow some of my advice in the last few days of the school year.

• May 23-24: 3 group chat messages

  This is the main idea of the change I mentioned a few days ago: in my journey towards marriage, the next big step for me to work towards is me and a girl's personalities and values fitting together in a very good and visible way.

  What I said in the other text (know, be known, focus on present) is a requirement for this, and it replaces my cage-like tendency to prematurely try making up my mind and to have exclusive focus on one girl that spans a large amount of interactions. Also, it's a good mindset for all social interactions, which means it helps with more than just getting a girlfriend (in fact it's probably the lore behind me throwing a Kit Kat at _ and someone else). The exciting part is that it's one mindset for everything, which means the involved habits can be used and developed in all social situations, and I can get far in something without even thinking of it as platonic or not platonic.

  I am keeping the same principles of ambition. The difference is that the way in which I apply them will be less confined.

  I am excited about what this mindset makes possible for both you and me. That's why I worked hard to identify things in my subconscious and explain everything with enough clarity to properly guide you. Don't waste the potential.

  It's hard to believe I figured this out only 3 months after I was only starting to be brave enough to say hi to whoever I have a crush on.

Muh freedom

To be clear, making the present moment good doesn't mean staying in or near your comfort zone

• May 27: journal/log entry

  realize how to explain the concept of romantic/platonic not being a thing most of the time in my new mindset: the full potential of the present moment must be accepted, and whether or not it's romantic is almost never for me to decide

• June 14: private note

  Be yourself: pursue your vision of fun and strength, not of comfort

• June 16: private note

  Pursuing girls, becoming confident and then less focused on one girl, [is] like plant needing to move to bigger pot

• June 28: private note

  Be infinitely patient

A few hours ago, I might have nailed it.

There are 2 relevant categories of human behavior. Here's a description from ChatGPT:

1. Goal-Directed Activities: These are actions undertaken with a clear, specific objective or outcome in mind. They are purpose-driven, often involving planning and effort to achieve a desired end state. Examples include working on a project, studying for an exam, or saving money for a purchase. This concept is widely discussed in psychology, especially within the context of motivation and goal-setting theory.

2. Experiential Activities or Intrinsically Motivated Activities: These activities are pursued primarily for the experience itself rather than for any external reward or end goal. They are often done for enjoyment, relaxation, or personal satisfaction, and are motivated by intrinsic rewards such as pleasure, curiosity, or a sense of connection. Examples include socializing, listening to music, or engaging in a hobby. This concept is central to theories of intrinsic motivation and flow in psychology.

In philosophy, similar distinctions can be found in discussions about "means and ends" or "instrumental and intrinsic values." Activities with a specific goal are often seen as instrumental, serving as a means to an end, while activities enjoyed for their own sake embody intrinsic values.

Doing an intrinsically motivated activity is like grabbing balls out of a bucket and not seeing what you're grabbing until it's out of the bucket. The results (possibly some causing others) of the activity are represented by the balls.

My social behavior before the mindset shift can mostly be described as doing these at different times, if I remember correctly:

• Goal-directed social interactions, with purpose of pursuing the long-term goal, mostly by either getting closer to someone or making myself stronger
• Intrinsically motivated social interactions, completely platonic in most cases

In most cases i did the latter

✨ After the mindset shift:

• Goal-directed or intrinsically motivated tweaks to interpersonal encounter selection (choose to be around certain people in a particular moment, choose to join a certain club, etc.)
• Intrinsically motivated social interactions only
  • This explains why I felt like I now have "one mindset for everything"
• Goal-directed analysis of observations about people or of the "balls" from social interactions

ChatGPT claims that George Levinger is relevant to this. Tangent: the Wikipedia article mentions this concept, which might be useful to include in the Pansystellar Architecture:

As two partners become increasingly interdependent and concerned with each other, their mutual involvement is pictured by a growing intersection between two circles or mutual "life spaces."

Goal-directed interactions might still be needed for people who are still very shy. A fire or engine start analogy might be used for this.

For a little over a year, I've only been maintaining a log of events in my life. Yesterday, I started another log for times when I have a mental model of the future, especially the progression of interpersonal situations. This might make it easier to understand past mistakes and know exactly why I'm confused by present situations.

I highly suspect that not starting this sooner is why it's taking a while for me to fully analyze and write what the heck was I thinking in my situation with girl 4.

• Saying with certainty that a girl likes my brother based on how she looks at him
• Encouraging a focus on making a move on a girl before someone else does (My belief: it's good to try to be the most brave guy, but when determining specific actions, you shouldn't focus on competition)
• Speaking a little negatively about my brother being in a super close friendship with a girl for a while without making a move and about how it supposedly confuses other people

For the Pansystellar Architecture, liberating people from fear is not enough. It needs to liberate people from the imperfections of any culture. It needs to provide assistance and encouragement in seeking perfection instead of perfect imitation.

I attended a retreat at this couple's house, and they told us this story. I see it as an example of liberally seeking connection and not being afraid of causing people to suspect feelings, all before you even know your feelings and desires. Today, I realized how important this story is.

In high school, they became very close friends. They even spent so much time talking on the phone every night. The boy dealt with people thinking that he had a crush on the girl, and he kept on denying it. If I remember correctly, the friendship being platonic seemed a little weird to the other people. After 4 years of friendship, he knew his criteria for his future wife and eventually realized that the girl met all of the criteria. So they talked about this and eventually were in a relationship. The boy valued starting relationships with the trust of a deep platonic friendship. Now they are married and have a kid. (During the retreat, the kid drooled on a table, and the dog licked it.)

When I heard this story, it kinda felt like a glimpse of the future.

This might be the only time that an adult in my life ever spoke positively about being in such a deep friendship and not quickly start dating. In fact, my own parent once spoke a little negatively about it, and it was about my sibling's friendship. For the Pansystellar Architecture, I am choosing freedom. People should not be expected to be so decisive.

To be clear, this doesn't necessarily mean you should force yourself to wait for 4 years or start with lots of strict criteria.

Slightly related fact: At that retreat, we all got flower pots, planted something in it, and kept them. I planted a type of flower called pansies. That's where I got part of this project's codename from.

A thought I had and forgot to mention in the post about girl 3

I can't remember my exact search query, but it included "social skills", "dating", and something like "free guide". Still gotta try a search without "dating".

Useful takeaways:

• Situations that are helpful for connection are very broad, and includes going to a store
• "perhaps you assume that the woman you just approached would never be the type of girl who views a 10-mile hike as refreshing and invigorating. However, instead of avoiding the topic as you may have in the past, this time you choose to share your passion with her, and your tales of outdoor adventure are so compelling, that regardless of her previous outdoor experience (or lack thereof) she is excited to share a new experience with you!"
  • This can be modeled as an example of applying an idea from my "girl 2" post: "Be very skeptical of the division between fantasy and what you are capable of in real life." In this case, it's the fantasy of connection through doing or talking about one of your hobbies, or the fantasy of shared interest in a part of your life.
• Risk is "feeling awkward emotions", reward is "excitement and euphoria by connecting with another human being"
  • Emphasizing that the risk is just "emotions" is potentially very important
  • This view of the reward is useful but too narrow
• "if a woman attempts to “Creep-Shame” you while you are ineffectively attempting to engage her in an interaction, you do not have to accept her reality as your ‘truth’, and you don’t have to resent her either! Instead empathize with her, brush it off, and don’t take it personally."
• "we’ll simply filter a woman’s negative reaction as feedback positively signaling to us that we have room to grow and improve our communication skills"
  • Something that I think is important to add: after discovering a severe negative reaction, we are morally obligated to think just a little bit about how to behave in the future, but we should not make a change that isn't an improvement in every way, and we should focus on the future instead of the past
• "as long as you accept responsibility for your own actions; you do not have to accept anyone’s attempt to guilt you into believing you are a bad person for approaching"
• Possibilities when interacting with someone who is not a potential partner (This information is a starting point for figuring out how to pursuade learners to not try too hard to make interactions connect with a long term goal. To be clear, they should not try to specifically pursue these effects. They should just not have an oversimplified view of what interactions do, and not remain brainwashed by some people's tendency to be surprised by a girl and boy friendship being both strong and platonic. Also I think even this list might be too narrow.)
  • "You COULD attempt to befriend her and join her social circle (since birds of a feather flock together, and perhaps she may try to set you up with one of her friends – but don’t count on that one ;-))"
  • "She could become a great friend and inspire other women to chase you"
  • "showing every other girl in the vicinity how this attractive ineligible woman was able to attract this eligible bachelor – perhaps they will get a chance with you too"
  • "practice befriending a girl"
    • I would describe it as avoiding the habituation of isolation
  • "show you off to her friends"
  • "just become good friends with her. Treat her like one of the guys, trade stories, empathize with her as a friend, and invite her to all your events"
    • The way I've seen it for a few months is that social connection has many effects, it's completely good to look for short term enjoyment, and which effects occur is mostly not for you to try to control

Some issues with the articles (partly why I won't actively encourage learners of the Pansystellar Architecture to look at them):

• It's not clear to me what these mean, and I don't know if they are okay:
  • "there will be times when you will have to over-shoot and under-shoot the mark"
  • "There will be times when you will, sometimes by accident, and sometimes on purpose, make mistakes"
• "if she chooses to miss out on the amazingness that is you" is a risky choice of words (I'm getting "nice guy" vibes)
• What it says about physical bonding is not supportive enough of chastity

Link to the first article: https://www.textise.net/showText.aspx?strURL=https%253A%2F%2Farchive.is%2F2022.02.02-085649%2Fhttps%253A%2F%2Fwww.girlschase.com%2Farticle%2Fsocial-life%2Fsocial-skills-101-basic-social-skills-are-100-crucial#main-content

Click the title after "read next" to see the next article (there's 3)

[migrating to design docs]

Different things in your mind can care about different sets of things. An important example is your fear being disconnected from your inner state and your long term success. Harmony of these things is how to be free.

I should not have tried to directly resist feelings, but another thing I did which is good is lightly trying to make a tiny positive feeling become huge, which can do things like shifting focus and indirectly resisting exclusive attention. The only thing I can think of at the moment where I should advise resistance is if you feel negatively about someone being with someone else.

Proper use of control over feelings will be in the Pansystellar Architecture for sure.

Edit: also gotta stay away from lust

I recently started a document called "what I like". It's mostly things from observations, imagination, and values.

Each section, and a small sample of the items for each one:

• Mandatory: wants to have children and raise them Catholic
• Likely necessary: can comfort our children, doesn't complain about people in a way that needs to not happen in my relationship
• Love languages: she doesn't rely too much on giving me gifts
• Traits or actions that have made me feel something or have interested me after I noticed them: confident passionate speaking in presentations and debates, shows laughter or excitement in response to something I do or make, often has big smile, silently waving to me, welcoming towards me, staying in pew to pray when others aren't, being curious about me
• Other signs of good match for me in particular (mostly imagination of what complementarity would look like): seeks my thoughts, explains things in my mind that I can't explain, inspires me to pursue something, our humor fits together and we enjoy each other's humor
• Things that should be acted on in a big and complementary way: imagination, curiosity, excellencism
• Things we should be able to enjoy together: creativity
• Misc.

Now I separately write about some people with a few other specific observations. For example, in the document about the girl I've likely been most obsessed with in terms of personality (I was prematurely committed to someone else and/or in denial until it was too late), I included how she laughed when I said this joke about her project "Pretty Places by _, more like Porta Potties by _" (honestly I included this one so she knows this is about her if she sees this post) and memories of her speaking with perfect confidence (that time in religion class when she said something about keeping legs closed might be my favorite). I could have avoided regret by quickly paying more attention to my vague feeling about her (partly with what this post is about) and trying more to have fun.

Thinking and writing about this stuff will probably help with having a more certain and accurately scaled perception, resisting the confirmation bias caused by the appeal of the idea that my search for someone good enough for me is easy or already finished.

To be clear, this is not the entire process of figuring out what to look for. These lists are mostly unfiltered, except I don't feel like writing about most of my physical attraction mostly because that would be boring. The whole thing should not be used as a checklist, and it should keep on evolving. It is an additional input to intuition.

My search for my future wife might benefit from also writing about platonic friends.

This kind of activity will likely be part of the Pansystellar Architecture.

[Migrating to design docs]

x: How unique the thing in me is

y: How uniquely well the thing in the other person fits the thing in me (this is probably more strongly sensed emotionally)

Examples:

• The existence of my attraction to smart girls: x is low, y is how smart
• My sense of humor: x is high, y depends on how well our humor fits together and how much the other person enjoys my humor

If there's nothing with both high x and high y for a person, then you need to continue focusing on exploration if you're looking for a good match (definitely when looking for future spouse, and maybe some cases of being unsatisfied with platonic friends)

Things with low x can be nice to have. It seems like emotion alone is what can be used for figuring out how they should affect decisions, but I would be interested in something better than emotion alone for this if the resulting process is improved for some people. I think emotion can't be completely removed from this.

I'm thinking out loud a lot with this one

To look for complementarity, seek interactions as if they are discoveries of new land. A good goal when there's a group of people (such as the girls at your school) is the "exploration goal": to learn about everyone and discover the highest level of complementarity possible.

If you have the long term goal of finding and dating a person that would be good to marry if that person exists in the group, then focusing on that is much worse in every way than focusing on the exploration goal, especially in complexity.

Edit: should have said "keep on discovering a higher level of complementarity" instead of "learn about everyone and discover the highest level of complementarity possible"