|
We are extremely close to shutting down this thread for the same reasons the PUA thread was shut down. While some of the time this thread contains actual discussion with people asking help and people giving nice advice, it often gets derailed by rubbish that should not be here. The moderation team will be trying to steer this thread in a different direction from now on.
Posts of the following nature are banned:
1) ANYTHING regarding PUA. If your post contains the words 'alpha' or 'beta' or anything of that sort please don't hit post.
2) Stupid brags. You can tell us about your nice success stories with someone, but posts such as 'lol 50 Tinder matches' are a no-no.
3) Any misogynistic bullshit, including discussion about rape culture.
4) One night stands and random sex. These are basically brags that invariably devolve into gender role discussions and misogynistic comments.
Last chance, guys. This thread is for dating advice and sharing dating stories. While gender roles, sociocultural norms, and our biological imperative to reproduce are all tangentially related, these subjects are not the main purpose of the thread. Please AVOID these discussions. If you want to discuss them at length, go to PMs or start a blog. If you disagree with someone's ideologies, state that you disagree with them and why they won't work from a dating standpoint and move on. We will not tolerate any lengthy derailments that aren't directly about dating. |
On May 07 2015 08:16 Mikau wrote:
I'm finally willing to admit I might have a porn addiction. After a complete lack of success with women for years (which quite frankly stems from a completely wrong approach to women as people I think) I'm going to give NoFap a go for a while and see if things improve. After reading through the list of reported positive effects on the subreddit (and watching the Ted talk on the subject) I'm hoping this helps me be the person I want to be.
Trying stuff to improve ones self and ones self perception is always a good idea.
But the nofap community has some ridculously over the top ideas of the benefits and i fear that many people trying it and getting less then the "i can fly and shoot lasers out of my eyes"-experience, will relapse and feel even more miserable about themselfs.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pclcIuR.jpg)
So to sumarize my feelings: go your own way, try stuff out, engage humans about your thoughts on relationships (i do not mean the romantic subtype only, but the general concept), learn from their views, and then do what feels good and what you can be comfortable doing.
|
Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting miracles or superpowers, and I'm not spending any more time on that subreddit than I absolutely have to (so, none at all).
It's just that:
1) I masturbate far more than I feel is healthy, and in 99% of the cases I watch porn doing it
2) I often don't even masturbate because I'm horny, but more because 'I'm not doing anything in particular anyway'
3) I don't like myself when I'm sitting behind my pc being a cliché bachelor frog for hours ot days at a time
The main focus is on improving these aspects. Apart from that I also recognise a lot of the 'bad stuff' from said subreddit happening to me as well. Even if there's no causality or correlation there, it seems like it's worth a shot to see if it improves if I start NoFap. If even part of the social anxiety/energy/being attracted to women/emotional stability improvements they report would happen to me it seems worth it.
And if it doesn't improve I can reevaluate in a couple of weeks and decide for myself if it's a good idea to continue doing it.
|
I never watch porn anyway, but no fapping? I would explode after a while.
When I was dating a swallower, I managed to hold it in for a week and she said it tasted rancid. I don't know man, sounds super unhealthy.
|
Well i contest the causality mainly because i perform all acts of the supposed porn addiction (and saw that talk you referenced a few years ago), but i feel no shame, and am able to form healthy aswell as unhealthy relationships with other humans. The issue is one of selfimage and not one of masturbating to much to porn. If you think you can life a satisfying life spending hours in front of a pc screen masturbating, go for it, if you think you can under no circumstances enjoy a life containing that, you should absolutely go for a change.
And to reiterate (although it might be too much?): i think the social anxiety, energy and emotional stability are determined by your understanding of yourself: what can you really achive, what do you really want, and who are you. Improvements on these questions are not necessarily linked to your masturbatory habits. For me a good indicator is what happens on interesting travels, when you are engaged in taxing activities like mountain climbing or what ever floats your boat (cycling seems to work?). I don't masturbate at all during those times, just because time, energy and mood are fullfilled and so it doesn't come up.
If that also works for you than you are not porn addicted but just procrastinating. As a real addiction should have withdrawls and feeling bad giving it up, wheras porn itself seems to only come up, when you are energetically down already and so it is a symptom and not a factor driving the issue.
|
I tried NoFap a while back and found it helped me a lot. You can still fap, just not to porn. It "cleared" my head, or something, and made me feel alive. Around the same time I started turning my showers cold right before I got out, and both of those things influenced me a lot.
|
|
|
I tried NoFap a while back and nothing changed, I was about to explode after a couple of days and my orgasm after 14 days was pretty intense but that's about it. I just coudln't it back when I was showering.
Still no girlfriend, still 191 cm tall and 83 Kg heavy and still a small social circle. BUT I've stopped watching porn (independent from NoFap) or that is to stay reduced it by a fair amount. Between the age of 20 and 23 I watched quite a lot of porn (almost on a daily basis), in the end of 2013 I started with NoFap and reduced my porn consumption. NoFap lastet four weeks, but felt pretty pointless. Watching less porn lasted until January this year when the girl I dated, told me she had a BF after our second date. I got frustrated and went back to "old habits" for 2-3 months. Now I'm back where I was before; Porn only once or twice per 14 days. Does it help with anything? I don't know. I just don't need it anymore... which is nice I guess.
|
Mexico2170 Posts
What do they do on the nofap subreddit? Like...why would you stp watching porn if you go there? Reddit is a place for news and general stuff, not a psychologist so thats why I am asking.
But I think masturbation actually is bad, not because of the stupid things some people say "it is a sin" "you'll grow hair on your hands". But if you masturbate, you undergo rapid changes on your system, particularly with hormones, so a lot of people get acné partially because of that. Even if its not super spread out acné. Also, there are studies showing that people who masturbate frequently are more prone to having depression, although I guess that could be because a lack of girlfriend a lot of them have.
Also, there are studies that indicate that masturbating makes you less atractive both physically and psicologically.
On the psychological aspect, if you feel you have an addiction to it, or simply feel bad oor have remorse while doing it, you'll feel bad about yourself, which will in turn lower your self esteem and that makes you not very attractive for women. Then there is the physical aspect, some studies show (and all of these studies can be found if you search for them) that since you lose testosterone when you have sex/masturbate, if you do that very frequently you will indeed generate less traction to women.
Obviously not fapping isn’t everything, but the game I see it, life is a game of probabilities. If by not fapping your chances of dating X girl increases, even if it just by a little, go for it.
|
On May 07 2015 09:06 puerk wrote:
Well i contest the causality mainly because i perform all acts of the supposed porn addiction (and saw that talk you referenced a few years ago), but i feel no shame, and am able to form healthy aswell as unhealthy relationships with other humans. The issue is one of selfimage and not one of masturbating to much to porn. If you think you can life a satisfying life spending hours in front of a pc screen masturbating, go for it, if you think you can under no circumstances enjoy a life containing that, you should absolutely go for a change.
And to reiterate (although it might be too much?): i think the social anxiety, energy and emotional stability are determined by your understanding of yourself: what can you really achive, what do you really want, and who are you. Improvements on these questions are not necessarily linked to your masturbatory habits. For me a good indicator is what happens on interesting travels, when you are engaged in taxing activities like mountain climbing or what ever floats your boat (cycling seems to work?). I don't masturbate at all during those times, just because time, energy and mood are fullfilled and so it doesn't come up.
If that also works for you than you are not porn addicted but just procrastinating. As a real addiction should have withdrawls and feeling bad giving it up, wheras porn itself seems to only come up, when you are energetically down already and so it is a symptom and not a factor driving the issue.
I don't disagree with your stance on self image and how it affects the things I'm hoping to improve, and that it's possible (or even likely) that they're not necessarily causally related to my masturbatory habits. I have been struggling with bad self image (or as you put it, understanding of myself) for years now and while I've made improvements lately, it's still a work in progress. That might still mean that stopping masturbating and/or watching porn helps though. It feels like it's worth a shot at the very least. I don't really lose anything by not masturbating for a month and if it doesn't do anything for me it's easy to start again.
Your last point is quite interesting actually. You're right that I don't feel the urge (to masturbate or to watch porn) whenever I'm engaged physically or mentally. The urge starts coming when I'm not (when I go to bed or wake up, when I'm aimlessly browsing the web, etc). I guess you're right in that it might not be an addiction, but that still might mean it's not healthy.
|
On May 08 2015 07:07 [Phantom] wrote:
What do they do on the nofap subreddit? Like...why would you stp watching porn if you go there? Reddit is a place for news and general stuff, not a psychologist so thats why I am asking.
But I think masturbation actually is bad, not because of the stupid things some people say "it is a sin" "you'll grow hair on your hands". But if you masturbate, you undergo rapid changes on your system, particularly with hormones, so a lot of people get acné partially because of that. Even if its not super spread out acné. Also, there are studies showing that people who masturbate frequently are more prone to having depression, although I guess that could be because a lack of girlfriend a lot of them have.
Also, there are studies that indicate that masturbating makes you less atractive both physically and psicologically.
On the psychological aspect, if you feel you have an addiction to it, or simply feel bad oor have remorse while doing it, you'll feel bad about yourself, which will in turn lower your self esteem and that makes you not very attractive for women. Then there is the physical aspect, some studies show (and all of these studies can be found if you search for them) that since you lose testosterone when you have sex/masturbate, if you do that very frequently you will indeed generate less traction to women.
Obviously not fapping isn’t everything, but the game I see it, life is a game of probabilities. If by not fapping your chances of dating X girl increases, even if it just by a little, go for it.
They're a lot like a support group. People exchange stories and try to help eachother out with tips and tricks, there's AA-like badges for being 'clean' for certain numbers of days and there's even a buddy system (similar to the sponsor system in AA). I think it can be compared (from what I understand about those, never had to deal with them myself) to an online AA/NA group.
|
Come on, are we not going to talk about how two 'buddies' in a buddy system that's supposed to prevent you from masturbation are just going to wank off each other?
|
On May 08 2015 07:07 [Phantom] wrote:
What do they do on the nofap subreddit? Like...why would you stp watching porn if you go there? Reddit is a place for news and general stuff, not a psychologist so thats why I am asking.
But I think masturbation actually is bad, not because of the stupid things some people say "it is a sin" "you'll grow hair on your hands". But if you masturbate, you undergo rapid changes on your system, particularly with hormones, so a lot of people get acné partially because of that. Even if its not super spread out acné. Also, there are studies showing that people who masturbate frequently are more prone to having depression, although I guess that could be because a lack of girlfriend a lot of them have.
Also, there are studies that indicate that masturbating makes you less atractive both physically and psicologically.
On the psychological aspect, if you feel you have an addiction to it, or simply feel bad oor have remorse while doing it, you'll feel bad about yourself, which will in turn lower your self esteem and that makes you not very attractive for women. Then there is the physical aspect, some studies show (and all of these studies can be found if you search for them) that since you lose testosterone when you have sex/masturbate, if you do that very frequently you will indeed generate less traction to women.
Obviously not fapping isn’t everything, but the game I see it, life is a game of probabilities. If by not fapping your chances of dating X girl increases, even if it just by a little, go for it.
without you citing your sources it is pretty up in the air how good the science behind that is...
you basically deal with a ridiculous amount of confounding factors.
just a small example of an other view:
http://www.acne.org/masturbation.html
|
On May 08 2015 07:46 puerk wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2015 07:07 [Phantom] wrote:
What do they do on the nofap subreddit? Like...why would you stp watching porn if you go there? Reddit is a place for news and general stuff, not a psychologist so thats why I am asking.
But I think masturbation actually is bad, not because of the stupid things some people say "it is a sin" "you'll grow hair on your hands". But if you masturbate, you undergo rapid changes on your system, particularly with hormones, so a lot of people get acné partially because of that. Even if its not super spread out acné. Also, there are studies showing that people who masturbate frequently are more prone to having depression, although I guess that could be because a lack of girlfriend a lot of them have.
Also, there are studies that indicate that masturbating makes you less atractive both physically and psicologically.
On the psychological aspect, if you feel you have an addiction to it, or simply feel bad oor have remorse while doing it, you'll feel bad about yourself, which will in turn lower your self esteem and that makes you not very attractive for women. Then there is the physical aspect, some studies show (and all of these studies can be found if you search for them) that since you lose testosterone when you have sex/masturbate, if you do that very frequently you will indeed generate less traction to women.
Obviously not fapping isn’t everything, but the game I see it, life is a game of probabilities. If by not fapping your chances of dating X girl increases, even if it just by a little, go for it.
without you citing your sources it is pretty up in the air how good the science behind that is... you basically deal with a ridiculous amount of confounding factors. just a small example of an other view: http://www.acne.org/masturbation.html
Another reason why masturbation probably isn't bad is because it's so natural to do. I mean people have probably been doing it for hundreds of millenia. If it were bad for them then why did they evolve to do it?
Porn is relatively new. I've definitely done no fap for a while but I felt like I was way more horny and if there were positive benefits I couldn't really tell. Like I couldn't focus, constantly watching girls go down the street. Then I switched to noporn for a while but every time someone posts something on reddit I get horny so it's hard to avoid. It's not really hard for me to not masturbate though. I easily have the self control not to watch porn or masturbate a month.
I think noFap/noPorn is mostly for people who have adverse side effects from fapping/porn or spend too much time on it.
|
I have a date I'm super stoked about in little more than an hour, wish me luck, getting SUPER nervous right now.
|
On May 08 2015 20:48 SixStrings wrote:
I have a date I'm super stoked about in little more than an hour, wish me luck, getting SUPER nervous right now.
Have fun. Just dont tell her about the swallower :D
|
How bad of an idea is it to ask one of your best friend's sisters on a date? She's going to be a freshman a the same college where my friend and I will be sophomores. I normally wouldn't do this but my friend told me that his friends have dated her before and it didn't make things weird while they were dating, but if his friend did something shitty to her he wouldn't like the friend anymore; I have no intention of doing anything shitty so that doesn't really phase me.
Also, what would be a good course of action when a girl gets too clingy? This girl is nice and all but she told me she wouldn't see anyone else over the summer and I get the impression she wants to date me whereas I just want to maintain a casual relationship because I think she's too naive. I'm thinking of just not seeing her anymore when school starts up again to minimize any drama.
|
On May 12 2015 01:48 Chocolate wrote:
How bad of an idea is it to ask one of your best friend's sisters on a date? She's going to be a freshman a the same college where my friend and I will be sophomores. I normally wouldn't do this but my friend told me that his friends have dated her before and it didn't make things weird while they were dating, but if his friend did something shitty to her he wouldn't like the friend anymore; I have no intention of doing anything shitty so that doesn't really phase me.
Also, what would be a good course of action when a girl gets too clingy? This girl is nice and all but she told me she wouldn't see anyone else over the summer and I get the impression she wants to date me whereas I just want to maintain a casual relationship because I think she's too naive. I'm thinking of just not seeing her anymore when school starts up again to minimize any drama.
i giggled so hard
edit: unless he's speaking about 2 girls, which for me as a non-native speaker isn't clear, still
|
On May 12 2015 01:50 snailz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2015 01:48 Chocolate wrote:
How bad of an idea is it to ask one of your best friend's sisters on a date? She's going to be a freshman a the same college where my friend and I will be sophomores. I normally wouldn't do this but my friend told me that his friends have dated her before and it didn't make things weird while they were dating, but if his friend did something shitty to her he wouldn't like the friend anymore; I have no intention of doing anything shitty so that doesn't really phase me.
Also, what would be a good course of action when a girl gets too clingy? This girl is nice and all but she told me she wouldn't see anyone else over the summer and I get the impression she wants to date me whereas I just want to maintain a casual relationship because I think she's too naive. I'm thinking of just not seeing her anymore when school starts up again to minimize any drama. i giggled so hard edit: unless he's speaking about 2 girls, which for me as a non-native speaker isn't clear, still
Yeah sorry, two different girls haha. I've met my friend's sister and what he's said about her + what I've experienced indicate she's a lot more mature than the other girl. I don't really want to deal with the clingy girl's histrionic bullshit if I decide to become serious with her whereas my friend's sister seems fine.
Regarding the girl I am already seeing, as an example of her behavior: I invited her over one weekend, she went to where I live and told me she couldn't see me anymore, left, then sent me a bunch of shit about how I was a cocky self-assured dick. I figured it was a bluff and just didn't respond until next weekend when I asked her over and she came over without hesitation and pretended nothing happened. I can tell that deep down she's a nice person and I don't want to hurt her feelings but that indicated to me that she wasn't someone I would want to become invested in, so don't think I'm a shitty person lol.
|
This online dating thing isn't working out so well for me.
Currently like 0 for 15, with 2 replies saying "really nice message but you're not my type", and the rest no reply. It's getting increasingly hard to send genuine messages.
But hey, at least I'm making an effort. That's more than I can say for myself over the past 25 years.
|
Mexico2170 Posts
On May 12 2015 07:04 Mikau wrote:
This online dating thing isn't working out so well for me.
Currently like 0 for 15, with 2 replies saying "really nice message but you're not my type", and the rest no reply. It's getting increasingly hard to send genuine messages.
But hey, at least I'm making an effort. That's more than I can say for myself over the past 25 years.
Hmmm could you share a little more details about that? Whats the message you are sending? Do you send the message first? I didn't understand the "0 for 15" thing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
