This is a question and answer exchange that I just had with one of my readers. It began as a question about traveling alone and turned into a screed on the topic of self-hatred, which I have come to believe over the years to be a much bigger issue with guys seeking solutions for things like shyness and social dysfunction than many of us realize. To wit:

Hey Mike,

I've had some stuff twirling around in my head lately that I wanted to bounce off of you, having recently just turned 40. I'm single again, having just broke up with my girlfriend (my decision). Not easy to do as she was a great girl, but I just seem to get bored in relationships like you. Also like you, I got a late start in life on bedding women. Anyway. my question is a lifestyle type query.

I'm interested in your take on how a single guy should go about traveling and vacationing on his own.

This is becoming a real dilemma for me, being single at my age. Not a lot of unmarried, single friends left to hang around with anymore. Last year I went by myself to the Dominican Republic -- not to a resort but to a town where all the girls are "pros" if you know what I mean. It was amazing what an ego boost it was... you'd of thunk that I was Brad Pitt or something! LOL...

Don't get me wrong, I realize that I'm only desirable in that type of situation because I'm perceived as having some sort of relative wealth -- a form of being an HSM I suppose. However, I seem to have a little bit of an issue with feeling like a loser doing this sort of thing... like a guy who can't get an ordinary American woman and so ultimately has to pay for it. I know that some guys swear by this lifestyle and insist that some of these foreign women are much more sensuous and feminine than their spoiled American counterparts. I don't know...

Are these guys on to something, or are we all just acting like misogynistic LSM's who can't score American chicks?

I've thought about learning Spanish and maybe moving to Buenos Aires. Those Argentine women are hot! Sounds adventurous I know, but I guess when I get to the bottom of it, I wonder if this isn't me just running away from my problems of low status and my inability to score lots of women here in the good ole U.S. of A?

Do you think I should I stick it out and try to achieve what ever status I can here at home, or is it okay to try and be a bigger fish in a smaller pond? I'd love to hear your take on this idea, I know it's not your specialty per se but I do value your perspective. Thanks again for your time!

Sincerely,
Mark

Hey Mark,

Good to hear from you again. About 3 years ago I went to Las Vegas for 5 days by myself and I didn't find that NOT having a companion with me was any sort of big detriment -- except maybe for going to certain sit-down type of restaurants where you might feel odd dining alone. You know how it is, certain activities you can do by yourself and others are "couple" things that will make you feel uncomfortable. That's your only practical restriction really, and there are plenty of fast food joints where you can dine alone with a newspaper. Other than that I was fine seeing the sights, gambling, etc... all by myself.

Then again... certain activities are better done alone, WITHOUT the 'ole girlfriend tagging along. Things such as...

Well, I visited one of the nearby legal cathouses just outside Vegas on this trip because I always wanted to see what they were like. The experience was pretty surrealistic in fact... however, a fun (but WAY too expensive...) time was had by all, especially me! And so what? Did I break some kind of sacrosanct "HSM code" by paying for sex? And who cares if I did anyway?

This is the EXACT sort of attitude shift that you too will need to achieve in order to ultimately address your own internal doubts about this issue.

See I've discovered that we accumulate an unwieldy library of these stupid, self-created "internal rules" over the course of a lifetime that eventually bind us up in a kind of mental strait jacket. Soon we can't even conceive of doing anything the simple way anymore without feeling guilty about it. Why?... because we "broke the rules"! The precious rules... the rules that exist only within our own thick skulls.

Well I've found this network of rules to actually be a form of very subtle and sly self-hatred. Don't ask me why we do this to ourselves -- but the sooner you can recognize and chuck all this crap from your head the sooner you will become free to just let go and follow your heart wherever it may want to take you. And that's the real goal that you want to always be pursuing relentless in life, the goal of mental freedom.

Case in point about your desire to seek out women who might be vastly more easier to relate to than the typical ball-busting, judgmental American bitch... the delightful product of 50 years of feminism. Certainly not like the girls dear old dad used to marry, that's for sure... fresh out of high school with all that good home-ec training (cooking, baking, cleaning, housework). That right, they used to TRAIN women in high school how to be good supportive wives who graded their own self-worth by how well they treated their husbands! Even suggesting that this sort of thing was anything less than total slave-brainwashing will get you a swift kick in the balls nowadays, you MFn' pig!

You now desire to chuck this nasty USA scene and go looking for more "agreeable" women elsewhere, but your self-hating side quickly steps in and says: "hey forget it, that's cheating.... you have to try and meet women in the toughest environment possible or it doesn't count."

See, that's the central tenet and mode of operation of self-hatred: you must do everything the hardest way possible or it doesn't count. Note that other (lesser human) people can choose to take the easy way out and that's okay... but not YOU -- you have to take the hardest route because you're special... you're superhuman. That's the Disabled Ego at work...

...Special tough rules define the special "tough" guy.

There's a great book to read if you can find it on Amazon or at your local bookstore that dives deep into this psychological phenomenon, it's called Compassion and Self-Hate: An Alternative to Despair by Theodore I. Rubin [ISBN# 0-684-84199-1]. What we call "cheating" is in fact what a therapist knowledgeable in the mechanics of self hatred would call compassion.

Compassion?

For a moment, just consider that entire galaxy of nasty internal rules that hold you back -- would you ever force them upon someone else? Someone you loved, like a son perhaps? No way! See how with others we feel free to express our compassion? But don't go looking for any such free passes inside your own head for yourself. Cheater!

Another example: I grew up Catholic, but my own self-hatred forced me to become an atheist for awhile because (I now understand) that faith is a form of compassion for oneself -- and of course such a thing is flat-out cheating because it violates The Big Mike Self-Hate Rule: that you can only believe what's demonstrable scientifically no matter how much it brings you down emotionally.

Logic is king, emotions are irrelevant (only superhuman rules apply to me, remember), and bending logic to assuage emotions is a crime against nature. Only overgrown babies (SUB-human's) run around expressing their faith you see, because they aren't strong enough mentally (like super me!) to face the scary facts of random existence and postmortem non-existence without anything to comfort them. It doesn't matter how you feel (emotions are irrelevant), you are a prisoner of the facts of the Universe as they reveal themselves, and trying to escape them via delusional thinking is weakness and therefore pathetic. Cheating!

Now, this may be the sort of nonsense that we like to tell ourselves, but would we ever actually burden someone else with this same set of cold, inviolate rules -- perhaps even on their death bed? Or would we instead say: "let the guy find comfort in his faith, so what if none of it's actually proven? Who cares?" Of course this solution is never valid for you, just the other guy. We go easy on him but never on ourselves.

All this madness forms the nuts-and-bolts of self-hatred -- and it manifests itself in zillions of complicated and difficult to understand ways. It's just the way that "we are" (or so we think). But there is a hidden kernel of compassion locked away in everyone's heart and you need to find yours. Depression, disillusionment... these are all cries from deep within to be free of the self-hating monster that we created. Read that book if you can. The entire human race should read it!

Anyway, this was a long-winded way of recommending that you dig out your own self-hating internal rules from under the mental rock where they hide and spray some compassion on them. Stop being so hard on yourself by worrying about hypothetical HSM-LSM issues etc. I recommend that you seek out your own happiness by whatever route you must take.

No one will ever ask how you got there or judge whether or not you "cheated" by failing to take the hardest road possible. Are you gonna get a medal for remaining true to your self hated? Where do they hand those baby's out? (I would look like one of those old Soviet generals if they did ;-)

Want to know the saddest part? In the end, I discovered that self-hatred is a complete a waste of time... because when you finally DO break the grip of those murderous rules YOU WON'T CARE IN THE LEAST! You'll see that nobody gives a damn about the exact trajectory of your life, but you. And if you won't even give yourself a break then there's no hope at all -- because everyone else is too tied-up wrestling with their own demons to worry about "saving you". You're sitting in the middle of the desert waiting for that ship to come in.

And man, this is the best wisdom that I can ever pass along to you. Take care buddy.

Mike Pilinski is the author of 2 great (and by now even somewhat classic) e-books in the Men's Dating Market... his highly-acclaimed original, "Without Embarrassment: The Social Coward's Totally Fearless Seduction System" and "She's Yours For The Taking: A Man's Guide to the Seduction and Sexual Enchantment of Women". Each of these 250+ page books, newly upgraded and revised for 2009, are a masterful education for all guys in the fine art of meeting, dating and seducing women.

You'll love Mike's down-to-earth, humorous "no-punches-pulled"-style and his entertaining delivery. You'll laugh, pound the wall and LEARN all at the same time. But most of all you'll experience an enlightening personal journey into the light of social freedom that you won't soon forget. This unusual "re-mindsetting" will have you making up for time wasted in shy-guy hell almost from the very first moment that you test it out for yourself.

You will learn how to defeat the deadly toxic shame that lies at the heart of all rejection sensitivity -- finally breaking the destructive cycle of rejection--self-castigation, over-thinking and other self-defeating behaviors that have been holding you back socially.

And now Mike's books are now packaged along with his two 90 minute and 150 minute, multi-media MP3 audio programs: 'Dealing With Your Fear of Rejection', and 'Having Kickass Confidence Around Women in Only 18 Days'... BOTH included now as no extra charge bonuses.

That's over 500 pages of written material and 4 hours of easy listening, fun instruction. You should get college credits for this thing! Check HighStausMale.com for the latest details. And don't forget to take a look at some of the loads of free articles that Mike's posted up on the website.

You can also follow Mike on Twitter