Project Pansystellar lab

• 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).

Shortly before we left, we did performances that we previously prepared in groups. Girl 7 is one of the girls I mostly thought about before, and she was in another group that was doing a song parody. Anticipation started building up when I saw her with one of the microphones in the beginning. When she sang her part, I was very delighted by her voice. Later, I told her that she sounded so beautiful. She thanked me, smiled, and overall had a reaction that I like so much. I should have tried to have a conversation with her (e.g. asking if she sings a lot), but I didn't think of doing that. This shows the importance of considering the possibility of conversation potential in every single interaction, so Pansystellar will teach that and also list simple ways of continuing a conversation so it can be done fast enough even before the whole thing becomes habitual.

After we returned to ASU, me and my dad were walking to the car to go home, and it was in front of a building, and I saw no one other than girl 7 in front of the building, and she appeared to be waiting to be picked up. After I put my stuff in the back of the car, I immediately went in the car, and now I think I should have first ran to the girl and asked if she wanted my number. In addition to the crush prediction concept I will describe next, faster recognition of the possibility that it was my last chance would have helped.

Later that day, I started to have crush toward her. (I said it that way because I realized that saying "a crush on" instead of something that matches how other feelings are communicated could be a brainwashing factor.) That evening, girl 7 was the only life I saw at E2 that I thought about more than the bathroom rodent.

The next day (today), I noticed patterns in what happens before I start to have crush. The main one is a girl visibly feeling very good after I say something to her, which is what happened with girl 7 and multiple other girls in the past. Another one is me sensing dominance in a girl (this indicator seems to be mild). Then I realized that this knowledge could be used to predict crush before I have it, and that I could kinda act on predicted crush instead of only present crush. This results in a new category of speed, especially for the build-up of courage and fear of regret, and for decisions of who to interact with. It can also create a less foggy view of desires and emotional reactions. And the concept of acting on future crush means working around the constraint of time itself, which is a very marketable feature of Pansystellar 😂

Another thing, not about this girl in particular: I realized very late that people at E2 would be likely to enjoy and understand my youtube short about Joe Biden saying we're "created by the Go you know the you know the thing" because the referenced programming language Go is more likely to be familiar. I could have gone to someone (maybe someone whose name tag indicates a computer science related major) and showed them this, instead of only showing people my less niche stuff. Pansystellar should encourage people to avoid forgetting how much shared interest is around them.

Update: the first wave of crush toward her (currently the only one) lasted less than 3 days

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

✨ 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 the McDonald's girl / 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//archive.is/2022.02.02-085649/https%253A//www.girlschase.com/article/social-life/social-skills-101-basic-social-skills-are-100-crucial#main-content

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

("the McDonald's girl" = girl 3. That phrase was the motorcycle boy's idea. This story is not related to McDonald's or motorcycles.)

Starting in January 2024, she occasionally caught my eye when I was in the one class we were both in. I mostly ignored her.

On February 29, when I was sitting down in class and the McDonald's girl was walking in front of me and I probably looked at her for a moment, she appeared to pause and make eye contact with me, and I was very shocked. Later in the same class period, when she was sitting in front of me, she appeared to turn back and look at me. I felt like I knew that she almost certainly had some sort of interest in me, maybe a crush idk. I gradually started to think about how good her personality was (this was likely affected by a lot of bias) and have a crush on her. The beginning of the crush was between March 2[^1] and March 5[^2].

This is around the time when finding my future wife before graduation if she could be found was slowly becoming almost like a goal, instead of just a hypothetical possibility in the distant future. (Both of these mindsets are worse than the exploration goal.)

On March 2, me and most other seniors went on a field trip to Disneyland. Experiencing scary rides for fun might have influenced my mindset.

On March 3 and 4, in a group chat (including the motorcycle boy, but not the McDonald's girl), I sent:

• "Last Thursday in religion class, [the McDonald's girl] looked at me in an interesting way"
• "It seems to reveal interesting feelings"
• "Probably attraction, but could also be a feeling of impending doom" (2nd part is joke)

I did not ask "Does [the McDonald's girl] have a boyfriend?" I did not reach that level of fearless communication yet. Eventually you will see that asking this would have made a difference.

I considered going to the table with the McDonald's girl during lunch and asking to sit there. On March 6, while feeling uncertain that I would be able to do it and that we would have the same lunch period, I saw her but gave up and did not ask to sit there. On March 12 (the next day that we had the same lunch period), I cared more about having undelayed success in doing it, and while being completely calm, I did it, and I was welcomed to sit there. Praying for strength in a bathroom stall at the beginning of lunch might have had an effect. I did this 3 times in total. Also, the motorcycle boy (one of the people I previously sat with) told me in a text "they both asked me what I did to make you sit over there. They thought I pushed you away! 🤬"

On March 17, at night, I believed that I would probably ask about her looking at me and confess to her at lunch the next day. The next day, the feeling of certainty faded away, and I did not do it. But in the evening, I sent her the creative writing club project that I was working on, with "I'm trying to impress you" as the message. It took several minutes to have the courage to click the send button.

On March 19, when all students were walking from the church to the school, the motorcyle boy appeared and told me something like "Dullbananaaaaaaaaaas. So the McDonald's girl was telling me... in case you forgot... she wanted me to remind you... in case you forgot... that the McDonald's girl has a boyfriend. I know it hurts!" This meant I was finished with the McDonald's girl. I felt calm at first. Then I started having negative thoughts in less than an hour. The decision of whether or not to sit at her table the next day seemed more scary than it should have seemed. There was a little bit of perceived risk in both choices. Also, I vaguely remember fearing that I would be humiliated a little bit. I thought "maybe I was too ambitious" (this thought is a big no no), but then I had these positive thoughts:

• My mental model, with lasting regret and lack of freedom being a worse danger, is still correct.
• There is light at the end of the tunnel. This suffering is part of the path to an extremely beautiful situation that I'm looking for.
• This is better than the previous situations with other girls. This time I went so far and finished the situation in less than a month. I hit a new PR. (Very important)

I was slowly becoming nauseated. I constantly thought about the situation. That night, I felt so much shame, and multiple times in the same night I had sleep paralysis while seeing static everywhere. In the beginning, the positive thoughts didn't stop the discomfort, but they did prevent me from being owned by the discomfort or doubting myself.

That evening, in the shower, I realized that what I was experiencing was the growth of only one person, and that I could try to have a ripple effect. Later, this led to sharing of wisdom and encouragement, and eventually Project Pansystellar. This stuff might be described in another post.

The next day, at lunch, I did not have the strength to sit at the table with the McDonald's girl or at the table where I sat previously, so I sat far away by myself near a tree and facing a field of grass. In retrospect, this was the right choice. It was therapeutic. I had a huge need for rest.

I developed a mindset of fully allowing and embracing this level of discomfort in me, just like falling when learning how to walk, or like recovering after intense workout. On the next day (March 21), I changed my senior quote submission from "I accept control over Lemmy's code to sabotage Reddit, not Lemmy" to "Try, mess up, have nauseating embarrasment. Better than no ambition."

Before March 24, I had these thoughts:

• All I did wrong (not morally wrong) was I didn't ask if the girl had a boyfriend (as mentioned earlier), and I didn't recognize the lack of sufficient connection after 2 or 3 times of sitting at her table at lunch. The idea that I messed up more severely was an illusion.
• Reducing one's level of ambition is a poor substitute for tweaking the goal that is thought of. In other words, only change how the ambition is applied. (This turned out to be a important concept, and it's very fundamental to my design approach for the Pansystellar Architecture.) (In this situation, I decided to make my goal include finding a girl that I develop a deep enough connection with easily enough in the beginning. This did not fix everything, as you will see in a future post.)
• Physical attraction, either to or from me, should be mostly ignored. (This one is not very useful, and it's probably false. The underlying problems can be solved differently, partly using things from my other posts.)

Around a month later, I realized that my discomfort and doubt after finding out that the McDonald's girl had a boyfriend was probably mostly an attack from Satan, and that a person like me having the persistence needed for the path to marriage and parenthood is probably scary to Satan because it's a path to things that strongly oppose Satan's vision for society, including these things which all cause increased similarity to Jesus:

• Obsession with the happiness of someone other than myself
• Positively influencing the world through how I raise my children

Eventually I knew that the motorcycle boy was surprised that I didn't know that the McDonald's girl had a boyfriend.

I quickly began to see this as just a high school memory.

Key ideas:

• Don't treat uncertain information as very likely to be true (in this case, the girl having interest in me that I should act on).
• Someone being interested in you is not necessarily a special and important situation. (Seeing your ability to do something that makes someone feel good is different)
• Other people can overestimate your knowledge about someone.
• An uncomfortable situation is not a forbidden situation.
• Taking a break can be a good choice.
• Think of the past and the future so you can recognize self-improvement and not falsely see your current situation as being disconnected from goodness. To be clear, you shouldn't try too hard to make your specific actions connect with a future goal.
• Emotions don't accurately reveal something about you. Judge your actions and decisions using reason. Be skeptical of negative emotions.
• Modify the mental system that ambition is applied to, instead of reducing the level of ambition. Resting is an exception to this.
• Allow the present to be like a childhood memory.

[^1]: On this day, I said a joke hoping it would impress girl 2 (in the same restaurant near Disneyland in which I wrote this comment).

[^2]: On this day, in the shower, I thought about telling the McDonald's girl that I have a crush on her.

Edit: to clarify, my discomfort was about the situation I perceived myself to be facing, not about the fact that the girl had a boyfriend

Edit 2: this might have been the beginning of me sometimes having less social anxiety than average

Edit 3: see also https://lemmy.ca/post/24986940

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.

I often felt attracted to her from September 2023 to March 2024. I had a crush on her at least 2 times. We sat at the same table in a class from January 24 to March 5.

On February 5, with a simple mindset against regret and a growing repulsion towards postponing brave actions, when she went to her desk, I noticed some strength and ability in me, I quickly took advantage of it, and I successfully said "hi, [girl 2]". In response, she said "hi". Then the perceived difficulty of doing this seemed a little funny to me. Earlier that day, during lunch, I went to confession for the first time in about 9 months, which was a somewhat nervewracking experience that might have given me strength.

I have a note that was last edited on February 13. It's mostly about when I wanted to read a short story I made to the people at my table in the class (just my crush and 3 other girls) but did not do it. Here's some of what I told myself in it (edited a lot):

• I didn't do it because I forgot how good and euphoric it would be for me.
• I did sabotage.
• I did pull out the story, so I'm halfway there. I will do the whole thing next time, including the second half which will be more peaceful than self-induced regret and stolen fun. (I actually did not do it)
• Isolating myself from those people is a bad action with bad consequences for me.
• I should see those people as friends.
• With repulsion, I can become unable to choose sabatoge.

On February 27, I had the idea of saying "[girl 2], I like your hair". I then considered the possibility of this becoming a reality. Considering this possibility required me to be a little crazy because I still had a lot of social anxiety. I decided that I wanted to do it the next day. The next day, I randomly woke up 60-90 minutes earlier than usual (after having a dream where I reunited with my rabbit who was dead in real life, which suggests that I had deep optimism in my mind) and had thoughts that helped me find strength, including but not limited to:

• This is exercise. Discomfort when doing this has the same meaning and acceptability as when weightlifting.
• God intends it. He's suspiciously filling my mind with preparation. (I'm not completely sure about this, but it's very likely)
• I have a history of overestimating regret and not actually feeling much of it after doing something, like the one time I said hi at the wrong moment and felt almost no regret. But I have kinda regretted not doing some things.
• I heard the compliment over and over again in my head, which is the only reason it sometimes sounds weird to me.
• Doing this is ordinary.

I made an effort to remember these things. I successfully did the thing. It probably got rid of at least half of my social anxiety. The girl was silent, then she whispered a bunch of things into another girl's ear. I really noticed the secrecy. She was likely talking about my interactions. I vaguely remember that I might have very faintly heard what I said, but it was almost silent. They laughed. I was a little entertained, not embarrassed. My biggest regret in this situation is not saying something about the whispering for fun.

There's a least one time where during first period, which was mostly just time available for doing things like homwork, I sat and did nothing, with the intention of conserving energy so I can be brave enough to do one of the interactions with this girl later in the day. I don't know how much difference it made. It might have worked through the placebo effect.

The firecracker in this meme reminds me of my interactions with this girl: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/s/0DvRrdJpxQ

Key ideas:

• Be very skeptical of (and hopefully identify) the thing in your head that tells you to wait, and think of waiting as a risky action.
• Be very skeptical of the division between fantasy and what you are capable of in real life.
• Be very skeptical of the feeling that a planned action is weird.
• Try to prevent yourself from forgetting at the last minute why you should not doubt your decision to do something.
• Regret of not doing something is the result of your own choice.
• Do not avoid discomfort. If it happens, it's a signal of growth, not danger.
• Action is usually less risky than lack of action.

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"

1. Things about the person that are legitimately unique and special to you
2. Things that affect how much you know or infer about the person, such as how much you interact with or think about the person

Being aware of the second factor could help you try to know more people and reduce the chance of hallucinated differentness or specialness of people.

I did not think about this at all before today.

I started having a crush on her in the 2021-2022 school year. In August 2023, she sat next to me in math class. I began to be interested in the whole person, not just her body. Then my belief that I don't want relationships, marriage, and parenthood slowly went away, for reasons that might be out of scope for this project.

I kept on wanting to say "Hi, [girl 1]" next time she approaches the desk at the beginning of class, but I never did that. Each time she came, I gave up. I vaguely remember having a fear of how people would think of the motive or something like that. I prioritized comfort and others' perception of me too much. This will likely be represented as a heavy filter that I got rid of and is intentionally excluded in the Pansystellar Architecture.

Edit: There's stuff I forgot to mention.

• I felt a lot of regret and frustration after each time I chose to be silent. I felt so distant from happiness. This should be treated the same as any other danger. And it should be the one that's fled from. I have another experience that I would pick over this one despite the other experience being more nauseating and unfamiliar. I will describe that experience later.
• Weeks later, we unexpectedly had to change seats, and the girl was now at a different table. I felt so much regret, and I saw the problem of being slow. The way I see opportunities began to change.

Edit 2: First day she sat next to me was August 14. Seats probably changed on August 29 or 31.