There is no ONE
There is a popular idiom used by PUAs (pick up artists) called ONEitis. By their definition this is a condition wherein a guy over-invests himself in a particular woman. Usually this is due to her physique and personality aligning with an idealism his Blue Pill conditioning has taught him would be the most perfect match for himself. Both men and women like to say they’re looking for the ‘one’ and this is where the one in ONEitis comes from. ONEitis, however, is something much deeper than just “catching feelings” for a girl.
ONEitis is paralysis. You cease to mature, you cease to move, you cease to be you.
There is no ONE. This is the soulmate myth. There are some good Ones and some bad Ones, but there is no ONE. Anyone telling you anything else is selling you something. There are LOTS of ‘special someones’ out there for you, just ask the divorced/widowed person who’s remarried after their “soulmate” has died or moved on.
This is what trips people up about the soul-mate myth, it is this fantasy that we all at least in some way share an idealization of — that there is ONE perfect mate for each of us, and as soon as the planets align and fate takes it’s course we’ll know that we’re ‘intended’ for each other. And while this may make for a gratifying romantic comedy plot, it’s hardly a realistic way to plan your life. In fact it’s usually paralyzing.
What I find even more fascinating is how common the idea is (mostly for guys) that a nuts & bolts view of life should be trumped by this fantasy in the area of inter-sexual relationships. Guys who would otherwise recognize the value of understanding psychology, biology, sociology, evolution, business, engineering, etc. and the interplay we see these take place in our lives on a daily basis, are some of the first guys to become violently opposed to the idea that maybe there isn’t ‘someone for everyone’ or that there are a lot more ONEs out there that could meet or exceed the criteria we subconsciously set for them to be the ONE. I think it comes off as nihilistic or this dread that maybe their ego investment in this belief is false- it’s like saying God is dead to the deeply religious. It’s just too terrible to contemplate that there maybe no ONE or there maybe several ONEs to spend their lives with. This western romanticized mythology is based on the premise that there is only ONE perfect mate for any single individual and as much as a lifetime can and should be spent in constant search of this ‘soulmate.’ So strong and so pervasive is this myth in our collective society that it has become akin to a religious statement and in fact has been integrated into many religious doctrines as feminization of western culture has spread.
I think there’s been a mischaracterization of ONEitis. It’s necessary to differentiate between a healthy relationship based on mutual respect and a lopsided ONEitis based relationship. I’ve had more than a few guys seeking my advice, or challenging my take on ONEitis, essentially ask me for permission to accept ONEitis as legitimate monogamy. In my estimation ONEitis is an unhealthy psychological dependency that is the direct result of the continuous socialization of the soulmate myth in pop culture. What’s truly frightening is that ONEitis has become associated with being a healthy normative aspect of an LTR or marriage.
I come to the conclusion that ONEitis is based in sociological roots, not only due to it being a statement of personal belief, but by the degree to which this ideology is disseminated and mass marketed in popular culture through media, music, literature, movies, etc. Dating services like eHarmony shamelessly marketeer and exploit exactly the insecurities that this dynamic engenders in people desperately searching for the ONE “they were intended for.” The idea that men possess a natural capacity for protection, provisioning and monogamy has merit from both a social and bio-psychological standpoint, but a ONEitis psychosis is not a byproduct of it. Rather, I would set it apart from this healthy protector/provider dynamic since ONEitis essentially sabotages what our natural propensities would otherwise filter.
ONEitis is insecurity run amok while a person is single, and potentially paralyzing when coupled with the object of that ONEitis in an LTR. The same neurotic desperation that drives a person to settle for their ONE whether healthy or unhealthy is the same insecurity that paralyzes them from abandoning a damaging relationship — This is their ONE and how could they ever live without them? Or, they’re my ONE, but all I need is to fix myself or fix them to have my idealized relationship. And this idealization of a relationship is at the root of ONEitis. With such a limiting, all-or-nothing binary approach to searching for ONE needle in the haystack, and investing emotional effort over the course of a lifetime, how do we mature into a healthy understanding of what that relationship should really entail? The very pollyanna, idealized relationship — the “happily ever after” — that belief in a ONE promotes as an ultimate end, is thwarted and contradicted by the costs of the constant pursuit of the ONE for which they’ll settle for. After the better part of a lifetime is invested in this ideology, how much more difficult will it be to come to the realization that the person they’re with isn’t their ONE? To what extents will a person go to in order to protect a lifetime of this ego investment?
At some point in a ONEitis relationship one participant will establish dominance based on the powerlessness that this ONEitis necessitates. There is no greater agency for a woman than to know beyond doubt that she is the only source of a man’s need for sex and intimacy. ONEitis only cements this into the understanding of both parties. For a man who believes that the emotionally and psychologically damaging relationship he has ego-invested himself is with the only person in his lifetime he’s ever going to be compatible with, there is nothing more paralyzing in his maturation. The same of course holds true for women, and this is why we shake our heads when the beautiful HB 9 goes chasing back to her abusive and indifferent Jerk boyfriend, because she believes he is her ONE and the only source of security available to her. Hypergamy may be her root imperative for sticking with him, but it’s the soul-mate myth, the fear of the “ONE that got away” that makes for the emotional investment.
The definition of Power is not financial success, status or influence over others, but the degree to which we have control over our own lives. Subscribing to the soulmate mythology necessitates that we recognize powerlessness in this arena of our lives. Better I think it would be to foster a healthy understanding that there is no ONE. There are some good Ones and there are some bad Ones, but there is no ONE.
The Soul Mate Myth
While I was finishing my degree I had the Fallacy of the ONE graphically illustrated for me in a psych class one day. I was in class, surrounded by (mostly) much younger students than myself, all very astute and as intellectual as they come for mid twenty-somethings. At one point the discussion had come around to religion and much of the class expressed being agnostic or atheist, or “spiritual, but not religious”. The rationale was of course that religion and belief could be explained as psychological (fear of mortality) constructs that were expanded to sociological dynamics.
Later in that discussion the idea of a ‘soul mate’ came up. The professor didn’t actually use the word ‘soul’, but rather couched the idea by asking for a show of hands as to how many of the class believed “there was a special someone out there for them?” or if they feared having already met “the ONE that got away.” Damn near the entire class raised their hands. For all of their rational empiricism and claims to realism in regards to spirituality, they (almost) unanimously expressed a quasi-Karmic belief in connecting with another idealized person on an intimate level for a lifetime.
Religion of the Soul-Mate
Even the Frat guys and hook-up girls who I knew weren’t expressly looking for anything long term in their dating habits still raised their hands in assent to a belief in the ONE. Some later explained what that ONE meant to them, and most had differing definitions of that idealization — some even admitted to it being an idealization as the discussion progressed — yet almost all of them still had what would otherwise be termed an irrational belief in ‘destiny’ or, even amongst the least spiritual, that it’s just part of life to pair off with someone significant and there was “someone for everyone”.
This discussion was the catalyst for one of my Red Pill realizations — despite all odds, people largely feel entitled to, or deserving of, an important love of their life. Statistically and pragmatically this is ridiculous, but there it is. The feminized Disney-fication of this core concept has been romanticized and commercialized to the point of it becoming a religion itself, even for the expressly non-religious. The Shakespearean longing for the ONE, the search for another soul (mate) who was predestined to be our match has been systematically distorted beyond all reason. And as I elaborated in Casualties men will take their own lives in the delusion of having lost their soul-mate.
Soul-Mate Men
This perversion of the soul-mate myth is attributable to a large part of the feminized social conventions we deal with today. The fear of isolation from our imagined soul-mate, or the fear of having irrecoverably lost that ‘perfect ONE’ for us fuels so much of the personal and social neuroses we find in society. For example, much of the fear inherent in the Myth of the Lonely Old Man loses its teeth without a core belief in the Soul-Mate Myth. The fear of loss and the delusions of Relational Equity only really matters when the person men believe that equity should influence is their predestined ONE.
The Feminine Imperative has long recognized the overwhelming power the Soul-Mate Myth had over men (and women) from the beginnings of its rise to ascendency as the primary gender social imperative. Virtually all of the distortions of the core soul-mate dynamic evolved as a controlling schema for men. Much of this originated in the west with the advent of ‘courtly love’. When it is soul-mate women who are the primary reward for a soul-mate necessitous man, there are a lot of opportunities to consolidate that power upon. To be clear, don’t think this is some fiendish plot of a feminine-centric cabal who’re socially engineering that soul-mate fear into men. Generations of men, raised to be oblivious to it, willingly and actively help perpetuate the Soul-Mate Myth.
Soul-Mate Women
Although Hypergamy plays a large role in determining what makes for an idealized soul-mate for women, they aren’t immune to the exploitations of that core fear. Though it’s more an unfortunate byproduct than an outright manipulation, I’d argue that in some ways hypergamy intensifies that neurosis. Alpha Widows know all too well the languishing associated with pining for the Alpha that got away — particularly when she’s paired off long-term with the dutiful, Beta provider after her sexual market value declines.
For women, the soul-mate represents that nigh-unattainable combination of arousing Alpha dominance matched with a loyal providership for her long term security that only she can tame out of him.
Hypergamy hates the soul-mate principle, because the soul-mate is an absolute definition, whereas Hypergamy must alway test for perfection. Hypergamy asks, “Is he the ONE? Is he the ONE?” and the Soul-Mate Myth replies, “He HAS to be the the ONE, he’s your soul-mate, and there’s ONLY one of those.”
Building the Mystery
Due to this core concept and soul-mate mythology, both sexes will seek to perfect that idealization for themselves — even under the least ideal of conditions and expressions. We want to build our intimate relations into that soul-mate idealism in order to relieve the fear and solve the problem, and most times so badly that we’ll deftly ignore the warnings, abuses and consequences of having done so. For women the impact of the most significant Alpha they’ve ever been with is what initially defines that soul-mate idealization. For men it may be the first woman to become sexual with him or the one who best exemplifies a woman he (mistakenly) believes can love him in a male-defined orientation of love.
However, these are the points of origin for building that soul-mate ideal upon. This ideal is then compounded upon with layers of investments in the hopes that this person “might actually be the one fate has prescribed for them.” Emotional investment, personal, financial, even life-potential investments and sacrifices then follow in an effort to create a soul-mate.
This process is why I say the Soul-Mate Myth is ridiculous — it’s psychologically much more pragmatic to construct another person to fit that ideal than it ever will be to “wait for fate to take its course.” People subscribing to the myth would rather build a soul-mate, consequences be damned. So women will attempt to Build a better Beta, or tame down an Alpha, while men will attempt to turn a whore into a housewife, or vice versa.
One of the most bitter aftertastes of having become Red Pill aware is abandoning old paradigms for new. I’ve described this before as akin to killing an old friend, and one friend that needs killing is exactly this mythology. Disabusing yourself of this core fear is vital to fully unplugging, because so much of fem-centric social conditioning is dependent upon it.
Dropping the Soul-Mate Myth isn’t the nihilism a lot of people might have you believe it is. If anything it will free you to have a better, healthier future relationship with someone who is genuinely important to you — a relationship based on genuine desire, mutual respect, complementary understanding of each other and love, rather than on a fear of losing your one and only representation of contentment in this life.
