I think you're still missing two things
We appreciate that cats are picky only after they pick us. The most charismatic people take slightly longer to smile when they see you, as if it was all the memories of you flooding into them and not just seeing a random person. We feel more heard when someone pauses slightly before responding. People don't want you to be unavailable. They want you to become available because of something special about them. That's incredibly validating. The solution isn't just to try and be less interested in people, it's to get genuinely curious about them and be interested in the unique parts of them you honestly think are special.
Many things cause strong emotions. Chasing, being chased, trying to change someone, commiserating over all the things going wrong in your life, etc.. Strong emotions can cause emotional relationships. Being the unavailable prize is one strategy, but it isn't the only one. You should be able to come up with obvious examples of people who could be as available as they want and get suitors and people who'd still be unseen no mater how aloof. Be aware that any strategy will filter who is interested in you and that being successful in making a relationship happen is only really a success if you both enjoy it.
Curious, what do you consider your bottlenecks?
I have almost no experience with drugs. Used weed twice, have had maybe two dozen drinks in my life mostly separated by at least 3 months, and only had a month or so period in my life where I drank coffee.
I developed visual snow after spending a lot of time working with computers. If I can stay away from screens for a few days it goes away. I've been told by a doctor that it's just eye fatigue leading to a poor ability to see contrast so solid colors look snowy with contrast that isn't actually there. I don't know enough about eyes to know for sure if that's a plausible statement.
Under The Law of Equal and Opposite Advice I'm going to say that some people spend too much dakka on things that are actively harmful and I'd recommend literally the opposite.
I use Google Fi so I can text/call from anywhere I have internet on any device and then I simply leave my phone off hidden in my car for emergencies. I keep a small pocket notebook for anything I need to write down. I do take my phone out for podcasts or audiobooks while cleaning but that's it. If you have kids you probably do need to get a dumb phone to keep on you but otherwise no.
Phones destroy slack. They are not a compact cost and getting a smartphone was a horrible decision for me. Now I just write down what I'm interested in and check it when I get home. The things that were time wasters don't make it on the list. I batch more so I only need to check things once. I take more time to sit and think and relax. This is the single best thing I've done for my happiness in the last year.
Somewhat unrelated to that comment but:
After reading that article and the comments I still don't buy monogamous relationships expecting their partner to fulfill all their needs. I have two besties, one male and one female, who both provide me things that I often lack in relationships. It still feels like the only difference between poly with a primary partner and monogamy is the sex/kink/cuddling* stuff. It feels like a strawman argument; but if I'm wrong this wouldn't be the first time I misinterpreted someone in a situation like this.
*I considered excluding cuddling from this list, but it seemed disingenuous to count that one monogamous couple that cuddles everyone as representative of all monogamous people
Topping from the bottom is more like backseat driving. Going in with the intention of being submissive and then micromanaging things during the scene. Knowing what you want, seeking it out, and describing it exactly before hand is just good communication.
I don't think we need to find a way to describe why that kink would be evolutionarily advantageous or good sexual selection. People's feelings leak from one part of who they are into every part of them so it's completely possible for it to be a nonsexual part of them requesting to add that into their sex life. Which meshes well with how the more kinky someone is the less sex is actually included in their play.
In my experience people's kinks are mostly related to their fears and insecurities. A chance to play them out and see that they are still loved. To see that your thoughts are real and valid and while they're awful you're still OK. Take the submissive high powered exec trope. Having an insecurity where you need to be strong and perfect and are awful until you're the richest man in the world will really push you to get that CEO spot. But then in the bedroom they want to be weak and be loved for it not in spite of it. So I'd say the loser dom fetish is either "Even -he- can dom me, I'm that pathetic" or "I've pinned so hard for an ideal I'll never have, here I am with someone like -him-". Which can be really comforting when that side receives love and there's no need to worry about being great/getting your ideal for a hour.
Note that I pull from a biased sample of the kind of people who are open about this with people like me. I also think my explanation currently is still too vague, there are too many kink/insecurity combinations that are easy to explain. I still need a way to constrain the predictions it makes a bit more.
"We don't have replication crisis in exercise science because nobody expects any of the studies to replicate" - paraphrased joke from Eric Trexler. PhD, >30 publications in the field, pro bodybuilder, professional coach
So, a lot studies related to health&fitness are horrible. Without funding they are run on 20 random college students for the duration of a single semester. Measuring what they actually want to measure is usually expensive to impossible, so usually a proxy will be chosen without any formal proof that the proxy is accurate. In general everyone in every health and fitness study is unhealthy and almost any intervention will help them so there are a lot of studies showing that ~miracle training~ works but really it's because literally anything would have helped.
But if I flail around in the space of possible exercise interventions for my musculoskeletal problems I honestly expect that to go pretty well.
A lot of bone things can't really be fixed with exercise, only worked around. Most muscle things are made better by getting stronger. People achieve world class deadlifts with scoliosis because they've strengthened everything else so much that the scoliosis can be compensated for. Rarely your shoulder bones are in a shape where you're basically guaranteed to get rotator cuff damage if you work in certain planes. So some bone things are just impossible to fix, that person will never be able to do the volume of overhead work as someone else. But like, when your tendon gets inflamed and starts to hurt you can just stop doing overhead work and avoid injury. Even if you push through it and get a small tear, most people over 40 have scar tissue in their rotator cuff and experience 0 negative symptoms. And the scoliosis dude is better than where he started. Sure he might need some surgery to make it go away for good, but he needed that beforehand too.
So don't worry about doing the best thing. Cardio probably won't help any skeletal issue, but is good for general health. Warmups are good but don't need to be long. A lot of warmups are just a chance for your body to settle back into good form. For muscular issues, you generally want to work on the muscle+synergists+antagonists. The muscle that hurts, the ones that move with it, and the muscle that does the opposite motion all three need to be strengthened to allow that plane of movement to be painless. Lifting with a proper progression scheme is many many times better at strengthening muscles than the next best thing. Yoga type things are nice for old tendon injuries. Just doing movements all through the range of motion can help you learn to compensate. Also sometimes a muscle isn't activating right causing other muscles to have to compensate for that muscle. That's a bit harder to explain in a short post (at least, at my current skill level) but it's worth looking into if you have range of motion issues that isn't solved with training that area specifically.
Note that this is assuming you have some normal back pain. I used to have lordosis that was bad enough that it hurt to walk >5min. Through the power of deadlifts I have fixed it and now I have medals from powerlifting meets. But for "oh god, I spent a month writhing in agony level" issues please disregard my advice that was aimed at the general public and see a physical therapist who works with athletes and those are usually the best. They will be able to give you advice specific to your situation, including possibly saying "above my paygrade, get surgery". Also nutrition and medication are harder, this applies more to physical interventions than other types.
I've saved all the links for this weekend. Thanks for the post btw, the post/comments from you/Hazard have helped and given me a lot to think about. This is all kinda a new realization after a year where I handled this all really poorly so I'm happy to get opportunities to explore it like this.
I haven't read it yet but I've saved all the links for this weekend.
I'm still not sure how "real" the dichotomy is for me. I think I understand and agree with what you're saying about s1 and s2 just being different types of processing. But sometimes while control is transferring between me and notme it really feels like there are two people in my head. It's not like how I can make two imaginary people to represent two subagents I know I have, it's like a person who is already there and doesn't need to be created. It's my understanding that that's not a super rare symptom, but that it's also not normal. I'm not sure "meVSnotme" and "s2VSs1" are the same thing, but I map pretty well onto s2 and notme maps pretty well onto s1. I'm not sure how much this paragraph makes sense but I'm still figuring things out.
Thanks for the post btw, the post/comments from you/kaj have helped and given me a lot to think about. This is all kinda a new realization after a year where I handled this all really poorly so I'm happy to get opportunities to explore it like this.
Yep, I don't think you're completely wrong I just had those little bits to add. I support self-experimentation and liberal applications of the law of equal and opposite advice. Even towards my advice if you're feeling saucy.
I also recommend reading The Game not because it's actionable; but just because seeing the degenerate case when someone takes it too far and becomes an asshole instills some guard rails.
I don't think talking about this stuff should be disallowed. Romance is such an important part of life and the right advice leads people towards increased compassion while no advice leads to the red pill.