Lament 3: Cry Hard With A Vengeance

[Crazedwraith]

well i think the sales lady won that one. Somehow I managed not to say 'no i'm looking for some as cheap as possible please' and walked out after paying for £125 glasses. with an extra £30 for ultraclear lenses the optician reccomended.

True that does really get me two pairs of glasses one with the ultraclear and one tinted grey as sunglasses. But still.

[Gands]

When I buy glasses, I open with "my healthcare covers X. What can you do?"

I am the worst negotiator ever.

[RogueIce]

Clearly you need:

[Oxymoron]

This morning I dreamed that half of the mountain crumbled and fell into the valley in a gigantic landslide, and that because of the torrential rain and the landslide blocking the river the whole valley was being flooded by an inland tsunami.

That was at the same time beautiful and terrifying.

[Zod]

I think the dopamine withdrawals are kicking in. Weeeee.

[Flagg]

I think the dopamine withdrawals are kicking in. Weeeee.

We're you beating off eight times a day or something?

[Zod]

I think the dopamine withdrawals are kicking in. Weeeee.

We're you beating off eight times a day or something?

Once a day, but pretty much routinely. Fairly certain it's the dopamine that was sabotaging all of my efforts. Now I'm feeling kind of fidgety and restless since I'm making a conscious effort about it.

[Flagg]

I think the dopamine withdrawals are kicking in. Weeeee.

We're you beating off eight times a day or something?

Once a day, but pretty much routinely. Fairly certain it's the dopamine that was sabotaging all of my efforts. Now I'm feeling kind of fidgety and restless since I'm making a conscious effort about it.

Can I buy some meth from you?

[Zod]

Heh. Meth addiction isn't much dfferet since it's triggering your brain's reward circuits.

[Zod]

Also this is day 3 into it.

[Aaron]

1.25" groups at 100 yards with 10.95$ ammo.

Money well spent!

[Aaron]

Would have had all three in the same hole but had a flyer.

[Losonti Tokash]

obviously the best way to beat an addiction is to just announce you'll suddenly stop

[Aaron]

Lol, good luck with that.

[Zod]

obviously the best way to beat an addiction is to just announce you'll suddenly stop

I already deleted everything a couple days ago. Now it's just a matter of resetting my dopamine levels.

[Kryten]

What actual issues are you having that you're blaming on 'dopamine addiction'?

[Zod]

All sorts of things. Nothing else has really worked but it made sense once I started reading up on how dopamine could affect your personality by linking undesirable associations in your head.

[Zod]

If you're familiar with pavlov's dogs, it's like that but a lot more powerful.

[Oxymoron]

Still something about jerking tails, tho'.

[Zod]

Incidentally, there's legitimate scientific work to back up the associations I've made between dopamine and undesirable anxiety in dealing with sex and women in general.

Here's the short and dirty version.

If you're wondering how you, or someone you love, came to find bestiality, gang rape, transsexual porn or anything else arousing, wonder no longer. In the laboratory, researcher Jim Pfaus has even successfully used the reward of sexual jollies to condition mammals to love cadaverine (the odor of decaying flesh):

Four days [after males' first sexual experiences, with females "perfumed" with cadaverine], males received a wooden dowel that had been saturated in cadaverine into their home cages. Males in the control ... groups avoided the dowel, and some attempted to bury it. In contrast, all males in the cadaverine-paired group made contact with the dowel and more than half picked it up and gnawed on it, as they would if the dowel had been laced with something hedonically positive like estrous vaginal secretions or chocolate.

So what is giving Newcomers the biggest sexual kicks? Not real peers. Just as rats an humans really don't like the smell of rotting flesh, many of today's porn users don't really like what they've escalated to. "It's complicated."

Here's the scary bit for Newcomers: Early sexual conditioning can stick around. Adolescent brains are at their peak of (1) dopamine levels, (2) sensitivity to dopamine signaling and (3) vulnerability to addiction. Novel, startling, arousing stimuli can rock their world in a way it won't an adult brain. This neurochemical reality primes young brains. They learn to define sex according to whatever stimuli offer the biggest sexual buzz. This lesson is a powerful one, as can be seen from the rats that cherished cadaverine-scented dowels.

In contrast, sexual conditioning is far more elastic if it occurs after normal mating patterns are established. For example, when scientists yanked receptive females away from male rats, the rats swiftly learned to ejaculate with fewer intromissions. Once this pattern was established, the males continued their hasty ways even when given free (uninterrupted) access to females.

On the other hand, males given all the time they wanted with hot females first—and then subjected to disappearing females—also learned to speed up. However, they resumed a normal pace when returned to free access.

Today's teens first train their mating skills to pixels rather than real partners. Their training does not prepare them to experience normal pleasure during intercourse (or even oral sex) with a real partner. It's like hitting tennis balls to improve one's jump shot. Guys are training for the wrong sport, so when (if?) they switch to real partners they have to learn a whole new game.

PDF Link to the actual paper.

[Agent Bert Macklin]

Jesus fucking Christ. Just see a therapist instead of using the internet.

[Zod]

Jesus fucking Christ. Just see a therapist instead of using the internet.

You paying?

[Agent Bert Macklin]

If it's such a dreadful hardship on you, you'd pay. But it's best to self diagnose, right?

[Infinity Biscuit]

Zod, you seem to come to conclusions about how to fix your life on a regular basis. While there's something to be said for the fact that you seem to follow through with them rather than just sit around, it doesn't seem as if you have good luck with making the conclusions to begin with so you may want to seek outside perspective.

[Agent Bert Macklin]

Serious mode: Zod, if your behavior bothers you, I'd say try your best to talk to a therapist. Do not rely on what the internet says about such things.