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I have loved reading about HVW's leveling-up adventures, especially regarding their non-dating life... education, career, finance, home environment, traveling, reading, hobbies, etc. I've also adored my own leveling-up journey, which has actually been years and years in the making. I have been adding a little bit at a time to my life. I still have some improvements to make, but as I look back over the past year, I'm pretty impressed with my efforts. I've always liked certain things, but in the past year or two I've really been bringing those things to the front burner. I've also been working to have my home reflect my life, hobbies, preferences, etc.
And this reminded me of something I want to warn my sisters about. (A lot of you already know this, but it bears repeating.)
Having a leveled-up life that you're happy with is like CATNIP to a man whose life reflects a poverty of those things you value. This isn't my situation currently, but I can look back and see it in my (pre-FDS) past. I'm not referring to money or material goods, except insofar as they reflect your other assets. A man whose life is emotionally stunted and culturally impoverished will look at you and your happy home, your wholesome hobbies (that don't include him), your good relationships with your family members, your multiple GOOD friends that you actually see on a regular basis, your books, your crafts, your deep thoughts, your talents, etc., and he'll want to get closer to all that -- and it is right that he is attracted to those things, and to you for valuing them; it shows his good taste. HOWEVER -- some men will go further than this, and they will crave what you have; they will covet it because they recognize it's a Better Way to Be. And then they will try to siphon it off you because it's so much easier than striving for it themselves.
A HVM, I think, will see your efforts and your outcomes and be quietly inspired, and will go home and quietly begin making his own improvements. But a LVM will simply try to batten on to your successes. A LVM, instead of being reminded to improve his familial relationships, will just decide that he likes your family better and will hope to become part of it somehow. A LVM, instead of becoming the kind of person who makes a good true friend, will latch onto your friends and claim them as also "his" even though they would never have met him if not for you (and in many cases, would not have even acted like they liked him, except for wanting to support you in your new relationship). A LVM will love to be in the home you've created because it's so much easier than leveling-up his own home. A LVM will admire your knowledge and education, and will feel happy that he has a "smart GF" (ego boost for him!), but it won't inspire him to read more or have deeper conversations.
I could go on and on, but you get the point. A LVM will envy your growth and then try to benefit by it; some might even act out their envy by denigrating your efforts (negging). Sour grapes.
I feel fortunate that I've had life-lessons in both of these scenarios. When I was younger and less aware, I was proud to have men (they were LV but I didn't know it, back then) admire those things about me, because I thought it was validation that I was on the right track with my life. And I was, but what I was overlooking was the hidden envy and resentment and colonization of all that I'd worked for. And again, not talking about money here; just about the other good things. They take years to build up, and now, men thought they could just insert themselves in there and take advantage of all my hard work. They probably didn't even think of it as "hard work" -- they probably just thought I was cluelessly lucky, rather than having painstakingly created and curated this good, intelligent, emotionally stable, enriched life!
I'm currently in a relationship with a HVM and I can see the difference. We each have areas where we've focused our improvement efforts, and we admire each other's results and sometimes take inspiration from them. But neither of us tries to hop on board the other's train and bask in the results without doing the hard leveling-up work ourselves. For both of us, it would feel dishonest and undeserved.
So. Leveling-up is good; men seeing and recognizing value is good; men being attracted to a HVW is natural. But when I got back into the dating world, it took me a minute to realize that a leveled-up women will attract the good and the bad alike. LVM will ALSO want to get up close to the fire you've built, but BEWARE of them -- they will want a piece of it, and then they will want the whole thing, and they never earned any of it -- and eventually you'll turn around and look at this LVM and realize he's been riding your coattails the entire time, siphoning away your efforts and, ultimately, your joy.
** Edited slightly for clarity.
This is the thing I'm trying to be most careful about. It happened to me, too: someone was drawn to my determination, my goals, my efforts to improve and then dampened all of it because he couldn't stand me outshining him in any sort of way. He benefitted off my hard work for years without ever acknowledging it. I am NOT entertaining this kind of BS ever again. A man can take inspiration from me, I'll gladly show him something once or twice, but he's on his own from then on. It's up to HIM what to make of it. I'm not spoon-feeding him the distilled essence of my own inner and outer work anymore. Men have to EARN the right to be inspired by us. I hate the colonizing nature of men. They want to possess, and then become and inhabit anything they desire. It actually disgusts me. Leeches, the lot of them. Nothing worthwhile to contribute on their own so they seek out a woman with energy and talents to suck dry.
A LVM who comes from poverty will covet what you have and think he is entitled to it. You can give him your resources and he will never be grateful to you.
Exactly! Some LVM are more obvious, others are more insidious. What they all have in common is a lack of ambition and drive to improve their lives, always looking for an easy mode through which to live life.
That's why they punch way, WAY above their weight consistently, looking for women who are out of their league. They do this so that they can siphon her energy, colonise her achievements, benefit from her hard work while contributing nothing and insert themselves into her life as #1 leech.
It's so important to remain vigilant for this kind of behaviour! A man should always have his own life sorted out completely before you get involved with him.
This is totally my experience with LVM. Admiring the qualities that they expect to siphon off you as opposed to working on themselves. Great pick up.
Yes! When you’re levelled up or in the process —we don’t just have to beware LVM who will want to cut us down and ruin our happiness for the sake of their ego, we also have to beware men who insinuate themselves into our lives to steal our lives.
My last ex did this. Near the end of our relationship he tried to become me (take my friends, my connections, my hobbies, and even my job), but he didn’t want to put in any of the work I had to. It was creepy as hell. Sir… no, just no.
Now that I’m awakened to the nature of men, LVMs are very obvious to me. And when I think back on it, I always knew certain men had no value, but I erroneously thought they’d try to improve themselves to be with me. Kinda like that book, “The Great Gatsby,: but in the end, none of the characters in that book improve themselves at all beyond the financial, and most LVM won’t even do that. Once you realize the “Disney-fication“ of relationships that you’ve grown up with, you’ll understand that a potato is a potato. It will never become a steak. And many men are simply a potato.
Couldn’t agree with you more. I will also add to this. Not only are u a magnet, you are beacon, you start to uplift those around you. I notice this with myself, my girl friends say I inspire them and uplift them and that makes me happy.
I agree with how it’s attractive to LVM. lVM will see ur accomplishments and discipline to a way to serve them. For example lvm see my dedication to my instruments and study as free music lessons for them or a free personal assistant. I am extremely careful with who i allow into my life, especially men.
A good vetting technique is to mention a hobby or some sort of accomplishment. If they respond with either “spinning to serve them”, brushing off, putting u on a extremely high pedestal /aka something they can brag about , try to one up you, say how much they are struggling. Run run run.
for example, in my last post, a 30 year old senior tutor said that I am going to help him release an album. Yeah right no thanks.