One more question: What principles would help establish how much dominance seeking behavior is enough to break the relationship or in some other way cause more damage than it’s worth
Yes, that part is hard, even on a micro scale. I have been frequently surprised that I underestimate how much dominance seeking would be optimal. I attribute this to mind-projection. ie “This means she would prefer me to do that? Wow. I’d never take that shit if it was directed at me. Hmm… I’m going do that for her benefit and be sure not to send any signal that I am doing it for compliance. It’s actually kind of fun.”
(Here I do mean actual unambiguous messages—verbal or through blatantly obvious social signalling by the partner. I don’t mean just “some source says that’s what women want”.)
considering that part of dominance is ignoring feedback that it’s unwelcome?
Fortunately we can choose which dominance seeking behaviors to accept and reject at the level of individual behavioral trait. We could also, if it was necessary for a particular relationship, play the role of someone who is ignoring feedback but actually absorb everything and process it in order to form the most useful model of how to navigate the relationship optimally. On the flip side we can signal and screen to avoid dominance seeking behaviors that we particularly don’t want and seek out and naturally reward those that we do want.
Yes, that part is hard, even on a micro scale. I have been frequently surprised that I underestimate how much dominance seeking would be optimal. I attribute this to mind-projection. ie “This means she would prefer me to do that? Wow. I’d never take that shit if it was directed at me. Hmm… I’m going do that for her benefit and be sure not to send any signal that I am doing it for compliance. It’s actually kind of fun.”
(Here I do mean actual unambiguous messages—verbal or through blatantly obvious social signalling by the partner. I don’t mean just “some source says that’s what women want”.)
Fortunately we can choose which dominance seeking behaviors to accept and reject at the level of individual behavioral trait. We could also, if it was necessary for a particular relationship, play the role of someone who is ignoring feedback but actually absorb everything and process it in order to form the most useful model of how to navigate the relationship optimally. On the flip side we can signal and screen to avoid dominance seeking behaviors that we particularly don’t want and seek out and naturally reward those that we do want.
Wow, really? How? I make the opposite mistake all the time (at least I think I do) so I’d be interested in hearing some examples.