In his book Tribalism is Dumb, author Andrew Heaton identifies groups of 150 people as being the upper limit to forming meaningful relationships. His research shows that identifying strongly with a political party is highly correlative with unhappiness and, in interviews available on YouTube, makes a reasonable case for why that is. So unless your dating goal is to find someone to be miserable with, identifying your persona with a strong political ideology is likely to fail as a strategy. I would make a more pointed argument that we are being conditioned to strongly identify with inherently polarizing ideas (that themselves rest on shaky foundations) in order to minimize compassion and maximize conflict.
If you haven’t fully bought into the mass hatred psychology, there is hope. We are all one and share very similar thoughts, fears, and hopes. If you are of the “I only trust the science” persuasion, I would like to point out that we are 99.9% genetically identical (practically clones). If you are of the more spiritual persuasion, then some part of you already knows that we are manifestations of a singular divine consciousness (and if you are of a specific religious identity more nuanced variations of this idea can be made). Regardless of your beliefs, they all point to our ego as being what separates us from others. Your ego reinforces the idea that you are a unique and special flower and, while true, it is also why you think you are more special and more unique than the other flowers surrounding you.
How much of the persona you project is actually “you” and how much of it is a scripted persona that carefully follows a formula prescribed by the tribe you identify with? If the carefully scripted formula you are raging against is the “historically predominant tribe of patriarchy” (a common unifying theme in Austin) ask yourself whether the new script you are following is truly enlightening or a subversive detractor of humanity? In the age of AI and misinformation, do you think that you are somehow less susceptible to an external agenda than your great grandmother?
Anger is frequently heralded today as an obligative display of the righteous, but anger and compassion are at odds. It is impossible to be both angry and deeply compassionate. The reality that these two are at odds may itself be a triggering thought for you. Why?
Depending on how you arrived at this page, you might think that my goal is to change your mind. That would be a waste of energy… only you can find the truth, I am trying to be a voice of compassion to wake you up. Unless you have truly “done the work” awakening is unlikely to happen overnight. It is a long process to detoxify your mind of all the negativity you hold onto as signs of worth. A place you can start is observing how often you have a negative thought, the reason for the negative thought, and whether the reason you justify the negative thought is as obvious as you might immediately assume. Until you are able to come to terms with your own negativity, burdening others in a relationship capacity is uncompassionate.
If you have developed some capacity to evaluate reality independent of ego, consider the following short proverbs relevant to what I frequently see in the world of connection:
A substantial contributor to so much misery in the world of modern life and dating is that advice is coming from others who have their own ego to protect, have little or no investment in your personal well-being, may not have a diverse experience set to draw from, and often have something to gain from your misery. The pro-materialist agenda urges men and women to forget the consequences that tomorrow will bring and live for today. The pro-social media agenda urges us to invest more in perception than integrity. The machines of corporate America have thoroughly convinced us that every living person should be hard at work at a soul crushing job by selling female empowerment. Academia convinced a country that everyone needs higher education while superficially inflating the value (and cost) of that education. Women are unwitting pawns in advancing large swaths of agendas through shaming of men. Men fall prey in youth to scheming women and those experiences are reinforced by popular social media channels run by men who have been similarly disenfranchized. Women fall prey to a culture that emphasizes and rewards their sexuality in youth (again framed as empowerment) at the expense of feminity and grace in older age. Big pharma benefits from (deceptively) promoting ideas that lead to an unhealthy population. The idea of divinity is steadily eroded lest we consider ourselves to be anything more than worthless flesh and blood.
There is no shortage of validation today for ideas that are of questionable merit. It is a self-reinforcing loop that means encountering any friction toward those ideas immediately feels uncomfortable and even threatening. If everyone around you makes you feel comfortable, you really should be wondering what they have to gain from it.