Do I need to stop looking at woman??

Practically, you can't avoid looking women I find that utopic because we lice in the same world we meet women everyday. On the other hand what you can do is reduce the time your looks on women. Don't gaze too much and tell yourself that the woman you are fantasizing is not extraordinary in the sens that she has normal needs and maybe negative side like everyone on this world.

 

That is impossible. Self restraint and control.

 

It will aid in your reboot, because your brain is getting a hit of dopamine every time you check these women out, which slows your reboot down and makes it harder for you to not relapse.

Something that may help you is to classify different kinds of looking. Glancing at attractive women is fine, as long as you do it in a limited way. Don't do a double take at every girl you see, and don't let it last for more than a second when you do. And only do it ONCE. Just a quick glance and you'll have seen everything you need to, and an added bonus if you don't stare, she won't think you're a creep. I've been told by multiple women that they notice when guys are looking at them inappropriately, and it really pisses them off and lowers their respect for the guy doing it.

I used to have a big problem with this too, and it's hard to break. It becomes instinctive, and your eyes just get pulled toward them, but you can still overcome this. At this point you might not be able to stop your eyes from being pulled to them, but as soon as they are you can pull them away and focus your vision on something else. If you do this consistently, pretty soon it will become second nature to you to look away, and then as time passes you won't feel the compulsion to look anymore. Of course you'll still have a desire to look at women, but it won't be something that controls you anymore.

 

I love this post! That’s very interesting that women felt comfortable enough to tell you that! It provides some great insight. I can’t recall many of them telling me directly, but in fact, I always catch the women watching me to see if I will stare at a girl. It always happens when a girl, who clearly is desiring to feel sexy based on her choice of clothing is walking nearby. If you have good enough peripheral vision, you’ll see them do it a lot! I have no idea why they watch me. Maybe they don’t see too many guys blatantly gawking at a women as they walks by and it intrigues them.

I used to work with guys like that, literally leaning over in a walkway to get a better look. Lol Talk about no shame lol

Like you said, it takes a lot of practice, but it’s more than possible. I wonder what’s going through their head when they realize my eyes won’t even shift in the direction of the “seductive parts” other than the beauty of their face.

Hey! That’s a good tactic! Instead of staring at a girl to get a good look at her backside or her front-and-center lol stare at her face, for as long as social-norms will allow. Lol Study it. Let yourself be captivated by her beauty. Write poems in your head about her face being the one thing you look forward to seeing as you go to work, walk down the neighborhood, hit the gym. (that last one will be a real challenge and good practice!)

You’ll soon find that you would rather stare at them in the one place that truly matters to a woman, her face. Then, my friend, you will find love, and it will find you.

 

A similar thing was my wake up call that this really needed to stop. Like I said, I used to do this a lot, but I was always cautious to try and avoid being noticed by the women or by other people around me (I suspect people really did notice). One day I was riding the bus, staring at women out the window, and I noticed another guy doing the same thing, except he didn't care about getting caught. He was twisting around in his seat to look for as long as possible every time, and that's when it hit me. That guy was disgusting, and I was no different.

 

That's not to say you should heap self hatred on yourself for anyone still really struggling with this. I'm just sharing a moment where I realized how damaging this was to my life. The other thing I forgot to mention in my original comment, is that when you aren't looking at women this way, porn starts to lose its control over your life. Maybe you will have more relapses, but by removing it from your everyday life, your personality gets to start healing. Back when I was doing this, no women ever mentioned to me that other guys do it, and I think that a part of the reason is because they either caught me doing it to them, or I just wasn't the kind of guy a girl talks to about that sort of thing, because on some level they could sense I wouldn't really be bothered by it.

 

Yes, exactly! I thought the same thing when I saw guys actually having to reposition themselves just to get a look. Disgusting. I just don’t understand how you can think that’s okay...while at the same time, we have no idea what some people might go through in their lives. Rape, abuse, orphaned, there could be many things which caused them to behave this way. All we can do is hope they come to their senses and find a place like this to heal.

 

I think you can't be too harsh on yourself. The way I see it is that you can't change every single aspect of life in the blink of an eye. You are giving up PMO. That's a big deal. If you see a woman and stare and fantasize then so what? The key is that you don't go home and MO about it. I'm hoping that abstaining from PMO will naturally reduce my instinct to stare at woman in time. We are only human. If this reboot stuff really works then the 'lusting' should hopefully not be as intense in the future

 

That is exactly how it has worked for me. During, even brief, periods of NoFap, I noticed I’m much less tempted to stare. I even find myself more automatically focused on companionship with females instead of just visual pleasure. The former is what they really want.

 

make a rule, stare at them 2to3seconds and look away

 

Or the lusting could be more intense, but be channeled into confidently interacting with women rather than staring and walking away.

OP you've had a long time away from PMO, maybe the next step is switching that interest to real people again. Maybe make a rule - only look for more than 3 seconds if you're going to then approach and say something?

 

I have to disagree with this idea. I can see how it sounds right, but in my own experience, life is so much better without that habit. PMO is bad, but when I was always looking at women like that, the porn mindset never left me. Once I got rid of that I've been able to be more myself when out in the world, and that gives me motivation and hope to keep fighting my PMO addiction and filling my life with good things.

You have to be able to put good things into your life to replace addiction, and staring at women lustfully really limits the amount of positive social encounters you can have, because you are then always in "addict mode" and you don't really care about other people.

That's been my experience anyway.

 

I was the worst. I didn't even care when it pissed them off, I used to laugh about it, I was like "you dressed to impress, what's your problem?".

It wasn't until I got here and realized that not staring would help me that I got any kind of handle on it.

Reading this (and interacting with the ladies there) also helped: https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/the-feels-of-ogling-a-females-perspective.139872/

 

Quite helpful, Thanks for sharing

 

No you need to stop looking at PIXELS

 

I've been keeping a list of useful threads like this buried in my journal post here.

 

Maybe don't stop looking at them, but stop objectifying them. Change how you look at them. They are people too. I have to tell myself this all the time. Every woman has a story, goals, challenges, family, friends, and problems they deal with every day. Look at them as individuals, that might help you respect them more, and you'll start seeing them as more than just something to stare at.

 

Having tried it both ways, and after decades of struggles with lust, I subscribe to the comprehensive approach to change. In the 1st place, not doing PMO doesn't tell us what to do instead. We, not our brains, have to create a new life for ourselves, one more in tune with our true selves. This requires a vision of who we are and who we want and/or need to be to maximize our life's potential -- which is a much bigger question than whether or not to have an unhealthy sexual relationship with anonymous pixels on a screen.

Of course, @Colin P is right about all psychological change being gradual, but it should be gradual change on _all_ priority fronts simultaneously, lest by concentrating (and blindly relying) on only one thing, other key aspects of us get to torpedo the whole enterprise, keeping us down and "stabbing us in the back," so to speak...

In other words: can we "reboot" without real interests, goals, good habits, purpose in life, love for self or others, a constructive worldview, fun, cause to promote, joy, things to believe in? I don't think so. The more healthy inner and outer stuff we have going on, the more promising no-PMO becomes. Without those things, I fear we'd be back literally squirting our life away over the keyboard again.

At least, that's my take on it...