Do You Really Need to Know, or Is It Just Mental Masturbation?

Information is good to have, and plans can be useful. Nevertheless, sometimes it goes too far – into the realm of mental masturbation.

There's a term from the mid-2000-naughts, somewhat less popular now, called 'mental masturbation'. Mental masturbation is any line of thought people spend time on that is, for all intents and purposes, useless. It doesn't help achieve any goals or shed any worthwhile insight. The mind is engaged, but its output is worthless.

I never much liked the term. It's crude, and often dismissive. Most things, at some level, are worth thinking about. When the 'mental masturbation' meme took over mASF (the now-defunct pick up artist community forum) years back, it fast became overused to the point of inanity. New, shy guys would ask some question or other, and veterans would tell them "That question is just mental masturbation!" Which to me always sounded like the natural's retort: "Who cares about those details. Just talk to girls!" Useful for some, but a door shut in the face of others.

Yet there's certainly something to the 'mental masturbation' concept... because there absolutely is a limit beyond which continued focus on the details is pointless:

• You're worried about getting a girl pregnant, but you haven't been laid in four months? Mental masturbation.

• You're trying to dream up a new way to hook up with sorority girls, yet you've never hooked up with a sorority girl before? Mental masturbation.

• You're thinking about how cool it'd be to have a playboy lifestyle, when you mostly stay at home with no social or romantic life? Mental masturbation.

It's important to realize when you've slid into mental masturbation... if only to stop wasting your time (and perhaps others') with go-nowhere fantasies and lines of inquiry.