I was like the author, except I have had a burning desire to have family and children since I was a boy. I started thinking about fatherhood when I was maybe 12.
After a failed long term relationship, and three or four girlfriends I finally settled with the fact that my drive to fulfill this desire overrides pretty much any degree of pain or dissatisfaction from prior relationships. I've prayed plenty of times to have this desire taken from me because it screwed with my head to be single. As if this one thing was a gateway to the rest of my life. I know that's not fundamentally true, and I haven't put my life on hold just because I lack a romantic relationship.
I generally advise even hesitant men to "go for it" because they won't make any progress towards a goal if they don't get over themselves and try. To the guys who have tried and failed, I say "take damage, keep moving".
There are whole groups of men on the other side of failed relationships that are utter poison to everyone around them.
If anyone needs a cheerleader or someone to keep them accountable, let me know.
People that choose to live primarily in the world of logic and reason sometimes forget to nurture their emotions and feelings, and that side of them can atrophy. I suspect this guy has hidden and suppressed his desires due to some fears about relationships.
Or maybe he doesn't see emotions just as Aphantasia people don't see images in the mind. As Temple Grandin would say, "The world needs all kinds of minds."
I haven't been single all my life, but the relationships I have had have taught me things that makes it easier to be single. I remember the good times fondly, but the bad times remind me why being single isn't so bad.
How many years has it been since your last bad experience?
Because I used to relate to this sentiment, but with time (a decade), it all disappears, and whilst not on speaking terms, all is forgiven from my end. People talk about "personal growth", and whilst I wrote it off as hogwash, actually, no, letting go of the past is a huge part of that. It can be done.
The big one was about 10 years ago and I agree with you about letting go of the past. I'm no longer angry or bitter. I got into another serious relationship a few years ago and it didn't end well either but not as bad. I found myself not as affected by it. Both taught me a lot. Where I am now I'm happy to be single, I can do what I want. Nobody to argue with or plan my weekend for me. I'm open to another relationship in the future but I'm not really looking for one and I see things in potential relationships differently and with more skepticism.
I'm a woman and have had long serious relationships and long-ish stretches of being single. Took me a while to filter through all the social pressure BS and realize that, on balance, I have been way (WAY) happier single. Maybe this could change one day? But right now I have no interest in changing it. It'd take someone extraordinary. I'm not 'poly' or 'asexual' or any of that crap, I've just had to give up so much of my time and energy for relationships that ultimately left me worse off in every way. By contrast, on my own I can do what I want with my time and energy, and I'm surrounded by wonderful friends and family.
If we put less social pressure on people to pair bond, some non-zero percentage of the population would be genuinely happier.
I'm a man and I definitely see more pressure on women to pair off, at least at younger ages. With men (particularly driven or ambitious men), there's a societal "he'll settle down eventually" but with women "eventually" is like "late 20s"
It's not just social pressure, it's simply a biological fact. For each year after ~30, the chance of having something wrong with a child during pregnancy goes up. On average in relationships, women's greatest value is their youth and beauty (early/mid 20s), men's greatest value is when they've progressed in their career and are amassing wealth (mid/late 30s). There's nothing wrong about pointing this out, they're just the realities about modern relationships. Yet we can never honestly discuss them because people have a hard time controlling their emotions about it.
Women are not baby machines or objects of beauty, they're people. Their "greatest value" is whatever they decide it to be. They should form relationships in the way that brings them the most happiness.
Reducing women to objects of beauty, saying their value comes from their fertility, and implying that if they disagree with that assessment it's because they're too emotional is almost the dictionary definition of misogyny. I hope you'll reconsider this attitude.
I think I understand the point you're trying to make, but this is the sort of discussion board where many people are literalists. Women literally are baby machines: from the perspective of biology, and as a critical asset in the development of the human race (especially during times of high child mortality).
People get upset when you point this out, but they don't get upset because it's the truth, they get upset because of what they think the consequences of people knowing that truth will be. There are many things which can't be debated in public because it causes people (not just women) to get extremely emotional and retreat to lizard-brain defenses. My hope is that on HN, we can learn to control those responses.
> People get upset when you point this out, but they don't get upset because it's the truth, they get upset because of what they think the consequences of people knowing that truth will be.
Or they get upset because they aren't Nihilists and believe in some form of personal meaning besides perpetuating the species?
I mean when the person who made the "literally baby machines" comment, they did qualify it was from a biological (explicitly) and social ("a critical asset in the development of the human race") perspective, they later said that reproduction was probably the most important goal of human life[1], so I think people are properly conflating these statements...
> from the perspective of biology, and as a critical asset in the development of the human race (especially during times of high child mortality)
There are many things that may be true from the perspective of biology, but we collectively as a humanity choose to ignore or fight them. I think most people will disagree with the opinion that reproduction is the only goal of human life. Because that's it - an opinion (that you seem to share).
For example, there are many people of both sexes that consciously decide not to have children. In this context, reducing women (and women only) to "literally baby machines" is not really logically defensible in my opinion. Unless I misunderstood your point?
Nobody said reproduction was the only goal of human life. Although, one imagines, since it's the only reason that any human existed ever, it's a pretty important one. Probably the most important one!
I think you're imputing reduction when it wasn't implied or intended.
Appeals to literalism or objectivity often serve to create a seemingly objective and seemingly simple veneer over something that's truly subjective and complex.
In this case, "women are baby machines" is obscuring a lot:
- This is conflating being female with being a woman. Being female is a biological fact, being a woman is a distinct concept from being female. Conflating them serves to imply that our ideas about womanhood are objective rather than constructed. But most of our ideas about women have nothing to do with any biological reality - there's nothing about having two X chromosomes that means you wear dresses or engage in girltalk.
- Many women can't have children. However, if a woman has a hysterectomy, we generally don't say she's no longer a woman.
- Many people who can have children don't identify as being a woman.
- Having the capacity to bear children doesn't imply that this is your "greatest value." This is a normative statement, not a factual one. You can't prove a normative statement from factual statements. [1]
- We don't organize our society around biology. We weren't born with wings, but we fly. A woman's biology shouldn't limit her ability to pursue her own happiness. If she doesn't want to settle down in her 20s, chiding her for letting her biological clock run down is patronizing, moralizing, and unjustified.
People don't get upset because the truth is too hot to handle. They get upset because this is a bad faith line of argumentation used to justify bigotry - getting upset is a reasonable reaction to that.
I think you're getting worked up over nothing. In particular, it's probably likely the person you're arguing probably doesn't think what you think they're thinking.
To say that women's greatest value from a societal perspective is baby-making, a person is not saying or implying: that women who can't have babies aren't valuable. Or that people (for example trans-men) can get pregnant and have babies.
As for your semantic arguments, nobody is "proving" anything here. This is an internet discussion board, we're discussing biology and society. There is no philosophical proof, because the systems we're discussing are not logical.
How about this: "due to its necessity to the continued existence of humanity, the ability of baby-making people to make babies is highly valued, often greatly above other abilities that baby-making people have, and this is strongly considered in mate selection." I think that's all the OP meant to say with the parts you're complaining about rewritten to be less imperative.
I think it's pretty clear we do organize society around biology, not exclusively.
Not so. For one, trans women are women, but are not biologically female. For another, being a woman is primarily about fulfilling a certain role in society, having a certain relationship to people based on your gender and theirs. That's got very little to do with biological sex. Like I said, there's nothing biological about wearing dresses. Kilts and skirts are virtually identical, but one of them is seen as very masculine and one of them is seen as very feminine.
Nops. Trans "women" are not women. They don't meet any biological criteria for that, they can't operate functionally as woman. There are not trans-females in any other species, as this is exclusivelly a cultural and psychological phenomena in humans. As you said yourself, there's nothing biological about wearing dresses, thus, using a dress doesn't make you a woman.
As human beings, trans people deserve care and respect and the full set of human rights, yet, this doesn't include that we bend reality based on imaginary constructs.
Trans women are women. No other species may have trans individuals, but no other species has men or women either, or if they do, it's beyond our understanding (in the same way our understanding of their vocalizations or the way they think or experience is limited). Wearing a dress doesn't make you a woman, identifying as a woman and fulfilling that role in society does (which does often involve wearing dresses).
If you support trans people's right to exist as humans, maybe it behooves you to educate yourself about the difference between gender and sex, so that you don't repeat transphobic talking points.
Obviously we disagree on the fundamental point, but I appreciate that you took your time to have a civil discussion with me, and this makes me appreciate your point of view more rationally. I will definitelly think more about it. Who knows? maybe I'm wrong.
> If you support trans people's right to exist as humans
Absolutist statements like this ("if you don't agree with my point of view, that means your viewpoint is the worst of the worst") make people not want to look further into or agree with your ideology, and are ironically binary.
Those distingushing between trans women and women and those thinking trans people have no right to exist as humans are not the same group. You've bent this entire discussion to try and make it about the talking point you wanted to make, so hopefully you're pleased you did it.
This is not being literalist or objective. That is having very specific ideological opinion about value and purpose of women. As in, nothing about us matters except our ability to have babies.
This would be like saying that men are nothing but insemination machines. And yet, analysis of what men want or do on this forum is way more complex, because men are actually more then that.
From the perspective of biology, all that non-baby related aspirations and wants are also part of our biology. You are ignoring them because of ideology, not because women would lack these for biological reasons.
Their greatest value to themselves can be decided by themselves. But if they want to date other people then their value can be calculated the same way a market of buyers and sellers of items calculate value. Its no secret men prefer younger and prettier girls. Its no secret women like accomplished men.
People are free to have whatever preferences they wish, but preferences are diverse (rather than being monolithic as you imply), and aggregate preferences are largely irrelevant - if my partner values my ability to do handstands, I need not concern myself with the popularity of handstands.
Handstands wont win you any marriage material partners, though maybe it can win you 1 or 2 numbers in a mall in Vegas. Preferences are diverse, but the same biological needs drive humanity since hundreds of thousands of years ago. Beauty and ambition have both evolved as a result of procreation.
I would think that self control would include avoiding, or at least not being moved by, any emotional response that leads one to making absurd straw men, but that could just be me, but the responses you’re getting indicate otherwise.
Women are not baby machines or objects of beauty, they're people.
Never said they were, that's you putting words in my mouth. However I think it's fair to say that most people form relationships to have children with people they find attractive. I know you r/childfree types are a vocal minority, but you are just that: a minority. There's plenty of analyses that does deep dives on the data out there. Check out the OkTrends blog that the OkCupid founders ran. You may have to dig for it a little; they deleted it since the facts they uncovered upset a lot of people.
I do actually want children. I think it rather undermines your claim that I was putting words in your mouth when you first put words in mine, and then immediately transition to a justification of your view that relationships are principly about raising children.
What you said was that social pressure for women to get married young was justified because that was when they had the best chance of giving birth to healthy children, and that their "greatest value" was their youth and beauty. "Baby machine" is a fair summary of what you've expressed - you're deemphasizing their agency in making decisions about their lives and emphasizing their beauty and fertility, describing them as if they were an object which suited a purpose.
FWIW, I didn’t read what GP wrote as being prescriptive nor “justification”, but rather an observation of the statistics involved in heterosexual males selection of dating/marriage prospects.
I hate the idea of anyone feeling inferior or less worthy due to not being chosen by someone else.
At the same time, we can speak objectively about what one group of people statistically find desirable in another group. I mean, we could also choose to not speak of it — but for many there is utility in understanding (and thus speaking of) what is desired by others: if you know what they want, you can decide if it’s worth making choices that would satisfy those desires, and you can also be realistic about how likely you are to satisfy those desires as a function of time and other variables.
As a heterosexual man, I can speak of the opposite side of the coin: over 99% of women I have seen on online dating apps clearly state that having kids is a must — my not wanting kids by that logic makes me unsuitable as a dating prospect. I could be upset: “how dare they see me as some sort of sperm dispensing machine?!” But the reality is that they don’t harbor any ill intent, they just simply want kids and that means I’m not a good choice to satisfy that desire.
Certainly it is normal & healthy to communicate what you're looking for in a relationship upfront, and to respond to that blamelessly as you suggest. I'm not convinced in the utility of using statistics to derive dating advice, I think by and large there's a huge diversity in what people are looking for and the best advice is to work on being a healthy and realized person and being patient with finding a partner, but I wouldn't suggest it simply shouldn't be discussed.
I don't understand how you can read the comment as being purely descriptive, when it makes categorical statements about people's "value" with a postscript about how these "truths" are too hot to handle. If it were simply about following the facts wherever they lead, surely there wouldn't be a need to preemptively declare that anyone who disagreed did so irrationally, and surely it wouldn't have been categorical without making room for nuance or disagreement.
In my mind, if you feel moved to discredit anyone who might disagree with you before they've had a chance to join the discussion, you're probably not neutrally sharing a simple factual observation. That's a strong indication that you're making a statement about how you think things should be, not how they are objectively. It doesn't matter so much when people disagree with you about something objective, they're simply wrong and the truth will win out. It's when you want them to behave in a certain way that disagreement is difficult to tolerate.
> I don't understand how you can read the comment as being purely descriptive, when it makes categorical statements about people's "value" [...]
I touched on this in a later response under your initial comment in this thread, but the tl;dr was that I interpreted their use of the word "value" being the same as its use in economics: something is said to be "valued" if it is desired/sought after, and whether that should be the case or how we feel about it is an orthogonal concern (though certainly not any less deserving of discussion itself).
> [...] with a postscript about how these "truths" are too hot to handle. If it were simply about following the facts wherever they lead, surely there wouldn't be a need to preemptively declare that anyone who disagreed did so irrationally, and surely it wouldn't have been categorical without making room for nuance or disagreement.
I think I see where you're coming from now. I suspect difference in interpretation is a consequence of differences in our individual priors: I have seen countless times that people will conflate mentioning of a statistic with support for that statistic being what it is -- there is, after all, the proverbial saying "don't shoot the messenger". So I can sympathize with (what I interpret to be) a preemptive "I know some of you are going to take what I've written uncharitably and/or irrationally, so fire away" -- which isn't to say that I think that's a productive way of communicating, but I see the rationale behind that (as misguided as it may be) just as much as I can see the rationale behind giving someone the finger, or cussing someone out, letting out a frustrated sigh, or any other emotionally motivated outburst. (I didn't take what was originally written to mean "if you disagree, it's because you're being irrational")
I think your response is resulting in so much disagreement in the comments due to differences in how this quote is parsed:
> On average in relationships, women's greatest value is their youth and beauty (early/mid 20s), men's greatest value is when they've progressed in their career and are amassing wealth (mid/late 30s).
Particularly what the word “value” means in this context.
I suspect you take “value” to mean something like “is deserving of positive self esteem; worthy of positive sentiment/respect/love”.
I, and I suspect most others here in the comments, take “value” to mean something very different; roughly: “that which is statistically pursued and/or desired by others”. In this sense, it can be said that (within certain circles) sticking a needle in your arm and checking out of your life is valued. That says nothing of how you and I feel about others doing that, whether that’s healthy/moral/ethical/whatever behavior, etc. The statistics regarding the pursuit of a thing and the sentiment regarding the former are orthogonal. This is, for example, what is meant by “value” when speaking of supply/demand.
If you look at what men want (and in my experience as a heterosexual male looking at dating prospects, what women also want — much to my detriment as a man who is uninterested in having children), it usually includes having healthy, well supported (financially and emotionally) children. While I am kind, giving, ambitious, funny, etc, I am reduced to zero “value” (i.e. they have no point in pursuing me because I won’t ever give them what they want) in the eyes of 99% of the single women where I live. And that’s fine to me, as we all have things that we want, and there’s no one in existence that will check the boxes off for everyone else in the universe. That doesn’t mean that my own self esteem should be diminished, and I don’t think most people would want me to have any less self esteem.
I think supply and demand is a bad way to look at it. Dating isn't a "market" in the sense that an auction is conducted to discover the value of goods. If you find someone you're happy with, you can't leverage that to find someone you're even more happy with, in the way that if you made a good trade in a market you'd have capital to conduct more trades with.
This model of dating relies on flattening people so that they can be considered fungible, but dating is about how someone's idiosyncracies complement your own. Markets rely on there being a ground truth of how valuable something is, and for every participant to bring their information about that to the marketplace. But in dating, one pair of people might be toxic and horrible, and those same people might do great with other partners - it's far too murky and subjective to be reduced to a market.
> If you find someone you're happy with, you can't leverage that to find someone you're even more happy with, in the way that if you made a good trade in a market you'd have capital to conduct more trades with.
I agree with this.
Though I also don't think anyone is really trying to suggest (express or implied) that there's a general, natural analogy to be made between dating and markets; I solely think the word "value" was being used in the economical sense, without implying any further connection to economic theory. I realize that, when I suggested that "value" was probably meant in the sense of supply/demand, I may have conveyed something I wasn't trying to; sorry about that.
At any rate, this is how I and most people within both my family and social circles have used "value" in conversation: not an expression of sentiment, but merely an observation of what others want. Given this meaning, it's actually nonsensical to speak of a person's value without any supporting context -- people don't have value any more than the color green has smoothness/roughness, or the a note played on a piano is righteous/unjust -- these descriptors just don't apply. I could say that my skills within my career field are valued, and I suppose I could restate that as "I am a valuable employee", but I myself have no intrinsic value. If you read that with "value" replaced with "self worth" (by which people generally would mean something like "self esteem"), then it sounds pretty bad -- but that's not what's meant. I suspect most people in the HN demographic also use "value" pretty consistently in the way I've suggested -- not that I'm trying to make the argument that "value" should be interpreted this way or that way, but just pointing out what I think I've seen in practice.
I think what was originally suggested upstream in the comments was that there are qualities that most men happen to be looking for (are "valued"/"valuable"), and that those qualities give rise to pressures (as unfortunate as they may be) on women to find a long term / life partner sooner than later.
That's not the point. Lots of of people want kids. If you're a man, you have the luxury of waiting much longer. Women don't have that luxury, it becomes increasingly difficult to have a successful pregnancy after one's early 30s.
You can't make blanket statements about the "value" of a person's life in one breath and then ask people to eschew emotional reactions in the next breath. Value and emotion go hand in hand and you have to let how you feel lead what you value at times.
Unless these people are in your Dunbar Circle, those honest discussions you're looking for won't matter and won't provide value to your life. Craft your life how you see fit and let the results speak for themselves.
Besides, this problem we're in is just about ready to wrap itself up.
Masculinity can be quite isolating/toxic but it's emphasis on your intra-tionship, your living with yourself, on relying on yourself, has arisen in my mind in the past couple years as a kind of interesting aspect that feels undersocialized, out shadowed by other discussions of the male gender norms. I hope it wouldn't be too unfair to say that women are regarded as more social, as relying more on their friends & community. It's a complex issue with all kinds of problems wrapped in it, but there's a thread here that doesn't have the discourse or discussion that I think could help people somewhat identify with self focusing. That said, it absolutely does not have to be a gendered discussion either! But it does seem like there's so many examples walking around of a kind of neat way of living & modest not a-sociality, but kind of less compromising prioritizing of what is good for oneself in how we make & navivate our social arrangements.
And I'm shifting focus here some, trying to get a more macro view than just the question of partnership. But hopefully this idea of social temperament/directivity makes sense as being a broader difference in how we are nurtured or natured.
> Masculinity can be quite isolating/toxic but it's emphasis on your intra-tionship, your living with yourself, on relying on yourself, has arisen in my mind in the past couple years as a kind of interesting aspect that feels undersocialized, out shadowed by other discussions of the male gender norms.
I think somewhere along the line "self-reliance" became conflated with "anti-social". I've had to put in concerted effort to build my social network of men I can lean on for social activities and accountability. Being by oneself can make almost any task seem insurmountable. Couple that with being self-reliant and you have a recipe for disaster. It is no wonder so many men are committing suicide.
I think it might be because that self-reliance often comes with defensive language/attitude? It's one thing to be self-reliant and another to ooze a miserable attitude about it (e.g., "World's never done shit for me, guess I'll have to just look out for myself."). Without that outward expression, you don't notice that some people appreciate the importance of self-reliance without it feeling anti-social.
Fully agree. I'm male, and all of my relationships that progressed to the "serious" stage ended in heartbreak (for me). After those experiences, it's just not worth it. And casual hookups have never been a thing for me. So I'm done with romantic relationships, and fine with that.
Yeah I had something similar and took a looong break from like 30-37 because I just couldn't deal with all the stress of someone else's expectations and issues while I was working on some personal and professional stuff. Eventually I was like, I don't want to be alone, I'm going to actually try dating again, got married and had a baby at 41 :) But it could have easily gone another way and I was mostly fine with it.
Why does someone have to appreciate other sexual orientations? I dont run around demanding somebody be forced to appreciate mine. Grumpily ignoring other peoples choices to life and let life is good enough for society to work. The world is not there to be a comfy blanket..
Comparing somebody (or an important part of their personality) with excrements in a public forum is not "grumpily ignoring". I am all for civility, but this is not it.
The OP reminds me of some of the aromantic and asexual folk I've known. Not necessarily prescribing any label on his account. Just merely a thought based on a particular line is one I've heard a number times;
> my general reply is the combination of a lack of opportunities and a lack of desire
That said, I am very interested in hearing him extrapolate his thoughts further. I do use the aromantic and asexual label myself (in particular the gray aroace label), though I always find the little nuances in how different people express themselves incredibly fascinating.
This might get a little weird... but I think some people might be interested in my perspective on intimacy and relationships.
I'm asexual, but not aromantic (or adverse to sex). "Relationships" aren't high on my priority list. All of my friendships are platonic and I'm quite happy with that. Where it gets weird for people is several of them are emotionally intimate and physically tactile.
For men in the US, touch is wrapped up in sex and relationships. The idea of cuddling with someone else without any sexual relationship is strange. It's one of the reasons I'm drawn to the furry fandom. For the most part, furries know some people have a need for touch without a need relationships or sex and don't consider it weird. (Whether or not a given furry will respect that boundary that is a very different thing.)
If it's hard to imagine what this is, think of how a dog or cat curls up on your lap. That's basically how I feel about physical closeness. It has nothing to do with the deep of my friendship and everything to do with how my friend feels about it.
So... relationships.
All of my emotional needs are fulfilled by my friends. Living with someone else seems like too much effort for not enough reward. I don't need sex... I have people I can touch... I have people I can call if I need help... If housework or rent was an issue, I could get a roommate. What's left? :)
The furry fandom is honestly the easiest way to meet people imo. I recently moved city and the first thing I did is locate the local group and see what the events are. See there is a weekly bar meet so I show up and everyone immediately treats you like a long time friend. People are pretty respectful of your boundaries but you can almost use it like a dating scene if you want. So much better than apps.
Honestly, I very much relate to how you've described yourself. And honestly I feel like this correlates to how a lot of relationships work within queer communities as well (which isn't surprising considering the overlap in furry and queer circles). Where you have friends, partners, and folks in the weird grey in-between areas whom may be equally important in your life; regardless of whether you're dating, having sex, or just people you want to be around.
Which brings me to noticing how weird a lot of the folks in this thread are about relationships that aren't the typical "man and woman dating and having sex". And casting a lot of assumptions and negative connotations with the OP not fully diving in and desiring such a relationship.
It's sort of surprising that someone would write a whole blog post like this in 2023 and not even mention the terms aromantic or asexual even if to just say that he rejects those labels. But maybe most people on HN aren't aware of those terms either?
I found it quite telling that he seems sure he's not aromantic because of experiencing romantic love, but is not sure whether he's asexual. That seems to me like a strong signal that he is asexual, or at least much closer to it than most people.
Agreed, there is a lot wrong with this world ;) But what do you mean or how relating to the article? That you are in that stance? Or expectations of others? Please explain.
I have experienced a major schizophrenia for 5 years starting in 2015 and since that I never attempted dating or having interpersonal relationships. Now it's a part of my personality.
I won't go in detail though. I don't feel any negative emotions or have any thoughts about that as I'm using antidepressants to shut down the libido.
After some biohacking I feel a competitive advantage in social realm and view this as a gift. There's non-compete for women, no social racing for status, and it all boils down to fundamental values. That's super christian catholic way of life, and I'm fine with it now.
What I was expecting initially is that someone will check on me, but that never happened.
Bella DePaulo is probably the leading scholar on the social prejudice and discrimination on single individuals. The fact that the author of the article introduces the term "incel" to deal with this extremely negative stereotype in the second paragraph highlights this prejudice. If you're interested in learning more about the ways single individuals are treated unfairly in society, Dr. DePaulo has many articles and books published on the topic.
Any chance you could summarize the prejudice single people experience? I believe you, but it coul save hundreds of people from googling it individually.
married people are given unofficial/unspoken priority for promotions at a lot of workplaces. there's a lot of reasons for this, not all of them positive for the employee.
As an unhappy single with two past relationships, lots of experience in many crazy things including most drugs, let me tell you that times where you truly love someone while knowing they truly love you back, in other words true mutual love, are probably the most beautiful times in the world one can experience: Holding someone in your arms wishing you‘d die right then and there because you know you have peaked in non-drug-induced happiness.
And nothing is worse than the fear of never experiencing it ever again.
It took 6 years of active searching to find my first love and 3 for the second. Those despair inducing time frames and the acquired knowledge about how hard it really is to nurture and maintain relationships beyond the love, as a hypersensitive loner on the spectrum with mental illness makes me despair.
I am a 30 year old gay man living in a city of 2 million. By now, to some degree at least, I personally know every single gay man that passes my requirements regarding socioeconomic status, personality and physical attractivity. It didn‘t work out because they didn‘t want me, I didn‘t want them or chatting with them was so uninspiring, we didn‘t even meet. But to answer your question more concretely, generally it didn‘t work out because my lack of physical attraction or the lack of the spark, the click, the compatibility in conversation.
I have literally played through the video games called Tinder and Grindr. I was on OkCupid and I had phases where I went out a lot.
The only chances I have are men leaving long term relationships or men that move here. Though dating anyone whose native language isn‘t German is frustrating to me, because others fluency and eloquence in English is usually even more limited than mine.
Desiring someone with abs and a penis that doesn‘t turn me off in the upper 20% income bracket, who is much more bottom than top, doesn‘t need my help to get stuff from shelves and has a sharp mind leaves me very little choice to begin with.
The one and only realistic thing to increase my chances would be to move to Switzerland or Germany, where I would get a whole new dating pool.
My difficult standards are out of my control and I really tried! My second partner was a great man, totally "marriage material", but his reluctance to turn his pear shaped dough body into a more chiseled form while at the same time enjoying my pornstar body ultimately made me resent him to the point where I ended things. I am either physically turned on by someone or not and loving them or not has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Relax, morality does not need to enter the equation here and I am not judging you.
But you are definitely very demanding, and even if you are in the top 1%, at that point it just becomes hard to meet a suitable partner if you restrict yourself to the top 1%, which is why you notice a lot of celebrities dating and marrying partners who are technically way below them in terms of looks and status.
Imagine you yourself no longer meet these standards. What happens if you’re in a car crash and you’re seriously injured for years and lose your socioeconomic status and your chiselled abs? Do you think your husband should leave you because you no longer live up to his achievement standards?
I can’t help but read this and think that the real reason you’re single is because you dislike yourself and you’re basing your entire life around achievement in an effort to make you like yourself. Perhaps when others fail to meet those standards and are happy regardless it makes you feel resentful. And perhaps your self hatred is the driving force in your life and you’re scared of what it means if you step off the gas.
Statistically, you’re most likely going to be dead within the next 60 years. When you’re on your death bed, do you want to look back on how chiselled your abs were when you were 30 and how big your bank account was or do you want to remember the times you spent laughing and having fun with someone?
Probably! Applying some reductio ad absurdum, isn‘t everything just bioelectric chemistry in our brain?
I just wanted to point out that I consider that feeling as even more pleasant than drugs that technically set the level of "pleasant feeling" beyond what‘s naturally possible.
Maybe I tried the wrong drugs, but they never made me cry from happiness, when having my first partner fall asleep with his head on my lap did.
You're not alone (pun intended). Record numbers of Americans, men and women alike, are single.
> Nearly 118 million Americans, or about 46% of those over 18 years old, are single, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But that percent is actually much higher for women—a record-breaking 52% of them are unmarried or separated as of 2021, according to a recent report from Wells Fargo Economics.
An equal share of men and women are single (31%), but among 18-29 year olds, 51% of men are single, while only 32% of women are. What gives? People don't necessarily partner with people in their age group (e.g. a 27 yo woman partnered with a 31 yo man), but that's not enough to explain the gap, is it?
Over a 12-year age cohort, 19% more men are single. That could be explained by women in relationships being 2.28 years younger on average. Seems about right to me. Of course, older women are more likely to be single (widowed, divorced, or separated) but many of those are in same-sex relationships which are becoming more common.
Can't read the article due to their paywall but your quote makes it sound like unmarried and single is the same thing, which strikes me as an outlandish assumption in this day and age. Surely there are lots and lots of unmarried couples as well?
I guess I've been a "volcel" for almost 4 years now after an almost 20 year relationship.
I have pretty mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I get lonely, intensely lonely at times. And I miss the companionship I had (before it got awful.)
On the other hand, I have so much time now to just focus on myself and my kids and my career and hobbies and my mental well being. I've increased my income a lot in the last year and re-sparked hobbies from my youth.
But frankly, I am miserable. I don't know if meeting someone else would solve it, or whether it would just be me escaping (again) from my own demons.
Being alone is one of the toughest things I've experienced. You're forced to be with yourself, all the time! There is no escape, where you can go hug or chat with your significant other. If you don't like yourself, or you have some underlying issues, you have to face it head on - and it's brutal.
I'm trying to be comfortable, even happy, on my own. But it's a slow, grueling process of self awareness and conscious self care.
Dating seems dire these days as well. Tech is a terrible industry for meeting someone. And online dating, which I've tried a few times, I found incredibly tiring and frustrating.
I feel like there is a rise of apathy towards dating and relationships in general. I know many people who are single and sick of it all. It's all kind of depressing and I don't have an answer.
If you get on a train, you are statistically more likely to reach your destination than just sitting on your ass. Yes, you may die in a fiery trainwreck, but getting on the train will lead you in the direction to where you intend to go.
If you do nothing, expect nothing.
If you attempt to work on your personal problems, be they psychological, physical, financial, whatever, you are more likely to make a change in your life than just accepting that this is your life.
Struggling with autism, I not infrequently get on the wrong literal non-metaphorical train, stand on the wrong platform for an hour, pass the station I'm meant to disembark. It's rough. But you can extrapolate that idea to working on yourself too—sometimes we forget to get off the metaphorical train, don't know which train we're meant to be getting, not even sure how to get somewhere, but as long as someone is trying to get somewhere rather than just being content with where they are, I think that's beneficial in most scenarios.
I've also struggled with depression, hence the "sitting on your ass", wallowed for many years and just tread water. Execute on intent—do something—carpe diem—make a change—you can always make another—just don't accept your life as-is if you're unhappy with it.
I have to thank you for the positive mindset you're trying to teach us here!
Also, as you say, it is very important to not accept bad state -- this is so important I can't stress it enough. Even more, because of how some generic people mindset can easily get you into "learned helplessness" state.
A relationship can end like that after 20 years? Oh my god. That's basically my whole life. I can't imagine sharing that much of my life, that much time, with another person and then the relationship ending on our terms. Like, they didn't die, or they didn't drink a vial of cancer serum accidentally and whoops I have cancer now I'm dying bye. It ended because you started hating each other? After all that time? That's insane for me to even fathom.
I can't even imagine the growth, personally, and in the other person to happen through all that time and to share that time together in a relationship. And then, after all that, it can end because the relationships sours? That almost black pills me on all relationships lmao
Luckily, I also can't fathom how people have trouble being with themselves. I'm grateful that I feel as though I'm my own best friend in a way. I like who I am, even with vast room for improvement, and I feel like I do a pretty good job of guiding myself through life to make it a reasonably fulfilling adventure while helping myself become a better person (mostly). From where I'm at now, working on myself and pursuing my hobbies is all I want to do. Introducing the noise of a relationship into it seems... messy.
I'm in my late 20s and honestly its just sort of hard to care about this anymore.
I fully acknowledge I'm not attractive and generally weird people out. I'm over it.
That said, since I'm very interested in keeping my health in good shape I'm not interested in anyone who isn't at the very least in half decent shape or doesn't have some kind of baseline college education.
Fortunately, I've still been able to date about ten people in my twenties and I've learned from each relationship but nothing has necessarily been "long term". Fortunately, in these cases I didn't really compromise standards and enjoyed my time dating.
To be frank, I have no idea how people who constantly have girlfriends do it? My best guess is they have way more energy to socialize or are just way more attractive than I am.
> The obvious course of action when you are unsure about something is experimentation. However, a relationship isn’t an activity (like a job, hobby, or sport) to try and quit when you don’t like it. It requires two people, and you must find a second person willing to try. Finding someone is hard, though. This brings me back to what I said a few paragraphs ago; I don’t see myself ready to invest much in something I’m not even sure I want. Also, if it doesn’t work out, I’m scared of leaving a broken heart in another person.
It doesn't have to be this way to start out. A relationship can be something that happens as a result of a friendship. It doesn't have to be an expectation from the moment you first meet someone. Take things slow, and you'll have a minimum amount of investment and a minimum risk of broken hearts. Don't think of it as "starting a relationship", think of it as "meeting new people". A relationship isn't something you choose, it's something that sometimes happens if the right circumstances align. If it is the right thing for you, the time and emotional investment will come naturally.
Even if you take the "starting a relationship" path (e.g. online dating to meet people) you really shouldn't be afraid of breaking someone else's heart.
Assuming you don't break someone's heart by betraying them or some other awful action, taking responsibility for a broken heart is putting way too much responsibility on yourself, and not respecting other people's agency.
It's also going to probably sabotage your attempts to learn-by-experimentation in relationships. Most likely the person on the other side of the relationship isn't going to know where it's going from day 1, it could be love, it could be something less but still fun, it could just be one or two dates. None of those are necessarily bad outcomes, but if you're weighing yourself down with all that pressure, you're going to make it harder for yourself to be open and honest and have fun.
You have some catching up to do - others may have learned some basic relationship skills in school, say, where the stakes were obviously lower and few people were getting married or anything anyway - but IME step one on getting that practice in is to take away that pressure and take it easy. One good thing to help with that, I think, is not to be too picky - if you haven't dated much, you probably don't know what your "perfect match" is like, so go out there and find out, versus waiting for one person who you build up so much in your mind you sabotage yourself with the anxiety of screwing it up.
I agree, I just wanted to give an "easy option" for someone who sounds like their fear of the process is keeping them from trying at all.
I didn’t read it as someone who is not respectful of others agency as much as it might just be someone who is comfortable being alone and avoidant of inconvenient social situations.
I regret that I have only one upvote for this comment. Unless you are either highly abusive or dating someone with significant mental/emotional impairment then assigning the fault to yourself in advance of any actual problems is beyond unhealthy
I'm not sure I can agree with that. I'm incapable of relationships, but even if it were, my background makes puts me at a elevated probability of becoming abusive towards towards an intimate partner.
Would you not say that most if not all people would not want an abusive partner? If so, then even if it were possible, would not choosing to remain unattached out of concern for others be the more... Correct? Ethical? Moral? In any case, the better choice then to unnecessarily subject them to that elevated risk?
That paragraph struck me as well and I was going to make a similar comment. The idea of investment and fear of things 10 steps down the road is paralyzing. Even using the term "relationship" is this fashion makes it seem like an activity like a job, hobby, or sport.
It's much easier than all that. You meet someone. You connect. You want to spend more time with them. Things happen organically and you might have to make difficult decisions at some point but by then you'll actually have information and a reason.
Being in a relationship is part of the human condition. It's not for everyone and won't happen for everyone. But I think it's important to try. But not try and have a "relationship" but to try and meet new people of the gender(s) you're attracted to and open to whatever happens.
FYI This guy isn't ugly, actually average looking 30yr old white guy, isn't short, is socially active. I honestly have no idea why this guy is still a virgin, im pretty sure he could find someone on a dating app if he got in shape.
Maybe he has psychological issues. For example, people with schizoid personality disorder tend to be single because they have trouble connecting with people.
Thats what I was thinking, I really doubt it, he seems like a really nice guy and he speaks/ posts online in a "neurotypical" manner, however neurotypical people usually don't talk about their virginity on a blogpost lol
Still baffled that he is a virgin, especially at his age, maybe someone in a relationship can give him advice, he has a twitter
You're getting downvoted, but I'm not entirely sure why. It's not some toxic Andrew-Tate-esque take to consider low testosterone as a possibility for the lack of drive the author mentions.
Personally, I plan on doing it soon, there's no harm in it.
T levels aren't everything, though. Get a full hormone panel. I got one and found my adrenals weren't producing enough DHEA.
Also note that HRT, and specifically testosterone supplementation may not address core issues. I was a candidate for test, but this would have allowed my adrenals to stay suppressed and ruined my balls.
Anecdotal, but dating apps have to be the worst way to meet someone. Everybody I ever met through them has major problems and that's why they have to meet people through an app dedicated to meeting people for relationships. It's such an unnatural and strange concept.
Hard disagree. My last "n" relationships over more than a decade came from dating apps. It's also a high-percentage source of relationships these days.
Dating apps can be where people go shopping, but it can also just be a way to filter for people you wouldn't ordinarily encounter doing the things you do day to day. In that respect, they're great.
Anecdote v anecdote, matey. As with anything, if they work for you and others, that's great. I have a feeling that it may be a demographic thing related to geographic area, that and the times have of course changed and dating apps are far more mainstream than they were a decade ago.
An additional anecdote though as an in-between of both of ours: my mother in the UK met a man from Canada in a chatroom over twenty years ago, divorced my father, and they're still married. Not to say that it has always been smooth sailing at times for them (he's got paranoid schizophrenia, she's physically disabled now), but they're happy, so meeting people via software evidently does work for some people.
I mean, look at us, we don't know each other, but we're having a conversation, so if that idea is extrapolated to a dating app, sure, I can buy into the idea that they can be effective for some people.
one thing i think where dating apps help (or being introduced by someone as potential partners) is that you can discuss relationship goals very early. that helps weeding out unsuitable candidates quickly.
Could also be a consequence of just not having much desire to "mate". It's not unheard of for people to not want to "mate"; there's a reason why asexual is a term that people use to describe themselves.
>He isn't ugly, short, or awkward so shouldn't be a virgin
I've noticed this a lot: whenever a non-ugly person notes that they're perpetually single, the first thing people say is "What? But you're so handsome/tall". This strongly implies that one's physical attributes are the biggest predictor of sexual success. However when people complain that their lack of physical attractiveness is keeping them perpetually single, they'll be assuaged that looks have very little to do with it, and it's probably a personality/circumstantial problem.
Not saying that you'd be saying it, but it's something I noticed: maybe a societal-scale sort of euphemistic tactic to make people feel better. The importance of physical attractiveness, with respect to common reasoning, seems to shift to one extreme or the other depending on whether the person one is talking to is ugly or attractive.
Once an unattractive person realizes this rhetorical shift everyone performs, how could they ever believe anyone who tries to make them feel better about their looks?
Your reasoning sounds a little over-binary; both things can be simultaneously true:
1: Attractive people will find dating and securing a relationship easier than unattractive people
2: Physically unattractive people can still be very successful in dating and securing relationships, because there are many other impactful factors besides physical looks
So you can say without lying or deception "it's surprising that [incredibly good looking person] is perpetually single, it should be easy to leverage their looks into a relationship" and also "don't give up just because you're ugly, there are far more important factors to finding a relationship than just your looks".
The surprise at someone being single seems to be exclusively about looks. I've never heard something about someone being single and being being shocked and saying "but he's so interesting/charming/charismatic", the surprise factor seems to be almost exclusively about physical appearance. If someone is ugly but very charming, and it is revealed he is perpetually single, it never really seems to be a surprise to most people.
This seems to support the commonly, tacitly understood notion that looks are the most important factor, everything else is of relatively ancillary importance. I'm not implying that other factors aren't commonly regarded as also important, but they're never given the primacy of deterministic impact that it seems that physical appearance is.
Attractive doesn’t mean you are somehow born attractive or unattractive. Sure, people win the lottery and get a bit of a head start, but most of it is charisma, how you dress, if you’re in shape, if you wear deodorant, etc. Attractiveness is a thing anyone can change by putting in effort.
There are two problems I see with just saying this
- "working on yourself" is left unclearly defined
- the assumption that you have to "work on yourself" before you can get in front of other people (apologies if that wasn't what you were insinuating but I've been given this advice by others)
Addressing the first the most obvious way that society deems "working on yourself" if I had to guess is going to therapy. Well I have troubles going to therapy because evidently some part of my brain related to forming any sort of human relationship (romantic friendly business or therapeutic) is stunted. For me the interest you speak of and work ethic for dealing with humans over objects just fades. They can be as enthusiastic as possible and I can completely forget they exist after a week if they aren't physically in front of my face by then. And there are plenty of states of apathy in between. So therapy doesn't work out that well. I go back to those people who recommended therapy for advice. They say "well go to therapy again, wrong therapist." At that point Im willing to believe theyre telling me that because they have no idea how to deal with me and want me out of their sights asap so a professional can take the brunt of my miasma. And that is a legitimate tactic when dealing with severely depressed people, see "codependence", it is just the truth. At that point I cant bear to be around them any more
Addressing the second, I think that would contribute to more alone time for someone seeking self help, whereas experience by doing is better for learning. Though, by now Ive learned the hard way that dragging my clearance-shelf mind into someone elses good time feels like it would be selfish to them and unfulfilling for me, but thats me personally
So my new idea of working on myself is just trying to stay employed as a single living thing and hoping I can retire without any more mental defects forming. Sometimes I feel empty. Maybe I got the wrong idea.
The things people have been talking about in this thread. Get in shape. Consider improvements to other aspects of your appearance like hair, skincare, and clothing. Work on your personality by developing hobbies that get you around the kind of people you want to meet, make conscious effort to improve social skills.
> the assumption that you have to "work on yourself" before you can get in front of other people (apologies if that wasn't what you were insinuating but I've been given this advice by others)
Sometimes getting in front of other people is all that is needed. But if your current practices aren’t seeing the results you expect after the passage of time, then it’s worth considering whether an adjustment is needed.
> Addressing the first the most obvious way that society deems "working on yourself" if I had to guess is going to therapy. Well I have troubles going to therapy because evidently some part of my brain related to forming any sort of human relationship (romantic friendly business or therapeutic) is stunted.
Not necessarily but in many cases therapists can point you in the right direction! Also, if you’ve had a go with therapy a few times with no results, it’s possible that garden variety therapy practices aren’t for you and you need more specialized expertise. You might want to check out any university medical centers in your area that offer psychotherapy. The intake can take longer and there’s more bureaucracy but the quality can be a lot higher.
> Addressing the second, I think that would contribute to more alone time for someone seeking self help, whereas experience by doing is better for learning. Though, by now Ive learned the hard way that dragging my clearance-shelf mind into someone elses good time feels like it would be selfish to them and unfulfilling for me, but thats me personally
IDK where you live, but living on the West Coast I know exactly what you mean, the “positive vibes only” culture can be incredibly draining. I would say two things.
1. Not everywhere is like this, and if you can move, you might find the social environment in another place more to your liking. Midwesterners and New Yorkers famously love to complain.
2. There’s also an element where you have to learn to suppress negativity around new people. As your friendship becomes deeper - it doesn’t have to be all that deep - you can drop the mask and reveal how you really think. You will likely find that more people think like you than you might imagine, they’re just more practiced at masking.
> something I noticed: maybe a societal-scale sort of euphemistic tactic to make people feel better.
I’ve noticed this pattern since I was an adolescent. In my opinion, the behavior is aimed at making the reassuring party feel better about the situation.
Individuals who recognize their unattractiveness and its negative consequences are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior, which is threatening to others. Hence, reassurances aimed at preventing such people from breaking with the group are part of the social script. Taboos on suicide serve a similar function — they deter antisocial individuals from depriving the group of resources (mainly labor, in the case of those who are secretly held to be nonviable for reproductive purposes). The gross inferiority of the reassured party can never be admitted, no matter how obvious, because doing so could justify behavior that the reassuring party finds undesirable.
This dynamic is the single biggest reason for the emergence and persistence of online “incel” communities. These communities provide a safe space for alienated individuals to refute the social script without facing ostracism from one another.
I once read that the Outsider (as defined by Colin Wilson) lives their live in the pursuit of truth. I think that may partially explain why such a tactic is so ineffective for those people. They are concerned with what they think is the truth behind the words above what the words makes them feel, when the latter is supposed to be more important to the speaker of the words. The words are a tool to get someone to clean up their act, get off the couch and get employed again, and after they're said they've served their purpose they're forgotten about. The Outsider seeks that obvious admittance that never comes
I can understand the purpose of self-help statements like "if it frightens you then do it." The point is for the consumer of the help to do things they wouldn't. But I'm tempted to say "I'm frightened of punching people out of the blue, vividly imagine myself doing so out in public every day and have to constantly repress my urge to do so." The author says "thats not what I meant." Then I'd say "then say what you mean." But the point has been lost in a mishmash of semantics. And in the end I'm still frightened of punching people
Im in the habit of peeling back the ulterior motives behind such tactics. Its more concerned with what the people are trying to get me to do if they're making a subjective statement more than the content of the statement. I call that kind of act 'positive gaslighting'. The term gaslighting is almost a universally negative connotation but nobody really talks about the flip side, when you have to look to faith instead of working with truth to feel better. Honestly Id let myself be stoned to death than accept such words uncritically just because it makes me "feel better". I have to twist them into a narrative that makes sense with my worldview
(The irony is that blackpilled incel culture is just another tribe that you can't cross with the wrong words ("maybe I have a chance") or youll get decapitated, I want to remain outside of any tribe for the rest of my life if it kills me)
There's no algorithm for relationships, or entering one, or leaving one. It's a series of choices and actions with unpredictable results.
This makes some people so uncomfortable that they blame a mythological algorithm ('oh, haven't had any opportunities', 'oh, I just don't want to settle') instead of just making choices and taking actions. This is why dating apps are popular, because they promote the idea that relationships can be reduced to algorithms of trait selection and numeric increase in 'opportunities'.
I was happily single until my mid-thirties and wasn't even really looking for a relationship. I realize now that getting married probably saved my life. Married men life much longer than single men because they have someone to tell them to go to the doctor.
So yeah, stay single if you want, but get a good doctor and don't skip the annual physicals.
Yeah it's a pretty US centric thing. People here run to the doctor for every little thing and then complain about the price of healthcare and how it's so hard to get in to see a doctor.
That said, this is borderline navel gazing. Stop thinking about "what it's like to go swimming" and jump in the lake. Yes, you'll get wet, look stupid, and make a mess. There's no way around that. The sooner the better.
If you need to reason yourself into the water, I recommend "The Village Effect." Statistically, humans fair better with a rich tapestry of relationships. Are you ready to bet your life on being the exception? Move over, Pascal.
More pointedly, can you really say you've examined life and lived it fully if you've never shared it intimately with another person? Can someone say they understand the world if they've never left their home? Do you want to be that person?
I'm over 30. 2 years ago I was drunk, on coke and had a girl naked in front of me saying "Fuck me" and I still managed to botch it. This only happened once I normally manage to run as soon as I sense that a girl may be interested in me. It's not easy for some people.
I've been in some analog situations. Heck, even recently a woman whom I've known from work a few years back emailed me with some nice words, a will to reconnect and her number, and I haven't even replied to her.
On another hand, I feel a bit like the blog post, in that I'm not extra motivated into trying this, maybe also a bit worried to break somebody's heart (this includes, potentially, mine), or to be stuck in a situation I don't really like for too long. If I think through that deeply I'm not sure I even find that much upside. Anyway I really like his wording, it speaks to me quite a bit.
You will inevitably make yourself look stupid in a relationship or even on a date. Not getting in there now is just delaying the inevitable. However crippling it is, you will have to face it one day. It's not the same as trying to command yourself into feeling better.
Speaking personally, oftentimes I truly want something but am afraid to fail and look stupid in the process. Laboring under a false sense of indifference is terrible, though. It’s inauthentic. Living like that is uncomfortable.
So for the author, and whomever else, I'd ask, are you being honest with yourself or are you turning away from fear?
Either something is worth the risk, galvanizing yourself, and taking your shot whatever the results, or it’s not. If it’s the later, let it go and move on. If you can’t move on, why not? Are you being honest with yourself? Deep down, you know the answer, because it’s a feeling. An intuition.
Ambivalence. Living in between these two states is painful. You’re attached to something but scared to reach out for it. It’s life under tension.
At a certain point, you can't resolve this tension by sitting in place and thinking deeply. You're not just a mind. You have to use your body, too.
One thing I believe strongly now, (although I did not always), is that we all very much have the right to be our most charming selves, and ask out people that catch our interest, but then gently let them down gently at any time after 1, 2, or even 10 dates, with no reason needed to be given for why you are breaking up. And if the other person sends the signal of "you are so unkind, for making me like you so much/love you, and then leaving me", you can reject that message; it's not fair or valid.
I hear you when you say you don't want to break anybody's heart. But you have the right to. And sometimes we do it, even though we don't mean to. And sometimes it is the right thing to do.
The vast majority of relationships don't work. That is absolutely not a good reason not to play.
It hurts but folks should be ante-ing anyways. And one of the only ways to make better experiences is with practice & experience. Don't deny that XP gain.
I am recently divorced and I don't see myself ever in another relationship. I would consider a partner where we live in different homes and don't share any expenses or responsibilities but I doubt any woman would accept that as a permanent arrangement.
This resonates with me and I'm in a similar stage.
I'd like something between hooking up with a stranger and recreating my life (again) around a new person. It's hard to do that once you're older and I'm actively avoiding being financially intertwined with another person.
Besides having a lot to lose, I also question if I'm desired because of what I can financially bring to the table and as a labor source. Maybe I'm cynical, but this seems to be the calculus of a lot of single parents. I'm not looking to be the solution to someone else's life problems.
That's pretty much what having a boyfriend or girlfriend sounds like. Many people do it without even living in the same city. I don't get what would be controversial about it, perhaps the expectation that it has to evolve to something different?
Many people have an expectation that boyfriend/girlfriend status is essentially a trial period for marriage. If it's not "going anywhere" it's a waste of time.
As people age, if they have this perspective, they tend to become significantly less patient.
>Also, if it doesn’t work out, I’m scared of leaving a broken heart in another person.
This is a telling statement. It really highlights his inexperience and immaturity with regards to relationships (not that this is in doubt - it is after all the subject of his post).
Being the cause of, and the sufferer of a "broken heart" is a formative experience. There's nothing like healing a broken heart to teach you that actually things get better, and it wasn't right anyway.
There's nothing like the fear of hurting someone else that will trap you in an unhealthy or unfulfilling relationship for far longer than it should have. When you finally summon the courage to end it, knowing it will hurt someone else - you immediately feel the freedom, and the other person's journey to healing begins too.
I find it hard to understand people who make a mountain out of dating. It's a numbers game, and there's a gazillion ways to meet people.
I think to enter into a relationship knowing there will be an expiration date speaks more to your character. Almost sounds like "I'm with them unless something better comes along or their shortcomings become more than I want to deal with".
If you genuinely love someone, you will stand by them, work on any problems, and remember that you chose to build a future together. Given that the divorce rate in my community is less than 1% we're probably doing something right.
Yes it did. The assertion was that the more people you date the higher your odds of success, when the reality is totally the opposite. People who date less have a higher success rate in marriage.
> The assertion was that the more people you date the higher your odds of success
Again, no, it is not. It very clearly is talking about being a numbers game in terms of meeting people, rather than dating people. You do not date everyone you meet.
It's more that things change, and that one of the things that changes is the "new relationship smell." Also people change with the seasons. Someone who is outgoing and upbeat in the summer may be hell on wheels in the winter simply because of the effect the seasons have on them. You learn more about someone the longer you spend with them.
My spouse wanted to get married after 3 months of dating and I pushed back because we hadn't even been through a whole season together, let alone a year. If you want to spend a lifetime with someone you have to recognize when it's time to be practical and when it's time to throw caution to the wind and commit at any cost.
> Given that the divorce rate in my community is less than 1% we're probably doing something right.
Or something wrong. Low divorce rate doesn't mean low unhappiness rate. I know several men and women in utterly trash relationships, who'd be better off alone, but who stay married because "this is the way".
It's a mix of "must have kids at all costs" (even if that cost is the parents and kids having awful lives because they weren't a good match), and "must be and stay married at all costs if we have a kid".
Hey, I can't know what your community is like. But my guess, it's part of the many communities that have this problem. But that's not to disagree with your first paragraph; when you're with a partner, you do stand by them, you don't just treat them like a phone and upgrade to a newer and shinier model every few months/years. But also, you don't have to put up with them if you find out they're a terrible person.
We live in the US, where the success of a marriage is closer to a coin toss. It's pretty abaurd to try to take the average from across the world in this case.
The simple average hides a lot of differences between demographic groups. If you’re college educated, earn a higher income, white or Asian, and get married later, then your chances of success are much higher than 50/50.
Divorce rate means the percentage of people getting a divorce every year. Your 40-50% figure must be the total percentage of marriages that end in divorce.
Now the GP said "divorce rate", so I take it they meant the former. If it's the latter, then 1% is abnormally low (and can't be simply explained with happy marriages).
You've completely misunderstood my original comment.
The process of meeting new people to establish compatibility is absolutely a numbers game. To expect to meet someone with whom you are compatible enough to spend many many years with just by meeting 3 new people is ridiculous. It's not impossible, but given the number of permutations of personalities it's extremely unlikely.
In order to find a suitable life partner, you need to be exposed to a large number of potential partners. Some people get lucky and hit the jackpot after meeting 5 people, others after 50, others still not after 200.
Also, divorce rate is not at all an indicator of healthy relationships. Religious or cultural taboos massively influence divorce rate, and there is plenty of evidence to show that the result can be people trapped in dreadfully unhappy marriages without any escape.
> Being the cause of, and the sufferer of a "broken heart" is a formative experience. There's nothing like healing a broken heart to teach you that actually things get better, and it wasn't right anyway.
I've never understood this, when I was a teen I had fallings out with a person who was a friend but I couldnt read her social signals, I was nowhere near dating her in hindsight and she was too shy tell me what she actually thought of me until it was too late. Combined with a subsequent brutal fallings out with my family lasting for months that caused me to give up any idea of talking to a woman for more than one day
It took 5 more years for me to be diagnosed as autistic. By that point I figured that had been a death sentence for my social life. Lack of success with male counterparts after the social skills sessions and years of therapy solidified that no amount of help would allow me to look past it
Im now going into my thirties and have no friends, still I guess I'm posting on some guys Hn submission about being single so that counts for something, sounds more appropriate a comment on Tumblr though. I'd be willing to believe the only thing keeping me coming back at this point is hormones and the results of evolution. I reject any advance from all genders so nothing is logically inconsistent. I get what I put in. I just want to live a constructed narrative. Some days I wish I could just burn out all my mirror neurons and stop anguishing over it all if I'm really not going to go back again. But even now I guess I still want someone to hear me rant, just so I don't turn insane, its been my one real worry recently
I’m on the opposite side of the spectrum. I’m 23 and have experienced a solid number of partners and committed relationships.
After my last long-term relationship however, I realized how much time and energy these commitments take. I’ve noticed that after a while, I tend to lose myself in long term R’s, and I hate the feeling.
This ends my relationships. It starts out fine, with healthy and strong boundaries with regards to personal time and energy. Over time, the compromises eat away at me, and I find myself with very little time for my own pursuits and personal growth.
It’s odd too, because I’m quite aware of my boundaries and strong with them. Something about relationships or my partners slowly erodes them.
Near the end, I feel so suffocated that I’m usually becoming distant and breaking things off.
Singlehood is liberating, but I hate that I love my partners and I can’t figure out a way to stop repeating this harmful pattern. It’s either something wrong with me, or something wrong with how I pick my partners.
> Something about relationships or my partners slowly erodes them.
Simply put: fear of losing access to sex will make many men compromise a lot. There are other things that can contribute to this, such as "wanting her to be happy" being conflated with "she will only be happy if she gets her way".
I recommend you read No More Mr. Nice Guy and see if it rings any bells for you.
A strong commitment to boundaries doesn't do a lot for you if you capitulate every time.
As for the reasoning behind my actions, I often feel it’s not only about sex, but a deeper need to avoid confrontation and keep a relative peace in the relationship.
In one of my last relationships, part of the problem was a constant war over my personal boundaries. My partner was requiring too much of my attention and energy, pushing things, moving fast at every turn. This eventually eroded the lines I set.
This situation is something I need to keep an eye out for future relationships!
i haven't made this experience as strongly as i was able to find time for my own things in my work (being selfemployed at times and having a partner that had a well paid job too which lessened the pressure on me to focus on income helped) but what i realized is important is support from my partner for my interests and goals (and of course i should equally support my partners goals)
without that support, compromises meant that i would have to give up my goals in favor of a happy relationship. and maybe this is what you are experiencing. find a partner that actually supports your goals and interests (that doesn't mean that they need to have the same goals and interests, but only that they should not be conflicting, as well as they should have goals you are willing to support)
The author says, "I can’t even say whether I’m voluntarily or involuntarily single," and I think this is telling. When you're dealing with anxiety and overthinking, it's easy to lose touch with your feelings and become unsure of why you do things the way you do. I know that's how it's been for me to some extent.
You've got to push past it, though, and take the plunge to ask people out even if they might reject you or even if it might break some social norms. I just got out of a long-term relationship and am also approaching my thirties. When I met her, she was my housemate during university years. My other housemates and friends said it would be inappropriate to make a move, but I went for it anyway, and it gave me 9 years of happiness.
I don't think the author indicates that they're feeling anxiety at all. Overall, they seem to indicate happiness and content in singleness, and even give themselves a call-to-action at the end of the piece:
> Why am I writing about this deeply personal subject? The clock is ticking, and figuring myself out and finding a partner won’t get easier as I get older. By talking about these things in public, I want to make myself accountable for taking these personal matters more seriously. As a friend told me recently, I should “whole-ass” it, not “half-ass” it, if I want to progress. I hope to figure some things out, and I want to document my thoughts here. This is a good starting point to show where I’m coming from if I get involved in the online dating discourse.
In fact, I can relate to this feeling of realizing that I'm never going to have a "meet-cute" moment, and that I need to intentionally seek out relationships. Especially given remote work, on the average day, I will speak to 0 people who I don't work with. That doesn't leave a lot of room for starting relationships.
TFA mentions, and I've encountered this in friends as well: fear of hurting others as a very common reason for not dating. My only advice is "You are guaranteed to hurt someone you get into a relationship with; them entering into a relationship with you means they think it is worth it."
That doesn't mean there aren't wrong ways to go about relationships (abusers keep people in unhealthy relationships with a combination of manipulation and picking their victims well), but if you're legit hesitant to date someone because you are worried about hurting them, then that's probably not you.
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I was like the author, except I have had a burning desire to have family and children since I was a boy. I started thinking about fatherhood when I was maybe 12.
After a failed long term relationship, and three or four girlfriends I finally settled with the fact that my drive to fulfill this desire overrides pretty much any degree of pain or dissatisfaction from prior relationships. I've prayed plenty of times to have this desire taken from me because it screwed with my head to be single. As if this one thing was a gateway to the rest of my life. I know that's not fundamentally true, and I haven't put my life on hold just because I lack a romantic relationship.
I generally advise even hesitant men to "go for it" because they won't make any progress towards a goal if they don't get over themselves and try. To the guys who have tried and failed, I say "take damage, keep moving".
There are whole groups of men on the other side of failed relationships that are utter poison to everyone around them.
If anyone needs a cheerleader or someone to keep them accountable, let me know.
Because I used to relate to this sentiment, but with time (a decade), it all disappears, and whilst not on speaking terms, all is forgiven from my end. People talk about "personal growth", and whilst I wrote it off as hogwash, actually, no, letting go of the past is a huge part of that. It can be done.
If we put less social pressure on people to pair bond, some non-zero percentage of the population would be genuinely happier.
Reducing women to objects of beauty, saying their value comes from their fertility, and implying that if they disagree with that assessment it's because they're too emotional is almost the dictionary definition of misogyny. I hope you'll reconsider this attitude.
People get upset when you point this out, but they don't get upset because it's the truth, they get upset because of what they think the consequences of people knowing that truth will be. There are many things which can't be debated in public because it causes people (not just women) to get extremely emotional and retreat to lizard-brain defenses. My hope is that on HN, we can learn to control those responses.
Or they get upset because they aren't Nihilists and believe in some form of personal meaning besides perpetuating the species?
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35548367
There are many things that may be true from the perspective of biology, but we collectively as a humanity choose to ignore or fight them. I think most people will disagree with the opinion that reproduction is the only goal of human life. Because that's it - an opinion (that you seem to share).
For example, there are many people of both sexes that consciously decide not to have children. In this context, reducing women (and women only) to "literally baby machines" is not really logically defensible in my opinion. Unless I misunderstood your point?
I think you're imputing reduction when it wasn't implied or intended.
In this case, "women are baby machines" is obscuring a lot:
- This is conflating being female with being a woman. Being female is a biological fact, being a woman is a distinct concept from being female. Conflating them serves to imply that our ideas about womanhood are objective rather than constructed. But most of our ideas about women have nothing to do with any biological reality - there's nothing about having two X chromosomes that means you wear dresses or engage in girltalk.
- Many women can't have children. However, if a woman has a hysterectomy, we generally don't say she's no longer a woman.
- Many people who can have children don't identify as being a woman.
- Having the capacity to bear children doesn't imply that this is your "greatest value." This is a normative statement, not a factual one. You can't prove a normative statement from factual statements. [1]
- We don't organize our society around biology. We weren't born with wings, but we fly. A woman's biology shouldn't limit her ability to pursue her own happiness. If she doesn't want to settle down in her 20s, chiding her for letting her biological clock run down is patronizing, moralizing, and unjustified.
People don't get upset because the truth is too hot to handle. They get upset because this is a bad faith line of argumentation used to justify bigotry - getting upset is a reasonable reaction to that.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
To say that women's greatest value from a societal perspective is baby-making, a person is not saying or implying: that women who can't have babies aren't valuable. Or that people (for example trans-men) can get pregnant and have babies.
As for your semantic arguments, nobody is "proving" anything here. This is an internet discussion board, we're discussing biology and society. There is no philosophical proof, because the systems we're discussing are not logical.
How about this: "due to its necessity to the continued existence of humanity, the ability of baby-making people to make babies is highly valued, often greatly above other abilities that baby-making people have, and this is strongly considered in mate selection." I think that's all the OP meant to say with the parts you're complaining about rewritten to be less imperative.
I think it's pretty clear we do organize society around biology, not exclusively.
As human beings, trans people deserve care and respect and the full set of human rights, yet, this doesn't include that we bend reality based on imaginary constructs.
If you support trans people's right to exist as humans, maybe it behooves you to educate yourself about the difference between gender and sex, so that you don't repeat transphobic talking points.
Absolutist statements like this ("if you don't agree with my point of view, that means your viewpoint is the worst of the worst") make people not want to look further into or agree with your ideology, and are ironically binary.
Those distingushing between trans women and women and those thinking trans people have no right to exist as humans are not the same group. You've bent this entire discussion to try and make it about the talking point you wanted to make, so hopefully you're pleased you did it.
This would be like saying that men are nothing but insemination machines. And yet, analysis of what men want or do on this forum is way more complex, because men are actually more then that.
From the perspective of biology, all that non-baby related aspirations and wants are also part of our biology. You are ignoring them because of ideology, not because women would lack these for biological reasons.
> Yet we can never honestly discuss them because people have a hard time controlling their emotions about it.
Nobody here has said that women are baby machines or any such thing. Get control of yourself.
Never said they were, that's you putting words in my mouth. However I think it's fair to say that most people form relationships to have children with people they find attractive. I know you r/childfree types are a vocal minority, but you are just that: a minority. There's plenty of analyses that does deep dives on the data out there. Check out the OkTrends blog that the OkCupid founders ran. You may have to dig for it a little; they deleted it since the facts they uncovered upset a lot of people.
What you said was that social pressure for women to get married young was justified because that was when they had the best chance of giving birth to healthy children, and that their "greatest value" was their youth and beauty. "Baby machine" is a fair summary of what you've expressed - you're deemphasizing their agency in making decisions about their lives and emphasizing their beauty and fertility, describing them as if they were an object which suited a purpose.
I hate the idea of anyone feeling inferior or less worthy due to not being chosen by someone else.
At the same time, we can speak objectively about what one group of people statistically find desirable in another group. I mean, we could also choose to not speak of it — but for many there is utility in understanding (and thus speaking of) what is desired by others: if you know what they want, you can decide if it’s worth making choices that would satisfy those desires, and you can also be realistic about how likely you are to satisfy those desires as a function of time and other variables.
As a heterosexual man, I can speak of the opposite side of the coin: over 99% of women I have seen on online dating apps clearly state that having kids is a must — my not wanting kids by that logic makes me unsuitable as a dating prospect. I could be upset: “how dare they see me as some sort of sperm dispensing machine?!” But the reality is that they don’t harbor any ill intent, they just simply want kids and that means I’m not a good choice to satisfy that desire.
I don't understand how you can read the comment as being purely descriptive, when it makes categorical statements about people's "value" with a postscript about how these "truths" are too hot to handle. If it were simply about following the facts wherever they lead, surely there wouldn't be a need to preemptively declare that anyone who disagreed did so irrationally, and surely it wouldn't have been categorical without making room for nuance or disagreement.
In my mind, if you feel moved to discredit anyone who might disagree with you before they've had a chance to join the discussion, you're probably not neutrally sharing a simple factual observation. That's a strong indication that you're making a statement about how you think things should be, not how they are objectively. It doesn't matter so much when people disagree with you about something objective, they're simply wrong and the truth will win out. It's when you want them to behave in a certain way that disagreement is difficult to tolerate.
I touched on this in a later response under your initial comment in this thread, but the tl;dr was that I interpreted their use of the word "value" being the same as its use in economics: something is said to be "valued" if it is desired/sought after, and whether that should be the case or how we feel about it is an orthogonal concern (though certainly not any less deserving of discussion itself).
> [...] with a postscript about how these "truths" are too hot to handle. If it were simply about following the facts wherever they lead, surely there wouldn't be a need to preemptively declare that anyone who disagreed did so irrationally, and surely it wouldn't have been categorical without making room for nuance or disagreement.
I think I see where you're coming from now. I suspect difference in interpretation is a consequence of differences in our individual priors: I have seen countless times that people will conflate mentioning of a statistic with support for that statistic being what it is -- there is, after all, the proverbial saying "don't shoot the messenger". So I can sympathize with (what I interpret to be) a preemptive "I know some of you are going to take what I've written uncharitably and/or irrationally, so fire away" -- which isn't to say that I think that's a productive way of communicating, but I see the rationale behind that (as misguided as it may be) just as much as I can see the rationale behind giving someone the finger, or cussing someone out, letting out a frustrated sigh, or any other emotionally motivated outburst. (I didn't take what was originally written to mean "if you disagree, it's because you're being irrational")
> On average in relationships, women's greatest value is their youth and beauty (early/mid 20s), men's greatest value is when they've progressed in their career and are amassing wealth (mid/late 30s).
Particularly what the word “value” means in this context.
I suspect you take “value” to mean something like “is deserving of positive self esteem; worthy of positive sentiment/respect/love”.
I, and I suspect most others here in the comments, take “value” to mean something very different; roughly: “that which is statistically pursued and/or desired by others”. In this sense, it can be said that (within certain circles) sticking a needle in your arm and checking out of your life is valued. That says nothing of how you and I feel about others doing that, whether that’s healthy/moral/ethical/whatever behavior, etc. The statistics regarding the pursuit of a thing and the sentiment regarding the former are orthogonal. This is, for example, what is meant by “value” when speaking of supply/demand.
If you look at what men want (and in my experience as a heterosexual male looking at dating prospects, what women also want — much to my detriment as a man who is uninterested in having children), it usually includes having healthy, well supported (financially and emotionally) children. While I am kind, giving, ambitious, funny, etc, I am reduced to zero “value” (i.e. they have no point in pursuing me because I won’t ever give them what they want) in the eyes of 99% of the single women where I live. And that’s fine to me, as we all have things that we want, and there’s no one in existence that will check the boxes off for everyone else in the universe. That doesn’t mean that my own self esteem should be diminished, and I don’t think most people would want me to have any less self esteem.
I think supply and demand is a bad way to look at it. Dating isn't a "market" in the sense that an auction is conducted to discover the value of goods. If you find someone you're happy with, you can't leverage that to find someone you're even more happy with, in the way that if you made a good trade in a market you'd have capital to conduct more trades with.
This model of dating relies on flattening people so that they can be considered fungible, but dating is about how someone's idiosyncracies complement your own. Markets rely on there being a ground truth of how valuable something is, and for every participant to bring their information about that to the marketplace. But in dating, one pair of people might be toxic and horrible, and those same people might do great with other partners - it's far too murky and subjective to be reduced to a market.
I agree with this.
Though I also don't think anyone is really trying to suggest (express or implied) that there's a general, natural analogy to be made between dating and markets; I solely think the word "value" was being used in the economical sense, without implying any further connection to economic theory. I realize that, when I suggested that "value" was probably meant in the sense of supply/demand, I may have conveyed something I wasn't trying to; sorry about that.
At any rate, this is how I and most people within both my family and social circles have used "value" in conversation: not an expression of sentiment, but merely an observation of what others want. Given this meaning, it's actually nonsensical to speak of a person's value without any supporting context -- people don't have value any more than the color green has smoothness/roughness, or the a note played on a piano is righteous/unjust -- these descriptors just don't apply. I could say that my skills within my career field are valued, and I suppose I could restate that as "I am a valuable employee", but I myself have no intrinsic value. If you read that with "value" replaced with "self worth" (by which people generally would mean something like "self esteem"), then it sounds pretty bad -- but that's not what's meant. I suspect most people in the HN demographic also use "value" pretty consistently in the way I've suggested -- not that I'm trying to make the argument that "value" should be interpreted this way or that way, but just pointing out what I think I've seen in practice.
I think what was originally suggested upstream in the comments was that there are qualities that most men happen to be looking for (are "valued"/"valuable"), and that those qualities give rise to pressures (as unfortunate as they may be) on women to find a long term / life partner sooner than later.
Besides, this problem we're in is just about ready to wrap itself up.
And I'm shifting focus here some, trying to get a more macro view than just the question of partnership. But hopefully this idea of social temperament/directivity makes sense as being a broader difference in how we are nurtured or natured.
I think somewhere along the line "self-reliance" became conflated with "anti-social". I've had to put in concerted effort to build my social network of men I can lean on for social activities and accountability. Being by oneself can make almost any task seem insurmountable. Couple that with being self-reliant and you have a recipe for disaster. It is no wonder so many men are committing suicide.
100% agreed.
Not to detract from the rest of your post, which I agree with, but why call these orientations "crap"? That is somewhat hurtful.
That said, I am very interested in hearing him extrapolate his thoughts further. I do use the aromantic and asexual label myself (in particular the gray aroace label), though I always find the little nuances in how different people express themselves incredibly fascinating.
I'm asexual, but not aromantic (or adverse to sex). "Relationships" aren't high on my priority list. All of my friendships are platonic and I'm quite happy with that. Where it gets weird for people is several of them are emotionally intimate and physically tactile.
For men in the US, touch is wrapped up in sex and relationships. The idea of cuddling with someone else without any sexual relationship is strange. It's one of the reasons I'm drawn to the furry fandom. For the most part, furries know some people have a need for touch without a need relationships or sex and don't consider it weird. (Whether or not a given furry will respect that boundary that is a very different thing.)
If it's hard to imagine what this is, think of how a dog or cat curls up on your lap. That's basically how I feel about physical closeness. It has nothing to do with the deep of my friendship and everything to do with how my friend feels about it.
So... relationships.
All of my emotional needs are fulfilled by my friends. Living with someone else seems like too much effort for not enough reward. I don't need sex... I have people I can touch... I have people I can call if I need help... If housework or rent was an issue, I could get a roommate. What's left? :)
Which brings me to noticing how weird a lot of the folks in this thread are about relationships that aren't the typical "man and woman dating and having sex". And casting a lot of assumptions and negative connotations with the OP not fully diving in and desiring such a relationship.
I found it quite telling that he seems sure he's not aromantic because of experiencing romantic love, but is not sure whether he's asexual. That seems to me like a strong signal that he is asexual, or at least much closer to it than most people.
I won't go in detail though. I don't feel any negative emotions or have any thoughts about that as I'm using antidepressants to shut down the libido.
After some biohacking I feel a competitive advantage in social realm and view this as a gift. There's non-compete for women, no social racing for status, and it all boils down to fundamental values. That's super christian catholic way of life, and I'm fine with it now.
What I was expecting initially is that someone will check on me, but that never happened.
https://youtu.be/lyZysfafOAs
https://www.belladepaulo.com/
And nothing is worse than the fear of never experiencing it ever again.
It took 6 years of active searching to find my first love and 3 for the second. Those despair inducing time frames and the acquired knowledge about how hard it really is to nurture and maintain relationships beyond the love, as a hypersensitive loner on the spectrum with mental illness makes me despair.
I've also searched actively. It didn't work out in my case as well. Relationships are hard.
I have literally played through the video games called Tinder and Grindr. I was on OkCupid and I had phases where I went out a lot.
The only chances I have are men leaving long term relationships or men that move here. Though dating anyone whose native language isn‘t German is frustrating to me, because others fluency and eloquence in English is usually even more limited than mine.
Desiring someone with abs and a penis that doesn‘t turn me off in the upper 20% income bracket, who is much more bottom than top, doesn‘t need my help to get stuff from shelves and has a sharp mind leaves me very little choice to begin with.
The one and only realistic thing to increase my chances would be to move to Switzerland or Germany, where I would get a whole new dating pool.
My difficult standards are out of my control and I really tried! My second partner was a great man, totally "marriage material", but his reluctance to turn his pear shaped dough body into a more chiseled form while at the same time enjoying my pornstar body ultimately made me resent him to the point where I ended things. I am either physically turned on by someone or not and loving them or not has absolutely nothing to do with it.
But you are definitely very demanding, and even if you are in the top 1%, at that point it just becomes hard to meet a suitable partner if you restrict yourself to the top 1%, which is why you notice a lot of celebrities dating and marrying partners who are technically way below them in terms of looks and status.
I can’t help but read this and think that the real reason you’re single is because you dislike yourself and you’re basing your entire life around achievement in an effort to make you like yourself. Perhaps when others fail to meet those standards and are happy regardless it makes you feel resentful. And perhaps your self hatred is the driving force in your life and you’re scared of what it means if you step off the gas.
Statistically, you’re most likely going to be dead within the next 60 years. When you’re on your death bed, do you want to look back on how chiselled your abs were when you were 30 and how big your bank account was or do you want to remember the times you spent laughing and having fun with someone?
Isn't that peak oxytocin induced happiness?
Agree that it is incredible...
Probably! Applying some reductio ad absurdum, isn‘t everything just bioelectric chemistry in our brain?
I just wanted to point out that I consider that feeling as even more pleasant than drugs that technically set the level of "pleasant feeling" beyond what‘s naturally possible.
Maybe I tried the wrong drugs, but they never made me cry from happiness, when having my first partner fall asleep with his head on my lap did.
> Nearly 118 million Americans, or about 46% of those over 18 years old, are single, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But that percent is actually much higher for women—a record-breaking 52% of them are unmarried or separated as of 2021, according to a recent report from Wells Fargo Economics.
https://fortune.com/2023/03/18/record-number-american-women-...
Pew reports 31% of Americans are unpartnered, and of those, half are looking and half aren’t: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/a-profi...
I have pretty mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I get lonely, intensely lonely at times. And I miss the companionship I had (before it got awful.)
On the other hand, I have so much time now to just focus on myself and my kids and my career and hobbies and my mental well being. I've increased my income a lot in the last year and re-sparked hobbies from my youth.
But frankly, I am miserable. I don't know if meeting someone else would solve it, or whether it would just be me escaping (again) from my own demons.
Being alone is one of the toughest things I've experienced. You're forced to be with yourself, all the time! There is no escape, where you can go hug or chat with your significant other. If you don't like yourself, or you have some underlying issues, you have to face it head on - and it's brutal.
I'm trying to be comfortable, even happy, on my own. But it's a slow, grueling process of self awareness and conscious self care.
Dating seems dire these days as well. Tech is a terrible industry for meeting someone. And online dating, which I've tried a few times, I found incredibly tiring and frustrating.
I feel like there is a rise of apathy towards dating and relationships in general. I know many people who are single and sick of it all. It's all kind of depressing and I don't have an answer.
If you do nothing, expect nothing.
If you attempt to work on your personal problems, be they psychological, physical, financial, whatever, you are more likely to make a change in your life than just accepting that this is your life.
Especially, when the outcome is exact opposite than intended after many, many months of hard work on yourself.
I've also struggled with depression, hence the "sitting on your ass", wallowed for many years and just tread water. Execute on intent—do something—carpe diem—make a change—you can always make another—just don't accept your life as-is if you're unhappy with it.
Also, as you say, it is very important to not accept bad state -- this is so important I can't stress it enough. Even more, because of how some generic people mindset can easily get you into "learned helplessness" state.
If you’re going through hell, keep going!
Unless you already know it's the right train, in which case you probably already have a ticket and are standing on the platform with your baggage.
Donkeys may be slow but they’ll get you there eventually.
No need to immediately jump on a fast train when things will eventually turn around…or not.
I know the feeling, though perhaps not so deeply. My LTR was only 7 years.
> Dating seems dire these days as well.
Depending on your religious moors, you might consider hitting some conservative churches.
If OP is a Spaniard, they might not like "religious moors".
Not to be pedantic, but I think you meant "mores" (pronounced like "morays").
I always thought it was a sailing reference to moorings.
I can't even imagine the growth, personally, and in the other person to happen through all that time and to share that time together in a relationship. And then, after all that, it can end because the relationships sours? That almost black pills me on all relationships lmao
Luckily, I also can't fathom how people have trouble being with themselves. I'm grateful that I feel as though I'm my own best friend in a way. I like who I am, even with vast room for improvement, and I feel like I do a pretty good job of guiding myself through life to make it a reasonably fulfilling adventure while helping myself become a better person (mostly). From where I'm at now, working on myself and pursuing my hobbies is all I want to do. Introducing the noise of a relationship into it seems... messy.
It is scary.
I fully acknowledge I'm not attractive and generally weird people out. I'm over it.
That said, since I'm very interested in keeping my health in good shape I'm not interested in anyone who isn't at the very least in half decent shape or doesn't have some kind of baseline college education.
Fortunately, I've still been able to date about ten people in my twenties and I've learned from each relationship but nothing has necessarily been "long term". Fortunately, in these cases I didn't really compromise standards and enjoyed my time dating.
To be frank, I have no idea how people who constantly have girlfriends do it? My best guess is they have way more energy to socialize or are just way more attractive than I am.
It doesn't have to be this way to start out. A relationship can be something that happens as a result of a friendship. It doesn't have to be an expectation from the moment you first meet someone. Take things slow, and you'll have a minimum amount of investment and a minimum risk of broken hearts. Don't think of it as "starting a relationship", think of it as "meeting new people". A relationship isn't something you choose, it's something that sometimes happens if the right circumstances align. If it is the right thing for you, the time and emotional investment will come naturally.
Assuming you don't break someone's heart by betraying them or some other awful action, taking responsibility for a broken heart is putting way too much responsibility on yourself, and not respecting other people's agency.
It's also going to probably sabotage your attempts to learn-by-experimentation in relationships. Most likely the person on the other side of the relationship isn't going to know where it's going from day 1, it could be love, it could be something less but still fun, it could just be one or two dates. None of those are necessarily bad outcomes, but if you're weighing yourself down with all that pressure, you're going to make it harder for yourself to be open and honest and have fun.
You have some catching up to do - others may have learned some basic relationship skills in school, say, where the stakes were obviously lower and few people were getting married or anything anyway - but IME step one on getting that practice in is to take away that pressure and take it easy. One good thing to help with that, I think, is not to be too picky - if you haven't dated much, you probably don't know what your "perfect match" is like, so go out there and find out, versus waiting for one person who you build up so much in your mind you sabotage yourself with the anxiety of screwing it up.
I didn’t read it as someone who is not respectful of others agency as much as it might just be someone who is comfortable being alone and avoidant of inconvenient social situations.
Assuming they are consenting and informed adults, they can take their own risks.
Assessing counterparty risk and making the choice for them overrides their desires and values, and imposes yours.
If there is one thing that I have learned in relationships, it is that you shouldn't attempt to control others in this way.
Would you not say that most if not all people would not want an abusive partner? If so, then even if it were possible, would not choosing to remain unattached out of concern for others be the more... Correct? Ethical? Moral? In any case, the better choice then to unnecessarily subject them to that elevated risk?
If you don't like abusing people and avoid relationships for that reason, that is your choice to make.
It's much easier than all that. You meet someone. You connect. You want to spend more time with them. Things happen organically and you might have to make difficult decisions at some point but by then you'll actually have information and a reason.
Being in a relationship is part of the human condition. It's not for everyone and won't happen for everyone. But I think it's important to try. But not try and have a "relationship" but to try and meet new people of the gender(s) you're attracted to and open to whatever happens.
FYI This guy isn't ugly, actually average looking 30yr old white guy, isn't short, is socially active. I honestly have no idea why this guy is still a virgin, im pretty sure he could find someone on a dating app if he got in shape.
Still baffled that he is a virgin, especially at his age, maybe someone in a relationship can give him advice, he has a twitter
Personally, I plan on doing it soon, there's no harm in it.
Also note that HRT, and specifically testosterone supplementation may not address core issues. I was a candidate for test, but this would have allowed my adrenals to stay suppressed and ruined my balls.
Dating apps can be where people go shopping, but it can also just be a way to filter for people you wouldn't ordinarily encounter doing the things you do day to day. In that respect, they're great.
An additional anecdote though as an in-between of both of ours: my mother in the UK met a man from Canada in a chatroom over twenty years ago, divorced my father, and they're still married. Not to say that it has always been smooth sailing at times for them (he's got paranoid schizophrenia, she's physically disabled now), but they're happy, so meeting people via software evidently does work for some people.
I mean, look at us, we don't know each other, but we're having a conversation, so if that idea is extrapolated to a dating app, sure, I can buy into the idea that they can be effective for some people.
I've noticed this a lot: whenever a non-ugly person notes that they're perpetually single, the first thing people say is "What? But you're so handsome/tall". This strongly implies that one's physical attributes are the biggest predictor of sexual success. However when people complain that their lack of physical attractiveness is keeping them perpetually single, they'll be assuaged that looks have very little to do with it, and it's probably a personality/circumstantial problem.
Not saying that you'd be saying it, but it's something I noticed: maybe a societal-scale sort of euphemistic tactic to make people feel better. The importance of physical attractiveness, with respect to common reasoning, seems to shift to one extreme or the other depending on whether the person one is talking to is ugly or attractive.
Once an unattractive person realizes this rhetorical shift everyone performs, how could they ever believe anyone who tries to make them feel better about their looks?
1: Attractive people will find dating and securing a relationship easier than unattractive people
2: Physically unattractive people can still be very successful in dating and securing relationships, because there are many other impactful factors besides physical looks
So you can say without lying or deception "it's surprising that [incredibly good looking person] is perpetually single, it should be easy to leverage their looks into a relationship" and also "don't give up just because you're ugly, there are far more important factors to finding a relationship than just your looks".
This seems to support the commonly, tacitly understood notion that looks are the most important factor, everything else is of relatively ancillary importance. I'm not implying that other factors aren't commonly regarded as also important, but they're never given the primacy of deterministic impact that it seems that physical appearance is.
- "working on yourself" is left unclearly defined
- the assumption that you have to "work on yourself" before you can get in front of other people (apologies if that wasn't what you were insinuating but I've been given this advice by others)
Addressing the first the most obvious way that society deems "working on yourself" if I had to guess is going to therapy. Well I have troubles going to therapy because evidently some part of my brain related to forming any sort of human relationship (romantic friendly business or therapeutic) is stunted. For me the interest you speak of and work ethic for dealing with humans over objects just fades. They can be as enthusiastic as possible and I can completely forget they exist after a week if they aren't physically in front of my face by then. And there are plenty of states of apathy in between. So therapy doesn't work out that well. I go back to those people who recommended therapy for advice. They say "well go to therapy again, wrong therapist." At that point Im willing to believe theyre telling me that because they have no idea how to deal with me and want me out of their sights asap so a professional can take the brunt of my miasma. And that is a legitimate tactic when dealing with severely depressed people, see "codependence", it is just the truth. At that point I cant bear to be around them any more
Addressing the second, I think that would contribute to more alone time for someone seeking self help, whereas experience by doing is better for learning. Though, by now Ive learned the hard way that dragging my clearance-shelf mind into someone elses good time feels like it would be selfish to them and unfulfilling for me, but thats me personally
So my new idea of working on myself is just trying to stay employed as a single living thing and hoping I can retire without any more mental defects forming. Sometimes I feel empty. Maybe I got the wrong idea.
The things people have been talking about in this thread. Get in shape. Consider improvements to other aspects of your appearance like hair, skincare, and clothing. Work on your personality by developing hobbies that get you around the kind of people you want to meet, make conscious effort to improve social skills.
> the assumption that you have to "work on yourself" before you can get in front of other people (apologies if that wasn't what you were insinuating but I've been given this advice by others)
Sometimes getting in front of other people is all that is needed. But if your current practices aren’t seeing the results you expect after the passage of time, then it’s worth considering whether an adjustment is needed.
> Addressing the first the most obvious way that society deems "working on yourself" if I had to guess is going to therapy. Well I have troubles going to therapy because evidently some part of my brain related to forming any sort of human relationship (romantic friendly business or therapeutic) is stunted.
Not necessarily but in many cases therapists can point you in the right direction! Also, if you’ve had a go with therapy a few times with no results, it’s possible that garden variety therapy practices aren’t for you and you need more specialized expertise. You might want to check out any university medical centers in your area that offer psychotherapy. The intake can take longer and there’s more bureaucracy but the quality can be a lot higher.
> Addressing the second, I think that would contribute to more alone time for someone seeking self help, whereas experience by doing is better for learning. Though, by now Ive learned the hard way that dragging my clearance-shelf mind into someone elses good time feels like it would be selfish to them and unfulfilling for me, but thats me personally
IDK where you live, but living on the West Coast I know exactly what you mean, the “positive vibes only” culture can be incredibly draining. I would say two things.
1. Not everywhere is like this, and if you can move, you might find the social environment in another place more to your liking. Midwesterners and New Yorkers famously love to complain.
2. There’s also an element where you have to learn to suppress negativity around new people. As your friendship becomes deeper - it doesn’t have to be all that deep - you can drop the mask and reveal how you really think. You will likely find that more people think like you than you might imagine, they’re just more practiced at masking.
I’ve noticed this pattern since I was an adolescent. In my opinion, the behavior is aimed at making the reassuring party feel better about the situation.
Individuals who recognize their unattractiveness and its negative consequences are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior, which is threatening to others. Hence, reassurances aimed at preventing such people from breaking with the group are part of the social script. Taboos on suicide serve a similar function — they deter antisocial individuals from depriving the group of resources (mainly labor, in the case of those who are secretly held to be nonviable for reproductive purposes). The gross inferiority of the reassured party can never be admitted, no matter how obvious, because doing so could justify behavior that the reassuring party finds undesirable.
This dynamic is the single biggest reason for the emergence and persistence of online “incel” communities. These communities provide a safe space for alienated individuals to refute the social script without facing ostracism from one another.
I can understand the purpose of self-help statements like "if it frightens you then do it." The point is for the consumer of the help to do things they wouldn't. But I'm tempted to say "I'm frightened of punching people out of the blue, vividly imagine myself doing so out in public every day and have to constantly repress my urge to do so." The author says "thats not what I meant." Then I'd say "then say what you mean." But the point has been lost in a mishmash of semantics. And in the end I'm still frightened of punching people
Im in the habit of peeling back the ulterior motives behind such tactics. Its more concerned with what the people are trying to get me to do if they're making a subjective statement more than the content of the statement. I call that kind of act 'positive gaslighting'. The term gaslighting is almost a universally negative connotation but nobody really talks about the flip side, when you have to look to faith instead of working with truth to feel better. Honestly Id let myself be stoned to death than accept such words uncritically just because it makes me "feel better". I have to twist them into a narrative that makes sense with my worldview
(The irony is that blackpilled incel culture is just another tribe that you can't cross with the wrong words ("maybe I have a chance") or youll get decapitated, I want to remain outside of any tribe for the rest of my life if it kills me)
This makes some people so uncomfortable that they blame a mythological algorithm ('oh, haven't had any opportunities', 'oh, I just don't want to settle') instead of just making choices and taking actions. This is why dating apps are popular, because they promote the idea that relationships can be reduced to algorithms of trait selection and numeric increase in 'opportunities'.
So yeah, stay single if you want, but get a good doctor and don't skip the annual physicals.
That said, this is borderline navel gazing. Stop thinking about "what it's like to go swimming" and jump in the lake. Yes, you'll get wet, look stupid, and make a mess. There's no way around that. The sooner the better.
If you need to reason yourself into the water, I recommend "The Village Effect." Statistically, humans fair better with a rich tapestry of relationships. Are you ready to bet your life on being the exception? Move over, Pascal.
More pointedly, can you really say you've examined life and lived it fully if you've never shared it intimately with another person? Can someone say they understand the world if they've never left their home? Do you want to be that person?
i wouldn’t under estimate how crippling of a fear this is. you wouldn’t tell a depressed person “cheer up!”
On another hand, I feel a bit like the blog post, in that I'm not extra motivated into trying this, maybe also a bit worried to break somebody's heart (this includes, potentially, mine), or to be stuck in a situation I don't really like for too long. If I think through that deeply I'm not sure I even find that much upside. Anyway I really like his wording, it speaks to me quite a bit.
Lots of people do, though. Unfortunately.
So for the author, and whomever else, I'd ask, are you being honest with yourself or are you turning away from fear?
Either something is worth the risk, galvanizing yourself, and taking your shot whatever the results, or it’s not. If it’s the later, let it go and move on. If you can’t move on, why not? Are you being honest with yourself? Deep down, you know the answer, because it’s a feeling. An intuition.
Ambivalence. Living in between these two states is painful. You’re attached to something but scared to reach out for it. It’s life under tension.
At a certain point, you can't resolve this tension by sitting in place and thinking deeply. You're not just a mind. You have to use your body, too.
correlation is not causation
One thing I believe strongly now, (although I did not always), is that we all very much have the right to be our most charming selves, and ask out people that catch our interest, but then gently let them down gently at any time after 1, 2, or even 10 dates, with no reason needed to be given for why you are breaking up. And if the other person sends the signal of "you are so unkind, for making me like you so much/love you, and then leaving me", you can reject that message; it's not fair or valid.
I hear you when you say you don't want to break anybody's heart. But you have the right to. And sometimes we do it, even though we don't mean to. And sometimes it is the right thing to do.
It hurts but folks should be ante-ing anyways. And one of the only ways to make better experiences is with practice & experience. Don't deny that XP gain.
I'd like something between hooking up with a stranger and recreating my life (again) around a new person. It's hard to do that once you're older and I'm actively avoiding being financially intertwined with another person.
Besides having a lot to lose, I also question if I'm desired because of what I can financially bring to the table and as a labor source. Maybe I'm cynical, but this seems to be the calculus of a lot of single parents. I'm not looking to be the solution to someone else's life problems.
if raising kids isn't a factor, I bet many couples would be happier living on both sides of a duplex.
Many people have an expectation that boyfriend/girlfriend status is essentially a trial period for marriage. If it's not "going anywhere" it's a waste of time.
As people age, if they have this perspective, they tend to become significantly less patient.
Being the cause of, and the sufferer of a "broken heart" is a formative experience. There's nothing like healing a broken heart to teach you that actually things get better, and it wasn't right anyway. There's nothing like the fear of hurting someone else that will trap you in an unhealthy or unfulfilling relationship for far longer than it should have. When you finally summon the courage to end it, knowing it will hurt someone else - you immediately feel the freedom, and the other person's journey to healing begins too.
I find it hard to understand people who make a mountain out of dating. It's a numbers game, and there's a gazillion ways to meet people.
I think to enter into a relationship knowing there will be an expiration date speaks more to your character. Almost sounds like "I'm with them unless something better comes along or their shortcomings become more than I want to deal with".
If you genuinely love someone, you will stand by them, work on any problems, and remember that you chose to build a future together. Given that the divorce rate in my community is less than 1% we're probably doing something right.
The comment you are replying to never said, or insinuated this.
Again, no, it is not. It very clearly is talking about being a numbers game in terms of meeting people, rather than dating people. You do not date everyone you meet.
My spouse wanted to get married after 3 months of dating and I pushed back because we hadn't even been through a whole season together, let alone a year. If you want to spend a lifetime with someone you have to recognize when it's time to be practical and when it's time to throw caution to the wind and commit at any cost.
Or something wrong. Low divorce rate doesn't mean low unhappiness rate. I know several men and women in utterly trash relationships, who'd be better off alone, but who stay married because "this is the way".
It's a mix of "must have kids at all costs" (even if that cost is the parents and kids having awful lives because they weren't a good match), and "must be and stay married at all costs if we have a kid".
Hey, I can't know what your community is like. But my guess, it's part of the many communities that have this problem. But that's not to disagree with your first paragraph; when you're with a partner, you do stand by them, you don't just treat them like a phone and upgrade to a newer and shinier model every few months/years. But also, you don't have to put up with them if you find out they're a terrible person.
I think a lot of pro-divorce people would be surprised at what couples can recover from if they're prepared to work at it.
FYI the divorce rate worldwide is less than 1% (it's actually much lower, around 0.4%).
Now the GP said "divorce rate", so I take it they meant the former. If it's the latter, then 1% is abnormally low (and can't be simply explained with happy marriages).
In order to find a suitable life partner, you need to be exposed to a large number of potential partners. Some people get lucky and hit the jackpot after meeting 5 people, others after 50, others still not after 200.
Also, divorce rate is not at all an indicator of healthy relationships. Religious or cultural taboos massively influence divorce rate, and there is plenty of evidence to show that the result can be people trapped in dreadfully unhappy marriages without any escape.
I've never understood this, when I was a teen I had fallings out with a person who was a friend but I couldnt read her social signals, I was nowhere near dating her in hindsight and she was too shy tell me what she actually thought of me until it was too late. Combined with a subsequent brutal fallings out with my family lasting for months that caused me to give up any idea of talking to a woman for more than one day
It took 5 more years for me to be diagnosed as autistic. By that point I figured that had been a death sentence for my social life. Lack of success with male counterparts after the social skills sessions and years of therapy solidified that no amount of help would allow me to look past it
Im now going into my thirties and have no friends, still I guess I'm posting on some guys Hn submission about being single so that counts for something, sounds more appropriate a comment on Tumblr though. I'd be willing to believe the only thing keeping me coming back at this point is hormones and the results of evolution. I reject any advance from all genders so nothing is logically inconsistent. I get what I put in. I just want to live a constructed narrative. Some days I wish I could just burn out all my mirror neurons and stop anguishing over it all if I'm really not going to go back again. But even now I guess I still want someone to hear me rant, just so I don't turn insane, its been my one real worry recently
After my last long-term relationship however, I realized how much time and energy these commitments take. I’ve noticed that after a while, I tend to lose myself in long term R’s, and I hate the feeling.
This ends my relationships. It starts out fine, with healthy and strong boundaries with regards to personal time and energy. Over time, the compromises eat away at me, and I find myself with very little time for my own pursuits and personal growth.
It’s odd too, because I’m quite aware of my boundaries and strong with them. Something about relationships or my partners slowly erodes them.
Near the end, I feel so suffocated that I’m usually becoming distant and breaking things off.
Singlehood is liberating, but I hate that I love my partners and I can’t figure out a way to stop repeating this harmful pattern. It’s either something wrong with me, or something wrong with how I pick my partners.
Has anyone faced this?
Simply put: fear of losing access to sex will make many men compromise a lot. There are other things that can contribute to this, such as "wanting her to be happy" being conflated with "she will only be happy if she gets her way".
I recommend you read No More Mr. Nice Guy and see if it rings any bells for you.
A strong commitment to boundaries doesn't do a lot for you if you capitulate every time.
As for the reasoning behind my actions, I often feel it’s not only about sex, but a deeper need to avoid confrontation and keep a relative peace in the relationship.
In one of my last relationships, part of the problem was a constant war over my personal boundaries. My partner was requiring too much of my attention and energy, pushing things, moving fast at every turn. This eventually eroded the lines I set.
This situation is something I need to keep an eye out for future relationships!
without that support, compromises meant that i would have to give up my goals in favor of a happy relationship. and maybe this is what you are experiencing. find a partner that actually supports your goals and interests (that doesn't mean that they need to have the same goals and interests, but only that they should not be conflicting, as well as they should have goals you are willing to support)
Thank you for sharing your experience.
You've got to push past it, though, and take the plunge to ask people out even if they might reject you or even if it might break some social norms. I just got out of a long-term relationship and am also approaching my thirties. When I met her, she was my housemate during university years. My other housemates and friends said it would be inappropriate to make a move, but I went for it anyway, and it gave me 9 years of happiness.
> Why am I writing about this deeply personal subject? The clock is ticking, and figuring myself out and finding a partner won’t get easier as I get older. By talking about these things in public, I want to make myself accountable for taking these personal matters more seriously. As a friend told me recently, I should “whole-ass” it, not “half-ass” it, if I want to progress. I hope to figure some things out, and I want to document my thoughts here. This is a good starting point to show where I’m coming from if I get involved in the online dating discourse.
In fact, I can relate to this feeling of realizing that I'm never going to have a "meet-cute" moment, and that I need to intentionally seek out relationships. Especially given remote work, on the average day, I will speak to 0 people who I don't work with. That doesn't leave a lot of room for starting relationships.
That doesn't mean there aren't wrong ways to go about relationships (abusers keep people in unhealthy relationships with a combination of manipulation and picking their victims well), but if you're legit hesitant to date someone because you are worried about hurting them, then that's probably not you.