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Comment by avenoir | Hacker News Reader

I know a lot of you guys/gals here are very successful and have your "shit" together. Do you ever ask yourself what a man or a woman of your interest has to offer to you when you seemingly have everything? I started doing this after a number of failed relationships started taking a significant toll on my well-being and the answer to this question has kept me single for a few years now (some of the happiest years too) because outside of consistent sex there is all too often nothing else. We don't even know how to "relationship" anymore. Ambitions and trying to one-up each other are taking precedence over everything else. It's really sad and reminds me of the society described in the book called "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley.

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I'd say I'm in this situation. I can have any material thing I want/need and plenty to occupy me in my free time. My wife is still studying (and I'm paying for it) and is pursuing a career that I'm happy with but generally doesn't make much money.

She offers me quite a lot though. She's the only person I'm always happy to be around, I can trust her with any problems I have, we can make life plans together, she shows me things I'd otherwise not have seen as well as other ways to look at things I have seen, she thinks in a very different way to me so can come up with solutions I wouldn't have. The biggest thing is that she's someone I'm sharing my life with. Just like going to a movie, eating or playing a game is better with people around you, so is life.

This is what someone has to offer to someone who has "everything".

I'll add that we're both in our 20s and many of our friends seem to be similarly happy with their partners.

I would second this. In my dating life I was with many partners. Sex even sometimes felt empty. Some guys like this, I found that I enjoy being monogamous a lot better.

My wife is awesome. I feel recharged spending time with her. She is an excellent cook. I prefer her food to restaurants. She works part time, doesn't make crazy money but we have enough to afford a house and car. I feel happy being married.

Don't think of women as sex partners. Think of them as close trusted friends with benefits.

Although sometimes we do have our rough patches and I do fantasize about other women occasionally. Never acted on it though.

> We don't even know how to "relationship" anymore. Ambitions and trying to one-up each other are taking precedence over everything else.

I appreciate that you went through, and are currently going through a rough time relationship-wise - but don't ascribe this to everyone.

If you're consistently unhappy with the people you date, there's one common factor.

There's also a trend of men 'going their own way'. There doesn't seem to be a female equivalent yet. I wonder why this is not studied in more detail. And it seems the latest generations have a very pragmatic/utilitarian view of sexual relationships - to the point where it loses its magic. From a cost/benefit viewpoint, can't blame them.

Wouldn't the female equivalent be cat ladies?

Having looked in on a few of the communities like gtow and incels and such they don't seem very pragmatic. They seem unsociable, rejected and angry and instead of trying to improve on interpersonal relationship abilities or personal value they are giving up. "incels" admit to giving up, gtow claim they don't need women then spend all day sitting around talking about how happy they are without them.

>From a cost/benefit viewpoint

Trying to fit relationships into a cost/benefit viewpoint is why most of these people will always fail at relationships. You can't get the full benefit of a relationship until it is fully developed and you can't fully develop a relationship if you're in it for a positive ROI.

Female here! I "went my own way" about three years ago...and it's awesome! I'm not a cat lady either...can't stand the things.

I won't deny radical Libertarianism had a lot to do with this decision, but it's basically this: if you find someone you adore, spend time with them. Have sex with them if you feel like it. If you guys don't make each other happy at some point, do some solo traveling. Spend time contemplating alone. Hang out with different people. Then, come back together.

It's incredible how much new, interesting shit you'll have to talk about when you live this way. You may fall in love with each other all over again.

I don't know if it's true that we "don't know how to relationship" anymore, rather, we're relationship-ing in a way that doesn't serve modern society/reality/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.

Cheers!

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Average life expectancy a couple of hundred years ago was 40. Marriage kind of made sense. Now it's double that and soon we might end up tripling it.

My grandmother and her great grand daughter are both alive.

When humans live that long, having the liberty to change partners is refreshing. Like having another sub-life.

Yes, average life expectancy was dramatically lower than now but that's because of childhood diseases. Generally, if you made it to your 20s you'd make it to your 60's. But boy did all those children dying wreck the average life expectancy calculation!

Sapians talks a bit about how bad it was. King Edward I of England who would have had access to the best care of the time had 11 out of his 20 kids die in childhood.

Companionship.

Especially when your current friends move onto a different life stage from you (married, married with children, etc).

Might be substitutable with a furry friend though.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/feb/02/amusing-oursel...

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