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Comment by petercooper | Hacker News Reader

Met a great, funny, vibrant, intelligent, much thinner and younger woman

Because being "much thinner and younger" is what we should celebrate about our new partners.

Because being "much thinner and younger" is what we should celebrate about our new partners.

The Western notion of romantic love papers over a lot of the primate realities. His ex probably thought she'd be trading him in for somebody more alpha so I don't begrudge him his success in an ironic turnabout.

What people think should be true about relationships tends to get in the way of what is true about relationships.

The Western notion of "thinner and younger" also papers over a lot of the primate realities. I know quite a few women who when I first met were completely unremarkable if not downright unattractive, who over time became as attractive as any other.

And being more conventionally attractive would not increase my eventual attraction to them, just as the vast majority of conventionally attractive women are not so at all after a very short time.

While you're busy pretending to be sensitive some of us are willing to admit that youth and looks are important to us in a partner.

Also I note you disregarded the "great, funny, vibrant, intelligent" part.

I feel like I'm wading into dangerous territory here ("I'm going to get downvoted for this"), but I think petercooper raised a valid objection (sort of). Not that I really want to be picking nits over all this and getting hyperanalytical over one line from fleitz's inspiring story, but...

You know why petercooper disregarded the "great, funny, vibrant, intelligent" part? Because those are qualities fleitz values in his new partner that are inherent to her. But the qualities of being "much thinner and younger" than some other woman are not. Those are the sort of comparisons you make when you view women as trophies, which, I hope we can all agree, is pretty douchebaggey.

Now I don't actually think fleitz is a women-as-trophies sort of guy. He got screwed over by his ex, so he's just happy to point out some things about this woman he met that make her different from his ex and make him happier. No problem with that. But at least you can see what it is petercooper is responding to, which isn't simply being "willing to admit that youth and looks are important to us in a partner."

(Also, I hope it's evident that this isn't the sort of thing you should admit, loudly, to your hot young girlfriend or whatever in front of a bunch of fat and old people. The idea that you should be honest about yourself isn't incompatible with the idea that there's a time and a place for everything.)

So anyway, yeah, I don't think the guy deserved to get trashed for his response. It was an understandable one to make.

Sorry, but I can't agree. Fleitz made a wonderful and inspirational post and got a preachy response which singled out the four words where he mentioned the physical characteristics of his new girlfriend. I don't see him getting the same response if he'd described her as "much smarter and funnier" rather than "much younger and thinner".

This is pious nonsense. Do you know what sex is for? What process created our sex drive? Are you a woman?

Maybe he thinks I'm making a mistake, it just sounds like PC bs to me. I actually admit this kind of thing all over the place. It does two things, it makes you interesting, and it weeds out the wet blankets from the room. Just start saying the truth it's much more fun than pretending to believe a bunch of pc bs. Who doesn't like young and attractive women? Maybe peter cooper should tell elon musk he shouldn't be seeing the new wife because she is young and attractive.

"You're only as young as the woman you feel" -- Groucho Marx

Well being younger is sort of inherent to her - obviously her absolute age will increase, but her age relative to fleitz is fixed - she'll always be X years younger than him.

To be fair, his ex was a septuagenarian pushing 300 lbs.

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