The Agony of Eros: Dating
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If you want to have stable relationships - you need to commit to people who are actually interested in you. The reason many women have these bad experiences with men is because they’re all dating the same guy. Literally. In many instances, women are all dating the same man. They’re all optimizing for the superficial and hoping the deeper and lasting parts appear later. (But they never do - because they optimized for the superficial) So while many women disparage all men because they keep dating the same guy who has way too many options and no interest in committing (and essentially has a harem on tap) but it’s really on them for that scenario they’re in. If you keep going for something that doesn’t want you then it’s on you.
I find it weird we are blaming men for these things when it’s clear that most men are just not having sex in their 20s anymore and clearly not even getting dates. Men are very lonely these days. The 4x self-inflicted death rate compared to women should be evidence enough. If we want to fix this and have a more meaningful relationship then women need to stop chasing the one guy who will never settle down with them.
1) most men aren't attractive to women at no fault of their own and aren't included in the perceptions of consensually hooking up with or dating men. Its easier to denigrate a man that ever speaks up about a poor experience dating (your profile wasn't good, your game wasn't good)
2) that men have any trouble at all. so a lot of people have withdrawn from that conversation.
Giving that there is a symbiosis involved, the experience of all genders is all part of the same discussion.
Reality is that the competition is doing many nonconsensual things at all steps of the way. Its really disgusting (if you care about that at all) and it undermines the handwavy ambiguous logic of “masculine man getting the women”, they are saying that a masculine person can get into or out of any situation with using force, the implicit threat of force along with resolve to use it, and that this concept alone is appreciated to create sexual desire. That's impossible to reconcile in a consent driven and collaborative world.
Many/most men are not attractive, when apps are involved the inputs are still mostly visual, compared to the inputs possible in person that are also relevant across genders. Women are with the same men and build their own frustrations off of the same few men they are predominantly being with.
This seems like a manipulative use of mental health statistics. Need I remind you that women attempt suicide at a much greater rate than men? Regardless everyone is responsible for their own emotional well-being at the end of the day. It's not right to blame women for male loneliness. After all, I can just as easily flip the script. If your claim is that heterosexual men are miserable due to a lack of dating prospects, then there are an equal number of frustrating heterosexual women unable to find a good relationship. Don't they also feel loneliness? The truth is that dating is hard, and it can be painful for everyone, men and women. Women also encounter a unique set of problems when it comes to dating, e.g., violence, that is experienced less by men.
The thinking of 1:1 is where you go wrong. First off - more men exist below 40 than women. Men are born at 105-107:100 ratio, NATURALLY. If it was equal - why are the stats on male sex so much more grim than for women? Oh, that's right - because again - multiple women are sharing one man. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-ame...
I really wish we'd get away from this narrative that violence or abuse is only something that women encounter in relationships. Figured the Depp vs Heard trial would make that more obvious to everyday people out here but guess not. I know many men who were abused by women - it is not often reported or talked about because it is - again - incredibly shameful to a degree that makes other people question the survivors "manliness" and worthiness of being a "man". It's also not taken seriously at all. I still think women suffer more often at physical abuse but mental abuse - idk - not clear on that one.
This is misleading and seems to be trying to paint a picture of male victimhood that just isn't statistically supported.
It's true that in the US people (both male and female) are having sex now than in the 1990s:
> Between 2009 and 2018, the proportion of adolescents reporting no sexual activity, either alone or with partners, rose from 28.8 percent to 44.2 percent among young men and from 49.5 percent in 2009 to 74 percent among young women.[1]
It's worth noting that less women than men are having sex, and the decline amongst women has been greater than amoung men.
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-have-been-...
> The researchers obtained the self-reported information from the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior and used responses from 4,155 people in 2009 and 4,547 people in 2018. These respondents to the confidential survey ranged in age from 14 to 49 years
> ...
> The decline in adolescent masturbation is interesting, and we were the first to include it. That one deserves a lot more attention
1) Includes adolescents and older people
2) Covers "no sexual activity, either alone or with partners" which is far broader than sex
Here is an article with a link to a study that actually provides evidence related to the statement: https://news.iu.edu/stories/2020/06/iub/releases/15-sexual-i...
Study: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
> The study [...] looked at the sexual activity and number of partners of 18- to 44-year-olds in the U.S. from 2000 to 2018.
> During that time, the researchers found that sexual inactivity had increased from 19 percent to 31 percent among men age 18 to 24. Men and women age 25 to 34 also reported an increase in sexual inactivity during the time period. This coincided with decreases in those who had sex at least weekly and in those with one sexual partner over the past year, while the proportion of men and women with two or more partners in the past year had remained largely unchanged.
It was 15% -> 19% for women age 18 to 24 in the same period.
> More men than women reported having no sexual partner (16.4% vs 12.0%; P = .04) and 3 or more partners (14.5% vs 7.1%; P < .001), whereas fewer men reported weekly or more sexual activity (46.7% vs 53.3%; P = .02) and 1 sexual partner (57.5% vs 74.2%; P < .001). Differences between the sexes were most pronounced among those aged 18 to 24 and 25 to 34 years.
The study also happens to provide evidence for the GPs argument that young women are "all dating the same guy".
Quotes a study that literally shows what I'm saying and tries to use 13-17 year olds sexual habits as an indicator of anything (which includes solo masturbation in the statistic). Did you even check what they also cited? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32530470/ Proves my point.
There's a lot more men who are not having sex than women in their 20s. These graphs shouldn't line up so insanely with the narrative otherwise.
As long as people treat "dating" as some an online shopping for erotic pleasure, a form of cattle market to get cheap sex, they will just keep browsing and comparing, and quickly get bored and move on. True love can only be found if it's not all about eros, but also agape, and to know someone well enough that the latter can grow takes considerable time, and a willingness to understand a person deeply.
Related post (not mine): 4 types of "love": https://fromerostoagape.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/eros-romant...
I wish all readers of this post that they find their true love if they haven't done so yet.
I'm not trying to be pedantic, but genuinely curious as to whether you have thought on this as well, as I find the first part of your post quite illuminating.
But there were many Erotes representing all kinds of desire and attraction
> Anteros ("Love Returned"),[1] Hedylogos ("Sweet-talk"), Hermaphroditus ("Hermaphrodite" or "Effeminate"), Himeros ("Impetuous Love" or "Pressing Desire"), Hymenaios ("Bridal-Hymn"), and Pothos ("Desire, Longing," especially for one who is absent)
I'll have to look into that. It makes sense that different groups used different worlds. There are English terms like sanctification that you don't hear outside Christian circles.
It seems to me that the precise nuance varied a lot over time. For example, the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek in ~200 BC, uses it for all forms of love, including in the extremely saucy Song of Solomon [1]. The 20th Delphic maxim (~600 BC) is "Φιλίαν ἀγάπα", which means something like "desire friendship" [2]. In the Odyssey (~700 BC), Eurycleia describes Telemachus as "μοῦνος ἐὼν ἀγαπητός", meaning Odysseus's "only and beloved" son [3].
[1] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/tomhobson/2018/04/how-did-agap...
[2] https://www.hellenion.org/essays-on-hellenic-polytheism/delp...
[3] https://www.loebclassics.com/view/homer-odyssey/1919/pb_LCL1...
I was fortunate to have a teacher in High School who explained this to the class. He was my Physics teacher.
As a Christian, I wouldn't agree with this statement. Most denominations that I've experienced are very pro-sex. We see sex as a gift from God, intended to bond two (or, depending on the denomination, maybe more) people together. God is Love, we're taught, and sex is understood to be an expression of love.
Now, you might be right if you said Christianity was against certain types of sex. I'm not, and I think the sexual morality police are an overly loud portion of Christians. Most Christians I know are very open and accepting of people's sexuality. But there is certainly an abundance of Christians who feel it's our responsibility to tell people about the right and wrong applications of sex.
But "anti-sex" overall? Any such denomination would go extinct pretty quickly if their followers actually followed that.
Case in point: the Shakers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakers)
The puritan(ical) genesis of the United States has resulted in a mostly Protestant practice of Catholicism in the U.S. (polls of US Catholics show that over half diverge with Catholic teachings).
Catholicism in my experience is very pro-sex, and many teachings are dedicated to it: https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/docume...
Did you read the article? I feel like you wrote your comment to demonstrate your grasp of Greek vocabulary, not because you had a meaningful response to the author of this post — a post which is quite nuanced and interesting and, I might add, not at all focused on lust.
- Girls obsessed over their physiques. Going skinny to the point it wrecked their hormones.
- People who are married just shy over 2-3 years are thinking on divorce, or have girlfriends/boyfriends.
- People having open relationships.
- Girls randomly make out in club with some random strangers they just met.
- Guys obsessed on having model-like girlfriends.
- Girls are doing nose/face/boob job more.
- Girls have Excel sheets that track potential guys according to some criterias (i.e, high paying jobs like law, medicine, graduated from an Ivy league, height, body type, etc)
Or maybe its just my circles are messed up lol.
In most cases this is pretty much cuckoldry under a neutral or "hip" label, as women can get laid without effort and men have to work pretty hard for sex, so the woman has her fun with the myriad of choice she has on dating apps (she doesn't even have to pay for dinner), while the guy is barely getting any.
If you're looking for such a relationship, I'm sure you'll find a mate on those terms. But don't claim that this is the only way. And please accept that other people may prefer other setups.
I'm not talking just about relationships, I'm talking about the asymmetric access men and women have to sex. This is an undeniable fact of life. If a man wants to get laid tonight, he will have to work hard, and his chances are not that high. That's why ~80% of the prostitutes are women... most women just don't need to pay for sex.
Your point of view is so informed by your situation and has so little empathy that you don't even acknowledge the large portion of women that are not deemed to be fuckable by men and are derided for that, whether because of age, or body type or sometimes because they talk too loud
So you may just not know what your friends are up to, because why would they tell you of all people? If you allowed a bit of nuance, you could learn surprising things about humans.
Maybe you are mistaking your love for someone with your fear of being alone ?
Open relationships, and poly relationships even more, are difficult for many reasons I can't bother to detail here. There is of course a certain inequality in the access to sex that you are pointing out even though you are leaving out many other very important parameters in your example. But there is also a great inequality on how people are able to decouple intimacy/sex with a strong bond with someone, which can make someone suffer even if he or she did not think it would, leaving behind a mess of hurt feelings. But believe it or not, different people experience feelings for people differently and just calling them cold robots is just an easy way for you negate their existence, as some believed lesbians could not exist, they had to be frustrated heterosexual that had not met the right man.
Anyways your vision of the whole thing seems to be pretty much informed by your resentment (They are not even paying for dinner!) and it is not that hard to find someone to have sex with you as a man. Having some emotional intelligence, basic social skills, not having a definite vision of what gender roles are, and in general not being an asshole will help a lot, adding to that women are for cultural reasons less sensitive than men to attractiveness. What's funny with incels is that they complain they can't get laid but what they mean in general is that can't have sex with the most attractive women and make fun of less attractive women, in doing so revealing that what they are after is the social status of being validated by them and not to get to share a moment of pleasure and intimacy with someone else.
No. Loving your sister and loving your wife are two different forms of love. You are equating them both.
> Open relationships, and poly relationships even more, are difficult for many reasons I can't bother to detail here.
I don't think they are possible without exploitation, period. There are plenty of horror stories online about these types of relationships, and rarely an honest appraisal.
> Anyways your vision of the whole thing seems to be pretty much informed by your resentment (They are not even paying for dinner!) and it is not that hard to find someone to have sex with you as a man.
It's informed by the fact that one side of the relationship usually has access to relationships without putting it any work (the woman), while the other part needs to put a lot of work. This obvious asymmetry makes this arrangement quite unfair to the man.
> Having some emotional intelligence, basic social skills, not having a definite vision of what gender roles are, and in general not being an asshole will help a lot, adding to that women are for cultural reasons less sensitive than men to attractiveness.
None of that helps much in a sexual market with strong competition (like where I live). Tinder barely works for most men here. You, like all leftists tend to make everything a cultural choice, so that you can go ahead and simply rewrite the rules as you see fit... I don't buy it, especially not for gender roles which have strong biological components.
> What's funny with incels is that they complain they can't get laid but what they mean in general is that can't have sex with the most attractive women and make fun of less attractive women
I don't care about incels - heck, I don't even know what they are. Men and women have different parameters for sexual attraction. Men are attracted primarily to youth and beauty and women are attracted to dominance and social status (this is not because of cultural reasons, as you claim). I wouldn't want to settle for an unattractive woman just like a woman wouldn't want to settle for a submissive man.
By the way, if you manage to find it, consider reading https://www.amazon.com/Why-Men-Rule-Theory-Dominance/dp/0812.... Read the first review.
Poly relationships also open up effectively a new kind of family dynamic, in which metamours have a deep relationship that may not be sexual but allow a lot of trust and reliance.
Finally, even if it really were about who gets more sex, men become much more attractive relative to women in middle age. The silver fox effect is real... sex is also a lot easier for men with lots of social status, which can also come with age.
I wonder who would enter a relationship build on these foundations?
Can you explain why you think "loosing your partner" is bound to happen when they have sex with other people?
What about them falling in love with a co-worker (no sex required), dying from a car accident one day etc.?
How do you assume these things are less likely than when sex enters the picture?
Your emphasis on sex and what meaning it carries in relationships (particularly successful ones) seems to be be completely disproportionate to reality.
People in open relationships tend to give more assurance to each other.
Jealousy always exists. I can be jealous because my partner goes to her "girls night" and I don't get to spend time with her.
Why would I be more or less jealous than if she had a date that night that involved sex?
Once you think about this for a bit you realize that the choice/reasons for jealousy are mostly arbitrary/cultural and can be overcome. Like any bad habit.
As for access to sex: there are options for men to balance the sheet. Just take up some sort of social dancing; tango, swing, salsa etc. Or sport. Climbing gyms are playgrounds for singles.
And these options also open the door for "having sex with a stranger/recent aquaintance tonight".
If that is so important to you.
Monogamy exists because of a strong bond between two people. Sex is part of that bond. If you "love" another person, then obviously you would fear of losing them, and so would they. A bit of jealousy is healthy in a relationship, and there should be certain boundaries set (so called "red lines").
> Can you explain why you think "loosing your partner" is bound to happen when they have sex with other people?
The fact that I have to explain this is already outrageous.
> Jealousy always exists. I can be jealous because my partner goes to her "girls night" and I don't get to spend time with her.
There's jealousy and there's her actually fcking a stranger. My gf should know that going for a "girl's night out" to some night club is not OK, just as it would not be OK for me to do the same thing. I have personally hooked up girls who were on trips abroad while they had a bf waiting at home... if your gf insists on going on such a trip, she's for the streets.
> Once you think about this for a bit you realize that the choice/reasons for jealousy are mostly arbitrary/cultural and can be overcome. Like any bad habit.
You can't just erase culture like that. Culture is not born out of thin air, it is partly based on our psychology. Biology -> Psychology -> Sociology. If you don't mind other men fcking your gf, then you are clearly in the minority of men, and that's OK, there's a minority for everything. But don't go around claiming that mate guarding is just purely cultural (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_guarding_in_humans).
> As for access to sex: there are options for men to balance the sheet. Just take up some sort of social dancing; tango, swing, salsa etc. Or sport. Climbing gyms are playgrounds for singles.
It's not even close. Believe you me. Maybe it is where you live, but where I live the competition is so fierce that these places are just sausage fests.
Plus traditionally when you have a partner it’s like a form of property. An open relationship is like sharing your house or car with everyone but probably even worse.
The first objection you listed contains all the reasons to use protection. In general.
I live in Berlin. A city where open/poly relationships are perfectly normal and common.
The bday party I went to last Saturday spanned an age group of 20-50. Mostly hetero people. Of the ten people (give or take one, I just counted in my head) I spoke to, four were in open relationships
This came up because my partner was there too and we introduced our significant other to other people as "this is my primary partner, ...".
You use protection, you regularly get tested for STDs (free in Germany with public health insurance). I never caught anything in 20 years of this lifestyle nor do I know of any cases in my circle of poly/open relationship friends.
The second objection sums up pretty nicely why you should run for your life from what you call "traditional" relationship models/their assumed requirements.
My partner, who's an anthropologist, mentioned that genetic evidence for monogamy only exists for the last 10k years. And it's spotty.
People who believe this is normal or "traditional" (a term that requires context to carry any meaning) just need to brush up on the facts on this topic.
Also one may argue that what we call "monogamy" is (and always was) a lie.
Just look at statistics of cheating and divorce rates when economic/social pressure is removed.
Monogamy is as "natural" as being Christian or Muslim is "natural" when you are born in a country where this is the resp. prevalent religion.
If not, how many years were you single in Berlin?
Why was there no perspective? What exactly did you try?
I assume you are joking because comparing Berlin 2022 with Berlin during the third reich can only either be a joke or an absence of basic understanding of European history between now and then so flabbergasting that it borders on imbecility.
I’m also of Jewish heritage and multiple members of my extended family were wiped out.
Like I said, Germans and Berliners particularly seem very tolerant of all sorts of extremist ideas. I count “open relationships” as one of them.
It’s like who cares about why things are traditionally the way they are, let’s throw out the old ideas and try new crazy ones. Whether it’s reinventing relationships or sexuality or murdering millions of people. Anything goes.
Not the other way around.
In order to kill a jew you need a jew. So in order for a berliner to be killing one, the rest of the berliners had to have been nice enough that a jew was present. Unlike say Belgium [1]. Not to say killing a jew is a good thing (it's not) but areas like Poland ended up with a relatively higher concentration because they were more tolerant than western societies.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Belgium...
2. Not everybody thinks that's a good idea. Making out with strangers in a club is definitely trashy. It's the kind of thing that deceives everybody's expectations, also those of the bystanders, and can lead to a problematic outcome. You might want to say that that shouldn't happen in your particular ideal of society, but it does.
This post is part of a wider trend toward sex negativity. It's not predicated on any major social change - in fact young people are having sex later on average, having fewer sexual partners, and people of all ages are reporting less casual sex (at least in the US). But rather on reactionary moralising.
Murder, another completely culturally determined taboo. The (presumed, I might add) fact that something is cultural doesn't change its value. And using bourgeois as dismissive is so 1970s.
> let's not ignore how your dismissal here
My point in the thread was against using "culturally determined" as a way to dismiss an argument. I'll repeat my stance: the fact that something is culturally determined or socially shaped does not alter its meaning or value.
It is basically the middle classes that definitively require stable families. So unless OP is manor born -- the working classes do not have leisure time to spend time on HN -- OP is likely a product of a petite-bourgois family who has not really understood the vital necessity of sexual mores for their class.
I think young people find ways to do the same things in each successive generation, given that generation’s tools.
Asian countries (rich and poor) still don't suffer from obesity.
> In most of the Asian countries the prevalence of overweight and obesity has increased many folds in the past few decades and the magnitude varies between countries [6–15]. South East Asia and Western Pacific region are currently facing an epidemic of diseases associated with obesity such as diabetes and CVD [5, 6].
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939400/#:~:tex....
ETA: actually, that was the second hit
Afaik, this does not have that much with dating/fitness. It is more to do with own body image expectations for their own sake - plus perfectionism, anxiety, growing in environment where fatness is mocked and fearing it, stuff like that.
> - Girls randomly make out in club with some random strangers they just met.
By stats I have seen, teenagers now start having sex later and are less likely to exhibit risky sexual behavior that those in the past (say 90ties). So while it definitely exists, it was not something that went up, but down instead.
This is a tale much older than social media or the internet. At this point we have bred for this predisposition. We’ll probably be better of acknowledging that.
Everything else you wrote is not new either.
US divorce rates hit an all time high in 1981 and has basically plateau’d. The divorce rate is skewed higher because of people in their teens and twenties (but still a bad, uninsurable, bet even if it was down to 10% or 5% for some populations). What can you possibly ascribe to social media?
Making out with random people for fun and/or attention is not new. This is the most peculiar post.
Social media is reflecting and perpetuating existing culture at best, if thats what you can come up with.
We have enough other reasons to vilify social media than ascribing ongoing and preexisting realities (that even happened actually more frequently beforehand!) to it
- People having open relationships.
- Girls randomly make out in club with some random strangers they just met.
While I appreciate the honesty I do find it a little condescending when someone messages me "just so you know, I don't want to see you again" after a bad date. But some people consider not doing this to be the equivalent of going from daily messaging to total radio silence out of nowhere after dating for months.
I've been on dates where I thought it went well, I got the "let's do this again", and then whenever I suggested "let's do it again on X day?" I get excuses.
If they don't want to that's fine, they don't even have to say no just don't reply! But the leading on is annoying...
If you also were ambivalent about the date you now have the option of just fading out while both parties save face.
If you really liked her and think you'll be a good match you can try and rescue the situation by suggesting a better date (better being some combination of more thoughtful, more expensive, or more personal). You're a little on the back foot but in my experience a lot of successful relationships start this way so you're by no means down and out.
If someone is perpetually unavailable, they're perpetually unavailable.
Of course it's clearer if the other person says "I just don't think we're a good match", but actionable ambiguity is much more common.
OTOH - my sad impression is that quite a few women, especially very young ones, have so many wired-in anxieties / fears / areas of passivity that they'd have a hard time saying "no" to a guy who's receiving Last Rites (and not just out of charity for the dying).
Hopefully, checking that is on the First Date Checklist in at least a few guy's guides... "#7 Verify that she can pleasantly but clearly say no to an oddball suggestion or few. If she actually answers 'yes' to skydiving, learning to read Egyptian hieroglyphs, and baking a cake for your birthday - then she has some issues that you really don't want to be stuck with."
Or you could say they're using a different "rule book", or "language", or set of social conventions - which are great reasons to avoid someone.
I mean, it could be said in a nicer way. "I don't think we're a good match" or something similar is a lot more polite, for example. Most people take it well, in my experience (maybe because the feeling tends to be mutual).
It's very easy to not be a ghost, all you have to do is provide a kind resolution. If someone asks you out on another date but you don't want to see them again, you just say something like "I'm sorry, I've gotten really busy lately, if I do have the chance to get together, I'll reach out."
No further communication is necessary. You've given them a plausible excuse that doesn't shred their ego too much and indicated that you're not interested in continuing.
If you don't do this, some people will speculate that it was their fault, and beat themselves up. They may blame it on their weight, their looks, their personality, over time, it may erode their self esteem. So it's good etiquette to not be a ghost. Unfortunately millions of people don't care enough to bother.
Men are in a decent privileged position where most women to most dates, culturally, wont initiate an attempt at communication. so its very easy for us to just never acknowledge the date because we never sent another text.
But thats not ghosting.
Ghosting is having a great date (or a benign one, or a bad one) and never getting a response again, or even blocked, or not even knowing if your date got home at all but not being in a position to even ask. As another person wrote, it doesn’t have any regard for the psychological consequences. Its more likely I would switch to Liam Neeson Taken mode to help a complete stranger than risk getting myself villified for trying to see if my unresponsive date made it home. The culture broke itself.
We have turned sexual partners into an affluent commodity, thanks to apps. With a bit of paid boosting, you can show your profile to 1000+ potential partners and surely a few of them will have a favorable first impression. We've also successfully reframed being sexually promiscuous as not being limited by religion / social norms / the patriarchy. Plus we've all but eliminated potentially negative consequences with birth control. And our entire society celebrates a "hustle" and "fake it till you make it" culture.
The article's complains "men signal emotional seriousness that they don’t actually feel" which I'd say is "fake it till you make it" combined with very low investment due to oversupply of partners.
"you’ll likely be terrified the person you like will meet someone else they like more, or likes you but doesn’t like you enough to commit" also just means that there's a high level of competition, due to oversupply of partners.
And lastly, the article nicely points out that everyone wants a "quick fix", which is why you can buy tons of books and guides on how to behave, i.e. imitating the correct gestures, but very few people put in the effort to actually learn to become a good communicator.
But the article also has one huge oversight in my opinion: Pheromones and genetic compatibility. People can smell if their offspring will be healthy pretty quickly, but it's impossible to screen for this with apps. That's how people end up with so many dates where they should like the other person, but for some reason they don't. I believe this is also why some people ghost each other after the first intimate contact. "I didn't like his/her smell" is a common reason to stop dating, after all.
We as a society need to accept that not everything can be fixed and improved with self-help courses. Some people just won't match on a genetic level and there's little you can do to fix that.
That's so interesting, it's not BO right or some bad perfume/cologne.
"In several species, including rodents and fish, it has been shown that the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) influences mating preferences"
"This study thus supports the hypothesis that the MHC influences mate choice in some human populations."
https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/jo...
Unless you meant female animals.
For humans, the effect appears to be there, but we don't have any stronger evidence. Then again, this might be unpopular to research due to its social implications.
In the contrary I would suspect that being able to identify the specific chemical combinations that would make you hot would sell like crazy and there’s already snake oil on the market for this.
And the stuff we use to mask this effect - called perfume - is indeed pretty popular ;)
Most hormonal birth control functions by putting the body into a hormonal state that mimics pregnancy. If you're already carrying a baby, what you've evolved to look for in people to become close to during that time is actually people who are genetically more like you, rather than complementary. If for some reason you don't survive, your child will need a replacement for you, not a complement, especially if you conceived the child with someone complementary.
I don't have them to hand, but there have been several studies of this involving t-shirts worn for several days by different men and women smelling them and ranking them. If the women stop using birth control, their whole perception changes.
It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If your desire is specifically to have sex and not children, what you do to prevent children also makes you less likely to choose a partner who would produce children with you that would have the highest chances of survival.
It's small wonder that if you try to put that person into that role later, it's not going to go very well.
"Factorial ANOVA results showed that the group of nonpill users obtained higher scores on the PMI scale than the group of pill users (considering the fertile phase of the cycle)." where PMI = Partner's Masculinity Index
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S17436...
In short, pill birth control reduced the desirability of features considered traditionally masculine.
Is is that one possible way people have proposed that humans might react to pheromones probably only exists vestigially in humans?
Or by introducing us to the name of this organ, are you somehow under the impression you've debunked the idea that pheromones have any impact on human behavior at all?
>>>If the women stop using birth control, their whole perception changes.
Very interesting, thanks. I've read similar conclusions pushed in manosphere/PUA circles for years, about how birth control has some major negative impacts on womens' behavior. My personal dating experience supports the pheromonal detection/selection abilities of women who are NOT on birth control as well. When multiple women from different countries/cultures/ethnicities all bury their faces in your chest, exclaim "I love your smell"....and ask to have your baby...something is going on beyond your good looks and ability to spit game.
"The Walk showcases how AXE can transform an everyday walk into an amazing journey of attraction."
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-new-axe-effect-...
But jokes aside, I can't find the study for it now but I thought I remembered reading somewhere that for long-term married women, smelling the sweat of their long-term partner can reduce anxiety. And from an evolutionary perspective, that would make sense: If your long-term partner is around, you're probably halfway safe.
> And from an evolutionary perspective, that would make sense: If your long-term partner is around, you're probably halfway safe.
Well, evolutionary, it kinda depends on who he is etc etc. Evolutionary, relationships were not guaranteed to be nice and cosy romantic.
On the other hand, I just learned that with pill-based birth control the effect nowadays is weaker than it used to be. So maybe you're correct and my perception is just outdated.
EDIT: actually, they show that humans can somehow perceive MHC compatibility. So you might be correct in that I'm wrong on the delivery mechanism and pheromones aren't being used.
Reminds me of Celeste Headlee's comment: "There's no reason to learn how to show you're paying attention, if you are in fact paying attention."
EDIT: I guess the reversal the article is talking about is that you now need to learn how to pretend not to be an effective communicator, because it's not part of the current social norm.
I agree that dating apps and other modern technologies have changed the dating scene for the worse. However, this (feigning love when a man really just wants access to sex) has been a male dating strategy since time in memoriam. (and I'd certainly be open to the idea that this particular dating strategy is under a lot more pressure given the current dating environment. ie, that men are much more tempted to use this strategy than they would be otherwise.)
I guess this really isn't a strong disagreement with your point. (or really much of a disagreement at all.) But, I think it's important to point out that this is not some aberrant pattern which never previously existed, rather it may be a rational pattern in certain contexts, and all we've done is change the context in which people are operating.
I don't think modern dating is nice. I don't just think that's technophobic thinking, I think it's too introspective and risky.
Things were different when it was landline phone calls and note passing. We were less concerned to be helped by friends, it was normal. Nowadays there is a strong tendency to keep relationships private until ready.
"Warts and all" is hard through a lens.
Marx used the term (well, "commodification") with a very specific sociological and economic meaning, where some object with a natural "use value" (you can wear a coat to keep warm) is assigned a somewhat artificial "exchange value" (you can sell a coat for money) by the operation of our economic system. I can't for the life of me see how that applies to any of the usual complaints about love in the 21st century.
One of the few whom I think is pretty clear about what he thinks it is and is able to explain it in its historical context is Vivek Chibber.
I've never heard this much less entertained the idea, since it makes sense in these contexts. Commoditization still means treating a thing (which can include a relationship) like it has an inherent relative value that can be traded for other things of relative value. Commodity (a raw material that has a market value) + ization (the conversion of).
Did this come up in the article at all? Or are you just projecting your own thoughts onto it? I didn't see this idea when I was reading
It's old fashioned but our emotional and physical involvement was proportional to our level of commitment at every stage.
It won't be the way most people want to go but it seems to have saved much of the heart ache modern dating appears to cause.
Just one data point from someone that did it a little different.
There seem to be huge socioeconomic differences here though and some groups tend to dating apps far more than others. An exception of people in public or media personalities who also deviate here the most.
In many ways, I see the huge, oft-miserable mess that we have now as a reaction to the too-often simplistic and callous imposition of that old religious system.
Turned out my first wife didn't want intimacy of any sort. She wanted marriage but not a relationship beyond the superficial.
10 years later and about >40k in therapy and I divorced her after she admitted she just was never that "attached" to me.
I would never advocate a person getting married before sex. Sex is only some life altering emotional thing because of it's scarcity and how people have been inculcated to believe a common animalistic imperative has cosmic spiritual significance.
Happily married now to someone with a similar story, they did everything right and their partner just didn't want to be with someone of the opposite sex any longer.
It takes two to tango but it only takes one person to pick up their ball and go home.
Advice to any kids I ever had would be, have casual sex and relationships until you've developed a better understanding of other people (and also yourself), no marriage until after proof your potential partner is capable of holistic intimacy.
Genghis Khan had 6 long-term wives. Most likely, the women were forced to be monogamous, while he obviously wasn't.
Don't some behaviors like that also happen amongst other mammals or other animals in general?
2) Most men are not capable of being promiscuous, even if they want to be
Also, part of the allure of promiscuity is being able to attract/seduce multiple women. Paying for sex eliminates that.
Men don't think in those terms. Promiscuous means quicker (and easier) to filter.
> fundamentally people desire long-term partners
Why? Because 2 people are stronger than one and as you get older, you start to be painfully aware of that. If you can find a best friend who shares your short term goals, long term goals, life standards (like cleanliness, similar views on drug use, gambling, etc) AND is also interested in you sexually, you probably have a good long term partner.
The article does offer good insight, which I'll highlight here:
1. The root of many dating issues is a lack of communication:
> When I was in my late teens or early 20s I would sometimes be in the early stages of dating someone and feel like there was a glass wall between us, I just didn’t really get them, I didn’t know what they wanted from me, and it was so hard for me to have any clarity about who they really are.
2. Most people in their decision-making around relationships are reacting to social pressure rather than following their self-awareness. As an example:
> Most people turn to frameworks: either I’m religious, so I’ll wait until marriage, or I don’t think sex is sacred, so I guess I’m open to casual sex
3. In modern dating people tend to have more options, and this magnifies the need for (1) open communication and (2) honest introspection.
A lot that's too much for me to put in an HN comment from my phone. A lot gets lost in treating dating similarly to how you'd buy a pair of headphones, and it has consequences. Figuring out what exactly is lost is hard, and addressing it would help a lot of people.
> For ex: someone might say, what I want is a guy who’s athletic, has a stable job, wants to have children, good relationship with his family, is funny and emotionally aware. I don’t think lists like that are helpful, because you’re probably subconsciously filtering based on those qualities anyway. The real thing people should be actively looking for is strong emotional connection, as in: to what degree can I share who I am with this person, do they get it, how interested are they in who I am, my feelings and thoughts, can we accommodate each other’s preferences, are we good at talking.
Sometimes I wish I lived my life before the internet, where friday nights people would go out dancing because there was nothing to do at home. Today, you could go clubbing but I firmly believe it's not the same thing. When you go out socializing most people pick up their smartphones anyway.
I hate social media, it's the worst part of the modern society.
When you look at the data, you realize the dating world for men is close to doom. Only a small fraction of men will traspass genes and most women compete for the top 20% men. The rest of the men are invisible. 1/3 of americans males, from 18 to 30 are virgins and it's climbing. Less marriages, more divorces initiated by women, and the list of stats goes on.
Also, among all the sexual dynamics that benefit women, you have the services, which are done in order to milk the men who aren't attractive (not only good looking) for women. These men sustain Tinder economy, for example, as all the algorithms are made just to milk men money just to land some opportunity of attractions.
Anyone interested should start reading papers, studies, and it will be surprised instead watching TikToks, tweets, etc.
This goes even lower and darker. As a man pays for gold, platinium and gains infinite swipes, one discovers it's mostly profiles of scams, outright asking for money, proposals of findom, some women or fake profiles toying with you purely for their entertainment. A man doesn't even get sex for the money.
What makes you think paying for Tinder gold entitles you to sex?
But looking at the larger picture of how relationships are formed, there is no way for it to work this way. And if it were true, it would be just as bad for women—as most of them would stay single! These 20% of men might have an easier time on the apps, and casual hookups might be simpler, but they can’t be in relationships with 80% of women. And a committed partnership of two people keeps being the long term vision for most in the dating game.
And people still have relationships. From the US numbers I could find, the bracket with the most singles is males 18-29, at 51%, which is a lot, but not exactly ‘close to doom’.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/a-profi...
EDT: This 80/20 figure initially came from an OKCupid study, and it’s about perceived attractiveness. In this study, 80% of men are perceived as of less than average attractiveness. However, that did not necessarily stop them from getting messaged. https://archive.ph/ZJymw#selection-600.0-633.275
The apps are not a "narrow sense". It's how most people meet each other these days.
Nope. The solution is always more dating apps, more self-help books, more targeted algorithms to find your perfect match and fulfill your individualist desires for pleasure and purpose. If you aren’t happy with your dating situation, it’s because you aren’t knowledgeable or hard-working enough.
IMO, dating is ultimately not a subject that could be analyzed by logic. At least not on on the personal / self-help level (of course sociology / statistics still work).
Trying to find some kind of generally applicable "rules of the game" that would work for everyone (or even most) people seems somewhat "not even wrong".
It's simply trying to use the wrong tool in the wrong place.
A date an encounter of two individuals trying to assess and explore their compatibility. This "should" (at least in my opinion) always be subject to their own morals and ethics.
The question isn't "what do most people want / do", but "what would I / You want / do".
Firstly, meet someone when you are young they are more likely to be of a similar socio-economic group and share a lot of values by default.
Second (and I realise this is controversial) if you fall in love when you are young and stupid, the pair of you will become adults together and that shared experience will get you through shit that would turn your hair white.
I thought the article provided some insight into how you are supposed to replace the older model of dating when the tech side of things offers too much pressure to do things quickly i.e. assess and cast off, or move straight to sex in a week.
So to me it seemed like an assessment of things you should consider to slow things down, be honest with yourself and prospective partners. Not overthinking, properly thinking.
You can go somewhere, meet someone, and then travel around together. If things stop going well, just stop traveling together. Stay at hostels, work at co-working spaces, look for 'expat groups' on Facebook (had to reactivate my Facebook account for this one). Get some hobbies and move to places that you can do them (live in a ski resort for a season or a surfer town and go snowboarding/surfing everyday). The person you meet will most likely be doing the same thing you're doing, so at least you have something in common (hobbies/traveling).
The best part is, even if you don't meet someone, you probably had fun doing stuff rather than sitting at home and swiping on tinder. The only downside is the environmental impact of traveling around :(.
Do you get lonely though? After you and someone you’ve been hanging out with to your separate ways, how do you feel? And aside from romantic partners, what about friendships? Like what are you doing to maintain, and benefit from, relationships that you’ve had for years?
I tend to meet people pretty quickly, so I don't get lonely. Sometimes the opposite, there is too much social interaction and I need to hide to get some 'space' to do 'nothing'. I've been traveling with a women I met for the past 6 months though, so definitely not lonely then :).
> After you and someone you’ve been hanging out with to your separate ways, how do you feel?
You know when you finish/catch up to a TV show that you really like, and you want a next episode, but there isn't one? You kind of feel this emptiness inside you. It's kinda like that, but worse. But you know you'll find another show, so you just move on and then later on you just remember how awesome the show was even though it's over. Maybe I get too invested in TV shows and that analogy doesn't make sense to other people ;p.
> Like what are you doing to maintain, and benefit from, relationships that you’ve had for years?
I keep in touch with them and come back 'home' (UK) to see them. They are split up around the UK now, so I make an effort to go visit them. Depending on where I am, they might come visit me. I also have friends that I game with and chat on irc/mumble. I've also met a lot of 'online friends' (from playing quake3 back in the day) whilst traveling as well. Pretty cool to put a face/person to an online handle.
She is trying to game it with a person with whom she isn't a good match. It has nothing to do with communication and more about vibe and 98% of vibe is just sheer sexual attraction.
What awesome life advice that is.
There is a certain containing context within which you could validly say "don't overthink it", but that advice itself only comes as a result of thinking.
So what you actually do is you think ALL about it, and the result of that thinking shows you how and where to pay the most attention and demand the most data and exert the most control, and where not to, and how to tell the difference.
I can not imagine having a kid and advising them not to think too much about this topic.
"Whatever happens happens, it'll probably be ok somehow. This isn't a chemical emotional landmine waiting for every human to step on or anything. It's not like naivete in this area is the root cause of 100 different ways for you to hurt yourself, or hurt others, or be hurt by others. It's not like there multiple whole classes of violence called domestic abuse and crimes of passion or anything like that."
If I had a daughter who was neurotic and overthought things, and I wanted to help her avoid the harm that this can cause in this area, the talk would not be in praise of ignorance.
The talk would be about over-optimization and mis-optimization.
The fix is to be even less ignorant, to be aware of this natural pitfall, and to have an understanding about stepping back to see a wider view of something and get perspective, identify what actually matters, and avoid sabotaging the important goal (being happy) by optimizing for the wrong things (any number of details).
> I’ve been in a relationship for a while, but before that I dated for several years and experienced it both as 1) really fun and 2) terrible psychological torment. Lately dating videos on TikTok, Rethinking Sex by Christine Emba, this post by Oliver Traldi, The Agony of Eros by Byung-Chul Han, and Why Love Hurts by Eva Illouz have made me think about why people seem to find the modern dating market so unsatisfying.
If dating is both "terrible psychological torment" and "so unsatisfying", which describes a situation that is worse than "really fun" is good, it might be a good idea to think about why. Maybe that's how dating has always been and will always be, maybe not and we can improve the situation. What's certain is that not thinking about it won't change anything, it is accepting the status quo. The author seems not okay with that.
Is "dating" unsatisfying, or have "my / my friends dates" been unsatisfying?
IMO You can either write about Your dating life (or lives of some limited group of people), or a general sociological / psychological / ethical study.
I don't think You can or should mix those two together.
It has turned into a Game Theory kind of problem.
Dating sites used to have a lot of compatibility questions - I think OK Cupid still does - and they were useful for filtering by values. But filtering by communication styles is much harder, and I don't think anyone has attempted it.
The core of the problem is that everyone is playing by different rules. You have no idea what the other person's rules are. And some people are very insistent that their rules are correct and absolute.
Worse, some rules are dysfunctional and more likely to produce bad outcomes.
So it's like an intelligence war where the only signalling is behavioural, there are huge gaps in the available information, and you don't know what stakes the other person is playing to, or their appetite for risk, or what constitutes a win for them, or if they're aware of any differences between what they believe they want and what their actions reveal.
Inevitably the information-free areas are filled by wishful thinking - encouraging that in partners is part of some peoples' strategy - or paranoia. Or possibly both.
No wonder it's incredibly difficult.
I get that it's possible, You definitely can "game" the current dating scene, but the question I keep asking myself is "why do that".
Personally, I value curiosity. If I see someone trying to game /optimize their dating profiles, it's a huge turn off for me simply because it wipes out a lot of possibilities and unknowns. All of the sudden, the "oh, hey stranger who seems interesting for me because of X" turns into "oh, hey someone who optimized their profile for X".
PS Corollary to that goes "honesty". I find it almost impossible to be curious about someone who I know is either lying, or "presenting a way too curated version of truth".
Whether consciously or not, you're still playing the game if you're out dating. You're trying to get the best mate you possibly can while others are doing the same. You're not dating the ugliest, stupidest, most boring, low-status people you can find, even though that would be easiest. Welcome to the game.
Why couldn't dating be analyzed by logic? If you want a lasting relationship shouldn't you try to think about it, not just feel your way through it?
Where I disagree is that I don't think any of "my" dates could be generalized. Nor would I like my counterparts to do so.
Why and how we date and what do we expect from a relationship is (IMO) one of the deepest individual characteristics of ourselves.
I agree with the article author on that we should learn to ask these questions of ourselves and of others, but that's about it.
I don't think the answers (or even how do You get to them) can or should be in any way generalized. Some may get to express it through religion, some may use philosophy, or even logic. Most of those will probably run contrary to many others.
Meeting someone for a date is frustrating and exciting often at the same time and often for the same reason - that it's something completely new and (hopefully) unexpected.
If I look back on my own dating life, the dates / relationships I enjoyed most were those where the things we've shared were as varied as those where we differed. And the memorable part was usually the process of discovery, compromises, and learning to deal with each other.
I don't think any of this "can" be generalized in a self help post.
What I mean is the people online who are dating and talking about dating online are more likely to be experience the agony of Eros. Than those who are dating or in a relationship but not sharing about it online. Sort of like a signal to noise ratio that is highly squeued towards the love fails than love wins.
Love will never be solved, regardless of classical theories or modern day ones. Just go for it and don't think to much about the theoretical
Curious what is their idea of 'before'. Unless they mean pre-industrial societies.
A lot of these issues (and preoccupations with romance) go out of the window when people are struggling to survive, as most did in pre-industrial societies.
I think what gets lost is that long term relationships have been more utilitarian than anyone likes to admit. Who doesn't love a love story, or want to feel the rush of first attraction?
The problem is that it isn't enough to build a life out of. You need a practical, working partnership to raise a family and app dating isn't geared to that goal. The apps give a monstrous illusion there might be something better on the next swipe, and it just isn't true.
One probably have to go back to 17th century for this expectation to become entirely alien again. The times of arranged marriages and honor killings. However there hardly was a dating scene in modern sense to think of.
Sure, there were times before that where it was much more utilitarian, but anywhere you see talk of "two becoming one flesh" is at least as intense as what's mentioned in this quotation!
This is the prime mistake I see my friends make. As a guy, there are pretty much only two things that will seriously and negatively affect your dating life: being short or boring.
Talking about your college, job, and friends is usually boring. In fact, even funny stories from these contexts are often boring for your dates to hear because they don't know the people involved (yet) and don't care about them.
This is how you, as a dude, end up with
> you can be very attractive and therefore have a wide range of people interested in you but not have the social skills/psychological acuity to translate initial interest into a successful relationship
Initial dates are primarily entertainment. Which is why they used to involve going to the cinema, a good meal, etc. You can go for a coffee, drinks, walk but come in with enough material to carry a conversation for these 1-4 hours.
Wow you need a whole multi-part Netflix special just to go on a first date.
Finally, after a while she will pick up and start talking herself. Then you can bounce off that, tease, make fun. This is the best anyway since anything about her is by default interesting.
I’ve clearly got no idea how people are dating these days…
Getting into the sales side in my career was the first time I began to realize how important this was. But nothing changed me like working for a political campaign. I did a large amount of door-to-door, street canvasing and phone banking. I had thousands and thousands of conversations. It was hard, but could be really satisfying if you could turn an initially unpleasant interaction into one where you both walked away smiling.
I would highly recommend this type of volunteer work to help a cause you're passionate about. It was a great experience for me and it helped me develop so many different social skills.
^This, so much this. Especially learn enough about the woman from what she communicates to cue up the most appropriate of your inventory of stories.
> The real thing people should be actively looking for is strong emotional connection, as in: to what degree can I share who I am with this person, do they get it, how interested are they in who I am, my feelings and thoughts, can we accommodate each other’s preferences, are we good at talking.
I am in an hopefully now lifelong relationship, that almost failed at some point, but what brought us back together is this. So very true. We just "got" each other, from pretty early on, and although it can be crafted through years, it's just a bliss when it's spontaneous. And finding that level of connection (of course strengthened through the years together) again looks impossible.
(And if they stalk my account, I love you :) )
I'd go as far as saying avoid people who spew things like "we" on the internet. It's crap. They don't know you, and you don't know them.
Go to bars. They're full of young people looking for love. Don't fall into this app dating thing. It's a trap. Why else would they be tripping over to promote it?
Are they though? I mean When I meet people through apps I know exactly what they're looking for. But approaching people I've met in person for the first time leads to a whole spew of issues mostly due to me not knowing what they're looking for (as most people tend not to be communicative about that as the article describes).
Surprisingly this may still be true (I thought people didn't drink as much these days) but it's significantly less common than apps for couples now.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1908630116
Also not very popular for lesbians.
https://www.graphext.com/post/how-couples-meet-and-stay-toge...
The issue with going to bars is that you meet the kind of people that go to bars looking for love. I don't go to bars looking for love, and I doubt I would have much in common with someone who does. The same thing applies to dating apps by the way, I've never used one and don't plan on using one.
I've met all my best friends by following my interests in a relatively social space. This ensures that I have something in common with the people I meet, and filters people to be people closer to me than people going to bars or using dating apps.
Swinger bars it's still around, but partly because they're less of a sausage fest due to the crazy door fees for men...
I feel that. It took me probably until my mid 20s to realize that anyone found me attractive. Now I notice girls checking me out, and a cashier straight up said about my band shirt “I listen to them in my bedroom…”
Still a major sperg, but I did find my person, so I avoided much of the minefield of modern dating.
People have lost all sense it seems to me - we have been trained to have technology do everything for us. This really means the corporations behind the tech are meant to do everything for us. Good god.
The mega-trend - IMO - in all this is a fostered neoteny (extended juvenile period) where our expectations are that someone should service our desires. Its such an irresponsible and weak position - it doesn't even register as a possibility to the younger generation that they should be able to sort things out on their own - benevolent tech companies should do it instead. Even a date is too much apparently.
Humanity is being softened into a warm puree.
PS
If corporations are involved in the dating business (which they are) think about it from their point of view. They do not actually want you to succeed! They want you to fail but keep using their services. The more you fail the better! The more unhappy you are the more you will spend in your date-death spiral.
Like we don't have a health industry but a managed illness industry, the dating industry would be better called a managed loneliness industry, cos loneliness and unhappiness opens the purse strings as you try to resolve your unhappiness with all the other crap corporations have to offer.
This seems to be the overwhelming sentiment when this topic comes up here, but I had to wonder: how much are you people relying on Tinder et al. ?
Sorry, I don't buy this. Even working in the tech field, buying a house with your salary is really tough. And it only goes downhill for other types of jobs. So this "fostered neoteny" is just young people not feeling financially secure to start a traditional family. You can't possibly sort out generational financial insecurity on your own.
I don't share the pessimism around this - housing should be a commodity i can get at a touch of a button because it is easy to build (and i work remotely). There are interests preventing this though, so until then, anything goes
1. Apps or no, dating is still about interfacing with another person. It's hardly true that the dating app is "servicing our desires." It's not. It's just a window into another person.
2. "The more unhappy you are the more you will spend in your date-death spiral." Is this even a thing? I would imagine a very unhappy person would not date a lot. Or they would be settled into an unhappy relationship. Is it really true that dating has historically resulted in more happy relationships? I'd love to see evidence to this point because I know a lot of people whose parents were in unhappy relationships. That model, from my perspective, didn't have the best results.
Attraction to someone should be based on real interaction, not virtual profiles that are far away from reality.
On the other hand part of me feels sad thinking I will be the "last me". Maybe get genome sequenced/publish books of my face and put it sealed in a landfill somewhere for preservation.
Actually rocks last a long time so probably a statue made with a rock.
Having children changed my outlook on the future quite a bit. First, I feel much more repsonsible and interested in the ecological future, because I intensely love people who will have to deal with the consequences in the future. Second, I hope I will be able to have a natural look into the problems of future generations, when I am old - there is a "strong bond into the future" for me. Third, while I don't feel it's a "future me" that I talk into sleep every evening, it feels like my human legacy. Considering my current reality, my children are probably the biggest impact I can have on the future.
BTW I guess all this is true regardless of genetic bonds.
Many of the points in the article are exactly the kinds of things you want to cultivate with your partner (e.g. self-awareness, good communication, etc) before having kids. If you have a good relationship with your partner, having kids is very manageable.
Our generation is too cynical on kids and it's to their own detriment.
I would add that romantic relationships are one place where you can benefit from displaying some self-interest and diminishing your charitable instincts. Forgiveness is for enemies, not lovers.
One can not travel a mile without travelling a mile.
The fact that you can run in circles does not mean therefor running produces nonresults and the only way to travel is to rely on the luck that you magically land where you want, even though that does happen to a few people.
I've seen how the obsessive-analytic mindset fares in dating. I'll take bumbling along any day.
The advice not to over-analyse is itself an analasys and a piece of wisdom, which you and anyone you tell it to is better off for knowing. You have improved your and any readers life by becoming less ignorant. Your analasys is actually merely about optimization, specifically over-optimization or mis-directed optimization. And that is just one of the many thhings that are valuable to know, and which you can only know by thinking about it.
Maybe you're a thoughtless person and you only get it after years of unthinking miserable victimhood. Maybe you're a thoughtful person and this understanding occures to you on your own before you waste your life. Maybe you have the good fortune to have a parent that doesn't think ignorance is bliss and they imparted the wisdom to you. But one way or another, to have the understanding, you had to think about it, it had to be a tbought that existed in your head.
But you know who really does advocate for ignorance? Predators.
People saying "don't overthink it" aren't advocating for ignorance. They are recognizing that over-systematizing and over-thinking is its own form of ignorance. It's a particularly seductive form of ignorance for engineers because we carry tacit assumptions about how systems can be broken down and analyzed. These assumptions are a bad fit for dating and many other non-technical domains such as people management.
In art classes beginners are often taught to "see like an artist." That is, in terms of shape, color and composition rather than objects and logical descriptions. It's not that the logical view is factually incorrect. It's that it emphasizes the wrong sort of knowledge.
>But you know who really does advocate for ignorance? Predators.
This and your "miserable victimhood" comment make me wonder if your views aren't being driven by some personal pain or trauma. If so then it might be worth unpacking your experiences with a therapist. Overthinking doesn't protect you from pain or abuse. It is the opposite if anything.
Do I now get to take my fair turn at attacking the person instead of their argument? For instance maybe your fondness for ignorance is consistent with being ignorant of the fact that abuse is a thing that actually happens, and that manipulation is how it happens, and relies on the victim being unaware of recognizable patterns and processes. You can become aware of a problem even if you've had the good luck or the good sense to have avoided suffering it yourself. For instance I don't have to be a female myself to at least try to guess at the plight of females in general in the world we all share.
"It might be worth unpacking your lack of empathy with a therapist."
Anything you believe that have loose variables with irreproducible outcome is false belief.
Those false belief are decisive when built properly, and you need them for functioning, but never ever rely on them for more than that.
Technical Example: I remember reading awhile back about a demoscene contributor who used to watch amazing 3d scenes and never understood they were not rendered in real time, so he worked at it until he figured out how to render 3d scenes as quickly as some of the other examples he had seen but his were real-time. He was so sure that others were doing it, he kept trying to optimize/improve until his were grossly better.
Dating Example: Lookup the first interview between David Letterman and Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec). They talk about how he’s married to Megan Mullally (from Will and Grace). He didn’t know who she was when he met her (she would have been quite famous at the time), and complimented her and asked her out. His ignorance of basic known things allowed a confidence to succeed at something ordinary that would otherwise intimidate a lot of men.
To be clear, I think it definitely helps to look into things, but ignorance can sometimes counter-balance doubt, which can grossly affect outcomes.
To consider that the superior tactic you have to be willing to accept the failure rate and treat your one and only entire life as just one of those hapless shots in the dark.
Besides this is isn't a valid analogy anyway because we're only talking about self-awareness not engineering a partner.
And the comment you just wrote yourself, about self-inflicted limits, was an example of advice and learning, and every reader is better for having read it and become less ignorant about that.