What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
I was among a group of six that met at the schoolhouse after boot camp. We did not get sent to the same units, but we were all PCS'd to the same base. Two of us (not myself) made a career of the corps, and the others went to school after separation to get various STEM degrees; all four of us attended two schools within 60 km.
After graduation, our physical distance slowly increased with each new job, but we never stopped talking to each other and typically met in person one to five times per year. The singular spouse that accepted our special friendships and our strong sense of mutual loyalty to each other, is the marriage that endured over the last 35 years.
My wife is very special to me. She is the center of my immediate world. But these, now five, friends would have been there to pick me up if my wife had ever kicked me to the curb.
Epilogue. The five of us are now, at least, semi-retired. The other four are now single. Three of them are building another house on my property in which to live out the remainder of their time. They have accepted my wife is the sixth member and as a 'principle'. Our only recurring issue is which of the six will have to die alone.
I hear this same sentiment from marines, cops, fireman, and fraternity members. I also hear it from Masons, Elks, Shriners, etc.
I don't understand why men have to think they've "discovered" something about lifelong bonds that is exclusive to just men's clubs. My guess is that men are taught not to have strong emotional bonds with anyone but their mothers or wives, and then think it is something magical when they are allowed to have these feelings under the guise of life-threatening situations, or secular drinking clubs.
@BJBBB: Solid plan.
[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761454588...
It's special because you risk your life together. You kill the enemy together while it's conspiring to kill you and your friends, but you manage to outsmart them and get to live.
Also Nature, when Nature comes at you and you find a way to dominate and resist the elements and ride it out, so that you make it home.
Men are not made to bob their heads in a club, they are made for "close call" type of scenarios and situations, if it doesn't come down to a close call with very high stakes on the line then it's kinda boring and pedestrian which is the prelude to depression and feelings of worthlessness
I’d take it over all my adrenaline-junkie hobbies. Something pure about the charged verbal joust. Once I get a little taste of that sweet sweet validation (usually imagined), I just keep building myself up until I decide that I’ve taken over the club (as a poorly dressed middle aged sober married man who doesn’t touch anyone or take any numbers), then I move on to a new challenge and feel the party energy die as I leave and just laugh at the poor thirsty masses I leave behind.
The interesting part of the discussion though is how often those bonds are misattributed to causation from the concomitant circumstances (violence, special secretive clubs) as opposed to correlation and just raw, "boring" proximity. The general loss of consistent "third places" to encourage proximity among potential friends somewhat makes it seem even more "causitive" that people (especially those socialized under today's idea of masculinity) misattribute the wonder of forming a new friend bond to "requiring" ugly circumstances such as shared violence or special secretive clubs, rather than just being a healthy and natural outcome of social proximity (and emotional "closeness") among our aggressively social species that doesn't need to be forced through pain or sweat or hazing or forced philanthropy or secret handshakes.
Our ancestors went out into the world together and killed animals. They taught each other's sons how to fight. Our social organization is ingrained, we evolved this way. Men need more than just physical proximity and shared interests to form the deepest of bonds, we need a shared identity built around a core way of life, we need a tribe.
I just tell the men in my life that I care about that I love them and will be there for them if they ever need me, and then follow up on that promise. That's all it takes to forge a bond. None of this Rambo death fantasy that 90% of the replies to my post keep blathering on about.
I'm curious. Are you a man? If so, Have you ever told a male friend that you loved them, without needing the excuse of shared extreme duress? (And not that apey thing that bros do when they hug-slap each other vigorously and say "luv yuh brah" because actually saying the words clearly and not smothering it with mild physical violence is just too scary?)
It's not about killing, it's not about paleolithic shit, it's not about apey dudebro stuff. You don't understand it, what you're doing when you discount it is the same thing your caricature of these men do when they want to avoid emotional situations. You're dismissing, youre cringing, you're making light of it so you don't get seen behaving that way. No different than a "tough guy" pretending he doesn't love his wife or whatever. You're closing a part of yourself off same as them and pretending it doesnt exist same as them and you are missing out on something so overwhelmingly engrossing that is at the core of being a human.
You'll note, in the comment of mine you responded to, I never said anything about extreme duress.
Of course, some of these were gay relationships, hiding in plain sight pretending to be socially acceptable non-sexual intense male friendships. But gays wouldn't have been able to hide that way if the concept of a socially acceptable intense male friendship hadn't existed in the first place!
Maybe the Marines and the like are the few holdouts in modern society where this really positive part of pre-modern masculinity is still alive and well.
* side note: I don't think most of the veteran suicide that we see is how we tend to mentally internalize it as a troubled veteran returning from a fresh deployment. The average age is close to 60, meaning these are veterans who have been out for awhile. I suspect the lack of social community, particularly as they age and no longer have the typical social aspects like work to define a social circle, may be part of the issue.
1. Everyone is together, away from distractions, and unable to leave easily for months on end
2. You are working toward shared goals
3. You are friendly toward each other
It's a recipe for a strong bond. Another example of this is famous bands. They're constantly traveling for work, together, trying to write more music and become more famous as they go.
Many civilians are aghast when they see how Marines act toward one another. The constant shit-talking and physical fighting probably wouldn't be described as "friendly" but definitely "brotherly"
I'm curious if the failure is due to short duration and knowing you can revert back to your normal mode in a few days. Humans are creatures of habit, after all, and I don't think what I see in most corporate team-bonding exercises is enough to overcome that in most people.
Ah yeah, i think i missed this on first pass. Yes they were typically < 1 week.
Hire someone.
I'm not kidding. Hire someone as a nurse/caretaker/doula now, integrate them into the group, and then you've solved your remainder problem. You can use a trust to pay them out on the death of the last member of the group.
Think of it like anti-loneliness insurance. Even if you're the last one standing, you'll have someone to chat with and play cards with who you've known for years.
There's no guarantee that the such hired individual will outlive the last of the original six - or that their life priorities won't change.
Life is risk.
There is more than one kind of relationship!
It's exhausting to constantly hear about romantic commitment as if it's the barometer for all relationships. That's absurd!
Did it truly never cross your mind that a person can have more than one meaningful relationship in their lives? No wonder people are so lonely!
You don't need one or the other: you can participate in a close friendship and casual sex. You can have several of each.
No relationship must last forever, either; or be started at the same time.
Relationship isn't what we are, it's what we do.
The casual sex "choice" doesn't apply to the majority of adults (most straight men don't have the option of multiple sex partners, most women don't want them) so it's difficult to see its relevance here.
If you mean throughout their life rather than concurrently, that doesn't really affect the idea that marriage itself is of special significance.
How much of that is social expectation? I can see the circular reasoning here: can I get out?
That is a challenge. Social expectations set boundaries: changing those boundaries takes a lot of work. It's still possible, though. To me, it's worth the effort.
The trick is to prioritize the people around you, rather than material gains for yourself.
Trying to equate them all as relationships is a misdirection. Relationships with your friends, parents, children, and spouse are not going to be comparable ever. They each have their place. We are trying to flatten them out to how they make us feel. This is an obtuse hammer for an intricately shaped interior.
Example: children are about the future, friendships are not commitments, parents are a compass, spouse is life insurance. (I am simplifying to make a point.)
If you try to expect your spouse to give you the same feeling like your parents do or your children do, that’s a disaster. If you try to think of your spouse in the same way as your friend that’s a disaster too. Spouses require commitments. Friends require recognition. Children require care. Parents require service.
Reality is that much of society has forgotten what a spouse is supposed to be and tries to reinterpret it as friendship. It’s the reason why we are so broken.
If you're simplifying you're missing the point of this. But I suspect you're not just simplifying to make a point, but this is actually what you believe.
Maybe you've never had a really close friendship that you've felt obligated to keep alive. That requires work to fix something about it. It's absolutely a commitment. You can make any level of commitment to anyone. It's not a sexual commitment, but for example how many people have you wronged if you sleep with a friend's spouse? It's not just your own spouse.
You've also wronged your friend in that. And I can tell you, if you have children, that the fallout from that likely means you've wronged your children. The same act functionally affects all of those people in a similarly meaningful way. That makes them all reasonably commitments in the same way that you see marriage as a commitment.
There are pieces of a friendship that you are agreeing to or the friendship will end. That makes it a much weaker contract, but also means it requires a lot more work to keep alive. Parents/family are the opposite of that. Because the contract of parenthood/family is so strong, it's a lot less work to keep that bond well. But you can absolutely fuck it up and cut people loose.
Certainly not with that attitude!
I don't require commitment, therefore I am not interested in a spouse.
Remember: I am not you.
Those can never fulfill what a life partner is.
Friends are great. Casual sex can be great. Neither of those give you someone who is so close to you they become part of your identity.
Casual sex especially can be deceiving if one person is using that as a vehicle for emotional investment and the other isn't. That's how people get deeply hurt.
Relationships end. Even the most loved partner eventually dies. Your friendships and casual sex friend relationships probably end more frequently, are shorter and never have the chance for depth.
Maybe you find the right person and get deep quickly, but that's like giving up a savings account hoping to win the lottery.
You know that sex is not exclusive to intimacy. Do you know that intimacy is not exclusive to sex?
I have found the right person many times. I don't stop when I find them. That's like putting all of your investment into one stock.
Maybe you did win the lottery. That's great! Should I be expecting the same experience? I don't.
> Casual sex especially can be deceiving if one person is using that as a vehicle for emotional investment and the other isn't. That's how people get deeply hurt.
That's what a lot of marriages are. The only resolution to this situation is communication.
Why is that communication difficult? We have a strong social expectation for exclusive romantic commitment. To pursue non-committed romance is to break that social expectation. It's difficult, but not impossible.
We would all be better off without that expectation. If people felt free to pursue casual relationships, they would be more likely to self-select away from the dating pool of serious-commitment seekers.
Instead, we have people being dishonest and subversive about their relationship goals, because they feel it is the only way to fulfill their need for sex and intimacy. They end up in a relationship with someone who depends on their commitment, but that very commitment is a lie: a lie told to the other person, and often even to themselves.
Someone can have good friends and also someone they spend everyday with for 50 years.
That doesn't have to be the same person every day. It can be 50 different people. It can even be your self.
In all sincerity, it sounds like you're just talking out of your ass. The world exists around you, not inside your own mind. You are no more or less special than me.
You don't see it this way, but unfortunately, "traditional" marriage & gender roles, including having lots of kids has become an ID pol issue for political conservatives and the religious right. In the past, we see conservatives attacks on abortion and espousal of replacement theory. Very recently, we've seen legislation come up to try and do away with no-fault divorce. Also see the tradwife movement.
Framing this as “cope” (why the Reddit language?) just spits in the face of friendship.
And I feel this way because I see people all the time who are the opposite of this. They have to be in a relationship. The moment someone is out of a relationship, they have no coping mechanism for it, until they get into their next relationship. They take no time to process it. They are dependent on the relationship, and can't function without it. I have seen this from men and women. These people disappear when they're in a relationship. Like, I have friends who are only my friend when they're single.
That's not healthy. That's people conflating sex with being loved/important, (and I can absolutely confirm I've seen people do that as part of this). If you don't know what loving/being loved is, it's real easy to assume that whatever you experience that's closest to it is what it is.
There's a Daniel Sloss quote that "If you only love yourself 20% someone can come along and love you 40%, and you'll think 'WOW that's so much that you love me', but it's literally less than half of you that you love. Your self esteem is just so low that you're letting people love you less than you should." (Paraphrased). That's what we risk in people not learning to be okay with themselves as a single people.
I have a great relationship with my self. I'm not enough to fulfill all of my needs.
I'm great at platonic intimacy. I'm super empathetic, and can (and do) get into deeply meaningful friendships very quickly. Sex isn't in this picture.
If I honestly wanted to, I have no doubt that I could find a serious committed romantic relationship. I don't want to. I know that because I know myself.
What I'm good at has solved many, but unfortunately not all, of my problems.
I have long questioned the "deeply meaningful friendships very quickly" thing.
A while back I set up a model of relationships that's something like a probability cloud. When you first meet someone they have whatever your standard probability cloud is of actions they might take. The only way someone can really hurt you is by acting outside of that probability cloud. As you get to know someone the list of actions that you expect in their probability cloud changes pretty dramatically.
I have a 'friend' who isn't a close friend, but I was friends with both him and his partner. He cheated on his partner (probably, I don't know for sure, but it's sorta moot, and I believe that he did). And I remained friends with both of them, in spite of feeling like this was a really shitty thing for him to do, because at the end of the day it wasn't really outside of what I expected for him. He didn't wrong me, because he consistently acted in the way I expected him to.
That said, I also don't have a deep friendship with him, because at a certain point I realized that it wasn't the kind of friendship I would want with him.
You can see it as the modern extension of the tribe (lingual dialect, culture, religion), but over a greater area due to homogenization.
(Though perhaps we have gone too far in that respect...the USA in particular is a very large diverse country.)
Make childcare not a choice between living in poverty and not, and people will have children again. Many of my generation including myself can't afford children despite us wanting to.
The worst problem is obviously housing costs and cost of living in general, coupled with wage stagnation. We don't want women to be stay-at-home mothers for good reasons, but society as it is hasn't caught up with that - not to mention it's financially impossible. Our parents generally could afford that, as even simple factory jobs paid enough for a good home (that they owned and could build equity for themselves by mortgage, no less) and the mother to stay at home to actually raise the children.
The US also has the problems of healthcare cost and a rise of anti-abortion laws that place the life of a fetus before the life of the mother, I can completely understand anyone not wishing to risk death from childbirth.
not all women—my wife, for example—agree with this sentiment.
we bought a house and got married, but my income alone is not enough to pay our mortgage, bills, food, etc.
we want to have children as soon as possible, but unfortunately we don't know when that will be, purely due to financial constraints.
in the meantime, my wife must work to supplement our income to keep us afloat, and to accumulate some savings for having children later on.
I'm a full-time-employed programmer for our local school district. in an ideal world, my salary alone would be enough to support raising a family. but, today, this is not the case.
fortunately, we may have a solution that could work for us, as it's presently working for a close friend: have the wife run a small, in-home daycare for a few other children, in addition to taking care of our own.
it's a less-than-ideal solution—we'd love to have the mother of our children spend her full time and attention on just our own kids—but that's not really feasible in today's society, unless you are lucky to have generational wealth or some such.
and, of course, this is all from the perspective of someone who doesn't have any sort of temporal limit on my ability to procreate—I can only try my best to understand how my wife feels, living through her prime fertility years anxiously waiting for the Right Time To Birth Children, purely based on financial constraints.
but anyway, believe it or not, there are women out there who would love to do nothing else but raise children and take care of the family home, while the husband provides income through work. it's really unfortunate that we've chosen, as a society, to sideline the desires that these women have for their lives, which were the unquestioned societal norm only a few short generations ago.
I don't think we should want women to be anything in particular. Saying they shouldn't be stay at home mums is wrong, just as saying that men shouldn't be stay-at-home dads is wrong, if they can afford to be. And society has caught up in the sense that house prices are driven up by bids from two-person incomes.
If you're a resident of a developed country in the year 2023, I guarantee you that the vast majority of your ancestors were poorer when they had their children than you will be if you have children now.
Now, you may not need to be married as per how it's defined by the state, but there are some number of benefits especially related to health when it comes to long term partnership. Trying to say being single is fine, then dying a few years younger may not be the best way to evangelize your idealism.
- Wanted to be partnered - unsuccessful at finding that long-term partnership.
- People who didn't want to be partnered - and there's likely subgroups here:
- People who aren't desiring of much social contact at all.
- People who are highly social but not desiring that long-term romantic partnership, and have a lot of relationships of varying degrees of attachment throughout their lives and strong social ties to others - including close friendships.
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Most literature I've seen on the "unmarried people die younger" doesn't really seem to look at anything beyond maybe splitting the never married | divorced | widowed groups.
It can be a true statement for that as a whole but not necessarily true for the "unmarried by choice with an extensive network of close friendships + social connections" group being suggested by the article and by most "learn to love being single" people.
They likely don't look a whole lot like the lives of the "unsuccessful at finding a partner" or "dislike social contact" groups.
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To counter-argue myself though - the average number of close friends + social connections has been shrinking overall in the population. I don't know if it's great advice for the average person, since they're objectively doing worse at building those possible alternative connections than prior generations. And I'm not sure it's because they're too laser-focused on a partnership.
Humans are social creatures. Meaningful interaction is literally as important as eating, drinking water, and breathing. We don't say we're addicted to those things; those things are just necessary for life (well, I suppose with eating there's shades of gray).
The concept of "exclusively pairing off with a romantic partner" is one of the most pervasive and universal patterns across all of humanity. Any culture. Any location. Any time. There are exceptions (polyamory shows up every once in a while), but they're vanishingly rare compared to the norm. Its not just cultural; its absolutely biological. Some would say its related to reproductive drive, but what's fascinating to me is: wouldn't one male / multiple female polyamory maximally optimize reproductive outcomes? I'm content in saying: I don't know why, but pairing is absolutely a biological need.
Loving yourself is important and great. But that's different from "loving being single". There's a long list of human needs, and there's really strong arguments that trying to shed them will just force you to look to fill that void elsewhere, sometimes worse (the most compelling one I've heard is how religion fills an amorphous-need-for-spirituality in humans, and without it we've turned to spiritualizing things like tech companies / cars / capitalism in general).
There have always been adults who never paired off into romantic partnerships. Not so with breathing.
US divorce rates are at a 50-year low.
Most of the people who would have been getting divorced in the 1970s, today look like a relationship that fails after a few months or years, before reaching the point where they would have decided to get married.
This notion that two people being in a long term relationship can somehow suffer systemic failure or attack is bizzare.
No objection re: children though. We've done an absolute number there via cost of living.
I'd probably group them all under the umbrella of social connections failing, which I'd consider one of the biggest issues of US society today.
Which is to say their doesn't seem to be any indication that "marriage is failing" i.e. there are less people in marriages. It's also notable that the rate of cohabitation has tripled over the last 20 years[2] (included because it's a worthwhile proxy for things which are long term relationships but might not be recognized as marriages).
Where I can point to fertility rates across the Western world falling to below replacement and say "yeah we've got a problem", the notable thing is that it seems thoroughly uncorrelated with people being in long term relationships. People might not have time for friends, but there are more committed relationships around then at any time in history - by the numbers.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/183663/number-of-married...
[2] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/09/unmarried-par...
I have to wonder if people, and newer generations in particular, just fucking suck at socializing.
Humanity has very literally never had it easier to communicate and socialize, and yet somehow the vast majority consider themselves isolated.
Saying these people fail because they don't get married feels like imposing a certain viewpoint on others. I'd say it's a problem if they want to get married and can't find a partner. Incels are a problem. People who are happy with their life aren't.
I was friendless and grew up with the same 15 boys until the end of highschool, never fit in. Married the first girl who showed me attention, because whatever she had going on was better than the nothing social life I had. Breaking up with her would put me back being the lonely awkward kid at my parents house.
So now two kids and a mortgage later... realizing that being married to a 2/10 friend is very lonely. The Venn diagram of what I like to think and talk about covers what she likes to think and talk about, but we never talk about or do almost anything in my section of the diagram.
Apparently this problem has been happening since time immemorial - from a This is Love podcast...
Phoebe Judge: Many people say the first ever advice column started in the 1690s in England in a publication called The Athenian Mercury. People wrote in with very big questions like, is there a large part of the world still left to discover? The answer was just one word — yes. Someone wrote, “Who are wisest, those who marry for love or for convenience?” The answer was:
There is no degree of wisdom in either, but they're both fools if they marry for one without the other. Love without the necessary conveniences of life will soon wear threadbare. And conveniences without love are no better than being chained to a post for the sake of a little meat, drink, and clothing. But if we compare the small degrees of each together, much love and moderate convenience is far better than the most plentiful estate with little or no love.
"I'm most lonely when I'm alone with my wife" -- that is not healthy or good. I don't think your situation is applicable to the OP.
As a counter, I feel most comfortable when I am alone with my wife. She is my best friend.
That is debatable. What's not debatable is that it's not healthy. Unfortunately a lot of marriages are not healthy so what is 'good' and what is 'normal' significantly differ.
I grew up around a lot of evangelical religious people and there was a massive amount of pressure on people to get married. Conversely there was no pressure to make sure you got along with the people and were going to be happy. This lead to pretty much all my friends having short marriages that ended in divorce.
Marriages are like diets. Some people eat healthily and get the benefits from it, a lot of people have no idea how to eat healthily and suffer because of it.
Haven't popped the question yet because, a)I want to build my business first, and b) in my experience and observations at least 5 years of dating someone is great for knowing if things will be good going into the future. Know too many who have rushed into failed marriages, and only a few who rushed into successful ones
I find that both my wife and myself, and myself and my kids get closer by doing things together that we all enjoy. This ranges from trying out a new restaurant in town, to going to a museum or themepark we all enjoy, to going on holidays.
What I am trying to say is that experiencing things together may help you bond more and experience pleasant feelings together.
We're compatible roommates, but we have very different languages of play. I like to explore, she prefers to stay home - if you gave her a choice of 'the same thing we did that you enjoy' or 'the new thing that you might not enjoy or is mildly inconvenient' - she'll choose 'the same thing' every time.
We've had kid-free Friday nights for years, we've only went for a 1 mile walk around the neighbourhood less than 5 times, never left our small town to go to something. Most date nights are spent sitting on the couch and failing at choosing a movie or show we'll both enjoy.
She did say I could pickout the movie once, no complaints. So I chose Airplane. She said, oh, I don't want to watch that - which then kills any Airplane related jokes you could ever make. Pinocchio was also rejected as being too weird. She'll watch entire seasons of TV shows, on her phone with headphones in, as she does work around the house. She made a reference once that a song sounded like the theme to XXXX show. She'd watched all 5 seasons and I'd never even heard of the name of it.
So, ya. Find things to do together has been well explored.
I know a couple who have been together for close to 20 years, they love being together, talking together, going out together, &c. and they're just thinking about getting married now, and they're only doing it to simplify some paperwork for something unrelated
Marriage isn't a checkbox, it's an option if you find the right person and want to legally bind your things to their things in case of death/disease/&c.
In my case I thought we had a lot of shared interests, but after a few years into the marriage my wife had decided that she really liked the idea of those things more than the reality, or that it was just a (nearly decade long) phase she was going through. We still get along well enough personality wise, but we can't find anything for us to do together. Our relationship feels more like good roommates than a marriage.
At the same time I can't really think of any good reason why we should end it. We don't fight hardly at all. Neither of us want kids, so that isn't an issue. AFIAK, I'm not craving another romantic relationship. If we were roommates, I wouldn't want to kick her out. So we just continue on with her being one friend among many.
A marital relationship without leadership and responsibility is not a “functional” relationship even if it works well.
I'd suggest doing everything in your power, even if it means completely breaking your obviously well-fortified comfort zones of personal conduct, to change how you live your own life. Find new activities for yourself, try to meet new people (friends I mean, but don't exclude the possibility of someone that sparks your romantic side) and create a new personal internal and external dynamic of interesting experiences for your mind and body. Work at these persistently, and if after having made progress in these things, you still can't make yourself connect with your wife on some deeper level that goes beyond the banal nightmare your describe, then leave her. You will be cushioned at least somewhat, by having already made inroads into your own self-improvement over the life you've lived so far and the type of life you described from before meeting her.
The economic costs of this will be heavy maybe, but they're nothing compared to, as you say in another reply, living like this "till your dying day", because that would be a miserable day indeed and at the end of a whole miserable life of missed opportunity for new textures of experience that were likely always within your reach.
Having children certainly complicates the above, but you absolutely can escape your situation and still work to keep a good relationship with your kids. Millions of divorced people do it over a lifetime, and usually without major traumas or loss of quality experiences with their own kids.
We have differing levels of desire to do things with other people. When we're in a group setting, she's an extrovert - but it drains her. At home she's always been happy with a book, puzzle, or now, doing sudoku or a paint-by-number app on her phone. I find the paint by number app maddening - it'll take a picture of a parrot and subdivide it into thousands of squares. You pick a shade of green, track down and touch all the squares that are that color - and then pick another color - track down and touch all those squares.... She's done hundreds of these and the end result is just a picture on her phone. I suspect autism, but she's super verbal and outgoing which I think masks it.
Piece of advice:
One (or both) of you will significantly change your personality and interests, or you will split.
Figure out which option you prefer.
It's lonely, but financially and logistically splitting up is unaffordable.
So. Option 3. Stay and regret it 'til my dying day.
To pull out weird analogies, a mother and a fetus share the same system, they're different people but work as a single unit and need to survive together. I think some marriages are in that level of symbiotic relationship, and when it works it's incredible, when it fails it's really really messy.
But it's pretty hard to explain to people that you're seeing the other person as an extension of yourself and think of their well being literally as your own.
Instead, have your wife be your best friend. That's wonderful! But also have other friends. Keep making new ones as old ones drift away. And keep the friendship with your wife alive.
And you know -- maybe some people just aren't programmed like that. I happen to be. Maybe some people _do_ get more out of friendships than they would out of a relationship. Really very different strokes, you know? Wild.
Centering marriage and romantic relationships means that most people only consider romantic partners as their 'person'. My person is my baby sister. We live together, have co-mingled finances, make long-term plans (including possibly fostering or adopting children), etc. If we were more open to different relationship priorities, more people would find their 'person'. The focus on romantic sexual relationships above all else keeps people from finding their person because they don't consider all the possibilities!
There are certainly benefits to having your 'person' be your sexual partner: Sex helps with intimacy and hopefully creates a part of your life where you associate each other with pleasure. If you're of opposite sexes, you can have children that reflect both of you which makes parenting easier. It can also compensate for weaknesses in one's family or community of origin: somebody leaving a cult can find love.
But there are benefits to other types of primary relationships as well. For me and my sister, for example:
- No worries about the bedroom. We don't have to worry about staying sexy enough, our partners losing attraction to us, etc. Sex drives change over time and are finicky and hard to control.
- We've literally known each other our entire lives. You can find this in a romantic partner but most people aren't marrying people they've known since they were four years old.
- Related to the above, we come from the same environment and have a lot of the same touchstones which makes communication way easier. Instead of having to explain my entire childhood history and why I would be reacting a certain way to something, I can just say, "You're being like Mom. :( " and it's automatically understood.
- Sibling bonds aren't dissolvable and are relationships of equals. You can hate your sibling, but you're always siblings. Marriages and romantic partnerships end. Parental bonds have power dynamics encoded in them.
- Practically, us living together and pooling resources allows for maximization of inter-generational wealth building. Whatever our parents have - if anything - when they pass won't be split.
The moment you ask that, you end up with the social norm that one's sexual-romantic partner must be the number one. So you have a ton of people in the comments here who are very defensive of that norm, and you have people like those in the article who are consciously opposing it - they have a different number one - by finding an intimate friend or platonic life partner.
But what if we gave up this silly notion?
I have a cohabiting sexual partner. We're sexually monogamous, because as with most human beings that works best for us. Is my partner my "number one"? I genuinely don't know how to answer that question, if I seriously think about it. There's a strong inclination to just say "yes", because that's the expectation when you have a partner like this, but I'm looking for something deeper that would ground such a response.
My partner and I care for each other (the action, not the emotion) more than for anyone outside the relationship; we know more of each other's secrets. But I have friends with whom I have an enormous amount of emotional intimacy, who understand me better in many ways than my partner does. I love them very deeply; I argue less with them, and sometimes building intimacy with them is easier than with my partner.
While I fall mostly into the norm, I don't feel compelled to compare these relationships to the one I have with my sexual partner. Each of them is important. They're all "friendships" of one stripe or another. I think that's the solution here: to the extent that marriage is the "center of life" it's because marriage is just a friendship like any other. What the article is really about is the American norm that one's marriage be one's only deep, emotionally intimate friendship.
Tim Keller (whom recently passed away) wrote an excellent book "The meaning of marriage" in which he points out that one of the primary functions of such an intimate relationship is to have a safe space/mirror to discover ones flaws (our own, not our partners). The bonding mechanisms of sexuality can make it so that we can have that level of vulnerability (we're bonded are less likely to leave, and less likely to be rational / play political games). It's a religious book and uses the word sin, but I think it's fairly secularly compatible if you can simply read it through the lens of "Sin" meaning "Stuff about me that sucks" ... If you think you have none, then humility is the thing you lack.
[1] I'd say health, purpose, and emotionally supportive community (or for some, "family") are more important than having "good" sex, or even sex at all.
If you have 3 people with strong relationships (between at least 2 of the pairs), you have a classic triangle. If there is a two-person activity and A chooses to do it with B, and C wanted to do it with A, then there is some level of conflict.
I'm not saying it's an impossible situation by any means. The triangle problem only comes up when the interests of the pairwise relationships overlap. (If C hates watching Gerbils On Fire, then C is unlikely to be bothered by A and B binging season 3.) But they'll often overlap at least somewhat. (C was hoping to watch Knitting With The Rats that same evening.) And it's not like pairwise relationships lack similar problems, so you don't need to compare to perfect.
It's just that "giving up on this silly notion" isn't enough to erase the problems. A may not raise his relationship with B over that with C, but there will still be situations where both relationships can't occupy the same space or time.
I would be upset if my partner wanted me to pick them over my best-friend AND vice-versa. It has nothing to do with ranking... it's hard to describe what it is exactly. I suppose more of a disappointment that people close to you would act so immature is how I would feel if it happened. Luckily I don't haven't had those types of people in my life since my teens. And I think those people have since grown out of that, as well.
That's a girlfriend.
Its like saying I have mechanical machine which uses 4 tires to move forward, its a car.
People in the past did not consider themselves to have sexual orientations, to be gay or straight or something else. Even someone who was committed to a same-sex romantic relationship wouldn't have, or want, the terminology to describe and identify themselves in those terms. It was... behavior. Passions.
So it's not difficult to see that this lack of labeling and identity would also be a lack of barriers to intimacy and romantic talk without necessitating or implying sexual behavior. If a bro is too proud to sit next to me on a bus bench today because he needs his personal space, perhaps he's afraid of being labeled or branded as something he doesn't like.
I like the fact that the subjects of this article have gone beyond "best friends" terminology and come up with some neat new terms. "Boot-camp besties"! Yeah!
I watched the "Tollywood" film RRR and it was startling and refreshing how much affection the two main male characters showed for each other. I don't know how Indian audiences reacted to it, but I guarantee that a lot of American viewers thought "so they're supposed to be gay, right?" The idea that male affection is merely a cover for closeted sexual attraction is pervasive in US culture.
It is one of my longstanding pain points, as my favorite authors ( Conan Doyle, Tolkien, Wodehouse ) show unabashedly close relationships between male characters and all my life I've heard insistences that the characters are actually gay and the authors were too repressed/cowardly to say so. It's tragic and I wish it was talked about more.
Men are under so much pressure to bottle up their feelings, and I think the negative side-effects of that are around us.
<<There are practical reasons to be wary of heterosexuality as well. Because our post-Freudian world associates all physical attraction and interpersonal affection with genital erotic desire, intimate same-sex friendship and a chaste appreciation for the beauty of one’s own sex have become all but impossible to achieve. (Freud, by the way, was one of the most influential architects of the vicious orientation-essentialist myth.)
For “heterosexuals” in particular, getting close to a friend of the same sex ends up seeming perverse, and being moved by his or her beauty feels queer. To avoid being mistaken for gay, these days many self-proclaimed straight people—men especially—settle for superficial associations with their comrades and reserve the sort of costly intimacy that once characterized such chaste same-sex relationships for their romantic partners alone. Their ostensibly normal sexual orientation cheats them out of an essential aspect of human flourishing: deep friendship.>>
Same for Frodo/Sam, also Tolkien was very religious, so I doubt he intended any sexual subtext.
Coworkers thought I was gay, and had a sexual relationship with him, because it was and still is a strong bond.
In actuality, Im bisexual, and we weren't in a sexual relationship. But men aren't "allowed" to have close bonds with other men. There are exceptions: military, police, mens social clubs (masons, shriners, etc). Outside of those, society thinks you're just gay.
As for me, I don't particularly care what "society" thinks. I'm not going to trade my agency for some vapid "society groupthink". Did I let my coworkers think I'm gay and dating my best friend? Sure did. And it had a cool other effect - women coworkers treated me more like one of 'them', and was much less defensive than around the other men who worked there.
Maybe I read too much sensational media, but the situation seems to be getting worse and worse for men who don't care what society thinks.
However I would also agree that overall decorum has definitely deteriorated. It used to be someone who disapproved would either grit their teeth or just leave. Now, I've seen shouting matches over that sort of stuff.
I guess it could always have been that bad, just not for "normies". And now with less decorum, those normally quiet harassment is now blatant and in your face.
I don't think it's just your perception of social media.
I think the cat's out of the bag, and as a society we'll have to make peace with people mislabeling relationships and keep in mind that it's always complicated.
It's the gap between being forced to wear a pink star as a prelude to being taken to a concentration camp vs in a freer society choosing to wear one.
>Even someone who was committed to a same-sex romantic relationship wouldn't have, or want, the terminology to describe and identify themselves in those terms.
I think where I would differ in your reasoning this isn't just that people don't identify or want to be labeled as something, it's they don't want to be caught in the negative stigmas and social outcastings around these identities that have sprung up in the last ~100-150 years
Comparing wife / husband to friends is like apples and pears. It's like asking which of your children you like the most. If friends complain about the time spent with your partner, ditch them and if your partner does the same about your friends, ditch them as well.
Another big one is housing in America is very difficult to obtain, so even if you live in the same city as your friends, it's difficult to live near each other because people live in the houses they were able to get, and American cities are very sprawled out.
It's very common to have to drive 30+ minutes in different directions per friend, which makes spontaneous meetings difficult.
And in my adopted European city everyone I know is from somewhere else. Europe isn’t one thing though maybe where you are your scenario is the norm.
Whereas the median foreign born population in the EU in total is around 10-15%, and an even smaller percentage of that is internal EU migration.
In both cases it's going to be migration from say New York to New Jersey, or The Netherlands to Belgium. So in terms of tearing up your roots it's not much of a move.
But Americans routinely move from say Miami to Seattle or whatever for a job. Distance-wise that's like Ireland to Greece or Turkey.
We Europeans simply don't do that at the same rate, although it's gradually on the increase.
Moving to another city in the same country is popular. And even in terms of not moving city the image of people settling down in the same part of the city that they grew up and all being near their high school friends is just not reality.
I honestly feel so lucky.
One of them moved 6 hours away but we talk and game every week on discord.
I'm from small town canada. People here are notoriously less ambitious than Americans or at least than big city Americans.
The one college friend of mine who moved to silicon valley I don't get along with anymore. He's just tuned to a higher frequency of activity and we can't share time effectively. It's like the SV lifestyle created ADHD in him. We can never just do nothing. We always have to be discussing something "important" or doing something "cool".
Sometimes I like to sit on my deck for an hour and let the thoughts creep by.
I used to feel envious of his wealth, power and prestige. But now that I have a wife and child and can see my distant future, I do not envy him.
Marriage as often presented is an idealistic fantasy, not something that really happens much.
Most people don't move away from home in the US.
Depends on what your ambitions are in life. Which goes back to first sentence.
I'm looking for something deeper, as this article shows, a monogamous romantic relationship. I would like to have many children too. I don't think humans are built for multiple deep friendships. It also invites jealousy with the romantic partner. Being religious, "till death do us part" being expected out of marriage, I doubt these deep friends would go that far without the benefits of marriage.
Marriage and kids seem to be the center of life in this otherwise busy world
> “It’s hard to make friends when you’re an adult,” Mulaney said. “I think that’s the greatest miracle of Jesus. He has 12 best friends in his thirties, and they weren’t his wife’s best friends’ husbands.”
You're lucky to have some "friendly acquaintances" (which you might call friends, but not speak to for years until you meet up again) - but one or two life-long friends seems to be a relative maximum unless you really set down roots in a small area.
I've found most of my long-term, "deep" relationships in the U.S. to be with immigrants/foreigners. With the "generic" Americans, I can get to the point of a friendly and jolly relationship -- but it never feels like "strong bonds" are part of their value system.
For example, go to Latin America if you want a stark contrast to this. People are part of the value system.
I'm simply asking to get a better understanding of your view.
The magic is if you keep your core group close (and it's easier today with the Internet to keep in touch) then when you are able to get together (may be once a year!) you'l just pick it up like you hung out yesterday.
Life gets really busy for people and they might see the commitment it takes as something they just don't have time for right now. Or maybe you've grown apart.
You can always ask them if everything is alright between you both.
For example, I sort of maintain 2 friend tiers. Tier 1 friends are the "friends for life" I've made along the way. We all maintain a chatter and we may not see each other frequently but we do when the opportunity arrises and we just pick it up, totally natural, etc. This group is pretty much immutable at this point besides the death of friends along the way to our own death.
Tier 2 friends are more like "friends of convenience". These types will drop in and out of your life for a variety of reasons. They're the kinds of people that are your wife's mom friends' husbands, work friends, neighbors, etc. You socialize on your better behavior and although you enjoy each others company, you're usually just meeting because of some convenience, like a BBQ or child's/their birthday, community event or w/e.
Because the truth is this - most guys, by the time they either have created a family or are looking to create one, aren't looking for new friends. I'm not interested in trying to build new, deep relationships with other guys at this point. I have the family I've built, my core friends that I have real bonds with, and my acquaintances that we enjoy each other's company and would attend each others's funeral, but wouldn't speak at it.
I think joining an organization is your best bet. Getting involved in something and becoming an active member in it. You need something that forms a common bond with other people looking for that sort of thing.
This is a great way to make friends (well, sometimes. Not always) but I think most of them are going to be "type 2" friends in your schema. You're probably right, not that many people are looking for new, deep friendships in adulthood if they're not transplants. But... that kind of seems like a flaw in TFA's premise as well. You can't just unilaterally decide you're going to orient your life around your friends if your friends aren't on the same page.
To be fair I don't think I was "unsuccessful" at making friends when I was younger but for various reasons I didn't end up being able to stay in the same place as them and most friendships kind of wither if it's a whole trip that has to be planned to see someone.
And that's the rub. It's really difficult to find "bro's for life" that plan on being that way for most people, for a variety of reasons, will move out of that phase. I believe it's because we hang with a pack when we are in our mate selection phase of life and after that occurs, people have different ambitions for their life. Hangin with friends all the time is generally very different at that point.
> To be fair I don't think I was "unsuccessful" at making friends when I was younger
Indeed, there's many reasons someone may not form lasting bonds with friends in their youth and it's not necessarily because they were not good at it.
Societies are so far off from what's truly important in existence, that I fear we may never collectively reach that day where we truly get it right.
Relationships are what we do, not what we are.
Given the number of days we live, it makes plenty of sense to spend different days on different activities in different places with different people.
The only constant here is self. The question is, what experiences fulfill your self? Experiences with one committed partner, or with several friends?
I understand that many people prefer the Cathedral. I prefer the Bazaar.
But a networked-communal lifestyle is just not appealing to me and probably most people. It's not a social change thing. I mean, I've done it when I was younger and it was fun but I don't know, I think you just grow out of it. Being a dude in his 40's and trying to maintain some large network of meaningful relationships and experiences - it sounds awful and lonely, tbh. People are different from their younger days where you want to socialize like this to where you don't.
I don't know, maybe you find a committed group of lifelong lone wolf friends but my experience says most of them will pair off and look for different things than just having fun with friends.
1. It being OK is my point.
2. I do have family: I'm just not a parent. I have parents and siblings and nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles and cousins. I know many and am very close to several.
There are many kids in my life. They don't belong to me, but do they truly belong to anyone?
We all have different circumstances. I understand if you can't relate to mine. Even so, my experience does exist: it is not defined by yours.
It seems like we've failed a whole generation of adults with good examples of what a relationship should be like.
... the good examples are like your relationship I assume?
In some cultures parents are number 1, and the expectation is your elderly parents outrank your wife in terms of the devotion and love you should show them. Is that disrespectful too, or does it only apply to close friends?
Who are you to judge here?
I don’t believe the benefits of monogamous marriage are simply cultural. One would have to pose a better ideal for generating and raising children (because nurturing the next generation is a key part of societal survival) that leads to human flourishing. Is it polygamy, or casual hookups, or absentee fathers?
That said I do think there is more to the marriage relationship than procreation. That 2 people are becoming one. With that comes life long friendship bound by a vow that weathers the storms of life, close intimacy etc.
How so? Are you certain that your parents have no genetic interest in helping you and your offspring thrive?
A healthy relationship is one where each partner is dedicated selflessly to the flourishing of the other partner.
In any case, the idea of a "number one person" is also really two dimensional and limiting.
This sounds co-dependent to me, not healthy at all.
Any relationship that makes your feelings for someone dependent on their feelings for you is effectively a complicated form of bargaining.
I doubt any “platonic life-partner”…
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it.”
Doesn’t take more than a minute of reflection to figure out why we interpret it this way.
Edit @avar to your question ("posting too fast"): https://gist.github.com/gjsman/d928b0db53cc2a4bacf37d4e45543...
My understanding of catholic doctrine is that Jesus was part of the holy Trinity and knew it before he sacrificed himself.
Therefore when he sacrificed himself for humanity he wasn't in the sort of personal danger or at risk of eternal damnation that a mere mortal in his shoes would be.
I've always understood that as God making a grand gesture of some sort, not that Jesus was in personal danger comparable to that of a mortal in his shoes.
Of course being tortured for days before being guaranteed a seat by God's side in heaven upon death would royally suck in the short term.
But I'd think an internally cotsisconsistent interpretation of doctrine would call for a personal sacrifice short of that of Jesus in his last days from a mere mortal, the odds being stacked in the deity's favor. No?
“Fundamentalist interpretation starts from the principle that the Bible, being the word of God, inspired and free from error, should be read and interpreted literally in all its details. But by "literal interpretation" it understands a naively literalist interpretation, one, that is to say, which excludes every effort at understanding the Bible that takes account of its historical origins and development… The fundamentalist approach is dangerous, for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life. It can deceive these people, offering them interpretations that are pious but illusory, instead of telling them that the Bible does not necessarily contain an immediate answer to each and every problem… Fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide. It injects into life a false certitude, for it unwittingly confuses the divine substance of the biblical message with what are in fact its human limitations.”
So because of that it isn't really necessary to logically evaluate it unless you want to poke holes in a Protestant and Fundamentalists cheery picked parts. I want to be careful to not run into a "No true Scottsman" thing here, but Catholics by and large have tried to adapt the Bible to modern problems, not dissimilar to Reform Judaism.
A Christian would say the same of themselves, because through Jesus, they have eternal life in Heaven.
The Catholic line would be something like "God created marriage as a kind of metaphor for your relationship with all people, as a kind of easy arena where you can play out the kind of love that you should extend to the entire world."
Jesus, after all, did not die for a wife except in this very metaphorical sense. He died for sinners, lazy shits, prostitutes, tax collectors, etc, etc, etc. That is what the calling in Catholicism is.
And you will find you have new friends unrelated to your interests and driven by your children; because you will be at the park watching them play with their friends and end up being friendly with the other parents.
No more arguments about "who's turn is it to put them in bed", "why do I always have to do this" etc ... They may seem like simple questions that can easily be answered but it's really quite complex: "Had a tough day at work, could you do it?", which leads to score keeping and different views on what's a "tough" day.
Now I know I have to do 100% of it. I prefer that than to argue about it, clash over differences on how kids should be raised etc
Honestly, the way average people with an otherwise good life have to pay 150$ an hour to a therapist to help them sort out who's turn it is to do the laundry is nothing short of depressing. Try explain that to say, a rice farmer in Vietnam.
And yeah, it's not actually about the laundry but a power play between the mom & dad but that doesn't make it less depressing and certainly not easier to solve.
They take over everything in life, work, hobbies, passions, sleep. Its so god damned hard to raise them, yet extremely rewarding. There is really me before kids and a different person afterwards, envying the previous guy all the freedom and cool stuff he did, but not really wanting to switch place.
The thing is, they eventually leave the life to forge their own path, maybe a bit and maybe almost completely moving away, while partner and friends are for longer and closer.
Kids are not the center of my life.
We all have our own interests and goals. That includes kids, too. Get used to it.
Three years ago, in my neck of the woods, the men typically worked in offices and the women typically worked in labs and classrooms. Then COVID happened and now the men work from home and the women... still work in labs and classrooms.
They come home socially exhausted, and at the same time we're starved for social interaction. There's no animosity in it, they just need more introvert time and we need more extrovert time.
So we invite them out, but they frequently don't come. And it's enough if a pattern that we end up talking about it. At least among my friends there's consensus that we'd be incredibly lonely if our wives were the center of our lives.
The school year is over now, and I'm overjoyed to have mine back for a while, but when she's unavailable again, thing will probably change back again. It's not perfect, I wish there was more we could do in support if our wives because it kind of feels like they're getting the short end of the stick, but it's not so bad to lovingly leave somebody alone because that's what they need right now.
I am personally really curious to see what will become of this tend. It seems to me that economic conditions will continue to reward people for banding together and pooling resources to get access to housing / work spaces / childcare. I don't think it's right to say that the economic pressure 'causes' these social shifts - more that it allows people to recognize that they could live another way if they so chose. The US has historically been pretty disdainful of living situations that aren't nuclear families - but I hope we are entering a period of greater openness and recognition of the diversity of arrangements that work for those in them.
Surely for different purposes, different people matter differently. E.g. My spouse doesn't ride a bike (not like I do). For that activity she's nowhere near the 'center' of my life.
This idea of the marriage partner as quasi-mystical figure in the center of your life was cooked up not so long ago. In most places marriage is practical, arranged for reproduction, and people are embedded in wide networks of friend and kinship relations. If your whole life centers around your spouse, you are the WEIRD one (https://weirdpeople.fas.harvard.edu/qa-weird)
Also funnily enough of course even in the Western classical tradition the most iconic relationship is the male companionship. Hephaestion and Alexander, Achilles and Patroclus. The Iliad's not exactly La La Land.
Another one of my favorite pieces on the topic comes from Vonnegut, a little too long to paste: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/300997-ok-now-let-s-have-so...
Yes, this is the thing to consider. Modernity has atomized us and destroyed the ancient understanding of friendship which was key to how they navigated the world. People retreated to marriage, which now also is faltering. I believe reclaiming friendship would radically transform our world in such a way that many other ailing institutions would be restored to health.
"A man without friends is like a man with one arm." -Serbian Proverb
Marriage is the product of how many generations worth of experimenting with social contracts? You have to be either very young or lack a healthy dose of humility to think you can come up with a better system (in general, not just your case). Or, as I suspect, it's just rationalizing for not being able to build a strong, healthy, life-time relationship. I am in that category myself, as are many people of my generation from where I come from. But I don't need to fool myself I found something that works better.
Even just in theory: a friend simply does not take on the responsibility of taking care of you. He is not invested in your household's success. And I could go on but arguing theory is mostly pointless. Even if your arguments against sound perfectly logic you're missing something for sure. Because in practice marriage is just like democracy: the worst system except all the others. It has stood the test of time in practice.
And if your partner tells you that you're not number 1, that's not really your partner. Run. Now.
I would personally not be OK with this setup with a romantic partner (neither as one who would see a friend as my number one or if the romantic partner did with someone else), but that's obviously not supposed to limit them in any way, since I'm not part of their equation.
All relationships could do well with clear boundaries, understanding, and a ton of communication to continuously maintain that as relationships evolve.
I can imagine that if you state to your partner that they are number two and always will stay, it might already put a strain on the relationship: In a sense a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I feel like I have an abnormally large group of close friends and I basically only see them on weekends.
You're very, very lucky
Serious. I have a bunch of social circles that I keep live just by doing this from time to time.
I'm happy you have this, it is the fundamental quality a relationship needs to work IMO. Having a child only needs animal magnetism, falling in love helps too, speaking from experience.
So, I'm sorry if it went horribly wrong in your case, but even assuming you handled everything perfect (behavior, communication), extrapolating to all women is really not reasonable.
My wife is the most important person to me and the only one I can generally be myself around. Getting married should be a lifelong bond and commitment (or at least that should be the intent, obviously things change). While I almost never ask for help, I know that if I ever needed it she would be there at the drop of a hat. I am relatively emotionally numb but I am genuinely happy when she is happy. A day where she smiles is a good day. A long term marriage is also a place to be sexually (monogamously, at least for us) open in a way that most relationships are not. You learn what the other likes.
Friends can come and go but I anchor my world around my wife and kids. The only thing that would break it is infidelity.
I don't have any close friends, but honestly I dont miss having them either. I'm pretty comfortable on my own and as long as I can spend time with my wife and kids at the end of the day I am perfectly content.
I completely get where you are coming from though. I think for me once I started dating my now wife, all other relationships became less important and drifted away. Not a positive thing, just the reality of what happened. Wouldn't change it for the world though.
It's the same as a lot of social things, from public transport to pensions, from relationships to workers unions. People often end up with suboptimal outcomes by optimising for themselves blindly. And no one person can stop it.
I love my wife so much, any poem I write to her still seems ridiculous to me compared to the feelings that she is inspiring me for 18 years now.
I love our children so much, I didn’t expect I would ever feel something so powerful.
I have few friends that I love, though admittedly that’s also very different.
As with any complex phenomenon, there’s good chances that there is no measurable point that stands as a center of human emotional and social experiences.
I wish everyone the force to cherish anything that make us growth as a common harmonious humankind and release us from toxic behaviors.
Friendship on the other hand feels important.
- Nietzsche, who was ironically single his entire life
60% of this population cheat habitually. Dating is down 60%. First-time marriages end in divorce almost half of the time, and around 80% of the time to the next marriage. Lifelong singlehood is extrapolated to be the most common relationship option in the younger generation.
Most literature on the topic of the younger generation notes that sex has been robbed of all intimacy and is about meaningless and anonymous masturbation with another's body. Relationship skills, intimacy skills, emotional intelligence are in serious decline (Twenge, Campbell, others).
This is does not seem like the hallmarks of a generation with an increased capacity to generate and form relationships of any type! Could we have possibly got something wrong with this initiative?
The author seems to have forgotten to ask what the next step in human evolution thinks about their situation!
I've known women that prioritize their friends over their partners. They wind up taking each others advice to leave their men, they wind up lonely, raising children by themselves, resentful of one another and with a lot of regrets. They end up settling for men they don't respect just to stave off the loneliness and all the relationship problems that come with that.
If you want a family, prioritize family. That means being selective of who you choose to partner with, making a conscious choice to be good to that person, and telling your friends to get fucked when they think they can tell you how to live your life.
While the last century is filled with examples of how institutions have failed us, I think we have lost a lot in terms of community living. How many in-perosn, built-in friendships and relationships do any of us have outside of the college experience, or for those of us with kids the child-rearing institutions where we can mingle with other parents?
We can obviously "join a club" or whatever, but there is so little by default, so we are all trying to figure it out anew.
This isn't to blame anyone in particular, but I grieve how much isolation feels built into our daily lives.
You'll never be happier than the age 14-19 when you are with your mates on a daily basis. One solid block against the world.
Against the teacher, against the principal, against the bullies, scoring weed, scoring alchol, scoring pu*y , against everybody who wants to prevent you from scoring weed, alcohol and pu*y.
The problem is that this lifestyle is subsidized by parents who are the wage-slaves in the whole equation.
And also in this period the stuff is less important than the people you are experiencing it with, then growing up somehow it's the stuff which becomes the core of the effort. Placing too much attention on the stuff then makes you become a wage-slave and lose contact with your friends.
Marriage becomes something to alleviate the mysery not something done with enthusiasm
Speak for yourself. That was not the way I approached marriage, not by a long shot.
Soooo if you got married and prefer your friends you should rethink your marriage.
For me, it's being around friends. But I've never explicitly thought "Friendship is the center of my life."
I think the "center of one's life" simply means "number one priority or goal" and that it changes depending on one's focus. For a while, learning to become a developer was the center of my life, and then getting a job as a programmer.
I suppose I don't have one now. I suppose it's learning a new skillset and getting back to working (laid off recently).
> "she will be there after you"
That's... not cool to say? A self fulfilling prophecy: I'd leave instantly.
I'm not interested in focusing all of my energy on one person. I have several friends who each provide deep connection in my life; and not always at the same time.
But (also imho) no one really knows what marriage is anymore anyways.
If you wanna be my lover
You gotta get with my friends
Make it last forever
Friendship never ends
The out is a divorce. And it’s unfortunately really common (isn’t it like 50%?). Not sure why but that’s just how it is.
So I think people worry about the legal and opportunity cost of a failed marriage.
I’ve never seen people who weren’t somewhat psychopathic who seemed fine after a divorce. Like really fine. There’s people like this one eng director guy who married four times, has like 9 kids, and now has a girlfriend. He’s a player, and that’s how he rolls. Most people however seem broken emotionally after their divorce and seem to be a shell of their former selves. Most that I know who remarried divorced again. There are a few normal happy folks but I don’t personally know any besides what I read on internet.
I don't see that anywhere in my environment.