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Comment by jimbob45 | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotal but my friends don’t try at all anymore or they don’t put in any effort and pretend that’s not their problem (read: you need to shower daily).

It’s stupid because the combination of singles mixers, tinder, and community events make it very easy to find a partner (keeping them is another story) but nobody wants to try. I’m of the opinion that porn has sapped their will to find women, even though it’s very possible to have a healthy relationship with porn and men have indeed had healthy relationships with porn throughout recorded history.

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Or maybe the porn gives them everything they need from a relationship and we’re seeing that there’s a larger segment that genuinely doesn’t need/want to be in a relationship.

This boggles my mind, porn only takes the place of a very small part of a healthy relationship.

For you or me maybe, but what if some people just don’t want to be in a relationship but still want that particular need (sexual gratification) to be met?

Yes, the discounting of other aspects is my mental block.

I understand that everyone has different desires, but it is hard for me to, personally, empathize with. Hence the mind boggling.

It was for me as well, but the more I’ve worked in tech, the more men I’ve met that simply aren’t capable of a relationship.

I have currently some relationship issues so I might be biased but I keep asking myself what will I miss if not in relationship except sex that cannot be supplemented with family or friends… I've yet to find the answer.

I wouldnt be be surprised if there’s already a “relationship free” movement/group/trend similar to “childfree”.

There is, it is called MGTOW.

Vibes are totally different though. People go childfree by choice, whereas men go MGTOW because there __is no other choice__ (that they find easy or preferable). I've heard it described before as "men sent their own way (MSTOW)", which is fitting since one usually identifies with the label after many unsuccessful relationships.

You can indeed have a perfectly healthy life with friends as your closest companions. It's really helpful to have a small number of partners who can take the primary position in an emergency, and it helps if they are in fact very close to you (ideally, cohabitating). There's no reason those people need to be sex partners, though it can be convenient.

You can construct your family in a lot of different ways. Having a lot of friends, some very close friends, and zero lovers is a perfectly valid one.

At least, it was becoming such. Legally, there is more and more push back against structures other than one male and one female, who are each other's sole and perpetual means of support.

Many people do a lousy job of looking after their own health, including their mental health.

Having all of your sex come from porn is like having all of your meals come from McDonald's. And that's a choice you can make. It's probably not the best choice, but a fair number of people do in fact make it.

Then again, if what you primary want from relationship is sex, then it is better for everyone if you either use port or hop on some one-night-stand kind of scene/app.

Because stringing along some poor soul that looks for actual relationship and let her waste months to figure out this relationship was never going to happen sux.

True. Though it does help to have some close female companions at some point in order to be able to see what that one night stand looks like from her point of view. Too many men do not understand why she has to be cautious and how to assuage those fears, and end up blaming women for it.

That assumes people think they can find a healthy relationship.

The dating world is incredibly messed up right now.

The number of people who are capable of forming a healthy relationship is a subset of the single people out there. Being in a healthy relationship is a luxury available to the few, not a default lifestyle.

Some people have decided that they don't need a relationship to be happy. They've found other ways to cope. For some this may be sour grapes. But that's another coping mechanism in itself!

> It’s stupid because the combination of singles mixers, tinder, and community events make it very easy to find a partner

Tell me you haven't tried to date in a decade without telling me. Dating is more in the ditches than it has ever been.

I feel like most people would tell you that it's harder to date than it used to be, because most people are older than they used to be. That is, you're generally "less attractive" (in a median sort of way), as well as having stronger opinions about who/what you like. So your standards have come up, and your general desirability has gone down - so of course dating is going to feel more like a slog than when there were promising potential partners were around every corner.

Data point of one: I'm older, and my experience with the apps was more than mostly positive. I hadn't dated in years, and with the exception of a couple clunkers, all my dates were fun and friendly. In every match, there was a lot of texting, and I put in a lot of effort.

Nobody was a swimsuit model, but I'm not either. I might be I've crossed the threshold where looks are less important than personality (looks are still important!).

Everyone I dated mentioned that their experience with the apps mostly sucked though.

It is a natural human tendency to shift blame to external boogeymen, but to speak frankly, I think there's something deeper going on with the loneliness epidemic than nudey videos on the internet. A seemingly large chunk of both sexes have major personality issues that prevent them from getting along with each other.

> A large chunk of both sexes have major personality issues that prevent them from getting along with one another

This sounds like the inverse of the white, “every generation thinks they invented sex.” I say that because I doubt people have changed that much.

Hah yeah I don't necessarily believe it's all a generational thing, because I see it in the older folks as well. And every generation has had its masculinity grifters. This one is obsessed with porn. The biggest generational differences I've noticed are that women seem to need men less, people are losing shape at earlier ages, and a lot of people have become very outspoken about distrusting members of the other sex. Just from those factors I think it would be natural to see increased competition for the people who have everything together.

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