Looking for possible friends who share my convictions? (husband, romance, aging)
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When you state that people are ignorant and lack compassion, simply because they eat meat, don't you think that you're being just a bit condescending about an individual's personal food choice?
I mean, what would Eskimos eat?
People have been hunters and gatherers thousands of years. Now for some reason, you've come up with some kind of anti-evolutionary concept about altering our already evolved and adapted diet.
.....I don't think so!
What don't you think "so"?? When one takes things out of context it simply shows you are not letting the facts get in the way of a debate or discussion. Take hunting and eating dead bodies err "meat". Those who continue to live in places away from civilization need to depend on land and water to feed and sustain themselves. If you are living in areas where life is more "evolved" and you have access to gazillions of options which are meat free and yet allow your complete sustenance then the argument that animals must be killed to become "food" is rather dumb. So each argument for and against is always relevant in a specific contex. There are no absolute truths in life.
It is actually okay to have friends who don't necessarily agree with you on every subject.
I have a friend who is a conservative.
We do not discuss politics.
In general I would prefer to be friends with like-minded people. I can relate to them more.
However, I find it extremely difficult to find others who can relate to my views.
Well, with the exception of #5 and #7 - we could be friends. So surely you can find friends that agree with the majority of your beliefs and convictions.
I have always felt extremely alone in the world because ever since a little girl, I have thought very differently than others. I have attempted to hold friendships with "normal" girls, and despite being polite and cheerful, things never panned out, I think which is largely attributed to my alternative modes of thought. In what will probably be another sad attempt at finding someone congruent, I will list my strongest convictions. If you think the same way, hit me back.
Two disclaimers, though: 1) I know that attempts such as this are most likely futile, because I am so different. 2) I prefer to be alone than with people who I don't see eye to eye with. I am generally very polite to everyone and am very quiet about my opposing views, but as far as deep and personal relationships go, I don't bother with people.
1. I am agnostic. I think religion is a massive waste of time. Especially the ones with extravagant, illogical, and flat out ridiculous stories (like Noah's Ark). I wouldn't say I'm an atheist because I don't know what happens after we die, and I really don't care. I don't believe in anything supernatural for that matter, except out of body experiences which I've heard about from people I trust. Also, I don't believe in God. This world is extremely amazing, but I think science and evolution is responsible.
2. I think love is a very special thing. I would never be unfaithful to the person I love, which means I would never go behind their back and have sex with another person. For me, sex is special and important because it is an intense bonding experience to the people we care about. To have sex with a person other than that loved one is to diminish the bond we've established with them, through forming one with another person. It waters down the intimate feeling we have. For me, love is quality over quantity, and love and sex go hand in hand. I think people who cheat on their partners are extremely despicable, because I have respect for the human love bond and know that that inflicts great emotional pain.
3. I think it is atrocious that people who could very easily make the switch to a meat free diet, yet do not, are ignorant and lacking in compassion. I enjoy organic dairy products and free-range eggs, so I am not fully against utilizing animals products for consumption, so long as they can still live a peaceful life (as opposed to having their heads chopped off). Whenever I have voiced my feelings on this, I have always received a great deal of disrespect and flat out hatred from other people, even though I have done so politely, so I have gotten used to being silent about it.
4. I have no problems with people having love and sex with people of the same gender. I think this has a lot to do with feeling our planet faces a massive problem: overpopulation.
5. I don't ever want to have children, mainly because I do not want to contribute to the problem of global overpopulation. I know that developed countries, mainly Europe and Japan, have low birth rates, but developing and under-developed countries (mainly Africa, China, and India) have far too many children. I know that religions encourage people to have children, which is one reason I am opposed to them. I feel that one of the best things to do to prevent further damage to Earth and preserve resources is to abstain having children. (I would like to have my tubes tied, but doctors simply won't allow me to.) However, I know that raising a person and supporting them can be a good, emotionally rewarding experience. If I did, I'd adopt.
6. I don't feel that any ethnicity of person is essentially better or worse. However, I do tend to make some generalizations about people based on where they live, particularly people from different countries, because I am well aware that the power of socialization is very potent. When I've indicated this to others, I've received a lot of hatred. However, this tends to be true; if you take a random person from Texas and a random person from Iraq and make some guesses about their general modes of thought, the customs they practice, etc., chances are you will be right. I really don't understand what's wrong with making an educated guess about someone based on what part of the world they were raised in. However, I am not one to be disrespectful or extra nice to anyone based on the simple knowledge of where/how they grew up, which would be asinine. I am nice and polite to all people, as long as they seem nice and polite too.
7. I think cigarette smoking is ridiculous, and that it should be banned in almost all parts of urban spaces, except for very small pockets in which the smoke is enclosed in a room so that it is not dispersed. I have experienced a great deal of belittlement, accusation of being a control freak for wanting to prolong my life/prevent cancer, and general meanness for voicing my opinion about this (which can be seen in my two threads on this site).
8. I think that abortion should be legal, mainly for the cases in which a woman is raped, or when birth control fails. However, I am against the general concept that abortion is to be used for when sex without any form of contraception is successful. I don't think of fetuses as intelligent, because they aren't, but the way I see it, it's the potential that they have to become a fully functioning human that makes reckless abortion essentially wrong.
If you feel the same way about these eight topics, that would blow my mind and you should get in touch with me.
However, if you disagree with all eight points, that is my expectation.
Also, I should probably mention some other things regarding morals... I believe everyone should recycle and compost. I also think wearing things that cause the death of an animal, i.e. fur and leather is wrong, but am more okay with that if it's to make use of body parts that would otherwise be discarded (i.e. if a cow was slaughtered mainly for its meat, this is more okay to me to wear its skin). I recycle as much as possible, but don't compost, because I don't cook often enough to warrant taking the bin out every day, and because it would attract bugs and make my house smell like rotting produce (based on past experience). I also wear leather products, because pleather is inferior in durability I think. So my behavior isn't ideal in terms of morals and I'm aware of that.
Oh, by the way, I am female and 22, living in Vancouver, Canada.
I agree completely with most of what you have written. I don't find you to be "different" at all. You need to meet more people.
That explains some things. Very young, idealistic, somewhat sheltered, think you've got a pretty good grasp of it all though you really haven't even started to see beyond yourself, open your mind, find out who you really are and what life really is, and learn acceptance and inner calm. You'll get there, maybe.
I'm 39 and when I think back to 22, the sweeping changes I've experienced in my perceptions, worldview, sense of self, and understanding of the world hit me like an absurdist fever dream. That is not to say there aren't people who calcified at 22, but that is not a fate you want for yourself. I would credit homelessness, responsible use of psychedelic and dissociative substances, meditation and painful self-examination, world travel (not to vacation destinations), and a thorough study of history for most of my personality and perspective turnover. By the way, I am not "there" either. But I'm nowhere remotely where I was at 22 or 25.
The point is, what you hold today may not be what you hold later. What you find important now may be relegated to triviality later. What you think may change, might reverse, might go in completely unexpected directions. You must realize there are other ways of thinking, and not only that, those other ways may be YOUR ways of thinking at some point in your future. Learn to embrace variety, difference, dissonance. Let it engulf you and turn you into something else. Let it grow you. Don't hold too rigidly, at 22, to what you think you know about this existence, lest you lose out on all the colors and flavors. Immerse yourself in the lives and perspectives of others. Take extended thought experiments. Mod cut.
But ultimately, learn to love your existential ALONENESS.
-----------------------------------
1 - I'm a lifelong atheist
2 - sure
3 - see 'legalized hunting' thread, I tried vegan and it was disastrous to this body, I need big calories and big protein or I waste away
4 - live and let live all the way
5 - no kiddies for me, but there really is no good answer here on various macro scales (you're damned if you grow and damned if you shrink, population-wise)
6 - sure, I made generalizations about the aristocratic city dwellers in your other threads, so I must be guilty too
7 - do not agree, and enjoy the hookah every now and then; however, at 22 I probably felt sorta similar and probably sounded similarly strident in my opinion
8 - I'm an anthropic mechanist (look it up) at my core; I completely reject the notion of a soul, I see us as simply messy biological machines, consciousness as an evolutionary construct that helps the machine tie together disparate cognitive effects, and all thought and "emotion" as stemming from programmatic, predictable chemical reactions; I see nothing wrong with aborting fetuses
Last edited by PJSaturn; 07-16-2014 at 10:06 AM..
Reason: Advocating illegal activity.
I appreciate your honesty.....the problem I see is you wont find your mirror image in friends.
I have all kinds of friends with all kinds of views and sometime still feel isolated.
I feel when I expect my friends to be like me, I am just being selfish. Unfortunately I am also very opinionated....I don't feel this is a positive quality and truly try to zip it when I can. I feel people don't want to hear my opinions and grand standing. People want to laugh, have fun and feel appreciated in a friendship.
There are many benefits to having friend with differences. I would say open you mind a little and learn to accept people for being nice and kind. I they are wearing leather shoes so be it.... you can not change everyone in the world.....but you can change yourself to be more open to friendship.
I'm not going to blast you for your convictions; in fact, it's good that you've engaged in so much self-examination. However - as many others have pointed out, people are different from each other in all sorts of ways. And while you'll be able to find other people who share some of your beliefs, it's unlikely that you'll find someone who's a mirror image of you.
So - look for friends who share some, but not all, of your interests. You may wind up as I (and no doubt many others) have: with various groups of friends who share some, but not all, interests. I have friends who are fellow collectors. I have friends who are musical. Other friends are former classmates. Some friends go to the same church as I do.
Very few of these friends' interests overlap. Yet I get along well with all of them, and find them interesting and congenial people whose company I enjoy. One difference I do see in my group-friends and what you describe as desirable in your own potential friends is that we rarely discuss controversial topics about which we know our opinions vary widely, as we'd rather remain sound friends than have arguments. If such topics do arise, we simply agree to disagree.
If we know that we agree, fine, we'll go ahead and hash it out. But otherwise - we focus on our shared interests instead, while recognizing that each of us has strong, yet varying, feelings about whatever controversial topic it may be. We don't judge one another for having different views, as we recognize that such views are usually reached after considerable thought (at least, that's the case with my closest friends - those who hang onto strong views without such examination remain congenial acquaintances).
So - try to be a little more tolerant of others and look for areas of common interests that you may share without controversy. Meet-up groups have been suggested, and I think that's a fine idea. Also, visit local places that you find interesting and see what they may offer. Volunteering can be a good way to meet interesting people.
That explains some things. Very young, idealistic, somewhat sheltered, think you've got a pretty good grasp of it all though you really haven't even started to see beyond yourself, open your mind, find out who you really are and what life really is, and learn acceptance and inner calm. You'll get there, maybe.
I'm 39 and when I think back to 22, the sweeping changes I've experienced in my perceptions, worldview, sense of self, and understanding of the world hit me like an absurdist fever dream. That is not to say there aren't people who calcified at 22, but that is not a fate you want for yourself. I would credit homelessness, responsible use of psychedelic and dissociative substances, meditation and painful self-examination, world travel (not to vacation destinations), and a thorough study of history for most of my personality and perspective turnover. By the way, I am not "there" either. But I'm nowhere remotely where I was at 22 or 25.
The point is, what you hold today may not be what you hold later. What you find important now may be relegated to triviality later. What you think may change, might reverse, might go in completely unexpected directions. You must realize there are other ways of thinking, and not only that, those other ways may be YOUR ways of thinking at some point in your future. Learn to embrace variety, difference, dissonance. Let it engulf you and turn you into something else. Let it grow you. Don't hold too rigidly, at 22, to what you think you know about this existence, lest you lose out on all the colors and flavors. Immerse yourself in the lives and perspectives of others. Take extended thought experiments. [Snip.]
But ultimately, learn to love your existential ALONENESS.
-----------------------------------
1 - I'm a lifelong atheist
2 - sure
3 - see 'legalized hunting' thread, I tried vegan and it was disastrous to this body, I need big calories and big protein or I waste away
4 - live and let live all the way
5 - no kiddies for me, but there really is no good answer here on various macro scales (you're damned if you grow and damned if you shrink, population-wise)
6 - sure, I made generalizations about the aristocratic city dwellers in your other threads, so I must be guilty too
7 - do not agree, and enjoy the hookah every now and then; however, at 22 I probably felt sorta similar and probably sounded similarly strident in my opinion
8 - I'm an anthropic mechanist (look it up) at my core; I completely reject the notion of a soul, I see us as simply messy biological machines, consciousness as an evolutionary construct that helps the machine tie together disparate cognitive effects, and all thought and "emotion" as stemming from programmatic, predictable chemical reactions; I see nothing wrong with aborting fetuses
an interesting, and insightful post. Mod cut: Orphaned (reply to deleted material). i also find you being an anthropic mechanist interesting also, but rather confining in the end.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sziszi007
I appreciate your honesty.....the problem I see is you wont find your mirror image in friends.
I have all kinds of friends with all kinds of views and sometime still feel isolated.
I feel when I expect my friends to be like me, I am just being selfish. Unfortunately I am also very opinionated....I don't feel this is a positive quality and truly try to zip it when I can. I feel people don't want to hear my opinions and grand standing. People want to laugh, have fun and feel appreciated in a friendship.
There are many benefits to having friend with differences. I would say open you mind a little and learn to accept people for being nice and kind. I they are wearing leather shoes so be it.... you can not change everyone in the world.....but you can change yourself to be more open to friendship.
one can have, and espouse their opinions all the time, in fact i do. its no the opinions you have, its the way you express them. as you gain wisdom, you tend to express your opinions in a more refined manner.
in the end, disagreement is good for people. it forces you to refine your arguments to support your position, and it forces you to be more diplomatic with others. it also forces you to recognize what is important in life, and what is not. its more important to have a connection with others, than it is to agree on who to vote for, for president for instance.
if we can touch peoples lives around us in a positive manner, then we can make our little corner of the earth better. and if everyone did this, imagine how much better things would be.
It's fine to have strong opinions and convictions SS but it's also fine to respect opinions that are different from yours. I'm sorry but you lost me on paragraph 5. You come across as angry, rigid, and intolerant. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings or be mean to you love, but it's just the way I perceived your rant. I can see why you're having a difficult time making friends. It seems that you've narrowed the field so much that you're only looking for a mini me to be friends with. You're missing out on a lot of beautiful people in your life including same sex couples. It's not your life so why be so concerned with the way others want to live theirs? I hope you find a way to come to terms with your prejudices love, it's not a healthy way to live, and makes for a very lonely future.
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