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It is important for people, men especially, to actively search for what they want. However, the key is to not get down on yourself when things are not going your way. Like with anything in life, you can't just sit around and wait for things to happen.
Agreed.
I've never understood when people say it'll happen when you least expect it. I mean, I'm not saying that "can't" happen, but if you just say to yourself that it will happen someday, you may find yourself to be all alone.
The trouble with "wanting" each other, as opposed to "needing" each other, is contingency on circumstance and whim.
If employees only work while they're happy, they'll leave upon availability of a better opportunity. If employers only retain employees so long as the latter are maximally productive, they'll fire the employees when a better option becomes available. To be sure, such dynamism optimizes economic growth. It probably improves living-conditions overall. But it also introduces an angst and instability that saps our vitality and dislocates our confidence.
A similar thing could, I think, be said about relationships.
There will invariably be a tension between freedom and security. The successful, the limber and the agile will prefer freedom, celebrating unbridled personal fulfillment and scoffing at security as catchphrase of the unimaginative and obtuse - until they themselves falter and start clamoring for guarantees. The stymied and the dull will favor security, dismissing freedom as mere freedom to starve - until they gradually become surer of themselves, and find their manacles to be chafing, or the security apparatus that they so ardently favored turns on them.
If men and women outright "needed" each other, there would be no guarantee of anyone partnering with their top choice, but there would be more guarantee of nearly everyone finding a partner. If employers by law were compelled to hire, and employees by law were forbidden to quit, well, our economic productivity would likely suffer, but the unemployment problem would be solved.
The modern American dating dynamic is reflected in the American ethos of dynamism over stasis, optimization over contentment. Feminism and 20th century progressivism didn't create this dynamic; they merely removed social taboos, so that dating and relationships would not be excluded from the "creative destruction" that drives everything else.
The trouble with "wanting" each other, as opposed to "needing" each other, is contingency on circumstance and whim.
If employees only work while they're happy, they'll leave upon availability of a better opportunity. If employers only retain employees so long as the latter are maximally productive, they'll fire the employees when a better option becomes available. To be sure, such dynamism optimizes economic growth. It probably improves living-conditions overall. But it also introduces an angst and instability that saps our vitality and dislocates our confidence.
A similar thing could, I think, be said about relationships.
There will invariably be a tension between freedom and security. The successful, the limber and the agile will prefer freedom, celebrating unbridled personal fulfillment and scoffing at security as catchphrase of the unimaginative and obtuse - until they themselves falter and start clamoring for guarantees. The stymied and the dull will favor security, dismissing freedom as mere freedom to starve - until they gradually become surer of themselves, and find their manacles to be chafing, or the security apparatus that they so ardently favored turns on them.
If men and women outright "needed" each other, there would be no guarantee of anyone partnering with their top choice, but there would be more guarantee of nearly everyone finding a partner. If employers by law were compelled to hire, and employees by law were forbidden to quit, well, our economic productivity would likely suffer, but the unemployment problem would be solved.
The modern American dating dynamic is reflected in the American ethos of dynamism over stasis, optimization over contentment. Feminism and 20th century progressivism didn't create this dynamic; they merely removed social taboos, so that dating and relationships would not be excluded from the "creative destruction" that drives everything else.
To be fair, this is a poor example. When people married out of necessity and not love, America was a rising power. Now, we are a declining nation.
Also, modern America isn't characterized by "optimization over contentment", but, instead, laziness, entitlement, and instant gratification. Huge difference. And I believe that this mindset is the primary one that drives the vast majority of people in the dating world.
In the past, intelligent and capable men got most of the women. These days, it's the tall, good-looking ones. So basically if you are not lucky, you will struggle in dating (whereas, in the past, it was the men with genuine talents that succeeded).
So, the dating scene is FAR better for women and tall, good-looking men, but it is much worse for the average to below average looking, but successful man.
The good thing is that it is easier to date overseas though....so that's a positive, I suppose.
Women have always and will always care about a man's looks. There was no golden age of dating for the weird-looking, the awkward, or the socially inept.
Women have always and will always care about a man's looks. There was no golden age of dating for the weird-looking, the awkward, or the socially inept.
I know right? Where did these guys get the idea they would have been any more desirable 20 or 30 years ago?
In the past, intelligent and capable men got most of the women. These days, it's the tall, good-looking ones. So basically if you are not lucky, you will struggle in dating (whereas, in the past, it was the men with genuine talents that succeeded).
So, the dating scene is FAR better for women and tall, good-looking men, but it is much worse for the average to below average looking, but successful man.
The good thing is that it is easier to date overseas though....so that's a positive, I suppose.
About ten years ago me my older brother and some other younger guys were debating these older heads in a barbershop. We were talking about women/dating and the differences across eras and the older guys were making fun of this young guy because he keeps getting turned down/rejected. Talking bout "man I never got rejected, I got married at 22 had a home 3 kids" etc lol
I was saying to myself, these guys don't realize the only reason most of them were able to get married(or any type of remote dating success) is because they were born in a time when women have no options and they were providers. Half would be unemployed/low wage virgins they were young males today
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,936 posts, read 36,974,024 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zentropa
I know right? Where did these guys get the idea they would have been any more desirable 20 or 30 years ago?
And where do they get the idea that intelligent and capable men aren't getting women? It's not what I see in the professional world, and not what I saw even when I was a student or worked at a University. Intelligence is sexy to a HUGE component of women. I'm talking your rank and file intelligence.
Social and emotional intelligence are also critical, of course, and I think that fails many of these guys.
Women have always and will always care about a man's looks. There was no golden age of dating for the weird-looking, the awkward, or the socially inept.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zentropa
I know right? Where did these guys get the idea they would have been any more desirable 20 or 30 years ago?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BradPiff
About ten years ago me my older brother and some other younger guys were debating these older heads in a barbershop. We were talking about women/dating and the differences across eras and the older guys were making fun of this young guy because he keeps getting turned down/rejected. Talking bout "man I never got rejected, I got married at 22 had a home 3 kids" etc lol
I was saying to myself, these guys don't realize the only reason most of them were able to get married(or any type of remote dating success) is because they were born in a time when women have no options and they were providers. Half would be unemployed/low wage virgins they were young males today
Quote:
Originally Posted by timberline742
And where do they get the idea that intelligent and capable men aren't getting women? It's not what I see in the professional world, and not what I saw even when I was a student or worked at a University. Intelligence is sexy to a HUGE component of women. I'm talking your rank and file intelligence.
Social and emotional intelligence are also critical, of course, and I think that fails many of these guys.
I think it's fair to say that things are more complicated today and men have to bring more to the table to attract a good woman. But it's also true that women too are expected to bring more to the table as well. It makes things a little harder, but to compensate, it's never been easier to meet other singles (with more social clubs, online dating, speed dating, etc). People are free to date and marry whoever they want (It wasn't until 1967 that a lot of states where forced to make it legal for mixed race marriages for example!) So yeah, you might have to be a better overall package, but your opportunities are a lot bigger too.
I think it's a grass is greener phenomena... being nostalgic by remembering the good, but not the bad. Looking at the past through rose colored glasses.
I agree with jillabean, I think it's fair to say the average man and woman has to bring way more to the table to successfully date than those in the past
I used my example with older males but it applies to women. A lot of those women who were married with 3 kids living a middle class lifestyle would be poor single bootycalls in 2014
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,936 posts, read 36,974,024 times
Reputation: 40635
Quote:
Originally Posted by BradPiff
I agree with jillabean, I think it's fair to say the average man and woman has to bring way more to the table to successfully date than those in the past
I used my example with older males but it applies to women. A lot of those women who were married with 3 kids living a middle class lifestyle would be poor single bootycalls in 2014
But how many guys that want to date aren't really dating? I mean, among the dudes I know in their 30s and 40s, and what I saw when working at a University, almost everyone is successfully dating. There are very very few truly single can't date types out there from what I see. Tall and short, thin and fat, white, black, and every other color... all seem to be coupling up, everywhere. The bars, movie theaters, concerts, festivals, campuses, sidewalks are just teeming with couples.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jillabean
I think it's a grass is greener phenomena... being nostalgic by remembering the good, but not the bad. Looking at the past through rose colored glasses.
I think this is exactly it. A Leave It To Beaver nostalgia for what never was. Would I as a college educated white male do just fine in 1950s America? You bet. But was that a better world? Heck no. No comparison. It would have been horrible to be a woman in that society pre 1970s 2nd wave feminism, horrible to be black, horrible to be gay; and the pressure to conform to "standard" societal expectations as a white male would have been horrible too.
It WASN'T better back then.
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lol
