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Old 10-29-2008, 08:39 PM
 
Location: Iowa
918 posts, read 1,634,283 times
Reputation: 373

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Quote:
Originally Posted by artsyguy View Post
Then don't read my post....that easy to do
Not really.

if someone else quotes it in a reply, I can't avoid it.
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Old 10-29-2008, 11:24 PM
 
68 posts, read 285,274 times
Reputation: 71
I'm single because I've always been in relationships and just decided to take a break. It's actually nice. No phone texts every day, no phone calls, voicemails, messages, etc...

I save money, am in the best shape of my life, have become more refocused on my career.

Right now I am not concerned with settling down, having children and a wife - that's not the life for me now.

Relationships are work, they require time and money invested with little payoff.

I definately do not fall into that thinking of "absolutely have to find someone that I can be with for the rest of my life."

I came into this world alone and I'll leave it alone.
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Old 10-29-2008, 11:34 PM
 
Location: southern california
61,289 posts, read 87,195,928 times
Reputation: 55551
i am alone bek there are things far worse than being alone. if i live alone, guaranteed, i will never have to deal with more than 1 crazy person in the house at a time, ever.
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Old 10-30-2008, 04:41 AM
 
Location: Henderson, NV
7,087 posts, read 8,602,043 times
Reputation: 9978
Quote:
Originally Posted by pac10devils View Post
I'm single because I've always been in relationships and just decided to take a break. It's actually nice. No phone texts every day, no phone calls, voicemails, messages, etc...

I save money, am in the best shape of my life, have become more refocused on my career.

Right now I am not concerned with settling down, having children and a wife - that's not the life for me now.

Relationships are work, they require time and money invested with little payoff.

I definately do not fall into that thinking of "absolutely have to find someone that I can be with for the rest of my life."

I came into this world alone and I'll leave it alone.
HAHA, good man! I like the strong attitudes I see on this thread, it just proves not everyone is an inside-the-box, have-to-get-married-fast kind of thinker. There are a lot of people here who understand there are a lot of advantages to being single and that if you have problems in your life, amazingly enough, they won't all be solved by being in a relationship In fact I'd argue you should sort our your problems first, before you get into a relationship, haha.

I've been with too many girls who thought somehow I would cure their problems, like everything would be great for 3-5 dates, then somewhere in that range, the 4th, 5th, or 6th date, I would suddenly get this huge load dumped on me about all of their personal problems and how weak they are and how they have this or that problem, etc. As if somehow I was going to be a Knight in Shining Armor and swoop in to save the day. Hey, I'm just one guy, I can't solve anyone's problems but my own. I don't think it should be my job either. So when a girl pulls that it's time to leave.
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Old 10-30-2008, 07:42 AM
 
809 posts, read 2,878,853 times
Reputation: 497
Quote:
Originally Posted by pac10devils View Post
I'm single because I've always been in relationships and just decided to take a break. It's actually nice. No phone texts every day, no phone calls, voicemails, messages, etc...

I save money, am in the best shape of my life, have become more refocused on my career.

Right now I am not concerned with settling down, having children and a wife - that's not the life for me now.

Relationships are work, they require time and money invested with little payoff.

I definately do not fall into that thinking of "absolutely have to find someone that I can be with for the rest of my life."

I came into this world alone and I'll leave it alone.

I give you props for having such an independent nature, but I have to disagree with your statement that relationships have very little payoff. I believe if you're in a HEALTHY relationship there's lots of payoff. Most people nowadays have such a co-dependent way of thinking that everyone feels suffocated. A healthy relationship shouldn't feel suffocating. I prefer to think of boyfriends as best friends. If I don't feel a "best friend" connection then it's not worth it. I kind of like Gene Simmons way of thinking. He's happily "unmarried". Why is everyone in such a rush to spend all kinds of ridiculous money on a fancy wedding just so you can have that title! You can still have that satisfying relationship without the rings and dress and vows....... Gene and Shannon are a perfect example of a great couple. They aren't co-dependent on each other, they're each others best friends and they don't suffocate each other. THAT'S healthy!
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Old 10-30-2008, 08:00 AM
 
Location: Henderson, NV
7,087 posts, read 8,602,043 times
Reputation: 9978
I agree you DEFINITELY don't have to be married to have a good relationship, haha.

But I would say most relationships are indeed a lot of work with little payoff. This is why I've ended every relationship after not all that much time because the cons always outweighed the advantages so easily it didn't take writing them down to figure it out. It would be something like, "Sex is ok, not great. Annoying phone calls every day. Little arguments about silly things. Having to pretend I care about things I don't care about. Having to act like someone I'm not so I can get ok sex infrequently." You get the idea. It's very hard in my opinion to find a relationship where the advantages are really stronger than the disadvantages. Is it possible? Sure. I've had terrible luck with it so far, though. The girls I've met haven't been real winners in my opinion. I'm sure they're out there, but it's a challenge finding 'em, and honestly I hate to say it but that time is better spent on my career and self-improvement. One of the biggest issues in my opinion is a person's strength and needs, which go hand in hand. If I'm in the top 1% as far as mental and physical strength, i.e. I have no need for outside influences, I can take care of myself perfectly in every respect, don't need reassurances, don't have problems or issues, and function normally day to day and happily and healthily, then my need for another person to sort of act as a backstop is not there. But if the girl's needs are even a 3 out of 10, then inevitably she's going to get more out of the relationship than me. I'm going to have to be the one listening to her bad days, her stories, giving her advice, and trying to fix what's wrong, but I am not going to get anything back out of it most of the time. I don't mind helping people and giving advice, but I don't want to have a leech sapping my energy either. It would be so much cooler to have a girl sort of like one of my guy friends, whose accomplishments and strength actually spur me on, make me stronger, in a friendly competitive sense. So that I see her doing well, and I want to do even better, and the relationship is one where we both feed off each other's successes rather than play nurse with each other's problems, of which I don't have any I need to talk about so it's always unfair to me, always lopsided.

Plus, peoples' relationship advice is so hopeless. One person will say, "You're trying too hard, you can't force it, you just meet someone when you're least expecting it!" I don't try at all. I don't go to bars often, when I do, I don't meet any girls. I don't have coworkers really, I'm self-employed, my coworkers are hired on a per-day basis and I don't hit on employees, I'm a professional. So I basically don't try at all. Then you get the other people who say, "Well you have to put some work into it! You have to get out there! You can't just sit home and expect the right girl to find you." Well, I happen to agree with that logic, but whenever I've put effort into it, tried to meet girls at bars, online, through friends, etc., the results haven't been good either. Maybe 20 times at bars and I'll meet 1 girl, maybe, it's not for sure but it's possible. Odds are that girl won't really be my type when I get to know her, I mean those are just the odds, I probably am going to click with 1 in 100 girls at most, and that's only "sorta kinda have something in common," really more like 1 in 10,000 will be closer to the mark. Online, I've went on dates with girls I've met there, I hate to say this but I think they're all crazy. Then again I'm not sure if all girls you meet online are crazy or if that's just true of all girls. Perhaps I'm unfairly judging online girls as crazy, when they're no crazier than ones anywhere else, which I suspect is true. The issue is with someone like me, at least, I have specific requirements for what I want in a girl that go beyond basics like "somewhat attractive, sorta nice, not stupid." That's about the average guy's requirements. Mine are highly specific, along the lines of a bit feisty, an original thinker, not liberal, not religious, doesn't want kids, likes guys who are sarcastic, decent taste in movies, etc. There are a lot of things, some are bendable, some not so much. That makes online the perfect place to screen girls -- I can very quickly figure out the raw statistics. "Ok this girl is an atheist, no kids so far, seems smart. Let's talk to her more and figure out whether she's a potential." I waste a minimum of time figuring out if there's a reason to continue. But on the negative side, most girls I've met this way haven't turned out well. It's not, admittedly, a large enough sample size to be sure that all online girls are crazy, it's just enough to be discouraged that even that's a waste of time But meeting girls in person, or through friends, which a lot of people like, doesn't work for me.

For good or bad, I don't think it matters, I'm an outlier on a graph of normality. If you make a bell curve, I'm at one of the ends of the bell curve, far from the norm. That makes it tough to meet girls like me. If you're in the middle of the bell curve, which is not to say you're a bad person or whatever, but your desires and goals align more closely with most people, of course it stands to reason that you're going to have more in common with most people. I, fortunately and unfortunately, do not have that situation. So where the average person needs to meet maybe 10 girls before finding 1 he really likes, I have to meet maybe 10,000 girls to find 1 I really like. Since I haven't went on 10,000 dates, I can't complain too much that I haven't met 1 yet, because statistically I'm not due to hit until another 800 years. Therein lies the rub -- the human lifespan is awfully short

One time I cross-referenced a bunch of statistics, it wasn't a perfect science but it was close enough, to see out of 3 billion girls in the world how many would probably meet all of my criteria that I consider relatively essential. I came up with 6. This was even more depressing when I realized that there's no way I'll travel to most countries in the world, but fortunately it's likely that of those 6, 3-4 would be in the U.S. since it's unlikely a girl in Zimbabwe is going to share my views on anything, let alone everything. That being said it's statistically incredibly unlikely that I would meet any of those 6 girls in my lifetime. So it would probably be a better use of my time not to bother trying. I'm all for fighting against the odds, but I'd prefer the payoff be a bit greater and more lasting. If the odds of becoming one of the all-time great directors in world history is just as bad, which it probably is, at least that goal is something that gives you immortality. Finding a girl just gives you, well, a girl. She could get hit by a bus the next week and die. She isn't a possession or an accomplishment, thus not really something you "attain," after all.

There is the second option. You settle for a half-way decent match. That's one reason I don't believe in marriage, because statistically it's very unlikely I'd meet one of those 6 girls, so I'll have to settle for maybe one of 6,000 somewhat-decent matches, if i get lucky enough to meet one of those 6,000. That makes it a lot more likely I'd want to date her but never marry her

When the odds of something positive happening are incredibly terrible, you need an inversely proportional reward -- something incredibly great. That's why I'd still pursue being one of the great directors, even with absolutely terrible odds, because the payoff is just that great. But for a girl... not really so much.

PS: I'd readily admit I'm probably looking for the "perfect girl" when no such girl exists, and yes maybe my requirements are unreasonable. But let's say that on a scale of 1 to 100, my need or desire for having a girl is about a 10. That means on a scale of 1 to 100, how much I'm going to compromise to get that girl is also about a 10. In other words, if I don't really care about having a girlfriend, I don't really feel like compromising either. Use another analogy. I'm in the hospital, there's a 1% chance that I'm going to die if they don't do extensive surgery that has a 30% chance to kill me. I am not THAT bad at math, I decline surgery. But if I had a 90% chance of fatality without surgery, I'm going to have the surgery. So if I really badly wanted a girlfriend, I would probably lower my standards and be more compromising. As I don't think a girl would benefit my life much at all in the short term or long term, I'm unwilling to compromise more than just a tiny amount to get what I want, as it's not that great of a want. If the years pass and my desire increases, then I lower my standards a bit, and then maybe meet a girl. It's really all math, for me, all about probabilities, personal happiness, etc.

Last edited by JonathanLB; 10-30-2008 at 08:22 AM..
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Old 10-30-2008, 02:45 PM
 
3,852 posts, read 12,842,174 times
Reputation: 2529
because it is better than being married! ha.
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Old 10-30-2008, 02:57 PM
 
Location: In my view finder.....
8,515 posts, read 16,147,019 times
Reputation: 8079
LOL...............that's funny!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Huckleberry3911948 View Post
i am alone bek there are things far worse than being alone. if i live alone, guaranteed, i will never have to deal with more than 1 crazy person in the house at a time, ever.
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Old 10-30-2008, 03:00 PM
 
Location: Arizona, The American Southwest
54,482 posts, read 33,796,391 times
Reputation: 91677
Quote:
Originally Posted by AliceT View Post
My husband died.
Wow.. I'm sorry to hear that Alice..
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Old 10-30-2008, 03:09 PM
 
Location: In my view finder.....
8,515 posts, read 16,147,019 times
Reputation: 8079
LOL...........

Quote:
Originally Posted by killer2021 View Post
because it is better than being married! ha.
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