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I'm astonished by the contrast between what I read on this forum, and what I observe amongst my coworkers (engineers in the Midwest, working in the defense-sector). All of my coworkers are men. All are married (or are widowers). Nearly all have stay-at-home wives, and nearly all have children. Other than minivans and smart-phones, soccer-practice and internet connections, there's little about their lives that differs from the 1950s. I don't assert that everyone is immersed in unbridled bliss, that there are no domestic arguments or frustrations. But apart from a few outliers in the floor above us or the office-building across the street, there are no divorces. Marriages end when one of the partners dies. Our workforce is quite elderly, with the median age well over 50, and several in their 70s.
Jillabean is quite right about the importance of self-reliance. But I want to emphasize the distinction between operational self-reliance and emotional self-reliance. Operationally, it is essential to save for your own retirement, to be able to cook and do laundry, to have health insurance, to be able to unclog toilets and to mend torn pants. Operationally most of us can survive just fine - and even thrive - as solitary individuals. But what about the emotional side? Here in the American Midwest we just had a brutal winter. I can trudge through the snow alone, start an ornery old car on a below-zero morning, stay warm alone by turning up the heat or using extra blankets, make a pot of coffee on Saturday morning and enjoy it alone, with a good book and the stereo playing softly. But... what about the emotional side? I miss sitting together with somebody else next to the fireplace. I miss making a pot of coffee for two cups and two drinkers. I miss a warm body underneath that warm blanket.
All of that operational self-reliance, the feeding of one's 401K plan and doing maintenance on one's car and scoring a rare find at the used book store and cooking some new dish from a newly discovered recipe... these things just don't have the momentum, the impetus and significance that they would have had, had one had a partner.
I don't understand how somebody could behold this emotional component and still assert that happiness is possible while confined to the solitary life. Sure, I get out of bed every morning. But I do it from a sense of duty. I live my solitary life and contribute at work and save money and exercise and so forth, and I do it regularly, without moping or phlegmatic slowness, but I do that from a sense of duty - NOT pleasure or joy or satisfaction. Emotionally alone, I am reduced to a machine that does what it's supposed to do. Maybe I've very good at it. This machine still goes to the museum and to concerts - because that's part of the duties of an active citizen. But it does things as a machine.
I don't want to be a machine. And that will take a new and enduring partnership with another human being.
But I am not emotionally alone. I have family (whom I am very close to) and friends. I am not truly solitary. I can get that machine-like feeling at times too (I know exactly what you mean), but I have enough social interaction that those periods of "going though the motions" don't last all that long. And I went though them while married as well--so I don't see them as unique to singlehood.
Like I said, I do sometimes get "romantically" lonely. I miss that cuddling up with someone (other than my dog, lol) on a cold winter's day. Or going to a movie with someone or just holding hands. Or snuggling (or other things ) in bed.
But all of those good things that come with romance come with a flip side that I've seen all too well in my own failed marriage (and sometimes see though the experiences of others). It's not all sunshine and lollypops. I really do think that in most relationships the good outweighs the bad... most couples are happy (face it, you hear people complain when things are bad... not rave when things are good--not only in relationships but in anything). But even if I know that, my personal history shapes me as well. And my lovelife has been a lot more bad than good (especially the big scar of loving and being married to man who turns out never did and couldn't love me). I put a lot of effort into loving him, trying to make him happy, etc only to have him tell me he was gay and walk out the door.
So while I am not closed to love and relationships; I am guarded and I have to carefully consider if a relationship is worth it--because even if I am romantically alone now and then, overall I am so much happier now than I have been in years. I ask myself... is it worth the risk?
The relationship world really does work in economic terms It's every man/woman for hisself/herself, trying to get the best product to show off as a trophy, to conform to social pressures of being attached, to take care of their sexual needs, to provide a personal sense of validation, or to provide some other type of utility. People have market values and they try to sell when their market value is at its highest. That's why women try to get attached when they're in their prime years of looks, the young adult years, and why men in those years who are moving up the income ladder want to wait and see what caliber of women they can score in the future. Tall men have higher market values than short men, period. People make upgrades when they have the opportunity to. People settle when they have to. Typically, people will try to justify their shortcomings by pretending like they didn't settle, like the person they ended up with was their first choice.
I know it sounds shallow to think in terms of market values and upgrades and the like, but that's really the way that things work. People are not drawn to each other because of love, but for a variety of social and psychological reasons. It's plain to see that the relationship world is just a sexual economy. Look around.
The trick, I believe, is to be enough of a realist to understand all this, but yet still be enough of an open heart to enjoy knowing and having relationships with people for the sake of it anyway. It's a fine edge to walk to be certain.
Folks, we're losing track of the essential point here. While it's specious and ultimately vain to reduce all of human affection (romantic love, filial love, national patriotism, religious devotion and so forth) to material exchange, evolutionary pressures imply that successful organisms will seek to maximize personal utility. That "utility" manifests itself in subtle ways, and sometimes the utility of the group trumps the utility of the individual. Even so, if people didn't seek to maximize the "quality" of the person with whom they eventually mate, this would be an evolutionary disadvantage, and would presumably become obsolesced by natural selection.
Recently we had a thread about dating "leagues", wherein I vehemently disagreed about pigeonholing people in leagues. Why? Not because the jostling of potential partners can't be described in economic terms, but because the metrics of value are ambiguous and are irreducible to direct, actionable advice. One can not take some self-assessment quiz to determine one's league, and even if that were possible, how would we proceed to contact prospective daters who are specifically members of our designated league?
"Love" develops as response to long-term association. If two people become romantically involved, raise kids together and so forth, there's a stark cost for them to ditch their present partner in favor of an "upgrade". There needs to be a countervailing force precluding too easy an economic exchange. Love, I think, serves that function. If A loves B, but along comes C – a partner of higher mating-value – then love is the mechanism that keeps A from leaving B. Otherwise B's offspring would be at an evolutionary disadvantage.
In sum, love isn't strictly speaking a "joke", but it has a utilitarian value, and isn’t some holy and ineffable thing. Further, the route to love – how potential partners select each other – is, I think, very aptly described by economic terms. We gain comfort from realizing this, because it helps to explain our romantic failures and success. Unfortunately, such realization, though breathtaking satisfying in an intellectual sense, does not equip us with actionable advice on how to improve our "love lives". And thus the frustration.
I agree with your analysis. I think people fail to see the word "utility" as roughly synonymous with satisfaction. The utility of a relationship is correlated with how well it satisfies needs. In a couple, my partner can be said to have more or less utility related to how well she satisfies my needs. Strangely, when I compliment her on her utility, she sighs and goes to sleep . I get a better response when I tell her how happy she makes me, or better yet, when I show her in a variety of ways.
One thing I either disagree with or don't fully understand is the parts I've bolded. I don't think leagues are entirely defined or rigidly exclusive, but a man who 100 women would describe as average looking will have a difficult time attracting a woman who 100 men describe as very good looking. I know those people's assessments aren't exactly part of a human interaction, but they have some use in predicting outcomes. If for whatever reason a man is dead set on getting together with very good looking women, knowing that he's betting on a longshot may ease his frustration if and when the longshot fails.
Or, if he knows that his "value" (I know how crass that sounds, but it applies) is modest, he can possibly do something to enhance his value, like changing his style or becoming more fit. If he believes he's about as attractive as he'll ever be, he can focus on all the benefits that come from connecting with another person whose "value" is also modest and approach women who are like him in that regard. In this case he's more likely to be successful, enjoy those benefits, and avoid frustration.
So in that case, isn't his "league" women whose attractiveness is closer to his? And isn't the romantic frustration some people feel based on not acknowledging their utility and aiming at a market that isn't likely to be interested in what they offer, while still expecting success? And isn't suggesting that someone adjusts expectations for success, improves one's prodect (self), or focuses on the market that is relatively open to him actionable?
The relationship world really does work in economic terms It's every man/woman for hisself/herself, trying to get the best product to show off as a trophy, to conform to social pressures of being attached, to take care of their sexual needs, to provide a personal sense of validation, or to provide some other type of utility. People have market values and they try to sell when their market value is at its highest. That's why women try to get attached when they're in their prime years of looks, the young adult years, and why men in those years who are moving up the income ladder want to wait and see what caliber of women they can score in the future. Tall men have higher market values than short men, period. People make upgrades when they have the opportunity to. People settle when they have to. Typically, people will try to justify their shortcomings by pretending like they didn't settle, like the person they ended up with was their first choice.
I know it sounds shallow to think in terms of market values and upgrades and the like, but that's really the way that things work. People are not drawn to each other because of love, but for a variety of social and psychological reasons. It's plain to see that the relationship world is just a sexual economy. Look around.
There is actually a lot of truth to this, but people don't want to hear it.
I agree with your analysis. I think people fail to see the word "utility" as roughly synonymous with satisfaction. The utility of a relationship is correlated with how well it satisfies needs. In a couple, my partner can be said to have more or less utility related to how well she satisfies my needs. Strangely, when I compliment her on her utility, she sighs and goes to sleep . I get a better response when I tell her how happy she makes me, or better yet, when I show her in a variety of ways.
One thing I either disagree with or don't fully understand is the parts I've bolded. I don't think leagues are entirely defined or rigidly exclusive, but a man who 100 women would describe as average looking will have a difficult time attracting a woman who 100 men describe as very good looking. I know those people's assessments aren't exactly part of a human interaction, but they have some use in predicting outcomes. If for whatever reason a man is dead set on getting together with very good looking women, knowing that he's betting on a longshot may ease his frustration if and when the longshot fails.
Or, if he knows that his "value" (I know how crass that sounds, but it applies) is modest, he can possibly do something to enhance his value, like changing his style or becoming more fit. If he believes he's about as attractive as he'll ever be, he can focus on all the benefits that come from connecting with another person whose "value" is also modest and approach women who are like him in that regard. In this case he's more likely to be successful, enjoy those benefits, and avoid frustration.
So in that case, isn't his "league" women whose attractiveness is closer to his? And isn't the romantic frustration some people feel based on not acknowledging their utility and aiming at a market that isn't likely to be interested in what they offer but expecting success? And isn't suggesting that someone adjusts expectations for success, improves one's prodect (self), or focuses on the market that is relatively open to him actionable?
I for one do think love exist. I see dating and love as two different things. Dating is very quantiable, but love is definitely not. I can narrow down the type of woman I'm interested in (quantifiable);however, I can't make that women fall in love with me. She has to want to feel the same way about me as I feel about her.
I'm a pretty cautious individual, which is why I haven't fallen in love much in my own life. In those moments that I fell in love, there was no way that I could quantify it into anything. It was just mutual respect and endearment towards each other. When you find love, or even the potential of love, it's definitely something I wouldn't pass up. The experience of love is rather amazing and this is coming from a guy that is often called intimidating.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry_Sellers
The bolded is the difference between men and women. Women have other places to seek out emotional connectedness besides romantic relationships.
Romantic, intimate relationships are really the only place that men can experience that, and when they're not in a relationship, they just don't get any.
Hogwash. You don't have friends? Or if you do, do you only talk to them about cars/sports? What about your female friends?
I don't think leagues are entirely defined or rigidly exclusive, but a man who 100 women would describe as average looking will have a difficult time attracting a woman who 100 men describe as very good looking. I know those people's assessments aren't exactly part of a human interaction, but they have some use in predicting outcomes. If for whatever reason a man is dead set on getting together with very good looking women, knowing that he's betting on a longshot may ease his frustration if and when the longshot fails.
Or, if he knows that his "value" (I know how crass that sounds, but it applies) is modest, he can possibly do something to enhance his value, like changing his style or becoming more fit. If he believes he's about as attractive as he'll ever be, he can focus on all the benefits that come from connecting with another person whose "value" is also modest and approach women who are like him in that regard. In this case he's more likely to be successful, enjoy those benefits, and avoid frustration.
So in that case, isn't his "league" women whose attractiveness is closer to his? And isn't the romantic frustration some people feel based on not acknowledging their utility and aiming at a market that isn't likely to be interested in what they offer, while still expecting success? And isn't suggesting that someone adjusts expectations for success, improves one's prodect (self), or focuses on the market that is relatively open to him actionable?
I don't deny that some people are in principle more appealing than others. What I deny is the connection between principle and practice.
Let's consider this thought-experiment. Pick some hypothetical man. Call him "average", by any palpable metric. He attempts to initiate an interaction with some woman – call her "above average". By the standard model, he ought to fail, because his mating-value is incommensurate with hers. So he proceeds down the sequence of women, from supposedly above-average to average and so forth. I don't believe that such an ordering exists, but let's stipulate that it does – never mind how sophomoric such a stipulation would be. Well then, what happens to our hypothetical average man? By the standard model, give or take some error-bars, eventually he runs sufficiently far down the ordering of women, that one of them will accept his suit. He selects the most-appealing women amongst the set that does accept him, and behold, we have a couple!
I disbelieve the outcome in this thought-experiment. First, and most important, it may be entirely possible that ALL women will reject our hypothetical man. It might also happen that he will be accepted only by women so far down the ordering, that he would be disgusted by his options, and would accept none of them. And it's possible that he would be accepted by women far "higher" than his own status. He may be accepted initially, but then be discarded. Or he may be shunted aside, but through sheer persistence eventually be accepted.
If I could quantify my "worth" and pursue only those women who had commensurate "worth", life would be vastly easier. Weigh me on the scales of righteousness (or whatever), arrive at a number, and tattoo it on my forehead. Do the same with women. Then pair like with like.
Many of us are enthusiasts of freedom and would bristle with outright loathing if somebody proposed that we segregate ourselves into castes and date only within those castes. But I would welcome such restrictions, for with restrictions come greater probabilities. Unfortunately, I don't believe that such castes exist – at least not in modern America. We have, as it were, too much freedom. By denying the idea of "leagues", I'm not celebrating the fluidity and pluralism of our modern world. On the contrary, I bemoan the complexity of our modern times. I sincerely wish that "leagues" DID exist, for then I'd know where I stand, and could act accordingly. But I can't.
Of course dating is a market. Failure and success are governed by market principles. But what goods have I to offer? What is their quality, their rarity, their freshness? Where shall I place my market-stall, and what shingle to hang? Who sells the same wares, and how do I compare the quality of mine, to that of theirs?
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Originally Posted by Larry_Sellers
It is very common knowledge that women have far better emotional support systems than men do. Want to argue that the sky isn't blue next?
It's also very common knowledge that men feel much more comfortable opening up emotionally within the confines of a romantic relationship, and for many men that's the only place they'll open up, hence my original statement.
Buddies (guys), for the most part, don't open up about their feelings like that to one another.
I try to keep my association with females to a bare minimum, only when it's absolutely unavoidable, so female friends aren't on my list.
You're changing tunes. I never said women don't have better support systems. You said:
"Romantic, intimate relationships are really the only place that men can experience that, and when they're not in a relationship, they just don't get any."
That is just garbage. Women may have better systems in general, that doesn't mean men don't have any. If YOU don't, that is YOUR fault. And you choose not to have female friends, which is bizarre to me... I mean, why in the world avoid half the population as potential friends? It doesn't make sense.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry_Sellers
Ok, so you're quibbling on the amount, or the degree? Men have far less of an emotional support network than women do, and primarily get their emotional support from romantic relationships. Therefore, when they are not in a romantic relationship, they don't get much emotional support. Better? Seems like a silly thing to take issue with.
As far as avoiding women...how about you go ahead and do what's right for you, and I do what's right for me. Mmmmkay?
Well words have meanings, so yes, absolutes vs degrees mean a great deal. Rhetoric matters.
Perfectly ok. Just don't whine when you want a date and can't get one considering you're putting yourself in that situation.
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) in bed.
. I get a better response when I tell her how happy she makes me, or better yet, when I show her in a variety of ways.
