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OP, you gotta try to lighten up. That alone may make you happier, more attractive to women and more likable in general. You are too sensitive.
I'm not trying to pick on you here, since I know this was kind of an off-hand remark, but the part I bolded is actually the one area where the OP has something of a point. I think people often don't take you at face value when you say that you're not interested in relationships, so they make suggestions or push you into situations you don't want to be in. Is it all doom and gloom or the worst thing that's ever happened, like the OP is trying to make it out to be? No, of course not. But it is a little annoying that people don't respect what you've told them because it doesn't fit with their own experience.
(Of course, everything I said there can also apply to the OP and his judgmental attitude toward people who do pursue relationships.)
It's completely fine to not want to be in a relationship. But staying that anybody who does value relationships only does so because they are weak-mixed and brainwashed by society is just dumb.
Most people consider that sort of question to be small talk, not much more intrusive than "What is new with you?". I doubt your single status leads people to believe you are a "freak". Now, if you start ranting about how advertisers have brain-washed us all, that might raise some eyebrows.
Learn to respond politely. "Happily single. And you?"
.mmmm yes. ^^ Actually, most every time I've been asked whether or not I'm with someone special, its been because of interest in me. Never been asked that by a guy. Mostly it's been by friends/coworkers , of the interested person. Rarely has there not been an ulterior motive for wanting to know.
From the tone projected in the OP, I would think he would welcome.such inquiry, so as to showcase his position on relationships. Answering "happily single" would be a proper and polite way in which to do so, before riding into the proverbial sunset.
And that is just online dating direct revenue. Not to mention all the sex in advertising, the card and jewelry companies, the pandering to couples for restaurants, vacations etc.
We live in a sexual society based on coupling and relationships. Anyone who sees otherwise is blind. I guess next you'll be telling me society doesn't tell overweight people to lose weight at all
Doesn't back your claim that even the majority of relationships created are through societal pressures rather than other individual desires. Nor does it back the claim that 99% the population is pressured to accept the need for love/relationship/sex. We are a society places an importance on coupling relationships but one would argue that society's views on sex and relationships was created by human behavior not the other way around.
In the absense of dating/sex/relationship advertising, people still created relationships had sex. If there wasn't a drive to copulate and connect with other human beings, humans would have failed to continue to exist.
The claim that "99% society just accepts that they need love" is very different than the claim that society tells people to loose weight. In fact, the obesity problem in this country actually proves that societal pressures to loose weight doesn't actually result in people to loose weight. Much like love, sex, and relationships, there is more to it than just societal pressures.
Exactly, because 99% of society is appealed by romance and sex and all that crap, like I said. And that society puts pressure on those of us who aren't through things like advertising. That is my point
Then what a confused and empty point it is. If you feel "pressured" by advertising then you just need a thicker skin. As the user you replied to pointed out, it is not society pressuring us into relationships with advertising. It is advertisers appeals to something already in us to sell products. It sounds like your issue is with advertising. Have you considered getting rid of your tele or radio or wherever it is these evil evil people are imposing their entirely optional will upon you in your mind? Are you generally a sensitive soul who takes such things that heavily to heart?
Because I think what most people I talk to think, and the message most people are giving you on this thread, is that their desire and feelings towards wanting to be in a relationship have little to nothing to do with what society expects or demands or advertises..... so much as it has everything to do with internal human drives incumbent upon the human condition. It is simply a natural desire for the majority. And just because YOU do not want it (and there is NOTHING wrong with that I might add) that does not mean anyone else is doing it wrong, or is just some sort of societal conformist or whatever it is you appear to imagine.
All that said however I wonder what advertising you are watching that is doing this to you. As when I think of any advertising I have been subjected to in the last 5 or 10 years all I can think of is advertising offering me cleaning product, fizzy drinks, convenience meals, holidays, beer, and inviting me to watch certain sporting and movie events.
In fact not one advertisement I can think of at this time has in any way mail me feel I was being pressured, coerced, or even suggested to that I should be in relationships or anything of that sort. At most what they do is, sometimes, suggest that IF you want to be in a relationship that their product.... in some unspecified way..... will magically assist you in that.
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
And if we all wanted to be with the same sex, we would go extinct.
Where did you pull that one out of? Homosexuals reproduce all the time you know. They use things like surrogacy and donations and so forth. Even if the entire species became homosexual tomorrow.... a fantastical nonsense scenario in the first place but lets go with it....... there is no reason to suggest that the drive, and move, to reproduce would be any less prevalent or indulged. Let alone to the levels required for "extinction".
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
That is completely different. One can live without sex or relationships and be biologically sound, not so much water and food.
You are over extending the analogy. The point of the analogy is just that people pandering their products and advertising to common traits of our species, are not responsible for the common traits of our species. The Advertising world is pandering to our general need as humans to find love, relationships, sex and reproduction. Not the other way around as your tirade would appear to suggest.
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
I am just talking about SOCIETY and how it treats those of us who want neither as freaks...or at least, American society as in Japan this kind of thing is considered okay.
Perhaps it is unusual to the location in which you live then. Because no one on this thread, bar perhaps one, appears to be in even the remotest level of agreement with you. And being from Ireland, and having lots of experience in the UK and Germany I can also say that what you describe does not match anything I have experienced here either. Nor, I notice, has anyone on this thread called you wrong or a freak for wanting what you want, and not wanting what you do not want. So where ARE these people with their wagging fingers and judgments exactly? Or is it, as a few other users have already posted, that you are construing simple small talk and questions as being a judgement or an attack? I repeat the "grow a thicker skin" comment from above if so.
There are similar threads to yours about the topic of not wanting children. They still want relationships just not children. And those threads give off pretty much the same impression as yours. Which is that SOME people who do not want children feel judged by others by this. But the number of such people is by far the minority, as is the number of people, it seems, doing the judging too.
Perhaps what is the issue here is not "society" but the quality of people you are coming in contact with in whatever social or employment circles you have been moving in. And you have extrapolated from that poor grade of people to an assumption about society as a whole.
Yes there are "expectations" out there, because the human narrative is not that diverse. And yes exceptions to that narrative such as yourself are uncommon enough to raise and eye brow on the rare occasion we meet one. But I think the vast majority of people accept that..... so if you feel judged or attacked or pressured then I fully suspect the problem is either with you personally somehow, or the quality of people you move in your circles with.
Doesn't back your claim that even the majority of relationships created are through societal pressures rather than other individual desires.
People desire sex biologically, of course. But there is nothing about our species that makes us desire love. By nature, most of us could be just as fine mating with a random stranger a couple times a week, with the exception of worry about disease.
But then again, I am speaking from a male prospective. And indeed, as politically incorrect as it is to say, majority of men do not want relationships. They just want sex and understand that relationships were created by society to structure sex. At first it was marriage that provided that structure, and then it became long term relationships. The next logical step in the liberation of sex from love is to do away with relationships entirely, as we are seeing with the rise of "Tindr" "dating."
In short I'm just ahead of the curve: once relationships are rendered obsolete, sex is the next item of of our social-evolution check list.
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Nor does it back the claim that 99% the population is pressured to accept the need for love/relationship/sex. We are a society places an importance on coupling relationships but one would argue that society's views on sex and relationships was created by human behavior not the other way around.
In the absense of dating/sex/relationship advertising, people still created relationships had sex. If there wasn't a drive to copulate and connect with other human beings, humans would have failed to continue to exist.
I was NOT saying advertising was THE reason, but a symptom in an over-all social disease. This idea that humans are "social animals" is harmful. We are not. We are not even "animals".
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The claim that "99% society just accepts that they need love" is very different than the claim that society tells people to loose weight. In fact, the obesity problem in this country actually proves that societal pressures to loose weight doesn't actually result in people to loose weight. Much like love, sex, and relationships, there is more to it than just societal pressures.
It is tradition, the consensus reality etc that makes such thinking the case.
The good news is our species is moving away from the burdens of the "flesh" and the "heart" . The more advanced a society gets, the faster it moves away from such ideas as love and dating, and then it reaches the appex of its achievements: it forgets about sex. This is happening in Japan in large numbers:
Then what a confused and empty point it is. If you feel "pressured" by advertising then you just need a thicker skin. As the user you replied to pointed out, it is not society pressuring us into relationships with advertising. It is advertisers appeals to something already in us to sell products. It sounds like your issue is with advertising. Have you considered getting rid of your tele or radio or wherever it is these evil evil people are imposing their entirely optional will upon you in your mind? Are you generally a sensitive soul who takes such things that heavily to heart?
If it was just ads, no big deal at all. But so much of our music, culture, are, literature, and even language revolves around human coupling it is enough to drive me nauseous.
Also, I said things LIKE advertising, not such a thing exclusively. And it is just a symptom of the larger issues: society is set up to make people obey certain expectations, and punishes them when they disobey. "Romance" is one such false god which has its praise heaped on it by the high-priests of society (journalism, commerce, media, books, music etc) and to which we are expected to tithe willingly to. Not just with our money, but our souls and very lives.
Do "x,y, and z" to please your spouse will scream a parent "you need a relationship for reason A, B, and C" says the therapist. And never is brought up the radical notion that perhaps there are better things to dedicate so much energy to besides partaking in such an archaic set of institutions and practices. That's all I am doing: suggesting that, perhaps, all this "relationship" rubbish is just that: a delusion that society would do better without and one that causes too much harm in the world (i.e, date-rape, domestic violence etc)
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Because I think what most people I talk to think, and the message most people are giving you on this thread, is that their desire and feelings towards wanting to be in a relationship have little to nothing to do with what society expects or demands or advertises..... so much as it has everything to do with internal human drives incumbent upon the human condition. It is simply a natural desire for the majority.
I doubt that. More people would abandon the stupidity of "relationships" if there was not constant societal pressure not too. Society has determined that being interested in "love" is normal and not is "abnormal", and few will risk being seen as "abnormal" and masquerade as another member of The Herd instead.
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And just because YOU do not want it (and there is NOTHING wrong with that I might add) that does not mean anyone else is doing it wrong, or is just some sort of societal conformist or whatever it is you appear to imagine.
They are not "wrong" so long as they do not have children or push their practices onto others, but they are usually conforming.
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Where did you pull that one out of? Homosexuals reproduce all the time you know. They use things like surrogacy and donations and so forth. Even if the entire species became homosexual tomorrow.... a fantastical nonsense scenario in the first place but lets go with it....... there is no reason to suggest that the drive, and move, to reproduce would be any less prevalent or indulged. Let alone to the levels required for "extinction".
That is the point I was making. Years ago such ideas were common place but now they are laughed at. Likewise, the notion that "humans are social animals" or "humans desire companionship" will be viewed of as archaic pseudo-psychology, just as we view such homophobia as laughable today.
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Yes there are "expectations" out there, because the human narrative is not that diverse. And yes exceptions to that narrative such as yourself are uncommon enough to raise and eye brow on the rare occasion we meet one. But I think the vast majority of people accept that..... so if you feel judged or attacked or pressured then I fully suspect the problem is either with you personally somehow, or the quality of people you move in your circles with.
Oh yes, because everyone has a family that would simply raise an eyebrow and shrug at a member who insisted they would never breed or engage in romantic relationships and stuck to it. Because a man who doesn't have a girlfriend and is never sighted at any bars and doesn't seem to be interested in anything NEVER made anyone whisper at the job and because living alone and being quiet will never make the neighbors turn and walk the other way and wonder if this person is a serial killer...
People desire sex biologically, of course. But there is nothing about our species that makes us desire love. By nature, most of us could be just as fine mating with a random stranger a couple times a week, with the exception of worry about disease.
But then again, I am speaking from a male prospective. And indeed, as politically incorrect as it is to say, majority of men do not want relationships. They just want sex and understand that relationships were created by society to structure sex. At first it was marriage that provided that structure, and then it became long term relationships. The next logical step in the liberation of sex from love is to do away with relationships entirely, as we are seeing with the rise of "Tindr" "dating."
In short I'm just ahead of the curve: once relationships are rendered obsolete, sex is the next item of of our social-evolution check list.
I was NOT saying advertising was THE reason, but a symptom in an over-all social disease. This idea that humans are "social animals" is harmful. We are not. We are not even "animals".
It is tradition, the consensus reality etc that makes such thinking the case.
The good news is our species is moving away from the burdens of the "flesh" and the "heart" . The more advanced a society gets, the faster it moves away from such ideas as love and dating, and then it reaches the appex of its achievements: it forgets about sex. This is happening in Japan in large numbers:
"Majority of men don't want relationships"
"99% of society are just accepts that they need love"
"We are not even animals".
All ludicrous statements...... to feed further logic that is off-kilter. I'm certainly not one to waste time posting on some forum about things that I have no interest in. More important things to do.
I must be part of that 1%. If anyone, I've lead a promiscious past with a lot of sexual partners and still ended up wanting a real loving relationship.
People desire sex biologically, of course. But there is nothing about our species that makes us desire love.
"Citation needed"
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
as politically incorrect as it is to say, majority of men do not want relationships.
"Citation needed"
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
They just want sex
Speak for yourself. You do not appear to be representative of me or any males I know.
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
and understand that relationships were created by society to structure sex.
"Citation needed". Man you are on something of a citation free assertion spree here!
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
At first it was marriage that provided that structure
Actually if you bothered to research the first thing about the history of marriage you would find it had less to do with "sex" and more to do with things like inheritance and property laws. But bothering to do research or citation does not appear to be an MO you subscribe to much.
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
This idea that humans are "social animals" is harmful. We are not. We are not even "animals".
More assertion. You have not shown that it is wrong OR harmful. It would also be interesting to know what definition of "animal" you are using here that precludes Humans for the definition. Because any of the definitions I know from.... you know the ACTUAL scientific world...... very much includes humans in them.
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
The more advanced a society gets, the faster it moves away from such ideas as love and dating
Again citation needed. Japan is hardly evidence for your wanton assertions. Especially given dating culture, dating apps and more are highly popular there. And the link you provide does not support you much.
Firstly because the type of people it describes are a minority, and it does not (like you) claim it is because the society is getting "more Advanced" but in fact blames the changes on " the country's economic stagnation since the early 1990s". And they do not say the change is because men WANT to change but "Men today simply can't live that stereotypical 'happy' life.". Can't. Not choose not to. Can't.
Secondly because correlation is not causation anyway. You have simply asserted, based on nothing, a link between advancement and the traits you identify. You could just as validly (that is not to say that validly at all) be declaring that the more advanced a society becomes the more homosexuals there are. Because that is another correlation that so far holds true.
So I am not really seeing anything in that link that actually supports anything you are including in your own tirades. Not to mention this is a news paper article and not an actual study of anything.
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
Hopefully this trend will continue and the fraud that is romantic love will be forgotten forever.
Again, YOU not wanting something does not make that thing a fraud, nor the people who are involved in that something. You are projecting. Little else.
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
If it was just ads, no big deal at all. But so much of our music, culture, are, literature, and even language revolves around human coupling it is enough to drive me nauseous.
Again however those things are pandering TO those traits in us. And all I, and others, have pointed out is that any suggestion you have made explicitly or simplicity that the causal link is the other way around is baseless.
See your own posts and thoughts are highlighting the internal nonsense within them. On one hand you are saying it is all "fraud" and that this need for love and romance and so forth does not exist but is somehow instilled in us by advertising and social expectations.
On the other hand however you are listing different types of industry and services that pander to, and exist because of, the very human traits and needs that you are simply pretending do not exist in us.
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
society is set up to make people obey certain expectations
Again you have it backwards in your attempt to make a conspiracy theory of "control" out of the whole thing. You pretend society is setup to foster certain traits and conformance in us. Yet you provide NO evidence of this claim. And what everyone on the thread is saying to you so far is that the reverse is more coherent, that society is set up as it is BECAUSE of the traits, characteristics, needs, desires and expectations the members of it have. Not the other way around as your fantasy would suggest.
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
and punishes them when they disobey.
Except you have not shown ANY such "punishment" is in effect or operation.... aside from your own seemingly imagined slights and attacks when people do nothing more than make small talk with you.
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
Do "x,y, and z" to please your spouse will scream a parent "you need a relationship for reason A, B, and C" says the therapist.
Spouse orientated screaming parents? Controlling therapists? I am not sure what world you are living in but it is nowhere I have been or know anyone who has been there. But my only advice for you would be to get out of there soon and move to the real world with the rest of us.
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
And never is brought up the radical notion that perhaps there are better things to dedicate so much energy to besides partaking in such an archaic set of institutions and practices.
Perhaps you simply have not been listening. Because I have heard lots of people bring up all sorts of such notions. All over the world. You even quoted an article of SOME Japanese youths doing it. So while you say it is "never" brought up, you yourself rebut your own nonsense by giving EXAMPLES of it being brought up. Do you even TRY to make sense when you write, or do you just not let internal coherence or facts get in the way of a good old rant???
From the catholic and other churches, where priests/monks/nuns have dedicated themselves to a life of charity and celibacy...... to the worlds of the yoggis and the mystics.... to people who are just biologically and/or psychologically asexual..... the world is heavily punctuated by MANY people who live outside the narrative you are so eager to decry. Yet you sit there pretending the "radical notion" is "never brought up"????
There is a diverse and wide chasm of detail at place between the real world and the one you have constructed in your head I fear.
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
That's all I am doing: suggesting that, perhaps, all this "relationship" rubbish is just that: a delusion that society would do better without and one that causes too much harm in the world (i.e, date-rape, domestic violence etc)
Now you are getting shrill and desperate. Relationships cause things like date rape? Where are you pulling THAT canard out of exactly? But no I do not even think you are being honest when you say "all" you are doing is "suggesting" something. You are doing a LOT more than that. Distortions of reality. Stopping just shy of personal attacks and insults on anyone who DOES live by the narrative that irks you. Conspiracy theories that society is structured with your conformance in mind. And much.... much.... more.
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
I doubt that. More people would abandon the stupidity of "relationships" if there was not constant societal pressure not too.
That is indeed the fantasy you are selling. But to date you have been basing it 100% on assertion and 0% on any actual evidence or citation.
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
They are not "wrong" so long as they do not have children
And what is wrong with people who want relationships wanting to have children exactly? You really are pulling a string of nonsense out today.
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
That is the point I was making.
So you said if everyone wanted to be with their own sex our race would go extinct.
I explained there is no reason to think that.
And you respond that "that was the point" you were making?
I have to repeat the question I asked already. Are you even TRYING to make sense when you write?
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Originally Posted by victorianpunk
Oh yes, because everyone has a family that would simply raise an eyebrow and shrug at a member who insisted they would never breed or engage in romantic relationships and stuck to it.
It might be nice if you at least had the decorum to READ my posts before replying to them because I never said "everyone who had a family" would do so. I said the vast majority would. But I am well aware there are SOME rabble in the world who will judge and even attack anyone who lives a life with a differing narrative to their own.
But I would not extrapolate from those few biggoted busy bodies into feeling "attacked by society" in general or any of the other conspiracy theory jaded canard you are pedaling here without basis or citation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by victorianpunk
Because a man who doesn't have a girlfriend and is never sighted at any bars and doesn't seem to be interested in anything NEVER made anyone whisper at the job and because living alone and being quiet will never make the neighbors turn and walk the other way and wonder if this person is a serial killer...
Again speak for yourself. I know several such people.... over several countries.... and no one has any issue with them. Once again you are just making it sound like the particular people YOU attract or hang around with, work with, or gravitate towards are simply awful people. But your experience does not appear to map onto many, if any, people who have replied to this thread thus far.
It seems from the general tone of replies here that A) no one has any issue at all with the path you have chosen for your life despite you declaring most people attack you for it and B) everyone, or just about, seem to parse your view of the world and society as you living in some kind of la la land. A comedy only compounded by the fact that you.... with no interest in relationships..... are posting on a RELATIONSHIPS forum...... while having a thread questioning why people with no interest in religion would post on a RELIGION forum.
Internal coherence, let alone external, is not coming across in anything you do or write here. But keep it up, the currency of your own credibility is one you can flutter away with my facilitation any time you wish.
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