- Joined
- Sep 25, 2019
This is my main problem with this thread. Everyone has all of these horrendously long essays about how women and men do this or that or are entitled to think like this or trained to do that when there's literally nobody out there who approaches relationships in this kind of dimwitted instinctive way. This bullshit really affects very few people in the scheme of things.As it turns out, those who have already commented have been able to address a lot of what I would have. One thing I haven't seen, though, is the matter of investment.
The way young men are told to pursue intimacy is effeminate and unbecoming of men, which makes sense when you consider that it's the sum of what women tell them to do and what they glean from movie narratives that don't well-establish that they're more concerned with the actual variable part about the wacky adventures than they are with the granted ending of "he gets the girl", or-- in particular-- Disney movie narratives that present over and over again idealized, linear relationships where the man performs some grand gesture(s) to convince the woman to "love" him and they get to live "happily ever after" without even the discussion of their continued relationship, possible marriage, whatever kids they end up having, etc.
The idea that circulates among less assertive/aggressive boys is that they should start out as friends with the girl that they like, and then-- effectively-- attempt to seduce her through the development of that relationship. In the first place, this is a time sink with no guarantee of success, but the greater issue lies with the "inflection point" of such a relationship (if there's any at all, since perhaps mutual attraction does form but the lack of distinction in the relationship means that they find themselves in an awkward relationship phase where they're simultaneously friends and lovers but will have their relationship dissolve as though it were a friendship even as it hurts as if they were lovers).
There's a chance that admitting infatuation (let's be frank, too many young people these days have no sense of love/how to be lovable) can yield favorable results, but it doesn't always end up that way, and the implication of that is that the guy spent all this time and energy (months or even years worth, in some cases) devising a seduction strategy that went out the window in a couple minutes. It's a tough pill to swallow, and it's also why the advice of becoming the friend of someone you like (instead of outright telling them that you're infatuated with them in the first place) is a terrible strategy for men that... also only really benefits women, because-- if only during that friendship-- they have access to special privileges at the hand of this man trying to woo her without any need on her part to do anything (if you think I'm reeing about women here, just remember that this is the most primitive form of simping).
I'm telling you guys the majority of that dating pool you see staying out of relationships is apathetic at best. There's no modern source of information that can even give a straight answer on what the benefits of getting into a relationship even are. Its just a bunch of bloviating about true love and or touting the benefits of sex. Meanwhile the detriments of getting into a relationship are widely known. Dangerous or psychotic exes, being cheated on, or worst of all having kids with somebody you don't love, which always ends poorly. People are quite literally afraid of commitment because the stakes are needlessly high. I'm not the only one who feels that way either.
The entire premise of this thread is flawed. The reason people can't form proper relationships anymore is because they've lost faith in the idea that such a thing exists. For every success story there are hundreds of failures. Even if they didn't/couldn't end in divorce I can't count the number of horror stories I've heard about getting stuck with a spouse that's a nutcase or shitheel. You know maybe humans just aren't made for long term relationships, because we seem to be spectacularly bad at maintaining them.