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The Lie That Made Me

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Re: The Lie That Made Me

#71

Post by morgante »

maroonblazer wrote: post #55
madrox wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people with families can be incredibly protective of it and anything that may create emotional upheaval in it. If I were in his situation, I'd be thinking more about how this might impact my wife or children. Depending on upbringing and religion, I can see it being immensely traumatic for the rest of the family. I'd care more about protecting that stability than satisfying my or my donor child's curiosity. Yo…

I'm still not grokking the trauma. It's a cliche, but impregnating someone doesn't make you a parent, in the sense that's relevant to your comment. It's investing the time, attention, emotional and financial resources that grants one that status. If I learned that my dad was not actually traveling on business but instead tending to his alternate family, that would be sad. If I learned that he had biological offspring…

If "impregnating someone doesn't make you a parent" then why does the author even want contact with her biological father? There is zero rational reason for them to have contact or a relationship except that she clearly does want one. I don't blame him for not wanting a random new family member.

Re: The Lie That Made Me

#72

Post by maroonblazer »

morgante wrote: post #71
maroonblazer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still not grokking the trauma. It's a cliche, but impregnating someone doesn't make you a parent, in the sense that's relevant to your comment. It's investing the time, attention, emotional and financial resources that grants one that status. If I learned that my dad was not actually traveling on business but instead tending to his alternate family, that would be sad. If I learned that he had biological offspring…

If "impregnating someone doesn't make you a parent" then why does the author even want contact with her biological father? There is zero rational reason for them to have contact or a relationship except that she clearly does want one. I don't blame him for not wanting a random new family member.

It's perfectly rational to want to make contact with the person you inherited half your DNA from. I don't get from the article that the author was necessarily seeking a long-term, or otherwise deep relationship with their biological father.

Re: The Lie That Made Me

#73

Post by morgante »

maroonblazer wrote: post #72
morgante wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "impregnating someone doesn't make you a parent" then why does the author even want contact with her biological father? There is zero rational reason for them to have contact or a relationship except that she clearly does want one. I don't blame him for not wanting a random new family member.

It's perfectly rational to want to make contact with the person you inherited half your DNA from. I don't get from the article that the author was necessarily seeking a long-term, or otherwise deep relationship with their biological father.

I think it's perfectly understandable to want to make contact with him, but not necessarily rational.

If she doesn't want a relationship with him, why is she trying to make contact? (He's already given her medical info.) It's rather clear she does expect a relationship of some sort.

Re: The Lie That Made Me

#74

Post by maroonblazer »

morgante wrote: post #73
maroonblazer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's perfectly rational to want to make contact with the person you inherited half your DNA from. I don't get from the article that the author was necessarily seeking a long-term, or otherwise deep relationship with their biological father.

I think it's perfectly understandable to want to make contact with him, but not necessarily rational. If she doesn't want a relationship with him, why is she trying to make contact? (He's already given her medical info.) It's rather clear she does expect a relationship of some sort.

Either scenario is plausible. She may want nothing more than to spend no more than 2 hours over coffee learning about him. Or, she may want to kindle a long-term relationship. The author doesn't give us enough details to know one way or the other.

Re: The Lie That Made Me

#75

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

qiskit wrote: post #69
WalterBright wrote: post #62

At one of the military bases my dad was stationed at, he told me about a local woman who was going about this the old fashioned way. She was dark haired, and had 6 blonde boys. Every year when there was a new crew at the base, she'd show up at the local watering hole and scout out the tallest, blondest, smartest serviceman she could find, and you can guess the rest. She never wanted anything else from those men, and…

> Every year when there was a new crew at the base, she'd show up at the local watering hole and scout out the tallest, blondest, smartest serviceman she could find, and you can guess the rest. Did she give them an IQ test before inviting them to her place? How did she determine which one was the smartest? This reminds me of an article I read a while back about chinese women who were desperate to use US/EU sperm bank…

>How did she determine which one was the smartest?

Same how the Roman army did it when drafting. Having lively eyes and a witty sense of humor/banter, meant you were in the intelligent camp. Humans have had an evolutionary ability to quickly detect stupidity/intelligence in an individual. You can tell women are especially good at quickly probing/sensing this after a short conversation, if you've been dating a bit, which is why some men have gotten good at faking or compensating for it to up their odds (overconfidence, machoism, etc.).

Re: The Lie That Made Me

#76

Post by tomcam »

WalterBright wrote: post #58
MarkusWandel wrote: post #37

I'm not even remotely in the author's situation, but who hasn't sometimes resented some aspect of how they came to be? To which my own response is always "but that's what produced me! If anything had gone differently in even the minutest way (like which of those wiggly things wins the race) I wouldn't be here! Someone else would be. Case closed.

I know the odds that I exist are incredibly remote, and so am happy it happened and I'm alive.

So are many of us C, C++, and D programmers ;)

Re: The Lie That Made Me

#77

Post by Projectiboga »

maroonblazer wrote: post #74
morgante wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's perfectly understandable to want to make contact with him, but not necessarily rational. If she doesn't want a relationship with him, why is she trying to make contact? (He's already given her medical info.) It's rather clear she does expect a relationship of some sort.

Either scenario is plausible. She may want nothing more than to spend no more than 2 hours over coffee learning about him. Or, she may want to kindle a long-term relationship. The author doesn't give us enough details to know one way or the other.

Dude's seed was stolen, he wasn't a donor, he paid to have it stored for future use. When he tried to use what was left it failed. So I cut the guy a break on this, he never consented to either sex nor was he a donor. I'd like to think I'd want to speak to her, but I haven't gone through any of that process.

Re: The Lie That Made Me

#78

Post by langsoul-com »

kryptiskt wrote: post #14
anonporridge wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly a little worried about the social fracturing that could happen as genetic and paternity testing get increasingly cheap and ubiquitous. My intuition is that infidelity and paternity fraud is wildly more common than anyone wants to believe, and old social orders will break down as it becomes impossible to ignore and trivial for even light suspicions to be validated. I have to believe it's good in the long…

There was a study that showed that cuckoldry was pretty rare, the rate was around 1-2%[0]: "Reading the internet, or even perusing the scientific literature, you'd get the idea that people are constantly cheating on their spouses. Indeed, scientists have estimated that anywhere from 10-30 percent of men are unknowingly raising children who are not their own. This situation is referred to as cuckoldry, or scientifical…

Even so, 1-2% of 1 billion people is 10 million people...

Re: The Lie That Made Me

#79

Post by marc_abonce »

einpoklum wrote: post #18

While that doctor's behavior was indeed utterly unacceptable, I'm not sure I understand the insistence on figuring out which sperm donation got you pregnant (if you're the mother) or who exactly your biological father is. A hundred men donate sperm at some clinic, and then went on with their lives. If it were me, I doubt I would want to pick out one of them and try to pull them into my life. He hasn't done something…

Psychological reasons aside, because this information can be medically relevant.

For example the article mentions:

> Rebecca had also recently developed celiac disease, a hereditary condition that didn’t run in either of her parents’ families.

Re: The Lie That Made Me

#80

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

bluehorseray wrote: post #67
WalterBright wrote: post #62

At one of the military bases my dad was stationed at, he told me about a local woman who was going about this the old fashioned way. She was dark haired, and had 6 blonde boys. Every year when there was a new crew at the base, she'd show up at the local watering hole and scout out the tallest, blondest, smartest serviceman she could find, and you can guess the rest. She never wanted anything else from those men, and…

To be fair that selection process is close enough to how it works for everyone in the world, minus not wanting anything to do with them hah

>To be fair that selection process is close enough to how it works for everyone in the world

As a short and not very attractive male, tell me about it :)

In truth, before modern civilization, only one single male reproduced for every 17 females. That's some inequality, which I think is on par with how the market looks like on Tinder for some guys.

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