I wish Eva Illouz had less success. She is mostly a philosopher, that is someone who says what's goes through her head, and a not a social scientist. I think her idea of the commoditization of love has a lot of success because it seems obvious to our moral oriented minds but the "commodization of {some aspect of life} in the modern society is a commonplace of lazy social analysis, and she is far from alone doing that, and by far not the worst.
Marital strategies have always existed, they just adapt to the economic system they are in. So far so good, but she claims it is the source of modern emotional misery and that people before knew how to love. That is I believe totally wrong, maybe they were more romantic types but they still exist today and that is besides the point when studying marital relationships. People did not know how to love better, they had less options, but their strategies varied. Far more interesting is I believe, in "post-indutrialized" societies, the effects on human psychology on the internalization of gender roles that are the remains of an older economic organization clashing with the fact that they are not economically enforced anymore.
The Agony of Eros: Dating
111–120 of 270 posts
Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating
#112> You learn about shared interests, job, which college they went to, their friend group.
This is the prime mistake I see my friends make. As a guy, there are pretty much only two things that will seriously and negatively affect your dating life: being short or boring.
Talking about your college, job, and friends is usually boring. In fact, even funny stories from these contexts are often boring for your dates to hear because they don't know the people involved (yet) and don't care about them.
This is how you, as a dude, end up with
> you can be very attractive and therefore have a wide range of people interested in you but not have the social skills/psychological acuity to translate initial interest into a successful relationship
Initial dates are primarily entertainment. Which is why they used to involve going to the cinema, a good meal, etc. You can go for a coffee, drinks, walk but come in with enough material to carry a conversation for these 1-4 hours.
Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating
#113Is it just me, or does this article really overthink way too much? IMO, dating is ultimately not a subject that could be analyzed by logic. At least not on on the personal / self-help level (of course sociology / statistics still work). Trying to find some kind of generally applicable "rules of the game" that would work for everyone (or even most) people seems somewhat "not even wrong". It's simply trying to use the…
Don't you think a decision that might affect your whole life is worth overthinking?
Why couldn't dating be analyzed by logic? If you want a lasting relationship shouldn't you try to think about it, not just feel your way through it?
Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating
#114Hot take: men don’t want promiscuous women as long-term partners, fundamentally people desire long-term partners, and the commoditization of sex contributes to weak relationships and broken families.
Hotter take: men don't want long-term partners period, monogamy is social conditioning because it leads to stable and more successful settlements.
Wouldn't that mean that "mate guarding" behaviors would have to be assumed to be wholly due to social conditioning? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_guarding_in_humans
Don't some behaviors like that also happen amongst other mammals or other animals in general?
Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. "Messed up" doesn't necessarily refer to that. 2. Not everybody thinks that's a good idea. Making out with strangers in a club is definitely trashy. It's the kind of thing that deceives everybody's expectations, also those of the bystanders, and can lead to a problematic outcome. You might want to say that that shouldn't happen in your particular ideal of society, but it does.
Meeting strangers to 'make out' with or 'hook up' with is literally the point of a club. It's been going on ever since humans had festivals and dances. Lets case conservatively 8 - 12k years. What you consider 'trashy' is completely culturally determined, and in this case amusingly bourgeois. This post is part of a wider trend toward sex negativity. It's not predicated on any major social change - in fact young peopl…
> completely culturally determined
Murder, another completely culturally determined taboo. The (presumed, I might add) fact that something is cultural doesn't change its value. And using bourgeois as dismissive is so 1970s.
Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating
#116I find the discussion of ghosting interesting. If I've gone on a bad date or two I don't specifically tell the other person I don't want to see them again unless they ask me. This allows for a lot more saving face if I run into them in the future (we can both pretend it just fell through the cracks) and is exactly how I want to be treated. While I appreciate the honesty I do find it a little condescending when someon…
What you're doing doesn't sound like ghosting. Ghosting is cutting off contact without warning or regard for the psychological consequences.
It's very easy to not be a ghost, all you have to do is provide a kind resolution. If someone asks you out on another date but you don't want to see them again, you just say something like "I'm sorry, I've gotten really busy lately, if I do have the chance to get together, I'll reach out."
No further communication is necessary. You've given them a plausible excuse that doesn't shred their ego too much and indicated that you're not interested in continuing.
If you don't do this, some people will speculate that it was their fault, and beat themselves up. They may blame it on their weight, their looks, their personality, over time, it may erode their self esteem. So it's good etiquette to not be a ghost. Unfortunately millions of people don't care enough to bother.
Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating
#117Looks like the commoditization of love/dating apps and social media begins to show its ugly tail. Stories from my circle of friends/families: - Girls obsessed over their physiques. Going skinny to the point it wrecked their hormones. - People who are married just shy over 2-3 years are thinking on divorce, or have girlfriends/boyfriends. - People having open relationships. - Girls randomly make out in club with some…
> Girls obsessed over their physiques. Going skinny to the point it wrecked their hormones.
Afaik, this does not have that much with dating/fitness. It is more to do with own body image expectations for their own sake - plus perfectionism, anxiety, growing in environment where fatness is mocked and fearing it, stuff like that.
> - Girls randomly make out in club with some random strangers they just met.
By stats I have seen, teenagers now start having sex later and are less likely to exhibit risky sexual behavior that those in the past (say 90ties). So while it definitely exists, it was not something that went up, but down instead.
Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating
#118> You learn about shared interests, job, which college they went to, their friend group. This is the prime mistake I see my friends make. As a guy, there are pretty much only two things that will seriously and negatively affect your dating life: being short or boring. Talking about your college, job, and friends is usually boring. In fact, even funny stories from these contexts are often boring for your dates to hear…
> come in with enough material to carry a conversation for these 1-4 hours
Wow you need a whole multi-part Netflix special just to go on a first date.
Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating
#119Looks like the commoditization of love/dating apps and social media begins to show its ugly tail. Stories from my circle of friends/families: - Girls obsessed over their physiques. Going skinny to the point it wrecked their hormones. - People who are married just shy over 2-3 years are thinking on divorce, or have girlfriends/boyfriends. - People having open relationships. - Girls randomly make out in club with some…
Every single item (minus Excel) was quite familiar before even the Internet, forget dating apps/sites.
Ok, this is getting really tangential, but AppleWorks was released in 1984, and Excel in 1987, way before 14k modems and the web browser (both around 1994). I think spreadsheets with girls or guys have been around for longer than many here seem to think...
Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People can smell if their offspring will be healthy pretty quickly That's so interesting, it's not BO right or some bad perfume/cologne.
No actually females can typically "smell" (for lack of a better word) out of the sweat of males if the immune system markers are different enough to protect potential offspring from getting the same sicknesses as mother or father. "In several species, including rodents and fish, it has been shown that the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) influences mating preferences" "This study thus supports the hypothesis th…
Human females typically prefer males that use deodorant. Human females can smell male sweat and typically find it smelly.