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The Agony of Eros: Dating

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Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making out with strangers is a fast way to get sick with something. Same with open relationships. You’re getting exposed to every germ, virus, STD, etc. that they have. Plus traditionally when you have a partner it’s like a form of property. An open relationship is like sharing your house or car with everyone but probably even worse.

TLDR; Extrapolating both your points you should thus only have one partner for life. And never leave the house (just use delivery apps/wear an ABC suit when opening the door of your house to receive deliveries). The first objection you listed contains all the reasons to use protection. In general. I live in Berlin. A city where open/poly relationships are perfectly normal and common. The bday party I went to last Sat…

I had lived in Berlin for over 7 years and the only rare sex I had was with the girlfriend which I had brought there with me. For me there was no perspective of any sexual relationship with even remotely attractive woman. Dating apps hadn't resulted even with a single real life meeting. So I guess your example is anegdotal as is mine.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#172
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eros did not just represent lust but also love. Agape is a context more limited to christianity, which kind of has anti-sexual overtone. But there were many Erotes representing all kinds of desire and attraction > Anteros ("Love Returned"),[1] Hedylogos ("Sweet-talk"), Hermaphroditus ("Hermaphrodite" or "Effeminate"), Himeros ("Impetuous Love" or "Pressing Desire"), Hymenaios ("Bridal-Hymn"), and Pothos ("Desire, Lon…

> [...] christianity, which kind of has anti-sexual overtone. As a Christian, I wouldn't agree with this statement. Most denominations that I've experienced are very pro-sex. We see sex as a gift from God, intended to bond two (or, depending on the denomination, maybe more) people together. God is Love, we're taught, and sex is understood to be an expression of love. Now, you might be right if you said Christianity w…

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Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#173
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Based on your comments here and what I’ve seen of polyamorous people’s online dating profiles I think I am more likely to respect a man in such a relationship style than I am to respect you. Do you think this comment is helpful? If not do you think your own comments have been helpful? If your answers to those two questions are different do you know why they are different?

Psst, don't tell them about cuckqueaning.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#174
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is “messed up” about open relationships and making out with strangers?

An open relationship is an abusive relationship, even if on the surface it doesn't look like one. You cannot love a partner without fearing of losing them - there has to be some kind of an investment. If you let your partner be intimate sexually with other people then that is definitely bound to happen. And if that doesn't scare you, then you don't really care about him/her. In most cases this is pretty much cuckoldr…

So you are saying monogamy exists primarily because of jealousy and fear?

I wonder who would enter a relationship build on these foundations?

Can you explain why you think "loosing your partner" is bound to happen when they have sex with other people?

What about them falling in love with a co-worker (no sex required), dying from a car accident one day etc.?

How do you assume these things are less likely than when sex enters the picture?

Your emphasis on sex and what meaning it carries in relationships (particularly successful ones) seems to be be completely disproportionate to reality.

People in open relationships tend to give more assurance to each other.

Jealousy always exists. I can be jealous because my partner goes to her "girls night" and I don't get to spend time with her.

Why would I be more or less jealous than if she had a date that night that involved sex?

Once you think about this for a bit you realize that the choice/reasons for jealousy are mostly arbitrary/cultural and can be overcome. Like any bad habit.

As for access to sex: there are options for men to balance the sheet. Just take up some sort of social dancing; tango, swing, salsa etc. Or sport. Climbing gyms are playgrounds for singles.

And these options also open the door for "having sex with a stranger/recent aquaintance tonight".

If that is so important to you.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#175
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hotter take: men don't want long-term partners period, monogamy is social conditioning because it leads to stable and more successful settlements.

If we reframe this into societal terms, so that this doesn't get dragged into a "not all men want that" argument, why is it that most modern societies had/has rigid, monogamous family units? There are stereotypes for both promiscuous men and women, and clearly there's some degree of promiscuity in both genders. But the (vast?) majority of societies also adopted monogamous family units for most social classes. If men…

1) Societal stability

2) Most men are not capable of being promiscuous, even if they want to be

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#176
post #153

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…

Sadly, "commoditization" has become a meaningless word thrown around by those who claim intellectual descent from Marx, with a meaning something like "corruption". Marx used the term (well, "commodification") with a very specific sociological and economic meaning, where some object with a natural "use value" (you can wear a coat to keep warm) is assigned a somewhat artificial "exchange value" (you can sell a coat for…

Well that echoes my complaint about a big chunk of the left throwing the word "capitalism" around not being really interested in what capitalism is, how it works or having a very moralistic view of what it think it is ("the reign of money", allright, what is money ?)

One of the few whom I think is pretty clear about what he thinks it is and is able to explain it in its historical context is Vivek Chibber.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TLDR; Extrapolating both your points you should thus only have one partner for life. And never leave the house (just use delivery apps/wear an ABC suit when opening the door of your house to receive deliveries). The first objection you listed contains all the reasons to use protection. In general. I live in Berlin. A city where open/poly relationships are perfectly normal and common. The bday party I went to last Sat…

I had lived in Berlin for over 7 years and the only rare sex I had was with the girlfriend which I had brought there with me. For me there was no perspective of any sexual relationship with even remotely attractive woman. Dating apps hadn't resulted even with a single real life meeting. So I guess your example is anegdotal as is mine.

I don't quite follow. Were you in a monogamous relationship for seven years? Then this is expected/a choice you made. Berlin as a background doesn't matter.

If not, how many years were you single in Berlin?

Why was there no perspective? What exactly did you try?

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ignorance is never the superior tactic

Being knowingly ignorant is less ignorant than being unknowingly ignorant. Over systematization of dating creates illusory knowledge that impedes connection. I've seen how the obsessive-analytic mindset fares in dating. I'll take bumbling along any day.

This article specifically decries systems.

The advice not to over-analyse is itself an analasys and a piece of wisdom, which you and anyone you tell it to is better off for knowing. You have improved your and any readers life by becoming less ignorant. Your analasys is actually merely about optimization, specifically over-optimization or mis-directed optimization. And that is just one of the many thhings that are valuable to know, and which you can only know by thinking about it.

Maybe you're a thoughtless person and you only get it after years of unthinking miserable victimhood. Maybe you're a thoughtful person and this understanding occures to you on your own before you waste your life. Maybe you have the good fortune to have a parent that doesn't think ignorance is bliss and they imparted the wisdom to you. But one way or another, to have the understanding, you had to think about it, it had to be a tbought that existed in your head.

But you know who really does advocate for ignorance? Predators.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making out with strangers is a fast way to get sick with something. Same with open relationships. You’re getting exposed to every germ, virus, STD, etc. that they have. Plus traditionally when you have a partner it’s like a form of property. An open relationship is like sharing your house or car with everyone but probably even worse.

TLDR; Extrapolating both your points you should thus only have one partner for life. And never leave the house (just use delivery apps/wear an ABC suit when opening the door of your house to receive deliveries). The first objection you listed contains all the reasons to use protection. In general. I live in Berlin. A city where open/poly relationships are perfectly normal and common. The bday party I went to last Sat…

Berliners are a weird group culturally. This is the same bunch of people that went on an anti-Semitic and racist bender and massacred millions of people across Europe. I don’t think they are a good example of how life should be lived. Weird/crazy people being weird. Everything is acceptable to Berliners.

Re: The Agony of Eros: Dating

#180

A lot of comments here missing the point of the article. People are quick to blame apps for dating pain. Reading the article, very few of the author's points are caused by the app-ification of dating. It is easy to blame "the corporations" for social issues. Let's get specific about what is happening. The article does offer good insight, which I'll highlight here: 1. The root of many dating issues is a lack of commun…

I do think apps have something to do with it. Not saying they're evil, but I do think they contribute to the objectification of people. Maybe more importantly, I think they shift the focus in relationships to initial appearances, and onto the evaluation of the other person rather than ones self. I think a lot of this is subtle and not limited to dating. A lot that's too much for me to put in an HN comment from my pho…

Yes, and your point makes of the OP article's take on "the list" of requirements for a partner. A lot of people do get trapped into an unduly logical mode of thinking about prospective partners. I could see that dating on apps would encourage this way of thinking. I strongly agree with the article's take:

> For ex: someone might say, what I want is a guy who’s athletic, has a stable job, wants to have children, good relationship with his family, is funny and emotionally aware. I don’t think lists like that are helpful, because you’re probably subconsciously filtering based on those qualities anyway. The real thing people should be actively looking for is strong emotional connection, as in: to what degree can I share who I am with this person, do they get it, how interested are they in who I am, my feelings and thoughts, can we accommodate each other’s preferences, are we good at talking.

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