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I’ve been single all my life

lukasrosenstock.net

271–280 of 443 posts

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#271
post #56
post #19

I guess I've been a "volcel" for almost 4 years now after an almost 20 year relationship. I have pretty mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I get lonely, intensely lonely at times. And I miss the companionship I had (before it got awful.) On the other hand, I have so much time now to just focus on myself and my kids and my career and hobbies and my mental well being. I've increased my income a lot in the last y…

> On the one hand, I get lonely, intensely lonely at times. And I miss the companionship I had (before it got awful.) I know the feeling, though perhaps not so deeply. My LTR was only 7 years. > Dating seems dire these days as well. Depending on your religious moors, you might consider hitting some conservative churches.

> Depending on your religious moors, you might consider hitting some conservative churches.

If OP is a Spaniard, they might not like "religious moors".

Not to be pedantic, but I think you meant "mores" (pronounced like "morays").

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#272
post #53
post #7

I haven't been single all my life, but the relationships I have had have taught me things that makes it easier to be single. I remember the good times fondly, but the bad times remind me why being single isn't so bad.

I'm a woman and have had long serious relationships and long-ish stretches of being single. Took me a while to filter through all the social pressure BS and realize that, on balance, I have been way (WAY) happier single. Maybe this could change one day? But right now I have no interest in changing it. It'd take someone extraordinary. I'm not 'poly' or 'asexual' or any of that crap, I've just had to give up so much of…

Yeah I had something similar and took a looong break from like 30-37 because I just couldn't deal with all the stress of someone else's expectations and issues while I was working on some personal and professional stuff. Eventually I was like, I don't want to be alone, I'm going to actually try dating again, got married and had a baby at 41 :) But it could have easily gone another way and I was mostly fine with it.

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#273
post #99

I think the word that Rosenstock was searching for, was "Introvert"[1]. I'm an introvert who had the good fortune to marry another introvert, and live contentedly with her for 40+ years. Following her death a few years ago I reflected on the differences between being part of a couple, and being solitary. There were many. Health maintenance was one; somebody else in this thread has already commented on married men liv…

>> married men living longer

Could it be just healthier and wealthier men getting ringed more often?

>> forget things or miss appointments

Don't see how that is a problem in the age of smartphones. If you insist on a person, you can hire a virtual assistant for way cheaper than a wife.

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do actually want children. I think it rather undermines your claim that I was putting words in your mouth when you first put words in mine, and then immediately transition to a justification of your view that relationships are principly about raising children. What you said was that social pressure for women to get married young was justified because that was when they had the best chance of giving birth to healthy…

FWIW, I didn’t read what GP wrote as being prescriptive nor “justification”, but rather an observation of the statistics involved in heterosexual males selection of dating/marriage prospects. I hate the idea of anyone feeling inferior or less worthy due to not being chosen by someone else. At the same time, we can speak objectively about what one group of people statistically find desirable in another group. I mean,…

Certainly it is normal & healthy to communicate what you're looking for in a relationship upfront, and to respond to that blamelessly as you suggest. I'm not convinced in the utility of using statistics to derive dating advice, I think by and large there's a huge diversity in what people are looking for and the best advice is to work on being a healthy and realized person and being patient with finding a partner, but I wouldn't suggest it simply shouldn't be discussed.

I don't understand how you can read the comment as being purely descriptive, when it makes categorical statements about people's "value" with a postscript about how these "truths" are too hot to handle. If it were simply about following the facts wherever they lead, surely there wouldn't be a need to preemptively declare that anyone who disagreed did so irrationally, and surely it wouldn't have been categorical without making room for nuance or disagreement.

In my mind, if you feel moved to discredit anyone who might disagree with you before they've had a chance to join the discussion, you're probably not neutrally sharing a simple factual observation. That's a strong indication that you're making a statement about how you think things should be, not how they are objectively. It doesn't matter so much when people disagree with you about something objective, they're simply wrong and the truth will win out. It's when you want them to behave in a certain way that disagreement is difficult to tolerate.

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#275
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I understand the point you're trying to make, but this is the sort of discussion board where many people are literalists. Women literally are baby machines: from the perspective of biology, and as a critical asset in the development of the human race (especially during times of high child mortality). People get upset when you point this out, but they don't get upset because it's the truth, they get upset beca…

Appeals to literalism or objectivity often serve to create a seemingly objective and seemingly simple veneer over something that's truly subjective and complex. In this case, "women are baby machines" is obscuring a lot: - This is conflating being female with being a woman. Being female is a biological fact, being a woman is a distinct concept from being female. Conflating them serves to imply that our ideas about wo…

Being a woman means being a female.

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#276
post #99

I think the word that Rosenstock was searching for, was "Introvert"[1]. I'm an introvert who had the good fortune to marry another introvert, and live contentedly with her for 40+ years. Following her death a few years ago I reflected on the differences between being part of a couple, and being solitary. There were many. Health maintenance was one; somebody else in this thread has already commented on married men liv…

Introversion has drastically different effects for men and women in the dating market. An introverted woman will still get approached by men, so even if she intentionally opts out of dating, she can always opt back in pretty much on the fly if a guy she likes approaches her. So she will still get relationships, if she wants them.

Introverted men, on the other hand, often just don't pursue women, especially if they have low testosterone (or sex drive) as the OP probably does. Since in most cultures men are expected to do the initial approach, this can translate into very long spells (decades or more) of singleness for them. Even worse, introverted men are often very bad at reading women's signals. Those are often quite subtle, because for extroverted men interested in dating (the majority), women just don't need to signal that much to get results.

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#277
post #99

I think the word that Rosenstock was searching for, was "Introvert"[1]. I'm an introvert who had the good fortune to marry another introvert, and live contentedly with her for 40+ years. Following her death a few years ago I reflected on the differences between being part of a couple, and being solitary. There were many. Health maintenance was one; somebody else in this thread has already commented on married men liv…

>> married men living longer Could it be just healthier and wealthier men getting ringed more often? >> forget things or miss appointments Don't see how that is a problem in the age of smartphones. If you insist on a person, you can hire a virtual assistant for way cheaper than a wife.

Your virtual assistant is not going to remind you of things that you did not devote to telling a virtual assistant in the first place. Your spouse is more likely to help fill in the unintentional places you might have missed in your intentional day to day actions.

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just social pressure, it's simply a biological fact. For each year after ~30, the chance of having something wrong with a child during pregnancy goes up. On average in relationships, women's greatest value is their youth and beauty (early/mid 20s), men's greatest value is when they've progressed in their career and are amassing wealth (mid/late 30s). There's nothing wrong about pointing this out, they're jus…

Women are not baby machines or objects of beauty, they're people. Their "greatest value" is whatever they decide it to be. They should form relationships in the way that brings them the most happiness. Reducing women to objects of beauty, saying their value comes from their fertility, and implying that if they disagree with that assessment it's because they're too emotional is almost the dictionary definition of miso…

I think your response is resulting in so much disagreement in the comments due to differences in how this quote is parsed:

> On average in relationships, women's greatest value is their youth and beauty (early/mid 20s), men's greatest value is when they've progressed in their career and are amassing wealth (mid/late 30s).

Particularly what the word “value” means in this context.

I suspect you take “value” to mean something like “is deserving of positive self esteem; worthy of positive sentiment/respect/love”.

I, and I suspect most others here in the comments, take “value” to mean something very different; roughly: “that which is statistically pursued and/or desired by others”. In this sense, it can be said that (within certain circles) sticking a needle in your arm and checking out of your life is valued. That says nothing of how you and I feel about others doing that, whether that’s healthy/moral/ethical/whatever behavior, etc. The statistics regarding the pursuit of a thing and the sentiment regarding the former are orthogonal. This is, for example, what is meant by “value” when speaking of supply/demand.

If you look at what men want (and in my experience as a heterosexual male looking at dating prospects, what women also want — much to my detriment as a man who is uninterested in having children), it usually includes having healthy, well supported (financially and emotionally) children. While I am kind, giving, ambitious, funny, etc, I am reduced to zero “value” (i.e. they have no point in pursuing me because I won’t ever give them what they want) in the eyes of 99% of the single women where I live. And that’s fine to me, as we all have things that we want, and there’s no one in existence that will check the boxes off for everyone else in the universe. That doesn’t mean that my own self esteem should be diminished, and I don’t think most people would want me to have any less self esteem.

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#279
I can’t say I resonate with this article beyond the headline. I’m almost 33 and I’m single. Out of those years, I’ve spent over 27 of them completely single.

When I say I’ve been married and had a five year relationship - it sounds quite accomplished. But if you reframe it as - I’ve been single for over 27 years… it doesn’t sound very pleasant at all. And it hasn’t been. It’s been brutal. I’ve traveled all over the world looking for someone who would love me for who I am and would be a good person to start a family with - I’ve wound up empty handed. I’ve tried harder than 99% of men, I can guarantee that. I go out hundreds of times a year, travel extensively to meet people anywhere I can, and have used all kinds of services - all to a great lack of success.

It is incredibly brutal for men like myself. For those wondering what the biggest hurdle is - I’m not physically attractive facially. This is my biggest flaw and it is alarmingly impossible to fix. I’ve had cosmetic surgery for my face to improve it but it’s incredibly minor improvements. Anything that would lead to more dramatic changes is quite risky in terms of effects (would I look better) and complications.

It’s rough to work so hard your entire life for no one to deem you worthy of love just because you were born with a shit face. Life is cruel. I wasn’t meant to leave the shit region I grew up in. My genetics were never meant to get where I ended up. I brute forced my way to an incredibly successful position - and it’s clear that wasn’t supposed to happen.

Re: I’ve been single all my life

#280
post #99

I think the word that Rosenstock was searching for, was "Introvert"[1]. I'm an introvert who had the good fortune to marry another introvert, and live contentedly with her for 40+ years. Following her death a few years ago I reflected on the differences between being part of a couple, and being solitary. There were many. Health maintenance was one; somebody else in this thread has already commented on married men liv…

> "Introversion is the state of primarily obtaining gratification from one's own mental life". If this is true, then why do we find so many introverts in online forums?

Because mental life is impossible in a vacuum, you are nothing without others even if you are an introvert...
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