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What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?
391–400 of 418 posts
Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like I'm living in the other side of that coin. I have a great relationship with my self. I'm not enough to fulfill all of my needs. I'm great at platonic intimacy. I'm super empathetic, and can (and do) get into deeply meaningful friendships very quickly. Sex isn't in this picture. If I honestly wanted to, I have no doubt that I could find a serious committed romantic relationship. I don't want to. I know tha…
Yeah, I'm not saying it's impossible. But I think it's a lot harder to learn to love yourself if you're always depending on external validation. I have long questioned the "deeply meaningful friendships very quickly" thing. A while back I set up a model of relationships that's something like a probability cloud. When you first meet someone they have whatever your standard probability cloud is of actions they might ta…
My relationship with my self is just fine without external validation. It's in my relationship with everyone else where that comes into play.
Your friend broke a commitment to your other friend. In doing so, they proved a level of disrespect to commitment itself, and that damaged their friendship with you.
But what if they didn't make the commitment in the first place? What if they knew that they wouldn't be any good at monogamy, and said so upfront? Could they have avoided this entire situation, and upholded a respect for commitment; all without changing their behavior?
Our society has an implicit expectation that romantic relationships be based on commitment. That's not the only thing a relationship can be built on: your relationship with your friend was based on respect.
I want to build my own romantic relationships on respect instead of commitment. Is that really such a batshit insane idea? If not, I could really use some external validation.
Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Yeah, so? Different people live in different states. That doesn't make my point about divorce less valid. 2. Who said my world is so deeply broken? That feels like an unnecessary assessment to force your worldview to match why my outlook is so different from yours. Frankly it's a little rude. I have meaningful familial bonds. They aren't inherently different from friendships just because they're family. I am close…
You are too young to know any better. And too angry to understand what everyone is saying to you. You make your own world of explanations to feel like everything is ok.
This person is angry at you. This is because you are being rude to them.
But this single conversation isn't representative of the entire rest of their life! Just because they are angry with you does not mean they are angry with everyone else! If you can't see that, it's because you are a narcissist.
You think what you are saying is what everyone is saying? On the contrary! I'm a person, and I'm right here saying something else!
> You make your own world of explanations to feel like everything is ok.
We've just illustrated that is what you are doing right here. This is a pretty clear-cut case of projection.
Are you just too old to know any better? I don't buy that sentiment at all: if you can read, you can learn.
Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: There is more than one kind of relationship! It's exhausting to constantly hear about romantic commitment as if it's the barometer for all relationships . That's absurd! Did it truly never cross your mind that a person can have more than one meaningful relationship in their lives? No wonder people are so lonely! You don't need one or the other: you can participate in a close…
Thanks for the advice. By the way, how old are you?
29
Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are too young to know any better. And too angry to understand what everyone is saying to you. You make your own world of explanations to feel like everything is ok.
This person is angry at you . This is because you are being rude to them. But this single conversation isn't representative of the entire rest of their life! Just because they are angry with you does not mean they are angry with everyone else! If you can't see that, it's because you are a narcissist. You think what you are saying is what everyone is saying? On the contrary! I'm a person, and I'm right here saying som…
And obviously you are angry too. Whether it be at me or at someone else, rationality does not follow. The subject triggers. The disagreeable responses trigger. At this point, the best thing to do is disengage.
Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
This person is angry at you . This is because you are being rude to them. But this single conversation isn't representative of the entire rest of their life! Just because they are angry with you does not mean they are angry with everyone else! If you can't see that, it's because you are a narcissist. You think what you are saying is what everyone is saying? On the contrary! I'm a person, and I'm right here saying som…
And obviously you are angry too. Whether it be at me or at someone else, rationality does not follow. The subject triggers. The disagreeable responses trigger. At this point, the best thing to do is disengage.
> Whether it be at me or at someone else, rationality does not follow.
Nah, I'm angry with you, as a rational reaction to your narcissism. You should do something about that.
Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
And obviously you are angry too. Whether it be at me or at someone else, rationality does not follow. The subject triggers. The disagreeable responses trigger. At this point, the best thing to do is disengage.
> Whether it be at me or at someone else, rationality does not follow. Nah, I'm angry with you, as a rational reaction to your narcissism. You should do something about that.
Rationality does not follow.
Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Yeah, so? Different people live in different states. That doesn't make my point about divorce less valid. 2. Who said my world is so deeply broken? That feels like an unnecessary assessment to force your worldview to match why my outlook is so different from yours. Frankly it's a little rude. I have meaningful familial bonds. They aren't inherently different from friendships just because they're family. I am close…
You are too young to know any better. And too angry to understand what everyone is saying to you. You make your own world of explanations to feel like everything is ok.
> And too angry to understand what everyone is saying to you.
Just gonna jump in here and say, I was not angry in this post. So that's just a wrong assessment...
> You are too young to know any better.
I don't know how old you are, but if your argument depends on me being in a specific age range, I'm going to guess you're too conceited to have an actual conversation with. In practice, I think the signs of this were there from the start but I engaged anyways, so that's my bad. But uhh, stop being rude on the internet? It sounds like you should know better for however old you might be...
Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are too young to know any better. And too angry to understand what everyone is saying to you. You make your own world of explanations to feel like everything is ok.
This person is angry at you . This is because you are being rude to them. But this single conversation isn't representative of the entire rest of their life! Just because they are angry with you does not mean they are angry with everyone else! If you can't see that, it's because you are a narcissist. You think what you are saying is what everyone is saying? On the contrary! I'm a person, and I'm right here saying som…
lol, wasn't angry to begin with, but I definitely was angered by the dismissive response.
Like if I'm giving them the time of day, it would be nice of them to at least pretend like they're gonna give it to me...
Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I'm not saying it's impossible. But I think it's a lot harder to learn to love yourself if you're always depending on external validation. I have long questioned the "deeply meaningful friendships very quickly" thing. A while back I set up a model of relationships that's something like a probability cloud. When you first meet someone they have whatever your standard probability cloud is of actions they might ta…
My relationship with my self is just fine without external validation. It's in my relationship with everyone else where that comes into play. Your friend broke a commitment to your other friend. In doing so, they proved a level of disrespect to commitment itself, and that damaged their friendship with you. But what if they didn't make the commitment in the first place? What if they knew that they wouldn't be any good…
No, I think that's pretty reasonable framework for any relationship.
TBC, I'm still friends with the person, probably because I never respected them for their commitment to others in a romantic relationship in the first place. I also don't have any strong feelings to uphold monogamy, so I definitely need to have an expectation that someone cares about monogamy before that's something I will judge them against. While I think this person definitely subscribed to the cultural norm around monogamy, nothing about their personality told me they were invested in it.
Looking at it through your framework of respect, I didn't feel like they lost my respect for cheating on their romantic partner, because I didn't really respect them enough in the first place to think they wouldn't. :D
It definitely wouldn't be how I would approach respect for a romantic relationship, but I also would just never be in a romantic relationship with the kind of person that I hold in such low regards.