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The relationship recession is going global

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Re: The relationship recession is going global

#31

Post by bdangubic »

Dalewyn wrote: post #26
binarymax wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that’s the confusing thing to me. When I was in my 20s I spent most of my time outside of work being social. I worked 10-12 hour days. What are the things you’re doing that are a priority? I’m not judging - I’m honestly curious and want to understand.

Reading books, playing games, watching anime, conversations on IRC or Discord with long time friends, making stuff in the figurative garage that will never see the light of day... The list goes on. And that's besides life's necessities like work, chores around the house, cooking+eating... The list goes on. There's just so many god damn things I could or should be doing instead of marriage. I literally do not have the…

I have several friends that would write EXACTLY what you wrote and there is absolutely nothing wrong with your way of life.

termination of the bloodline is a silly thing - however I can tell you from personal experience that having an offspring connects to humanity like nothing else and I feel for you that you won’t experience that part of human existence. it is a remarkable experience…

Re: The relationship recession is going global

#32

Post by Schiendelman »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #19
miohtama wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Career and grinding is not a goal, but is needed to afford an house and money to help your parents. Apartment prices relative to income have gone greatly up. Thus, more grinding needed and some low wage occupations are priced out from the market altogether. The question is why apartment prices keep going up and can we stop it.

Apartment rental prices have dropped for the last three months in a row in Canada.

Why?

Re: The relationship recession is going global

#33

Post by throw00603 »

binarymax wrote: post #24
Dalewyn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a "young single straight man" all I can really tell you is that I have utterly no desire nor interest when I have so many other things I could or should be doing instead.

And that’s the confusing thing to me. When I was in my 20s I spent most of my time outside of work being social. I worked 10-12 hour days. What are the things you’re doing that are a priority? I’m not judging - I’m honestly curious and want to understand.

I exercise, read books, try to learn instruments, look for work, and go to therapy weekly.

I have had strangers say to me that it's no problem if I just want to put myself out there and see who bites, but I do not see it that way. My (same-sex) best friend I knew for 6 years recently cut off all contact when I tried to set boundaries with them. It was the first time in my life I tried to assert myself and because I reaped the consequences I assumed I did something wrong. I read up online and understood logically I did nothing wrong. But fact is, it's been half a year and I haven't recovered from that friendship alone. And there were others like it. I don't have anything to replace that (flawed) relationship and the trauma of being discarded reopened all my pre-existing childhood-and-up trauma they already knew about so, I mean, yeah.

I talk to my therapist about it of course but that makes my current life no less of a torture. I've come to accept maybe that's how it will be.

What this tells me is I'm not ready for a relationship right now. It's my early 30's and I don't understand the basics yet. The way I was raised I've already been through enough confusing social rejection and socializing just demoralizes me nowadays. I'm not willing to go forward and date if I'm no longer interested in the first place because that isn't fair to the other party. I need to make friends before I am ready to date, having zero friends right now, and the interest for that isn't there either. It took me way too long for me to realize my heart wasn't in it and I was doing people a disservice when I need to work on myself first and foremost.

...not to mention I'm still looking for work after being laid off, but I felt no different while I was employed.

And before someone says these are flaws people should accept me for... they're not unfortunately. I'm beginning to suspect they're on the level of a personality disorder. Having enough previous less impactful diagnoses, I think it's on me by this point if I couldn't make anything out of them.

Re: The relationship recession is going global

#34

Post by fakedang »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #19
miohtama wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Career and grinding is not a goal, but is needed to afford an house and money to help your parents. Apartment prices relative to income have gone greatly up. Thus, more grinding needed and some low wage occupations are priced out from the market altogether. The question is why apartment prices keep going up and can we stop it.

Apartment rental prices have dropped for the last three months in a row in Canada.

I've read that it's only a specific time of apartment, one that's not conducive to raising families.

Re: The relationship recession is going global

#35

Post by [deleted] »

binarymax wrote: post #21

It’s truly bizarre. I’m married and have a strong social life, but then I see things like this in my local subreddit where men just don’t want to go out and meet women. https://old.reddit.com/r/Rochester/comments/1hyh1r2/where_ar... I can’t believe that the thread exists. I can’t believe that a young single straight man wouldn’t be all over that event. Some good speculation on cause behind it in OP and this discussio…

[deleted]

Re: The relationship recession is going global

#36

Post by Schiendelman »

api wrote: post #13

We are letting the most pathological idiots — incels, femcels, masculinity grifters, misogynists and misandrists, trolls — shape a whole generation’s views on gender dynamics and relationships. Of course I guess it’s like other fields. Antivaxxers and people who think you can cure cancer with a juice cleanse lead health discourse. Conspiritainment grifters and unhinged fanatics shape politics. Why? This needs to be e…

Define "letting". This seems to me to be the same pattern as every other new communication medium. Sure, it's more addictive now. Do you think playing whack a mole with the definition of addictive will solve that problem? I don't.

I think the only way to get the outcome of "people less addicted to media and dumb ideas" is to make addiction uncool - and government can't do that. People are doing the social changes naturally already. Lots of people are off social media. People are quitting alcohol too, and porn. Those people will be more successful in life, and more likely to reproduce.

This seems like a nothingburger for an onlooker.

Re: The relationship recession is going global

#37

Post by throw00603 »

bdangubic wrote: post #31
Dalewyn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading books, playing games, watching anime, conversations on IRC or Discord with long time friends, making stuff in the figurative garage that will never see the light of day... The list goes on. And that's besides life's necessities like work, chores around the house, cooking+eating... The list goes on. There's just so many god damn things I could or should be doing instead of marriage. I literally do not have the…

I have several friends that would write EXACTLY what you wrote and there is absolutely nothing wrong with your way of life. termination of the bloodline is a silly thing - however I can tell you from personal experience that having an offspring connects to humanity like nothing else and I feel for you that you won’t experience that part of human existence. it is a remarkable experience…

> I feel for you that you won’t experience that part of human existence

Certainly it's something my depression holds over my head every day. Everything I do is less fun when I consciously realize I'm removing my ancestors from the gene pool in participating in those things. It's like I can choose to put more value in other things besides offspring, but also... I can't? When it seems like every stranger around me is married and/or has children?

When I feel myself backed into a corner and only perceive the choice to call that decision sour grapes, I feel like something has gone seriously wrong...

Re: The relationship recession is going global

#38

Post by potato3732842 »

portaouflop wrote: post #7
retskrad wrote: post #4

If people took a minute to put their phones away and looked around once in a while, they’d notice that males and females tend to self-segregate, with the vast majority of each gender spending time only with others of their own gender. This behaviour is constant in schools, parties, coffee shops, you name it. I’ve traveled extensively around the world, and I’ve observed the same patterns everywhere. Males and females…

What is your point in relation to the article? How would gender self-segregation be related to __rising__ rates of singledom?

I think the point he was getting at but failed to come around to was that men and women are different enough they don't actually want to spend time together all that much and historically just put up with it because of social pressure to get on the life path to raising a family and lack of access to casual sex. Sure, there's some mutual interests there that'll get them hanging out together but it's pretty minor overall.

There's no big reason for a man who's gotten good at online dating or a women who doesn't actively want kids to date seriously or settle down unless they just happen to run across someone who's perfect for them and wants to lock it in.

Re: The relationship recession is going global

#39

Post by SebFender »

glimshe wrote: post #8

We were sold a model where having a career is the most important thing in life, at the expense of family and relationships. Because of that, the world gets richer but unhappier. Additionally, local human contact has been replaced by a world of upvotes by strangers with quirky online names. We need to work on figuring out how we can get the undeniable benefits of modern technologies without forgetting our biological n…

I've been raised in an environment where we talked with neighbours and so on - Now 50 after moving a few times - I feel many times people look at me weird when I say things like "Hi, Hey what's this dog breed", "Did you just move in?" or "If you need anything I'm in the house over there"... I'm not looking to build a relationship with everyone, but basic social skills are in some kind of drought.

Re: The relationship recession is going global

#40

Post by api »

Schiendelman wrote: post #36
api wrote: post #13

We are letting the most pathological idiots — incels, femcels, masculinity grifters, misogynists and misandrists, trolls — shape a whole generation’s views on gender dynamics and relationships. Of course I guess it’s like other fields. Antivaxxers and people who think you can cure cancer with a juice cleanse lead health discourse. Conspiritainment grifters and unhinged fanatics shape politics. Why? This needs to be e…

Define "letting". This seems to me to be the same pattern as every other new communication medium. Sure, it's more addictive now. Do you think playing whack a mole with the definition of addictive will solve that problem? I don't. I think the only way to get the outcome of "people less addicted to media and dumb ideas" is to make addiction uncool - and government can't do that. People are doing the social changes nat…

I'm not as optimistic about people learning, and addiction has never gone away.

I used to be more of a libertarian about things like financial regulation, but what changed my mind was watching markets and especially things like the cryptocurrency phenomenon where you really did have deregulation. All you get is scams because people keep falling for the same nonsense over and over again. None of it is new. Ponzi schemes, bubbles, gambling, rug pulls, wildcat banking, all of it is hundreds of years old or more, but it keeps working because every generation falls for it anew because dopamine.

I think you'd have to re-architect the human dopamine system in very deep ways if you wanted to change this. We are very easy to hack.

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