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An important post-30 strategy that I use is to assume that all friends with children are prisoners in their own home. You know exactly where they are. You know

An important post-30 strategy that I use is to assume that all friends with children are prisoners in their own home. You know exactly where they are. You know they don't have plans. They are desperate for adult conversation. That means you can invite yourself over, bring takeout, and basically make their day. I'm coupled but this should work as a single. Our parent friends say it's actually easier to be friends with child-free people because they don't have the complications of arranging around the kids. We arrive just as the kids are going to bed so that we can say a perfunctory hello and then usually leave by 10:30p.

rolltiide 7y ago
This was my strategy with club promoters. They maintain an air of exclusivity with gaggles of beautiful women around them, and self preservation would tell you not to dare approach any of the women or the table and that the promoter - usually male - would be disinterested or aggressive towards you. But a reality is that the promoters are also desperate for casual conversation. All those beautiful women around and if the promoter gets close to any one then they lose entire cliques, and then lose the other clique when the relationship is over. The promoters are also prisoners. Introducing yourself and partying with them lets you act just like the models on the table, and access to all models on the table because remember: you aren't a promoter :) but you have inherited the clout just from being there and competition has been completely removed. The selection of women have been pre-selected by several people (the model agency, the state department, the promoter, the doorman, the man/men that subsidize them) otherwise that woman would not be at the table. This results in a heavy selection evolution of consensus-based attractiveness but the exact same distribution of whether two people will be interested in each other. Very advantageous compared to the general population in being around consensus-attractive people (as in, even if its not your ideal you still know what other people find attractive and the social benefits that come with that). A lot of benefits in recognizing these things.
- all2 7y ago
  I can't say I have a stake in the above post, but I am curious as to why it is getting downvoted?
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    in my experience sometimes people disagree with the content, or sometimes they don't see how it relates to the topic being discussed in this case, my conclusion to round it out is that it is nice to see how assuming other people's loneliness can be used in multiple environments
  - o-__-o 7y ago
    Because women are not pieces of meat that can be processed and marinated before being consumed for a night of fun, regardless that both parties are seeking the same pleasure. the downvoted are not in this club and so they feel left out
    - rolltiide 7y ago
      > regardless that both parties are seeking the same pleasure I see this a lot in the tech community. People want to be allies of inclusiveness [in the context of corporate professionalism, while trying to apply it everywhere], but the current iteration of this results in still infantilizing women that make different choices and vicariously assuming they're victims when that woman's current aspirations have nothing to do with an executive role in a corporate environment. My non-compliance with that idea is easy to villify, people can choose to assume that I'm perhaps perpetuating some unilateral toxic masculinity, or something, distinct from what I and the other people involved perceive to be a respectful consensual environment. A reality is that context is important, people can exist in different modes and states and feel very respected. I've had overwhelmingly positive experiences from approaching people with this understanding
      - xwdv 7y ago
        I get what you're saying man. It wouldn't be ok to refer to a woman as a piece of meat at say a corporate board meeting. However, if you're at a savage orgy and everyone is naked and fucking it is hardly a faux pas to see a woman as just a piece of meat, hell it may even be desirable by the other party.
- elliekelly 7y ago
  > The selection of women This is a pretty gross way to describe a group of people.
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    It is primarily bad grammar The subset of patrons that are being discussed are overwhelmingly women that have been through multiple rounds of selection by the time they got there
  - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
    He's not wrong. You're just zerging out.
brightball 7y ago
It’s totally true. I actually started a little get together based on exactly that premise in my neighborhood. Me and some other dads get together on Wednesday night at 9pm to step out and get 1 drink at a local pub. Usually doesn’t last more than an hour because we all have work the next day, but it gets us out after the kids are in bed on a day and time when none of us have scheduled plans.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tonystubblebine 7y ago
I should credit my partner for originating and articulating this idea: https://medium.com/better-humans/how-to-stay-friends-when-you-dont-have-kids-and-your-besties-do-7e5e3870eadf https://medium.com/better-humans/how-to-stay-friends-when-yo...
Mediterraneo10 7y ago
> That means you can invite yourself over It is fairly common for a man to marry a woman who does not like his friends. Then, the wife does not want the husband’s friends at their home. So, you cannot invite yourself over, and the man is so busy with giving his wife sufficient attention and with childraising that he cannot easily go out to meet his friends in another location.
- Ixiaus 7y ago
  It is not common and if you experience this then you are: bad at setting your own boundaries, bad at mate selection, or bad at friend selection. Men are not victims here. Have a hard look at why you think this and fix the problem.
  - Mediterraneo10 7y ago
    > if you experience this then you are: bad at setting your own boundaries, bad at mate selection, or bad at friend selection. Indeed, many men are bad at some of those things. Attraction to a partner can be such a powerful motivation that one rushes to establish the relationship without thinking or caring about the effect it will have on one's social life. Then, once one is already married, there is a fairly widespread expectation that one’s social life has to acquiesce to what the spouse is comfortable with, and attempting to "set boundaries" in this matter would be inappropriate. > Men are not victims here. My post above concerned men because the linked article is about men, but it is people in general who are the victims here. I suspect that many women face the same problem in being unable to freely interact with their friends due to husbands who don't like their friend group.
    - Ixiaus 7y ago
      I understand your perspective because I've been there but you can always start taking responsibility for codependence now by taking a hard look at how you place blame (regardless of your gender). In most cases, both parties will contribute to the problem but someone needs to lead themselves and their partner out of the complementary neurosis and you do that by taking responsibility for your contribution then setting boundaries and working compassionately with the other person/people. I don't even think it's people generally who are victims. I don't like victim mentality because it robs "the victim" of agency.
xenocyon 7y ago
I am parent to a young child and your take is, at least in my case, ridiculously accurate. I wish more people would do this!
CalChris 7y ago
Child-free couples, unless of course you're talking playdates which is a social tree climb all its own. But single, disagree from experience. There's even a line from Nora Ephron's Heartburn, the book not the movie: Couples date couples.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Exactly. My wife and I have a grown son and a 17 year old. We won’t go over to couples houses with small kids or go out to dinner with couples that don’t have reliable babysitters where they bring their kids along.
  - Markoff 7y ago
    who hang out with you when you had small kids?
    - scarface74 7y ago
      I never had small kids - my “sons” are my stepsons - they were 9 and 14 when I met my now wife. She feels the same way. She’s raised her kids and now she wants to do “adult” things without kids running around and interrupting us.
lonelappde 7y ago
Something weird happened in middle class culture when it became uncouth for married persons to go out without the spouse to see friends. Being a single parent is rough, but there's no reason to avoid socializing if you have a spouse -- unless you are shy and hiding behind your spouse, or are content to lean on your spouse and kids for your whole social life (which is a huge risk of long-term downside potential)
keyle 7y ago
> An important post-30 strategy that I use is to assume that all friends with children are prisoners in their own home. Wow, that sounds harsh, yet so true.

rolltiide 7y ago

This was my strategy with club promoters. They maintain an air of exclusivity with gaggles of beautiful women around them, and self preservation would tell you not to dare approach any of the women or the table and that the promoter - usually male - would be disinterested or aggressive towards you. But a reality is that the promoters are also desperate for casual conversation. All those beautiful women around and if the promoter gets close to any one then they lose entire cliques, and then lose the other clique when the relationship is over. The promoters are also prisoners. Introducing yourself and partying with them lets you act just like the models on the table, and access to all models on the table because remember: you aren't a promoter :) but you have inherited the clout just from being there and competition has been completely removed. The selection of women have been pre-selected by several people (the model agency, the state department, the promoter, the doorman, the man/men that subsidize them) otherwise that woman would not be at the table. This results in a heavy selection evolution of consensus-based attractiveness but the exact same distribution of whether two people will be interested in each other. Very advantageous compared to the general population in being around consensus-attractive people (as in, even if its not your ideal you still know what other people find attractive and the social benefits that come with that). A lot of benefits in recognizing these things.

all2 7y ago
I can't say I have a stake in the above post, but I am curious as to why it is getting downvoted?
- rolltiide 7y ago
  in my experience sometimes people disagree with the content, or sometimes they don't see how it relates to the topic being discussed in this case, my conclusion to round it out is that it is nice to see how assuming other people's loneliness can be used in multiple environments
- o-__-o 7y ago
  Because women are not pieces of meat that can be processed and marinated before being consumed for a night of fun, regardless that both parties are seeking the same pleasure. the downvoted are not in this club and so they feel left out
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    > regardless that both parties are seeking the same pleasure I see this a lot in the tech community. People want to be allies of inclusiveness [in the context of corporate professionalism, while trying to apply it everywhere], but the current iteration of this results in still infantilizing women that make different choices and vicariously assuming they're victims when that woman's current aspirations have nothing to do with an executive role in a corporate environment. My non-compliance with that idea is easy to villify, people can choose to assume that I'm perhaps perpetuating some unilateral toxic masculinity, or something, distinct from what I and the other people involved perceive to be a respectful consensual environment. A reality is that context is important, people can exist in different modes and states and feel very respected. I've had overwhelmingly positive experiences from approaching people with this understanding
    - xwdv 7y ago
      I get what you're saying man. It wouldn't be ok to refer to a woman as a piece of meat at say a corporate board meeting. However, if you're at a savage orgy and everyone is naked and fucking it is hardly a faux pas to see a woman as just a piece of meat, hell it may even be desirable by the other party.
elliekelly 7y ago
> The selection of women This is a pretty gross way to describe a group of people.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  It is primarily bad grammar The subset of patrons that are being discussed are overwhelmingly women that have been through multiple rounds of selection by the time they got there
- GhettoMaestro 7y ago
  He's not wrong. You're just zerging out.

brightball 7y ago

It’s totally true. I actually started a little get together based on exactly that premise in my neighborhood. Me and some other dads get together on Wednesday night at 9pm to step out and get 1 drink at a local pub. Usually doesn’t last more than an hour because we all have work the next day, but it gets us out after the kids are in bed on a day and time when none of us have scheduled plans.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

tonystubblebine 7y ago

I should credit my partner for originating and articulating this idea: https://medium.com/better-humans/how-to-stay-friends-when-you-dont-have-kids-and-your-besties-do-7e5e3870eadf https://medium.com/better-humans/how-to-stay-friends-when-yo...

Mediterraneo10 7y ago

> That means you can invite yourself over It is fairly common for a man to marry a woman who does not like his friends. Then, the wife does not want the husband’s friends at their home. So, you cannot invite yourself over, and the man is so busy with giving his wife sufficient attention and with childraising that he cannot easily go out to meet his friends in another location.

Ixiaus 7y ago
It is not common and if you experience this then you are: bad at setting your own boundaries, bad at mate selection, or bad at friend selection. Men are not victims here. Have a hard look at why you think this and fix the problem.
- Mediterraneo10 7y ago
  > if you experience this then you are: bad at setting your own boundaries, bad at mate selection, or bad at friend selection. Indeed, many men are bad at some of those things. Attraction to a partner can be such a powerful motivation that one rushes to establish the relationship without thinking or caring about the effect it will have on one's social life. Then, once one is already married, there is a fairly widespread expectation that one’s social life has to acquiesce to what the spouse is comfortable with, and attempting to "set boundaries" in this matter would be inappropriate. > Men are not victims here. My post above concerned men because the linked article is about men, but it is people in general who are the victims here. I suspect that many women face the same problem in being unable to freely interact with their friends due to husbands who don't like their friend group.
  - Ixiaus 7y ago
    I understand your perspective because I've been there but you can always start taking responsibility for codependence now by taking a hard look at how you place blame (regardless of your gender). In most cases, both parties will contribute to the problem but someone needs to lead themselves and their partner out of the complementary neurosis and you do that by taking responsibility for your contribution then setting boundaries and working compassionately with the other person/people. I don't even think it's people generally who are victims. I don't like victim mentality because it robs "the victim" of agency.

xenocyon 7y ago

I am parent to a young child and your take is, at least in my case, ridiculously accurate. I wish more people would do this!

CalChris 7y ago

Child-free couples, unless of course you're talking playdates which is a social tree climb all its own. But single, disagree from experience. There's even a line from Nora Ephron's Heartburn, the book not the movie: Couples date couples.

scarface74 7y ago
Exactly. My wife and I have a grown son and a 17 year old. We won’t go over to couples houses with small kids or go out to dinner with couples that don’t have reliable babysitters where they bring their kids along.
- Markoff 7y ago
  who hang out with you when you had small kids?
  - scarface74 7y ago
    I never had small kids - my “sons” are my stepsons - they were 9 and 14 when I met my now wife. She feels the same way. She’s raised her kids and now she wants to do “adult” things without kids running around and interrupting us.

lonelappde 7y ago

Something weird happened in middle class culture when it became uncouth for married persons to go out without the spouse to see friends. Being a single parent is rough, but there's no reason to avoid socializing if you have a spouse -- unless you are shy and hiding behind your spouse, or are content to lean on your spouse and kids for your whole social life (which is a huge risk of long-term downside potential)

keyle 7y ago

> An important post-30 strategy that I use is to assume that all friends with children are prisoners in their own home. Wow, that sounds harsh, yet so true.