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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'

• SpicyLemonZest 3y ago
  It’s a barometer not because it’s the only important kind of relationship but because it’s the easiest to measure. Close friendships are dropping too: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/11/friendships-less-is-now-more/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/11/friendships-less-is-n...
• willis936 3y ago
  That sounds pragmatic, and it is. A partner is also pragmatic. Why dismiss one while promoting the other? Someone can have good friends and also someone they spend everyday with for 50 years.
  • uoaei 3y ago
    I don't think it's either-or. If you're not a friend to your life partner, it's not going to be a very rewarding partnership in the long run.
  • thomastjeffery 3y ago
    You can spend every day for 50 years with someone whom you relate with deeply and meaningfully. That doesn't have to be the same person every day. It can be 50 different people. It can even be your self.
    • willis936 3y ago
      I'm going to have to agree with GP on this one: this line of thinking is an excuse. 50 different people with is not a replacement for a partner who is wholly committed to you and you are wholly committed to them. You will never be able to give or receive the same level kind of love and security with a network of that size.
• mellosouls 3y ago
  you can participate in a close friendship and casual sex. You can have several of each. The casual sex "choice" doesn't apply to the majority of adults (most straight men don't have the option of multiple sex partners, most women don't want them) so it's difficult to see its relevance here. If you mean throughout their life rather than concurrently, that doesn't really affect the idea that marriage itself is of special significance.
  • uoaei 3y ago
    You'd be surprised what happens when you are kind and a good communicator with a healthy social life. I thought the same thing when I was younger but now I'm in the prime of my dating and casual sex life. I try not to hold tightly to expectations but can see this path in life leading to some new close friendships with the possibility of closer partnerships ahead. The trick is to prioritize the people around you, rather than material gains for yourself.
    • vorpalhex 3y ago
      > can see this path in life leading to some new close friendships with the possibility of closer partnerships ahead. Just a few more pulls and the big payout will come. You've spent so many quarters on the slot machine, it'll definitely pay out at any moment. > thought the same thing when I was younger but now I'm in the prime of my dating and casual sex life. I had a very charismatic friend who ended up in this situation of being a sex partner to 4-5 very attractive women in this sort of poly relationship thing. Just like the first time you go to the bar and it's full of alcohol and people, it was fun. Genuinely good looking women and he just had to have sex or sometimes fun adventures with them. None of the "gunk" of relationships, none of the work. Well that fun doesn't last very long. Pandemic happened, everyone isolated and went to their "nesting" mate and uh.. it wasn't him. He wasn't anyone's #1. He was just a convenient sex toy who bought dinner. He still isn't anyone's #1.
      • thomastjeffery 3y ago
        > Just a few more pulls and the big payout will come. You've spent so many quarters on the slot machine, it'll definitely pay out at any moment. You sound like someone who has won at gambling. Your success is not the only possible or valid path. What you have shared may be wise advice, but advice itself is never a guarantee.
• medo-bear 3y ago
  this sounds like you think you are saying something entirely novel. it is actually just common sense. see it is true there are many kinds of relationships, but there is only one type of relationship that resembles having a successful marriage and family, and it is quite special
  • thomastjeffery 3y ago
    If what I am saying is just common sense, then why is what you have to say "quite special"? In all sincerity, it sounds like you're just talking out of your ass. The world exists around you, not inside your own mind. You are no more or less special than me.
    • medo-bear 3y ago
      i didnt claim what i said is special. i said that a particular relationship is special, a family relationship, and particularly that of marriage. i also think that this claim is common sense, and hope it continues to be common sense
      • thomastjeffery 3y ago
        [flagged]
        • medo-bear 3y ago
          get help
          • thomastjeffery 3y ago
            With what? From who? If you have already decided that the only person who matters in your life is your spouse, then you have already decided I don't matter. So what in the world are you doing here? What do you seek to gain? Everything you have said to me so far amounts to two words: "fuck you". How am I to respond? In kind? That is the question I asked earlier in 3.
• vorpalhex 3y ago
  Sure, you can have a bunch of friends and sex partners. Those can never fulfill what a life partner is. Friends are great. Casual sex can be great. Neither of those give you someone who is so close to you they become part of your identity. Casual sex especially can be deceiving if one person is using that as a vehicle for emotional investment and the other isn't. That's how people get deeply hurt. Relationships end. Even the most loved partner eventually dies. Your friendships and casual sex friend relationships probably end more frequently, are shorter and never have the chance for depth. Maybe you find the right person and get deep quickly, but that's like giving up a savings account hoping to win the lottery.
  • thomastjeffery 3y ago
    You are assuming that my social experiences are shallow. They are not. You know that sex is not exclusive to intimacy. Do you know that intimacy is not exclusive to sex? I have found the right person many times. I don't stop when I find them. That's like putting all of your investment into one stock. Maybe you did win the lottery. That's great! Should I be expecting the same experience? I don't. > Casual sex especially can be deceiving if one person is using that as a vehicle for emotional investment and the other isn't. That's how people get deeply hurt. That's what a lot of marriages are. The only resolution to this situation is communication. Why is that communication difficult? We have a strong social expectation for exclusive romantic commitment. To pursue non-committed romance is to break that social expectation. It's difficult, but not impossible. We would all be better off without that expectation. If people felt free to pursue casual relationships, they would be more likely to self-select away from the dating pool of serious-commitment seekers. Instead, we have people being dishonest and subversive about their relationship goals, because they feel it is the only way to fulfill their need for sex and intimacy. They end up in a relationship with someone who depends on their commitment, but that very commitment is a lie: a lie told to the other person, and often even to themselves.
  • standardUser 3y ago
    Friendships outlast romantic relationships on a consistent basis. Ask anyone who has ever gone through a break up. I'd also consider that there is an entire universe of romantic relationships between "life partner" and "casual sex", and it's between those two extremes that most relationships exist.
• nashashmi 3y ago
  > There is more than one kind of relationship! Trying to equate them all as relationships is a misdirection. Relationships with your friends, parents, children, and spouse are not going to be comparable ever. They each have their place. We are trying to flatten them out to how they make us feel. This is an obtuse hammer for an intricately shaped interior. Example: children are about the future, friendships are not commitments, parents are a compass, spouse is life insurance. (I am simplifying to make a point.) If you try to expect your spouse to give you the same feeling like your parents do or your children do, that’s a disaster. If you try to think of your spouse in the same way as your friend that’s a disaster too. Spouses require commitments. Friends require recognition. Children require care. Parents require service. Reality is that much of society has forgotten what a spouse is supposed to be and tries to reinterpret it as friendship. It’s the reason why we are so broken.
  • xracy 3y ago
    > Example: children are about the future, friendships are not commitments, parents are a compass, spouse is life insurance. (I am simplifying to make a point.) If you're simplifying you're missing the point of this. But I suspect you're not just simplifying to make a point, but this is actually what you believe. Maybe you've never had a really close friendship that you've felt obligated to keep alive. That requires work to fix something about it. It's absolutely a commitment. You can make any level of commitment to anyone. It's not a sexual commitment, but for example how many people have you wronged if you sleep with a friend's spouse? It's not just your own spouse. You've also wronged your friend in that. And I can tell you, if you have children, that the fallout from that likely means you've wronged your children. The same act functionally affects all of those people in a similarly meaningful way. That makes them all reasonably commitments in the same way that you see marriage as a commitment. There are pieces of a friendship that you are agreeing to or the friendship will end. That makes it a much weaker contract, but also means it requires a lot more work to keep alive. Parents/family are the opposite of that. Because the contract of parenthood/family is so strong, it's a lot less work to keep that bond well. But you can absolutely fuck it up and cut people loose.
    • nashashmi 3y ago
• dfxm12 3y ago
  Relationship isn't what we are You don't see it this way, but unfortunately, "traditional" marriage & gender roles, including having lots of kids has become an ID pol issue for political conservatives and the religious right. In the past, we see conservatives attacks on abortion and espousal of replacement theory. Very recently, we've seen legislation come up to try and do away with no-fault divorce. Also see the tradwife movement.
  • thomastjeffery 3y ago
    I'm intimately familiar with this reality. I'm here to confront it.
    • nashashmi 3y ago
      that is apparent from your comments.
• dash2 3y ago
  Thanks for the advice. By the way, how old are you?
  • thomastjeffery 3y ago
    29
    • dash2 3y ago
      Heh. Let's revisit this in a decade.
      • thomastjeffery 3y ago
        Is that what you would have told me if I said I was 19? Surely if age has made you so much more wise, you would be prepared to express that wisdom. On the other hand, if age has inflated your ego to the point you are unwilling to even consider a different perspective, then why are you here?
        • dash2 3y ago
          I'm absolutely able to consider a different perspective! I simply disagree with you. Maybe in ten years, I will have changed my mind. Who knows? We'll see.
          • thomastjeffery 3y ago
            If that's the case, then what are you waiting for? I can understand you disagreeing with me. That's fine. But where is the substance of that disagreement? All I see right now is indifference: you have discounted my opinion, not rejected it. The purpose of discussions like this is objectivity: we don't need to wait around to be proven wrong when we can confront the ideas head on now.
            • dash2 3y ago
              You are absolutely right! I'm not even engaging. That's because you're 29, and I have the illusion that I know a few things you don't, which can be got into your head (if they can at all - some people are born fools) only by experience, not by argument.