I think it’s a discussion worth having but it needs to be moved.
2 Likes
Yes absolutely.
The way I see it the original post had nothing to do with looks and ‘toxicity’. The phrase high standards was not tied to looks in particular, and while I think there’s some truth in what you’re saying in general you seem to massively overstate the role that physically attractive unpleasant people play and make them a feature of every post.
The way I see it, this thread is a particularly poor choice to derail.
5 Likes
I’ve seen too many friends (and myself when a lot younger) date some version of that in both genders. My theory for why they come up a lot is that they enter the dating pool and basically stay there for life which means they take up a disproportionately large number of dating pool years vs the general population. Their looks make them more successful at getting short term matches and their toxicity guarantees they’ll remain in the pool. This is why most of the people I know go through a few bad relationships and then find someone who doesn’t suck and gratefully pair up. The people who they go through bad relationships with are probably single and looking to mingle right now.
I asked for an excise in the Log of Key Moderator actions thread, but maybe that’s the wrong place.
2 Likes
Guilty as charged. To be fair I am speaking exclusively of the US dating culture during my time in it which would be 2002-2008 as a single person and from then on in a long term relationship.
I’m open to being totally wrong about this stuff, but I’ve got stats to back my thinking up on nearly everything and have given it a lot of thought. If I’m wrong I’m wrong though.
1 Like
This is how it is all relevant to the thread purpose.
So, what does a viable coping strategy look like? boredsocial advocates for a strategy that views relationships as transactions. One can view it as the man viewing the woman as a commodity (and vice versa and all sorts of yadda yadda about non-hetero relationships) or one can view it as two people treating each other as business partners, maybe equal maybe not. Using this lens, one can accept being alone by noting that the alternative is a worse deal.
We can say this approach contains misogyny. I think more that it is open to misogyny, but that it is possible (with a lot of effort) to avoid that trap. But let’s not forget the purpose of this exercise. Someone struggling with these issues is looking for a way to avoid going down a dark hole. And they may decide that being a bit objectifying is worth not ending up in that place.
It isn’t helpful to be critical of BS’s approach unless you offer up an alternative coping strategy. And a transactional view of society is going to be immensely powerful for certain people.
TIL i’m toxic because all my relationships last 3-12 months
Yea this should be excised. Sorry everyone.
I have no comment other than the dating game has vastly, vastly changed in the last 10 years with the introduction of tinder and other turbo charged, meat market dating apps. I know people who have found spouses on these apps and I have had a lot of dates with them, but it makes everything very superficial and these days success in that game depends very much on how you appear and not so much who you actually are.
I am a decent human being, but for whatever reason none of my relationships seem to last more than a year (my record is 2) and they always seem to cheat on me. I’m probably making bad choices, as someone said earlier that the person who immediately says yes is not necessarily the best choice. Maybe that is going on. I don’t want to think it’s just that I’m a fundamentally shitty person but my track record so far is full of people who got very full doses of me and decided to find happiness elsewhere.
It’s not 100%, and it has gone the other way where people have been crazy about me and I just wasnt as interested in them so I ended it. But every time that happened it was fairly early in the relationship and I’m pretty certain if they got to know me like the rest, then they would’ve changed their minds.
2 Likes
Transactional view of society and dating does help me a little but like you said it is wide open to misogyny and I’d rather be miserable than have misogynistic views of the world.
But to better quote my therapist, it went like this:
I told her what I basically said here, that as I go down the laundry list of qualities of people who even could be compatible with me, and who I’d simultaneously find interesting enough to be around, as well as attractive to me, that the person probably does not exist. So, the choice is to change who i am, what my standards are, or be alone.
She nodded and said if I ever really do find a meaningful relationship it would need to be unorthodox and that I would likely need my own bedroom if I were to cohabitate. She even has gone so far as to say I’d maybe even need my own apartment. This is because I very much require isolation and a space of my own and when I don’t have that I feel like I’m suffocating.
So who the fuck is compatible with that kind of arrangement, first of all, and who in their right minds wouldnt look at someone like that and not ask if there’s something deeply wrong with them?
I would describe the things that prevent people from pairing successfully as toxicity and attraction to slash tolerance of toxicity. It’s important to note that there are a lot of toxic people out there and it’s absolutely normal to be raised by toxic people and become toxic as a result. Toxicity for the sake of defining my own mental terms is just -EV interpersonal behavior like cheating, being unreasonable, lying a whole bunch, and a tons of other stuff people do when in relationships. Toxicity is also a spectrum. On one end you’ve got me who is extremely transactional and annoying about it and on the other end you’ve got a guy who beats his wife because he has a personality disorder.
Take my transactional view of the world as an example. I am that way because I grew up being constantly gaslighted by the people I was supposed to be able to trust the most. As a defense against the attempt to always take every interaction to a manipulative and frankly pretty exploitative place I started evaluating things in a pretty concrete way pretty early in life.
I am how I am. Ask my wife to describe how annoying I can be sometime… she’s got a standup comedy routine at this point.
“Unorthodox” sounds like code for “open relationship”.
You’ve said you don’t want to change, but will you always feel that way? At the same time, you believe that there is something deeply wrong with yourself, since you expect others to view you that way, so why would you not want to change that?
I guess I am measuring myself by society’s standards and not my own. To me, I feel like the only sane person in a world of crazy people. If I were to judge myself by my own standards I’d say I’m pretty fucking awesome.
But unfortunately I also have big blind spots so I tend to just go with society’s standards when evaluating myself.
I am perfectly content with who I am and have known who I am for a while. Everyone else is the problem (which is impossible, which is why I bring myself back to evaluating myself by other standards than my own).
Super grunch. I never had a relationship longer than 9 months until I was 27 and I’ve been in that one for the last 26 years.
1 Like
Extracting a subthread from a big thread that you haven’t been participating in is a daunting prospect. Maybe later.
I view myself as a different sort of crazy person in a world of crazy people, so we differ there.
1 Like
Same with my bf. His personal best was 6 months at 26 and he truly thought he’d be forever single until he met me. He is very attractive fwiw before someone decides he was obviously ugly because his relationships ended early. You just need to find the right person.
Not all attractive people are toxic and when you’re in a good relationship you want to do things for the other and vice versa. You don’t have a mental list tallying everything up.
I’m really good looking too!
2 Likes
Absolutely! Do you still have a beard?
Nope. I’m a beardless youth.