Dear Susan,
I have been hooking up with a guy consistently for four months. It started out that we both wanted a friends-with-benefits situation, and we would basically hang out, do homework, etc., and of course hook up, but that was it. He made it very clear to me that he wasn’t into me further than a physical relationship and that he was on a break with his gf, so he still had feelings for her. I didn’t really have them for him either, though. I just thought he was attractive and fun, so perfect hookup material.
Throughout these four months, I helped him deal with his gf calling things quits and I have been tutoring him in school, and we have become overall closer friends. He even told me that I am his best girl friend and that he trusts me more than any other girl he knows.
Recently he has started acting really sweet to me and like he wants something more:
- He gets really upset when I need to leave him and always finds excuses to spend more time with me.
- He also has started wanting to go out on what I would usually consider to be “dates”, and he pays for me.
- He has been calling me beautiful and gorgeous a lot and he gives me random unexpected compliments much more often.
- The other day I awoke from a nap we were taking and he was holding me in his arms and just watching me sleep.
- He even mentioned that his mom (yes, I met his parents, but in a “just-friends” situation) thinks I am really pretty and that I seem like quite a catch, and he regards his parent’s opinions very highly.
- He also always makes comments about how he could see us being married in the future, but he does it in a joking way of course.
- He even wants to do more couple-ish things together, like cook and learn more about each other’s lives.
Basically, I feel like these are all signs of him falling for me as more than a FWB, but am I just fooling myself? Could he just be doing this because he is single and bored/lonely? Even though he pays for me now, he has never said anything about it being a “date”, and he has never tried to hold my hand or kiss me in public.
I just don’t get why he is trying to be so much more involved with me if he knows he could still hook up with me without putting in the time and monetary investment. So I am pretty much just confused about whether he actually is developing feelings for me or if I am just getting my hopes up for no reason.
Thanks,
Hopeful But Confused
Dear Hopeful,
What jumps out at me immediately from your letter is the fact that you obviously have strong feelings for this guy and hope that the two of you can become a couple. I wonder why you ever thought that “attractive and fun” was perfect hookup material, rather than relationship material? You say that you just were looking for a FWB, but I don’t understand what the benefits of that arrangement were. If you really weren’t interested in a relationship, you wouldn’t have developed feelings for him, right? But it sounds like you fell for him anyway, which is what usually happens in FWB – someone catches feelings. Sometimes both people do, but it’s much more common for one person to get hurt.
I agree with your perception that his recent actions appear to signal increased interest in spending time together, and a more emotionally intimate relationship. It may well be that he does like you and wants to make something work. There are several things I think you need to be concerned about:
- Is he truly over his ex?
- I share your worry that he is lonely and adrift right now, enjoying your company. Is he just biding his time with his great FWB until he falls for someone new, or is he trying to make this something more?
- He has relied on you for support, both emotional and academic. Does he feel that he owes you in some way? Can it be that he has picked up on your feelings for him, and is responding in a way that pleases you?
One of the most common mistakes women make is that they read too much into the time they spend with a guy. A guy can spend a whole weekend with you, cook meals together, laugh together, be passionate – do all the things that feel like being in love to a woman – and have absolutely zero emotional investment. If he is in a “no relationship” mindset, or views you as FWB material only, he can enjoy your company and the sex without any worries that you might get hurt, because these are the terms you both agreed to.
It’s time to stop guessing and ask him directly. You don’t need to make a big confrontation out of it, you could just say something like, “You’ve really been acting different lately, what’s up?” to get the conversation going. Because you like him, you need to find out asap whether the feeling is mutual. If not, you need to get out right away.
There’s an article in The Atlantic today about a new study of FWB relationships, Romance Trumps Friends with Benefits. (H/T: Stuart Schneiderman). Researchers from Harvard, Syracuse and Purdue conducted an online survey of college females, half in FWB and half in traditional romantic relationships. Their findings:
| Friends with Benefits | Traditional Romantic | |
| Total # sexual partners | 6.4 | 1.9 |
| Frequency of sex | Lower | Higher |
| Non-sexual time spent | Less | More |
| Satisfaction with relationship | Lower | Higher |
| Comfort expressing needs and desires | Lower | Higher |
| Comfort setting relationship boundaries | Lower | Higher |
| Discussion of other sexual partners | Higher | Lower |
| Condom use | Higher | Lower |
I don’t find most of these findings surprising, but am particularly struck by the difference in sexual history between women in FWBs and women who are dating. This suggests, at least to me, that the casual, no-strings nature of a friends with benefits arrangement leads to faster dissolution of those relationships and increased likelihood of entering additional casual relationships, leading to partner counts for women more than triple the women in relationships.
If you were cut out for casual it wouldn’t matter, but you are not satisfied, you want a traditional, romantic relationship. So why don’t you get one? If not with this guy, with some other guy. As long as “attractive and fun” doesn’t mean “unavailable,” there are many other guys out there.
Like so many women who try to do the FWB thing, you’ve found that it doesn’t really work. We are not meant to relate to other human beings in a strictly sexual way. We want emotional intimacy. I recommend that you not settle for anything less in future.
Hope this helps,
Susan
{ 832 comments… read them below or add one }
« 1 2 3 4 5 6 »
@Jackie
Obviously you can be loved for your heart and character. I have found plenty of girls who have fallen for me and would have liked a relationship due to my character, but I wasn’t interested in relationships with them. It has to go both ways, and I tend to be picky. However, you’re quoting the exception, not the rule. The rule is that people fall in love with someone’s character, as long as that person is physically in the same ballpark of attractiveness. Every time people see a fat guy with a hot girl, or a handsome man with a fat girl (very, very rare), the question is “how did that happen?”. That wouldn’t be the case if character was the only consideration. Physical attractiveness is a key feature of assortative mating.
In terms of my religious background, I’ve actually taken quite a few courses on religion, and I’ve read much of the Bible, a good deal of the Torah, and parts of the Qur’an. I find it a fascinating topic, mostly from the perspective of it as a social and societal phenomenon. What causes people to believe? Where did it come from? Is there a psychological basis to it? How does it affect world affairs? In terms of family religious background, my father was raised Christian Scientist, and left the church soon after his 12 year-old sister died of pneumonia because his parents refused to take her to a hospital. My mother was raised episcopalian, but was never particularly religious. She attends church on Christmas, but that’s about as far as it goes. A large number of my friends are Jewish, and a number are quite observant. They know my views, and I’ve had long debates with a few of them on religion (especially the “I won’t date a non-Jew; I consider it no better than “I won’t date black people” since so much of Judaism is tied into ethnicity). My foundational problem with religion is the belief in a supernatural being for which there is absolutely no proof, and basing large parts of ones’ life on that belief. To me, it’s as if I decided my tea-pot was a god, and set up an altar to it, and only drank tea for the rest of my life. The only difference is the number of people who do it, and the length of time it’s been around.
As far as religious philosophy goes, it’s fruit of the poisoned tree (belief in a god). Take away god, and a lot of it falls apart. What person would possibly be able to justify killing their own child without such a Deus (literally) ex Machina as an all-powerful being who told them to? You can cherry-pick some of the “nice” stories in the bible, but that doesn’t make the other ones disappear. To me the New Testament was a way to make the god of the old testament (judged in human terms, an egotistical, vengeful, bloodthirsty, wildly jealous, capricious person) slightly softer so he would appeal to more people.
“Whether god (or gods) exist or not is not a philosophical question.”
So, you’ve already concluded that you’ve figured all this out, which was precisely my point.
@Anacaona
“I did what make you think this planet/world/universe is not a closed system?”
From a social dynamics perspective? A whole host of things, not the least of which is the fact that a poor person stealing out of need or a looter isn’t struck by lighting or locked up every time. Consider this- the world is full of complex and lengthy transactions- there are certain inefficiencies that can be exploited for a time, and many people make a living doing exactly that (and it’s not always the case that said exploitation is illegal, or even wrong). In addition, if the consequences of an action don’t come to fruition before you leave this planet, what then? There’s some slip in the system even if it is “closed”.
Zach…”What person would possibly be able to justify killing their own child without such a Deus (literally) ex Machina as an all-powerful being who told them to?”
You don’t think there were atheist Marxists in the Soviet Union and its satellites who turned in their own children to the secret police for political deviations, knowing that this would result in almost certain execution?
BB, it’s not all bad for us betas. My wife is not quite a Barbie and definitely not Stepford but I do get most of the rest of it. I try to limit my ribeye intake to once a quarter or so, though, I much prefer wine to Scotch.
@Zach:
” My foundational problem with religion is the belief in a supernatural being for which there is absolutely no proof, and basing large parts of ones’ life on that belief.”
I’ll bite.
What would constitute Zachian “scientific proof”.
“The betas carry the load for all of us, really. Their hours are long and, in this SMP, their “pay” kind of sucks.”
What carries the load is the fact that we found a bajillion gallons of concentrated sunlight in the ground and we’re burning it as fast as we can so that we can build McMansions and apparently pollute all of China.
@Lokland
Ha, you are too clever by half.
” Zach is a WASP.”
I thought he was an atheist.
And he could be French, which would make him neither Anglo nor Saxon.
What if his family came from Huguenot stock?
In addition, if the consequences of an action don’t come to fruition before you leave this planet, what then? There’s some slip in the system even if it is “closed”.
My point is that they do. The thing I think is perception but people do pay for their actions and they do get their rewards is just that the events sometimes are not witnessed by the wronged party.
Jackie wrote: “Exploitation hurts the practitioner at a core level, maybe even more than her/his victims. There is no way you can have self-respect or integrity (or peace, for that matter) when you use other people for self-gratification.
The resulting contempt you have for them — let’s face it, that is the only possible result when someone falls for your manipulation tactics; you hate them for falling for it almost as much as you hate yourself for having to stoop to it– bleeds over into your own psyche.”
I think this is very true for a small percentage of people, and I think you are projecting (it’s ok, I’m in that percentage). Most require some form of understood societal disapproval to prevent them from participating, which I think is rapidly eroding. Some, it will really not matter to at all, regardless of the consequences to other people.
Right and wrong only matter to the majority of people when there are repercussions.
@Escoffier
No, I’ve concluded that whether something exists or not is a true/false statement. Turning the existence of god into a philosophical argument is providing a crutch to those who can’t demonstrate it empirically.
@David Foster
And your point is? An immoral philosophy is not made just by pointing out that there are other, equally immoral philosophies. A slight variation of two wrongs do not make a right.
@JP
An empirically demonstrable, repeatable proof of existence. A test that could be consistently repeated and have the same result. In general, the religious response is that “god is special and he doesn’t abide by every other single thing in the universe so you can’t measure him that way”. It’s an evasion, not an answer. There’s just as much proof that I walk around with an invisible bucket floating over my head as there is proof of a divine, omnipotent, all-powerful being who intervenes in human life.
Secondly, your question is another common evasion in response to the god-does-not-exist argument. It’s placing the burden of proof on me to say it does NOT exist. When someone claims something exists, the burden of proof is on them to prove it does exist. Otherwise, I could assert that there are tiny people living in my computer keyboard, and as long as you couldn’t say 100% for sure they didn’t exist, by your logic I’d be right.
@JP
I suppose you could call me a WASA. My family’s religious background is protestant, and cultural background is half English, half German-French.
@Zach
The early Christian church was absolutely brilliant at marketing. That sounds like your real beef here – the marketing of religion rather than the truth of whether there is a God.
A lot of people, even religious clergy, think of God in a much less concrete way – a divine energy. You can step that back all the way to the Big Bang or the first atom.
I heard a fascinating segment on NPR recently – a Stanford anthropologist who is a non-believer wrote a book on the activity of prayer in evangelical churches. When God Talks Back
“The way I think about it as an anthropologist, I don’t have the authority to pronounce on whether God is real or whether God is not real,” she tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “I don’t feel like I have a horse in that race. I don’t feel I have the authority to say whether God showed up to somebody or did not. I do think that if God speaks to someone, God speaks to the human mind. And I can say something about the social, cultural and psychological features of what that person is experiencing.”
She studied brain activity and cognitive processes to figure out what happens to people when they pray, from a physiological standpoint. It was fascinating. For me, the most interesting part of the interview was her description of how the project changed her. (It did not make her religious.)
“There’s this amazing prayer by a Jesuit father that says ‘Fall in love with God, stay in love with God, and it will change everything,’ ” she says. “I don’t have this ontological commitment to this God that’s kind of out there, but I do have the sense that I’m a little more able to allow myself to experience the good and the aliveness of the world, if that makes any sense.”
Ultimately, she found a spiritual advisor who taught her how to pray. Not because she believes in God, but because prayer is an amazing experience that makes people feel grateful, contented and loved, even when they are suffering. She became a believer in the power of prayer. I’m going to read her book.
@SW
I know you’ve blogged about FWBs before. I did some research of my own, and was kind of surprised…
Great summary of the whole phenomenon:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3163778/
Fewer women than men even see them as “beneficial”:
http://www.livescience.com/20119-men-women-sex-friendship.html
Most common characteristic is “awkwardness”. Great way to manage one’s social life:
http://www.ithaca.edu/news/releases/friends-with-benefits-lets-couples-get-close-but-not-too-close-20143/
Mr. Schneiderman in #3 claimed there’s always an arrangement going in. 73% of the time, apparently there are no ground rules or negotations whatsoever:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10508-007-9211-2
Only 10% ended up as actual romantic relationships? That’s less successful than “hooking up”. 25% of friendships completely end as a result? That’s probably just a short-term minimum statistic. I don’t know many people, man or woman, who’d be comfortable dating or marrying someone who was still “friends” with a former sex partner.
Not that I’ve come across them very often, but FWBs have always seemed like “relationships in denial” for one party and “silent relationships” for the other party. For the most part, that breaks down along gender lines IMO.
These unorthodox attempts at relationships, “hooking up”, etc. seem to have really high failure rates. Though not ideal, you’ve certainly convinced me that serial monogamy under certain circumstances is the next best alternative in the current environment…
@Susan:
“Ultimately, she found a spiritual advisor who taught her how to pray. Not because she believes in God, but because prayer is an amazing experience that makes people feel grateful, contented and loved, even when they are suffering. ”
That’s because it’s essentially spiritual respiration.
Took me awhile to figure that one out.
You don’t have to “believe” in the atmosphere or “believe” in oxygen for breathing to work.
We are not designed to be rational, we are designed to be rationalizing.
What I have found is that “rational” atheists in general just like picking on religious people because it’s an easy victim for them. Zach, I don’t know if you are this, but 100% of the people you run into are going to have blind-spots, and you can’t lose respect for them over that.
That’s how we evolved.
My two “atheist” friends pop to mind…
One signed up for OKCupid, and started flirting with a religious Christian. Then he decided he didn’t like her anymore, and started making fun of her using Russel’s Teapot.
He likes to talk about politics, and his “arguments” are pretty much straight out of the Daily Show. One of his favorite arguments is the sarcastic “we have more aircraft carriers than everyone else combined, clearly we need more!” When you try to explain to him that “number of aircraft carriers other people have” isn’t a relevant measure, he shuts down the debate and says he doesn’t care. He has an opinion and he is sticking to it.
Friend #2 is pretty much the same way. He hates the manosphere: depresses him. He also dated a religiously conservative girl who didn’t have sex with him for 2 years then put out for a cad within hours after meeting said cad.
That’s not the relevant part, he constantly goes on about how rational he is, blah blah blah, and he has a point, since he, you know, worked for NASA. On the other hand, you can’t have a political conversation with him, either, because everything is always the fault of the Republicans. I can’t tell him that Al Gore would have passed most of the same tax cuts as Bush, for instance, and tell him that Gore was also going to increase spending, and probably would have made the deficit even worse than Bush, because “RAGGGGGHHHH CORPORATIONS!”
They are good guys, but they have blind-spots. That’s cool: I have mine, too.
@ BB
I would not trade places with Roissy or Roosh for millions of dollars
“She became a believer in the power of prayer.”
So she believes in the electrical outlet, just not the power plant.
@Anacaona
“My point is that they do. The thing I think is perception but people do pay for their actions and they do get their rewards is just that the events sometimes are not witnessed by the wronged party.”
I understand your point. A significant number of people across the globe agree with you, and to a point I do too but I think you’re being overly simplistic about this. Frankly, I think you are viewing the world through rosy glasses if you believe nobody has ever changed their ways before their luck ran out, or that dastardly things done in the name of survival have never gone unchecked (or that some of those things were not justified in the end), or that nobody has ever gamed the system and ended up largely unaffected by the consequences.
I am thankful that I live in a place where this morality is largely upheld (and no, I don’t want to get into a pissing match with anyone about how corrupt the west and the US in particular has become), but I don’t pretend that my experience applies to everyone.
We become like what we worship.
This is a good reason to not worship teapots.
@Zach
Now, *this* is way more interesting! Fascinating discussion trump dismissive comments, any day of the week! Thank you for being open, Zach.
It appears to me that you tend to live in your head in regards to this: You seem to be seeking incontrovertible, concrete, substantiated *proof* of God. “Scientific” proof, to boot!
It reminds me of your approach to dating– very transactional. You need to be getting something out of the deal, nothing is freely given without expectation in the realm of your heart (or head), or so it seems to me.
Zach, I’d be interested to know what it’s been like for you, experientially. Have you ever felt any kind of longing for the infinite? Wonder about eternal questions– why are we here? Where do we go after we die? Have you ever felt that you were drawn to anything spiritual?
I ask because the majority of people do; you appear to be in a rather small minority.
Also, I ask because you appear to be the polar opposite of me. I remember being drawn to God and talking about spirituality since I was really little. Not to debate it, but just to kind of bask in it like sunshine.
When I was a teenager I felt an internal part of me hunger and thirst for this, in a way that is difficult to explain even now. I would feel a kind of irresistible drawing towards God in a way that I couldn’t explain. It was something my brain or heart was always chewing on.
Besides that, there were so many occurrences, especially when I was young, that were spiritually sensitive in nature.
(This might sound morbid, but it wasn’t when it happened, just more matter-of-fact. I used to get dreams about a person’s death before it happened, same with weddings, same with fatal illnesses. It happened more than a dozen times, mostly when I was a child/teen.
As you mentioned, may be some kind of a psychological link that may be embedded way down deep in our brain functions. Kind of like the people who will see a light at the end of the tunnel when they are technically “dead.” I would also be in certain places– ie visiting a historical cult-y church– where I would get so upset and feel so “wrong” that I had to leave and throw up.)
This is getting super-long but I have been enjoying hearing what you have to say, Zach. Peace
I was raised non-religious, as was my husband. We were both agnostic, then both went through an atheist phase, and when we met we were both “spiritual.”
Being this way, I can see the wisdom in all religions and find meaning in them. But I don’t have a real “belonging” to any particular group or creed.
I’ve also had spiritual experiences, and I definitely felt that way about meeting my husband. I believe Love is a fundamental of spirituality. I don’t know if I would call it “God,” but I think each of us has something of the divine within us.
We’re all learning our own lessons in this existence, so I don’t push my beliefs onto others. They are learning/forging/choosing their own path.
I’m also a fan of scientific reasoning, logic and rationality. An old joke from IRC: I try to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brain falls out.
Sounds like most of the dinner parties I attend in Massachusetts…Stewartian smugness included. If I disqualified these people from my social circle Mr. HUS would be my only friend. My BFF is one of these knee-jerk liberals.
I can understand why a FWB situation is attractive. For the guy, no strings sex. For the woman, sex with a familiar person, not much of a chance of running up large numbers, occational sex when desired with no committment.
Problem is, it isnt called making love , for nothing. Normally one or the other falls in love and it normally is the woman. Then he has to send her away until she gets her feeling for him in check. Normally it ends badly. The woman starts to feel used because her feelings HAVE changed.
Not to say men cant fall in love, but it isnt as common.
I also think men and women initially enter into a FWB relationship for different reasons. For him, he gets to keep his options open for variety. For her, she gets non commital sex without having to sleep around with strangers.
@JP
I got the sense in the interview that she was questioning. Which probably doesn’t place her too far apart from some very religious people.
@Susan
“Ha, you are too clever by half.”
My grade 9 math teacher used to say that all the time. That and ‘you have a mischievous looking face, you always look like your up to something.’
@Megaman
Thank you for all the FWB links. You have given me a new homework assignment.
You probably were!
Lol, what is philosophy about if not whether things exist and how that can be known? You have accepted a set of recent philosophic answers without realizing that you have chosen a side, without knowing what the alternatives are, or what the questions are.
Demanding an “empircal demonstraion of the existence of God” means you’ve already accepted the premises of modern science, glided past the differences between ancient and modern thought, and rejected the possibility of revelation. You’re closed to the essential question.
This is the thing I hate most about our expensive education system today. Our “best” schools are supposed to take our “best ” students and teach them these things but they fail utterly.
@ Escoffier:
I think he’s in revolt against the insanity of Christian Science.
Plus, I’m not sure he understood what you said.
One asked me to tell her if and when I felt we’d never work out. I did just that in the bluntest terms possible. She kept sleeping with me.
Then, in your case, it sounds like you were as honest as possible, and she did what she wanted to do. I can’t argue with that, though I do find the woman atypical.
Megaman’s Livescience link for friendships is interesting. Not so much in a “FWB” definition, but more of a ‘can men and women really just be friends’ insight.
“Although older adults reported fewer opposite-sex friends than the younger group did, everyone was very positive about these friendships, ranking them as overwhelmingly beneficial. But when people listed attraction on the “costs and benefits” list, it almost always fell under a “cost.” Almost half of the young adults in the study spontaneously mentioned attraction as a problem in their friendships, the researchers reported April 25 in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.”
That lends some credence to the mindset of making friends with hot women. Either they will turn out to be uninteresting, and then, why would you want them as a friend? Or they will turn out to be interesting and even more attractive, and just subsuming the attraction around them becomes more of a cost than the benefit of the friendship itself.
@J
” I tire of the sophmoric juvenalia spouted by people who haven’t been in a church or synagogue since their confirmation or Bar Mitzvah. It’s one thing to reject a child’s view of God, it’s another to assume that other people’s views haven’t evolved since 13 or 16. If most of these folks were to have a REAL discussion with their clergy, they’d find that their clergy don’t believe many of the same things they don’t believe.”
+1, and fits me, as my beliefs have changed a *lot* in the past ten years. University was uncomfortable that way, something to do about thinking for myself I presume.
@J
“Then, in your case, it sounds like you were as honest as possible, and she did what she wanted to do. I can’t argue with that, though I do find the woman atypical.”
Atypical? Not really. She found another relationship, got married and started a family not long after that like countless other women. And while this was all going on, she was still dating a few other guys, as in letting them take her out to dinner, then coming to me to complain that they were too complementary (too nice! so hilariously cliche I had to chuckle to myself). According to her, she “dated a lot of guys, but didn’t sleep with a lot of guys”. Where have we heard this before? This may have been true (I still have every reason to believe it was), and if it was, it gives every guy a reason to ask how wide the good girl/bad girl line is, or if that question misses the mark altogether (I think the latter).
Experiences just like that one are why I think the whole restricted/unrestricted two-sided explanation is not complete at all, and doesn’t account for the time and location-varying parts of the formula. And they’re also why I think most of the ivory tower studies this blog holds up as the standard need not be taken at face value. When those scientists can stop studying in a controlled (and thus influenced) environment and get out in the real world to tell (and show) those of us who have lived things that lie beyond the scope of (and perhaps ahead of the curve of) their studies something we don’t know and doesn’t conveniently fall in line with comfortable social norms, then I will be happy to listen and take them at every word. It’s like they are revealing two faces of an unknown shape in the dark and then telling us they know what shape it is.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure how to quote other people in the comments section…
“Great summary of the whole phenomenon:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3163778/
Fewer women than men even see them as “beneficial”:
http://www.livescience.com/20119-men-women-sex-friendship.html”
These “studies” are based on asking people questions. What they measure is not the experience itself, but social attitudes and what answers are expected.
Let’s say you had 100 guys, and 100 girls. And somehow, they all had a sexual experience that would be described as neutral. And you surveyed them about it.
About 75 of the girls would say they regretted it – even though the actual experience for them had been neutral. Among the guys, at least 75 of them would say it was a positive experience – even if he had just been thinking that it was so meaningless it wasn’t really worth it.
Studies that have people fill out questionnaires about how they felt about issues that have strong societal expectations of how they *should* feel – mostly reflect how society thinks people *should* feel – not how they actually feel. Sometimes they actually feel that way…other times they do not.
But when people aren’t sure how they feel about it, they give the “socially appropriate” answer.
“Mr. Schneiderman in #3 claimed there’s always an arrangement going in. 73% of the time, apparently there are no ground rules or negotations whatsoever:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10508-007-9211-2
Only 10% ended up as actual romantic relationships? That’s less successful than “hooking up”. 25% of friendships completely end as a result? That’s probably just a short-term minimum statistic. I don’t know many people, man or woman, who’d be comfortable dating or marrying someone who was still “friends” with a former sex partner.”
People often throw out statistics about how many lead to a real relationship, but don’t put them in comparison to real relationships.
For the vast majority of people I’ve seen get married and stay married, they’ve only dated 2-3 people – 2.5 on average. That means dating – for the *most* marriage-minded people – is only about 40% effective per relationship.
40% is the *best* – on average (sometimes someone gets lucky) – there’s a whole lot of people with a much, much worse rate.
Pointing out that the friendship sometimes ends (25% isn’t actually a terrible rate), to me, would also need to be balanced against the friendship loss rate over the same period due to other factors. A lot of friendships end – or change to a “friendly aquintance whom I sometimes comment on their facebook posts” state when the other person starts dating someone seriously. I’ve lost female friends because -
1. They become wrapped up in the new guy and just don’t have any interest in their old friends any more
2. They become so wrapped up in their new guy, while they make attempts to stay friends they’re changed so much – or their interests have changed so much – that we just don’t have enough in common to stay friends any more
3. My spending time with them – even in public settings (and these are girls I had no romantic or physical interactions with) – suddenly is constantly monitored with the “would my boyfriend like this” rule. Were we laughing to hard? Were we having to good of a time? Were we connecting on a vibe that was somehow different than she connects with her boyfriend on?
4. Ditto with her boyfriend wondering if there’s something going on between her and I – when there 100% isn’t – just because they’re going through a rough patch, and her and I are hanging out and having fun.
I could go on, there’s several more, but the rate of losing opposite gender friends by *not* having a FWB relationship with them is *also* pretty high.
I’m by no means saying that one should enter a FWB looking for a relationship – that’s really unlikely to work. But I’m also not sure the studies are saying nearly as much as they seem to be saying at face value…
lol, sorry to drag up an older topic in the comment thread, but I just wanted to say to this -
“Sassy, looking forward to the field reports! Rain fire on the gammas and deltas, and show them the error of their ways.
I really was just joking around. Sassy’s beef is not with betas, it’s with the players.”
That getting beta orbiters by no stretch of the imagination hurts players. It’s like one gets hit by their brother, so they kick the friendly and always-loves-you family dog – the people being punished are *not* the people you’re angry with…unfortunately.
I understand your point. A significant number of people across the globe agree with you, and to a point I do too but I think you’re being overly simplistic about this. Frankly, I think you are viewing the world through rosy glasses if you believe nobody has ever changed their ways before their luck ran out, or that dastardly things done in the name of survival have never gone unchecked (or that some of those things were not justified in the end), or that nobody has ever gamed the system and ended up largely unaffected by the consequences.
I’m willing to be convinced otherwise if there is proof that they do get away with it, but IME there is not such a thing as a free lunch is the pure truth, YMMV.
I’ve also had spiritual experiences, and I definitely felt that way about meeting my husband. I believe Love is a fundamental of spirituality. I don’t know if I would call it “God,” but I think each of us has something of the divine within us.
According to twin studies spirituality and religiosity are very likely genetic. We don’t inherit religions but how to live that religions so your probably would be a tolerant Christian like Jackie if you were to convert, the same for any other denomination.
Hope – Paul Rivers, great post. Sassy, brilliant analogy. Collect those $100…
Susan Walsh – Welcome and thank you for that awesome testimonial! There’s great advice there for women, I appreciate it.
Thanks.
It’s actually kind of awesome to leave a comment and get thanks back.
So often on the internet you get nothing but responses where they act like they misunderstood your comment, so they can get mad at you kind of stuff.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
““1. She was to lower of a social class…it reads weird when I write it, but she smoked, all her friends were smokers and guys I had absolutely no interest in hanging out with because they were to much of one kind of loser or another. Her best female friend was another college girl…that occasionally did hard drugs, and I had absolutely zero respect for. Her and I were better friends than her and her female friend, and had she been able to make better female friends I’m sure she would have dropped that girl in a second – but, she couldn’t.
2. I love girly passion and energy. Think sunshine and rainbows, a genuine hope and love for the future. She didn’t have that…at all, unfortunately. I mean I felt like she liked it, but she just couldn’t do it herself. Had she displayed any ability to do that, it would have made a big difference.”
Out of curiosity, did you ever discuss #1/#2 with her?”
#1, Yes, we definitely discussed the smoking a lot, and the friends and social group thing some. I helped her quit smoking more than once, but she always ended up smoking again. For the friends part, it was pretty clear that I had a low opinion of her friends – but she didn’t really have a much higher opinion about them either, those were just the best friends she could find. Without money to do stuff, I didn’t have any better suggestions myself – I mean, I had a few friends that I trusted and that was kinda it at the time. Past my freshman year, I didn’t (unfortunately, but not uncommonly) have any way of making new friends.
#2, mostly no. I didn’t really figure out why that certain feeling was lacking until later. I was only a human being, lol – I just knew something important was missing. Don’t get me wrong either – there were other feelings that I wanted that she didn’t have, but I was willing to forgo those (I wasn’t insisting on a picture of perfection – not even close). But that one feeling I could just never convince myself I would be happy without it. There were a couple of other reasons I probably never really said anything about it -
a. I really didn’t know what that feeling was about until later. I was just a human being – I didn’t really understand myself in that regard at the time. When I write about it it’s something I looked back later and said “Oooooh, *that* was it”. I just knew that a feeling that I felt was really important was missing, and I could not puzzle my mind into feeling like it was there or ever going to be there.
b. I was really, really certain it was not possible for her to give off that kind of energy. My subconscious mind really, really wanted it to happen, and I just could not find the slightest glimpse of hope for it. Bring up smoking and stuff like that was a lot easier, because even if she was never going to actually change, it was **possible** for her to change it. Bringing up “here’s something I’m looking for in a girl that you can never, ever, do, I just don’t think you’re good enough for me because of it” just seemed kind of cruel.
Note that both a & b were true at the same time – I might have said something more about it had I actually understood it in a way that let me articulate it, myself.
“I’m willing to be convinced otherwise if there is proof that they do get away with it, but IME there is not such a thing as a free lunch is the pure truth, YMMV.”
Yes, my experience does vary very much.
I’m willing to be convinced otherwise if there is proof that they do NOT get away with it, but IME there IS such a thing as a free lunch is the pure truth, YMMV.
(I’m not saying that every transgressor gets a free lunch, but some clearly do).
Stalin dying alone over a few hours doesn’t even start to compensate for the tens of millions of people he murdered. Hitler pulled a trigger, no biggy when if you don’t the russkies gonna get yer.
What would you do to that psycho Brevik that killed 77 people, send him to bed early with no tea?
http://thestreetjournal.org/2012/08/brevik-norwegian-mass-killer-gets-21-years/
The Daily Mail often wails about ridiculously meagre sentences from doddery old Judges, but you make them look like men of steel(!).
I’m somewhat surprised, I had guessed that you were more of a believer in Law and Justice being delivered in a demonstrable manner. pour encourager les autres. I guess that religion won out. thanks for the education.
Further on the paying for sins thing, I came across a BBC documentary about memory erasure (I think that audio stuff can be downloaded by ‘foreigners’, video not-so-much). It’s from ‘BBC Radio 4′, which is the news / factual(ish AGW, HBD etc) / philosophical service, in case you were going to poke round the archives (there’s a ton of interesting stuff)
“Erased Memories and Spotless Minds”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012lj4m
so with this Stalin, Hitler and all the other psychos could have their memories wiped, so no death bed regrets…free lunches for all atheists.
One last ad for the Beeb.
The Moral Maze is pretty good, unfortunately they only allow playback of the last couple of episodes.
seeing as you’ve just voted in Obamacare with all that ‘death-panel’ scare stories;
“Rationing the NHS” – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p0s0v
(my opinion of the NHS is mixed – don’t assume that I’m pro or con)
Big business and tax avoidance;
“Ethical consumerism” – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p424r
@Zach
It is not. Science cannot answer whether God exists or does not exist. I am atheist and I spend hours on discussion with religious people and other scientists. You cannot prove God exists. You cannot disprove he exists. You either believe it or not. Hence, as this is a question of faith, this is not scientific question.
Think about it that way – if God exists and is omnipotent, then he could create world just yesterday, and create it that way that you cannot find out about it.
Ana, I think genes/epigenetics are influenced by a variety of factors, including environment and “random chance.” So what is truly random? I choose to believe, that’s all.
Paul Rivers, very interesting. Both my ex and my husband smoked, and it was a dealbreaker for me, so they quit and thanked me that I “made” them quit. But the ex never had the masculine leadership and presence that my husband does.
I also do understand the class thing. It’s not strictly about income (when I left the ex he was making significantly more at the time than when I first met my husband). It’s more intangible than that.
“‘A guy can spend a whole weekend with you, cook meals together, laugh together, be passionate – do all the things that feel like being in love to a woman – and have absolutely zero emotional investment.’
Except maybe for some odd male specimens, this I seriously doubt.”
“Absolutely zero” is an exaggeration, but it’s close.
I’ve been in relationships that I didn’t think were going to last, but where we went out and did stuff, cuddled, shared feelings, etc. All of those things are fun to do, even if you’re planning on taking another offer if it comes in. (Also, I paid for most stuff because I had more money, and because I felt a little guilty that I wasn’t willing to put a commitment on the table.)
Since I’m old, we called those relationships “dating other people” or “no strings attached” instead of “friends with benefits,” but there’s nothing about enjoying being romantic with someone that means you’re in for the long haul.
In hindsight, it was not a nice thing to do, but I was young and a guy, so I thought as long as we were upfront that the relationship was open and NSA, it was at least defensible.
@Szopen
Sure, you can’t prove completely and absolutely what does and does not exist. I can’t prove absolutely that there is no giant bucket full of water floating above my head. However, it’s about shadings of probability. It is extremely probable that the chair I am sitting on does exist. I can weigh it, I can touch it, I can smell it, I can sit on it, etc, etc. My point is that God as described is equally as likely to exist as a giant invisible bucket of water floating over my head, or as likely as anything that anyone makes up on the spur of the moment. I could also “imbue” that bucket of water with special qualities that makes its existence non-provable. However, I don’t live my life by having faith in a floating bucket of water.
@Escoffier
I actually have read Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche and most of the philosophers you’d probably mention. They offer interesting logical games and questions about human nature and the world. However, modern science is not a form of philosophy. To call it so is belittling it. Philosophy was not empirically tested. Philosophy can’t cure disease, can’t create an atomic bomb, can’t propel a rocket to the moon. Philosophy is better described as an atheistic mirror to religious doctrine, attempting to answer questions that science cannot answer, such as why are we here, what is the meaning of life, etc. I would even say that the part of philosophy that attempts to describe human behavior is rapidly losing out to advances in neuroscience and psychology. Philosophy is useful for the questions where we have no good scientific answers. It’s an attempt (as religion is) to put an answer in place of “I don’t know”. However, in a large number of cases, modern science has rendered that completely moot. As Szopen said, it is not possible to completely disprove that a god exists. However, on the preponderance of evidence (or lack thereof), it is extremely unlikely he exists.
@ szopen
Ahh but here’s the thing. Science rejects the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The same reasoning used by science (namely, the principle of parsimony) to reject the Flying Spaghetti Monster can be used to reject God.
@Anacaona
“I’m willing to be convinced otherwise if there is proof that they do get away with it, but IME there is not such a thing as a free lunch is the pure truth, YMMV.”
So no one has ever successfully committed a robbery? No politician has ever received a bribe under the table without being caught? Not likely. And we haven’t even considered cases where the perpetrator gets a free lunch and the public pays the cost of his/her indiscretions. Sometimes that is your “equal and opposite reaction”.
@Intj
well I sure hope that His Noodly Goodness forgives your lack of faith come the day.
Susan,
This is easy, but I don’t like the advice that you have given to this reader. She shouldn’t verbally bring it up because it puts her in a lower strength position and the answer can be had in a different manner.
If she has the willpower she should just pull back completely, stop things in both a sexual and platonic manner and put the onus on the guy to ask ‘why’. Trust me, when she pulls back, he will ask why, and promted she can give him the ol’ “I can’t maintain this kind of relationship with you. It either has to be something more, or nothing at all”.
She could state that directly from the start, but my approach is all about frame control and has a better chance of being successful.
For some reason this made me think of a woman who does not believe in love, but with the help of a sexual surrogate, learned how to masturbate.
Secularism is an interesting religion.
2 david foster December 5, 2012 at 4:43 pm
//You don’t think there were atheist Marxists in the Soviet Union and its satellites who turned in their own children to the secret police for political deviations, knowing that this would result in almost certain execution?
As a local resident russian and just so you could properly use this argument in the future:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlik_Morozov
“The most popular account of the story is as follows: born to poor peasants in Gerasimovka, a small village 350 kilometers north-east of Yekaterinburg (then known as Sverdlovsk), Morozov was a dedicated communist who led the Young Pioneers at his school, and a supporter of Stalin’s collectivization of farms. In 1932, at the age of 13, Morozov reported his father to the political police (GPU). Supposedly, Morozov’s father, the Chairman of the Village Soviet, had been “forging documents and selling them to the bandits and enemies of the Soviet State” (as the sentence read). The elder Morozov, Trofim, was sentenced to ten years in a labour camp, and later executed.[1] However, Pavlik’s family did not take kindly to his activities: on September 3 of that year, his uncle, grandfather, grandmother and a cousin murdered him, along with his younger brother. ”
It’s role-reversal (a child sacrificing his father – instead of the other way around) and there might be a good dose of fiction to it, but this story was taught in schools for about 50 years with not irony or reservation. It was accepted as a correct course of action for a patriotic russian to do. So, yes – we did our share of sacrifices made on the altar of ideology.
But then again, communism – as in the ideology behind the soviet union – was a religion in all but name. It had its saints and sinners, rituals and holy scripture, the whole shabang. Planned economy – meaning the economic system we had – was basically trying to tie up an industrial economy around an a theocracy.
It did produce stunning results in some areas and was much more complex that just “bad commies did bad things and made puppies cry”. History of the Soviet Union is really worth to have some basic grasp of.
It was a beautiful, if inherently flawed, experiment in human nature.
Bro, you are getting lost in the semantics.
When that bank got robbed, someone payed for it: the Bank.
And we haven’t even considered cases where the perpetrator gets a free lunch and the public pays the cost of his/her indiscretions.
Right, it was not actually free. Someone payed for it. That is the point behind the Heinlein/Friedman “Free Lunch” statement.
@Ramble
I agree.
Some others are trying to use karma to explain that the cost inflicted upon another by your actions will come back to bite you in the ass.
Fun thought.
Not real.
Life isn’t fair.
@Jason
That amounts to deploying the Principle of Least Interest. She goes away with no explanation in order to cause him discomfort and anxiety. If he wants a relationship with her, he’s in a state of dread. If he doesn’t, that will be pretty clear by the manner in which he asks.
Why not state up front that she’s noticed a change in his behavior and wonders what’s up? Or even refer to her own feelings ; “Hey I could get used to this, are you f*cking with my head?”
I think her best chance of success at getting a relationship without making him feel resentful and manipulated is honest disclosure, without shame.
Instilling dread may work to get guys sex, but it harms relationships. Not a good way for her to proceed, IMO.
Thank you for all of the wonderful responses and words of advice! You all have been such a help and an inspiration.
So, we had the talk. It got kind of emotional and I’m not good at showing my feelings, but I honestly feel so much more relieved to have put everything out in the open.
Anyhow, he told me that he really likes me and cares about me more than anyone in his life right now, but he is still hurt from his last relationship and isn’t ready to jump into something new. Which is understandable, but he didn’t say anything about considering a relationship with me in the future, so I am assuming that he just doesn’t want one with me. In all honesty, I am okay with that, I can’t force him to like me or want to be with me if he just doesn’t see it happening.
I told him that I have developed feelings for him over these few months and it’s too hard for me to keep hooking up with him and acting like we are dating if it’s not going to turn into something more. He said he understood where I was coming from and that he would respect my wishes of not hooking up if I really didn’t want to anymore, but he said he wouldn’t know what to do if he didn’t still have me in his life at least as a friend. He told me that I am an amazing person and that he still wants to spend time with me even if it means that we won’t hook up. So we decided that we are still going to stay good friends but just cut out the hooking up aspect. I guess we will have to see how this one goes…
After this whole talk he slept over and he held me all night but respected my requests of not hooking up. He could definitely tell I was sad so he was trying to comfort me I guess. In the morning I had class so I let him sleep, and I came back to my room all cleaned and a really sweet note on my bed. He even cooked me breakfast and waited for me for the 2 hrs my class went on.
He just kept hugging me and kissing my head and saying how he wishes he could make me happy and see my beautiful smile all of the time. He said he never wants to see me sad again so he kept on trying to do funny things to cheer me up. So now I guess he just feels bad, which I didn’t mean to do at all. But the friendship thing is working out well so far. I helped him with a project the other night and we hung out after and just played the game where you draw a picture on the other person’s back and have to guess it and we showed each other new songs we like. And it was nice to just hang out as friends. I am glad that we became close enough that we can still be friends and not have that awkward FWB falling out.
I just hate that we still have sexual attraction- we both still definitely want to jump each other’s bones. I can just tell by the way he looks at me. And he confused me even more because he asked if I want to go home with him the next time he visits his family, and his house is like 5 hours away from our college. Is he doing this because he feels bad for me and is trying to be nice or does he actually feel something and really just isn’t ready for a new relationship yet? Did I write him off unfairly? I just don’t see why he would take a girl who he is only friends with on a long trip home to spend time with his family and childhood friends. So confusing!!!
So overall, I think that this came out to be a good thing. I am glad I listened to you all and talked to him. Maybe one day he will realize that I would make an awesome girlfriend, or maybe he really does just need more time to get over his ex, but I feel like maybe I will have already moved on by then. I’m realizing that this is just one guy and that there are many other fish in the sea. I’m just glad to know that he is a real friend and actually still wants to be with me even if I won’t hook up with him anymore. But I still don’t see why he spends so much time with me and does such nice things for me if he isn’t interested in me. Ugh, what’s a girl to do?!
@ Alw
1. I 100% don’t believe that men and women can be friends, EXACTLY for the reason of sexual tension. If you two continue to hang out, you will either end up sleeping together again, or your feelings for him will only continue to grow.
2. Listen to what he is telling you. He doesn’t want a relationship with you. I repeat, he doesn’t want a relationship with you. Either you accept that and move on, or you sit around twiddling your thumbs while waiting for him to magically consider you worthy of being his girlfriend.
3. As much as it may hurt you, and as much as he claims that it may hurt him, I think you need to walk away. Of course he would be upset if you decided not to be his “friend” again. You are an activity buddy for him that he always has the possibility of seducing into bed. If he only wanted a “friend”, I’m sure he has male acquaintances that could fill that role nicely. The problem is that he doesn’t want to bone his male friends. You add that benefit for him.
@alw
Wow. That is NOT what I expected. I’m as surprised by your willingness to do the friend thing as I am about his reaction. He is obviously very invested and sexually attracted, so I think the only explanation must be his not being over his ex. The timing is bad. It’s only been 4 months, right? That’s not a long time, it sounds like she did a number on him.
Also, FWIW, I hate the whole idea of people taking a “break.” That never works, it’s just Breakup Stage One, and it wreaks havoc with the other person’s emotions.
Anyway, if you can do this friend thing with no sex and enjoy yourself without getting sad and feeling hurt, I’d say there’s a decent chance he will come around. You’ll have to be patient, though. His heart is still healing. Meanwhile, you should most definitely be open to developing an interest in someone new.
Timing really is a bitch.
Best of luck, alw, I’m interested to hear what others think.
@alw
Hi ALW,
“Anyhow, he told me that he really likes me and cares about me more than anyone in his life right now, but he is still hurt from his last relationship and isn’t ready to jump into something new.”
but it’s far better you know the truth.
===
This is where you needed to end your post. I’m really sorry
I think you need to cut off all contact, cold turkey. Don’t be his “friend”– that’s not an option. A real friend wouldn’t lead someone on and make them care if there was no possibility for a relationship.
Again, I’m really sorry, ALW, but cutting this guy off puts you that much closer to a guy who really wants to be your boyfriend. Don’t settle for less than that.
@alw
I can understand where he might be coming from. I can believe he really likes you and your company and not just for sex but doesn’t feel strongly enough to commit to you and only you for a long time. That may be because of feelings for his ex or he may not be capable of being into you enough (even w/o the ex-gf feelings).
I have dated girls w/o committing (though we didn’t explicitly call it FWB) and I really liked them but never grew to love them enough or feel compatible enough and eventually we broke up.
I think you should try to see other guys and not fall further in love with him. As long as you realize that he may never fall in love with you or commit to you then you can see how things go with him as friends (who feel attraction) and if he ever comes around. Just don’t keep hoping for him for too long if he doesn’t. There are surely other great guys that you can love and that would love to date you and one of them may really fall for you so by continuing too much longer with him you might be missing out on someone else.
@Susan:
“Also, FWIW, I hate the whole idea of people taking a “break.” That never works, it’s just Breakup Stage One, and it wreaks havoc with the other person’s emotions.”
My wife’s cousin did this. That couple is not happily married with kid, but no prior relationship was involved. They had been dating since HS, though.
@Susan
I am thinking the timing thing may be the culprit as well. He told me he thought she was the one and that she is the first girl he was ever in love with, so he is definitely going to take a while to get over her.
I care about him and want to be here for him as a friend, but I am not going to sit around waiting for him to get over her, so I am definitely going to be open to someone new coming into my life. If he comes around, we can reassess the situation, but for now I am happy to know that he wasn’t using me for sex and that he actually likes me as a person.
And I agree with everyone that is telling me to look for others. I am happy to be here as his friend, but I am honestly okay with moving on to look for other people now. Now that we talked, I feel like I have closure and I can start to look for another guy because I don’t feel bad about this situation anymore.
Thank you all again for your help!
@alw
I’m gonna be cynical.
You told him you didn’t want to have sex unless there was a relationship.
He doesn’t want a relationship.
He could be maintaining the friendship in an attempt to get you back into bed.
The options of friendship + potential sex is better than the option of no friendship + no sex.
Frankly even if its all on the level, why waste your time creating emotional entanglements?
Theres a ton of others guys out there.
@alw
Your words in 363 reminded me of Jane Bennett in Pride & Prejudice and being over Bingley.
We all know how that ended. I’m teasing. It sounds like you still really like him but are willing to move on while still keeping open the possibility of him falling in love later. Sounds like a good plan to me.
@Ramble
“Right, it was not actually free. Someone payed for it. That is the point behind the Heinlein/Friedman “Free Lunch” statement.”
I agree with regards to that concept. But, notice that this is not the same as the individualized morality/Karma principle that Anacaona appears to be arguing, where the consequences are neatly dumped right back in the lap of the transgressors (and only those who did wrong). I am saying the same thing Lokland is- the world is not that simple and life isn’t fair. Sometimes one party pays the ultimate price and the other, though punished, does not. Sometime people are wrongly convicted. And sometimes people just plain forgive and forget.
he said he wouldn’t know what to do if he didn’t still have me in his life at least as a friend. He told me that I am an amazing person and that he still wants to spend time with me even if it means that we won’t hook up. So we decided that we are still going to stay good friends but just cut out the hooking up aspect. I guess we will have to see how this one goes…
Ack! NO, do not do this! You CANNOT be friends if you have feelings for him. You have to treat this like a breakup. Seriously — no contact at all for at least 2 months.
It is selfish of him to want to keep you around for emotional support (this might even be worse than just using you for sex) when what you want and what he wants are fundamentally incompatible, and continuing any kind of physically or emotionally intimate relationship is just going to cause you pain. You will be much better off in the long run if you move on, and pour newly found free time and energy into friends/hobbies/school/dating/etc
Like I said, you’ve accepted the modern premise both without understanding its alternatives or even understanding that there ARE alternatives.
Modern science is a branch of philosophy, the most successful branch, but still just a branch. The distinction between “science” and “philosophy,” which you take for granted, is only about 200 years old and is wholly based on modern premises which today mostly go unexamined but which are not self-evident.
Philosophy literally means “the love of wisdom.” Philosophy is the quest for wisdom which must remain a quest since it appears that final wisdom is not possible for man. It is the attempt to comprehend the whole, i.e., everything but most of all the limits and outline of the whole and the relation of all the parts to one another. Philosophy is the ongoing attempt to replace opinions about things with knowledge of those things, or the truth about those things, especially about the most important things.
It’s clear that modern philosophy has succeeded spectacularly in chemistry, very well with much left to be done in biology, and quite well but with tons left to do in physics. It is, needless to say, more successful in all these areas than ancient philosophy was.
You take this as proof that modern science is superior to ancient philosophy, but you don’t know the difference between the two, you don’t understand the strength of ancient philosophy—especially in comprehending man and his place in the whole—and, worst, you take modern philosophy’s stance toward religion as the foundation of truth rather than as an argument against something it tried to replace. Modern philosophy might in fact be the truth (I think it isn’t) but to know that you would have to understand the two alternatives it was trying to place, and from there WHY it was trying to replace them. Modern philosophy is an argument, not a revelation.
A modernity of strength would be one that understands itself, and understands what it was reacting to and why. That force spent itself a long time ago. Now modernity is just our ancestral code. The same way in ancient times the good was held to be identical to the old or the ancestral, so today the good is held to be the same as the new or the latest. Progress forever onward. The early moderns actively sought to make that change but they understood what they were doing.
Our elite education system has failed us completely and with every year that goes by we just get dumber and civilization gets a little dimmer.
Agree with everyone else saying don’t be friends.
He will never fall in love with you, never want you as a wife, never see you as the potential mother of his children, and he will never give you all that you want and need. Walk out of his life now… actually, run, don’t walk.
@alw
I think the most likely (though not only) answer is that he’s not into you enough to want to be your boyfriend. You can give it more time if you want but only do so knowing that he’s not likely ever going to fall in love with you enough.
@alw
This may sound harsh. You CANNOT be friends with him still. You talked, but neither of your feelings changed because of that talk. He still wants to bang you, you still don’t want to bang without a relationship. Being in close proximity, and doing the things you’re doing will just create tension and more drama.
In terms of him feeling bad, I can imagine that he does. I felt bad when I broke up with my ex girlfriend, because I still thought highly of her as a person, just not as my gf. I wanted to stay in touch, BUT ONLY TO ASSUAGE MY OWN GUILT. It was very selfish, and she rightfully said no. There was no advantage to it for her. Your guy probably feels the same way. Hell, I feel bad for you reading your post (nobody likes to see someone get their heart broken).
As far as his ex is concerned, I call bullshit. It’s the same kind of excuse as “I just don’t have time for a relationship”. It’s conditional. What it really means is “its too soon for a relationship WITH YOU”. If there was any truth whatsoever to it being too soon, he wouldn’t have started seeing you at all. To be even more frank, you were a rebound.
My advice is to break off all contact and find some other guy.
@Hope
“never see you as the potential mother of his children”
This might be projection on my part but;
He very well could see her as mother of his child(ren). He might lack the vision where he acts as a father.
@Escoffier
You present your argument re: philosophy and science as a fait accompli, which ignores a foundational difference between the two. If you blanket everything under “searching for truth”, then you’re correct. However, I could easily include the spreadsheet I’m working on in the philosophy category if that’s the case. I’m searching for our gross margin in the last thirty days. I’m searching for the truth of our gross margin.
The extremely important (in fact, the definitive feature of the scientific method) facet that you’re leaving out is that one (science) is empirically testable, and one (philosophy) is not. One (science) actually provides solutions, and one (philosophy) provides intriguing thought exercises and moral frameworks. Philosophy deals in suppositions and ideas, science deals in facts.
Zach and Escoffier’s arguments got me thinking. Given the rate of atheism/agnosticism among young, intelligent and college-educated men, I wonder if a young woman could actually up her chances if she became non-religous.
What about the more restricted guys? Is religiosity a dealbreaker? Would you much rather have a non-religious woman over a religious woman, assuming similar looks and other qualities? Why or why not?
“Philosophy deals in suppositions and ideas, science deals in facts.”
You’re not even trying to think beyond the modern position and recognize the alternatives because, like I said earlier, you think you already have the most important issues figured out. You’ve taken sides with modernity without realizing that it is a side and without knowing what the other side has to say.
@Escoffier
As I said, I have read most of the classical philosophers. I’ve heard what they have to say. I’ve also read Burke, Rousseau, Voltaire, and many other more modern writers (Kant, Nietschze, Camus). And absolutely I’ve taken sides. Modern science has so thoroughly outmoded their answers to most questions that what they’re left with is those that science has no answer for, such as why we are here (in the metaphysical sense), what the purpose of life is, how to achieve happiness (and they’re losing ground to science on that one every day), and how we should behave and live together. Similar to religion, philosophy was a previous answer in place of “I don’t know”. Now that we do know, in many cases, that answer is no longer necessary. And in a lot of cases, psychology and neuroscience are further eroding the usefulness of philosophy in the practical sense. Philosophy already has seen its practical use eroded heavily by science, and once the practical application is gone, it’s merely a diverting intellectual exercise.
Your argument is the equivalent of saying “well, you’ve chose to drive a car without properly evaluating the horse and buggy first”.
@Hope
For me (not restricted) it depends on the level of religiosity. Goes to church every couple of months and believes there’s a god? Fine. Bases major parts of her life and behavior on the dictates of her religion? No thank you.
@Hope
“Is religiosity a dealbreaker? Would you much rather have a non-religious woman over a religious woman, assuming similar looks and other qualities? Why or why not?”
Depends on the intensity.
I broke up with my first girlfriend because she wanted a bit too much Jesus in my life. I’d have the same problem if a woman demanded kids grow up religious.
I’m fully down for spiritual not good with religion.
Also @Escoffier
I actually have to say that Thucydides, while not a philosopher per se, is my favorite of the Greek bunch. Similar to Machiavelli, his work contains some pretty timeless insights on human behavior.
But, as I noted, psychology is replacing some of philosophy’s answers even in that arena. We now know the chemical causes of bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, and other mental disorders. Any abstract explanation for them is unnecessary. However, science cannot as of yet explain to me why certain people prefer communism to capitalism (although some recent advances in neuroscience are getting closer). So in those situations, I find philosophy compelling.
@Lokland
Just curious, can you define the difference between “spiritual” and “religious”? Spiritual seems to me to be a pretty wishy-washy term for incense, crystals and other new-age BS.
You just keep stating modern ideas over and over as if they are obviously superior and no further thought is required. Horse and buggy, lol.
Hey, as long as you’re happy, no sweat, but you don’t know what you don’t know and what you don’t know is not insignificant.
I’m not restricted (anymore) but religiosity isn’t a deal breaker as long as they accept me as I am.
BTW, to say that modernity is obviously superior to prior thought is not exactly self-evident in the age of thermonuclear weapons, pollution, the gulag, the Holocaust, technology-abetted tyranny, the Last Man, feminism, hedonism, nihilism, and so on. You sure you read Nietszche?
Modern “science” narrowly understood as physics, chem and bio plus engineering has been spectacularly successful. Whether all this has been good for man as man is another question, which we can’t answer until we know what the good is, which requires recourse to earlier modes of thought. If your answer to this is “But we are richer and can better control nature to alleviate suffering and so on” you still have to make a case for why those things are not only intrisically good but also why they are better than the alternatives, which again requires knowing what those alternatives are.
Modern social science or political philosophy is manifestly infeferior to prior modes of thought, both on its own terms–as a proscriptive (society should be like this) and predictive (if X occurs, Y follows) science–and even in ancient terms, as a descriptive or theoretical science.
@Escoffier:
I think modernity has already ended.
@Zach
“Just curious, can you define the difference between “spiritual” and “religious”? Spiritual seems to me to be a pretty wishy-washy term for incense, crystals and other new-age BS.”
ROFL.
I’ll let my crystal ball answer you.
—————
I don’t thank god for my food.
I thank the earth. Not a living entity, a ball of rock.
I am dependent on it so I thank it.
I tend to romanticize the bond with my wife into something that it is an almost real and tangible. (I realize it is not.)
I enjoy the sun on my skin, the feel of grass in the summer. I focus on those things and their beauty. And not just enjoy but actually FOCUS on their beauty.
My favourite sensation ever, is the warmth of my wife’s skin while cuddling against me in a rainstorm in the middle of the summer. I romanticize the protector and nurturer aspects of our relationship.
It has very little to do with god.
The closest parallel would be Taoism but I’ve never seriously looked at it.
I’m somewhat surprised, I had guessed that you were more of a believer in Law and Justice being delivered in a demonstrable manner. pour encourager les autres. I guess that religion won out. thanks for the education.
I am but I also had been observing people for a long time, just because my personal medieval torture was not implemented on certain subjects doesn’t mean they didn’t paid for it. Hell is personal and subjective and very real, again YMMV.
@Lokland:
“I tend to romanticize the bond with my wife into something that it is an almost real and tangible. (I realize it is not.)”
It’s real and tangible.
@JP
Ever read Orsonn Scott Card?
Philotic connection is the closest analogy I can think off.
Again, nothing to do with god.
@Zach and Escoffier
Science is a branch of philosophy that limits itself to what can be rationally modelled and empirically verified. However, that does not mean that the whole sum of existence is or ever could be discovered by science.
Also, the idea of an objective universe that science (with objective subjects) can discover is an assumption, an assumption that is impossible to prove and has many flaws in it, especially due to quantum mechanics where the wave function of all possibilities is reduced to one reality under certain conditions (e.g. being observed, when the electron strikes the screen and is detected).
This all comes back to the problem of is there any reality beyond one’s own perceptions and thoughts. This cannot be proven. Then if you assume there is such a reality, how to prove that you’re not biasing it by your own assumptions.
As a practical matter, I assume all these things. And, of course, the fact that science allows for experiments to be performed over and over again and produce the same results within the margins of errors, and the technologies based on the ideas of science, show that it is the best system for acquiring knowledge that we have, within the scope of its limitations. However, there may be influences in the universe that are not readily measurable enough to discern with our current apparatus and may never be but yet still impact the world.
“However, there may be influences in the universe that are not readily measurable enough to discern with our current apparatus and may never be but yet still impact the world.”
Starting with the thoughts and actions of the 7 billion residents of earth.
So no one has ever successfully committed a robbery? No politician has ever received a bribe under the table without being caught? Not likely. And we haven’t even considered cases where the perpetrator gets a free lunch and the public pays the cost of his/her indiscretions. Sometimes that is your “equal and opposite reaction”.
So I think you are arguing that a person’s actions can only have one set of consequences, like a politician should get caught right away to be a valid payment for his taking a bribe? I think that is more nuanced coming from a place where many people take bribes people get a varied of consequences that might or might not involved getting caught by the big wigs? Having someone find out and blackmailing you in return for example is a classic, wouldn’t that be a consequence?
@Escoffier
You and I have been talking at cross-purposes. I don’t consider social science “Science”. It’s more like informed discussion. When I refer to science, I’m strictly referring to biology, physics and chemistry. Again, in your references above, you veer from scientific discoveries (H bomb) to philosophies and behaviors (nihilism, hedonism). They are non-overlapping magisteria.
You’re certainly right, there may be more wisdom in ancient ways of organizing society than modern methods. I don’t agree with you that it is inferior as a descriptive “science” though. Insights gathered through data and experiment are much more applicable than the musings of one person. Aristotle didn’t have access to the census, or to rich labor and employment data, or marriage status, etc, etc.
@JP
Actually, writ large, human actions are becoming more and more predictable. Brain chemistry (genetics) and experience (the two factors which have been shown to influence behavior) across a population (and human reaction) is more similar than brain chemistry between two people.
@HanSolo
Of course science can’t answer all of our questions, or describe anything. However, the default answer to “what can’t it describe” should be “I don’t know”, not an all-powerful, all-knowing being who proscribes certain behaviors to humanity. “God” is a story invented thousands of years ago to replace “I don’t know” (and to alleviate the fear of death). It’s no more plausible than any story I can come up with today. It just has history and tradition on its side. I refer you to Russell’s teapot, which I believe is still the most compelling argument in this case.
@ Hope
She can believe whatever she wants to believe, and I will try to be accommodating. But I don’t want to be thought of as immoral solely because I am not religious, and I hate dealing with religious parents.
My SO’s entire family is hardcore religious, and her mother has given extensive lectures on “proper” relations between unmarried men and women.
Other friends have similar stories dealing with hyper-religious parents. They are not flexible or understanding or respectful of their children’s adult choices.
@ADBG:
“Other friends have similar stories dealing with hyper-religious parents. They are not flexible or understanding or respectful of their children’s adult choices.”
There are Rules, and you Do Not Disobey The Rules.
Ever.
For Any Reason.
There are Rules.
Those Who Disobey The Rules Must Be Punished.
@Zach:
“Actually, writ large, human actions are becoming more and more predictable. Brain chemistry (genetics) and experience (the two factors which have been shown to influence behavior) across a population (and human reaction) is more similar than brain chemistry between two people.”
Yes, particularly when people are on autopilot.
I spend most of my day on autopilot.
http://thefilmexperience.net/storage/1980s/TopGun1.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1305635162624
Awwww isn’t that cute, they have “principles”
Guess what, if you make my life so much hell that I can’t date your daughter anymore, there are plenty of other girls out there for me. Not so many options for her that are going to endure that bullshit.
And if the ONLY complaint you have about me is “he believes in premarital sex!” good fucking god you have no idea how good she has it!
Susan,
You’re projecting here. When a guy just pulls away from a woman her hamster starts running a mile a minute, and dread ensues. In this case though, when she pulls away, the guy is going to be more curious than anything, and wonder why the sudden change has occurred. The dread issue will not be at the forefront of his mind like it would be for a woman, and may not even be there at all. And as you stated, she will get her answer this way.
But I’m just giving what I believe will work best. Making the guy pursue (if he is interested at all) will work much better in this case than being blunt with her feelings, as he can just deflect that conversation (I know, because I’ve done it).
LOL. In my last response I hadn’t even read the update from alw, and I called it perfectly. She dished her feelings, he deflected, he tried to keep the status quo (because why wouldn’t he? The onus was never put on him) and this will end up with them hooking up even more, him not committing and alw being even more hurt and upset. Just watch…
ALW,
Good luck trying to look for someone else and keeping him as a friend. I’m sure the new ‘someone else’, if he has any social awareness at all, will realize that your ‘friend’ consistently had sex with you without any real commitment. That’s not really putting you in the ‘keeper’ category as this is price discrimination at its finest.
@ ALW
I would suggest running like the wind
@ALW
What zach said above is correct, particularly calling bullshit on the “timing” thing. If he was that broken up still, he wouldn’t be able to do the things he’s done. He likes you – a lot. Just not enough to exclusively commit to you. If he could have multiple “girlfriends” is the true sense of the word, you’d probably be one of them.
Go fuck ten other guys. Oh, wait, that advice is for guys, not girls. Go LJBF ten other guys or whatever women do to get over a guy.
“Go LJBF ten other guys or whatever women do to get over a guy.”
That’s very funny.
I’m trying to imagine how this would work in a college situation.
I suppose you could walk around the mechanical engineering area until you attracted a small cohort of beta orbiters. Depending on how many you wanted, you might have to do this for a few days in a row.
I suppose you could then have each one take you on a date.
To save time, after you dated all the orbiters, you could then gather them together and LJBF them as a group if you were pressed for time.
Also, as Jason says, no sane guy is going to want to date you while he senses that you’d rather be fucking and in a relationship with your best friend. And this guy will do just enough to claim territory so that the new guy knows it. It might not even be conscious or premeditated – it’s instinctual.
Hope: “What about the more restricted guys? Is religiosity a dealbreaker? Would you much rather have a non-religious woman over a religious woman, assuming similar looks and other qualities? Why or why not?”
Fun question. No, it’s not a dealbreaker itself, but since (Christian) religion highly correlates with either prudery or hypocrisy, it is in practice. I couldn’t marry a woman who was seriously invested in being religious, but decided to fuck outside of marriage; but if she won’t fuck *me*, then it’s extremely unlikely I’d marry her in the first place. I dunno if there are other sexier religions, that aren’t so stuffy, though.
“I couldn’t marry a woman who was seriously invested in being religious, but decided to fuck outside of marriage; but if she won’t fuck *me*, then it’s extremely unlikely I’d marry her in the first place.”
Now there’s a modern day Catch-22.
And, with that last question… I’ve fixed my URL to put my avatar into full context. Wasn’t aware it has been broken so long,
Going +1000 this.
@AWL
Sorry, I’m late. And I’m posting before reading everyone’s comment, though I skimmed a few.
Sassy nailed it. So did Hope. As well as Zach.
Anyways, I’m probably the umpteenth person to say, don’t be friends.
The only reason he wants to is assuage his own guilt as Zach said, or to wait and see if you’ll fall back into a FWB, and continue sleeping with him.
The “timing” excuse means nothing. If he had feelings he would have mentioned you two eventually becoming a couple, which it sounds like he avoid purposefully. Or he would have insisted he has space to get over his gf, until he’s ready for you and him to have a relationship.
Lol, playing the back-drawing game. Talk about kino.
I think he’s simply keeping you close, so in case you change your mind.
@ADBG:
I’ll see your +1000 and raise you another +1000.
I’m also going to have to throw my support behind not looking for other guys, while remaining friends.
Jason is spot on. Any other guy is going to notice, or suspect it. And it would do nothing good, if not completely ruin any chance with a new guy.
I’d suggest you never introduce any future guy, that your looking to date, to this guy.
@Religious discussion
Wow. Just… wow. This is what I have learned about religious people on this thread:
*Regarded as having “less of a reasoning capacity”
*Correlates with prudery or hypocrisy
*Not sexy enough
*It’s okay as she believes in God, as long as she doesn’t actually practice her beliefs (and thereby inconvenience you)
*Too much Jesus
*Hate dealing with religious parents
*Wonder if a woman could up her chances at a guy by giving up her faith. (Tantamount in my experience to soul suicide and also cutting her off from family, friends and community.)
===
I wish I could get on my high horse and strike back, ’cause this really hurts. (A lot.)
But I can’t. I wouldn’t deny your experience and I can’t change your opinions.
All I can say is that many religious people aren’t there to throw hypocrisy in your face or throw shade with hardcore judgment. Speaking for my kind, we’re not here to preach or convert. We don’t want to call you names or use religion as a tool to hurt or manipulate.
Many of us are hippie-types who believe Christ came to teach us compassion and to care for the least among us:
The “omega” guy, the chubby girl, the people it’s easy to look down upon or dismiss. The poor, the “uglies,” the ones society puts down and laughs at. Anyone who has ever felt lonely, lost or rejected.
Those are our brothers and sisters that we are called to care for, speak up for and love, unconditionally. We strive for compassion. We want the hungry to be fed and the outcast to be welcomed. We believe in peace.
And that each of us is worthy of love.
Thank you for considering my perspective.
@Anacaona
“So I think you are arguing that a person’s actions can only have one set of consequences, like a politician should get caught right away to be a valid payment for his taking a bribe? I think that is more nuanced coming from a place where many people take bribes people get a varied of consequences that might or might not involved getting caught by the big wigs? Having someone find out and blackmailing you in return for example is a classic, wouldn’t that be a consequence?”
No disrespect, but where you have managed to conclude that I have been arguing a one to one correspondence between action and reaction, through all of my repeating that there is a wide potential set of consequences for any given action, is beyond me. I have been saying over and over that there are many potential ways things could shake out in response to an individual action (“the world is not that simple”- how many times have I said that?). What I have also been saying, is that sometimes people’s actions do not come back to bite them in any meaningful, practical, or timely way FROM AN INDIVIDUAL PERSPECTIVE. I shouldn’t even say sometimes, because this literally happens all the time.
This sentence of yours: “I think that is more nuanced coming from a place where many people take bribes people get a varied of consequences that might or might not involved getting caught by the big wigs?”
That sentence is exactly what I have been saying all along, and apparently we have been talking past each other, you referencing the generalized concept of for every action a reaction (or reactions plural), and me talking about this same concept from an individual perspective. Fact of the matter is, that from an individual perspective, the full cost (or benefit) of people’s actions doesn’t always come to them in a way that greatly affects them, so it makes sense to look out for you, because “justice” may not come when and where you want it, nor will it always be so cut and dried as to even allow you to claim that you were wronged if you knowingly agreed to a loose contract of some sort a la the FWB “contract” we have been discussing.
That’s my point, and that’s enough on this topic.
JP: “Now there’s a modern day Catch-22.”
Yes and no. Had I started found a steady girlfriend at 14 or 15, 16 tops, and had no long dry spells, I probably would’ve been fine marrying with n=0. Something about being alone really changes one’s mind about that.
@BroHamlet:
“Fact of the matter is, that from an individual perspective, the full cost (or benefit) of people’s actions doesn’t always come to them in a way that greatly affects them, so it makes sense to look out for you, because “justice” may not come when and where you want it, nor will it always be so cut and dried as to even allow you to claim that you were wronged if you knowingly agreed to a loose contract of some sort a la the FWB “contract” we have been discussing.”
I’m not even sure where FWB falls on the karmic scales, so to speak.
Justice is cut and dried within it’s own context.
However, it’s not subjective, it’s objective, which means that people don’t get a vote, just like we don’t get a vote on gravity.
Build your tower however you want to, just don’t be surprised or whine when the lightning strikes.
@Jackie:
“Thank you for considering my perspective.”
There’s nothing wrong with your perspective.
Basically, how do I stand my ground and tell him I don’t want this if it’s not going to lead to more?
All you need to say is that you thought a FBW relationship would work for you, it doesn’t, so you’re done. Don’t allow him to think you are trying to issue some sort of ultimatum like, “I’ll only stay if you give me more.” Just let him no that you understand that he only has so much to give you, that it’s not working out for you as you thought it would and that you need to end it. No hard feelings, my mistake, I misjudged myself, it’s been nice, bye. That way, you at least get out with some dignity. Do it in a public place, keep it short, keep the drama to a minimum.
Jackie, you are assuredly the exception to what I wrote. I’ve never met, nor corresponded with, any strong Christian like you, who actually walks the walk. Not one, and I spent a good 20 something years in my own church, before I grew out of it.
My point in 413 is that I wouldn’t have the attitude I have, if it wasn’t such a gigantic fail in practice. If the church is serious about getting young men actually wanting a true Christian marriage before they give up and just grt out, they better get their crap together.
Go fuck ten other guys. Oh, wait, that advice is for guys, not girls. Go LJBF ten other guys or whatever women do to get over a guy.
We cry,eat a lot of ice cream and/or chocolate our girlfriends talk with us and bash the guy as lesser/we could totally do better/his lose and shortly after we are over him.
That sentence is exactly what I have been saying all along, and apparently we have been talking past each other, you referencing the generalized concept of for every action a reaction (or reactions plural), and me talking about this same concept from an individual perspective.
Oops it seems that we indeed are in the same page but our sexual chromosomes got in the way. I agree to agree
I seem to be tardy to the party. I didn;t realize that the situation had resolved itself. Sorry it did not work out in the way you wanted.
And he confused me even more because he asked if I want to go home with him the next time he visits his family, and his house is like 5 hours away from our college.
That is confusing. It’s the sort of mixed message you are trying to get away from in the first place.
Is he doing this because he feels bad for me and is trying to be nice or does he actually feel something and really just isn’t ready for a new relationship yet? Did I write him off unfairly? I just don’t see why he would take a girl who he is only friends with on a long trip home to spend time with his family and childhood friends. So confusing!!!
None of that really matters. What matters is that you need to avoid being caught up in this stuff again. Under no circumstances should you go home with him.
So overall, I think that this came out to be a good thing. I am glad I listened to you all and talked to him. Maybe one day he will realize that I would make an awesome girlfriend, or maybe he really does just need more time to get over his ex, but I feel like maybe I will have already moved on by then.
You should definitely move on. And, though I think he cares for you on some level, I think the stuff about his ex is an excuse.
But I still don’t see why he spends so much time with me and does such nice things for me if he isn’t interested in me. Ugh, what’s a girl to do?!
I’m of two minds. Part of me says, remain friendly, but do not be friends. Don’t allow him to eat up time that you could be spending moving on. He will only get in the way of the next guy who will see him as a competitor. A smaller part of me says let’s see how long he sticks around without sex. I’m guessing not long. You should definitely decrease the amount of time you spend with him.
Jackie, I didn’t mean to offend. But I did grow up in China where religion was scarce. And I feel all that you’ve said without knowing Christianity.
I like to question everything and keep an open mind. It was not my intention to disparage you or your beliefs in particular. My apologies.
J, some men love emotional validation, too, especially from an attractive girl. He gets the warm fuzzies and sexual tension without actually being in love or interested in a real relationship. He also gets preselection, psychological support, ego boosts, nice company, all without the pressure of anything official so he’s free to date and find other women.
Indeed he does, Hope.
@JP:
“Justice is cut and dried within it’s own context.”
Agreed.
“However, it’s not subjective, it’s objective, which means that people don’t get a vote, just like we don’t get a vote on gravity.”
In practice, however objective you may view it to be, people have many different versions of justice in their heads across cultures and personal experiences. It is wise to take that into account when dealing with people, and don’t immediately assume that their version of justice lines up with your own.
“Build your tower however you want to, just don’t be surprised or whine when the lightning strikes.”
I’m more on your wavelength than you seem to think. We all have our successes and failures at acting morally and conscientiously, some of these we know and understand, and some we don’t, and some we never even find out about. All we can do is the best we can do. That is a really big part of the human condition, don’t you think?
@BroHamlet:
“In practice, however objective you may view it to be, people have many different versions of justice in their heads across cultures and personal experiences.”
My point is that, at the end of the day, it really doesn’t even matter what I view justice to be or what my culture views justice to be.
“We all have our successes and failures at acting morally and conscientiously, some of these we know and understand, and some we don’t, and some we never even find out about. All we can do is the best we can do. That is a really big part of the human condition, don’t you think?”
My problem is that life can only be understood backward, but it has to be lived forward.
Hhmmmph. I guess I got it totally wrong thinking that alw’s boy is really heartbroken rather than HJNTIY. If he is still hoping for sex, given her confession of real feelings, he’s a shit. IDK, he sounds very fond of her – wanting her to come home with him for the holidays? I can see why she is confused – his behavior looks like commitment, smells like commitment, yet isn’t. I guess “Isn’t” is the bottom line.
@susan
“HJNTIY”
Oh, man. This is getting just too hard to keep up.
@Passer By
He’s Just Not That Into You
I’m sure you’ll agree that needs an acronym.
Discussing God existence and communism on HUS. That what “hooking up smart” really means.
@Zach
You cannot assign any probability to the existence of God, or to Flying Spaghetti Monster. As for the chair, you assume philosophical position of metaphysical realism, then
. You assume your senses do not lie. You assume the world exist. Probably, if you waste your time on discussion with me, Escoffier and HanSolo, you assume we exist too. That’s a lot of assumptions.
You see, your example with probability only works if you believe in a lot of things in a first place.
But more in serious matter, it just science is not concerned with God, as you probably also agree. If you cannot empirically prove or disprove thing, or even assign probabilities, then that thing is not matter of science. Which, I guess, you also said, just in other terms, so we are more or less in agreement here.
@INTJ
It’s not. The lack of proofs for something or rule of parismony is not be proof of non-existence. It’s just a sign that there is no point to assume the existence. Existence of neither FSM nor God are scientific questions.
@Deli
Communism was a system inherently built on lies, which promoted immoral people and was forcing moral people out of the country. It also promoted double morality and a lot of other things. I don’t know about Russia, but in my country we would be much, much better without communism.
@hope
For me this was a non-question. My wife is catholic and insisted on church marriage in addition to civil one, I agreed but insisted on also separate civil ceremony. I had to ppromise I wouldn’t intervene in religious raising of my children, and I am keeping this promise.
@ szopen:
+ 1000
Perfect rebuttal to atheists. Science seeks to explains things, but there are some thing it cannot prove or disprove. You just have to take it on faith (or not; whether you do or don’t believe in something is totally up to you!)
FTR, believing what your sense tell you is a huge leap of faith. Our brains interpreted electrical signals sent to us by interacting with our environment, but it can get things wrong. For example, people who experience hallucinations are seeing things that aren’t actually happening; their sense of sight and hearing are failing them. However for everyone perception is reality.
The assumption here, of course, is there is a reality out there, that we have in common: an external environment in which we live and move and breath. How we experience this reality depends on the particular sensory apparatus we have and – crucially – how the we use our brain processing to interpret this sensory input and assemble it into a conscious experience.
Source: http://www.wineanorak.com/constructing_reality.htm
Back on topic, it seems like the poster’s man acts exactly like a boyfriend, so what does she want him to *do* differently? Act *exactly* the same, except upgrade the title to “girlfriend”? How does his current behavior differ from a Susan-style LTR where the commitment level is “meh, as long as I feel like it”? Is this disconnect just about a label?
I agree if she can’t get him to commit, and she wants that, she should leave. But committing means nothing anyway, and maybe he knows that.
Susan, I don’t think your intuition is wrong re: the guy. He may not be acting with a long-term strategic plan—he may be reacting to events on a day by day basis, dealing with what’s 6″ in front of him. In other words, he may not really know what he wants and may be feeling his way through it.
We should keep in mind that the planned-obsolescence college LTR script with a pre-defined implosion point around graduation time makes it very difficult for a young person to know how much to invest today. Emotionality and vulnerability may be energizing for women and seen as worthwhile ends in themselves, but they are often very fatiguing for men. I’ve heard it expressed that men have a finite emotional bank account and that we tend to want to conserve it for a small, lifelong circle of people.
If an FWB arrangement is working out for one party, that party may not want to change it simply out of concerns that shifting upgear to an LTR or downgear to a friendship w/o benefits might ruin things. This is a legitimate concern: I know that I’ve been in situations wherein I ending up thinking that “we should have stuck to FWB—we got along a lot better then.”
There is a natural tendency among both genders to think that an LTR will have all of the good parts of the FWB arrangement w/o the bad parts (uncertainty, jealousy, etc.), but it doesn’t necessarily work out that way. It’s like thinking that if you enjoy seeing someone 3 days a week, you will *really* enjoy seeing that person 7 days a week. Maybe not! Perhaps you only have 3 days of high-quality time available and 7 days would only dilute the relationship. It all depends.
Please stop saying “meh.” The way I defined an LTR was being into another person enough that you are willing to foresake all other opportunities to be with someone else. The difference between that and marriage, which is the only real commitment, is the vow to remain a monogamous pair for life. Anything short of marriage = “as long as I feel like it” and today even marriage may mean that little.
Young people enter LTRS for companionship, support, emotional and physical intimacy. They fall in love. It is deeply disingenuous to say that LTRs mean nothing. They don’t get a lifetime guarantee, but those are generally hard to come by.
As for what the guy knows, he has expressly stated that he is not over his previous gf, and in his heart he is still committed to her. So your comment makes no sense.
OTC – if he acts like a boyfriend 24/7, then I agree that fighting for the promotion to “girlfriend status” would seem less important. But I think what probably happens in many FWB relationships is that the person who does not want a commitment acts like a boyfriend/girlfriend when it suits him or her, and at other times, distances himself or herself and labels the other “just a friend.” That’s one of the reasons that I think even a de facto exclusive FWB arrangement (where neither party is actually seeing anyone else, but there is no commitment and no public acknowledgement of the relationship) can really be detrimental to a person wanting a commitment.
It’s hard not to find the OP endearing, and I hope it all works out well. Even if she can’t break away completely, a healthy start would be ending the sleepovers.
@BB
That’s interesting. I have heard Helen Fisher speak about men falling in love sooner than women, and grieving failed relationships for longer, in part because the woman is often the only source of emotional intimacy in the man’s life. It sounds like the whole experience is more emotionally wrenching for men, precisely because it is more unusual.
@Lisa C
Exactly. alw mentioned that he has never held her hand in public, for example, despite the real intimacy they share in private. He is not willing to say to the world, “this is the girl I like.” If she has feelings, of course that will be painful.
I would add that commitment in college relationships is often negotiated over a period of time. It’s not very romantic, and I don’t think those hard-won concessions generally lead to good relationships, but navigating from “regular hookups” to “bf/gf” often involves a process of wearing the guy down, presumably using sex as a carrot. I’ve heard many stories of that process that look something like this:
DTR – no relationship.
Fight – no relationship.
Male jealousy, fight, crying – no relationship.
Fight – no relationship.
Ultimatum: “We’re in one or we’re done.”
Relationship.
“That’s interesting. I have heard Helen Fisher speak about men falling in love sooner than women, and grieving failed relationships for longer, in part because the woman is often the only source of emotional intimacy in the man’s life. It sounds like the whole experience is more emotionally wrenching for men, precisely because it is more unusual.”
I think that this is why lots of men see other men essentially being emotionally crippled by these break-up experiences and then decide that the cost for failure is too high to risk anything but as close to 100% certainty as possible.
“the cost for failure is too high to risk anything but as close to 100% certainty as possible.”
Which is why agreeing to a FWB is such a bad idea, if the girl catches feelings, because the guy has basically verbal agreement from her that she did not fall for him from the beginning and wanted no emotional entanglements with him.
“It’s like thinking that if you enjoy seeing someone 3 days a week, you will *really* enjoy seeing that person 7 days a week. Maybe not! Perhaps you only have 3 days of high-quality time available and 7 days would only dilute the relationship. It all depends.”
This is kind of my point with respect to the “fun” part of the relationship vs. the “work” part.
When you are in the “fun” part, you generally don’t have any of the stresses that go along with day to day life. It’s really a bubble where life doesn’t impose on the relationship and cause stress.
When you aren’t in an LTR/marriage, you have much more flexibility in terms of making friends, bonding with people, etc.
Once you get together, you are no longer free to form relationships outside the bond, or engage in activities, in nearly the same manner that you were before, so there are significant limitations imposed on your life.
@Szopen
No, “god” himself is not of interest to science. However, pretty much everything that is attributed to him is. Creation of the universe, the rise of man (evolution), weather, life/death, etc. For almost every single action that is attributed to him, there is a far more compelling scientific explanation. So if you take all of that away, what exactly is god? Some non-corporeal being that just exists for the sake of existing? And if that’s the case, why concern yourself with him if he doesn’t effect anything?
And sure, you can go down the rabbit hole of “you assume the world exists”, but that really is just a fun thought exercise, not something that is practical or actionable in any way shape or form. So casting that aside, everything is really a shading of probability. And yes, that rests on certain assumptions, but without those assumptions you’d essentially curl up in the fetal position and wither and die (how would you know the food was real? how do you know you’re hungry? ). As I said, fun thought exercise, but that’s really about it.
@Jackie
I’m with OfftheCuff 417. Almost never, ever seen someone who really walks the walk. In my experience, religion has been far more divisive than conciliatory.
@ Escoffier:
This is an extraordinary claim. Can you provide some evidence or argument to support it? Do ancient theories of, say, macroeconomics or voting behavior have greater explanatory value than their modern counterparts?
Contemporary philosophy (as exemplified by Kripke, Dummett, Parfitt, Putnam and the late W.V.O.Quine) is relentlessly analytical, technical and devoted to conceptual analysis. As far as I know no prominent contemporary philosopher considers that he is offering alternative explanations of natural or social phenomena to those provided by natural or social scientists. Philosophers tend to focus on questions such as “What criteria should we adopt for accepting or rejecting a scientific theory?” I certainly believe that philosophers have much to contribute to these debates, and there have been some fruitful exchanges between philosophers and scientists.
With respect to the social sciences, today’s philosophers are generally concerned with epistemological and normative questions. They do not claim that they can explain economic, political or social trends better than social scientists can. Those philosophers who write about social and political theory (the late John Rawls, Jurgen Habermas, Thomas Nagel, Michael Sandel, Peter Singer, etc.) refer quite extensively to the results of social science research. In fact, their work presupposes that at least some contemporary social science has significant explanatory value.
Can you identify contemporary philosophers who would endorse the claims you made for the discipline?
@Zach:
” For almost every single action that is attributed to him, there is a far more compelling scientific explanation.”
A lot of the time, there’s going to be a “scientific explanation” for things, because science is extremely useful to the practical questions that can sufficiently explained by science within the context of what people want science to do.
For example, science and engineering are extremely good at asking “how do I make a skyscraper in modern America”, or “how do I get rid of this infection.”
However, science has a somewhat hard time explaining how cosmic soup made itself into very beautiful galaxies and New York City.
@JP
Galaxies are still of a bit of an unknown, but science is very good at explaining star and planetary formation, solar systems, and many other aspects of the cosmos. My point is not that it can explain everything, but why would the answer possibly be “god did it” instead of “I have no idea how it happened” (or, equally as likely as “god did it”, a giant floating Datsun did it).
Susan: yes, I think that Helen Fisher is correct (as usual) on this. If you tell a young woman that she will get married in approx. 10 years and will gain valuable insights and skills by falling in and out of love 3-5 times before she settles down, this may make sense to her. Perhaps there is evidence that a woman with N=5 makes better marriage/mating decisions than a woman with N=1.
However, I don’t think this scheme makes any sense at all to most men; it sounds like buying a new puppy and then selling your furry best friend every 12-18 months. Perhaps we just get attached to things differently—few ladies have understood the nostalgia that I have for an old, beaten-up pair of boxing gloves, for example, but my attachment seems to make perfect sense to my male friends.
Two former SEALs that I know of attended the same business school that you did and then went on to basically create the market for MRI scans for pets. Their reasoning: “Fuck, we’d do anything for our dogs.” I recently lost my dog and I was a basket case for weeks.
I hate to stretch the cliche cats and dogs analogy further, but this SMP today is basically rewarding “cats”, at least for the decade between high school graduation and marriage, and punishing “dogs.”
Zach – when I say “walk the walk” I don’t mean sainthood or perfection (nobody is), but rather, if someone claims a moral standard that they either 1) adhere to it or 2) repent when they don’t. “Repent” means a) stop doing it and b) have contrition.
Lisa C, at 433 – hey, that does makes a lot of sense. Good explanation.
Susan – I see zero practical difference between this FWB arrangement (where there’s no other people actively involved – if there was a third party that’s different) and what you call an LTR if the latter can be terminated for “any” reason, no matter how small, as opposed to some reasonably huge dealbreaker. Because that “any” reason can then just be “Until we go outside!”. It’s the same thing to me.
Of course, I’m not stupid – I know the reality is that either party really *can* walk for any reason, and we have to act accordingly. I just think consciously holding that attitude is what actually makes it a FWB.
Perhaps we are just disagreeing over just terminology of “any”, though.
BB, but cats form great bonds, too. There are tons of famous cat videos and memes, so clearly lots of guys love their cats.
Anyway, it doesn’t really matter why this guy is not available for a relationship. We’re not giving him advice. Awl should not stick around to play therapist friend, but cut him out of her life.
@OTC
You act like there are rules, OTC, that we can agree on and abide by. There are no rules. No one is obligated to remain in a relationship for any reason before marriage. You may hope for the best, but if someone falls out of love with you, you certainly won’t expect (or even want) them to stay with you. At least I wouldn’t. I’m describing reality, not the ideal way that I’d like to see human beings treat one another.
“No one is obligated to remain in a relationship for any reason before marriage. You may hope for the best, but if someone falls out of love with you, you certainly won’t expect (or even want) them to stay with you.”
The “falling out of love” thing is kind of funny. Fine before marriage, not fine after.
I think historically there wasn’t much of an issue with the being “in loveness” to last the duration of the marriage anyway because that wasn’t necessarily the point of marriage. I was surprised when I learned this because I thought, as many Americans thing, that love means you get married.
There are a ton of older married couples out there who really don’t have any really feelings of warmth toward each other, and sometimes anger/resentment. I’m not talking about my marriage, but I certainly see these types of marriages in my extended family. They’re certainly not in love with each other and haven’t been for years, but their worlds are too intertwined to detach.
@Zach, Esc, others
Science is not capable of proving anything.
Its very definition is that a hypothesis is falsifiable not verifiable.
Therefore all one can do is repeat an experiment until your fingers fall off to show that something does not happen.
Ex. (because its so easy) gravity.
Hypo: If I drop the pen, then the pen will fall towards the ground.
Repeat, repeat, pen falls every time.
At this point you have not proven gravity exists.
You have failed to prove it does not exists which allows an inference to be drawn that it does in fact exist.
As a practical matter, duh, we all know gravity exists. Technically its never been proven.
The most important aspect of this system is not its explanatory but predictive capacity.
If I drop the pen from an airplane, If I drop the pen from a chair, then the pen will fall, accelerating at 9.8 m/s^2 until it reaches terminal velocity.
———–
God, has excellent explanatory capacity but an absolutely atrocious predictive capacity.
Which in practical terms makes god an utterly useless concept for humans because it doesn’t allow anything to be accomplished. (Unless you count feeling better as worthwhile. Personally I think thats why we have wine.)
However, that doesn’t necessarily mean there is(are) no god(s). Nor that that god(s) have no power.
Science has 0 ability to disprove the existence of god which would entail proving that god does not exist. Not possible.
Science is capable of indirectly demonstrating existence (ie. gravity) not non-existence (ie. god).
@Hope
I really appreciate your reply, Hope. Thank you.
If you haven’t grown up with it, the traditions and practices are going to involve almost every facet of your life. From before you eat, before you sleep, how and where you will spend your money, who you will involve yourself with– everything. I can tell you my life would be MUCH easier without adhering to my faith. Much, much easier, in every dimension. But it would also be — for me– almost completely devoid of meaning and joy.
Basically faith, in my experience, is like the center of a wheel with the various facets of your life as the spokes. Without it (again, I speak for only myself!), like in the famous Yeats poem,
Things fall apart/the center does not hold.
« 1 2 3 4 5 6 »