I simply cannot imagine trying to date again in my late 40’s. My wife and I discuss this too and ponder what would happen if either one us were to die before the other.
I find so few people tolerable to be around these days I simply don’t have the patience to wade thru the mind games and rampant shallowness that I see in my single friend’s struggles to establish relationships.
Well, let’s consider what such an experience would have been like (say) in the 70’s.
You don’t have websites or smartphone apps to find people with common interests, you just have:
A. Friends and family constantly trying to fix you up with someone
B. Bars.
I’d say it’s a sucky situation to be in, but it’s probably better than it used to be.
I’m not so sure. Maybe I’m just old school but with the traditional ways one has to at least make an effort. Getting setup on a blind date or by friend of a friend, you’d arrange to have dinner or coffee and spend time in meatspace to find out if there’s some kind of connection. If things clicked then you kept going and maybe eventually take things further. If not, you either agreed to be friends or parted ways. The investment of time (and money) meant you took the whole process somewhat seriously.
It requires effort which is not the case with dating apps. Now you just swipe, click and fuck (maybe). It’s almost clinical and devoid of real emotion. Dating is reduced to the same level as a video game. No wonder a large percentage of people are so messed up about the complexities of real relationships.
The dating apps are just tools, often badly designed ones or ones designed for one end that are used for another. For those who do know how to work them they open up a larger number of possibilities than fix-ups and more background info than pick-up bars. On the other hand, more possibilities means more clueless people without relationship skills, so it takes a bit more care and experience and work to sort things out.
So while I tend to agree with @anon75430791 that the situation is better than it used to be, I also agree with you that, either way, there needs to be a real investment of time and effort if you want more than a one-night stand (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I’ve found that that investment often comes down to trying to spot people who are making an equivalent effort (preferably toward the same goal as you, or at least flexible).
That is at odds with the common definition. Rather, it is what was presented in the OP as “Girlfriend Zone”. My point upthread starting with post 7 is that there is lots of gray area between “Girlfriend Zone” and platonic and mutually unattracted friends, that people can inhabit without offensive behavior. I’ll also point out the “Friend Zone” in not gender specific, I certainly ‘friendzoned’ interested women when I was single.
Of all people, I would have expected you to understand the usefulness of using a well known piece of popular fiction as an example which all parties understand is not “real life”. Cultural literacy means not having to explain stories from scratch.
It also means understanding that a film, essentially a representation of relationships between men and women that often bears more resemblance to an aspirational fantasy than to lived reality, isn’t the best means of making a point about the reality of how men and women interact in the real world. I live When Harry Met Sally, but there is an awful lot there that isn’t what many people experience in dating.
Real talk.
The problem, aside from the baggage from millennia of toxic ideas about gender roles, comes down to the amount of time and energy a person is willing to invest in getting to know another individual. It’s exactly as you stated upthread; healthy relationships require actual, consistent work, from both of the people involved.
So if I referenced King Lear in a discussion of family dysfunction, you’d object that being medieval royalty isn’t most people’s family experience, rather than understanding the point? More often than not, cultural references are not to be taken literally, nor in their entirety. I was deliberately and explicitly referencing the 2nd rather than 3rd act of the movie to make a specific point in that scenario, and not validating the whole movie.
Yes, if you’re making a direct correlation, rather than just saying “that family is dysfunctional, like in King Lear.” You were using a fictional narrative to shore up your point, a fictional narrative that has serious limitation in understanding how relationships between men and women actual function in the real world. It has little bearing on reality, which is what you argued it does. [ETA] Harry and Sally are fictional, aspirational constructs, not representations of how men and women actually act in relationships.
No, I was using the characters in the 2nd act as archetypes, to set a familiar framework for my argument that in that situation a one person may control their feelings and the other may understand that is what’s happening, rather than the feelings being gone, and be OK with it. There is a huge difference between that, and saying the whole movie is just like real life, which I certainly did not do.
And those people aren’t a problem. The people who can’t take NO for an answer ARE the problem. The “archetype” isn’t really relevant to the conversation about men who refuse to see women as anything more than trophies to be won. Just because there is a movie where a dude is okay with a friendship doesn’t mean that this isn’t a problem for women, sometimes to the point of violence and death.
But yeah, an unrealistic movie is entirely relevant to that conversation… /s
Speaking as a twin and a parent of twins (and really just a fairly decent human being) I never understood what people saw in The Parent Trap. What kind of monsters would split up a pair of siblings that way and lie to them about it their entire lives? What child would want to live with TWO such monsters?
The offshoot of that idea is all those studies about how quickly attraction forms:
https://www.rebelcircus.com/blog/whether-shell-sleep-with-a-man//
I don’t, so I guess that one counter example can resolve your doubts! In my experience people either hook up soon after meeting (6 mos max), or not at all. Seems to be either / or.
When toxic sexism meets bad science with a dash of consulting PUAs for input, it’s not surprising modern sex and relationship advice columns tend to be so subpar.
I think those misinformed chaps have it twisted; most women know within minutes which guys they will NOT sleep with… usually the ones who make them feel uncomfortable, disrespected, and/or threatened.
One of the reasons that I’m 100% ok with Disney making that Mary Poppins sequel even though P.L. Travers explicitly said she never wanted to work with Disney again. Screw her.
Oh my god that article.
“The study also found that 15 percent of women think it’s okay to have sex on the first date, whereas 22 percent of men feel this way”
And there is some appreciable % of men who don’t think it’s OK to have sex on the first date, but when it happens are telling themselves, “THIS IS SO WRONG, THIS IS SO WRONG”.
Ah crap. And I’m skeptical of even that claim, which I just made. Dammit.
