You’ve never met an older man that you found sexy and attractive (assume he’s single for now). Not one?? I’m not asking if you have a ‘thing’ for older guys - some people do and some people don’t - but I think everyone has run across people at one time or another that somehow have “it”, even if you don’t normally go for that type.
The AF brethren will immediately assume that I’m hitting on you (I’m not), but I’m curious to see if you really are that unable to relate to feeling attracted to someone from a category of people you wouldnt normally find attractive.
As for bragging, that’s more of an issue with the braggart that anyone else.
I have never, but not opposed to, dating someone who’s 20 years older than me, although if i do, i wouldn’t be sharing my stories as if i just won a prize.
if i find someone worth dating, age really isn’t the biggest factor.
I agree but to be fair, it goes both ways (Maxim being the Cosmo counterpart for men). One of the best books I’ve ever read is What Women Want, What Men Want. That book is the red pill. The Red Queen is up there too.
Au contraire. The women who read that are more messed up than you.
I believe it’s difficult for 2 financially independent people to work it out in a long term relationship. It’s just too easy to not put in the work to fix things whenever there is an obstacle. Marriages worked in the past because women were dependent on their husbands to survive. As soon as they became liberated, the divorce rates shot right up. Not saying it’s the fault of women, the same would have happened if men all of a sudden had financial independence. A wise men once told me it’s hard to have a successful relationship if the 2 partners are 50/50. You gotta have one with most of the power because the one with the least power will try to work things out and even sacrifice their own happiness to work things out. It’s the same in a corporation. You need one CEO.
Fortunately, since people want control over different things, it is possible to have what feels like a 60/60 relationship, and if done right, it can be fairly stable. Mutual gains from voluntary exchange. This is where each partner has control over what they find most important, but they don’t have so much control that they can take the other partner for granted.
Part of the problem is that people are not constant beings. Their interests and capacities change over time. The challenge is to grow in the same direction. It’s not always possible, but without trying, it becomes a lot harder.
^ Are you my twin brother? We have exactly the same thoughts on women / relationships across all recent threads. Some people think this is controversial but it’s not, it’s pretty simple. Actually, the irony here is that the more desirable either one of the people in the relationship is, the harder it is to make it work. HCB? Options for days. Super Studly Dude (SSD)? Can get laid at will. No reason to try to work through problems. The best marriages seem to be between two people with relatively low value propositions that are just happy to have someone of the opposite sex in their lives on a consistent basis.
Also, the evidence we’ve seen to date doesn’t support the idea that homo sapiens is a monogamous spieces to begin with. Marriage is an outdated concept. Personally, never.
Can you predict how you will grow for the next 30 to 50 years and triangulate that with how your wife might grow? Serious question. I can’t, which means that for me marriage would always be me betting half my stuff that I will love a woman forever and that she will love me forever. There is zero upside I can’t get without marriage, combined with the potential for huge downside. It is the definition of a bad trade.
I understand not everyone feels that way and more power to them, I hope they can make it work.
Interestingly, while having different opinions on the issue, both of you (FT and BC) look at the relationships from the control point of view.
I, on the other hand, look at the relationships from a collaboration/compromise point of view. I believe men prone to take the easy way out, when something needs to be fixed, just as often as women.
I also don’t believe that women’s financial independence is a threat to a marriage. But it is a way for some women to get out of toxic/abusive marriages.
Having a relationship with one as the power figure, sure maybe it’s more likely to last longer due to the other partner perhaps being feeble minded or something (why else would that person sign up to be what amounts to arm candy, if that), but overall happiness would be less than a 50/50 marriage. This is because the one with the short end of the stick is going to be unhappy. For some people maybe that works, for some people it doesn’t.
If it’s 50/50, or as bchad said, can appear to be 60/60, both sides will be overall happier. I would posit that even the ‘CEO’ may not even be as happy, because he/she would likely feel bad for always putting the other aside. Unless, of course, the CEO really doesn’t really give a shit about the other person. But if that’s the case, then why get married in the first place?
No noone can predict or guarantee that someone will love you forever. But it’s kind of sad to not give a long term partnership a chance just because it might not work out in the end. Get a prenap if you are so worried about your money.
But not all women out there are fishing to grab half of your assets, just so you know.
Brom, agree with you in general, but I think you’re downplaying some of the good stuff from a longterm relationship/marriage. I think when you do a cost-benefit on it, it’s probably closer than you’re making it out to be, but it’s a bad trade 7 out of 10 times so-- in the end you’re right anyway.
No noone can predict or guarantee that someone will love you forever. But it’s kind of sad to not give a long term partnership a chance just because it might not work out in the end. Get a prenap if you are so worried about your money.
But not all women out there are fishing to grab half of your assets, just so you know.
[/quote]
That’s true. I think most people are pretty good natured most of the time (outside of finance and a few other areas in life). I don’t think most women start out that way, but it’s hard to predict what will happen when the chips are down. Prenups fail and divorces are messy, life altering events.
I don’t need the state to tell me who I should spend my life with. There’s nothing I can’t get outside of marriage that I can get with marriage except lower taxes.
I would flip this back to you. 50% of marriages end in divorce, but that number is artificially depressed by people who have old school morals who have been married for decades or are extremely religious and would rather just be unhappy than get divorced. The outlook for new ventures is probably like 40-45% success rate. So if you are going to get married, you need to have some reason to believe that you are better / smarter / more compatible than the other 55-60% of people who tried it and failed, otherwise you are just rolling the dice.
There are good benefits to having a long-term partnership, I agree with that. But there are no benefits except lower taxes from being married. Maybe if you are super religious you can’t just decide to not get married because you will be socially outcast.
Yes, in those paragraphs, I was talking about relationships from the power/control aspect. I don’t evaluate relationships solely that way, but when relationships have trouble, the distribution of power does matter. I don’t think any relationships ever died from an excess of cooperation, and cooperation is one of the reasons that relationships are great to have. But when cooperation breaks down (as it does from time to time), people get scared about whether they are being taken seriously, respected, and how vulnerable they may be.
I’ve always felt that a 50/50 power relationship - while equitable - is kind of scary and potentially unstable. That’s why I realized that the 60/60 relationship is what you really want if you want stability in the relationship. You want to feel that your partner is someone you can’t simply dismiss because you don’t really need them, but you also want to feel that you have the ability to manage the things that are most important to you. As long as there are some differences in what you think is most important to you, there is some ability to distribute power for mutual gain.
I do think that in the better relationships I’ve had, power does seem to ebb and flow between partners. There are clearly times when I feel like I’m more in the driver’s seat and in control, and there are times when I think she is. Over time, I’ve often felt that ebbing and flowing of power between partners in a back-and-forth kind of way is a sign of a healthy relationship. Once power feels like it is fully in one person’s hands or not and never changes, that’s typically a bad sign, whether it’s my hands (which feels better while it’s happening but usually mean resentments are growing on her part), or hers.
As far as the future… no one really knows what the future will bring, but people can grow apart simply because they can’t be bothered to adpat to each other. Maybe you decide WTF do I need to adapt at all. I have my money and a prenup. Well, that’s one way to do it. But there are advatages to having someone dependable at your side that you like. I forget who wrote that men and women (assuming the straight model here) are mutual lovers when young, companions in middle age, and mutually dependent on each other when they are old.