["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

Well looks like she knows you. I dunno why you found it a hard question. Basically if someone went up to her and said "what do you know about Low Levelled" what would she say?

 

A) Who the heck is that?

B) Nothing really. Just a guy I work with.

C) Oh, yeah, Low Levelled, (short list of things she knows about you)

D) Lots of things, what did you want to know?

 

If the answer is in A or B territory, she doesn't know you. If it's C or D then she does know you.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

 

Against company policy technically but its retail so who cares. Have at it!

It's usually not against company policy unless one person is in a higher position the other.

 

 

I thought it normally was, particularly in retail. Management would rather people not date because that can be drama. When I got my job I was basically told "it's against company policy, if you do date someone here, don't tell me and leave any potential drama at the door."

 

Against company policy technically but its retail so who cares. Have at it!

 

Also this.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

One thing to consider with the nofap guys is a lot of them are probably incapable of moderation. When you're addicted to something, cutting it out entirely is probably easier then doing that something in moderation.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

I don't have a lot to go by, but yours isn't the first story I've heard about a guy not being able to get an erection because he was really nervous about sex. Anxiety is just a boner killer it seems.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

 

Nofap 4 lyfe

 

Why willingly put yourself through torture?

 

 

[spoiler=For those curious about nofap...]In general, people on nofap are there because they basically look at so much porn that they aren't motivated to break out of their comfort zone and date/have sex with women. (That is, have sex with women that you didn't pay to have sex with you.) Maybe because they think it's nicer to only get orgasms through sex. The ones that have a sex life often have erectile disfunction - they've warped their minds to the point that they basically can't get a boner without porn, so good luck having something resembling normal sex. Or maybe it's not quite that extreme, but they still find relatively normal sex unarousing as opposed to the fetishes you can find on the internet.

 

Women are much more rare there (if for no other reason they a woman probably doesn't all the unrequited sex requests that saying she masturbates too much gets her) but I'm assuming they have similar problems as men. I haven't seen enough women post there to make generalizations.

 

As for noporn vs nofap, most of the people there are addicted enough to porn that [bleep] is almost always gonna lead to porn.

 

 

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

Like I said originally, if you're truly going to apply success principles to your dating life, then you're not going to be getting monogamous in the first place because it contradicts many success principles. That's why I'm having such a difficult time trying to understand your desire for monogamy.

 

 

A combination of religion, tradition and most of the success books I've read being written by monogamous conservative Christians.

 

Honestly, prior to learning about successful, monogamous Christians, I thought the lifestyle you embrace was the best one. "Yeah marriages fail a lot these days, here's a success guideline based around not getting married" made the most sense as a life plan to me at the time.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

I don't honestly believe we can know what the success rate of marriage is for a couple that followed all the sound success principles for marriage you can find. I believe it's way higher then the 50% divorce rate most marriages have; I think you would agree that it is most likely the case that marriages following all those marriage success principles have much lower divorce rates then 50%.

 

Personally I think it might be close to 99% or 95%, but there's that whole "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" line and I've got absolutely no basis whatsoever for those numbers.

 

Given that we've basically run out of evidence at this point, it's probably best to agree to disagree.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

I'm less trying to recommend it and more just say "hey it's actually possible." I'm gonna bring up a super extreme example for a second, I remember years ago watching something about a dude married to a legal prostitute. Like she worked for one of those few places in the states where you can legally be a prostitute. And I just remember thinking that I simply could not understand that guy being married to a girl who was constantly having sex with other guys. Super extreme over the top example, but I feel like being married to a girl who sleeps with other guys, even if you get to sleep with other women, has it's own challenges.

 

And yes I'm still a virgin. Theoretically it's for religious reason but considering it started being for "religious reasons" about a year ago and given that I'm 23 and wanted to get laid since I was like 15, saying "I'm a virgin because religion" feels inherently dishonest.

 

Point 2: You seem to be saying "you can't trust them not to change." I believe with enough work, you can find that person to trust. Now obviously you can't get a 100% success rate for everyone, but what if the success rate was 99% when you put in the correct foundation?

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

So back to my point: do you agree that:

1. Monogamy only "works" for people with special personality traits (such as a low sex drive) and is not ideal for the average person

2. Monogamy is for those who priorize things such as commitment over happiness, if given the choice

 

Honestly? I believe the average person can make either system work if they commit to it. Monogamy would probably be a lot more work for the average person tbh. (Also the most monogamous person I know has a higher sex drive then her BF, a man who previous to their relationship had a lot more sex then she did. She's not low sex drive, but to be fair I would say she has special personality traits.)

 

As for commitment over happines? Not phrased that way. I think before we discuss this we need a definition of happiness. A couple could move to a new town, deal with the challenges of finding a new house that's perhaps smaller then the new one, finding new friends and neighbors, have to deal with all the expenses of moving, not all of which the new job pays for, etc., yet still be happy because hey, we still have food, clothes, a roof over our head, AC, heating, indoor plumbing, each other, good health, and in the long term this will benefit our family. The way you phrase it, obviously happiness is more important. But I could probably find a scenario that you would call "choosing happiness over commitment" where I call it "choosing long term happiness over short term happiness" which is one of life's success principle's.

 

The irony about the Manson articles is that they all subtly imply that people who agree with his beliefs are unsuitable for monogamy. He literally says, "That means you recognize that you are not responsible for your partner’s happiness nor are they responsible for yours. That you do not have a right to demand certain actions from them nor do they have a right to demand certain actions from you."

 

So if a husband wants to have sex but his wife doesn't feel like it, the solution is basically to go have sex with someone else since she's apparently not responsible for your sex drive. But seeing someone else would violate the core principles of monogamy.

 

Well first off I pointed out how a huge part of monogamy is finding the right person. As for the sex example, that's just value clash. Have you ever heard of nofap? A reddit community about a bunch of guys who quit porn and masturbation, which generally positively affects their life. I bring this up because it's the most concrete example I can think of that shows sexual pleasure not being a need.

 

So the question is, what kind of value do you place on fulfilling your sex drive? Maybe the solution is having a cold shower and having sex later that day. Maybe the long-term happiness of being an old married couple (like your hypothetical grandparents who are happy and in love) is worth not having sex every time you're in the mood.

 

Obviously you disagree with that entirely, but I doubt a person could prove that one of them is objectively better than another.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

Those guys got married in completely different eras... Covey got married back in the 1950s dude!

 

You're either stuck taking outdated advice from guys who got married decades ago, or taking advice from modern guys who haven't been married long enough to tell whether or not their advice actually works. And even if the advice is valid and you follow it perfectly, like I said earlier it's only half the battle since you can't control your wife. So you're basically gambling, hoping that your wife never changes and she follows through on her promises for the next several decades of her life or else you're screwed.

 

But anyways. What do those books say about keeping sex interesting for the next 50 years of your life? What are you supposed to do when your wife "doesn't feel like it?" The only real solution to a problem like this is to have a very low sex drive to begin with, such that a lack of sex genuinely doesn't affect your happiness. But for the average person with an average (or higher) sex drive? They're in big trouble.

 

Sex aside, what about if/when one of you gets a dream job offer in another city but the other doesn't want to move? In such an event, there has to be some form of sacrifice involved. And when it comes to things like that, your happiness cannot be your #1 priority if you want the relationship to "work." But if you're sacrificing happiness in order to make it work... then is it actually working? I don't believe so. After all, what's the point of doing something if it doesn't make you consistently happy in the long run? Your goal, should you choose to get married, shouldn't be to have a high number of wedding anniversaries; it should be consistent happiness regardless of marriage duration.

 

First off, I could just as easily turn that same argument towards polyamoury. Is there anyone who speaks in support of polyamoury who has been doing it long enough to see if the advice actually works in the long run? If I embrace the advice now, how will I feel about this lifestyle in my 60s? My impression of skimming Blackdragons about section is that he's been living this lifestyle for 10 years. Can you prove he won't regret in 20 or 30? Can you prove most men won't?

 

To third paragraph point, I think anything worth having requires sacrifice. Getting dates or laid with girls requires going through rejection, particularly at the start when you don't have much game. With the job in the other city, you evaluate whether that opportunity will lead you to your long term goals, whatever those goals may be. The "dream job" would be one that is the best suited to your family. What do the two of you value as a family, what are your long term goals and how does this job fit in there? The dream job isn't the dream job for one person, it is a dream job for the couple. Is the long term benefit that this job provides the family worth the short term pain this job causes? Also, if you followed the piece of advice that I'm pretty sure I mentioned about having a decent nest egg in the bank just in case, here's just in case. Should ease the short term financial pain this move causes. (Oh and FYI this nest egg is a separate savings from retirement savings. Which is something you add to every month as well.)

 

A huge part of the marriage is before you get married (or maybe in the early years before kids when it can get broken off relatively easy) is to make sure the two of you have the same goals and wish to go the same general direction in life. How do you feel about kids? Money? What kind of lifestyle do you want to live? Where do you want to live? How do you want to be living 10 and 20 years from now? How do you want to raise your kids? When having these discussions, you need to have them from the point of "agreement or no deal." You either end up with agreeable, compatible values that both of you are happy with at the end of this discussion, or you realize that the two of you have incompatible values and/or life vision and go through a (relatively) painful breakup. (And not get together and break up like 4 times in the future like at least one person who has posted here regularly.)

 

Everything I've read and encountered suggests that a couple that is united in their values and vision of the future, who keep in adequate physical shape and have a few kids do not have trouble with their sex life. (Judging by the amount of kids they have if nothing else.) Most of these people, at least the ones I've encountered, are also conservative Christians who don't wish to discuss their sex life. Lack of premarital sex presumably would help it as well. Sex to them is about love and the unification between two people, not merely a mutually beneficial exchange of physical pleasure.

 

And if you're going to posit that some people are unsuited towards monogamy, I will posit that some people are equally unsuitable towards polyamoury. They simply can't get past the jealousy and/or are incapable of being sexually attracted to someone that they don't have a strong mental and emotional attraction towards as well.

 

Finally - this post probably comes off a tad antagonistic towards polyamoury. That isn't my goal. My goal isn't to disprove the success of a polyamourys lifestyle, but simply point out that a successful monogamous lifestyle is also possible.

 

Mark Mason is an internet writer who has written a bunch of things, including stuff on relationships. He has an article about basically compromises and he's where I got the "people agree and are 100% happy with the agreement or they make no agreement" idea from. (He phrases it much more eloquently.) A brief skim finds a nice little article on cheating. http://markmanson.net/why-people-cheat/

 

Love is Not Enough is a nice little article he wrote about how relationships need more then strong feelings of attraction to work. One of the reasons marriages fail is people who aren't compatible with each other get married whilst (I love that word, at least in text form) in the infatuation phase of the relationship; when it ends they discover they had nothing in common but hormones, which isn't enough for a lasting relationship.

 

...So remember that time I said "Finally?" Yeah turns out I lied.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

Well off the top of my head, Stephen R. Covey, author of 7 Habits of High Effective People and Dave Ramsey, author of More Than Enough, are successful men with successful marriages. Those books i mentioned are books I have read and own that talk about success in life in general, including marital success.

 

The 5 Love Languages (a series of books all based pretty much on the same premise) by Gary Chapman is also a great read if you're looking at making a monogamous relationship work. Tbh it's a good read regardless since the advice is applicable to most, if not all relationships you have. And a little internet digging reveals he's been married for 45 years.

 

A lot of what I've read on success seems to boil down to "find people who have the results you want, figure out what they did and copy it." If you go looking you can find people with successful marriages.

 

Beyond that, I've read that relationships require time; get your finances to a place where you're secure and where you have time for each other. Dave Ramsey's book speaks of a couple that spent a few years working on trimming down their debt and their lifestyle so the wife could be a stay at home mom, and they live off of 55k a year roughly, down from ~100k/year combined income. It's interesting that good financial advice and good marriage advice are often the exact same thing. (Another thing emphasized in that book is saving up a bunch of money in a savings account at the bank and leaving that money alone so that you have a security blanket for just in case.)

 

Another good tidbit is that quality time is a lie - the best form of quality time is quantity time.

 

So yeah this isn't quite as, well, obvious for lack of a better phrase, as BDs posts on polyamoury but it's a start.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

Yes. If people in the past have made successful marriages work, I see no reason why people these days cannot. It would need to vary to suit individual couple's needs, of course.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

Man, [bleep] marriage. I keep seeing everyone else's relationships fail, and I'm reminded why I'm never wanting children or a marriage.

 

Marriage just isn't compatible with how humans are, it goes against human nature. Humans are not by design, monogamous. And to claim anything otherwise is just lying to yourself.

 

I completely disagree with you. Making marriages work requires effort, work, commitment, planning and growth. What you need to do to make a marriage work is something most couples don't do and that society doesn't teach.

 

You know what I really think human nature is? The ability to change your nature. The ability to go "this is how I am, this is how I was raised, this is what society teaches me, but screw all that I'm gonna do something else." A successful monogamous lifestyle, or the successful polyamourous lifestyle muggi talks about, requires figuring out what values you need to live by in order to achieve the results you want, and living by those values no matter how you feel.

 

There's also something to be said for association. If you are actually interested in marriage and kids, start reading books written by successful married people with children and look for people with successful marriages. If 50% of marriages fail, 50% of marriages stay together. Now I'm not nearly stupid enough to think that all of the 50% of marriages that don't end are successful marriages, but what if say half of marriages that don't end are successful? Then figure out what those people are doing. (And yes I'm aware that it could very well be less then half but my point still stands.)

 

Now if you honestly value other things in life then marriage and kids then kudos to you, stay single without kids. (Looks at muggi.) But don't let the relationship failures of others prevent you from having a relationsihp.

 

oh and @ muggi again: why the hell is that girl on tinder? does she not understand that tinder is basically an app to find a ****buddy?

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

Honestly, most if not all of his points against monogamy are valid. The monogamous system of society doesn't work. All I'm saying is that a successful monogamous system exists.

 

 

Tbh, I've fluttered back and forth between the two over the last couple years, each has pros and cons. Monogamy just didn't make sense my first couple years in college. Then, the way I viewed a girl I'd been friends with for several years vastly changed and here we are, 10 months later and it's going aight. Time will tell

 

No offense, but "time will tell" is actually the sort of attitude that leads to divorce. Both people in the couple saying "we will be together until we die" (and by earnestly meaning it while having a realistic view of how much work it will be and that the infatuation stage will end) is what leads to successful marriages.

 

Something to think about if you're seriously thinking about spending the rest of your life with her.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

I don't believe that whether or not marriage will work out is simply a toss of a coin. There are numerous things that can lead to divorce, but I don't believe for a second that couples who manage their finances well, live beneath their means, make time for each other, are truly determined from when they got engaged (or before that) to live the rest of their life together, chose to live according to the same values before they got married, determined how to raise their kids before they got married (as best as you can plan something like that out in advanced) have a 50% shot at divorce.

 

Conversely, I believe that people who got into marriage thinking they have a 50/50 shot at it actually have a much higher then 50% chance of divorce.

 

As for your values, well.... I don't think I fully understand them, nor do I have any desire to live my life by them, but I truly hope they bring the happiness you seek. I admire how well thought out your life is and I admire that you have the discipline to follow through on that plan.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

It's just that a lot of the stuff you talk about Muggi, such as living according to values instead of in-the-moment feelings, personal growth, getting finances on track, choosing to live according to your values instead of valuing people's (or society's) opinion, etc. are some of the key pillars to making a marriage successful. Or, well, success in general tbh.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

 

 

. The same thing cannot be said for those who want what their grandparents have, for example.

That's not entirely true, it's just much more difficult for them than it was for their grandparents.

 

 

Correct. And if there's anyone out there who can create a system for people to follow in order to consistently and reliably achieve what their grandparents have, then that person will become very rich :P After all, I think most people would prefer that over BD's lifestyle

 

 

I find it ironic that you're both the most outspoken against* that lifestyle yet at the same time probably have the highest chance of achieving it if you put your mind to it. It'd be interesting to see you 5 years (and 25 years from now) if you suddenly shifted all the effort you spend towards your polyamorous lifestyle and focused on a monogamous lifestyle instead. I truly believe you'd be happily married 25 years from now.

 

*by against I mean you don't believe that lifestyle is realistically obtainable, not that the lifestyle itself is bad.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

 

I think BD's point was that she needs to be more honest or else she's going to rip their hearts out and feel guilty in the long run. Her point is that being honest doesn't work since apparently the men she dates don't want her to see other guys because they're too insecure and/or territorial.

 

The terms they use are from here

 

 

on the terms it looks like I was right on the money then. 

 

As far as her behavior you should check out assortment theory. Which basically says like attracts like.

 

That she gets men who are insecure and territorial as a direct result of her not being willing to express her intentions either.  That if she is 100% upfront about everything in that article those types of insecure men won't want to be around her making the only men interested in her the independent men (which is what she wants).

 

 

 

Or another analogy, girls who refuse to shave and are vocal about the fact that they will not shave naturally assort men who don't mind hairy women. Like attracts like.

 

 

Pretty much.

 

Also, this is BD making the article: looks for specific dating habit some women have -> finds anecdote of woman with dating habits he's looking for -> empyrical evidence that this is how women act!

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

I'm in a relationship otherwise I'd love to mess around with tinder/okcupid. Ironically the only site I've ever hooked up with girls from is tumblr

 

Wait what?

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

Summon the wrath of an elder god.

It really impresses the ladies.

[It's Super Effective!]

So I'm playing Demon's Souls. Probably gonna be Dark Souls sometime in the near future.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

With your bare hands, tear apart trees and create the necessary tools to make wine. Collect berries and ferment them into wine. Then glare furiously at it, causing them to instantly ferment due to their intense fear of your destructive manliness.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

Aaand I have ended up with a pretty girl... Who is a bit on the smaller side. In fact she probably fits in my backpack.

In my custom-made backpack that can hold 140 litres and was built with metal frame n shit and is meant for longer than week long hikes.

But still, she is pretty small and cute.

Only thing is, we are both pretty shy, especially in bed, so I don't know how to get things going.

 

Obviously you ask her to come with you. Drive with her to the steepest mountain. Put her in the backpack and spend a week climbing the mountain. You will drink the rain and you will eat like a bear. Berries and fish swimming upstream. You will also eat bears. Bears that you wrestled into submission. Eventually you will reach a secluded valley in the mountain, filled with roses and other pretty flowers. There will be a waterfall in the background and birds singing music that would almost brings you to tears, but now more then ever you must show your manliness. You take her out of the backpack, she can see the tears in your eyes from all the beauty around you. You tell her that this is the second most beautiful sight in the world; but in pales, it is a dull grey compared to her vibrant beauty. Proceed to kiss her and let the heartbeat of the mountain guide you as the two of you join and become one.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

Triplets judging by the triple post. Also you're never gonna be the man to pick up twins at the same time if you never try.

["I want a girlfriend/boyfriend", and other such relationship advice]

I don't mean embrace actually being an irrational girlfriend, I just meant embrace the title instead of living in fear of it's shadow. I really should've phrased it in a way that isn't easily interpreted as encouraging mildly psychotic tendencies.