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

[jasignhagj]

On topic of heights, I know a few girls who are over 6 feet.

 

And well, I tower over pretty much everyone everywhere. But I do know a few guys taller than I am.

Do they pump HGH through the school water fountains up there or something?

[Maze]

Howdy folks, haven't posted here in a while. It's been almost a year and in that time frame, I have learned a lot about relationships and dating in general. I've long been over that girl I posted about a year ago.

 

Anyway, I got a new job recently working retail and there's another girl who works there. I've been there a few months, but haven't really noticed her until about two weeks ago. I work on the sales floor usually, but on that day, I had to also be a backup cashier because we were short-staffed. She walked up to me out of nowhere and said, "Oh, you're working both sales floor and being the backup cashier? That's pretty nuts, Maze," I replied with something like, "Oh yeah, I can handle it," but I was wondering why she would know such an insignificant detail of the night. Also, later that night, I was stocking a shelf, and she walked by and said, "Bye, Maze!"

 

I didn't really think anything of it, she was probably just being nice because maybe I took being backup cashier instead of her taking it.

 

Fast forward to a few nights ago, she was working again. This time, she kept playfully teasing me. Whenever I walked past the section she was working in , she would say something to tease me, like "Get back to work, Maze!" or "Get out of my section, you don't work here!" Also, whenever we have huddle (basically it's when everyone who works sales floor gets together to discuss what everyone's doing/how the store is doing), she always finds a way to stand next to me. Like, going out of her way to stand next to me. So, I'm about 80% sure she likes me.

 

However, there a couple things that are keeping me from asking her out. I'm probably blowing these out of proportion and they are likely not too big of a deal, but I'll share them anyway just in case they are not:

 

1. She's a senior in high school. I am entering my sophomore year in college. I've heard through the grapevine that she is 18-years-old, which is my age (though I'll be 19 in a month). The age difference isn't a big deal as is dating a girl in high school. Would this be frowned upon?

 

2. I'm slightly afraid of any repercussions at work just in case she does say no. For example, I ask her out, she says no, she goes and tells her girlfriends at work that a dude in college asked her out when she's in high school, I get labelled as a big weirdo. This is probably an extreme example, but you can see how it would be uncomfortable if co-workers saw me as the dude who tried to ask out their friend and got rejected. Probably an overreaction, but I don't know. Something to think about, I guess. I have no problems asking out girls in bookstores or on campus because I know there won't be any repercussions if they say no. I'll just walk away and never see them again.

[jasignhagj]

That's not weird at all, you're barely a year older than her. Plenty of high school seniors are dating guys way older than you. She won't even be in school anymore in a couple weeks, I'd say go for it.

[Low Levelled]

Maze, do you work at target?

[Maze]

Maze, do you work at target?

;)

[muggiwhplar]

Howdy folks, haven't posted here in a while. It's been almost a year and in that time frame, I have learned a lot about relationships and dating in general. I've long been over that girl I posted about a year ago.

 

Anyway, I got a new job recently working retail and there's another girl who works there. I've been there a few months, but haven't really noticed her until about two weeks ago. I work on the sales floor usually, but on that day, I had to also be a backup cashier because we were short-staffed. She walked up to me out of nowhere and said, "Oh, you're working both sales floor and being the backup cashier? That's pretty nuts, Maze," I replied with something like, "Oh yeah, I can handle it," but I was wondering why she would know such an insignificant detail of the night. Also, later that night, I was stocking a shelf, and she walked by and said, "Bye, Maze!"

 

I didn't really think anything of it, she was probably just being nice because maybe I took being backup cashier instead of her taking it.

 

Fast forward to a few nights ago, she was working again. This time, she kept playfully teasing me. Whenever I walked past the section she was working in , she would say something to tease me, like "Get back to work, Maze!" or "Get out of my section, you don't work here!" Also, whenever we have huddle (basically it's when everyone who works sales floor gets together to discuss what everyone's doing/how the store is doing), she always finds a way to stand next to me. Like, going out of her way to stand next to me. So, I'm about 80% sure she likes me.

 

However, there a couple things that are keeping me from asking her out. I'm probably blowing these out of proportion and they are likely not too big of a deal, but I'll share them anyway just in case they are not:

 

1. She's a senior in high school. I am entering my sophomore year in college. I've heard through the grapevine that she is 18-years-old, which is my age (though I'll be 19 in a month). The age difference isn't a big deal as is dating a girl in high school. Would this be frowned upon?

 

2. I'm slightly afraid of any repercussions at work just in case she does say no. For example, I ask her out, she says no, she goes and tells her girlfriends at work that a dude in college asked her out when she's in high school, I get labelled as a big weirdo. This is probably an extreme example, but you can see how it would be uncomfortable if co-workers saw me as the dude who tried to ask out their friend and got rejected. Probably an overreaction, but I don't know. Something to think about, I guess. I have no problems asking out girls in bookstores or on campus because I know there won't be any repercussions if they say no. I'll just walk away and never see them again.

 

Nothing weird about that. BUT I don't know if dating a coworker would be a very good idea. Though it's retail so [bleep] it :P

[Sir_Squab]

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.

[muggiwhplar]

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

[muggiwhplar]

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.

 

Monogamy literally is a system based off of imposing rules (as opposed to standards) on your partner. How can a system like that go hand-in-hand with happiness?

[Sir_Squab]

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.

[muggiwhplar]

Your advice basically just boils down to:

1. Follow success principles

2. Find the right person

 

I agree with #1. But like I keep saying, #2 is a flawed suggestion. You cannot control your spouse. Sure you can influence them, but at the end of the day there's nothing stopping her from suddenly changing her mind about a decision she made years and years ago. This wouldn't be that big a deal unless you're married, in which case you're totally screwed.

 

And yes I've heard of Nofap. Those guys are lunatics. :P Noporn, on the other hand makes a bit more sense.

 

You seem to be implying that sex isn't a big deal and that sex is merely gratification rather than happiness. Keep in mind my argument applies to intimacy as well. But back to my point, if sex isn't that big of a deal and it's almost immature to desire all the time, then why put restrictions on it in the first place? Why force someone to be dependent on someone else to satisfy their needs? Why are you recommending sexual monogamy instead of a marriage where two people are free to occasionally sleep with others if they want to?

 

Also correct me if I'm wrong but aren't you still a virgin >_>

[Sir_Squab]

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?

[muggiwhplar]

If the success rate was 99% I'd be all for it. But we both know it's nowhere remotely close to that.

 

Like I said, a lot of your advice basically requires taking a massive risk. It's one thing to apply your advice to a relationship; it's another to apply it to a marriage, where there are very real consequences if you turn out to be wrong.

 

I'm less trying to recommend it and more just say "hey it's actually possible."

 

Good

[Sir_Squab]

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.

[muggiwhplar]

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.

[Sir_Squab]

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.

[muggiwhplar]

I think we're done discussing this for now :P

[RpgGamer]

Go for it maze. She could just be a flirt, but it doesn't sound like shed turn you down

[obfuscator]

Nofap 4 lyfe

[Kimberly]

Nofap 4 lyfe

 

Why willingly put yourself through torture?

[muggiwhplar]

 

 

Nofap 4 lyfe

Why willingly put yourself through torture?

And increase one's risk of prostate cancer D:

[muggiwhplar]

My question is why is setting up a situation that is harder to leave considered more romantic than one where you can be certain that someone is with you because they are legitimately into you?

That's the golden question. People forget that once you're married to someone and you see them every day, you're no longer seeing them because you want to. You're seeing them because you have to. Those two aren't mutually exclusive obviously, but the point still stands

[Major Dash]

 

Nofap 4 lyfe

 

Why willingly put yourself through torture?

 

 

Spoilers, he's a eunuch.

[obfuscator]

 

 

Nofap 4 lyfe

Why willingly put yourself through torture?

Torture seems a bit extreme lol. Frankly, it's not difficult and has been quite rewarding.

 

Edit: and I'm not a eunich lol. Humanity has a long history of asceticism to great benefit. I'm happy to continue that tradition

[Low Levelled]

Ok