The Back Room

[archimage_a]

The term 'enjoy' is not discreet enough to indicate romantic interaction. Or to differentiate between romantic or erotic interactions if we do choose to put inference on it.

 

How we 'feel' when we are around other people is a matter of personal interpretation, so whist I enjoy being around a wide varity of people, it doesn't mean I am secretly romantically or erotically involved with all, or indeed any, of them.

 

Further differentiating Romantic affiliation and Friendship is more or less impossible without the Erotic element, at least in conversation and social interaction. In personal experiance it is very easy to do. (We can also talk about the rather complex effect Erotic relations have and how they complicate the boundries, or indeed ignore the boundries, but that is vastly complex and not hugely relevant)

 

At the end of the day we can take three approaches:

1) Nex is romantically interested in this girl, but not romantically involved, as of yet. (The view everyone aside from Mather started with, I think)

2) Nex is romantically interested and romantically involved with this girl. (One of our possible interpretations of Mather's view)

3) Nex is erotically involved with this girl. (Another one of our possible interpretations of Mather's view)

 

(I think the conversations about sarcasm got mingled)

 

 

Personally, I have no strong feeling about how Nex decides to live his life. He knows that he can talk to me, and I will ask questions to get a deeper understanding of the situation before I begin talking about his life (Though it would seem that he wasn't interested in our opinions anyway).

 

 

 

 

As to Ieyfura's point:

Discussions about emotions are fraught with misunderstanding...added to that they can't be communicated in any meaningful way For instance you cannot describe them to another person and have the other person know what you mean. All that can happen is that they draw from their own lives and try to approximate your words with their feelings.

On top of that emotionally there can be a vast number of similarities between friendship and romantic love. The most common way to distinguish between them (and most inaccurate maybe) is 'Do you desire to have sex with this person?', ergo the non-physical aspect is also sex.

This is partly due to the various types of friendship, for instance friends you have a drink with, friends you tell your deep dark secrets to, friends who give you lifts, 'friends with benefits', people who you would help in a fix but you wouldn't consider hanging out with, colleagues...It is a hugely multi-faceted subject and is not well defined in any sense of the word.

As stated above Erotic interaction is not the end all and be all of loving someone, nor is self-sacrifice for that person, or any other factor. It is, however, something commonly associated with having a partner and, as above, is used to differentiate between friends and romances.

 

In short; very complicated thing people don't understand, sex looks like the answer, it isn't, life goes on. :thumbup:

[The_Mather1]

Never did I think I would have to tell a gay guy that sex isn't all there is to romance.

 

I mean yeah, recent years the term romance has been more abused than the teachings of the Abrahaic religions, but still, it's not that hard to grasp.

Being horny is when you desire to sleep with a person, romance is when you don't care if you get laid as long as you can make the other person happy.

 

You want something to separate friends and romance by? Would you risk your life just to make the other person smile? If yes then it's romance, if no then it's friendship.

[archimage_a]

romance is when you don't care if you get laid as long as you can make the other person happy.

In that case I am in a romance with everyone I have ever known and every member of the Tavern.

 

 

My point in the post was that Sex is typically ASSIGNED that role, and so, to have a meaningful conversation, we have to accept that role.

Elsewise we might as well all be speaking different languages because we wouldn't have any reference points in common.

[Ieyfura]

I think, the best way to put this is that everyone has a DIFFERENT view of what romance is. At least, that's what archi seems to be saying over and over again through all his words. (correct me if I'm wrong archi).

 

For example, my interpretation has a mix of emotional and physical dependencies. Mather's, yours may be purely emotional, Nex's may be this, archi's may be that, etc....In the end I think trying to make another person see how we feel on the matter isn't really going to go very far aside from giving one another insight in how we all think. :P

[The_Mather1]

romance is when you don't care if you get laid as long as you can make the other person happy.

In that case I am in a romance with everyone I have ever known and every member of the Tavern.

 

 

My point in the post was that Sex is typically ASSIGNED that role, and so, to have a meaningful conversation, we have to accept that role.

Elsewise we might as well all be speaking different languages because we wouldn't have any reference points in common.

I meant that both ways, not just as in not minding not having it, but also the other way around.

[archimage_a]

I can't really see another interpretation to put on that.

You statement means:

Either you care that you have sex....or you don't.

Either sex is an intergral part of the relationship....or it isn't.

 

I suppose you could mean 'Grateful for having sex' but I guess I would be grateful to anyone who wished to choose me...I wouldn't neccessarily take them up on that offer (I wouldn't neccessarily take up the guy I love on the offer of sex either, the circumstances related to it are very complex) but I would still be grateful.

 

 

Romance requires a certain degree of care about people's well being, and a certain degree of sexual interaction...thus distinguishing it from prostitution/forced relations (aka not caring about well being at all) and from friendship (aka not caring whether you have sex or not, though arguably friendship relies on you not having sex in most situation...though I guess some situations - for instance having sex with someone to prevent your friend from dying...Or having sex to keep warm in the middle of the arctic...or something, idk. Its all very complex, hence why I don't have an interest in finding a concrete defination.) however quantifying those amounts are impossible.

 

A human may do terrible things to 'protect' another human, such as people who lock their would be partners away, or people who stalk others because they believe that the other persons life would be better with them. Assuming they also had a sexual attraction then this would fall into the Romance catagory although it is not something we readily associate with romance.

 

A way to eliminate that would be to add the pre-requiste of reciprocal feelings, though we then venture beyond the realms where any one person can understand the concept...It requires two people to be in agreement and not to have an ulterior motive, which is impossible to prove beyond any doubt. It also ignores the fluid nature of emotion, and the changing nature of the world in general...We may 'love' someone for a period, but then stop 'loving' them, or have our feelings modulate in responce to their actions.

 

So ultimately we are left where we started.

 

You want something to separate friends and romance by? Would you risk your life just to make the other person smile? If yes then it's romance, if no then it's friendship.

 

Would I risk my life to make someone smile? No.

Transient feelings of happiness verses my life....my life will win in almost all circumstances. Exceptions would be if those transient feelings protected other life forms, or if my death meant something besides making them smile.

 

Would I risk my life to save someone in the Tavern....Probably?

There are exceptions of course, RPG for instance, technically involved with the Tavern but not someone I would risk my life for in a scenario.

 

 

I would be willing to do a lot of work to make people happy, I would even be willing to put myself in mild amounts of danger (Holding hands in public if they are a guy probably falls into this catagory)...however I would not be willing to put myself in open and clear danger for excessively trivial reasons (Jumping from a fifth story building to give them their favoriate shirt).

 

If there was some great and noble quest to gain honour or possession or some such, which the other person desired, and I could understand how that thing would make them happy, and could accept that there were long term benefits to doing whatever this thing was (and not merely transitory benefits) then I would put myself in the unknown danger...possibly great peril...in order to achieve that end.

Doing something merely because the other person wants it is not romance but slavery...I can understand the attraction of making the other person happy even at detriment to myself...It is something I do extensively...But there are substantial limitations on that.

 

I would further add that, if we happened to be 'in a relationship' and you tried to make me smile by, say, leaping across the bonnet of a moving car, I would be immediately worried about you more than I would be happy. I would generally say most people would respond in the same way, unless they don't really care about you in a serious way...or they don't actually understand the danger that you were in...or potentially because they feel elated only by virtue of not feeling so gut wrenchingly pained as they were a moment before when your life was in imminate danger.

[The_Mather1]

Not like that, but like for example running into a burning building to get something of sentimental value, beating up an armed mugger in order to be on time, or jumping into freezing water to get something that was blown to sea.

Those are things that I would do in a heartbeat.

[archimage_a]

Not like that, but like for example running into a burning building to get something of sentimental value, beating up an armed mugger in order to be on time, or jumping into freezing water to get something that was blown to sea.

 

1) Death/permenant injury verses irrevocable loss of important item....I would do for most people, dependant on how heavy the object was, how massive the flames were, how thick the smoke was, how far it was from the door, are there any combustables in the building, ect, ect.

 

2) Using Violence to speed up events...No. It is a silly idea that violence would ever speed up events in the long term. I would much prefer to be 10 minutes late (preferably I would have left half an hour-an hour early anyway) than to be dead/arrested for accidently murdering someone (self-defence yes, however I could always accidently kill a passerby). Violence does have the ability to bypass certain obstacles, but it tends to create more which either need to be dealt with by more violence, or by spending very long periods of time explaining/suffering punishment.

Added to that there is a good chance I would end up with blood of my clothes, which would provoke questions, and if the person I was with cared a jot for my safety would ask questions and subsequently be worried about me doing something like that again.

 

3) Near certain death/death of others verses irrevocable loss of an important item...No. If I dive in then there is a very very good chance I will die, further it may provoke others to jump in after me to rescue me.

 

 

 

It all brings us back to 'What would normal people do' If we judge things on how we, personally, would react, then we fail to understand the rest of the world.

[Nexaduro]

DEAR GOD YOU TWO

 

GET A ROOM ALREADY

[archimage_a]

Your just jealous Nex :mrgreen:

[Nexaduro]

Nice turnaround. I concede defeat.

[Leiana]

Congrats Nex! I sees You are in a relationship? I gots a new relationship, since the last one went downhill really fast after October. GUYS: NEVER MAKE VIDEOGAMES YOUR FIRST PRIORITY! It pisses off the girls really fast.

 

Has anyone besides me has noticed I haven't gone on some annoying dramatic shpeel about my life yet?

 

Also: is there anything anyone is doing on Wednesday?

[Ieyfura]

 

Also: is there anything anyone is doing on Wednesday?

 

Aside from schoolwork, nope.

[Resistance]

GUYS: NEVER MAKE VIDEOGAMES YOUR FIRST PRIORITY! It pisses off the girls really fast.

If a girl doesn't understand that I like playing videogames then I'm going to dump her.

[Jehosaphat]

EDIT: No, Archi, before you ask; I still don't mean Mather.

I lol'd

 

And I'm not going to discuss relationship stuff, as I am still generally avoiding that area.

[The_Mather1]

GUYS: NEVER MAKE VIDEOGAMES YOUR FIRST PRIORITY! It pisses off the girls really fast.

Actually the only thing it takes priority over is studying and sometimes sleeping. My girlfriend would be my first priority if I had one.

[Ieyfura]

Most video games bore me these days. Only the rare gems manage to maintain my interest anymore.

[The_Mather1]

Games tend to bore me until I start playing them. It's like "*sigh*, ok, I'll just play until I find something to do... SHIT! IT'S 02:00 ALREADY?!?"

[Nexaduro]

What happened to H2PM's post?

 

Fura, Stork, are you deleting things again?

[H2PM]

It's partially because most video games are the same game. More original stuff is harder to find these days.

 

Nex: It was derailing the relationship topic.

[Ieyfura]

What happened to H2PM's post?

 

Fura, Stork, are you deleting things again?

 

Guilty. This is an off-topic discussion. Not an image spam thread. :P

[Nexaduro]

... Same thing?

 

The language of LOTPW is mostly composed of pictographs.

[H2PM]

... Same thing?

 

The language of LOTPW is mostly composed of pictographs.

No no no no. You do not understand how much it derailed that girlfriend talk, Nex.

[Nexaduro]

... Same thing?

 

The language of LOTPW is mostly composed of pictographs.

No no no no. You do not understand how much it derailed that girlfriend talk, Nex.

Oh no. Oh the horrors. Woe is us.

 

A conversation about girlfriends, by a room full of (mostly) men, few of whom have ever been in a relationship, has been derailed.

[The_Mather1]

I just got the craziest idea ever, I am going to try to start a campaign to announce the internet as an independent "buffer state", wherein those who wander are subject only to its rules and will need not fear for their actions there to be scrutinized and judge by the nation they physically inhabit. In fact I am going to go as far into detail as I can. This will be an awesome internet, with blackjack and hookers.

 

And no, the only thing I'm drunk on right now is a feeling of greatness.