Lower your standards, date large women/poor men, find someone with whom you share values and commit yourself to them.
Decide where you want the ambulances. At least if you're a dude.
What's Eating Gilbert Grape isn't all that bad. I've seen fairly well-put-together people that came out of environments like that. Past that, however...I think you are leaving aside the very real fact that maybe ten percent of people are bad fits for marriage and children. Some of that is their fault, some of it isn't. Things like paranoid schizophrenia or intellectual disability make things very hard indeed. It's like the US military...they reject around 10 percent of people for not having the cognitive or intellectual horsepower to be good janitors or cooks. On the other hand, I've known people that had parents that sucked as human beings - drug addicts, attempted murder, physical abuse - that still turned out OK, so maybe. That is a hell of a compromise to make, though, and I wouldn't blame someone for deciding to remain single rather than be with someone who's 450 pounds, has multiple health problems at 28, and walks with a cane. Or who uses lots of drugs. Or who is straight up psychotic and refuses to acknowledge that she's pregnant. Maybe you can build a life with someone like that, too, but it's playing on nightmare mode.
If you're a woman, it's a bit easier - you're likely to be with someone you're not attracted to (at least initially) but don't have to watch your kids watch someone die to entirely preventable causes. If you're OK with a short guy you can get a guy that's built like a Greek god, or one that makes six figures and is a basically decent guy, even if you're 300 pounds. You don't have to settle for abusive shitbags or drug users. Go to Silicon Valley and you might be able to find a literal millionaire.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Sure. That's probably true; however, visceral fat is still unhealthy. Although a few extra pounds is mostly OK. Swole people also know who they are.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
The typical example would perhaps a short immigrant male with an advanced STEM degree who cant understand why white girls are not attracted to him
That guy...well. Very few American-born women would be attracted to him. Even if he's a second-generation guy, if he's been raised middle-class? He's got to deal with a lot of things before he can start looking for a partner. First of all, he's going to have been told all his life that dating and relationships are live options for him and of course he's going to find a partner. When he starts looking, or even openly expressing interest in sex or relationships, in high school or college, he might be told that this isn't happening for him, and he might find people that are uncomfortable with him being anything other than a celibate monk who's far more interested in computer science than women. He's been raised middle class, and probably hasn't had to deal with any real struggles or face any real hardship. He's not at all accustomed to accepting that he's often going to be in situations where all of his options suck and he is choosing the least-bad option, not the best. By the time that fully sinks in, he's either resigned himself to loneliness or is too old, inexperienced, and afraid to attract anyone. At least, anyone that can hold a job and isn't a danger to herself or others.
As for morbid obesity...morbidly obese women can definitely get guys, even rather well-put-together and conscientious guys, if they're willing to go for shorter dudes. You can be 5'5" and 300 pounds and have a boyfriend or husband with a body like a Greek god if you're OK with him being 5'4".
SkookumTree
1yr ago
No one IRL is going to sit down and say: "you would be such a catch with some fillers and a nosejob".
That is why there's a niche for people who are very kind and very caring...and who are also blunt AF and have no filter. I've known people like that - who'd say 'well yeah, that really fucking shows the fat on your stomach' without even a tiny bit of malice. They were very polarizing people, but not unpopular: they were as caring as they were tactless.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
For $30,000-$50,000, your friend can probably become attractive.
Yeah, I'd agree...she could almost certainly become average if she was ambitious enough, unless she is straight up deformed or has been literally set on fire.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Fundamentally we have a major issue with child mortality being low allowing for extreme dysgenics.
That is one hell of a bullet to bite there. That genie is not going to get stuffed back into the bottle, at least not to the extent it was two hundred years ago. African peasants, at least the ones we have half-decent data for, suffer much lower child mortality than kings and queens in the eighteenth century. The germ theory of disease, vaccination, and antibiotics absolutely beat the living shit out of infant and youth mortality. We might lose the second two through civilizational collapse, but even literal illiterate backwoods rednecks in America know that germs cause disease.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
I know...hmm. maybe one guy that fits this bill, in my medical school class of 150. He's no model, but he's 6'4" and above average looking. If you're willing to allow six-footers, there's another guy.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
welfare state
I don't exactly think that the single mothers by choice we're talking about plan to take government benefits...they're well out of that income bracket.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
-
shitty genes
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shitty environment. Dad getting hit by a drunk driver was a different (and probably better) father before he died than the guy who left for a pack of cigarettes and didn't come back.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
There are some things that are more or less unfixable, many of which are no one's fault. Physical deformity which is mostly cosmetic is the clearest example of that. There's only so much that even the best plastic and reconstructive surgeons can do, in many cases.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
My gut response to intentional single motherhood is revulsion and contempt. Someone that isn't capable of pair-bonding has no business having a child. They should figure out how to be a loving and loveable person before subjecting a child to their emotional incompetence.
I mean. That really, really depends. Is someone who had been burned in a house fire at the age of three now emotionally incompetent because most men are turned off by her appearance? They're somewhat bitter and cynical, but rather kind and a decent human being. In certain circumstances you are not choosing the best option, but the least bad. Every road you take kind of fucking sucks and that's just the hand you're playing.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
I'd argue the main disadvantage of single motherhood is being "raised" by a constantly stressed-out, tired, bitter broad, who usually doesn't get that much help from anyone with childrearing, plus not having a father figure at all, which is rather harmful both to boys and girls, but for different reasons.
Male relatives could fill in that gap, and money can fill in a lot of gaps. I think that the children of wealthy single mothers by choice turn out very differently from those that it just...happened to. These kids are wanted and planned for, and have lots of material resources at their back. That makes a difference.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Does this mean (some of) the rich of tomorrow will have (1/2) amazing genetics, lots of money, and zero connection to family?
Very, very plausible - especially with the way that social atomization is going. Don't necessarily see this as a bad thing, per se...the wealth and environment plus whatever genetic bonuses these kids have mean they probably won't turn out bad. Yeah, boys raised by single mothers might not do all that well...but there is also the idea that the variable that matters is the number of married fathers in the community. And our highly educated heroines are going to be aware of this and deliberately plan these things out.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Working out and strengthening my back did help when I was regular with the gym, but it's annoying that I would have to do that when the typical person seems to manage just fine without it.
Sucks to suck. I have that problem as well due to mild EDS plus a very mild herniated disc. Deadlifting was the best thing I ever did for my back. During the pandemic, I was stuck lifting literal heavy rocks in the woods because the gyms were closed. 95 percent of regular Joes didn't have to fuck around with heavy-ass rocks in the woods just to keep (minor) chronic pain at bay, but them's the breaks. A lot of people have bushleague bullshit like that that they deal with. You're a doctor, I'm a fourth year, not much that we can do here for this kind of thing.
P.S: You've seen incredibly driven Indian doctor types. Did they have not just exceptional work ethic but insane memories? I've seen guys memorize 100-slide powerpoint presentations and tell you what slide something came from, a week after watching the lecture. I've seen undergrads at no-name schools do entire labs from memory, reciting the lab manual word for word. Is that common where you are?
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Yeah. I'd also say that if you know that you will either never have a partner or will perhaps have a partner that needs more than most in the way of support, and you know that early in life (like a guy who's 5'3" at age 16 and whose doctor tells him he's done growing) you had better get to working your ass off to compensate for it. You simply will not get the mutual support that most people get from their partners, and people may well come to some very unsavory conclusions about why it is you don't have a partner. Not a great idea for our pint-sized hero to become a pediatrician and spend his life working for Doctors Without Borders...he can do something like that but better to pick primary care instead.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Here's a hard bullet to bite: perhaps things don't usually get better. Perhaps those guys who were bullied in high school are going to be such bad partners that it is best that they don't try to date, ever. Sure, there are exceptions - but they're just that, exceptions. If you wind up reaching an adult height of only 5'1" and realize that you don't have what it takes to become a billionaire, you're going to be making some frankly rather nasty compromises if you want a partner.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Also moderated by a bone-deep fear of appearing creepy and being ostracized...winding up sporting a boner at a nude beach is terrifying and that fear has a way of killing arousal.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
healthy
there's probably some kind of low-grade problem going on here. not sure how much can be done.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Any hypermobility going on? If there is, lift weights with good form. If not, maybe try something like yoga. Good luck. I hated my surgery rotations too; at least when you're rounding you get to stretch occasionally and walk around instead of standing in the same spot and position for hours.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Did you spend a lot of time working around disgusting things, especially growing up...maybe you worked in a slaughterhouse, maybe you worked in healthcare for a time, something like that? IME after a few years in healthcare I stopped caring nearly as much about any disgust I felt. It just straight-up didn't matter. When you're interviewing a guy that smells like an unwashed hobo and have to act like he doesn't smell like an unwashed hobo...or you see someone's guts during surgery...or see other gross shit that goes on in healthcare? You stop caring as much.
As far as autism: did people ever expect you to never have a partner because you were awkward or autistic? Did other men ever express discomfort that you were attracted to people or wanted to be anything other than basically a celibate monk devoting yourself to something prosocial? Would people have been uncomfortable if you'd said you found, say, Miley Cyrus hot when the guys were talking about attractive celebrities? I'm not talking about being shot down, or being roasted for flirting and fucking it up. I'm talking about being seen as and expected to be basically non-sexual and celibate for life, in exchange for ordinary social inclusion.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
"Gay, but Celibate" could also mean that you dislike straight sex, think gay sex is attractive, and don't want to act on or modify your desires.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Yeah. The Groomer meme... has some truth to it with fetishizing and making transness fashionable. That is bullshit: hawking irreversible medical interventions to kids as anything other than a last resort. If Johnny wants to wear dresses and be called Suzie, fine, maybe that's his generation's rebellion. Same for Johnny taking Mike to the prom. I'm gathering that that's commonplace and acceptable where you are, and that many kids tell their parents that they're not straight...and get a "That's OK, we still love you, do you need a ride to soccer practice?" from them.
As I understand it, you guys are in a liberal stronghold, a super-blue area. Which is different from the suburban-Northeast tossup territory I grew up in. You could see Trump signs, MAGA bumper stickers, rainbow flags, and Hillary or Biden signs on the same street.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Yeah, having those sex change potions/nanotech/applied phlebotinum be expensive and risky and imperfect would be a pretty damn good allegory.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Hmm. I would start with some kind of painful condition that leads people with it to cluster together and often pursue ineffective but homemade treatments in adolescence and early adulthood. There is a completely effective treatment that is known, but it is still somewhat risky and beyond the budget of most young people. The culture they are in strongly discourages use of the effective treatment before adulthood as they believe that people must have adult insight and judgment before being able to make the decision about the treatment, and the painful condition frequently remits or lessens during late adolescence. Have some kind of plot centered around treating this condition, not fitting in, not being believed...
The average person doesn't understand that he needs to know how to program, and that if he is a white collar worker, there is a very real chance that his boss might say "You have two weeks to complete this coding assignment. You should know how to do this"...and if he doesn't, he may well get fired or at least start circling the drain.
If you're at all interested in research? You learned to code in high school, maybe even middle school. Same for if you were at all interested in any kind of white-collar career.
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