Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 136
- 1
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
People of the Motte, I am engaged to be married. AMA I guess. Reaching this state was a surprisingly long journey - I'll be 35 on wedding day. I have been dating off and on since I was 18, and at that time I never would have imagined that I'd still be playing the game 15+ years later. Glad to be finally be checking out, hopefully for good.
I can't help but wonder how checking Culture War Roundup threads every day for the last 10 or so years, may have contributed to my ultimate change from rootless, callow 20-something to homeowning family-seeker. This was previously a classic path that people tended to follow, but relatively few of my peers ended up following it. I often wonder if being a SSCer/Mottizen has actually been a good thing for me, or whether I'd have been better off never knowing about the things we discuss here. Nevertheless, though you do not know me, there are many of you to whom I'd send a wedding invitation if I thought we had room for it; and indeed it will be an interesting culture war occasion to observe, as many blue tribe + red tribe friends and family will meet for the first time. But of course on the day, I'm going to really try not to think of it in those terms lol.
Anyway, as far as Friday Fun: my fiancée and I have been doing jigsaw puzzles lately, while listening to the "oldies" station on AM radio. I think for many people, if you see this activity on a list of activities to do, your eyes may pass right over it - it seems so boring that it doesn't merit serious consideration. But seriously, it's actually really satisfying when you get the whole border put together, or when you get on a roll with a big section of the puzzle. Are jigsaw puzzles what they call "lindy"? In any case, I realized there must be a reason why they continue to sell jigsaw puzzles in every Target, Wal-Mart, Meijer, Big Lots etc. in America. Consider giving it a try if you want to do something easy and analog for a while, as a nice little break from technological recreation.
How did you meet? How have your expectations for a partner changed over the years and across relationships? Do you have any regrets that you learned from or might be generalizable?
She started a Meetup.com group dedicated to following the local baseball team. I went to the first meeting, and she and I got along right away. We started talking outside the Meetups, and after a few weeks I asked her if she wanted to go to the baseball team's Hall of Fame with me. From there we just kept doing stuff together; when I "asked her out" it wasn't really a big transition in our lifestyle by that point.
Let me share something which is kind of embarrassing now, but to which I bet many men can relate. When I was in my teens and early 20s, I actually described my dating behavior to my male friends as a "quest to gain XP." That is to say: the only criteria I set in those days was 1.) looks okay 2.) is willing to date me. This is a daft way of living your life, to be honest. I certainly did date many kinds of women: a schoolteacher, a college professor, a pediatrician, a hairdresser, etc., etc.
In hindsight, I know that I was just doing this for validation. I was a very ugly, awkward kid until I finished puberty, and it took me an extremely long time to develop inner confidence. As a result, I was dating without actually assessing my partners for any kind of suitability for long-term relationships. I just wanted physical affection, and to be continually told I great I was. I did get those things, and unsurprisingly, it did not make my life any better, and left me wondering what the point of it all was. Meanwhile, I created all kinds of false expectations in my girlfriends, which would inevitably be disappointed after I had wasted much of their time.
It was in 2020 that I had this realization fully, and at that time I stopped dating entirely; I realized that I needed to make a decision about what I was trying to accomplish, and to stop causing unnecessary pain to other people. So I concluded that I did want to get married, I did want to start a family, and that I needed to focus on cultivating the characteristics in myself that would lead to success in these endeavors, and to find a partner who had them as well: emotional stability, the capacity to love strongly, honesty, high time preference, and so on.
I repent greatly of the way I handled dating in the past. It simply added to the amount of misery in the world. I wish I had known better.
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” - Sun Tzu In the past I learned tactics about dating - about how to be charming, about how to make people like you, etc. I had no strategy: I had no goal, and so there was no way the relationships could go anywhere. It feels like a big waste of time, and while one might say, "You learned something and so it wasn't time wasted," I am cognizant of the fact that by being married at 35 instead of 25, it's 10 less years I can enjoy married life.
If I had had a plan to begin with - I did date some excellent women with whom I might have built excellent lives. Those opportunities are now gone. I love my fiancée, but people should be aware of the "secretary problem." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem
It's fine to date for fun. I don't have an issue with doing that. I would recommend anyone who is young, though, to start thinking about the big picture of their life as soon as they can conceive of it. I do, honestly, wish I had done that.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link