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Notes -
I often doubt if I have anything of value to his not
subredditexcept anecdotes, but, hey, I believe I have a worthwhile anecdote."Pair bonding is not a thing for guys" is one of the takes that just too alien to any and all life experience that I had. Majority of males that I know clearly had have a pair-bonding going on. Everyone I know of who I have had the opportunity to observe closely enough (mostly, extended family) and had a serious long-term relationship and the relationship ended were evidently emotionally confused and miserable for quite some time afterwards. No everyone was dramatically devastated, but given the aftereffects after the bond broke, it is simply implausible to argue the guy had not emotionally pair-bonded, unless the words are twisted beyond their meaning.
I have fallen romantically in love exactly enough times to recognize that yes, I am capable of pair bonding.
Sure, I guess there are guys who don't pair-bond. I hear about them and I sort-of know of such people, but not very well, never got to know them. Wouldn't be surprised they are over represented in redpill. Perhaps it is one of those correlations where "like attracts like", or maybe it is actively causal, enough of PUA kills one part of the male mind which is capable of romantic notions. Am not surprised at all they are underrepresented in a convenience sample of "middle aged men who had a family and/or widowed pensioners (and relatives with offspring who could observe them)", PUA doesn't seem big on family-formation.
It's qualitatively different than stereotypical female-coded pair-bonding, true. It does not follow immediately from sex act. I suspect without traditional Western cultural constraints, many men could imagine themselves with a wife and a long-term mistress or two, with romantic pair-bond going on in different stages, and some concubines without any real feeling. Yet, the reality is that the WEIRD Western liberal city-dwelling places have officially dismissed the traditional Western cultural constraints and embraced non-monogamy ex cathedra,but I am not be surprised either that surprisingly few men are capable of acting on such fantasies, in particular if the guy has ancestry from the European part behind the Hajnal line.
Sometimes I wonder if the received wisdom about stereotypical female pair-bonding is wrong, too. It certainly can't be any hard rule, there are far too many women who seem to be totally on board with the promiscuity project or becoming party who jumps ship and initiates actions that make the serial monogamy serial. Middle aged women seem to have as good or better chances of successfully bouncing back from their divorces.
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