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.
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Notes -
No one person can possibly satisfy all of your needs at once. What you prioritize in platonic friends should not necessaily be the same as what you prioritize in romantic partners. If you find someone like that, great, but most successful relationships are not built on that kind of intellectual foundation. Your girlfriend will never be able to replace your drinking buddies (and vice versa) and you wouldn't want her to try.
If it's really important to you, by all means, hold out for Mrs. Right. Just know that it's a hell of a lot easier if you compartmentalize a little and accept that different sorts of relationships fill different sorts of gaps. Maybe deprioritize intellectual compatibility just a tad and scratch that itch by setting time aside to hang out with the boys.
There's also something to be said for not inserting potential points of conflict into a relationship of you don't have to. There are already so many vectors for disagreement and hurt feelings. I like to play a little rough with my intellectual sparring, and that's a lot lower stakes (and more fun) with male friends than it is with a girlfriend. Romantic relationships involve a lot of compromise and swallowing of pride, and that's not really something I'm looking for with a political or philosophical argument. Are you willing to lose the argument and apologize when a political debate gets heated? I'm not confident of my ability to do that in the heat of the moment, and so prefer to keep those debates to a lower stakes forum.
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