Men and Women don't want the same things, so why bother?

Full of expectations, and intoxicated by the alchemy of attraction, we approach the opposite sex in a dream world. And, all discernment buried beneath painful yearnings, neither sex gets their wishes fulfilled. And, cursed by hope, we wait always for tomorrow, crushed daily by compromise.

For a while, all seems as a blessing. Each sex projecting onto the other everything they would wish a relationship to be, and finding it there as a truly believable picture in the mind, until, little by little, the perfect union dismantles itself before our very eyes.

And some have the nerve to imply at this point that this is where the real relationship begins, that the reality of two people far exceeds any fantasy.

What absolute nonsense.

Fantasy is what brought two people together in the first place.

Are we thus 'tricked' together?

Is that what life is?

Why bother with the fantasy in the first place then? If it's just about species perpetuation?

Why have these minds that can imagine the fantastic, if life delights in thwarting us into drab grinding boredom?

And no stupid replies from carping bitches (male and female) self-congratulatingly taking pot shots at a false perception of my lonely existence. I am not lonely, just confused at the relevance of what seems a female-friendly arrangement. I am 39 and have had all sorts of relationships, long, short, passionate, loving, intimate, and just plain bizarre.

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Why bother with the fantasy in the first place then? If it's just about species perpetuation?

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The fantasy evolved because it conferred a reproductive advantage. Evolution doesn't care one whit how we feel about evolution. What survives is what works, not what is right or rational or honest or true -- but what is right or rational or honest or true enough.

But, boy, I do love being in love. Most of us appear to feel the same way about it. Yes, it doesn't stand up very well to critical scrutiny. But it's why we're all here to begin with, and it appears we wouldn't be here without it.

Such is life. I haven't always enjoyed living. But I always enjoy having lived.

But surely, evolution evolved a mind able to contemplate evolution, thus creating fresh propensity and impetus.

And it is not true to say we incarnate to love.

We leave love to incarnate, and feeling the break, rabidly seek reunion. And finding it in each other, are continually disappointed at how selfishly we ration it out to each other.

Evolution doesn't care whether we contemplate it or not. All our contemplations / rationalizations / idealizations, regardless of how noble or lofty or pure or beautiful or profound, are a sideshow, by-products of a mind that is sculpted by a process that rewards only survival, a mind primarily designed to solve problems related to survival. The only stuff that passes onto succeeding generations is what survives, regardless of what route it has to take to get there.

Darn it.

So, love as an experience has nothing whatsoever to do with anything other than breeding?

And all experiences it yields other than this, meaningless?

This is an objective model.

We are not objective models. We are subjective experiencer's.

Love is subjective.

To bring the 19th century 'theory' of evolution as a workable paradigm used to maintain the unhappiness of which I speak, I cannot sanction or approve.

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So, love as an experience has nothing whatsoever to do with anything other than breeding?

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Well, I didn't really say that. The origin of the experience of love can be explained as a product of evolution. What it means to the humans experiencing it can be a whole range of things -- and everything we experience is no less real.

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And all experiences it yields other than this, meaningless?

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"Meaning" depends on the context in which "love" is being evaluated. In one context, it's a trick that evolution plays on us that has been successful in keeping the species from becoming extinct. In another context, we experience massive amounts of meaning and beauty in it.

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This is an objective model.

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An objective context, yes.

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We are not objective models. We are subjective experiencer's.

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I don't see it as one or the other. All of it is true simultaneously.

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Love is subjective.

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The origin of love isn't. The experience of love is.

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To bring the 19th century 'theory' of evolution as a workable paradigm used to maintain the unhappiness of which I speak, I cannot sanction or approve.

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It's a matter of context. There may be others that love life as much as I do -- but few, if any, love it more. I think all contexts are interesting, and I think life should be lived passionately. So that's the way I live.

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In one context, it's a trick that evolution plays on us that has been successful in keeping the species from becoming extinct. In another context, we experience massive amounts of meaning and beauty in it.

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And it may well be precisely because of the subjective experience of love that gives love its objectively measurable success. As long as we continue to put so much meaning into love, we will continue to seek it -- and thus keep reproducing.

To describe subjectivity as a context is paradoxical.

And it almost feels to me that you are blowing much smoke into what was a clear observation.

I don't want an a tit for tat argument. It is plain you don't agree with me, and yet you haven't touched on a single thing I've raised in the original post.

I'm not here to argue over this objectively, so if all you have is objective models to decribe opinion, just how is that helpful?

Actually, I apologise. It's me that's turned it into an argument. I actually agree with much you've said.

I think I'm trying to explore a feeling I have found myself within. That, at this point in my life, I am having trouble, aside from sex, seeing the point in future relationships.

I don't think I've ever had a relationship where a woman gave me the space to completely be myself. I have had to endure constant meddling in the story of who I am to myself.

Sometimes it seems as though women want you to love them as THEY would wish and desire to be loved, when, in truth, they have no authority to manipulate this way.

There's a saying you may be familiar with: Men marry women thinking that they (the women) won't change; women marry men thinking that they (the men) will change.

A bit of a generalization, to be sure, with all the caveats generalizations generally create. But it still appears to reflect at least a bit of what you're saying -- women "meddling" in your story, not giving you the space to be yourself, wanting you to be different, to be perfect for them by their internal (and often inscrutable) criteria.

Relationships are tough. Incompatibility on one level or another seems inevitable, unavoidable, eventually. If you want to remain yourself, you're accused of not compromising, of not doing your part to make the relationship work. You're accused of being selfish.

Sheesh -- even when it goes all right for awhile, you get into your 50's, and then you may well have to deal with menopause, at which point any pretense to rationality or reason appears to evaporate.

I didn't get married (first time) 'til I was 46 -- and that even after staying with the same woman for 6 years. In that respect, I stayed true to a promise that I made to myself in my early 20's, to NEVER get married. I had a couple great relationships. Enjoyed being in love. But also being seduced by the fantasy of the "perfect" relationship, someone with whom I was compatible on almost every level.

Didn't happen. Seems the best one can hope for is always a trade-off. A relationship without significant compromise appears to be a recipe for dying alone.

Not an easy choice. There will be another for you. It will be wonderful. I hope it stays that way.

We all die alone.

It's not so bad.

Sometimes I imagine that the joke is that if everyone actually found out how blissful death is, the planet would be empty tomorrow. That's why our memories are wiped between lives, and every time we come back from sleep.

And to think of some woman wittering away while I'm trying to breath my last, well.........

And do they have to vocalise every damn thought that crosses their mind. Is it really just more of that from here on out?

The bliss is in the silence, as so few of them ever bother to find out.

Thank you for your words though.

Well, that's true that we're all destined to disappear into the abyss of eternal anonymity. In that sense, we all die alone. But each life we have the opportunity to do some things of value along the way. The only entities to which the idea of "value" has any meaning are conscious entities -- entities capable of conceiving of the notion of "value" to begin with. I've brought a few moments of laughter and fun to my grand-daughters, something I count among my greatest achievments. In that sense, the joy brought to loved ones, it is not "dying alone" -- it's a life, a character, loved and respected by at least a few folks, anonymous as they may be as well.

Most of my relationships have been from other lives. We like the same things, so we tend to hang around together, and run into each other every so many lives.

The humor of an independent, unmarry-able cuss like me getting married after all is not lost on me. One of the reasons I promised myself that I wouldn't get married is the horror stories told by my married friends. Now when they tell their stories, I ask them if they were married to my wife. So, yeah, in that sense it appears that it's just "more of that from here on out".

As much as I've argued for equality between men and women, I've reluctantly resigned myself to the notion that the "girl thang" has some validity. Women are a strange bunch. Each one isn't "like all the rest" -- but every one of them tells me that.

I'm coming back as a male in my next life, too.

It's interesting to me that you use the word 'character.'

I think that's how I see women. Or, rather, how I wish to see women now. Sex; passion; romance as set, setting and character. I don't think I want to know who a woman is as a person. As the person she sees herself to be. I actually don't care. I like being enchanted by women. Before my last very long relationship, I would have strings of two and three month relationships. Not because I was scared of intimacy. I just preferred the adventure of it all.

Somehow life made me think that being with the person herself was what mattered. And it did, oddly. Up's as well as downs.

But this side of it, I just do not see the point of repeating that.

What's the point?

And what's the point in just being with one of them? To stay with them beyond the first fireworks and glow, of first being with them, until the mundane creeps in.

And I don't wish to 'work' at a relationship. What a disgusting concept.

Anyway, enough. Beer.

We have nothing to beer but beer itself.

Beer, indeed.