Relationship Woes and Advice XXVIII: Happy and Perfect!

[Anymage]

So I'm considering returning to online dating, after Friday consisted of people mainly ignoring me due to being overstressed from exams.

Any tips on not being completely ignored? While still keeping to 'be myself' of course.

Date men. A little scratching under the surface shows that dating woes are less about team man vs. team woman, and more team people-who-date-men and team people-who-date-women.

Ever considered we just might all deep down be polyamori, and society has conditioned us to choose just one partner to compremise with, because "monogami sells better" and suits better the needs of many industries?

Just a chaotic neutral thought to consider.

Ever considered that we don't really need food to live, and that we just get hungry because companies configured society so that they could create a market for food?

From what I've seen the actual urge is towards harems, where one person gets to monopolize several others. Since few people are keen on being part of a harem, though, mutual monopolization (i.e. monogamy) or mutual freedom are the practical options.

We can discuss the reason why one might have become the predominant cultural more. But assuming that corporations did it when the trend started to emerge before corporations existed is rather silly.

[FinnLassie]

Ever considered we just might all deep down be polyamori, and society has conditioned us to choose just one partner to compremise with, because "monogami sells better" and suits better the needs of many industries?

Just a chaotic neutral thought to consider.

I'm honestly somewhat confused and a bit offended that you're using my messages as some sort of example in your polyamory statement.

[Asmotherion]

I'm honestly somewhat confused and a bit offended that you're using my messages as some sort of example in your polyamory statement.

No need to be offended.

Polyamory means having romantic feelings towards more than one partner. It is somehow related.

The fact that you feel you have to compremise with only one partener is merelly a social wall (at least from my perspective).

Date men. A little scratching under the surface shows that dating woes are less about team man vs. team woman, and more team people-who-date-men and team people-who-date-women.

Ever considered that we don't really need food to live, and that we just get hungry because companies configured society so that they could create a market for food?

From what I've seen the actual urge is towards harems, where one person gets to monopolize several others. Since few people are keen on being part of a harem, though, mutual monopolization (i.e. monogamy) or mutual freedom are the practical options.

We can discuss the reason why one might have become the predominant cultural more. But assuming that corporations did it when the trend started to emerge before corporations existed is rather silly.

A Corporation, can be anything, from a Kingdom, to a Religion, to a Spiritual Dogma... you name it. Corporation, here, is a group of people whose collective will is represented as one "entity". Corporations existed in the form of Shamanic spiritual guides, and Tribal Chiftains as soon as we became full-fleshed Homo Sapiens Sapiens, perhaps even before that!

Polyamory was practiced for the longest time in history, by Kings, Queens, Nobles, and the people who could afford having a larger fammily. That is until Abrahamic Religions spread around the glob with the idea of monogamy (ironically, the idea is nowere to be found in the original texts of either religion, wile several referances of polamory are to be accounted). Initially, no harm was done, untill the middle ages twiste the idea of desireing more than one person into being a sin punishable by condemning your soul to hell. And this idea still lives into our subconsious minds to this day. We are being psychologically tortured by society and conditioned that we should desire only one person, because "otherwise we are bad people". Middleage leftovers.

Love is not a sin. The middle ages are past behind us.

Perhaps I'm wrong. But at least that's my point of view.

[Glass Mouse]

The fact that you feel you have to compremise with only one partener is merelly a social wall (at least from my perspective).

As someone who has spent the past half year in a poly relationship trying to force, manipulate and cajole my own emotions to agree with that statement, it's starting to give me the ****ing hives.

I'm totally with you on the fact that our society is obsessed with monogamy to a downright neurotic degree. I totally see the value of questioning social norms, and of not defaulting to dogma just because it's easier. I totally agree that polyamory and non-monogamy would solve many people's problems (serial cheaters, e.g., would make the world a much better place by just being honest with themselves and partners).

As far as my limited research has yielded, monogamy came mostly as a function of private property. Once you own something, you want to pass it down. Male humans don't have a lot of biologically sound ways of knowing whether an offspring is theirs. Sprinkle a bit of patriarchy, and voila, (women's) monogamy is suddenly essential. In that view, in the current age of DNA testing and relative equality, monogamy has ceased to have a practical purpose. I agree with that.

But on the other hand, we humans tend to pair bond very, very strongly, and that process looks vastly different from individual to individual. Saying that we're all secretly polyamorous seems as bonkers to me as saying we're all by nature monogamous. It's reminiscent of the freakishly annoying bi people who claim that monosexuals are just slaves to the socially constructed gender binary.

Which, yeah, probably a lot more people fall in the "abnormal" camp than we think, but that's still a far cry from claiming that there exists a one-size-fits-all relationship out there, that you only reject because you aren't ~°~enlightened~°~ enough.

[FinnLassie]

No need to be offended.

Polyamory means having romantic feelings towards more than one partner. It is somehow related.

The fact that you feel you have to compremise with only one partener is merelly a social wall (at least from my perspective).

The fact that you don't know me and yet use me as an example for such statements is what bothers me and offends me.

[Anymage]

Polyamory was practiced for the longest time in history, by Kings, Queens, Nobles, and the people who could afford having a larger fammily. That is until Abrahamic Religions spread around the glob with the idea of monogamy (ironically, the idea is nowere to be found in the original texts of either religion, wile several referances of polamory are to be accounted). Initially, no harm was done, untill the middle ages twiste the idea of desireing more than one person into being a sin punishable by condemning your soul to hell. And this idea still lives into our subconsious minds to this day. We are being psychologically tortured by society and conditioned that we should desire only one person, because "otherwise we are bad people". Middleage leftovers.

Love is not a sin. The middle ages are past behind us.

Perhaps I'm wrong. But at least that's my point of view.

You're wrong.

Off the top of my head, conflating polyamory with polygamy is a big no-no to people who know their stuff. Show me societies where women were free to take as many male lovers as they liked without facing backlash or censure.

And it would be trivial to tear apart your belief that the only problem is the big, bad Abrahamic religions, except that it would fall afoul of board rules almost immediately.

Edit to add:

I'm totally with you on the fact that our society is obsessed with monogamy to a downright neurotic degree. I totally see the value of questioning social norms, and of not defaulting to dogma just because it's easier. I totally agree that polyamory and non-monogamy would solve many people's problems (serial cheaters, e.g., would make the world a much better place by just being honest with themselves and partners).

Poly and cheating are not mutually exclusive. As I touched on earlier, lots of people want a situation where it's okay for them, but not for people who they're seeing.

I mean, I'm down with the option being out there and people knowing that it's there. Some oddballs can actually make it work, and more power to them. But due to how many people make a gigantic mess of things, it's also very worth pointing out the downsides. If someone is uncomfortable at the thought of their partner getting intimate - both physically and emotionally - with someone else, you really want them to self select out early on.

[Anonymouswizard]

Nah, monosexuals are just sexist.

Honestly, human attraction is weird, and the sorry example to poly (and mono) relationships is just to talk about it with your partner. I talked about it with my ex, and she was seriously monogamous and I honestly don't care enough either way. If I got with somebody who was exclusively poly I'd certainly give it a go. Just for the sake of your deity of choice don't go poly if your partner hasn't agreed to it, I believe it's called cheating and it's not only hurtful to your partner, but to the other person as well.

Seriously, I've just had to comfort a friend who realised she was the 'other woman' a few days ago. Nonconsensual poly is not good.

Anyway, I've not sent any messages quote yet, but at least I haven't got any 'hey wanna ****' ones yet. I guess the first will come at the end of the month if I'm still hot enough to get them.

[Glass Mouse]

Poly and cheating are not mutually exclusive. As I touched on earlier, lots of people want a situation where it's okay for them, but not for people who they're seeing.

I mean, I'm down with the option being out there and people knowing that it's there. Some oddballs can actually make it work, and more power to them. But due to how many people make a gigantic mess of things, it's also very worth pointing out the downsides. If someone is uncomfortable at the thought of their partner getting intimate - both physically and emotionally - with someone else, you really want them to self select out early on.

Oh yeah, sorry if I wasn't clear. Hypocritical, untrustworthy, ****ty people will find ways to be hypocritical, untrustworthy and ****ty in whichever relationship constellation they choose.

But I have no doubt there are a bunch of people who could be happily and ethically poly or just open, if they allowed themselves to be, instead of forcing themselves to bang their head against the wall of doing monogamy while finding it really, really hard.

[TenthousandDays]

Which, yeah, probably a lot more people fall in the "abnormal" camp than we think, but that's still a far cry from claiming that there exists a one-size-fits-all relationship out there, that you only reject because you aren't ~°~enlightened~°~ enough.

Spoiler: preamble

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What I especially like about this observation is the train of thought it inspired me to spontaneously. Romantic relationships are an important concern for quite a lot of people, at least in the western world, and I would guess love is also relevant to peoples lives in other cultures. It is discussed frequently, prominently, ubiquitously and often very urgently and with great fervour. About any aspect of a relationship to make it successful and what success even entails. In this particular case, how many people an optimally successful relationship would include. And while there may be a definite answer to that, which, even if we did know, we could not and should not enforce, I think there is a conclusion that is neglected almost anytime I have witnessed a discussion about the topic. Which finally gets me to my point:

I think the sentiment that there is no approach that is universally applicable is correct, but the point always assumes, that there is a solution for the individual. This does not have to be the case. Just as there does not have to be a universal "One-size-fits-all" rule, the universe really is under no obligation, as far as I can see, to enable an individual approach that can lead to success either. Again, however you want to define relationship or success.

Spoiler: Rambling, just some thoughts without concise point.

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I presume this thought is excluded because it presents the possibility of not being able to achieve the thing a person is longing for, whereas it seems trivial to occur. After all, there are many humans, they pair up frequently, there are no obvious, important differences, so there is no reason this would not be possible for an individual. But I don't think it's so easy to dismiss the argument. It's really the specific expectations an individual holds which makes for the biggest hindrances, I think. And culture is very much responsible for this, which instils a host of expectations and demands on the particulars of our lives and loves.
And it is these constructs that can simply be too improbable to realise. Especially the very prominent ones about life-long attraction and love, of complete commitment, of permanent exclusivity, sexual or otherwise, of social roles, biological roles, financial roles, dependence, strength and weakness and so on and so forth. Whether implicit or explicit, a lot of these ideas and ideals are hard to achieve, even if committed to it. They might be worth striving for, but for an individual, they often might not. How often has the average person sat down and formulated what they want from someone additionally to just the feeling of love and feeling loved and critically questioned why? I don't think any one relationship idea is particularly unfeasible, but the combination of several is bound to lower the probabilities in a lot of ways, even if it might boost them in others. My point to this whole paragraph is - the expectations on another person, no matter how justified you think they are, might be too high anyway and exclude too many people for one to be with under the parameters you've set. And this, I want to emphasize, includes people that want a life-long, committed, exclusive relationship, but in some way or another fail to execute it, to actually live their ideal. And I think a good idea in this context is to actually relax your expectations on others, to take what they offer you and give what you can and instead of fitting others into the relationship model you have conceived for yourself, rather define the interactions with others as your relationships. I don't think this is intuitive at all, but maybe I'm just not aware of the social discourse enough and have missed this discussion entirely. I often hear about people having lists of prerequisites, very defined relationship models and rules, relationship statuses and people wanting to assess the seriousness and exclusivity of nascent affairs.


Our biology, on the other hand, does not have any qualms about putting us in no-win situations either. Our sexuality undoubtedly has very competitive elements to it, which result in arousal, jealousy, possessiveness, lust and even sexual greed. A previous poster mentioned the building of harems to both sexes. While I specifically think that while males would like harems, females would rather have serial monogamy to concentrate on one person intensively at a time, that is just an observation I think I've made, it demonstrates that the competition of our sexual behaviours is not only at odds with the interests of other members of our sex, it is also against the wishes of the opposite sex. This obviously applies to queer people as well, just that the direction of the competition varies. In the end, it really is a negotiation between individuals with its considerations for supply and demand.

[Asmotherion]

A) I appologise if I offended some people or religious groups by including them in my example. It was not my intention. I do not view something like this as offending, but nevertheless, my apologies.

B) People have their oppinions and wile I may disagree with them, I respect them. I was in the wrong starting the theory with "what if all people were", but again, I did it half on purpose to drag this arguement a bit more. Truth is, I have my own image of the world, but respect that someone's else's image might be entirelly diferent and that's ok...

The reason I started this debate was mostly to see people's reactions to this subtle subject. A small social experiment in a way.

C) Men dating multiple concending women get critisized a lot. How is that different than racism towards any other minority in your oppinion?

[Glass Mouse]

So what did you learn from your social experiment?

C) Men dating multiple concending women get critisized a lot. How is that different than racism towards any other minority in your oppinion?

Because there's historically been a vast gulf between the ideal situation of "free, informed, consenting adults" and the actual practise. Somehow (not actually mysteriously) polygamy has historically been practised in cultures where women were treated as little more than property, and where they were not free to choose whether or not to engage in the practise. This is not the distant past. This is living, breathing cultures today, both legally consolidated in some countries, and found in smaller subcultures in countries where the practise is illegal.

That correlation between polygamy and misogyny has never been incidental.

Now, for the first time in millennia, we actually have a level of equality where polygamy can be practised - and is occasionally practised - among free and consenting humans. But if the historical context doesn't give you at least a bit of pause, I don't even know where to start. And, frankly, on a purely emotional level, I'll still side-eye the "one penis policy" pretty hard, because the sheer hypocrisy is iffy as ****.

I'm not gonna touch on the racism thing due to board rules, but you really don't wanna go down that road, dude.

[TenthousandDays]

One penis policy sounds hilariously revealing of insecurity and opportunism. On the topic of historical and current polyamorous relationships "Sex at Dawn" by Cacilda Jethá and her husband Christopher Ryan made quite a lot of waves. This book probably has come up in this thread or others before, as it is rather popular, just thought of mentioning it, because it gives an overview of cultural practices in that regard.

[Dr.Samurai]

My girlfriend is doing this thing that kind of bugs me but she's sensitive about it and I'm not sure how to approach it.

One of the things that attracted me to her in the first place is that she's rather formidable. She's confident and assertive and honest and adventurous and ambitious. I love it. I feel like we're equals and can support each other and challenge each other.

Now that we're living together, something interesting has happened. She speaks almost exclusively in a cutesy, adorable voice. Now, we've known each other for a long time (20+ years), and got reacquainted six years ago. We had a long distance relationship, and recently we made the decision to move in together, so she moved to NYC and we've been living together now for about three weeks. I've never heard this voice before three weeks ago, and now it's the only way she speaks. Please forgive me if this seems like a non-issue to you guys, I understand that as far as relationship problems go, this is not a terrible one to have.

The issue is that I'm trying to reconcile the person I talked to on the phone all the time, and the one I spent weekends with, with the person I'm living with now. They're almost not the same! Recently I watched the Munk debate on Political Correctness, and she and I had a conversation discussing the Pro and Con sides. And in these conversations, she speaks in the voice that I know to be hers, the one I'll call her "normal" voice. It sounds like an adult woman's voice and it sounds like someone asserting what they think and giving their opinions and thoughtful pushback, etc.

But if we're not having a conversation like that, in fact if she's saying literally anything else, she speaks in the cutesy adorable voice and it sounds like... I don't know, almost like she's babying me. Or like she's serving me. To be clear, it's not that I don't like the voice. In some contexts, it *is* cute and I do like it. It's even sexy at times. But all the time it's just strange. I notice it.

Now the problem is we were talking about a mutual friend who was in a long-term relationship and her boyfriend just broke up with her. We were talking about some of the complaints and people taking each other for granted, and she was being insightful but I said light-heartedly "it's hard to take you seriously when you're speaking in this cutesy voice". Well, I could tell immediately it gave her pause and she became withdrawn. So eventually she opened up about it and started hysterically crying. No hyperbole here. She wall bawling in my arms. And she revealed that this is something her mom and sister used to criticize her about all the time, that when she was dating someone she'd speak in a cute voice or speak in a child's voice. She said she doesn't know why she does it, and she doesn't even realize that she's doing it. I could tell she was worried about the fact that she didn't know why and when she was doing it and she said she had to spend time thinking about why she does do it.

Given her reaction, I instinctively told her it was okay and I didn't mention it to judge her and I like the voice and she shouldn't be embarrassed.

That's mostly true, except that I don't like the voice all the time. I'm not criticizing her here like her mom and sister. It's not that I'm trying to judge her. It's that I think back to our long distance relationship, and she sounded one way. And not even just the voice, but the way that she spoke as well. And that in turn informed my perception about her and my feelings for her.

Now that we're living together, the voice and tone and manner of speech is different, and my perception is confused. It's like I catch myself remembering the other person sometimes, and it's weird. Because now she's closer than she's ever been and we spend more time together than ever before, but it seems like it's with a different person.

When we were long distance, she was rather guarded with her feelings. Now that we're together, she's "all-in" so to speak. It's been quite the transformation. It's been nice, to see her become more affectionate. I feel like the voice has something to do with that. I don't know. I feel like this "problem" isn't worthy of the thread, and yet I feel like I lost a little of her when she moved in. When we're out with friends she speaks in her normal voice. But when we're home, it's the other voice. Thoughts on this? Anyway for me to bring it up without her feeling like I'm judging her, or without embarrassing her? Or should I just try to become accustomed to it? I'm just not sure that I can. She says she finally feels like she can be herself around me, because we're both kind of weird and I'm not a judgemental person. I want her to feel like she can be herself. So if that means the cutesy voice, how do I fit that in with how I knew her before?

Thanks for reading!

[Anymage]

But I have no doubt there are a bunch of people who could be happily and ethically poly or just open, if they allowed themselves to be, instead of forcing themselves to bang their head against the wall of doing monogamy while finding it really, really hard.

Largely agreed. On a nitpicky point I do think that the "your partners are going to have other partners too" point needs to be hammered home, since a lot of people are don't think about that key point and are really bugged when it becomes an actual thing. But the people who think that's a neutral or even a positive, more power to 'em. Objectively they may be a tiny minority, but they have the tools to find each other and everyone's happier if they wind up grouping off together.

*stuff*

It sounds to me like she's highly conscious of being seen as childish and inept, and subconsciously trained herself to have a more "grown up" voice to counteract that. Both from family specifically, and out in the world in general. When you're talking to someone from a distance you're almost always catching them when they're "on", and the realities of being in close quarters keep them from being that way allow the time. She wears granny panties sometimes. She can leave the dishes in the sink for too long. And she doesn't have the energy to consciously mind how she sounds all the time.

This is clearly something she's self conscious about. She wouldn't have built up this tough persona and corresponding voice if there wasn't a reason. And it's incredibly draining to keep that up all the time at home, which is where you should be able to let your hair down. She's still as sharp and insightful as she was before. And if you have some kink for her taking charge, you can ask for the voice in special occasions. But normal everyday around the house, this is how her vocal cords naturally are. Given that it's obviously something she's highly sensitive about, and that it's draining as hell to have to subconsciously mind these things all the time at home, making yourself get used to it is the best option. Remind yourself that it's constant low-key effort on her part to publicly present a certain way, that home is where people should be able to stop minding themselves in all those little ways, and that everybody is a little different when you move in together.

[TenthousandDays]

I don't know if you meant it that way, but the vocal chords don't seem to be the problem, but rather the content of the speech and how it is delivered. It certainly is odd that she uses babytalk all the time, but it is not odd, that she doesn't notice, because that is largely subconscious. Adults do that with children and animals consistently, even for extended periods of time, and that is not by volition. I've even heard of a study that ascribes positive learning effects for infants when using babytalk instead of normal language. It looks to be an effect of evolutionary psychology and I would venture the guess, this is a bit overactive with her. Note that this does not mean she would talk like extreme examples of this behaviour, because the intensity of this varies between people and the target of their speech.
So what to do? Well, you could try and escape her mental category, if that is the case. Either by presenting yourself differently, within reason, of course, or by formalising the occasions in which you would have her speak normally. You could also deliberately change your tone of voice, diction and content of speech in the opposite direction. People mirror each other and if you're making a conscious effort to shape your conversation she will be influenced by that without having to be mindful of it on her own. It's always bad to police other peoples behaviour in a relationship and they always feel invalidated, even if the criticism is constructive, justified and helpful. In the end it is your perception, which you have the overwhelming degree of control over in contrast to others and you can also get used to it to a certain degree and learn to appreciate the oddities of another person. So not only can you employ behaviour that lessens the occurrence of the annoyance, but you can also evaluate and feel differently about it. Emotions, different from the visceral perceptions, are mediated a lot more by context and can be rationalised (or rather, they are anyway, the interpretation is always there), and over time understood differently. You have a certain degree of control over how and what you feel in response to stimuli.
A tangential point I want to mention is, that this kind of talk is also something that can be a trap. Relationships, in my observation, tend to assume the behaviours of parent-child relationships, rather than between independent adults over time and you become less independent of each other, which is almost always venomous and outright kills sexual attraction. If you subconsciously view your spouse as your child or your parent, that is problematic. And babytalk, although it is almost exclusively done in nascent relationships, is probably helping this kind of development. There is a conflict in my argumentation here, but it is conjecture anyway and should be taken as such. The last point I want to edit in here is that this behaviour typically lessens as the relationship ages, especially if you don't mirror it, so you might not even have to do something about it. Just be mindful of own behaviour, because it will change in reaction to the things you perceive as annoying or unwanted and this might feel cold and rejecting to her.

For those that might have trouble imagining how weird this might feel to hear a lot, look up at ProZDs videos on youtube titled "A world where all talking to pets voices and regular speaking voices are reversed" and "If people were treated the way we treat pets ", as I can apparently not post URLs yet.

[dehro]

As someone who is very in the geek territory, and spent some considerable time searching for someone

1) Get someone else to take photos of you, preferably someone good.

As an addition, get the other people to pick the photos of you as well. If you're anything like me, you'll be so overly picky with pictures that you'll hate them all. Putting it as a Facebook profile pic is a good test for an image.

good call.. though it's not an absolute, this will definitely increase your chances compared to no pic, or a bad pic... selfies can be good as well, but they need to be good ones.

2) Be concise

A lot of people will be reading a lot of profiles. No need to go full tweet size, but try not to exceed more than 200 words. You can leave some things out if they are minor so you can concentrate on the bigger things, consider the smaller lot good fodder for actual dates.

I disagree... it makes sense to leave a few things out for them to be discussed or discovered later, but you should write exactly as much or as little as you would if you weren't trying to sell yourself. if your first exchanges are to be online, and you're kind of verbose and longwinded, might as well say as much in your profile. in fact, I find that it pays to describe yourself, your likes, dislikes and what you're looking for out in just as much detail as you feel comfortable doing. in my case this turned out to be a rather long profile. the downside was that many people probably skimmed over it or chose to ignore it, but the ones that did read all the way to the end (and my final line in the profile did acknowledge that), turned out to be actually interested and worth talking to because by the time they read through it, they'd know if we shared tastes, passions, hobbies or desires. but do try to make it an interesting read, not just ramblings about whatever.
in fact, I think my last line pretty much states "if you've come this far, you might as well get in touch".. or something to that effect. People did get in touch, occasionally.

3) Read what they write

Of particular note for men, when writing a message to someone, read their profile and ask questions from it. Be as specific as what they wrote, so if they say they read, ask what their favourite books are, while if they say they love a particular book (series), try to ask questions about that (although don't fake it). Your message really needs to stand out if you want a response, leading to...

very true, try to relate to what they write, share a thought about it or even better, ask an open ended question about something they say or a passion you share.


If I may add another thought, don't go fishing with a trawl. You must work on finding the balance between writing to/poking/interacting with a high enough number of people to stand a chance of beating the odds (which are stacked against you by default, not because it's you but because that's how the game works)... and a small enough number that you're still working on a 1-1 basis, personalising each approach and only getting in touch with people you actually have a chance at building something with.. no point in chasing someone who on their profile says they're in town once a month, or who live across a couple of borders, or who don't have a car if you don't have one either, or who clearly have a different set of values or passions than your own. It's something we all might be tempted to do when we find that the people we like seem to not respond. "maybe if I lower my standards/ignore one or two red-flags/broaden the search parameters beyond what I actually want, I'll strike gold" is something that only works if you're looking to get laid just once and are willing to throw caution, common sense and standards in the wind...
don't ever compromise quality for quantity, even if that quantity at the starting point is necessarily 0.

Keeping your search criteria as narrow as reasonable (I know, reasonable is an undefined quantity) does a couple of things in your favour: the chance that the people you do end up interacting with are more on your wave-length and on the same page as you is higher. The consequence is that you may have fewer interactions but their quality will be high enough for you not to lose every hope of ever finding someone long term.

[Dr.Samurai]

I don't know if you meant it that way, but the vocal chords don't seem to be the problem, but rather the content of the speech and how it is delivered.

Correct.

@Anymage, thank you for your reply. But I think the voice that I'm used to is her normal voice and it's how she talks to everyone all the time. It's when we're alone at home that she uses the babytalk (as tenthousanddays puts it). It's not just that her voice changes, but also her facial expressions and her tone.

So what to do? Well, you could try and escape her mental category, if that is the case. Either by presenting yourself differently, within reason, of course, or by formalising the occasions in which you would have her speak normally. You could also deliberately change your tone of voice, diction and content of speech in the opposite direction. People mirror each other and if you're making a conscious effort to shape your conversation she will be influenced by that without having to be mindful of it on her own. It's always bad to police other peoples behaviour in a relationship and they always feel invalidated, even if the criticism is constructive, justified and helpful. In the end it is your perception, which you have the overwhelming degree of control over in contrast to others and you can also get used to it to a certain degree and learn to appreciate the oddities of another person. So not only can you employ behaviour that lessens the occurrence of the annoyance, but you can also evaluate and feel differently about it. Emotions, different from the visceral perceptions, are mediated a lot more by context and can be rationalised (or rather, they are anyway, the interpretation is always there), and over time understood differently. You have a certain degree of control over how and what you feel in response to stimuli.

This is kind of where I'm at. It very obviously upset her, and that was on my mind for days following when it happened. I don't want to upset her again, and I don't want her worried about this or feeling insecure about it or anything like that.

But it is such a stark difference than what I'm used to. And I don't know that I like it too much.

A tangential point I want to mention is, that this kind of talk is also something that can be a trap. Relationships, in my observation, tend to assume the behaviours of parent-child relationships, rather than between independent adults over time and you become less independent of each other, which is almost always venomous and outright kills sexual attraction. If you subconsciously view your spouse as your child or your parent, that is problematic. And babytalk, although it is almost exclusively done in nascent relationships, is probably helping this kind of development. There is a conflict in my argumentation here, but it is conjecture anyway and should be taken as such.

Well, I fear the babytalk is manipulative. Not intentionally, because I believe her when she says she doesn't realize she's doing it. It's just tough to have a conversation when she's speaking that way because I don't know how agreeable I'm being on account that she's speaking in this cute child-like way.

We thought she had strep, but the tests came back inconclusive. She's on anti-biotics anyways just to be sure. Point is she isn't feeling that great and all last night when I got home she was speaking normally and it was refreshing. But this morning she was feeling better and went back to babytalk lol.

I don't want her to treat me like a kid, or like she's taking care of me. That wasn't what I was looking for (or expecting to get). Don't get me wrong, it's super cute and adorable. But in doses please!

The last point I want to edit in here is that this behaviour typically lessens as the relationship ages, especially if you don't mirror it, so you might not even have to do something about it. Just be mindful of own behaviour, because it will change in reaction to the things you perceive as annoying or unwanted and this might feel cold and rejecting to her.

I understand. And to your earlier point about how much of this is in my hands, I get that. There are going to be things that we both find annoying about each other now that we're living together. That's to be expected. A couple of examples; she doesn't flush the toilet if she only peed, and she leaves glasses of water all around the apartment lol. These things bug me, but I've gotten over them in short time. Now I'm leaving water all over the place in fact!

But the way we're communicating seems much bigger than that. I don't want this seemingly simple thing (how she talks to me) to sort of guide the relationship into a dynamic that we weren't intending on taking it to (one in which she caters or defers to me constantly).

We're both very much in love, and I don't want to stifle an expression of that love if that's what this is. But the relationship is already heavily one-sided financially (I work and pay for everything, she doesn't work) and I don't want to compound that with this speech/attitude in which she is kind of mothering me.

[Anonymouswizard]

good call.. though it's not an absolute, this will definitely increase your chances compared to no pic, or a bad pic... selfies can be good as well, but they need to be good ones.

Yeah, I have a half decent pic at the moment, but unfortunately it's a bit old (I still look the same, the main problem is I've since cut my hair due to working in a kitchen). I'm waiting until I have a friend able to meet up then I'll ask them to take a couple of pictures for me.

I disagree... it makes sense to leave a few things out for them to be discussed or discovered later, but you should write exactly as much or as little as you would if you weren't trying to sell yourself. if your first exchanges are to be online, and you're kind of verbose and longwinded, might as well say as much in your profile. in fact, I find that it pays to describe yourself, your likes, dislikes and what you're looking for out in just as much detail as you feel comfortable doing. in my case this turned out to be a rather long profile. the downside was that many people probably skimmed over it or chose to ignore it, but the ones that did read all the way to the end (and my final line in the profile did acknowledge that), turned out to be actually interested and worth talking to because by the time they read through it, they'd know if we shared tastes, passions, hobbies or desires. but do try to make it an interesting read, not just ramblings about whatever.
in fact, I think my last line pretty much states "if you've come this far, you might as well get in touch".. or something to that effect. People did get in touch, occasionally.

I'm quite happy with mine, it's not very in depth but it gets across a basic idea and the fact that I'm nerdy. I'm a bit unsure on if I should mention being autistic on there, on the one hand I feel it's good to be upfront about it, especially since it means I can be a tad weird when talking to people, on the other hand people might think it's too personal.

very true, try to relate to what they write, share a thought about it or even better, ask an open ended question about something they say or a passion you share.

As I'm finally gearing up to send a reply, that's very useful advice. It's going to take a lot of getting used to in order to not come off as too stalkery or too uninterested, but it's not like the world's ending tomorrow.

If I may add another thought, don't go fishing with a trawl. You must work on finding the balance between writing to/poking/interacting with a high enough number of people to stand a chance of beating the odds (which are stacked against you by default, not because it's you but because that's how the game works)... and a small enough number that you're still working on a 1-1 basis, personalising each approach and only getting in touch with people you actually have a chance at building something with.. no point in chasing someone who on their profile says they're in town once a month, or who live across a couple of borders, or who don't have a car if you don't have one either, or who clearly have a different set of values or passions than your own. It's something we all might be tempted to do when we find that the people we like seem to not respond. "maybe if I lower my standards/ignore one or two red-flags/broaden the search parameters beyond what I actually want, I'll strike gold" is something that only works if you're looking to get laid just once and are willing to throw caution, common sense and standards in the wind...
don't ever compromise quality for quantity, even if that quantity at the starting point is necessarily 0.

Keeping your search criteria as narrow as reasonable (I know, reasonable is an undefined quantity) does a couple of things in your favour: the chance that the people you do end up interacting with are more on your wave-length and on the same page as you is higher. The consequence is that you may have fewer interactions but their quality will be high enough for you not to lose every hope of ever finding someone long term.

At least this is better advice than my friends give, which tends to be along the lines of 'go for nobody' and 'go for everybody'.

[Tvtyrant]

One of the things that attracted me to her in the first place is that she's rather formidable. She's confident and assertive and honest and adventurous and ambitious. I love it. I feel like we're equals and can support each other and challenge each other.

Now that we're living together, something interesting has happened. She speaks almost exclusively in a cutesy, adorable voice. Now, we've known each other for a long time (20+ years), and got reacquainted six years ago. We had a long distance relationship, and recently we made the decision to move in together, so she moved to NYC and we've been living together now for about three weeks. I've never heard this voice before three weeks ago, and now it's the only way she speaks. Please forgive me if this seems like a non-issue to you guys, I understand that as far as relationship problems go, this is not a terrible one to have.

The issue is that I'm trying to reconcile the person I talked to on the phone all the time, and the one I spent weekends with, with the person I'm living with now. They're almost not the same! Recently I watched the Munk debate on Political Correctness, and she and I had a conversation discussing the Pro and Con sides. And in these conversations, she speaks in the voice that I know to be hers, the one I'll call her "normal" voice. It sounds like an adult woman's voice and it sounds like someone asserting what they think and giving their opinions and thoughtful pushback, etc.

But if we're not having a conversation like that, in fact if she's saying literally anything else, she speaks in the cutesy adorable voice and it sounds like... I don't know, almost like she's babying me. Or like she's serving me. To be clear, it's not that I don't like the voice. In some contexts, it *is* cute and I do like it. It's even sexy at times. But all the time it's just strange. I notice it.

Now the problem is we were talking about a mutual friend who was in a long-term relationship and her boyfriend just broke up with her. We were talking about some of the complaints and people taking each other for granted, and she was being insightful but I said light-heartedly "it's hard to take you seriously when you're speaking in this cutesy voice". Well, I could tell immediately it gave her pause and she became withdrawn. So eventually she opened up about it and started hysterically crying. No hyperbole here. She wall bawling in my arms. And she revealed that this is something her mom and sister used to criticize her about all the time, that when she was dating someone she'd speak in a cute voice or speak in a child's voice. She said she doesn't know why she does it, and she doesn't even realize that she's doing it. I could tell she was worried about the fact that she didn't know why and when she was doing it and she said she had to spend time thinking about why she does do it.

Given her reaction, I instinctively told her it was okay and I didn't mention it to judge her and I like the voice and she shouldn't be embarrassed.

Now that we're living together, the voice and tone and manner of speech is different, and my perception is confused. It's like I catch myself remembering the other person sometimes, and it's weird. Because now she's closer than she's ever been and we spend more time together than ever before, but it seems like it's with a different person.

When we were long distance, she was rather guarded with her feelings. Now that we're together, she's "all-in" so to speak. It's been quite the transformation. It's been nice, to see her become more affectionate. I feel like the voice has something to do with that. I don't know. I feel like this "problem" isn't worthy of the thread, and yet I feel like I lost a little of her when she moved in. When we're out with friends she speaks in her normal voice. But when we're home, it's the other voice. Thoughts on this? Anyway for me to bring it up without her feeling like I'm judging her, or without embarrassing her? Or should I just try to become accustomed to it? I'm just not sure that I can. She says she finally feels like she can be herself around me, because we're both kind of weird and I'm not a judgemental person. I want her to feel like she can be herself. So if that means the cutesy voice, how do I fit that in with how I knew her before?

Thanks for reading!

Everyone puts on masks, it is how society works. From her own words she has a cutsey voice and was shamed by family/society into being more assertive and formidable than her natural inclinations.

So she changed her voice, became more assertive and got good at wearing her mask. But wearing a persona takes energy, and when she becomes close to you after knowing you for 20 years she stops putting on the persona when you are alone.

And then you reconfirm the shame she has felt her entire life, that she can only be taken seriously or liked when playing her part. It is no wonder she burst into tears, that is some pretty harsh rejection.

I don't have any advice for you, except tread carefully.

[VoxRationis]

While some of us are discussing the subject of online dating, I have a question to ask: What do people think about data usage and privacy when it comes to that subject? I'm given to understand that the services for online dating tend to mine personal information fairly heavily, and that is the one of the reasons why I have avoided using them.

Also, kudos to the Playground for correctly predicting that "lunch" is not unambiguously equal to "date." My entire real-life social circle thought you were crazy, but you ended up being right.

[Anymage]

I disagree... it makes sense to leave a few things out for them to be discussed or discovered later, but you should write exactly as much or as little as you would if you weren't trying to sell yourself. if your first exchanges are to be online, and you're kind of verbose and longwinded, might as well say as much in your profile. in fact, I find that it pays to describe yourself, your likes, dislikes and what you're looking for out in just as much detail as you feel comfortable doing. in my case this turned out to be a rather long profile. the downside was that many people probably skimmed over it or chose to ignore it, but the ones that did read all the way to the end (and my final line in the profile did acknowledge that), turned out to be actually interested and worth talking to because by the time they read through it, they'd know if we shared tastes, passions, hobbies or desires. but do try to make it an interesting read, not just ramblings about whatever.
in fact, I think my last line pretty much states "if you've come this far, you might as well get in touch".. or something to that effect. People did get in touch, occasionally.

How many of those turned into something more than a few halfhearted emails?

If you can express yourself well in long form, that's one thing. Massive info dumping is just begging them to swipe on to someone else.

And no, don't spell out every little thing. A little because people will take every minor stated preference as a requirement, and will self-select out. A little because someone with so many seeming requirements will seem as picky as hell, and will turn off even people who'd otherwise meet all those requirements. Mostly, though, because showing is infinitely better than telling. Everybody likes to think that they're, say, funny. The profile with more mentions of being funny than actual jokes is something very familiar to anybody who's read a lot of profiles. And overly long profiles have a habit of being all tell, little show.

"maybe if I lower my standards/ignore one or two red-flags/broaden the search parameters beyond what I actually want, I'll strike gold" is something that only works if you're looking to get laid just once and are willing to throw caution, common sense and standards in the wind...
don't ever compromise quality for quantity, even if that quantity at the starting point is necessarily 0.

Keeping your search criteria as narrow as reasonable (I know, reasonable is an undefined quantity) does a couple of things in your favour: the chance that the people you do end up interacting with are more on your wave-length and on the same page as you is higher. The consequence is that you may have fewer interactions but their quality will be high enough for you not to lose every hope of ever finding someone long term.

Again, I'll ask how well this has worked out for you. Some dealbreakers are indeed dealbreakers. But it takes a lot of experience and a lot of introspection to narrow down on what traits are really important. It's better to read and get a better sense of general compatibility, and decide afterwards how much hassle they're worth, than to get caught up on a list of specific traits.

@Anymage, thank you for your reply. But I think the voice that I'm used to is her normal voice and it's how she talks to everyone all the time. It's when we're alone at home that she uses the babytalk (as tenthousanddays puts it). It's not just that her voice changes, but also her facial expressions and her tone.

...

Well, I fear the babytalk is manipulative. Not intentionally, because I believe her when she says she doesn't realize she's doing it. It's just tough to have a conversation when she's speaking that way because I don't know how agreeable I'm being on account that she's speaking in this cute child-like way.

...

We're both very much in love, and I don't want to stifle an expression of that love if that's what this is. But the relationship is already heavily one-sided financially (I work and pay for everything, she doesn't work) and I don't want to compound that with this speech/attitude in which she is kind of mothering me.

If Dr.Samurai's GF is reading this now, get to know other people in the area. Through any means possible. Meetup, even craigslist in a pinch.

Moving for a partner is already tricky. As people, we're a lot more defined by the people we surround ourselves by than we let on. Moving to be with one person, and having them be the vast bulk of your social outlet, is unhealthy in any situation. People planning to move for a partner in general are well advised to put out feelers to know people other than their partner in the area, so they won't wind up as just a social appendage.

But this early in, when he's already thinking that something that stresses you to the point of tears is being "subtly manipulative" and being conscious of the income disparity, this just highlights how people are different in person (especially when you live under the same roof as them) than they are when you only see them when they can put on their best face. Maybe the in person compatibility just isn't as good as you were expecting. But if this is how the honeymoon period is, don't expect wild changes for the better. And don't leave yourself without people you can reach out to in person. If your partner is stressing you out and the only local you can reach out to is your partner, expect a lot of frustration and a lot of upset phone calls back to old friends and family. If things don't work out, and I know which way I'd bet, you want to lay the groundwork to make it graceful instead of building to an ugly explosive head.

Yeah, I have a half decent pic at the moment, but unfortunately it's a bit old (I still look the same, the main problem is I've since cut my hair due to working in a kitchen). I'm waiting until I have a friend able to meet up then I'll ask them to take a couple of pictures for me.

Or you could just prop your phone up against something, have it take a bunch of snaps on a timer, and see which ones turn out well.

I think a lot of people aren't aware just how many shots most people have to take before they get one good one. Your friend whose baby always seems to be adorable and smiling? They may say it's just because of good parenting, but if you could watch them through the process you'd see all the squealing and fidgeting pictures that got trashed. Ditto with the person who seems to always post the most perfect selfies.

What I'm saying is, you're going to need a lot of snaps. Solo or with a friend, it doesn't matter. (Although I wouldn't be surprised if your friend just snapped a couple of lazy pics, which don't work well either.) Luckily, phones nowadays have a good amount of storage space.

I'm a bit unsure on if I should mention being autistic on there, on the one hand I feel it's good to be upfront about it, especially since it means I can be a tad weird when talking to people, on the other hand people might think it's too personal.

Let me spell out what this triggers in normal person. Either it makes you seem like you're trying to share deep, personal information in the name of building rapport and intimacy way too fast, or it makes you sound like someone whose idea of connecting is vomiting all your issues onto the other person and expecting them to manage for you.

Nerdy and spectrumy types are common. Even if they don't directly connect it with aspergers, people who read your profile will recognize the type. You should work on showing (and again I stress, not telling) who you are, but you should also prioritize why you'd be a fun person to spend time with. That's what most people want when they reach out, after all.

[dehro]

How many of those turned into something more than a few halfhearted emails?

I'm better at long form than I am at short form, and you have to play to your strengths. There are people out there with a similar trait and/or who react well to just that.

Again, I'll ask how well this has worked out for you. Some dealbreakers are indeed dealbreakers. But it takes a lot of experience and a lot of introspection to narrow down on what traits are really important. It's better to read and get a better sense of general compatibility, and decide afterwards how much hassle they're worth, than to get caught up on a list of specific traits.l.

Both worked out pretty well. Back when I was living in the UK I used to go on more casual dating oriented sites (yes, exactly the kinds you're thinking about)... my profile was somewhat long and my success rate was adequate...I'd say more than average, if the stories that were shared around on those same websites were accurate. My criteria at the time being less discerning, I may have encountered a few people on there that I would or even should have avoided, but I also made a few good friends/relationships. This is also the time I learned which were my dealbreakers.
More recently I used the same approach on OKCupid, enhanced with the aforementioned experience... chatted with about a dozen people, met a few of them and finally settled down with one of them, my SO, some 3 years ago. We're living together and have been for almost 2 years now.

Yes, it took quite some time and during that time I did talk to women that I already knew I was never going to meet (mostly because of geographical reasons) but I never took those chats seriously (and made damn sure they didn't either), and was having them purely out of boredom and because we did have a few shared interests we both liked to talk about.,,which we did to then politely say goodbye once those common subjects were hashed out.
I will say that introspection and experience are things you learn going on these sites and putting in the work. You learn to write down the important bits and make the rest a fun read or just not bother with it. But since if you're reaching out over the internet you're probably sat at home and confronting other people's profiles and what they reveal about themselves, it's most likely you have at least some time to spend on introspection and thinking things over. At least that's how it was for me at the time.
If your speed is more suited to a shorter format, by all means, stick to that. Plenty of women will appreciate your choice. Not the ones that would be interested in me, probably... but in the end, there only needs to be one (or at least one at a time), to get the ball rolling.
Dealbreakers might be a strong way to put it.. but let's say, as a random example, you're super into sports and fitness.. you're not having a good time with someone who prefers to not get out of the house or off the couch... so you might chat with her if you share a common interest, but to pin any kind of hope on a possibility for a budding relationship on that premise is an exercise in futility.
Similar miss-matches are most likely going to fail, and at some stage, hopefully quite soon, you're going to be disappointed and frustrated by the wasted time or the erroneously placed expectations. Facing this possibility, it's better to stick to contacting people who share a larger number of values and interests with you.. which makes them quality contacts, rather than going for quantity by broadening the search criteria beyond your comfort zone.
Finding the balance I mentioned in my previous post is really a matter of trial and error, sticking to putting in time to contact the people, playing your cards the best way you know how to, and learning from your mistakes. Have a friend who knows and whom you trust look at your profile and call you out on your bull.. because chances are the people reading it will be able to do the same. Be sincere and state what you're looking for. Maybe even explain your difficulties in finding it an, if you have any particular personal issue, identify it (provided it doesn't turn into a sob story or a gripe)... some people will shy away from it, others will relate to your struggles and conversely be attracted.
If you're not confident in your writing skills/written comunication ability (two different things), look at other profiles and see how they're doing it. If you see a good line, steal it (provided it's applicable to you as well).

In the end, whilst this is very much a numbers game and the necessity to stand out and have both a decent profile and decent interpersonal skills is very much a real factor, there are so many people out there that you're bound to click with a few of them if you don't do anything too stupid.
I'm rambling because I haven't slept all night and it's 6 am.. Hopefully I still made sense.

@Dr.Samurai... this may be completely off the mark and possibly a little inappropriate, but there's plenty of people out there who have an actual fetish for baby behaviour or for enacting it.... what's going on with your SO may have nothing to do with that, but some parts of your posts did make me think about it. It is however a subject that goes heavily into kink-related areas, so I'm not sure it's forum appropriate. Anyhow, maybe consider that angle of things?

[TenthousandDays]

Spoiler: A lengthy rant about my last relationship, unrelated to current discussions, only read out of your own interest, I do not specifically ask for advice, but I'm very open to it if given anyway.

Show

Finding myself to be single after my first relationship that lasted nine years, from age 17 onwards, ended, I honestly feel very lost and lonely. The relationship was a mistake from its inception, but only now I can see that. I wouldn't have acknowledged that before being burned this badly, I was delusional and arrogant. I thought I could make work what so many others had failed before me, if I only put in enough effort, if I avoided the pitfalls and the mistakes, if I only loved selflessly, deeply and strongly enough. I did not consider that smarter and better people have failed before me and I did not heed the myriad warnings age-old culture and contemporary media brought before me.

Now I seek to learn from the experience and find a new path, a new idea of who I am, who I should be and what to do with my life. I still have trouble conceptualising myself as one person, rather than half of a couple. In the end, I was less than the half, actually, because I lost my identity to adopt hers. I consistently failed to interest her in the things springing from my mind and desire, while enabling and supporting hers. I lived with her family for over 5 years, getting denigrated, insulted, attacked, threatened, while paying rent for it, with no actionable recourse, so as not to hurt her feelings and endangering the relationship. I thought I had to work on the situation to improve it, trying different ways to negotiate the complex social situation and to improve upon it, to not just abandon it. I was a fool, how could my action lead to meaningful change when I had no power? I ranked lowest in the family and there really is nothing I could do to change that. Three years ago I concluded I couldn't live in this situation any longer and two times I spoke to my girlfriend about that. She was very distraught about it and I reconsidered, her emotion swayed me and I tried again to make the situation work.

These people were all I knew for that time, too. I barely had friends, any I had were common with my girlfriends' or were more attached to her and we were geographically isolated. The one friend I have that was closer to me than her is the only friend I have left remaining. He does not know of the separation. I do not dare reach out to the rest, as I'm certain they do not have interest in interacting with me alone. Whether or not that is true, I also do not feel like sharing a social circle with someone of whom the mere thought unleashes feelings of hurt and misery. I've come to the point where I'd rather forget her than reconciliate, even if my heart longs for her more than for anything else.

As for my mistakes, other than agreeing to a relationship, which was the cardinal one: I wasted time and potential, I was lured into a position of powerlessness and inability, I became incompetent, complacent and my development stunted. Lazy, fearful, dependent, childish and submissive. I failed to be responsible, for myself. The price is my relationship, my love, my perspective, my time and my identity. I can see how the relationship catalysed my downfall, my descent into passivity, depression and suicidal urges. But it ultimately is my responsibility, my choice to let that happen to me, my doing to live in these conditions.

The situation was unjustifiable, long before the end. Yet, I was absolutely shattered when she told me, her feelings for me were gone. What followed were emotionally scarring, regrettable months. I made mistakes and, in large part by her doing, was mentally unstable. She did not so much delight in the fact, I think, as was annoyed by it and acted as inconsiderately as I dare to imagine. I've not only lost faith in her as a person at this time, this experience is so traumatic that everything that is left of me absolutely refuses to move on without learning my lessons from it. The separation is nearing its anniversary in August. I can hardly believe it's been almost a year. I can't believe it at all, in fact. I still think and dream of her every day, despite her willingness to drive me to insanity and suicide and thinking nothing of it, scoffing annoyedly at my pleas to at least contemplate the relationship, review its flaws and mistakes, to learn from it. To admit to her errors, cruelness, responsibility and her misbehaviour. I begged forgiveness for the mistakes I made. All, as you may guess, to no avail.

For months I was consumed by the flames of the pyre that was my bed every time I went to sleep. The flames tried to wash off my bones my misconceptions and fallacies, my arrogance and all that clings to her. There is not much left of me now and I have to regrow. I don't want to be cynical, even after this experience. It's not like I haven't been warned. It wasn't all bad, otherwise, I wouldn't have loved her more than my life. I know that in itself is a mistake.

I don't even know if I want to have another relationship in my life, at least I do not seek one now. I will be very wary of any love that I will encounter from this point on, but I honestly doubt I will ever find love again. That is okay with me, I think. Love was the greatest thing I ever experienced and very much trumped the hurt and the scarring that followed. And with other factors being improved upon, it might even end better next time. And I'm very certain that it will end. I've come to the conclusion that, while not necessarily all relationships are temporary, it benefits all when they are regarded as precious, but ultimately finite. There lies no tragedy in this because I can not expect others to live their lives for me. But I think it means that my role in this game is over. I better find something else to do.

I really don't know what to do about my libido, though. I am not interested in casual acquaintances of the sort, much less do I think I could acquire them, with my imposing statue of 171cm (5'7 for the Imperials), and thinning hair, nor do I think that there are other feasible ways for me to engage in this kind of interaction. And I don't think I should take drugs to combat this, either, because those are regularly causing depression and suicidal thoughts in the recipients, something I already have a strong family history of. I guess I just have to learn to live with it, it's not like I'd be the only one. Repression isn't the healthiest or easiest thing to do, but if the British can do it, I can too. Trying to think positive.

So yeah. This is just some rant I wrote more for myself than to necessarily discuss it. If you do feel like pointing something out, commenting or criticising, feel free. I'm an argumentative person and willing to elaborate or defend or even concede a point, and, as you have read, currently have basically no person to talk about this, other than my psychotherapist, with whom I'm talking about different things at the moment though.

[Anonymouswizard]

Or you could just prop your phone up against something, have it take a bunch of snaps on a timer, and see which ones turn out well.

I think a lot of people aren't aware just how many shots most people have to take before they get one good one. Your friend whose baby always seems to be adorable and smiling? They may say it's just because of good parenting, but if you could watch them through the process you'd see all the squealing and fidgeting pictures that got trashed. Ditto with the person who seems to always post the most perfect selfies.

What I'm saying is, you're going to need a lot of snaps. Solo or with a friend, it doesn't matter. (Although I wouldn't be surprised if your friend just snapped a couple of lazy pics, which don't work well either.) Luckily, phones nowadays have a good amount of storage space.

I'll dig out the phone with the front facing camera after work tomorrow, but I should probably go to sleep soon. Thank heavens I ended up having to do other stuff last night.

The thing with organising with friends is that I've got about two friends who I trust to make sure I at least get a decent photo.

Let me spell out what this triggers in normal person. Either it makes you seem like you're trying to share deep, personal information in the name of building rapport and intimacy way too fast, or it makes you sound like someone whose idea of connecting is vomiting all your issues onto the other person and expecting them to manage for you.

Nerdy and spectrumy types are common. Even if they don't directly connect it with aspergers, people who read your profile will recognize the type. You should work on showing (and again I stress, not telling) who you are, but you should also prioritize why you'd be a fun person to spend time with. That's what most people want when they reach out, after all.

Well I have to say that that is useful to know. It's just such a non-issue for me that I never think about it in that way.

For trying to show who I am, yeah. I'm considering rewriting my profile again to remove all of the 'telling' bits, but I've got quite a bit of stuff in there that shows just how nerdy I am, and made sure to phrase things as I normally would (which leads to a few bad jokes and some poking fun at myself, although I know that might 'reduce my chances' it's honestly going to come out soon enough that it won't really have a practical effect).

[lio45]

I'm quite happy with mine, it's not very in depth but it gets across a basic idea and the fact that I'm nerdy. I'm a bit unsure on if I should mention being autistic on there, on the one hand I feel it's good to be upfront about it, especially since it means I can be a tad weird when talking to people, on the other hand people might think it's too personal.

Personally, I'd definitely leave it out. "Nerdy", yeah (it's the truth, and you want to use that to do at least a bit of selection there...) but going out of your way to mention you're autistic, at that point, is just going to stack the deck even more against you (and all of us who have been in your shoes; it's really not only you).

Basically, as a straight guy looking for a girl through online dating, it's important to avoid putting anything about you that sounds really worse when you read it than it actually is in your profile. It's already an uphill battle, you don't need to shoot yourself in the foot. Mentioning autism would likely fall in that category.

[dehro]

Agreed, but I would be rather upfront about it once a conversation should start. Especially so if it affecfts your speach/comunication patterns.
sort of in a "you may notice/have noticed that I do this thing, which is not very usual.. I do this because... but that's all it is really"
or something to that effect. if it doesn't really factor in how you interact with people (at least on a superficial and noticeable level), you can totally leave it for another day.

P.S. if you don't mind sharing your profile, here or privately, there are a few people on this thread who are usually good at giving advice and pointing out potential head-scratchers.

[ve4grm]

Personally, I'd definitely leave it out. "Nerdy", yeah (it's the truth, and you want to use that to do at least a bit of selection there...) but going out of your way to mention you're autistic, at that point, is just going to stack the deck even more against you (and all of us who have been in your shoes; it's really not only you).

Basically, as a straight guy looking for a girl through online dating, it's important to avoid putting anything about you that sounds really worse when you read it than it actually is in your profile. It's already an uphill battle, you don't need to shoot yourself in the foot. Mentioning autism would likely fall in that category.

Yeah, people do tend to have a somewhat skewed vision of what autism actually is, and they may think of it as being some crippling thing if they just read it, rather than getting to know you. Similarly, I wouldn't list my own depression or OCD, as they aren't defining features of me, just things that need to be addressed/accommodated at times.

It's like listing that you have asthma, or diabetes, or astigmatism. It's true, and important, but not really relevant to the discussion at hand.

Spoiler: A lengthy rant about my last relationship, unrelated to current discussions, only read out of your own interest, I do not specifically ask for advice, but I'm very open to it if given anyway.

Show

Finding myself to be single after my first relationship that lasted nine years, from age 17 onwards, ended, I honestly feel very lost and lonely. The relationship was a mistake from its inception, but only now I can see that. I wouldn't have acknowledged that before being burned this badly, I was delusional and arrogant. I thought I could make work what so many others had failed before me, if I only put in enough effort, if I avoided the pitfalls and the mistakes, if I only loved selflessly, deeply and strongly enough. I did not consider that smarter and better people have failed before me and I did not heed the myriad warnings age-old culture and contemporary media brought before me.

Now I seek to learn from the experience and find a new path, a new idea of who I am, who I should be and what to do with my life. I still have trouble conceptualising myself as one person, rather than half of a couple. In the end, I was less than the half, actually, because I lost my identity to adopt hers. I consistently failed to interest her in the things springing from my mind and desire, while enabling and supporting hers. I lived with her family for over 5 years, getting denigrated, insulted, attacked, threatened, while paying rent for it, with no actionable recourse, so as not to hurt her feelings and endangering the relationship. I thought I had to work on the situation to improve it, trying different ways to negotiate the complex social situation and to improve upon it, to not just abandon it. I was a fool, how could my action lead to meaningful change when I had no power? I ranked lowest in the family and there really is nothing I could do to change that. Three years ago I concluded I couldn't live in this situation any longer and two times I spoke to my girlfriend about that. She was very distraught about it and I reconsidered, her emotion swayed me and I tried again to make the situation work.

These people were all I knew for that time, too. I barely had friends, any I had were common with my girlfriends' or were more attached to her and we were geographically isolated. The one friend I have that was closer to me than her is the only friend I have left remaining. He does not know of the separation. I do not dare reach out to the rest, as I'm certain they do not have interest in interacting with me alone. Whether or not that is true, I also do not feel like sharing a social circle with someone of whom the mere thought unleashes feelings of hurt and misery. I've come to the point where I'd rather forget her than reconciliate, even if my heart longs for her more than for anything else.

As for my mistakes, other than agreeing to a relationship, which was the cardinal one: I wasted time and potential, I was lured into a position of powerlessness and inability, I became incompetent, complacent and my development stunted. Lazy, fearful, dependent, childish and submissive. I failed to be responsible, for myself. The price is my relationship, my love, my perspective, my time and my identity. I can see how the relationship catalysed my downfall, my descent into passivity, depression and suicidal urges. But it ultimately is my responsibility, my choice to let that happen to me, my doing to live in these conditions.

The situation was unjustifiable, long before the end. Yet, I was absolutely shattered when she told me, her feelings for me were gone. What followed were emotionally scarring, regrettable months. I made mistakes and, in large part by her doing, was mentally unstable. She did not so much delight in the fact, I think, as was annoyed by it and acted as inconsiderately as I dare to imagine. I've not only lost faith in her as a person at this time, this experience is so traumatic that everything that is left of me absolutely refuses to move on without learning my lessons from it. The separation is nearing its anniversary in August. I can hardly believe it's been almost a year. I can't believe it at all, in fact. I still think and dream of her every day, despite her willingness to drive me to insanity and suicide and thinking nothing of it, scoffing annoyedly at my pleas to at least contemplate the relationship, review its flaws and mistakes, to learn from it. To admit to her errors, cruelness, responsibility and her misbehaviour. I begged forgiveness for the mistakes I made. All, as you may guess, to no avail.

For months I was consumed by the flames of the pyre that was my bed every time I went to sleep. The flames tried to wash off my bones my misconceptions and fallacies, my arrogance and all that clings to her. There is not much left of me now and I have to regrow. I don't want to be cynical, even after this experience. It's not like I haven't been warned. It wasn't all bad, otherwise, I wouldn't have loved her more than my life. I know that in itself is a mistake.

I don't even know if I want to have another relationship in my life, at least I do not seek one now. I will be very wary of any love that I will encounter from this point on, but I honestly doubt I will ever find love again. That is okay with me, I think. Love was the greatest thing I ever experienced and very much trumped the hurt and the scarring that followed. And with other factors being improved upon, it might even end better next time. And I'm very certain that it will end. I've come to the conclusion that, while not necessarily all relationships are temporary, it benefits all when they are regarded as precious, but ultimately finite. There lies no tragedy in this because I can not expect others to live their lives for me. But I think it means that my role in this game is over. I better find something else to do.

I really don't know what to do about my libido, though. I am not interested in casual acquaintances of the sort, much less do I think I could acquire them, with my imposing statue of 171cm (5'7 for the Imperials), and thinning hair, nor do I think that there are other feasible ways for me to engage in this kind of interaction. And I don't think I should take drugs to combat this, either, because those are regularly causing depression and suicidal thoughts in the recipients, something I already have a strong family history of. I guess I just have to learn to live with it, it's not like I'd be the only one. Repression isn't the healthiest or easiest thing to do, but if the British can do it, I can too. Trying to think positive.

So yeah. This is just some rant I wrote more for myself than to necessarily discuss it. If you do feel like pointing something out, commenting or criticising, feel free. I'm an argumentative person and willing to elaborate or defend or even concede a point, and, as you have read, currently have basically no person to talk about this, other than my psychotherapist, with whom I'm talking about different things at the moment though.

Wow. Sounds like quite the emotionally abusive situation. Congrats to you for extricating yourself safely. We're all happy you did!

First of all, as much as it may have been your choice to begin/continue the relationship, the abuse you endured is NOT your fault. This is an attitude that happens a lot in abusive relationships (I've seen it in women I know who got out of abusive marriages) and it is patently untrue. You may have opened yourself up to it, but it was the choice and the doing of your girlfriend and her family to cause the abuse you suffered.

No need to feel bad about not wanting another relationship, especially at the moment. Taking time to rediscover who you are without someone else is important. Especially if you've only known that person since 17. At 17 you aren't even fully developed yet!

That said, don't go looking for romance or anything if you don't want to, but try not to close yourself off from relationships completely. Remaining open to whatever relationships may come is important even for just developing good friendships. Caution around romance is fine, and completely understandable, but if you actively fight against developing relationships, you run the risk of closing people out, even if they may have just become a great friend.

I wish you the best in rediscovering yourself and living your best life!

[Anonymouswizard]

Personally, I'd definitely leave it out. "Nerdy", yeah (it's the truth, and you want to use that to do at least a bit of selection there...) but going out of your way to mention you're autistic, at that point, is just going to stack the deck even more against you (and all of us who have been in your shoes; it's really not only you).

Yeah, as I said, it's so important to how I think of myself that I don't think how over people react to it. It's already been purged with fire.

Basically, as a straight guy

Let's not jump to conclusions here

In all seriousness, my sexuality and related stuff is weird. I'm definitely bisexual or biromantic, or possibly both. Unsure which, although overall I certainly seem to lean towards women over men (I blame societal norms).

looking for a girl through online dating, it's important to avoid putting anything about you that sounds really worse when you read it than it actually is in your profile. It's already an uphill battle, you don't need to shoot yourself in the foot. Mentioning autism would likely fall in that category.

Yeah, as I said, already removed it.

Agreed, but I would be rather upfront about it once a conversation should start. Especially so if it affecfts your speach/comunication patterns.
sort of in a "you may notice/have noticed that I do this thing, which is not very usual.. I do this because... but that's all it is really"
or something to that effect. if it doesn't really factor in how you interact with people (at least on a superficial and noticeable level), you can totally leave it for another day.

P.S. if you don't mind sharing your profile, here or privately, there are a few people on this thread who are usually good at giving advice and pointing out potential head-scratchers.

Sure, I totally understand that. I mean, I have to do it half the time in real life anyway.

Re. P.S. sorry, kinda a bit too personal for me to share it on a forum atm. Maybe after I've spent a few months getting nowhere.

Yeah, people do tend to have a somewhat skewed vision of what autism actually is, and they may think of it as being some crippling thing if they just read it, rather than getting to know you. Similarly, I wouldn't list my own depression or OCD, as they aren't defining features of me, just things that need to be addressed/accommodated at times.

It's like listing that you have asthma, or diabetes, or astigmatism. It's true, and important, but not really relevant to the discussion at hand.

So should I or should I not list my astigmatism and strabmasus?

In all serious, I get it, however I do in some ways consider my autism to be a defining feature of me, so this sort of stuff isn't something I normally think about.

[TenthousandDays]

Wow. Sounds like quite the emotionally abusive situation.

Was it actually abusive? I know my interaction with her father was because he actually physically threatened me with his (illegal) gun, but I feel like it is my fault by being hurt by her behaviour otherwise. I merely submitted to her will and failed to negotiate my positions many times over. I lacked agency and power because I had no recourse. The only tool I had access to and which didn't really work, was emotional neglect towards her. That was neither effective nor did I want to do it as it hurt me as much as her. In the separation, she did not actively harm me. She merely disregarded my feelings for they did not warrant consideration for her anymore. I don't think she wanted to hurt me, she just didn't care. My conclusion from this is that you can not make other people responsible for the way you feel, they do not have to respect your feelings. And if they do not have to, they don't. Even if you lived together nine years, been a loyal friend and supporter, and sacrificed basically all I had and was for her. Stupid idea, really. If you sacrifice who you are, what is there left to respect and care about? Should have learned that earlier. One of my mistakes was in becoming emotionally dependent. And dependent in other areas too, which taught me that it is very comfortable to be able to depend on others, but you also become dependent by it, which leaves you vulnerable.
I am a bit verbose about it, there is a lot I want to express, even to myself, which is why I've taken up writing a journal, but a forum has the ability to reply, which is also important to me for my perspective has all kinds of flaws and blind spots. Thank you for reading anyway.

[ve4grm]

Was it actually abusive?

That's up to you to decide, but based on what you've said, I'd lean towards yes. Maybe not actively, but through neglect.

How about this:

Let's say I was a parent, and had a toddler. I never hit them, yelled at them, grounded them, scolded them. I wasn't traditionally "abusive" to the toddler. But I ignored the child, went about my life like they weren't there, didn't bother to provide them emotional comfort, food, clothing, etc.

That would be labelled child abuse, and rightly so. Neglect, while not as dangerous or obvious as violence, is still abuse.

In the end, a relationship is a partnership, and each partner has certain things that they need to get out of it. You obviously had more say in the matter than a toddler, but that doesn't change the fact that she was denying you what you needed out of the relationship.

Add to that that you said you were constantly "denigrated, insulted, attacked, threatened" (even if those weren't physical) and that you essentially lost your identity to the relationship? Yeah, I feel pretty confident about calling it abusive. Denigrating someone until they don't feel like they have a way out, until they start to believe that they deserve the abuse and neglect you're giving them, is a very common tactic in abusive relationships.

In the separation, she did not actively harm me. She merely disregarded my feelings for they did not warrant consideration for her anymore. I don't think she wanted to hurt me, she just didn't care.

Again, neglect, but you can be abusive without actively wishing harm on the other person. Heck, you can be abusive without even actively doing anything!

I don't have time for more right now, but I'd recommend you discuss the situation with the therapist you mentioned. Right now it feels like you're trying to find a way to make it your own fault, but it isn't. They can help you come to terms with that, hopefully.