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Lunchbox:
I'm sorry Harry.

I can take the water-skiing squirrel down if you like.

(I did it because talking about things such as have been discussed in these couple of threads make me slightly uncomfortable. I cover up my uneasiness with a veneer of cheap novelty acts and throwaway sentences! Everyone wins!)

a pack of wolves:

--- Quote from: pi on 27 May 2008, 06:31 ---again, to make clear, I don't really believe in the idea of soul mates, but am rather agnostic about the matter. I was saying that its hypothetically possible, however improbable, to find your perfect mate; I am not looking for him/her. I would consider it probable to find a person marginally better than the one you're with, given that you will continue to meet new people. It would also appear more than just possible to find a person who is much better than the one you're with, making you wish you were with that person.

--- End quote ---

To me this equates people with quite simple things and that's not right. Like a computer for example. I can get a laptop with a faster processor, bigger screen etc and that will be definitely better than the one I have right now. People are a lot more complex than that. If you're with someone you don't love or who drives you absolutely crazy then being with someone you do love or who isn't going to drive you into therapy is probably an improvement. Maybe. But being with one person you love and then changing for someone else you love, all you can say for sure about that is it'll be different. Better or worse isn't a way I'd look at any relationship where I've felt I was in love.

tania:
talking about relationships with people often feels a bit like talking about religion to people in that even though i'm pretty happy with my stances on both, i have pretty controversial views and i sort of feel when i bring the topics up like i'm making other people uncomfortable and making them question things they had a lot of faith in. i don't want to seem like i'm accusing nearly everyone on this forum of being idiots in silly relationships, these are really just my views but man monogamy and commitment are very weird to me. i don't like marriage not because i can't commit but because i don't like the idea of two people having to sign a contract stating that they now can't back out no matter what. to me it seems as though it sort of transforms the relationship from a mutual loving agreement into a weird test of how long you can stay together. like, instead of being together because you want to be, you HAVE to stay together because you're MARRIED and DAMNIT, you made a COMMITMENT. i just don't think not being able to commit makes you a bad person. it basically says we value people who are stubborn. personally, i'd rather be happy. not to say two people can't make each other happy obviously, but if i'm in a relationship that doesn't make me happy i'm not going to stay in it simply for the sake of being a good person who knows how to commit. that's pretty silly if you think about it.

the fact that there are billions of people on earth and that any one of them could be really compatible with you just makes a lot of sense to me as to why i prefer open relationships. i'm probably not polyamorous by definition because i don't think i'd be able to sustain more than one meaningful relationship at the same time but i really don't see the big deal with dating and/or sleeping with multiple people.  personally when i sleep with someone else while in a relationship i'm not looking to replace them, i'm still just as attracted to them as i ever was. i just have the ability to be attracted to more than one person simultaneously. almost everyone thinks about it and statistics show that most couples cheat, so why not just eliminate the part where cheating is supposed to be this really horrible thing and accept the fact that it happens? monogamy makes me think we just constantly hold ourselves to standards we can't even meet because we love being disappointed and cynical about relationships. people are only human.

pi:

--- Quote from: a pack of wolves on 27 May 2008, 07:28 ---To me this equates people with quite simple things and that's not right. Like a computer for example. I can get a laptop with a faster processor, bigger screen etc and that will be definitely better than the one I have right now. People are a lot more complex than that. If you're with someone you don't love or who drives you absolutely crazy then being with someone you do love or who isn't going to drive you into therapy is probably an improvement. Maybe. But being with one person you love and then changing for someone else you love, all you can say for sure about that is it'll be different. Better or worse isn't a way I'd look at any relationship where I've felt I was in love.

--- End quote ---

See, I was trying to avoid the concept of love because it seems to be an irrational emotion, or one that people have trouble defining. There was a thread on love a few years back, and I thought Tommy held his own. And, using irrational concepts in a rational discussion makes it difficult to understand or counter as you don't completely understand it.

I get that you're saying that relationships are complex, but my point was that it is possible that, in any  relationship, there is room for improvement, and it might be found in another person, whom you may meet and discover this.

Are you disagreeing with the existence of such a possibility?

jhocking:
Sure it's possible, but you'll never know right off the bat from meeting them. Whether or not a given person is right for you in the long haul is something you can really only find out by being in a committed relationship with them (learning by doing, if you will.) There's the thing, a relationship commitment is not so much a statement that you are absolutely sure as it is a statement that you're fairly sure and want to be with this person long enough to find out.

You are hitting the perfectionist's roadblock, that until you are absolutely 100% sure of the decision you should make you are unable to make any decision. The obvious problem there is that you will never be absolutely 100% certain, so you will never make a decision. Of course, this is only a problem if you actually wish to make a decision.


For what it's worth, consider my specific situation. I am currently engaged to a woman I deeply love and very much want to be married to. However, I'm finding I'm having trouble actually discussing our wedding and setting a date because I find the whole idea of a wedding to be a big hassle. It's like, I wish we were already married, if that makes any sense. I want to be married, but I don't want to deal with getting married.

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