Thoughts on Dating
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Posted:Aug 29, 2008 12:01 pm
Last Updated:Sep 10, 2008 6:49 am
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I am inspired to write today about relationships; be they on-line, in-person, long-distance, or whatever and the fallacies behind them.
We as humans have limited time on this planet and in that time we have certain needs that must be met; food, shelter, and so on including “interpersonal connections.” From the time we are born we feel the warmth of being touched from our mother, father and grandparents. As we grow and mature the touch and feeling of connection expands to friends and social contacts and by early adolescence we seek physical connections, emotional and sexual. Regardless of the sexual preference we exhibit the need for this tactile connection is real and necessary.
The evolution of dating has gone from clubbing a woman over the head and dragging her back to our cave to an increasingly fickle electronic evaluation process. Now, the “konk and drag” method of making interpersonal connections is a crude and unsophisticated way of determining compatibility. But as crude as it may have been, people survived their differences and we as a species survived. Today we have global access to people and we have never been more alone. As you read this, how many years have you been searching online for that lifelong connection? The internet dating boom has spawned very unproductive side affect. I call this the “100% Factor.” This is the idealistic and fantasy driven fallacy that there is a “perfect” match for us if we seek it long enough we will find it. But as we spend this time waiting and hoping and searching for the perfect match, we wind up missing out on getting to know people or having relationships with people that may have actually been better suited for us. This also breeds the fallacy that we need not work at a relationship to make it successful. If you disagree, just view the divorce rates.
Now, I know no one wants to quote/unquote “settle” for something less than they really want, and life is too short to spend it with someone you are NOT compatible with. But there is a HUGE difference between compatibility and the fantasy of perfection. If one was to ask me at 42 who my fantasy perfect relationship would be with, I would have to respond like this;
she is 20-23, she is 5’0” -5’2” tall, narrow hips and well defined facial features, blonde, shaved smooth, and has perfect B ‒ C perky breasts with small to midsized nipples. She is a Daddy’s girl, a masochist, and extremely bisexual. She is educated and is driven by her slave heart to serve her master faithfully for the rest of her life. Never been married, has no and doesn’t really want them.
Is that girl out there, probably? Is she looking for me… Who knows? Should I spend my life sitting at home alone behind a computer screen waiting to find her and hoping that I am also what she seeks? HELL NO. I will say that my last wife was NONE of those things and I loved her with all my heart and soul and was never happier to be connected to someone in my life. Nor were the last three women I had collared to me. But I will tell you this in all sincerely, I would not trade one minute of that time with any of those women for wasted time behind a computer monitor dreaming of a relationship that is not ever going to materialize.
It can’t ever materialize, because the factors of time and space are so vast that the probable connection of that perfect fantasy and me are ill fated to collide. Does that mean I am willing to settle for less than I deserve, or that any of us should? No it does not. What it does mean is that if we dismiss every single potential relationship because it does not meet the 100% factor, we are doomed to live our lives as online dreams and thus we will die never having lived at all. And ultimately, isn’t that the point of these personals, and ads online, to meet and make more connections, rather than hide and have fewer.
Now, before you point out the nut-jobs, psychos, on-line stalkers and sociopaths that are a serious danger to us, not to mention a damn good reason to have a “disqualification process” when socializing using this medium. I agree that under these circumstances we need a much more strict process for weeding out those completely ill suited for us. Moreover, women in particular need to have a more discerning eye when it comes to the men they would consider meeting in person.
My point is that when a discriminating eye turns into a search for a non-existent fantasy and retards our ability to actually socialize with people in person it is detrimental to us as individuals and as a society. I can tell you about dozens of conversations I have had with women I felt I could have had a very real and solid connection with but with the turn of a single phrase or minor mismatched appreciation for this or that, the conversation abruptly ended and ultimately no connection was made.
One such instance of this involved a comment regarding my position on other women in what would have been our relationship. Mind you I had never met this person, and we were still in the “get-to-know-you” process. She asked about my desire to have other slaves, and said she had jealousy issues. “I said; “give me a year, and that will not be an issue for you.” Meaning that after being in a relationship with me for a year, she would see that my loyalty to her and what she and I were building together would have no need for jealousy. Also, a year from then I may have re-evaluated the desire for multiple slaves. What she heard was, in a year, I will force you to be bisexual and accept other women. Rather than clarify my statements, she simply assumed for the worst and disappeared and occasionally reappeared form time to time and it took four months to finally understand how she had interpreted my statement. Ultimately her misinterpretation of my comment diffused any possibility of a relationship.
Is there a solution? I think there is. There is a middle ground between opening yourself up to a dangerous situation and waiting for some “prince/princess charming” that will never arrive. The solution is simple. Allow your criteria and parameters the flexibility to expand and contract. You cannot make an informed decision of a person based on one or two conversations. As is in any reality, perfection is attained through hard work and effort. If you expect to walk into any situation and assume life will be perfection, you set yourself up for disappointment every single solitary time. If you accept that a person who meets 75% of you expectations is way above the bell curve, then factor in daily life and the effort you and they will need to put forth to make that relationship successful, you may find that you are not compromising your fantasy, but rather living the dream.
Does this solution guarantee a successful relationship either? Not in the least. But as they say its better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. This is true and yet heart breaking. However, I will go one better. “ALL RELATIONSHIPS FAIL!” The only successful one is with the person that is standing next to you at the moment of your death, and at that point, you will know it was successful. However, until that day arrives, even conceptually failed and flawed relationship are worth having and working for. I would rather risk everything and do my best to make a relationship work, than continue to be alone for even one more day. Why, because we learn through experience. Until we experience the highs and lows of interpersonal connections we will never get better at them. The better we get the closer we come to that elusive successful relationship. I assure you that sitting at home behind this monitor I gain no additional insights to relationship success. Those are only attained by actually having them!
The bottom line is; the 100% factor is never ever going to lead anyone to a successful relationship. It is only a guarantee that 100% of your life will be wasted waiting for a knock on the door that will never arrive. Get out from behind the monitor and live. Relationships take work and effort, if you’re so quick to retreat from a single conversation, how willing will you be to actually stay the course when real life gets hard? Consider that the next time the minutia of a mixed metaphor or a quirk is the elimination factor in your relationship evaluation process.
These are my thoughts and opinions on this topic, and you are welcome to agree or disagree according to your beliefs and experiences, but in the end ‒ unless we step beyond the fantasy of perfection we are doomed to solitude and masturbation.
Written by
Sir Joe
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