It’s normal to lead a productive and enjoyable life without a romantic partner.
This is arguably false. Long term unpartnered men suffer earlier deaths and mental health issues. I think fundamentally we have evolved to reproduce and it would be odd if we didn’t tend to get depressive thoughts and poorer health from being alone.
I don’t see this as an issue easily solved by therapy. It would be like trying to give therapy to a homeless person to take their mind off homelessness as opposed to giving them homes. Can you imagine therapy for a socially isolated person suffering from loneliness involving anything other than how to stop being socially isolated? What would that even look like?
If a person severely socially isolated, works 100% of the time from home, has zero close friends, scarcely meets their family, and on many days the only people they see in reality are delivery guys or cashiers in supermarkets, then of course, problems are inevitable (for most people), and therapy may have limited reach to cope with that. This is all not normal, however.
What I meant is imagining a person who has a “normal” job in an office with some social activities (even if just watercooler chats or afterwark drinks), family with whom they interact frequently, and good friends with whom they interact regularly, but no romantic partner. So such a person should not normally suffer and if they do, probably it’s because their over-fixation on partnering or parenting, which therapy can address.
It’s normal to lead a productive and enjoyable life without a romantic partner.
This is arguably false. Long term unpartnered men suffer earlier deaths and mental health issues.
Earlier deaths of single people is statistical correlation. It only makes sense to discuss actual causal mechanisms. Whatever they are, they are probably not that life of single people are not productive and enjoyable. I write this as someone who have had stable relationships for less than 5% of my life between 20 and 30 years old. Maybe I suffer these hidden causal mechanisms, such as I don’t cuddle as much → the right chemicals are not released → I age faster, or whatever, but these hidden causal mechanisms don’t percolate to the feeling of unproductive or unenjoyable life. Besides, if the actual causality of earlier death of single people has something to do with cuddling, pheromones, and being around a physical human in general, the current wave of AI partners won’t solve this.
This is arguably false. Long term unpartnered men suffer earlier deaths and mental health issues. I think fundamentally we have evolved to reproduce and it would be odd if we didn’t tend to get depressive thoughts and poorer health from being alone.
I don’t see this as an issue easily solved by therapy. It would be like trying to give therapy to a homeless person to take their mind off homelessness as opposed to giving them homes. Can you imagine therapy for a socially isolated person suffering from loneliness involving anything other than how to stop being socially isolated? What would that even look like?
If a person severely socially isolated, works 100% of the time from home, has zero close friends, scarcely meets their family, and on many days the only people they see in reality are delivery guys or cashiers in supermarkets, then of course, problems are inevitable (for most people), and therapy may have limited reach to cope with that. This is all not normal, however.
What I meant is imagining a person who has a “normal” job in an office with some social activities (even if just watercooler chats or afterwark drinks), family with whom they interact frequently, and good friends with whom they interact regularly, but no romantic partner. So such a person should not normally suffer and if they do, probably it’s because their over-fixation on partnering or parenting, which therapy can address.
Earlier deaths of single people is statistical correlation. It only makes sense to discuss actual causal mechanisms. Whatever they are, they are probably not that life of single people are not productive and enjoyable. I write this as someone who have had stable relationships for less than 5% of my life between 20 and 30 years old. Maybe I suffer these hidden causal mechanisms, such as I don’t cuddle as much → the right chemicals are not released → I age faster, or whatever, but these hidden causal mechanisms don’t percolate to the feeling of unproductive or unenjoyable life. Besides, if the actual causality of earlier death of single people has something to do with cuddling, pheromones, and being around a physical human in general, the current wave of AI partners won’t solve this.