It is interesting to me that I feel almost horrified by nearly all of the relationship advice in this post. I think I am fairly rational, but by no means an expert and I am sure I have many areas of incompetency, but I haven’t considered relationships to be one of them. I have had successful, reasonably happy experiences with dating even though I have also been through painful breakups. I have not had any desire to get married or to have children and this was a preference I became aware of around age 18 or 19. At the same time, though, I feel much happier with a monogamous relationship and my sex drive has been much lower than what I perceive to be the cultural norm for men. Even the physical act of having sex does not bring much physical pleasure for me and I’ve never felt that a sexual connection was of any particular importance for me. At the same time, I realize it is not likely that a compatible female will feel this way, so I just try to focus on doing things to satisfy the women I am in relationships with because I care about them. I doubt I am a great lover, and I most assuredly prefer to just ‘be myself’ and to patently reject any idea that I need to conform to some socially acceptable level of skill in the ability to carry a flirtacious sequence into good sex. Flirting has always left me feeling cold and I would be very unhappy to change that.
I am wondering if my relationship views are similar to the idea of shock levels or if the modern ideas of being polygamous, avoiding commitment, etc., are just themselves worse than some of the traditional values. For example, I feel proud if I am able to control sexual desire towards a female I am not committed to (when I am committed to someone else). The opportunity cost of losing the chance to have sex with her does not strike me as worrisome in any sense. Perhaps my personal sex drive is just many standard deviations lower.
I find similar feelings when it comes to being a vegetarian. I have never had an intrinsic desire to eat meat, despite the fact that I was raised on a farm in Indiana and my parents fed me lots of meat throughout my childhood. As soon as I decided it was unethical to eat meat (and especially later when I discovered how unhealthy it can be), it was a very easy decision that I have never been seriously tempted to change. It’s the same with monogamy and commitment for me as well.
I’d think polyamory would work well for you. Any woman you date with a higher sex drive can just have sex with people that aren’t you, and then you’re not pressured to meet a need that you have no interest in...
I doubt I am a great lover, and I most assuredly prefer to just ‘be myself’ and to patently reject any idea that I need to conform to some socially acceptable level of skill in the ability to carry a flirtacious sequence into good sex. Flirting has always left me feeling cold and I would be very unhappy to change that.
Maybe I’m misreading you. Are you saying that you would be unhappy if you began to enjoy flirting? If so… why? (Or is this too personal?)
The current prospect of my current self undergoing a transformation into a future self that enjoyed flirting causes me current displeasure. To make an exaggerated example, if someone told me that in 10 years the world would be more or less the same as it is now but that I would come to enjoy cannibalism or self-flagellation, that would upset me because my current mental configuration would see it as a bad thing for me to come into that later mental configuration. On a much much much smaller scale, I feel the same about flirting. You could exchange flirting with “become a fan of the TV show Friends” and I would feel about the same way about it.
I understand the basic concept—I think the usual analogy is offering Ghandi a pill that would make him want to murder people, or something like that—but in most examples I could think of, there’s an element of (and I don’t mean this as bad as it sounds) moral judgement about it. Like, there’s some things I don’t enjoy that I wouldn’t mind enjoying—the taste of tea or coffee, for example—and some things that I don’t enjoy and would consider it immoral to begin to enjoy—cannibalism, kicking puppies, etc. This model is pretty clearly flawed by failing to account for your stated preferences not to enjoy Friends et al. (unless you consider that immoral somehow?).
Also, to illustrate how one man’s exaggeration is another man’s Tuesday: I do not currently, but would not particularly mind beginning to, enjoy self-flagellation. Masochists pretty much have it made, in my opinion—it’s so easy to inflict pain.
I agree with you. It probably is a certain amount of moral judgement. The way I experience a distaste in flirting is that it seems annoying and counterproductive to beat around the bush. I don’t personally derive enjoyment from it. If I did, or wanted to, I might feel differently about it. Flirting would by no means be the worst thing to end up having as a preference. But I still think some self-hacking would have to happen before I would want to enjoy flirting.
The way I experience a distaste in flirting is that it seems annoying and counterproductive to beat around the bush.
I see flirting somewhat differently. Flirting gives an opportunity for both partners to showcase their social skills and gain information about what they each respond to sexually, and what sort of relationship they might have if they were to embark on one. It’s like a mutual interview. Flirting will help your potential female partners determine what kind of guy you are, and if they are into you.
Flirting can often be direct, even though it is implicit rather than explicit. Yet many people find beating around the bush to be useful, because they want more time to assess their potential partner before making a commitment of interest. Personally, I am totally fine with giving a potential partner social information to help her assess her interest in me, rather than trying to get her to make a snap decision before she has sufficient information.
You still might not find flirting enjoyable, but perhaps you can see that it does serve some useful purposes.
I agree there can be useful information conveyed through flirting, but my experience is that flirting does not usually correlate with the factors that I want to gain information about prior to making a dating decision. On the other hand, if I were interested only in brief sexual encounters, then flirting might communicate information about whether I will enjoy a person’s company in the short term. I don’t usually seek that, but can see how it would be useful for people who do.
It might be possible that flirting is more useful for negotiating short term sexual encounters, but I think there are still applications for long term relationships. For example, flirting can help determine whether your senses of humor are compatible, which could important for a long-term relationship.
Although you might not care much about the information conveyed through flirting, your prospective partners very much might. Flirting will give them a lot of information about your character and social experiences, which they could find useful for determining their desire for a relationship of any length.
All long-term relationships start off being short-term.
I haven’t noticed a correlation between flirting and the kind of humor that is compatible to my own sense of humor, but again, it might be there. For me, however, one of the issues I actually actively look for when meeting a new person and considering a relationship with them is whether or not they are inclined to flirt. If someone flirts with me, it is generally a detractor and both she and I are probably better off not pursuing anything further, again except possibly for short term sexual interests. If someone else cares a lot about flirting (perhaps legitimately) that is usually a signal that I am not a good match for them. It would be the same if our first conversations focused heavily on NASCAR or high-end fashion… these are signs of a mismatch with my own personality and flirting is among them (though of course not the most telling or severe sign).
Also, for anyone who is interested, I am really curious what LWers think of the long passages at the end of David Foster Wallace’s posthumous novel The Pale King that describe the character Shane Drinion.
Even the physical act of having sex does not bring much physical pleasure for me and I’ve never felt that a sexual connection was of any particular importance for me. At the same time, I realize it is not likely that a compatible female will feel this way
The impression I get is that when a couple disagrees about the frequency of sex, in the majority of cases it’s the man that wants more and the woman that wants less—so even if you’re at the low end of the distribution of sexual appetite for men, chances are there’ll be more women around that level.
The problem with this sort of thinking is that women may not express a desire for sexual contact, but they still are strongly influenced by oxytocin / emotional intimacy from love-making.
Also, as an anhedonic (complication of autism) -- I would note that there really aren’t many women ‘down in my level’ as it were. I personally have suspicions that in this category, as in so many other, the bell-curve distribution of motivation/interest/promiscuity is far denser towards the mean in women than it is in men. Same rough average, but fewer outliers.
It is interesting to me that I feel almost horrified by nearly all of the relationship advice in this post. I think I am fairly rational, but by no means an expert and I am sure I have many areas of incompetency, but I haven’t considered relationships to be one of them. I have had successful, reasonably happy experiences with dating even though I have also been through painful breakups. I have not had any desire to get married or to have children and this was a preference I became aware of around age 18 or 19. At the same time, though, I feel much happier with a monogamous relationship and my sex drive has been much lower than what I perceive to be the cultural norm for men. Even the physical act of having sex does not bring much physical pleasure for me and I’ve never felt that a sexual connection was of any particular importance for me. At the same time, I realize it is not likely that a compatible female will feel this way, so I just try to focus on doing things to satisfy the women I am in relationships with because I care about them. I doubt I am a great lover, and I most assuredly prefer to just ‘be myself’ and to patently reject any idea that I need to conform to some socially acceptable level of skill in the ability to carry a flirtacious sequence into good sex. Flirting has always left me feeling cold and I would be very unhappy to change that.
I am wondering if my relationship views are similar to the idea of shock levels or if the modern ideas of being polygamous, avoiding commitment, etc., are just themselves worse than some of the traditional values. For example, I feel proud if I am able to control sexual desire towards a female I am not committed to (when I am committed to someone else). The opportunity cost of losing the chance to have sex with her does not strike me as worrisome in any sense. Perhaps my personal sex drive is just many standard deviations lower.
I find similar feelings when it comes to being a vegetarian. I have never had an intrinsic desire to eat meat, despite the fact that I was raised on a farm in Indiana and my parents fed me lots of meat throughout my childhood. As soon as I decided it was unethical to eat meat (and especially later when I discovered how unhealthy it can be), it was a very easy decision that I have never been seriously tempted to change. It’s the same with monogamy and commitment for me as well.
I’d think polyamory would work well for you. Any woman you date with a higher sex drive can just have sex with people that aren’t you, and then you’re not pressured to meet a need that you have no interest in...
Maybe I’m misreading you. Are you saying that you would be unhappy if you began to enjoy flirting? If so… why? (Or is this too personal?)
The current prospect of my current self undergoing a transformation into a future self that enjoyed flirting causes me current displeasure. To make an exaggerated example, if someone told me that in 10 years the world would be more or less the same as it is now but that I would come to enjoy cannibalism or self-flagellation, that would upset me because my current mental configuration would see it as a bad thing for me to come into that later mental configuration. On a much much much smaller scale, I feel the same about flirting. You could exchange flirting with “become a fan of the TV show Friends” and I would feel about the same way about it.
I understand the basic concept—I think the usual analogy is offering Ghandi a pill that would make him want to murder people, or something like that—but in most examples I could think of, there’s an element of (and I don’t mean this as bad as it sounds) moral judgement about it. Like, there’s some things I don’t enjoy that I wouldn’t mind enjoying—the taste of tea or coffee, for example—and some things that I don’t enjoy and would consider it immoral to begin to enjoy—cannibalism, kicking puppies, etc. This model is pretty clearly flawed by failing to account for your stated preferences not to enjoy Friends et al. (unless you consider that immoral somehow?).
Also, to illustrate how one man’s exaggeration is another man’s Tuesday: I do not currently, but would not particularly mind beginning to, enjoy self-flagellation. Masochists pretty much have it made, in my opinion—it’s so easy to inflict pain.
I agree with you. It probably is a certain amount of moral judgement. The way I experience a distaste in flirting is that it seems annoying and counterproductive to beat around the bush. I don’t personally derive enjoyment from it. If I did, or wanted to, I might feel differently about it. Flirting would by no means be the worst thing to end up having as a preference. But I still think some self-hacking would have to happen before I would want to enjoy flirting.
I see flirting somewhat differently. Flirting gives an opportunity for both partners to showcase their social skills and gain information about what they each respond to sexually, and what sort of relationship they might have if they were to embark on one. It’s like a mutual interview. Flirting will help your potential female partners determine what kind of guy you are, and if they are into you.
Flirting can often be direct, even though it is implicit rather than explicit. Yet many people find beating around the bush to be useful, because they want more time to assess their potential partner before making a commitment of interest. Personally, I am totally fine with giving a potential partner social information to help her assess her interest in me, rather than trying to get her to make a snap decision before she has sufficient information.
You still might not find flirting enjoyable, but perhaps you can see that it does serve some useful purposes.
I agree there can be useful information conveyed through flirting, but my experience is that flirting does not usually correlate with the factors that I want to gain information about prior to making a dating decision. On the other hand, if I were interested only in brief sexual encounters, then flirting might communicate information about whether I will enjoy a person’s company in the short term. I don’t usually seek that, but can see how it would be useful for people who do.
It might be possible that flirting is more useful for negotiating short term sexual encounters, but I think there are still applications for long term relationships. For example, flirting can help determine whether your senses of humor are compatible, which could important for a long-term relationship.
Although you might not care much about the information conveyed through flirting, your prospective partners very much might. Flirting will give them a lot of information about your character and social experiences, which they could find useful for determining their desire for a relationship of any length.
All long-term relationships start off being short-term.
I haven’t noticed a correlation between flirting and the kind of humor that is compatible to my own sense of humor, but again, it might be there. For me, however, one of the issues I actually actively look for when meeting a new person and considering a relationship with them is whether or not they are inclined to flirt. If someone flirts with me, it is generally a detractor and both she and I are probably better off not pursuing anything further, again except possibly for short term sexual interests. If someone else cares a lot about flirting (perhaps legitimately) that is usually a signal that I am not a good match for them. It would be the same if our first conversations focused heavily on NASCAR or high-end fashion… these are signs of a mismatch with my own personality and flirting is among them (though of course not the most telling or severe sign).
Now I get it! Okay, that makes perfect sense to me.
Also, for anyone who is interested, I am really curious what LWers think of the long passages at the end of David Foster Wallace’s posthumous novel The Pale King that describe the character Shane Drinion.
I will read it and get back to you.
The impression I get is that when a couple disagrees about the frequency of sex, in the majority of cases it’s the man that wants more and the woman that wants less—so even if you’re at the low end of the distribution of sexual appetite for men, chances are there’ll be more women around that level.
The problem with this sort of thinking is that women may not express a desire for sexual contact, but they still are strongly influenced by oxytocin / emotional intimacy from love-making.
Also, as an anhedonic (complication of autism) -- I would note that there really aren’t many women ‘down in my level’ as it were. I personally have suspicions that in this category, as in so many other, the bell-curve distribution of motivation/interest/promiscuity is far denser towards the mean in women than it is in men. Same rough average, but fewer outliers.