Dating - I love the way you swipe

[Datepalm]

3 hours ago, .H. said:

Sorry if this personal note fails to capture the essence of your experience though.)

All of that is absolutely true and absolutely helpful, and certainly relevant and captures much of what I feel, and yet - apparently, given my inability to reduce this to mere anecdote quite the way I would like, (believe it or not, I am generally a rather deliberate storyteller) I'm evidently still not over whatever it is I'm not over, and no amount of rationalization seems to be helping. It's all correct, its just not working.

[BigFatCoward]

15 hours ago, Liffguard said:

I'm a pretty clueless individual, and I find it really hard to interpret signs and hints. If she says, "I want to take you back to my house so we can get naked and fuck," that means she might be interested, right?

The last time someone was so brazen with me I woke up with quite the rash. Careful. 

[mormont]

55 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

The last time someone was so brazen with me I woke up with quite the rash. Careful. 

Protection, always.

14 hours ago, Liffguard said:

Unfortunately I didn't feel right taking her up on the offer, since she's not single. But still, it's nice to be appreciated.

Did she say it would just be the two of you?

[Liffguard]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

Did she say it would just be the two of you?

I actually know the boyfriend, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't on the cards.

Her co-worker on the other hand...

It was a weird weekend in general.

[.H.]

10 hours ago, Datepalm said:

I'm evidently still not over whatever it is I'm not over, and no amount of rationalization seems to be helping. It's all correct, its just not working.

Well, that isn't a defeat.  I'm not embellishing that it took me over 10 years to "get it" myself and honestly, there were more external causes for that than internal ones.  Because, despite all the training, despite being (what I would consider) a rather rational person, the fact of the matter is that it is specifically not a rational process.

If we return to the idea of it all as akin to a Gordian Knot, something lies at the heart of it all, in the center of that knot, all those feelings are bound with it and against it.  That thing is specifically not a rational thing, lest you would have already uncovered and solved it, because your intellect is more than sufficient.  But this is not an intellectual debate.  It isn't even a debate at all.  In this way, your intellect is too strong.  It cannot enslave your unconscious needs/desires though, because your unconscious strength is directly inverse proportional to your conscious strength.  The harder you try to undo the knot with rationality, the harder your unconscious pulls the knot tighter, like a Chinese Finger Trap.  The issue of course is that your conscious mind is active and only has so much psychic energy to bring to bear, where your unconscious is passive, pervasive and has fathomless energy which it doesn't even need to burn.

If that all sounds like bullshit, well, it's because it is.  Because it is not said in your personal idiom, because I do not know it.  No one does, except you.  If you don't consciously know it, that is a righteous task to learn it.  Because it is there, subconscious, unconscious, but still there.  And it is imposing it's will, regardless of whether or not you consciously want it to.  My "explanation" is necessarily bullshit, but the phenomena is occurring, a disjunction between conscious will and unconscious desire (or something like it).

[Erik of Hazelfield]

I like the idea that you cannot know why things happened like they did, because you only have your side of the story (or even less: what you remember of your side of the story). Instead of trying to figure out what went wrong, try to accept that you don’t know. Or at least settle with a rational, nice and preferably simple explanation that sounds good and try to accept that. That’s what I’ve been doing with my failed marriage and I have to say it works pretty fine. 

[Erik of Hazelfield]

Now for a question of dating app manners: what’s the deal with people who just stop responding? 

Some conversations I’ve had lately: 

Her: You like horse riding I see?

Me: Yeah, I started a couple of years ago, really like it, blah blah... Do you like horses too?

Her: (Silence)

or this one:

Her (after saying nothing for over two weeks): Hi there, new week! Up to anything fun?

Me: going to a party on Saturday, my friend’s wife turns 30, otherwise no plans. How about you?

Her: (silence)

Up to now I’ve just assumed that they got bored with me and decided to go chat with someone else, but this has happened so many times now that I’m at a loss how to explain it. Is there any way of politely saying “hey did you get my last message?”  

[.H.]

20 minutes ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

I like the idea that you cannot know why things happened like they did, because you only have your side of the story (or even less: what you remember of your side of the story). Instead of trying to figure out what went wrong, try to accept that you don’t know.

Well, it can be difficult to accept not knowing, especially when our particular world-view now-a-days is very specifically geared toward the idea that the world is not much more than a world of objects.  To not know what an object is really isn't acceptable.  If you had two things and said, which of these is an apple and which is an orange, "I can't know" really isn't an acceptable answer.  You look at what color each is.  You bite each one and find out.  In the inter-personal, inter-relationship, inter-psychic world though, answering the question of was there something I could have or should have done cannot be answered similarly.  Our rational mind is used to empiricism and answering things thought it.  That doesn't really work without physical objects persistent through time.  You can't try one action back then and then the other back then as well: the time, the place, the you as you were, the them as they were, the whole thing is gone.

What you can do is ask yourself, was I the best version of myself I could have been?  If the answer is yes and it really is true that you were (as in, you are being completely honest with yourself and not flattering your sense of superiority) than you couldn't have done better and the whole thing was doomed, because your best just wasn't enough.  It's bitter, but it's true.  If though, you find you could have been a better version of you, then you know what you can do going forward.  That, while it might not be "THE ANSWER" it is an answer.  No one has ever, or will ever be, perfect.  You can always be a better version of yourself and that isn't criticism, that's just a fact of existence.  If tomorrow you are 1% of a better person than you were today, whatever that means, in a year you are a 365% better person than you were.

If that sounds stupid, it's probably because it is.  Sometimes life really is just stupid and facile and trite.

Note that I don't think this is really something that is an issue for the case of @Datepalm.  I have a hunch what might be the cause, but I could not in any good conscious suggest it.  Because it would be unethical at minimum to rob her of her own interpretation via my own, especially since mine is apt to be wrong.  Not to mention, it is not for me to solve her problem.  What good does that do her?  That only has me stealing her destiny.

1 hour ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

Or at least settle with a rational, nice and preferably simple explanation that sounds good and try to accept that. That’s what I’ve been doing with my failed marriage and I have to say it works pretty fine.

If it works for you, roll with it.  It doesn't necessarily work for everyone though.

[Datepalm]

3 hours ago, .H. said:

Note that I don't think this is really something that is an issue for the case of @Datepalm.  I have a hunch what might be the cause, but I could not in any good conscious suggest it.  Because it would be unethical at minimum to rob her of her own interpretation via my own, especially since mine is apt to be wrong.  Not to mention, it is not for me to solve her problem.  What good does that do her?  That only has me stealing her destiny.

Lol well now I have to know. Very curious about your theory here...

[.H.]

9 hours ago, Datepalm said:

Lol well now I have to know. Very curious about your theory here...

Well, that is hardly fair.  Although, it was hardly fair for me to intimated anything.  So, shame on me, really.

Here's the thing, I am almost certainly wrong.  Mainly because I only have the scantest of a scant idea what is going on.

Under "duress" though, let me defer to an actual intellectual:

Quote

Contradictions in a department of science merely indicate that its subject displays characteristics which at present can be grasped only by means of antinomies—witness the wave theory and the corpuscular theory of light. Now the psyche is infinitely more complicated than light; hence a great number of antinomies is required to describe the nature of the psyche satisfactorily. One of the fundamental antinomies is the statement that psyche depends on body and body depends on psyche. There are clear proofs for both sides of this antinomy, so that an objective judgment cannot give more weight to thesis or to antithesis. The existence of valid contradictions shows that the object of investigation presents the inquiring mind with exceptional difficulties, as a result of which only relatively valid statements can be made, at least for the time being. That is to say, the statement is valid only in so far as it indicates what kind of psychic system we are investigating. Hence we arrive at the dialectical formulation which tells us precisely that psychic influence is the reciprocal reaction of two psychic systems. Since the individuality of the psychic system is infinitely variable, there must be an infinite variety of relatively valid statements. But if individuality were absolute in its particularity, if one individual were totally different from every other individual, then psychology would be impossible as a science, for it would consist in an insoluble chaos of subjective opinions. Individuality, however, is only relative, the complement of human conformity or likeness; and therefore it is possible to make statements of general validity, i.e., scientific statements. These statements relate only to those parts of the psychic system which do in fact conform, i.e., are amenable to comparison and statistically measurable; they do not relate to that part of the system which is individual and unique. The second fundamental antinomy in psychology therefore runs: the individual signifies nothing in comparison with the universal, and the universal signifies nothing in comparison with the individual. There are, as we all know, no universal elephants, only individual elephants. But if a generality, a constant plurality, of elephants did not exist, a single individual elephant would be exceedingly improbable.

That is from Jung's The Practice of Psychotherapy.  (Don't worry though, I don't have a picture of Jung or Freud on my wall, only a Doppelgänger and a Dragon.)

He goes on:

Quote

These logical reflections may appear somewhat remote from our theme. But in so far as they are the outcome of previous psychological experience, they yield practical conclusions of no little importance. When, as a psychotherapist, I set myself up as a medical authority over my patient and on that account claim to know something about his individuality, or to be able to make valid statements about it, I am only demonstrating my lack of criticism, for I am in no position to judge the whole of the personality before me. I cannot say anything valid about him except in so far as he approximates to the “universal man.” But since all life is to be found only in individual form, and I myself can assert of another individuality only what I find in my own, I am in constant danger either of doing violence to the other person or of succumbing to his influence. If I wish to treat another individual psychologically at all, I must for better or worse give up all pretensions to superior knowledge, all authority and desire to influence. I must perforce adopt a dialectical procedure consisting in a comparison of our mutual findings. But this becomes possible only if I give the other person a chance to play his hand to the full, unhampered by my assumptions. In this way his system is geared to mine and acts upon it; my reaction is the only thing with which I as an individual can legitimately confront my patient.

Now, again, I am deferring, because that second paragraph is so utterly true.  As much as it "flatters" me to imagine that I know anything of your situation, it is plainly false, even if correct.  Because I don't know; I do think I can recognize something, but that might just be my own bias at work.  Even worse is that I am specifically not a medical professional, I am not a woman, and I am just a very subpar pedant who happens to have read some books and has a delusion that this grants him some kind of valid perspective.

Not only that, but what right to I have to even offer Jung's perspective?  Simply because I have read it?  No, that does not make it "mine" in any way.  Here, without a doubt is proof positive of my sin: that I still "speak" here. And yet, my "verbal diarrhea" goes on!

Quote

one of the lingering, unanswered, and unanswerable but philosophically evocative and therefore interesting questions here is how much this particular dynamic is mine alone, playing out whatever my issues are on the slightly random canvas of another person who was unfortunately there at the wrong time in the wrong place (I can give GPS coordinates, if necessary,) and how much of this is actually a particularly dissatisfying, but by definition unique, relationship (in the wider, not-only-romantic sense of the word).

So, as stated to me here, would it be fair to recapitulate this as: how much does he (this man in this former relationship) typify all men?  How does this relationship typify all relationships?  How do you, as you were then, typify you in relation to all men and all relationships then?

If this is a fair summary, we can posit that the first two answers are "relatively" easy to solve, by means of simple comparison.  He probably does typify men in general and like most people is probably both a better and worse example of various features of the plurality of "men."  In the same way, we can probably discern an answer to the question of how "typical" this failed relationship was and conclude how reasonably it would share a kind to most relationships that don't work out.  Perhaps it was better, perhaps a worse, but likely normative for a relationship in general.  Again, these are questions that can be answered relatively empirically.

What your phrasing seems to imply to me though is that the third question, that of you and relation to all men and all relationships that is giving you trouble.  That is the far "tougher nut to crack" because it is predicated on three things that aren't so easily directly, empirically, knowable.  That is, what is the full character of "you," what is the full character of "all men" and what is the full character of "all relationships."

This is mostly because we aren't talking about you as an object.  Or "all men" as objects.  Or "all relationships" as physical interaction between said objects.  This is where our modern empirical viewpoint breaks down.  That is, because the "he" you ponder upon isn't he the object, but he, your mental representation of him as embodiment of the plurality of men.  The relationship as your mental representation of your physical and mental interaction.  And you, as the metal representation of the plurality of things that comprises your Self.  That probably sounds like nonsense psycho-babble.

Consider though, how can people let you down?  Did they act contrary to their own nature?  Or was it a case where your mental image of them simply did not sufficiently encompass the full breadth of their existence, as it could not.  I assume so-and-so is a good person, then I find out they are a lair, or a whatever.  Suddenly, all things are in question!  Are they good at all?  Was everything then a lie?  And so on.  Then I am left, aside moral quantdries about the valance of their action, to then question myself.  How could I have been fooled?  How did I fail here?

So, having vomited all that nonsense out, perhaps then what has been bothering you isn't him, the object, the physical person.  It's what he could have been and wasn't.  What the relationship could have been and wasn't.  What you wanted it to be and it wasn't.  What you wanted him to be and he wasn't.  Who you thought you were and perhaps weren't.  Or perhaps who you wanted to be and wasn't.  I don't know.

Perhaps then, the "path forward" is to investigate what those things are/were and understand your own expectations.  Understand what you want from "men" and "relationships" and yourself.  Consider how close that is to reality and then align yourself with a vision of reality that can work for you.

Consider a bad example: if someone's mental image of "women" is that they should all be ascetically gorgeous, overarching intelligent, and utterly subservient to their desire, I am most certainly out for a bad time in life.  Because that's not what actual, real-life human beings are.  I'm not implying you are doing anything so demonstrably stupid as that though.  You are smart and probably have very realistic and sensible views on what men could and should be.  But it seems plausible to me that you, subconsciously or unconsciously allow that man to supersede this, for reasons that don't seem clear to you (or to me, of course).  Perhaps then, the answer lies in untangling what the mental image of him is/was to you and then drain that of libidinal power by bringing those things into the light of consciousness/incorporating them into the totality of your conscious self.

TL;DR: It's plausible it's all in you and the answer is to find just what it is in you.  No external object is going to mend the divide between what you consciously/rationally/intellectually want and what you subconsciously/unconsciously desire.  The only way really is willful exploration of your own unconscious and further willful incorporation of those contents into conscious personality.

Of course, never discount that I could well be full of shit, because I am just some rando on the internet who knows nothing about you and who is likely wasting your time.

[Datepalm]

Sorry, long couple of days and its not like I don't use this stuff as a procrastination mechanism anyway.

Yeah, that's a fair enough analysis - a good call at a distance. As you noted, I may have a teensy inclination to over-intellectualizing analysis of my emotional and social life, and I've been through that - boy have I - and its been remarkably unproductive, which I find odd because it really does pretty much work for me and always has to empty the things that bother me of their power to bother me and get on with my life. This one isn't responding to that particular treatment, which I find annoying. So I'm left with a nagging question about specificity and narcissism, and certain caution about seeing everything through just the lens of me. I've been thinking about Martin Buber's I-Thou lately (for a paper, to be honest), Simon and Reuben and the six people in any conversation. Maybe the imaginary phantoms of we project of each other just won't do to find the truth of a situation, and - since I don't think the other person in this situation wants to talk to me, which is more important, thus, then whether talking to them is good for me or bad for me, because suffering is a perfectly legit outcome, in this analysis - this is just an insoluble thing that IS insoluble and is just going to live on the shelf of my mind and periodically jump up to annoy and frustrate me forever. Time and life will hopefully make it fade (further) in its impact, but it will never cease to be a bother, somewhere down there uncheckable on the to-do list, between take an econometrics class and buy socks in more colors, because I only have grey ones now.

[.H.]

16 minutes ago, Datepalm said:

Sorry, long couple of days and its not like I don't use this stuff as a procrastination mechanism anyway.

Don't apologize.  One, because life is just busy, nothing to be sorry about.  And two, because this isn't about me in any way, shape or form, so it's on your terms, not mine.

47 minutes ago, Datepalm said:

This one isn't responding to that particular treatment, which I find annoying. So I'm left with a nagging question about specificity and narcissism, and certain caution about seeing everything through just the lens of me.

Well, then this certainly tells us something about the character of this particular circumstance though.

To question though the possibility of narcissism I think is a mistake.  I think it fair to surmise we can likely safely stow away our copy of DSM for your case.  You aren't neurotically narcissistic and you certainly do not have a narcissistic personality disorder.  In fact, that you would consider it largely disqualifies you from even possibly having that issue.  What then do we make of you sense that caution need be applied here?  Well, it is perfectly logical to temper one's self with the understanding that their personal perspective can be flawed.  However, just because it could be flawed does not mean you should discount it.  Or consider it subordinate to anyone else's.  Yes, your perspective is limited.  Yes, it can be flawed.  But your own perspective must take primacy.  So, then hone it, don't discount it.  Broaden it, don't subordinate it.

There is nothing wrong with desiring to not be a totally self-centered person.  There is something wrong with being a completely non-self-centered person.  It's a matter of degrees, of course.

2 hours ago, Datepalm said:

Maybe the imaginary phantoms of we project of each other just won't do to find the truth of a situation, and - since I don't think the other person in this situation wants to talk to me, which is more important, thus, then whether talking to them is good for me or bad for me, because suffering is a perfectly legit outcome, in this analysis - this is just an insoluble thing that IS insoluble and is just going to live on the shelf of my mind and periodically jump up to annoy and frustrate me forever.

So, then, you might draw closer to the heart of the matter here.  You suffer on account of him not wanting to talk to you?  And so you suffer on account of wanting to talk to him?  Most of all, you suffer for want of the "truth of the situation" which can only be garnered were you to talk to him?

Is the truth then the "how?"  Or the "why?"  Or the, "what now?"  Is the "truth" then the answer to what it means?  Or what it meant?

So then, is the truth the objective facts?  Or is the truth the inter-subjective valuations?

If it's the facts, then a moment by moment recap of the whole thing should suffice, analyzed rationally.  If though it is the inter-subjective, then those "phantoms" are all we have.  We have not a ledger of your mind, nor his.  So then, our only facts are the "phantoms," though to call them that I think does violence to the fact that the contents of our minds is very real, plausibly more real than anything outside our minds.

So, I guess then what I am asking, rhetorically of course, is: what is the truth that you seek?  That is, of what nature is the truth you desire?

That, it would seem to me is what you and your therapist should be after.  That truth isn't likely to be in him, not any more than that truth is in me.  Rather, the answer is only in you, because what you seek is unique to you.  And once you know what you want, you can much more easily go about finding it.

[.H.]

14 hours ago, Triskele said:

@.H. - Bakker fandom presumably complicates dating.  Do you have any advice for how/when to introduce this matter to a significant other?  

Advice?  No.  The presupposition that it complicates dating?  Unclear.

My best guess is that if you are two reasonable human beings, there shouldn't be a problem.  But that's likely not what your post is about anyway.

[Datepalm]

I mean, I'm not saying it would be a dealbreaker, but unless you have a reasonably sophisticated explanation of why Bakker is on your shelf and are able to apply at least a modicum of critical thinking to his oeuvre...um...

I absolutely have turned down second dates with very nerdy guys who I thought were nerdy in immature and annoying ways, with an insufficiently sophisticated SFF reading list probably kind of subconsciously being one criteria there. That you've recently finished all the Raistlin books is, sure, more nerdy, which is good, but also, is not good. (As we've established above, I will also die alone and had a tinder bio that read "don't bore me" for a while, which received some hostility, so, you know.)

[.H.]

38 minutes ago, Datepalm said:

I mean, I'm not saying it would be a dealbreaker, but unless you have a reasonably sophisticated explanation of why Bakker is on your shelf and are able to apply at least a modicum of critical thinking to his oeuvre...um...

I'm not immune from the criticism for liking the series despite it's flaws.  I generally make that clear in that thread here, but apparently it's still apt to be lampooned away.  Fair enough.  Perhaps I am not critical enough, I don't know.

My wife has read the first two books and has said she would read more of them if she had time.  Would she like where the series ends up going?  I don't know.  Do I like exactly where the series went and how it got there?  Not exactly.

I'll take my leave of the thread though, because I am certainly not being helpful any more, if I ever was in the first place.

[Erik of Hazelfield]

I think I would take kinder to a date having Mein Kampf in the bookshelf than, say, all the Fifty Shades volumes or a huge number of Harlequin Romance novels (let alone Ayn Rand).

That said - having books at all these days should probably be regarded as a plus.

[A True Kaniggit]

On 10/28/2018 at 3:59 PM, Let's Get Kraken said:

Hey, if we're going to be judging people for having 50 Shades novels, we'd better not have any wizards or dragons adorning our shelves, because it wasn't that long ago that the SFF crowd were the ones hiding the dust jackets of our favorite novels.

Wait.

Is it not common practice to have novels with dragons on the cover take up at least one whole shelf of your bookcase? Because if not I've been doing it wrong for years.

[Erik of Hazelfield]

I know, Fifty Shades probably wasn’t the best example of a literary dealbreaker. Hmm. Terry Goodkind maybe?  

[maarsen]

1 hour ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

I know, Fifty Shades probably wasn’t the best example of a literary dealbreaker. Hmm. Terry Goodkind maybe?  

How about the entire collection of Dune sequels? That would make me think twice.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

I know, Fifty Shades probably wasn’t the best example of a literary dealbreaker. Hmm. Terry Goodkind maybe?  

Why would that be a deal breaker? If anything I'd take it as a sign that you'll have a great time between the sheets.