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comment by _refugee_
_refugee_  ·  3282 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Radicalizing the Romanceless

Dude, Henry clearly has lots of trouble with women.

I am, beneath all the cursing and rage and hate, a nice person. I have actually been gently turned down because, essentially, I was too nice somehow. (This is the guy I had a crush on and made cookies for, if anyone remembers enough about my love life that far back.)

But, despite Being Nice, I have never thought being nice was enough of a reason to get a boyfriend, or even a date. In fact, as a neurotic nit-picker, I have always been able to think of lots of reasons why I couldn't get a date. I have then had to calm myself down and remind myself that I am lovable, and I have been loved. At the end of the day, what makes me think that I'll be loved again is the fact that sometime before, someone loved me. If someone could love me once, someone can love me again.

Being loved or even liked has so much more to do with the person doing the liking or loving than with you.

The problem with people who say "I am nice, why can't I get with a person?" is that not only do they think that if you are nice, you will attract a person, but that they lack the self-reflection (and maybe the insecurity) to look at themselves, perceive how they are flawed, and realize there are probably lots of reasons any given person might not want to date them.

Do not assume you are date-able and then ask why no one will date you. If no one will date you, odds are, you are not date-able. When all the evidence disagrees with your hypothesis, you need to ask if your hypothesis is wrong. Not why none of your experiments turned out the way "they were supposed to." Not why some other guy's experiments are yielding the results that you wanted your experiments to yield.

In closing, any argument which relies on the idea that "if things were fair, I would have this," is not only idealistic but stupid as well as lazy. Nothing is fair. It is useless to argue that you would have a thing if only you lived in a utopia when you do not live in a utopia and never will. If grass was blue, then I would have blue grass - but seeing as grass is not blue, then I will never have blue grass, no matter how much I would like it. Saying, "I deserve this thing, and because I think I deserve this thing but do not have it, I am going to get very loud and upset about how I don't have it" and then getting very loud and upset is a waste of energy that would be much better spent in attempts to somehow become a person who has the thing that is deserved. But that is scary and that requires work as well as self-reflection. That requires the idea that one is NOT perfect as one is, and one does NOT deserve - well, anything.

The real question is, would Barry want a single one of the girls willing to date Henry? And the answer is, if he is in his right mind and as well-adjusted as the article says he is, dear god no. He should reject all of them. They are not stable. They need therapy, and lots of it.





veen  ·  3282 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    At the end of the day, what makes me think that I'll be loved again is the fact that sometime before, someone loved me. If someone could love me once, someone can love me again.

Isn't that part of the problem though? It seems to be a catch-22: you need to have had a serious relationship or two to know that you are loveable, and you need know you're loveable to be in a serious relationship.

_refugee_  ·  3282 days ago  ·  link  ·  

If you've never been able to have a serious relationship, you need to go back to step 1: you, and work on that. If you've been in a serious relationship before but aren't, and would like to be, but no one seems to want to date you, you should do the same.

Reassuring yourself that you can be loved in the future because at one point in the past you were loved is like saying, "Once upon a time there was a garden of lilies on this hill. Therefore, in the future, there can be a garden of lilies here again." It doesn't mean the garden of lilies will magically spring into being without you doing anything. With that in mind, if you have never been in a serious relationship, the only thing missing is the knowledge that what you want to happen has happened before (isn't impossible). While knowing love isn't impossible is reassuring, it is not going to make you any more currently love-able.

user-inactivated  ·  3281 days ago  ·  link  ·  

An ex-friend of mine who was into PUA bullshit wore a wedding ring that he found at a pawn show. He bragged that a wedding ring was a bigger aphrodisiac than chocolate and flowers.

OftenBen  ·  3279 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Did you ever observe his pseudo-married self in action?

user-inactivated  ·  3279 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    An ex-friend of mine

Yes.