The Great Resignation
Let’s quit dating altogether.
The world has way too much negativity these days.
We are all not okay, so much grief, trauma, and unresolved emotional needs that unleash on other people for no reason.
People are unpredictable, can lose interest quickly, and or deviate from getting to know the other person altogether.
One of the most common complaints I hear from people is that post-college, they don’t know where to meet people.
To be honest, I struggle with this as well.
It’s not my fault dating apps are gendered, and shady stuff can happen.
So for the past few months, I wondered, why not quit dating altogether?
Why don’t we find people regardless of gender?
Why do we have to flirt in order to show interest, when you can just be proactive in order to show interest.
Proactiveness is value.
It takes time and effort, and the whole culture wants something instantly.
Yet, in today’s world of instant gratification, people are more emotionally empty than ever before.
As adults, you can create the rules, but are you really living your best life?
Shani Silver says it best here, “If dating isn’t delivering on its promise, you’re allowed to stop making yourself available to dating. Deciding that you matter more than a punishing space that hasn’t — perhaps for years — led you to anything other than pain and disappointment isn’t “giving up.” Walking away from something that doesn’t feel good isn’t quitting — it’s starting. It’s starting to understand that you matter more than whether or not you have a +1, it’s starting to believe that life doesn’t have to feel so impossible. It’s starting to believe that instead of the one way you’ve been trying, love is allowed to find you in any way imaginable.”
Are you in tune with your value or do you need to chase in order to feel secure?
I thought we were all human, but dating apps make women a commodity and there’s an unfair bias when it comes to how many matches guys get.
Timing is everything.
Time and time again, my life has proved that timing is everything.
Fate, destiny, whatever you call it — has its presence.
Today’s culture strays away from understanding that you can’t bring back yesterday.
Time only moves forward. Every second passes by and we’re not even aware of it.
It’s definitely worth putting effort into building a community and surrounding yourself with those you align with.
Yet, when it comes to dating, and how people go from one person to another, I just think it’s like running into a wall multiple times.
Sure, experimenting allows you to understand what you want.
However, it seems pointless and draining after a while.
It’s like throwing spaghetti strands at a wall, and hoping it sticks.
People fail to realize, that you only move forward in time — there’s no way to get back what was yesterday. →You already said this — say that people don't admit/realize the truth
So objectively speaking, can you define time — and doesn’t it hold some weight in one’s life?
We don’t nourish ourselves.
We’ve forgotten how to be community-oriented.
We’ve become way too sex-obsessed and anything extreme makes it worse in the long run. This is mainly a western thing, where the focus is mainly on superficial ideas, and not about the inherent value of an individual.
It changes our perception.
I don’t advocate for suppressing sexual desire, that’s bad too, but why is there always a lack of balance?
There’s no eroticism, there’s no romanticism (which people forget, romance is not the same as sex) — — it’s merely transactional.
People succumb to the pressure of a hard work-life balance, we prioritize the market and fast pace life because productivity outweighs all aspects of life.
I thought life was for just being and finding things to energize ourselves with.
In fact, while growing up, I detested the structure of our schools.
I lamented exams, how they were standardized, and the “ivy or bust” rat race we fell prey to.
Are we actually growing?
We should be finding clubs and groups where people come together based on commonality — it would make our time so much more enjoyable.
Men are impulsive by nature, and they can take that risk.
We women cannot.
Our levelheadedness is key to determining things.
There is a risk of danger outside when we walk alone at night or if our drinks are spiked.
Let’s say that the notion “it’s a man’s world,” has a lot of weight when it comes to the inherent value of a woman.
However, since neither men nor women are taught to focus on personality development while growing up — it leads to many many messy ideas.
The patriarchy hurts men.
It’s so sad today, but I see a lot of young boys who aren’t able to open up and express themselves. They would rather pay attention to something actionable —something mechanical and disregard whatever they’re feeling, even though it might be weighing down on them.
Dating apps make it easier for walking confusions to waste your time.
However, there are also a lot of walking confusions that assume full freedom to do whatever they want.
Guys like this will talk a lot of nonsense, and dominate the discussion with their ideas, never knowing what the other person might be going through.
I’ve noticed a pattern: first, they say that they’re looking for something real, but their profile says they’re “not sure what they’re looking for,” then once you click on certain values or ideas, they immediately start flirting. After a few days or weeks, they start to lose interest over time (even if there’s no strong spark all of these can happen).
Melissa Alvarez puts it best about how situationships are a waste of time.
I don’t like to blame an entire gender for this issue, nor is it practical.
However, the root cause of this is that the value of an individual and their time is drastically limited by the rat race we’ve dedicated our lives to.
For women, it’s the fear that their time and presence aren’t valued in the long run.
For men, it’s the fear that the women are using them for free dinner dates.
The loneliness epidemic makes it harder to see things with clarity.
Insta-therapy is the new norm.
The lost art of connection is real.
Everyone apparently has “their own lives” which is true in some sense, but as a species, everyone forgets that we live relationally — — not individualistically. Jaret Redfearn articulates it really well in his article below.
In the grind of hustle culture, we’ve made lives more complicated, rather than balanced.
It’s something the pandemic has decided to show everyone as well.
Just because you’re in a group of people doesn’t make it easier to be less lonely, it’s that understanding, that synchrony between people that we all crave.
There’s no such thing as introvert or extrovert when it comes to social circles, that’s only for how much you mentally absorb and the way you process stimulation.
Extroverts are happier, and if an introvert becomes an extrovert, life span studies have said introverts become happier — knowing they have a robust social network.
However, people forget that these ideas are a dumb dichotomy →(explain how). Neuroplasticity doesn’t make it natural to box ourselves and then think that's how we are socially.
Balance is key, and that’s the number one reason why ambiverts are successful at the art of life. Ambiverts don’t inhibit their growth, they actively work on it.
We’ve stopped valuing a positive, interdependent partnership.
Is it really all about sex?
Shani Silver writes (I really do love her articles), “ I am not ashamed. I want someone, I don’t have someone, and that occasional sadness doesn’t make me pathetic, needy, or desperate. It makes me proud to be someone who continues to show up in service of her own happiness anyway…It isn’t something insane that we’re asking for. Companionship isn’t a crazy notion, love isn’t a mythical brass ring. These are things that millions around the world get to experience, and so I often ask myself why we keep participating in a culture seemingly designed to provide them that tends to feel like it’s distancing us further from them instead.”
I am sick and tired of certain ideas I keep seeing everywhere: →(provide a segway into this idea plz)
“Date yourself.”
“Love yourself.”
“You come alone and die alone.”
“Don’t let someone find you in pieces, bring peace to yourself first.”
“At the end of the day, the longest relationship you have is with yourself.”
While all these ideas are valid in some ways, today’s culture makes it a top priority. We have forgotten how to value someone relationally and understand where we fit in. Compromise is difficult, adding value is difficult, and suffering through heartbreak is much worse.
How can anyone determine if someone would find you in pieces, and their companionship would help you get to a better place?
Real companionship is where a partner brings out whatever is triggered, in a safe space, so that you can work on it and continue to flourish.
Then we’ve started to box things unnecessarily — — i.e attachment types, codependency, how validation is bad, and so much more.
Is it necessary to dissect how we engage with people so much — it’s so draining, why not just be yourself and let it flow?
A loving, healthy, safe marriage, is underrated.
Marriage is not overrated.
Marriage is not just a societal construct.
Marriage is a very different, safe space.
We stay safe with someone for the rest of our lives — growing old together.
It’s easier to get married, but harder to find a loving, healthy, respectful marriage.
Marriage does make men and women happier, as IFS states, “The second really interesting finding here is that the biggest boost to marriage is among people who consider their partner their best friend — which, in this data at least, is only true in about 50% of the married people surveyed. It seems that the most important factor here is not so much marriage per se, as it is about having a friend who is there by your side when life becomes challenging.”
In addition, if the partner is a best friend, it contributes to a longer and healthier life, “In the past, studies found that marriage provided more health benefits to men than women, but that effect is disappearing, and more recent studies find pretty similar outcomes for men and women.”
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