I've just started reading, but it's a little scary/depressing.
Sorry, I would've blurbed it better, but I'm headed to a gig. Laterz!
I don't dare comment on it, but sociologists and social psychologists among the Unfoggedtariat will probably be quite useful, and this will probably dredge up plenty of anecdotal data. Again, I lack critical distance and perspective.
What was the color-coding for the unfogged reading group?
Of course, from where I got so far, anyone who can comment with distance and perspective has that emotional distance that makes them able to manipulate and break the hearts of the rest of us...
Perhaps a 26 page study was not the best conversation starter. But it was the only one that was publicly available, and it's actually really good. Longitudinal!
A classic idea, and basically correct. Another way of putting it -- in terms of network theory -- is that getting control is partly about cutting ties, about being decoupled from others, having degrees of freedom etc, not being enmeshed and dependent.
And yet, our modern idea of the pure relationship is that there is an escalating sequence of intimacies and "backstage reveals" between partners: the ideal goal is to become emotionally enmeshed, but the dynamic is to resist committing too soon. The gift-like dynamic exposes the giver, putting them in a somewhat vulnerable position, but with the hope that the other is drawn to reciprocate with more of the same. If there is inadequate reciprocation, but the relationship continues ... then the power imbalance expressed by the principle of least interest is established.
One powerful aspect of Waller's idea is that it's neutral on the initial sources of the difference in emotional commitment. Maybe it's money resources, or looks, or alternatives in the market, or whatever. It doesn't really matter.
I always thought that network theory posited that those with the greatest amounts of ties (strong, weak) were the most powerful, as they had the most social capital. Are we decoupling the discussion of relationship networks from organizational networks? I never thought about applying network theory to intimate relationships between two people, but I am not an org theorist.
Ack, Goffman. There is no harder place to negotiate frontstage/backstage presentation than in a romantic relationship. Part of intimacy is revealing vulnerability and trust means relying on another. It is hard to keep up the frontstage for long, and I think that contributes to the dissolution of a relationship, when one party feels like they have to pretend with a partner.
Hey, thanks, Stanley! Instant gratification.
(And thanks Gonerill, better-equipped than most of us to comment intelligently on this. I just thought it described a dynamic I've seen/experienced a lot.)
As is often typical of studies, the population studied is composed of university students. (Upon getting to the end I see the authors note this, too.) It would be interesting to see how this balance changes as people age, or marry, or among couple that aren't hetero. (Principle of least interest might matter less (or more) once we share finances; don't have as much relationship competition as in college; different dynamics in homosexual relationships, etc.)
Ack, Goffman.
Come to think of it, doesn't "On Cooling the Mark Out" - or whatever it's called - mention break-ups?
I don't know, but it seems like when I switch from a pdf to my usual browser all the letters look really small. Maybe if I switch back and forth real fast, the effect will go away, or I might get a buzz. I wonder what happens if I switch between radically different fonts.
Never mind. Carry on.
Thanks for the explanation, Gonerill. I wasn't going to read a long study.
It's not clear to me what might be surprising or controversial about any of this, as it's discussed (just here) so far. Not sure if it's expected to be controversial. I'm curious about what's meant by "frontstage/backstage" in 8, and will look it up perhaps.
7 is interesting for its sociological perspective. And they call economics the dismal science!
Re: the modern idea of the pure relationship, I can't help wondering if a lot of people are (or were, I guess) better positioned, or less likely to get hurt in some deep, cuts-to-the-very-core-of-one's-being fashion, when relationships are/were less "pure": ie., when relationships were explicitly understood to involve the exchange of qualities/goods/resources other than, or in addition to, the putatively voluntary exchange of intimacy and affection.
14: Less likely to get hurt, but also less likely to feel really, truly fulfilled, perhaps? I don't know though -- I'm still inclined on one level to want to believe in the whole ideal of real intimacy, genuine shared vulnerability and all that. On another level, I wonder if that's just the sort of silly fantasy that sets people up for disappointment because reality can never really live up to it.
Mrs. Goffman understood these things better than anyone, even Mr. Goffman.
when relationships are/were less "pure": ie., when relationships were explicitly understood to involve the exchange of qualities/goods/resources other than, or in addition to, the putatively voluntary exchange of intimacy and affection.
Don't they often still? My wife and I have, and brought to the relationship, different sets of competencies and have relied upon this for our household functioning. I know the marriage between a pair of people without many skills beyond their professional ones, which they may share with one another, and buy just about everything else is a perceived trend, but how prevalent is it?
Literature from other centuries has people killing themselves, putting themselves in a position to be killed, or just wasting away for lost love not infrequently. I can't think of a twentieth century novel of which that's true, not that my knowledge or memory of the set is near encyclopedic.
"On Cooling the Mark Out"
Such a great essay. Goffman was a fucking genius.
I always thought that network theory posited that those with the greatest amounts of ties (strong, weak) were the most powerful, as they had the most social capital.
There are different flavors of network theory. I was thinking of Harrison White. But in the more B-School Ron Burt version it's not good to be too enmeshed in a dense network of contacts because you have too many redundant ties and are not interesting. Even in the social capital version, there's the nasty side of things where having a lot of social capital can mean that you are open to a lot of people making heavy demands on you. Alex Portes has this nice example of business networks in South America somewhere, where some locals converted to Evangelical Protestantism not out of theological conviction so much as a need to break "social capital-rich" ties with Catholic relatives and friends constantly looking for favors and leeching off of them.
There's even a Simmelian version ... social ties in the big city can be weaker, and more calculating, and lead to a blasé emotional state and a kind of emotional deadness, but on the other hand you are freer than it's possible to be anywhere else.
The introductory statements in the paper linked in the post are really outstanding in their statement of the obvious, though. For example:
Waller further argued that unequally involved relationships were not healthy in the long term. A significant gap in emotional involvement could lead to a situation of one partner taking the other for granted, or an even more extreme situation of exploitation. When relationships of this type result in marriage, the results were expected to be unsatisfactory (Waller, 1938). This suggests that it might be better if romantic relationships with unequal emotional involvement dissolve before getting to the point of marriage.
I'm not sure why I'm mentioning this, really.
Literature from other centuries has people killing themselves, putting themselves in a position to be killed, or just wasting away for lost love not infrequently.
Patrick O'Brian has a brilliant paragraph in one of his novels about a negative cycle of gift-exchange in a marriage, where each partner constantly martyrs themselves to the other, putting themselves out of their way, denying themselves so that the other can have something, etc, etc, and he ends with a sentence that goes something like "This state of affairs had persisted for years and the competition could only be won by whomever died first."
The intro and the discussion are all you really need to read. Pretty much depressing. But it has put a name and methodology to exactly what I'm feeling! I don't know why, but it feels like knowing what kind of sickness one has, and the identification is somehow valuable even if it does not change the underlying condition.
20:The Good Soldier? Women in Love? Fitzgerald?
Oh, Scott whathisname with the bad whatsittitle. umm. Endless Love
Oh oops, pwned by eb, super web searcher. Sorry, eb!
Brokeback Mountain, but I think movies and singer/songwriters would be cheating.
I know Christopher Lasch wrote at length about the Waller study and others, but I'm not remembering where. Perhaps Haven in a Heartless World, his book about the family from the seventies, but I'm thinking it was somewhere else, possibly that posthumous collection on gender issues his daughter put together. Anybody know?
30: I think it was in Culture of Narcissism?
This suggests that it might be better if romantic relationships with unequal emotional involvement dissolve before getting to the point of marriage.
Oh sure. Now you tell me.
Why do I think that ASA would be like another UnfoggeDCon, if only everyone knew who everyone else really was? Sort of like the MLA.
20: And Thou Art Gone Yes Thou Art Gone Alas!
30: I think it was in Culture of Narcissism?
Could well be; I think I own that but couldn't lay my hands on it just now. Reddish dust jacket?
MC, did you see McLemee's relation of Wall e to Kenneth Burke's ideas yesterday?
I just realized I swapped request/demand in the title/post. Probably because Witt is soooooo demanding of me.
20: The subject is present in The Dead, but it's in Gabriel Conroy's perception of the boy's long-ago death—when he also apparently died because he caught pneumonia—the idea of his dying for love, of his, Conroy's, wife and the unapproachable grandeur of that.
So here's the question. If there is unequal involvement in a relationship, is the wisdom to cut and run?
Mrs. Goffman understood these things better than anyone, even Mr. Goffman.
Mrs Goffman killed herself by jumping off the San Francisco Bay bridge in about 1959, IIRC.
38: Yes? But only after a sufficient amount of time? And given circumstances that allow it.
If there is unequal involvement in a relationship, is the wisdom to cut and run?
Haven't read the study -- Becks-style -- but I'd say that since perfect equality is impossible, it's a question of:
1) what is the magnitude of the inequality
2) does the direction and magnitude of the inequality vary over the course of the relationship
3) some other good thought that I had a few seconds ago but now forgot. Hell.
35: IDP, I hadn't seen the McLemee piece, but just went and read it. Thanks! I saw that movie just the other day, and liked it a lot.
I hate to ask a pathetic question, but I wonder if all romantic relationships are inherently unequal in affection/contribution, and since the study deals with perceptions (and the study acknowledges they may be skewed as the breakup perceptions are retrospective), if this is just the state of things (75% of couples report imbalance; not all break up) and thus a condition that most live with. Thus, can one live with this? Do you always have to break up if there's unequal emotional commitment? I am asking from a purely disinterested academic standpoint here, of course.
Again, I lack perspective and critical distance, so don't jump down my throat for suggesting that this is what most couples live with. I am happy that 25% of couples (in the study, generalizability is difficult to say) reported equal affections, but again, we're dealing with the perceptions of university students here. Also, emotional investment isn't really well defined, even if there is a methodology.
Ok before you all go at me, I am going for my evening walk, which is the only time I ever leave the house. Be back in 45 min.
Also, where is the McLemee piece? The Valve?
Valve s/b Crooked Timber, where I looked for it to no avail.
43: That kind of hits on another question that occurred to me. How much of the problem in unequal relationships is actual inequality of commitment and how much is inaccurate perception of how committed the other person is?
AA, as I tried to say drunkenly above, I think that most relationships involve an ebb and a flow of affection. More specifically, even in a healthy relationship there will be times when A is more into B than B is into A. What divides a relationship that can work from one that might not are things like: is A always more into B than B is into A? By a lot? Does it bother A?
My wife and I have been together for.. gosh, 10.5 years now, and I'd say at the very beginning I was more into her, then it was pretty even, then I was definitely more into her, then we broke up, then we got back together, then she was more into me, and then it's been pretty even for a long time with some minor quantum fluctuations.
I think it's about either where the average affection vector is or where the equilibrium point is.
This may make less sense on screen than it does in my head.
43: IANASociologist, but my guess would be that a) given that emotional contribution is hard to define, perfect equality probably doesn't happen all that often; b) perception is probably more important than reality; c) expectations of what is ideal probably matter more than equality and d) commitment can be demonstrated in a number of ways, and maybe a high score on one can balance out a low score on emotional contribution.
I think c) because of stuff I've read on housework and careers, and how it seemed to be far more important that people perceptions matched their expectations of what was just rather than whether the distribution was actually equitable.
I wonder if all romantic relationships are inherently unequal in affection/contribution
This is part of what's puzzling, shall we say, about the very notion: how on earth can or does one measure degrees of emotional involvement? (A question for the ages, after all.)
mrh, Becks-style though he may be, is wise with 41(2) does the direction and magnitude of the inequality vary over the course of the relationship. Because it will, of course.
But I took "emotional involvement" or investment to mean something quite serious, like love, or emotional investment that goes hand in hand with partnership. I've always tended to think in terms of partnership: and a question like, "Is this person my partner?" doesn't need very much reflection to answer. You know when someone's open with you and when s/he's withholding. If the latter goes on without relent, I'd have a tough time agreeing to something as serious as marriage.
On preview: mrh clarifies!
Why do I think that ASA would be like another UnfoggeDCon,
I think it's too late for me to go into sociology, but had I known I'd end up wanting to do things of a public policy nature, I'd probably have gone in that direction.
No one dies for love in the sense I meant in Brokeback Mountain. I read The Good Soldier so long ago I don't remember what happens, and I've never been able to get through a DH Lawrence novel except LCL, also high school, and I thought it was pretty dumb then, so I don't know about WIL, but in any case, I meant that in the unspecified past where marriage was very explicitly for reasons other than love, we have a lot of literary examples, at least, of relationships cutting to the quick in a way we don't expect them to now. Maybe in ye olden days marriages were for money and affairs were the relationships you died for; I don't know; I'm no cultural historian.
22: outstanding in their statement of the obvious...(Waller, 1938)
I haven't read the linked paper, but for a study in 1938 to make those claims probably was a big deal, though it does seem obvious to us now.
Whether in novels or in sociological studies, it's all self-reporting. There's no such thing as an objective measure of love held. The victorians were, societally, very invested in the notion of romantic love: did they actually love more than we do? Impossible to answer.
On the other hand, the 1882 Howells novel, A Modern Instance is pretty much a case study of an unequal relationship going to marriage and then divorce.
What was new was the application of science to these matters. The early decades of the 20th century saw a transformation in domestic advice manuals and such. Science, studies. From what I understand, prior to that time, the scientific (public) world had stayed out of the private realm.
the scientific (public) world had stayed out of the private realm.
but see Durkheim, Suicide 1897
if you consider suicide to be a private matter
57
Isn't "An American Tragedy" (which I have not read) also the story of an unequal relationship which ends badly?
Even in the social capital version, there's the nasty side of things where having a lot of social capital can mean that you are open to a lot of people making heavy demands on you.
For an example of that, I refer to this passage (having bothered to re-type it once, I feel entitled to link to it when it's relevant).
This book relies heavily on a study in the 1950s of marriages formed in the 1930s. I think the review on the google books page is right that the heavy reliance on the study limits the book as a general interpretation of family life in the 1950s, but I remember the study-based parts being the most interesting sections of the book. So.
Maybe in ye olden days marriages were for money and affairs were the relationships you died for; I don't know; I'm no cultural historian.
My impression is that this is largely true of dying for love plots. I also remember reading last year or so some essay touching on some novel - yes, I'm being as specific as I can; I just don't remember - where the essayist said something along the lines of "in real life,they probably would have settled into a relationship where one cheats and the other isn't happy about it, but is reconciled to it instead of raising the stakes like they did." In fact, that might have been about A Modern Instance, divorce being pretty high stakes for 1882.
The male-female differences are interesting, in lots of ways. By time period 5, a lot of the men appear to have lost track of where the women really are emotionally.
I think mrh in 48 is really on to something in the fundamentally dynamic nature of relationships. John Gottman, the famous marriage researcher, claimed to have usefully modeled relationships using differential equations in his book .com/books?id=efEuNZXBWrYC&pg=PP1&dq=gottman+the+mathematics+of+marriage&sig=ACfU3U3ZjLZFC9rF5R_o0jf6hKaKsWhKHw"> The Mathematics of Marriage .
Gottman's model strikes me as more sophisticated than this paper, although it's more complex and not as neatly packaged. This paper is just a static set of correlations, there's no posited model by which the feedback loop between relationship quality and emotional committment works. But such a feedback loop is clearly central in relationships.
62: Oh excellent. Interesting. Thanks.
How much of the problem in unequal relationships is actual inequality of commitment and how much is inaccurate perception of how committed the other person is?
This is the wisdom of The Rules, right? Or the wisdom of countless mothers who counseled their daughters that a man doesn't buy the cow when he's getting the milk for free. To the extent that female sexual availability is perceived as a proxy for emotional commitment (leaving aside, for a moment, the origins of that perception), the idea seems to be to create the perception of an asymmetrical interest where perhaps none exists, in order to assume control over the trajectory of the relationship.
For the poor young Christian girls who buy into the the aforementioned equation of sexual availability and emotional commitment, there is an obvious slippery slope to ceding control over the relationship to the man through the act of surrendering to one's sexual desires (probably aggravated by a sense of guilt and sin).
Di, I'm not trying to pick on you here, but I wonder if the asymmetrical commitment you perceived had similar origins.
Holy fuck, why can't Google Books do some kind of reasonable URL?
Anyway, the book referred to in 64 is John Gottman, "The Mathematics of Marriage". First result when you google it is the Google Books link, which shows you a lot of the book, including the table of contents.
Added to 63: I am also not a cultural historian.
the feedback loop between relationship quality and emotional committment
I will not mock. I will not. But seriously, I barely understand what this means. Relationship quality?
'Yeah, that was a shitty relationship with that guy. The other one, though, that was better. It had to do with our respective emotional commitments.'
This is just sounding to me a bit like "it puts you to sleep because it has dormative qualities".
Sorry, I'm being an ass, I'm sure, since I haven't read much of the originally linked study, or the thing linked in 64.
seriously, I barely understand what this means. Relationship quality?
How much emotionally commited you are with me changes based on how well I treat you. Not too mysterious. It's precisely specifying the causal links that makes it more of an explanation rather than a tautology or relabeling.
whoops, damn, rewrote that sentence only partway. S/b "How emotionally committed you are to me changes based on how I treat you"
How emotionally committed you are to me changes based on how I treat you
Don't kid yourself, PGD. Parsimon is just using you for the sex.
"Relationship quality" and "emotional commitment" are the terms the linked study uses, with the meanings in 71.
How much emotionally commited you are with me changes based on how well I treat you.
Finally! The penny drops, and the scales fall from my eyes, and I begin to understand why PGD don't send me flowers any more.
Really, I think the degree to which we now worry/fret/obsess over the quality, or lack thereof, of our sexual/romantic relationships is a function of the relative impoverishment and attenuation of other (familial, social, communal, and etc) potentially significant intersubjective relations. The tyranny of "the couple" is not as benign and benevolent as it appears at first glance.
Finally! The penny drops, and the scales fall from my eyes, and I begin to understand why PGD don't send me flowers any more ogged doesn't post on unfogged anymore.
The tyranny of "the couple"
In this benighted world in which extended communal and familial relations are scant, partnership is highly valued. Of course. Tyranny, though? I understand you may mean the pressure to be 'coupled up', and the skeptical eye cast on those who aren't.
This episode has good examples of unbalanced relationships.
eb has mentioned the Howell's book twice. So this quote isn't completely off topic. Anyway, I liked it.
He was a poor cheap sort of a creature. Deplorably smart and regrettably handsome. A fellow that assimilated everything to a certain extent and nothing thoroughly. A fellow with no more moral nature than a base-ball. The sort of chap you d expect to find the next time you met him in Congress or the house of correction.
I wrote a comment on a recent relationship thread, but the machine ate it. I don't know, but maybe it's worth tossing into this one, before I head back to bed.
A client of mine tells a story about an interaction he had two decades ago -- a little more -- with a certain public figure. He (the client) was out of town on business, and that business marginally involved the public figure, with whom the client's contact was vaguely friendly. The day's work concluded, they end up at a hotel bar for cocktails. Now it turns out that the public figure is something of a babe magnet, although well known to be married, and was the object of constant attention from various female patrons of the bar, which he only encouraged.
After a short while, the public figure has his arm around one interested young woman, and the client's contact has his arm around another. Said the public figure to the client: 'I've got a suite upstairs. You ought to snag one of these gals and come on up.' Oh no thanks, you go on ahead. 'C'mon, what're you, gay?' [I believe this to be a paraphrase, by the way] To which the client responded with "No, I just don't sleep with women I don't know." Response of the public figure -- remember, he's got an interested young woman on his arm -- in a slightly condescending tone: "What's to know?"
What are you doing up, Napi? I've been awake since 1:20 and think that I might be able to get back to sleep now, only an hour before I was hoping to get up.
from the most sociologically oriented of modern poets:
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
82 -- Nothing special, BG. Just woke up early, puttered about for half an hour, and went back to sleep. I blame the wine. (My houseguests are leaving today, after 2.5 weeks. After only this much time with kids 3 and 5, it's clear how totally unready for grandparenthood we are. which is [knocking wood] at least half a decade away anyways . . .)
a function of the relative impoverishment and attenuation of other (familial, social, communal, and etc) potentially significant intersubjective relations. The tyranny of "the couple" is not as benign and benevolent as it appears
There's a phrase for that, too: dyadic withdrawal. (NB, not a contraceptive method.)
For the poor young Christian girls who buy into the the aforementioned equation of sexual availability and emotional commitment, there is an obvious slippery slope to ceding control over the relationship to the man through the act of surrendering to one's sexual desires (probably aggravated by a sense of guilt and sin).
I think it's a slippery slope even for women who don't buy into that equation, too, because of the broader perception/stereotype that women only sleep with guys for whom they feel an emotional commitment. Even if the woman is making herself sexually available purely or mostly just because, well, sex is fun, there's a pretty good chance the man* is thinking, at least a little, "yeah, she's really into me." (Or she'll be worried that this is what he's thinking.)
Sex on the first date would seem to mitigate this problem, as only a truly self important schmuck is going to conclude that it's a sign of some deep emotional commitment at that stage. But, of course, then chances are his perceptions will be "she's easy -- this is obviously just sex and not something headed for deep emotional commitment." (Or she'll be worried that this is what he's thinking.)
Not saying this is true for all guys by any stretch -- nor offering anything explanatory of any of my own experiences. Just speculating on how gendered expectations affect perceptions.
Di, I'm not trying to pick on you here, but I wonder if the asymmetrical commitment you perceived had similar origins.
Oh, I wasn't even talking about any particular situation. The assymetrical commitment with UNG is no more complicated than the fact that he is fond of talking in grandiose terms about ideal love but does not actually have the emotional capacity to go along with his words. I did worry for awhile that our problem was simply that my perception of his lack of emotional commitment was just a matter of him not successfully demonstrating or communicating the emotional commitment that he really felt.
My comments/questions here are really more just trying to sort out the ideas in a generic, objective sense -- perhaps to develop some perspective in advance of actually worrying about it in a concrete sense.
Oh yeah. The * above was suppose to be followed by my apology for the heteronormativity of my hypothetical, but I can't even begin to figure out how gendered expectations play into gay pairings.
76: The tyranny of "the couple"
Extremely apt phrase.
Also the article and thread give a new perspective on "The Gift of the Magi". And how it would have gone down if the gifts had not been mutual.
Tyranny, though?
I took it to mean not just the expectation that a person should be coupled up, but that one's entire emotional fulfillment will come through one's partner or spouse (which is a large burden for one person.)
89:but that one's entire emotional fulfillment will come through one's partner or spouse (which is a large burden for one person.)
Exactly and compounded to the breaking point by popular myth of the "perfect mate".
89, 90: Indeed. Life's hard enough work without having to be someone else's everything.
90: Ooh, that, too. I don't think it's true, even among people who believe it is. The parents of a number of my friends divorced after the kids were all out of the house, and in at least some of the cases, it wasn't that they were waiting for years to divorce, but that things fell apart once the family dynamic changed.
Wow, an interesting Goffman essay I haven't read yet-- thanks!
Thus, can one live with this?
Romantic love is not the only love. The strongest love that many feel, that between parent and child, is deeply unequal and always changing. But even between partners, yes I think many people live with inequality, real or percieved. But you don't have to settle for someone who's not that into you.
The strongest love that many feel, that between parent and child, is deeply unequal and always changing.
I'm not sure this is really true. I mean, Rory and I claim as much all the time ("I love you more." "No I love you more!") but I don't think I'm convinced it's true. (And the moments when I worry that it is -- that what if she loves me less because UNG has brought a new woman into her life -- are at least as distressing than any moment that I've perceived inequality in romantic emotional commitment with a partner).
It's hard to tell whether parent-child love is unequal because at times so much of the rest of the relationship is unequal. (One shits, the other changes the diaper.)
(One shits, the other changes the diaper.)
Yes, at both ends of life.
95: But does that make the diaper-changer more committed, b/c he or she is putting in that extra effort? Or does it make the diaper-wearer more committed b/c he or she is acutely aware of the dependence on diaper-changer?
97: Well, exactly. If you think of love demonstrated as someone doing something, the mother loves the baby more than the baby loves the mother. If you think of love as being completely dependent on another person, then the baby loves the mother more.
(Either way, babies aren't acutely aware. They're cute, but I'm increasingly convinced that their brains just make buzzing sounds until about six months of age. My nephew is three months old, and adorable, and gets so excited about being fed milk from a bottle that he greedily forgets how to eat. This is not encouraging.)
Rory loved me acutely from the very first moment she was born!
(Okay, maybe not quite that. But certainly there's plenty going on in those buzzing little infant brains well before 6 months.)
Sure, but I suspect most of the buzzing is directly towards determining that they have elbows. (Seriously, I love the way little babies flap their arms. They know they have hands! They've figured out the shoulder! But man, defeat is in the elbows.)
But not devoid of emotion. "Elbows! OMG, I have elbows! And I can make it bend so that my fist lands in my mouth! This is just so fucking cool!"
The elbow's not a very intuitive joint.
Babies are certainly capable of expressing unhappiness.
"WTF? I know I have elbows! I swear I just discovered them ten minutes ago. Why the hell can't I get this stupid hand into my mouth?! WAAAAAA!"
101: Or, "Food! Food!!!! FOOD!!! Uh, wait, now what?"
Di Kotimy,
Of course, from where I got so far, anyone who can comment with distance and perspective has that emotional distance that makes them able to manipulate and break the hearts of the rest of us...
I know, I know. But as I've said before - I only use my powers for good. Really. And I like you.
Bostoniangirl,
(One shits, the other changes the diaper.)
Yes, at both ends of life.
So true. And such a sobering thought.
Cala,
My nephew is three months old, and adorable, and gets so excited about being fed milk from a bottle that he greedily forgets how to eat. This is not encouraging.)
Yes. Just wait until they are 16. A similar thing happens with the car keys. I'm not kidding.
Cala,
one's entire emotional fulfillment will come through one's partner or spouse (which is a large burden for one person.)
An impossible burden.
Here is my take on babies. Nature makes it so we love them so much we are willing to go through hell for them. Which is key to the survival of the species but it is still hell.
OK, the hell doesn't last forever but there are certainly times of hell. Some longer than others.
Wow, MHS is right, Goffman's wife really did commit suicide. That changes the meaning of the distant, amoral tone of his writing considerably for me.
I just ran into a true story about an alternative family. After a man died his wife ran his wheat farm for ten years or more. She did all of the work that men do. Some or most of that time she had the help of her son-in-law. When her daughter divorced him, the son-in-law stayed and the daughter left. He still runs the farm and will get an inheritance.
Yeah, North Dakota.
Anyway, the practical part of the relationship survived and the kinship and romanti parts were less importan. This isn't the "trading love for money" boogeyman people here fear, just a multi-faceted relationship within which romance, sex, or love did not have hegemony or preponderance. A non-unitary relationship.
With all due respect, sometimes I think that people here (and comparable educated upper middle class swipples everywhere) often a.) take proposed reforms of M/F relations as actual when they're still aspirational prototypes, b.) have an extraordinary lack of understanding and sympathy for people who organize their lives upon entirely different principles than the Unfoggetariat, and c.) are beating their brains out trying to find something that may never have existed anywhere.
That's not quite as negative as it sounds, because every experiment starts out with prototypes and failures. But a lot of talk here seems to be grounded itself on something that may not even exist yet.
Roechefoucauld is the place to go for cynicism about relationships. A lot of my stuff is more or less a plagiarism.
Gutenberg Rochefoucauld (English)
Gutenberg Rochefoucauld (French)
The question of commitment and perceptions of the other's commitment is so fascinating. I was recently in a relationship where we were both convinced in the beginning that we were being pursued, and the other one was much more into us and much more committed to working things out. This only gradually became clear to me months later when Akhenaten started remembering out loud parts of the story of our getting together, and it turned out he had radically misunderstood things that I had done or signals I had given - in ways I had found a bit puzzling at the time, but charming because (I thought) they were proof of his deep and passionate desire of me. He was also convinced that he had a lot of success with women and many many were attracted to him, which, while he is attractive in his way, was definitely a little delusional. As time went on and I became more committed in fact, and also suffered some personal losses that made me need him much more than he needed me, I could feel him feeling too much in control of the relationship and even a little scornful of me. It turned out that the illusion of him being more committed than me had really stabilized the relationship for me, and the illusion of me being more committed than him had flattered his ego, which needed it because he had pursued me for 2 years before we got together. But the loss of the illusion for me, and the partial actualization of the illusion for him, were both terrible for our relationship. We needed our faulty perceptions to make us happy - which we were for a good while.
I was a bit shocked how wrong he was about what I had been meaning or signalling in the beginning stages of our courtship though. I couldn't tell if he genuinely had thought that at the time, or had retroactively colored things differently out of some need.
three guesses as to whether we are still together, and two don't count. it does lead me to raise the question of whether delusion plays a key role in the stability of long-term relationships, though?
I'm pretty sure that Rochefoucauld says that it does.
whether delusion plays a key role in the stability of long-term relationships, though?
Sadly no. No it does not. Delusion fades to reality and some people interpret this as the loss of love.
The attraction and courtship phase are very different from the long-term phase in relationships. Obviously the transition is possible, because many people do it, but there most definitely is a transition.
I think there are like entire libraries written on this subject.
Tripp, you're being a little categorical there.
I've had several long-term relationships, and they always have far more stages than you are describing, including little flare-ups of the courtship phase several years in, waning and waxing of our tacit sense of 'who loves more,' and different modes depending on how we changed and developed as people.
I also noticed my parents fall into a very clear re-attraction and courtship stage about a year after both my brother and I had left the house, when they were in their late fifties/early sixties and had been married over 30 years.
I have known at least one adoring wife who vastly overestimated her husband's abilities. Tripp, where do you get that stuff?
The way to test this would be to look a long-lasting couples and check them for delusion. Resigned acceptance is another thing to look for.
I really think that the ideal marriage people demand is more or less non-existent.
One way or another, you settle. If you look at the common run of humanity and the vast sweep of human history, "settling" doesn't seem that bad. (I settled for singleness).
One problem with long-lasting couples is that many are miserable.
It certainly is a good starting point for understanding things.
It occurs to me that this is actually the pseudonym modifier Tripp should use....
Delusion plays a key role in stable adjustment to reality, not just relationships.
I have known at least one adoring wife who vastly overestimated her husband's abilities
You slept with him and found his abilities lacking, John? I'm totally confused about what you're trying to say here.
119 made no sense at all due to a cut-and-paste error and not paying attention. It should have called out Tripp the Categorical, i.e.
Tripp, you're being a little categorical there.
She thought he was a genius when he was a low-average M.S.
He's probably saying something like "I've known at least one adoring wife who bought into the delusion that her husband was a smart, ambitious guy who was anxious to meet life's challenges head-on. And then one day the illusion burst and she realized he was a lazy schmuck not terribly prone to thinking who was anxious to sit on his ass for another ten years."
Or did I read too much into that?
From A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834), an account of "hard loving:"
And now I am just getting on a part of my history that I know I never can forget. For though I have heard people talk about hard loving, yet I reckon no poor devil in this world was ever cursed with such hard love as mine has always been, when it came on me. I soon found myself head over heels in love with this girl, whose name the public could make no use of; and I thought that if all the hills about were pure chink, and all belonged to me, I would give them if I could just talk to her as I wanted to; but I was afraid to begin, for when I would think of saying any thing to her, my heart would begin to flutter like a duck in a puddle; and if I tried to outdo it and speak, it would get right smack up my throat, and choak me like a cold potato. It bore on my mind in this way, till at last I concluded I must die if I didn't broach the subject; and so I determined to begin and hang on a trying to speak, till my heart would get out of my throat one way or t'other. And so one day at it I went, and after several trials I could say a little. I told her how well I loved her; that she was the darling object of my soul and body; and I must have her, or else I should pine down to nothing, and just die away with consumption.
(You can read this at google books, but I can't figure out how to link to the page [p 47 in this version]).
124: actually, you may be right. For some reason I thought he was clearly talking about "bedroom" abilities, but on re-reading I see this may just have been a fantasy created in my filthy imagination.
Don't worry, Brock. I bet the guy's bedroom abilities were lacking, too...
Nefertiti,
I was being simplistic. If a relationship goes long term it rarely remains constant.
And John, I agree with what you are saying, although I have yet to see any wife who has an inflated opinion of her husband. Maybe that's because I hang around with smart women. That's a joke. Well, yeah, OK, I know one wife who was conned into thinking her husband had their money situation completely under control. Boy was she wrong.
I've talked to a few geriatric Doctors and they point out that as couples become elderly they rarely split up, even if they are miserable. They are too vulnerable and the world has become too scary to risk a break-up.
I dunno if I have a point here. Just reflecting.
I've known at least one adoring wife who bought into the delusion that her husband was a smart, ambitious guy who was anxious to meet life's challenges head-on.
These sorts of illusions seem entirely commonplace for people to hold about their offspring, but somehow are more odd when held about a spouse (at least, in a reasonably long marriage). I wonder why that is?
Because we already knew we were settling when we got married?
127 and 128,
At first I thought you were referring to Davy Crockett in 126 and I wondered who in those days wrote about their bedroom abilities!
I think what Davy called "hard loving" is a pretty common experience, no?
Isn't there a pretty well established negative correlation between how accurately you perceive your spouse and how happy your marriage is?
Do you mean about grown, adult offspring? Honestly, I think my former in-laws (uh, I mean that adoring wife's former in-laws... ) figured out that their son is kind of a slacker alot sooner than I did.
I think they are actually not uncommon illusions. Particularly for people who marry young, when idealism and romantic fantasy conspire with the innate human ability to convince ourselves of that which we want so desperately to believe.
These sorts of illusions seem entirely commonplace for people to hold about their offspring, but somehow are more odd when held about a spouse (at least, in a reasonably long marriage). I wonder why that is?
I dunno. I do know that when one is in prison one is more likely to be visited by parents rather than siblings. I think it is something about being a parent that makes it extremely hard to see our (grown) children objectively.
Could it be that when seeing our children we are seeing a part of ourselves? Is that what makes objectivity difficult?
Isn't there a pretty well established negative correlation between how accurately you perceive your spouse and how happy your marriage is?
Really?!
My God that is a depressing thought. I can barely keep up my perfection on the internet. No way can I do it in person.
Is that what makes objectivity difficult?
Perhaps in some cases it might be tied up in a need to feel that you have not failed them (however (in)accurate that is).
It's also probably worth discriminating between actual illusions, and the (natural) tendency to emphasize positive or negative aspects of people according to our feelings about them.
Don't worry Tripp. The upside to that is that a good many of us are generally happy to forgo complete accuracy in favor of retaining some semblance of happiness.
Di,
Whew, thanks! At least I have that going for me. Plus most people don't want to admit they made a mistake, so that helps too. Otherwise I'm pretty much cooked.
Perhaps in some cases it might be tied up in a need to feel that you have not failed them (however (in)accurate that is).
Look out, here comes the simplistic Tripp again.
I have noticed in my personal life that those most unable to view themselves objectively are also the most unable to view their children objectively, while still being able to view their spouse not only objectively but critically.
Proving that is left as an exercise for the student.
130
"These sorts of illusions seem entirely commonplace for people to hold about their offspring, but somehow are more odd when held about a spouse (at least, in a reasonably long marriage). I wonder why that is?"
Because your children share your genes and your spouse doesn't?
142: Bit of a jump to presume a genetic cause, isn't it?
Di,
See? You should be golden.
Thanks! That made my day. Really. Which says more about me and my day than I care to confront at the moment. Luckily I have a compartmentalized mind and I can just stuff that over here behind my opinion of Bush.
Yeah, safe and sound.
A genetic "cause"?
Your children resemble you more than your spouse does, because of their genetics. How is this in any way connected with evolution?
143 continued:
but I wasn't suggesting anything about why it might be more likely to hold such illusions about your children than your spouse. What I meant is more a question of social judgement --- people seem to feel it reflects poorly on you to have the sorts of illusions about your spouse that they are quite accepting of you having for your offspring. The people doing the judging here are unrelated.
Your children resemble you more than your spouse does, because of their genetics. How is this in any way connected with evolution?
see 146 (i.e. that wasn't the point) but that aside, do you mean to suggest that you are more likely to fail to be objective about your children because you are unable to be objective about yourself?
142: Because your children share your genes and your spouse doesn't?
I've got a pretty open mind but this kind of potty talk does NOT belong here.
do you mean to suggest that you are more likely to fail to be objective about your children because you are unable to be objective about yourself?
CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION
But yes, I think comment 141 makes sense.
Taking 145 to its logical conclusion suggests you should be most distorted about your (maternal) siblings children.
CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION
I'm just trying to figure out how you think genetics plays into this at all.
151: Genetics plays into this in that genes exist, and cause your children to resemble you more than your spouse resembles you.
I think you may have a blanket concern about evolutionary psychology explanations which has expanded to become a blanket concern about evolutionary explanations, and then expanded even further to become a blanket concern about the concept of "genetics".
152: Ok, I really don't understand where you're coming from.
I still don't understand why you brought evolution into it at all, and given that you did, what any of this has to do with 130 particularly in light of 143.
(Aside: I note that it's a) very easy to share a lot of genetic material with someone who is a very different person and b) many similarities are environmental .... so what do you mean by `similar' here?)
soup,
I think it was you who brought evolution into this. Fatman talked about genetics, not evolution.
It is pretty clear to me Fatman's point was that one is likely to see one's offspring as an extension of oneself to a greater degree than one is likely to see one's spouse as an extension of oneself.
A counter argument might be "We are most genetically similar to our siblings, not our children. Why don't we see them as an extension of ourselves?" but I don't see that statement.
I do think it is pretty common to see oneself in one's children.
No, James brought genetics in in 142, which I questioned in 143, but perhaps in an ambiguos/flip way (which I now see probably led to corr/causation comment, which still doesn't really touch the issue --- you probably feel similarly about a child who is not genetically `yours').
I attempted to clear up in 146, but we were already off the rails (and interleaved). 150 somewhat countered Fatmans argument (your genetic connection to your sisters children is clearer, particularly historicallly, than to your own). 152 was just a bit bizarre from where I'm sitting.
Anyway, none of that has anything to do with what i asked originally.
holy crap was that earnest. I ban myself.
143
"142: Bit of a jump to presume a genetic cause, isn't it?"
The question mark at the end of my comment indicated I was suggesting a possible explanation not proclaiming the answer.
156: Yes, I understood that, it's much the same role the question mark at the end of mine had. I just thought it was a stretch to go there first. Then things rolled downhill somehow!
Anyway, as noted I was inarticulate originally: I was interested in the different way these things were perceived, not produced. In other words, you might have known your spouse and your child both for 20 years, but obvious illusions about the former are typically viewed differently than the latter, afaics.
146
"but I wasn't suggesting anything about why it might be more likely to hold such illusions about your children than your spouse. What I meant is more a question of social judgement --- people seem to feel it reflects poorly on you to have the sorts of illusions about your spouse that they are quite accepting of you having for your offspring. The people doing the judging here are unrelated."
But what you said originally in 130 was:
"These sorts of illusions seem entirely commonplace for people to hold about their offspring, but somehow are more odd when held about a spouse (at least, in a reasonably long marriage). I wonder why that is?"
Obviously things tend to seem commonplace when they are in fact frequent and odd when they are in fact infrequent.
Exactly right. I look at my grandmother's tolerance of my psycho uncle charitably. My dad's tolerance of him, less so. Had any of the psycho's wives failed to eventually see the light, I would have just flat out considered them morons.
People can know your spouse before or after they were your spouse, and observe that your opinion of your spouse changed dramatically with changes in spousal status even when your spouse changed minimally or not at all. Can't do this with kids.
CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION
No, but correlation and causation are frequently correlated.
158: see `inarticulate'. So I'll try again. I'm not convinced that the relative frequency is in fact that clear. At least, not after correcting for most parents irrationalities about their young offspring. As someone noted, these often don't survive teenage assholerly adulthood.
As far as I can see, people typically maintain many illusions/polite fictions (how do you tell from the outside?) about spouses: X would have got promoted years ago if it weren't for [fill in excuse]. Y is just too busy to do [fill in excuse].
What I was observing & commenting on (obviously not very clearly) was that if you hold fairly extreme illusions about your children it's considered sweet or supportive (unless you talk about them too much, then you are mocked without mercy). If you hold similarly distorted views about your spouse, you are pitied as a sucker.
In my experience people sometimes hold onto unrealistic views of a spouse long after it is clearly wrong as pretty basic defense mechanism. The cognitive and emotional reshuffling that would result are too daunting to even be contemplated. (This probably too trite of an observation to even write down though.) Some of this is in play with children as well, but there are different factors.
If you hold similarly distorted views about your spouse, you are pitied as a sucker.
I'm sort of hoping this is a little too harshly said. But I sort of suspect not.
If you hold similarly distorted views about your spouse, you are pitied as a sucker.
Related-to-but-different-from 161.1; holding illusions about your spouse is important to a happy marriage, but you have the choice of maintaining delusions or ending the marraige. You can't end your parent-child relationship.
I'm sort of hoping this is a little too harshly said. But I sort of suspect not.
I think it is. Or at least there is going to be a large contingent out there who thinks "it's awesome that they're able to get along with each other so well despite their flaws."
"it's awesome that they're able to get along with each other so well despite their flaws."
This is different though then getting along because they are delusional about one another's flaws. It's totally true that I look more respectfully at the friend who tells me, "He can be a complete ass, but he's my complete ass," in contrast to the (ex-)friend who would go on about her amazing, wonderful, perfect husband who I was perfectly well aware is a complete ass.
162
"... If you hold similarly distorted views about your spouse, you are pitied as a sucker."
Actually what has struck me is the really hostile unbelievably negative views many people have about former spouses. This bothers me more than excessive loyalty.
168: Yes, and if it ever comes to breaking things off, the psychological consequences are far different. In the one case it can just be a recalculation of costs and benefits, being "my complete ass" isn't good enough anymore, versus the complete cognitive rebuild required in the other case. (Not that the former is "easy" in any sense.)
169: There is a reason they are "former" spouses, James.
the really hostile unbelievably negative views many people have about former spouses. This bothers me more than excessive loyalty.
I lived with this for years after my mother and father divorced. She could hardly speak of him without bitterness. She eventually got over it, fortunately, and has a much more balanced view today, but it did damage relationships.
My sister bent over backwards to avoid poisoning her kids' minds against her sociopathic ex, with the result that they don't really know how horribly he treated her.
I was, last night, composing a blog post in my head about how The Problem With Men is that they were never taught how to fucking stay centered when they're having emotions. The only options are the charming old-fashioned man who suppresses all feelings and has no idea how to express them and hopefully ends up married to a woman who understands this and is highly skilled at inferring his emotions without embarrassing him (and I do mean that this kind of couple is extremely charming, truly); or the new modern guy who I give such a hard time to, who knows that he's supposed to have feelings but doesn't know how to actually, like, deal with them so when something that's really frustrating or upsetting or difficult comes up he spazzes out in one way or another. Which is sympathetic and all, and I really do feel for these guys, but jesus fucking christ, get some therapy and grow up already.
173: Women like your sister are saints, and should be honored as such by their children.
She is so honored by me, but I've seriously considered saying a thing or two to her kids.
I agree it's a bit of a jump to 'genetic cause', at least if we mean a simplistic one. Not because we aren't more related to our children than our spouses, but because we are similarly related to our siblings and don't feel the same kind of happy delusion, and, more to the point, we feel responsible for how our own children turn out (and this seems to be true of adoptive parents, ime, too.)
If they turn out to be fuckups, we fucked up.
176: How old are they? If they are adults and you have a good relationship with them, I would certainly do so if I were in your shoes.
Just by-the-by: re. your earlier comment about swipple ideas about romance, I think that, for my part at least, if you think I'm one of the unrealistic folks, you misunderstand. I, personally, really do accept and even admire the kind of practical sorts of attitudes towards relationships that you were talking about in that comment--the mother whose son-in-law stayed on the farm, etc. I think that kind of thing is totally fine and workable and admirable. My main issue (and lord knows I am demanding of relationships and men) is that I want the terms of the relationship to be mutually *understood*--whether explicitly or tacitly. Which is why I get so irate about people making assumptions about what marriage, etc., is supposed to involve.
Also, I agree with you that the demand for all romantic passion all the time is unrealistic and immature.
My theory about the parent/child love relationship is that it's hormonal. Which means that sure, to some extent "genetics" comes into it--after all, it's a biological thing. But hormones are also affected by all sorts of non-genetic (yet still biological) facts, like psychology and stressors (which include social pressures, etc.). But anyway, yeah: my own personal anecdotal experience of mother/child love is: hormones, very deep, and to some extent unconcerned with compatibility issues, since after all the power dynamic is so uneven that it's a lot easier, emotionally, to be patient with irritating behavior than it would be with the same behavior in a peer.
Also, I'm going to say parents love their kids "more" than their kids love them. At least, if the children live, they will at some point have to disengage, quite a lot, and as those of us who complain about our parents all know, it's much, much harder for the parents to do this with their adult children than vice-versa.
178: Yes, they're adults, and I mostly want them to understand that their mother is poor because their father is rich. She was cheated and bullied out of her divorce settlement after 18 years of working in his businesses, which are doing very, very well now.
The good part is that I'm pretty sure that he will croak before he's 65.
Which is why I get so irate about people making assumptions about what marriage, etc., is supposed to involve.
Oh, this is a good one, and can wind me up to. Some couples are married but tend not to mention it (or wear rings, or whatever) for this reason ... and that's only issues of outside assumptions.
J.E: he sounds charming.
He has most of the traits of a sociopath.
Do they look down on their mother for being poor?
182: doesn't that make him a sociopath? Or is it possible to exhibit the traits of sociopathy without being a sociopath? (Is sociopathy something other than its traits?)
Interesting, John. My mother says she is poor because my father is rich, and that she was cheated and bullied out of her divorce settlement after sacrificing her career for my father's. But I don't believe her, because she's crazy. And my father is not rich (though he's doing far better than she is).
It's possible for someone to be crazy and still be right about some things.
Right, but I don't think she's right about this. Although I believed her when I was a little kid, and I sort of hated my dad for it.
B, that McCain video at your site is truly astonishing.
183: No, but they don't realize yet that they're probably going to have to take care of her in her old age. And they may have bad memories of their time with her. And he is able to bribe them. Fortunately (again) he's a jerk with his kids too, so he can't fool them.
183: Normally I just call him my psychopathic ex-bil. He's undiagnosed and unprosecuted, though. Usually you think of psychopaths as murderous and assaultive, and he's not.
185: No room for doubt in my sister's case. Besides keeping house and raising kids, she did years of work in his businesses, and left the marriage with virually nothing.
Actually, "sociopathic" not "psychopathic". Finger slip.
189: Ah yes. Once again I wonder if perhaps your mother and mine are the exact same woman. (I happen to know what the terms of the divorce were, and my mom did pretty well.)
And yeah, isn't that video nuts?
190: Tell them. Especially if they're going to have to take care of her, you know? It would be a lot easier to take care of one's elderly dependent mother (which is, after all, really a pain in the butt) if you know how very much she's done for you.
Thus ends my advice.
192: I've pretty much planned it out. I also plan to coolly and formally contact the ex-bil and explain that he's got some bad karma to deal with. He can afford to. He'll never make up everything, but I'd settle with him for 10 cents on the dollar (which would be $50,000 -- $100,000).
Good luck getting him to come through.
I think mrh in 48 is really on to something in the fundamentally dynamic nature of relationships. John Gottman, the famous marriage researcher, claimed to have usefully modeled relationships using differential equations in his book .com/books?id=efEuNZXBWrYC&pg=PP1&dq=gottman+the+mathematics+of+marriage&sig=ACfU3U3ZjLZFC9rF5R_o0jf6hKaKsWhKHw"> The Mathematics of Marriage .
Seriously, that book does not do that. The non-linear models in Gottman's book are models of single 30-45 minute discussions. He had the tapes of these discussions laying around from earlier studies and created a non linear model for each discussion. Gottman never created any models of actual marraiges only models of the taped discussions.
He didn't really get any useful results either.
194: No doubt. In my limited experience, such suggestions only meet with success when backed up with a credible threat of maiming. ymmv, of course.
Emerson could threaten to gum him to death. Nom nom nom.
Seriously, that book does not do that. The non-linear models in Gottman's book are models of single 30-45 minute discussions.
If you can't bullshit about a book you haven't really read on the internet, of all places, then where can you do it?
The reviews and excerpts made it sound soooo much better...but I guess you're saving me the trouble of reading the whole thing.
The Problem With Men is that they were never taught how to fucking stay centered when they're having emotions. The only options are the charming old-fashioned man who suppresses all feelings and has no idea how to express them...or the new modern guy who I give such a hard time to, who knows that he's supposed to have feelings but doesn't know how to actually, like, deal with them
For once I'm gonna be the one who says: men and women aren't all that damn different.
Someone's analyzed Petrarch's sonnets with differential equations. I haven't read any of this thread, so I don't know if that's come up already.
Re: telling the kids... Much as I instinctively favor the idea, of really almost explicitly wanting sides to be taken where the right side seems pretty indisputable, I'm (at least in my better moments... ) in the "let them figure it out themselves" camp. They will.
I remember being a teenager over at my (ex-)aunt's house and conversation turned (not inaccurately) to what a collosal prick my uncle is. His eldest daughter (different mom) sat quietly by for awhile, collected herself, and finally sad, "You know, I know he's a dick. But he's still my dad." It made an impression on me. Twenty years later, she has no contact with him.
The thing is, the kids will get it. But they probably don't want to hear it.
men and women aren't all that damn different.
In that particular respect? No and yes. Obviously both women and men have issues around that whole vulnerability thing, and god knows there are plenty of women who spaz out about their feelings. But generally women are expected (and expect themselves) to do some emotional caretaking, which isn't true of men. Or at least not in the same way.
201: But generally women are expected (and expect themselves) to do some emotional caretaking, which isn't true of men.
Arguably, this is overemphasized to many women in their upbringing* in much the same way that it was underemphasized for a lot of men, to the point where the attempt to do the emotional caretaking spirals into neurosis.
(* Well, not just their upbringing. It amazes me how much women's magazines, for instance, bombard their readership with the Woman As Communicator message, sometimes to absurd degrees... like articles in Cosmo that recommend sitting your abusive, volatile boyfriend down with an information kit and Talking Things Through. No, I'm not making that up; that's advice they actually published.)
Also, why are you reading Cosmo, Slack?
A third of the women I know read it. I'd be a fool not to.
Ah, OK, men and women do differ significantly in the emotional caretaking area, although the differences are much more subtle than "women do it and men don't". Obvs my beef with 174 was the division of men into cripples and crybabies. Which is, you know, sexist.
205: You need to know a better class of women.
207: It may be sexist, but it's often true. And you misread what I was saying anyway; I explicitly said that emotionally stoic men aren't necessarily crippled. And the only way of being a spaz about your feelings isn't to be a crybaby; sometimes it's to be an abusive freak.
205: You need to know a better class of women.
Alternatively, DS could introduce these women to a better class of magazine.
209: I recommend Landscape Architecture. It's full of ads for lighting and fertilizer!
If you're going to hit on high school girls, you can't really quibble over their choice of reading.
I see DS raging through Canuckistan, seducing one lady after another, leaving subscriptions to [some non Cosmo magazine] in his wake.
First, we should decide which magazine that should be. Next, we should take up a collection to subsidize his work.
Does that mechanical chicken-plucker guy have a magazine?
209: That makes total sense, seeing as how the same women who are the target market for Cosmo are also known to treat gay men as authoritative tastemakers. The fact that DS is a foreigner and a person of color should enhance his tastemaking influence with this segment even further.
208.1: Actually, lots of perfectly wonderful men and women read abominable things like Cosmo or Young Adult Vampire Fiction. I just take off my Judging Cap.
209: I have, of course, tried to turn them on to n+1, but with limited success thus far.
214: I do believe I've discovered a new vocation. The choice of non-Cosmo magazine is obvious.
216: are also known to treat gay men as authoritative tastemakers
I AM NOT GAY. Elf-fucker. Assclown.
No straight man has ever called another man elf-fucker.
I pledge some non-negative number of dollars to DS's mission! Who will follow me?
*but possibly decimal
There's a first time for everything. If this man isn't straight as an arrow, I'm not the biggest Wayne County fan of all time.
What about a Christian homeschooling magazine, DS? For the frisson of the unexpected!
222: I actually need a magazine that will lure women simultaneously away from Cosmo and Vice. I was thinking maybe Bust, but Cosmo readers can smell the Concealed Hippie on that shit a mile away.
(I wonder of Christian Homeschooling Magazine knows their homepage is less than three clicks away from Satan.)
Those three clicks represent Paradiso, Purgatorio, and Inferno. Yes, you must be constantly vigilant to deter backsliding!
Why all the hating on Cosmo?
I for one am in favor of mass-market magazines that encourage women to go pantyless in the office and to make improving their fellatio technique a top personal development priority.
223: Glamour, actually, has been known to do actual half-decent semi-feminist campaigns from time to time. I like Bitch, but it has that concealed hippie problem, I suppose. Vanity Fair at least has decent articles sometimes. This is actually a cool list of everything from the Aphra Behn society newsletter to Chatelaine.
I'm sure I've said this before: one my favourite Cosmo sex tips of all time was "Show Enthusiasm." Seriously.
208: eh, whatever. It's a shame the sexes don't get along better. Also, world peace would be good.
I used to like Cosmo for the reasons KR gives in 226. It's like a peek into a fantasy world where all women behave like exotic high-class mistresses. But then I realized pretty much all the issues were the same.
Jezebel is good right now. "Pot Psychology" is hilarious, one of the best things on the web.
Enthusiasm is a good thing to remember. Romance says it should always arrive completely spontaneously, but sometimes if you're feeling a little distracted or run down at first you can whip yourself into quite an enthusiastic state through just a little effort.
Also, I got a bunch of travel vaccinations -- yellow fever, hep A and B, tetanus, typhoid -- and now I feel really pretty sick.
We should all pitch in and bribe a doctor to post here regularly. All us fucking humanities mavens here...the last thing I need is more opinions, I generate those myself. Where's a hypochondriac to turn for late-night medical advice?
"Show enthusiasm" as a tip for sex is like, one of those things that if you have to be told, you shouldn't be doing it.
you can whip yourself into quite an enthusiastic state through just a little effort
A German aphorism advises that "Hunger comes with the eating."
228: In high school, I came across a Marie Claire that said enthusiasm couldn't be faked because "The proof is in the pudding, girls."
232: Well yes, but it *is* important. You can't say Cosmo was wrong.
But then I realized pretty much all the issues were the same.
One of the best accidental learning moments of my life, I think, was when a boyfriend's sister gave me her entire cache of women's magazines--stuff like Cosmo, etc.--at the age of what, 15? 16? I had never read that stuff, because I would have been absolutely mortified; my mother would have been withering if she'd caught me reading such crap. I used to secretly read things about "which season are you?" and such in the library stacks at around this age, standing up nervously, hoping she wouldn't catch me--god knows I was too afraid to check that stuff out.
Anyhoo, so I took K's magazine stash home and hid it under my bed, and had a week or two binge of reading stupid women's magazines. I learned two things: Never Apply Mascara to Your Lower Lashes, and women's magazines of that type are all the same, and are really very boring after a while. Cured me forever.
(Though I will thumb through the occasional Vogue on an airplane or in a salon--but at least that's an actual sort of fashion magazine, and eschews articles about mascara application.)
"Show enthusiasm" as a tip for sex is like, one of those things that if you have to be told, you shouldn't be doing it.
I suspect there is more than one commenter in this forum who will testify that "show enthusiasm" does not go without saying.
Beginning performers have to be taught to train themselves to keep a smile on their faces while on stage, too.
I look weird if I only apply mascara to my upper lashes, but it does prevent the dreaded Raccoon Eye.
235: You can't say Cosmo was wrong.
I can say maybe Cosmo should have been saying, "If you need this magazine to tell you to show enthusiasm for your partner, hie thee to a sex therapist immediately."
237: My favorite makeup ingredient is Benefit's She-Lac. Before She-Lac, I couldn't wear eye makeup at all, b/c it would inevitably end up in a dark circle under my eye. So gross.
238: Slack, where's your sense of humor? We're talking about Cosmo here.
Cosmo is Very Serious Business, B.
Actually, I'm sort of serious. I really think any magazine that presumes to dispense advice to abused spouses andor girlfriends immediately relinquishes the Frivlous Exemption.
239: I should get that, since the only mascara I like is Benefit's Bad Gal. That shit is serious.
240: Well, fair enough I guess. I suppose in a way you have to give them credit for realizing that their readers might be abuse victims. But it's a crappy magazine; of *course* it gives crappy advice.
241: I haven't tried it, but I confess that I am increasingly a fan of Benefit for my occasional makeup needs. Except for their eyebrow stuff; Smashbox's is better, b/c the wax isn't tinted so you don't end up with the obviously fake painted-on brow look.
Bave and I were at a bar tonight and I had to listen to some Dimitri-the-Lover-esque shit coming from a guy behind me to the lady he's dating about how she needs to learn how to be herself because she's just playing games because she's not being clearly enthusiastic about their relationship and he doesn't play games or tolerate the playing of games and she needs to be mature enough to show her true affection for him. The girl was, unfortunately, sort of going along with it, but intermittently saying, "Well, if you don't like how I am, why would you want to be with me?" And then he'd go back to saying how he knows that her True Self would adore him unquestioningly, except she was probably abused as a child and self-conscious about having English as a second language, and that he's hoping, at least for a little while, that she will learn to mature enough to adore him openly. I was digging my nails into my palms the whole time. Oh my God, what a fucking pig.
244: Yes, demanding that someone else Show Enthusiasm regardless of their actual feelings is also dickish. Two sides of the same coin.
Beginning performers have to be taught to train themselves to keep a smile on their faces while on stage, too.
"Fake it 'til you make it" is time-honored advice.
Inequality in Emotional Involvement
i read only the abstract and the thread discussion
what i thought, if the relationship is equal and competitive it's kinda fragile and unstable, if to find the truly balanced inequality like 60/40 or 70/30 or however you split it according to the personalities it could be stable and fulfilling
if too much inequality 90/10 like in reality or how one perceives it is, then total incompatibility and breakup, it's like in all live systems, if it's not open of course
50/50 and harmonious relationship would be pretty innatural and lukewarm or maybe just does not exist in nature
244: I'm by nature out of touch with the bar dating scene, but wouldn't it have been possible for you and Bave to improvise a little skit for her to overhear?
Isn't there a special way of faking orgasm that induces a real orgasm? The Masturfake?
249: I'm guessing this is based on the principle that 90% of stimulation is mental, so if you fake it well enough, you can can convince yourself. In which case, it's no longer faking! Yet another instance where, in relationships, the capacity for self-deception is the key to happiness.
shorter what i wanted to say is just maybe it's like more real and rewarding to seek not absolute emotional equality which is unachievable, but compatible inequality
I can't remember what medium I saw this aphorism in--it was probably needlepoint art or a painted wooden plaque in some redstate relative's bathroom--but it went something like this...
"A happy marriage is a 60-40 proposition: both partners have to give 60 and take 40."
There's real wisdom in that folk wisdom.
I'm guessing this is based on the principle that 90% of stimulation is mental, so if you fake it well enough, you can can convince yourself. In which case, it's no longer faking!
While I'm spouting aphorisms, there's one that some therapists use about how "It's easier to act yourself into better thoughts than to think yourself into better actions."
both partners have to give 60 and take 40
my pragmatic side asks where goes the shared unused 40, into the air? what a waste?!
255: It goes into the world like snow white turtle doves. It's the real thing!
it's the real thing
what is it? snow white dove i can imagine, turtle is kinda out of the image, is it like a name of subspecies of doves something?
i looked it up, there is a book out of stock at target named that
In NYC, we have rock doves and mourning doves.
the rock doves are familiar, we have those, the other two doves i never saw
i was imagining the wrong bird, swan instead of dove, coz snow white when i clicked the link there was a dove, dissonance like experience :)
thanks
i thought that doves are called pigeons only, if pigeon i wouldn't have mistaken
"Dove" is handy if you're differentiating between types. Typically, a "rock dove" is what we'll call the regular kind of pigeon in this area. (In England, I think the typical pigeon is the "wood dove.") But it's nice to keep an eye out for mourning doves, because they're rather pretty and make interesting sounds.
Mourning doves are all over the place here, and you can hear them wherever you go.
Pelicans are funnylooking on land but in the air they're powerful and graceful. They frequently soar in circles in groups of 5 or 10, seemingly just for the fun of it.
here, JE
http://www.mos.mn/Mongolian_bird_photo.htm
hope, you'll enjoy the site, it's a bit slow loading
where goes the shared unused 40
Community. Really.
That was my second answer. The first was "Texas." That's because I've been listening to Terry Allen again. The Wolfman of Del Rio.
Now I have to run up to Gettysburg. Later, y'all.
Low hanging fruit:
Jesse Helms, the fiery former senator from North Carolina... died today at the age of 86 after suffering from dementia in recent years.
i liked this it's so gloomy :)
pity, low resolution
The universality of the coot is one of the great truths of life.
