Real talk: I’ve had this happen a couple of times, and know of many other people who either went through this or believed the same nonsense, with all types and permutations of identities and Southern plumbing between them. And all I’m left with after trying to wrap my head around this thing is a question: can we really blame the people who are doing stuff like this considering Mass Media’s been force-feeding us this nonsense from the beginning?
I’m not saying this should imply forgiving the behaviour, not in a million years! I’m just questioning where our collective frustration should be directed.
Only valuing a relationship for the momentary bliss of being close to someone new is a problem of emotional immaturity.
The problem arises when we consider the facts that a person’s emotional development depends on parenting, and people tend to partner with others of similar emotional maturity. If you’ve got one immature parent, you’ve more than likely got two. It takes extra work to shed that baggage and start being your genuine self.
It’s definitely a cultural ill, but I can’t credit the notion that our emotional development comes from our media. We need to be teaching people what emotional maturity is, how to get there, and how to heal from having emotionally immature parents.
Emotional immaturity is so pervasive at this point you’d need to put this stuff in the curriculum of every school and have that initiative succeed for multiple decades to change the culture.
That’s a big subject, so I’m just going to recommend my favourite book about it:
My belief is that emotional immaturity is the natural state of humanity. Without guidance, some wise people will reach maturity, but that’s really a small subset of the population, and the vast majority of people will not make this growth.
The vast majority of people do things because that’s what they’ve always known; it takes special effort to question why you do what you do. Saying that these people are emotionally immature may be true, but I don’t think that the cause is that people have emotionally immature parents. People have to be specifically taught to value rationality and wisdom over vibes and feelings, and without this concerted effort, most people will simply be emotionally immature.
I don’t think humanity has a “natural state” so much as a rock bottom - and I’m not even convinced it has one of those. It’s not really a state of being we should promote or excuse.
You speak of guidance as if it comes from some unknown external source - the source is other people. That’s exactly why I said we should teach about emotional maturity in schools, to give kids necessary guidance.
Genitalia. Meaning the genders and sexualitiesb of the people are not what determines their behaviour
Ah, thank you. Of course. I was confused by “between them”, thinking it only referred to the southern plumbing.
Seems a lot of people get addicted to the drama, continuous stimulation, emotional rollercoasters, cheap thrills and quick validation. Social media made it a lot worse. It gets to the point people can’t live anymore without the drama and go in withdrawal to seek out new thrills. It’s the opposite of a stable relationship.
I get what you mean, stress for the cortisol, anxiety for the adrenaline type deal. And, yeah, I do agree that such a temperament/character/neurochemical inclination seeks these situations for different reasons.
But I’ve also seen plenty of cases where it was just based on a belief, they were convinced that a relationship reached a breaking point once the chemical ecstasy started to die down. The people holding it were obviously suffering because of it (though not fully aware of this causation) and genuinely wanted to find a fix. Unfortunately, they went from disappointment to disappointment when the inevitable kept happening.
It’s also why I only have questions, there are layers upon layers of nuance with subjects like this…
I don’t think its too much of an ask for my partner to be aware of and avoid brainrot.
If an idiot like me can, they can too.
Again, it is well within your prerogative to not accept such behaviour! I honestly view it as yet another traumatic maladaptation and treat it as such - even though it’s causally not their fault that they believe/behave thusly, it is their responsibility to keep it in check.
But I’ll be straight with you, I think you may be underestimating yourself and overestimating the average person. Critical Thinking really isn’t innate, it’s a skill. A skill which a lot (I’d even go as far as to say a large majority) of people thoroughly lack, because it is a skill which needs training from very early on, as it builds upon itself. I don’t think there’s a general educational schema on Earth at the moment which in any way truly encourages Critical Thinking, if there ever has been one. From what I’ve seen, it tends to come into play way later and in very specific fields of study, which means there’s a lot of catching up to do by that point, so the horizon it affects tends to remain narrow.
Not to mention the utterly insidious and imperceptible nature of ideological corruption. It’s incredibly hard to see the brainwashing if one’s been going through it since before one started forming coherent throughts. It permeates even the subconscious.
I’m not trying to play the perfect being over here, I’ve seen myself being as dumb as a rock at times and I know that I have a llllot of learning left in front of me. But realistically speaking, just because we’re dumb doesn’t mean others aren’t even dumber…
Love is decision, not a feeling.
The way I have had it explained is:
Infatuation is psychosis
Love is reason
Which makes a lot of sense to me.
Not to downplay the value of infatuation, I’d say! Free drugs’re always nice, and infatuation is an especially exquisite drug in and of itself! Its relative rarity also adds to its refinement!
All that’s needed is an understanding that it is just that, a drug, and like with every other drug, the high inevitably fades.
I also think people tend to forget that infatuation can be reignited! It’s not necessarily an easy process, nor is it an unpleasant one! Taking a nice trip somewhere romantic (thoroughly recommend a beach resort during late autumn if you’re partial to cold, the sparsity of people and melancholy of the time and place have done wonders so far!), a cozy date, a tantalising movie - basically any shared experience can lead to it, as long as it’s the right one for everyone involved!
Love and infatuation can feed into each other with a little bit of patience and curiosity!
The way I see it, love can blossom from infatuation, but a relationship can’t survive on infatuation alone.
Looks like someone hasn’t heard the Darkness classic Love Is Only a Feeling!
“There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.” Jane Austen
It’s a greentext, so take with a grain of salt.
Part of building a relationship is getting to know one another more deeply. And maybe you get to a point in a relationship where you don’t actually like the person you’re with anymore.
If you’re only seeing someone a couple hours a day for a couple days a week, and the person is always trying to impress you, then the impression you get isn’t going to be the same as you get living with that person for months at a time.
If you started dating in high school as immature teenagers and then you develop at different speeds, maybe the person you’re with doesn’t seem as dashing or sophisticated as they did a few years ago. Maybe the person starts drinking or works long hours or is constantly stressed out, and you don’t want to be around that anymore.
Or maybe you date someone for a few months and then you’re just… done. You did that thing, you’re bored, you want a new thing. Going steady isn’t the same as getting married. When you’re young, lots of people look incredibly hot and your hormones will regularly outrun your common sense.
Breaking up sucks. But the biggest mistake you can make as a young person is thinking the puppy love you feel on the first date is going to last forever. If you don’t want this kind of miserable heartbreak, the best advice is to not be so committed early on. Date lots of people. Don’t fixate on a single person just because you get some attention in response. Break up early and break up often. Worry about settling down when you’re older.
Most recent OGLAF (NSFW) is on point
She is a putin three years in his victorious three-day campaign.
