Searching beyond a relationship

speaking of low-carb diets... from Jeff Galloway, an expert in marathon running (no, I do not run, I just read about it ).

"Low-Carb Diets Don't Tell You This

- You don't burn fat - many gain fat
- The weight loss is usually water loss, with glycogen loss
- Almost everyone on this diet resumes regular eating, within a few weeks or months
- Almost all low-carb dieters gain back more weight than they lost.
- You lose the energy and motivation to exercise
- You lose exercise capacity than can help to keep the weight off when you resume eating normally
- Your metabolism rate goes down-making it harder to keep the weight off

From Running and Fatburning for Women"

If he is right, and I respect him a lot and he has taught numerous marathon training sessions throughout the country and has competed himself even while injured and has written books etc.... then cats and people are very different.

I'm not going to get into any debate with you, H-B. But pornography has been around long before the Internet. Maybe the Internet just makes it easier to access.

I agree that I have evidently overemphasized the existence of sexual monogamy in animals, now that I have read more about the issue.

As I mentioned before, I still have my strong personal beliefs, based on my religious principles. Yes, if people have other principles, then they can do differently, if it's something that they agree upon.

Yes, the Internet has made a non-marginal impact on access to pornography, just as it has made a non-marginal impact on access to information as a whole.

While pornography in general leads every time a new technology is created - say, pornographic books were among the first books published after Gutenberg invented printing... the Bible was among the first books as well... other, non-pornographic uses of new technology do pick up, eventually. So the Internet has given wide access to both pornography and non-pornography.

You do not need to rationalize beliefs. Beliefs are just that - beliefs, they are in your mind as well as in the minds of others who share your beliefs. Some people prefer Mac products and always would buy Mac products and that is fine. Everybody can have their beliefs.

To the point of monogamy being the best that the civilization has yielded so far... since it clearly is not the first social arrangement, historically, if it is considered the best, it must be an upgrade, right?

There are several issues with upgrades. First and probably the most obvious one, they are costly. Second, they are usually buggy. The reason some companies' IT departments have a policy not to upgrade automatically but wait and see is that because upgrades introduce bugginess and tracking down problems is costly and time-consuming by itself, to the point of causing serious damage. If indeed 30% of married women per the article from this site have affairs and it is considered bad, then it seems that the model itself is very buggy and failure-prone (30% failure is a high rate) and we should wait and see and let somebody deal with the bugginess, if the issue is simply bugginess, or with faulty design, if there is a deeper issue, before we adopt the model, even if theoretically the model promises to deliver superior results.

Another problem with upgrades is loss of functionality and features. Sometimes you lose so much that you cannot even call an upgrade an upgrade anymore.

Say, Google Drive versus the MS Office suite. Is Google Drive an upgrade? Well, depends on whom you ask and what that person's NEEDS are.

For me personally it is a fantastic upgrade because the thing keeps everything in the cloud, where, thanks god, somebody other than me is responsible for storage (I lose keys, vital documents, forget where I have parked my car, etc. etc. so I just cannot be trusted with storage). Google Docs less feature-full than Word? I do not care. I write for content only and the simplicity of Google Docs is completely fine with me because that massive suite of desktop-publishing-level capabilities of MS Word is not only not needed for me, but is outright intimidating and overwhelming. So if Google drive cannot quite deliver what Word can but timestamps my revisions, spellchecks, stores, makes the content searchable, and is free, I am totally happy with that upgrade. I do not use MS Suite. With spreadsheets, a couple of formulae with vlookups is all I need and the formidable might of MS Excel is excessive for me. So I am fine with Google drive spreadsheets and appreciate the ability to not deal with attachments but have access to the spreadsheets from different computers.

But other people are NOT happy yet because they have needs and requirements that are far more complex. That is why Google Drive and MS Office suite for now co-exist. Will G Drive replace the MS office eventually? We will see; I am sure that MS will make improvements in order to render the arms' race harder to win for their rival.

Going back to monogamy - if you personally appreciate the simplicity and ease of use of monogamy just as I appreciate the simplicity and ease of use of cloud-based office applications, it does not mean that there are not other people who value the more complex functionality of non-monogamy. Why? People have different needs.

Right. Only humans can rationalize the need for monogamy, in particular, or any social arrangement, in general. So if monogamy exists in some species, it probably either is due to some evolutionary advantage or chance, but not rationalization.

Generally, monogamy has been the most popular of the options historically, but, yes, other people have tried and sometimes liked other options.

Are you a big computer person? Your computer analogies are interesting.

Frightened Rabbit, what do you have to say? Are we getting too far away from what you wanted discussed in this thread?

No, I am not. I was just told that it would be hard to order a part for my mbp because apple considers it VINTAGE based on its serial. It is that old! And I am one of the people who may prefer to be hard-wired simply because setting up wifi is so challenging...

Sorry...been dealing with a migraine for a couple of days now. Please continue to discuss. I'm not putting any restrictions on it...

Personally, I can see monogamy outliving its usefulness in the future. Not for everyone, but I can already see the pendulum swinging in that direction. Whether that's right or wrong...or just is...well, we'll see, I suppose.

I struggle with this issue in my head every day and constantly question my morals.

I will never forgive a cheater. I've been cheated on, and it disgusts me to think of sleeping with someone that's been with someone else while committed. Makes me sick t my stomach.

At the same time, I've finally found a man who is loyal, trustworthy, and faithful, who is here for the long run and wants to build a family. But there are also major qualities lacking - his maturity, knowledge, job ability and ambition, and also we aren't very sexually compatible and our lack of sex life has taken a major toll. I justify staying with him as, "you can't have your cake and eat it too..."

Well, I am impulsive and generally an emotional mess. Ive filled the voids in our relationship by having an affair with a older man. He accepts that I am in a relationship, probably because of his culture. The two relationships balance me and make me feel whole. When I try to end my affair, I always end up going back because the holes are left empty again. I was in therapy but lost my insurance, so right now I'm just between a rock and a hard place.

It is a double life and I am such a hypocrite. Don't know what else I can say except share my story...

So all blonde women must have dyed their hair? Not a single natural blonde on the planet?

Well, that's something very interesting. My personal opinion is that without your partner's permission (not being in an open relationship) is thought as cheating. And if you just look for something else when you're in a loving relationship, maybe this relationship is not what you're looking for. If you feel the need to search for something different, then there's something wrong with your current relationship, that you can or not fix. But just to be clear, I believe that you can like other guys too, just not wanting them much.

Thanks... for a non-computer analogy...

For many years I thought that I was lactose-intolerant and bought Lactaid milk.

Then I suspected that I might have attributed a coincidental tummy ache or two in the past to lactose intolerance and decided to try the good old milk with lactose.

I am doing fine and do not have tummy aches.

Lactaid costs twice as much.

Lactaid comes in half-gallons only. Milk with lactose can be bought from Costco in packages of two gallons (2 1-gallon bottles).

So milk with lactose is way cheaper and I do not have to worry about running out of milk. I consume a lot of milk, so I need to have milk in the fridge all the time. So now that I can buy so much milk at once and spend so much less on an ounce of milk, I should be exceedingly happy and the change is a pure improvement.

Right?

Wrong...

There were unexpected costs and unexpected sufferers once I made the move.

I have three cats and cats ARE lactose-intolerant. My cats like milk. Back when I used Lactaid, I did not worry if they would lap from my glass (although there are horrible reports on the internet about the consequences of sharing drinks or food with cats, My cat likes to drink out of my water glass and I have been having some stomach issues. I do not allow the cat to do this Can you get sick if you drink after a cat, I personally have never suffered such consequences and when I was a teen I drank fresh cow's milk right on the farm unpasteurized and did not get botulism either, so I personally do not worry about this part).

Moreover, I experience some satisfaction from sharing high quality human foods/drinks with the cats. I like to share plain greek yogurt with them, rotisserie chicken, lamb etc. because it feels nice to have this kind of community).

Now I have to guard the glass so that they would not drink from it and I do not get that little bit of satisfaction that I used to get. Guarding the glass is a nuisance and the loss of satisfaction is a small reduction in the quality of life.

It took me many weeks of pondering to find a solution, and I am sure that the solution is obvious to you now that you are reading it, but I am a slow thinker so it has taken me so long.

I will be buying Lactaid just for the cats, infrequently, and giving them Lactaid in a separate glass just when I pour milk with lactose for myself. They will get to drink Lactaid and I will not need to guard my glass because they would be occupied.

Great.

There is a little bit of extra cost in buying expensive Lactaid, but not much since the cats won't be consuming that much.

This situation was very simple. It involved one woman, two types of milk, and three cats. Not complex, right?

Yet, a seemingly positive change resulted in unexpected costs and a solution was necessary to optimize the situation.

This is very typical of the rest of the human existence in all the areas ever touched by human decision-making. Every decision, as a rule, results in some costs and some benefits. The costs may or may not be internalized by the decision-makers etc. so it can get complicated, but the basic truth that there is no free lunch ("The free-market economist Milton Friedman also popularized the phrase[1] by using it as the title of a 1975 book,[4] and it often appears in economics textbooks.[5] Campbell McConnell writes that the idea is "at the core of economics".[6]" from Wikipedia).

So you should realize that while it is theoretically possible that monogamy is superior to all other arrangements, it is highly unlikely, because in general all arrangements have pros and cons (=costs and benefits), so if monogamy is indeed the winner overall, it will be completely unique in its status of the winner overall.

To properly calculate the overall costs and benefits of monogamy, you will need to take into account the costs and benefits to all humans, even those outside of the individual couple-units, and that is a very difficult exercise.

Eh? You've lost me. And its out of context. If you're going to cut and paste, then perhaps do the whole thing I wrote?!

Sure just a sec.

Sorry. See bold.

So you saying that if needing more than one partner is a NATURAL trait, then this trait must be present 100%.

Most traits are not. They are distributed, and the distribution may vary depending on factors.

I believe that Norway does have some naturally blonde women. Africa - maybe not, but Norway does.

So the trait of being naturally blonde, while being natural, has a low incidence.

The trait of having dark hair, while also being natural, has a high incidence worldwide, but still not 100%.

In other words, like Payne, you are saying that sexual relationships are in some way completely unique and do not follow any of the usual patterns that we have been able to observe so far in non-sexual areas. I have only been able to observe one such thing. Partner sex between man and woman can lead to reproduction. Well, assisted reproduction now exists, but for the majority of human history, partner sex between man and woman was unique in its capacity to perpetuate the species.

Does this uniqueness warrant concluding that in all possible respects sexual relationships do not follow common patterns of everything non-sexual in the world?

So far we have observed that having blonde hair or having schizophrenia, while being natural, is relatively rare, and having black hair or being mentally well, while still being natural, is relatively wide-spread, and it is OK. At the same time being non-monogamous is not natural because it does not have 100% incidence. Then what is natural? Only death, because the only thing that happens to everybody is death. The rest is uncertain, distributed, and not 100% prevalent. Even the thing that makes partner sex between a man and a woman of reproductive age unique, in my experience - procreation - does not happen to everybody. It has a set of probabilities that are associated with age and other factors.

Likewise, if all arrangements have costs and benefits, and monogamy is the ONLY arrangement that has no costs and only has benefits, it seems weird. Not necessarily outright impossible, but really weird.

Maybe I have forgotten what I implied, but I don't think I was indicating that monogamy is an inborn tendency. It just makes sense, at least historically. And it has been the most popular choice.

If people choose not to be monogamous, then that is their choice. But I see all kinds of negative consequences to this behavior, compared to monagamous behavior. And why is it that it's usually the men who have all the partners, but not the women? (Just thinking about sexist behavior.)

I agree that if the couple has not agreed to an open relationship, then each partner should not step out. It does hurt.

Again, why is sex so unique?

I have a tiny range of acceptable food choices, cannot eat almost anything if the original taste of that anything has been altered (not out of a willed desire for purity, but because I cannot - I have tried and found them all disgusting beyond belief): no flavored coffee, no non-pure chocolate that is not at least 85% cacao, no fruit yogurt but just plain, only those frozen vegetables that are packaged alone, without any sauces or extra ingredients, etc. I also cannot eat 99% of prepared foods because they are all too salty for me and when something is too salty, I cannot taste it - I only taste the salt. And, no spicy food. Etc.

But within this unusually narrow range of choices, I do like some variety.

People also like different art, enjoy talking with different people, etc.

I also have three cats and enjoy having three cats and my ex husband has one cat and prefers having one cat. He thinks that he gets more attention from the cat because the cat is not engaged in relationships with other cats, and I like watching the interactions between the cats.

So there must be something unique to sex that it does not follow the rest of our interactions, be they with other people, food, drink, art, pets, or what not.

So other than procreation, where does this uniqueness stem from?

Can we rephrase it in that you can love one person, A, for her uniqueness and another person, B, for her (different) uniqueness and it is impossible to alter the relationship with person A to such an extent that you stop loving person B because person A is not person B, and not because there is something intrinsically wrong in your relationship with person A?

What leads you to conclude that "there's something wrong with your current relationship, that you can or not fix"?

Also, due to the cost-benefit thing discussed above, there is something WRONG with every relationship.

So, should people altogether stop having relationships until they find one in which there is nothing WRONG? That would endanger the species' future for sure.

The point that no relationship is completely RIGHT and the point that you can several relationships that all feel RIGHT are independent.

Another very interesting idea is that people should not be used as sex objects. I am not clear what it means - being a sex object - but apparently it has to do with using a person as a tool or a means to an end. And it is not OK.

Now, everywhere else it is OK. To some extent, it is OK.

When my children were little, I would carry them on my left hip. That left my leading right hand free - very nice. The children liked seeing the world around them from a higher vantage point. Children want to be held for different reasons, including comfort and what not, but also because when parents hold them, they can see more - children are short and they cannot see much from the floor. So the children were using me as a tool.

So should I have instituted a checklist/interview process when I had toddlers? Say: "Tell me if you want to be held to bond with me, your mother, and appreciate my human personality, and then I will hold you, or tell me that you want to see more things, using me as a tool, and I won't hold you?"

Well, with that kind of vocabulary I do not think that I would have gotten very far with non-verbal toddlers. I think there would have been lots of crying and frustration.

People routinely use their LinkedIn connections to network. It is considered normal and OK and a sign of being up-to-date on modern technologies, in general, and social networks, in particular.

We sometimes get rides from other people.

So it is a mix - sometimes we have a conversation with somebody because we just love hearing his voice, and sometimes we have a need and using the person as a tool, and that is OK.

The ONLY place where I have seen repeated sentiment/statements that you must have interactions with your partner only when you view your partner as a whole person (whatever it means - I have never been able to understand what it means, but since so many people say it, it must have meaning in their minds) has been in relation to sex.

What I see is that sex is unlike:

-- conversations
-- all human relationships in any shape and form
-- friendships
-- food
-- alcohol
-- art
-- hobbies
-- professions and careers (I have never heard that you must stay committed to one career in this rapidly-changing world)
-- sports
-- anything else.

So, completely UNIQUE. A stand-alone phenomenon.

And again, the only basis seems to be procreation. True, you cannot procreate from having conversations, non-sexual friendships, working, eating, etc. So procreation must be so important that it explains the very drastic position that sex occupies vis-a-vis EVERYTHING ELSE.

And we have 2-3 kids per lifetime on average per couple and some couples are childless for a variety of reasons and some gay couples cannot afford assisted reproduction, etc.

So it seems strange that having 2-3 kids per lifetime affects such a big area of human life in such a sweeping way, making this area completely distinct from everything else we know.

ideas?

And, somebody mentioned that sex with different people would feel the same because the body would respond in the same way, and the rest is in your head. The person who posted it appended this interesting and far-reaching conjecture with "presumably", so I concluded that the poster had not conducted any experiments to collect and interpret data to prove or disprove the theory, but used a seat of the pants approach instead.

OK, then in the seat of the pants approach fashion, can we theorize why the body responds differently to different foods and why we enjoy hearing different voices (I mean actual real voices of different people and not psychotic voices)? Is it due to some differences in the foods and the voices and our perceptions of them somehow mixed together or is it just completely "in your head"?

If it is completely in my head, I would like to receive some sort of nutritionally-balanced and affordable easily-preparable meal every day, just same stuff every day, and some therapy to help me deal with the fact that I have such strong preferences with respect to food and such a narrow range of acceptable choices and also get bored with the same tastes if they are repeated too often. I care about variety so much that I rotate the cat food because I feel compassion for the cats and assume that they, too, enjoy variety. And, I also very much enjoy the value the non-nutritional aspects of eating, say texture, smell, and general esthetics. So while I do want the easily-preparable meal and all the convenience benefits that come with it, someone would need to help me deal with this annoying habit of being so selective and particular.

Please let me know where I can get the food and the therapy.

And to continue on the feline aspect of this thread, the only live person I have known who is more selective with respect to food is my (soon to be ex) 2nd husband. His preferences are similar to mine, he also cannot eat salty or spicy food or foods altered by condiments etc., but he also needs all foods served at the same time and positioned in a particular order on the dinner table. Everything needed to be available at the same time on the dinner table. Bread only toasted and only two kinds - either one particular kind of San Francisco sour dough or pure German rye bread. No other breads. Feta cheese only from one particular country (I forgot which one since I have not fed him for half a year) out of the whole range of feta-producing countries. (I am not so discriminating and can eat feta from different countries as long as it is made from sheep's milk or goat's milk or a combination of the two but not from cow's milk). And avocados needed to be cut and served separately and never added to salads, or, god forbid, made into guacamole. And the list went on. And, of course, variety and rotation.

AND, such a person buys one and the same substandard and horrible cheap cat food for his precious kitty and does not offer the kitty ANYTHING else all year round.

So what about

"The Golden Rule or ethic of reciprocity is a maxim

...

(Negative form of Golden Rule): One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated." (from Wikipedia)

or are cats exempt?

H-B, I have to admit I am getting overwhelmed with your analogies. It might be just my slow brain.

I do think sex is special myself. It is a gift one person gives another, if you will. Again, remember I am very conservative. My hubby has been great at it, and I don't care to sample other men.

Ok, I still don't really follow the hair colour thing. It seems too involved when it doesn't need to be and I feel that you're making more of my original post that was even there.

I implied with my post, I think, that those folk who say that its a natural trait to want many partners, then surely everyone would feel the same if its a human trait? Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but I was merely pointing out that if this nature thing is so strong, then surely more folk would be doing it? Hair colour has very little to do with how we behave sexually, sorry, using hair colour as an analogy for me is not helpful as its just an appearance thing, not an behavioural thing. And last time I checked schizophrenia was an illness not a human trait.

For the record, personally I do not think that it is down to nature, and that so many complex factors come into play as to why people cheat/have multiple partners. I think I stated that in my post too.

An incident with a cat led to this exchange between my current partner and me and it sums up my position and his very nicely. As usual, consulting with a dictionary is immensely helpful and resolves any lingering doubts. Every time I see "committed relationship" in print, as if it were a good thing, the word "commit" really really offends my brain, if I may say so. I always thought that it was just an idiosyncratic reaction of mine, but no, it is sensible: in the dictionary entry, the commitment against one's will is placed above the commitment in the sense of "commitment to marriage". So that is why it was so offensive to my brain - for a good reason.


From me to him:

I now understand why I do not want committed relationships. I want people to want my company on their free will. I do not want to act in the capacity of a prison or a mental health facility.

Yesterday, I was bringing a large Amazon box into the apartment, and Adele ran away while I was doing it. I chased and caught her.

I still feel kind of bad because I am not letting her do what she wants to do.

But she is a cat, a pet, and I am responsible for her health, safety, and wellbeing and I know that she would be better off with me so I am to some extent justified in keeping her against her will.

But I simply do not get how people want to keep their partners against their will. Human partners - not pets. Humans are responsible for their health, safety, and wellbeing on their own so there is no justification in not letting them do whatever they want.

I mean, I have understood it for a while, but this dictionary entry does the job of fully explaining my train of thought.

com·mit (k-mt)
v. com·mit·ted, com·mit·ting, com·mits
v.tr.
1. To do, perform, or perpetrate: commit a murder.
2. To put in trust or charge; entrust: commit oneself to the care of a doctor; commit responsibilities to an assistant.
3. To place officially in confinement or custody, as in a mental health facility.
4. To consign for future use or reference or for preservation: commit the secret code to memory.
5. To put into a place to be kept safe or to be disposed of.
6.
a. To make known the views of (oneself) on an issue: I never commit myself on such issues.
b. To bind or obligate, as by a pledge: They were committed to follow orders.
7. To refer (a legislative bill, for example) to a committee.
v.intr.
To pledge or obligate one's own self: felt that he was too young to commit fully to marriage.
[Middle English committen, from Latin committere : com-, com- + mittere, to send.]

From him to me:

I totally agree. This is a normal reaction of a responsible adult. Even though I have to acknowledge that most people do not want freedom of choice and are willing to exchange it for a ring, house, and/or a promise of sexual exclusivity.

My further thoughts, not sent to him:

1) I like my fingers are they are, "unadorned", and most rings are very ugly, so I have no objections to not having a ring
2) a house would be very nice or at least an apartment would be very nice
3) I thought more on sexual exclusivity and do not see any benefits in it other than in having unprotected sex. This guy with whom I had this exchange treats me very well unlike ex 2nd H who was exclusive with me and I with him and nobody derived any benefit from it over the course of those many many years that we were together. So clearly it is more important to be with a nice person than to be with someone exclusively - that part seems obvious and not subject to discussion. OK, so maybe exclusivity has some add-on benefits, as an optional but positive thing? Nice clearly is not optional - it is required, but maybe exclusive is optionally beneficial? Say, hypothetically, if a person is nice AND, on top of it, is sexually exclusive with you, may be that would be better than just nice by itself? Not sure, still see no benefit.

Nope, people can do what they want. But they should be free to do so without hurting another. If a relationship is exclusive, or at least started out that way, then the person who wants to stray should tie up loose ends first, and give the person they are with a choice - will you share me, or not? At least then there are options for the person who may not actually want their partner to sleep with others and allow them to find someone else who wants exclusivity like themselves. And I disagree, nobody 'keeps partners against their will, unless in an abusive relationship. People are free to go.

Lying, cheating, sneaking are not a way to treat someone who you are with. So you could say there is no justification to hurt someone either.

Its very interesting how you objectify sex and relationships. Its almost like a business deal with you I think? Forgive me if am wrong. Problem is there are many many people who do not feel the same. I am one of those people, and I find that an exclusive relationship isn't just about safe sex, its also about trust, love, hopes, dreams, sharing a common goal with relationships, being tight knit. Without those things, sex is just sex, it is just an act. And sex like that for me is empty. As they say, why have a burger when you can have steak? He's my best friend and I don't think I could feel the same about him if he were sleeping with someone else, or I was.

Just curious, what dictionary were you using? If I didn't have a cat on me, I might look it up in the OED. But cat trumps dictionary.

I was kind of confused by Hamster's partner's comment about people not wanting free will and exchanging it for a ring/house/sexual exclusivity? Personally, from my stand point, even though I'm married, I haven't given up any of my free will. Nor do I want to control my husband's actions. We simply have like-minded theories on marriage. I think any relationship, in order to be successful (whatever that means to you) there has to be communication. But then, I'm a newlywed, what do I know?

I realize Hamster's partner isn't here to respond, but just thought I'd comment anyways.

Maybe my husband and I are going against biological traits, or what have you, or maybe we were lobsters in our previous lives. Who knows. We're happy, we talk to each other, we believe we have a successful relationship with its own little imperfections, I think that's all that matters for us. To each their own.

I guess people get a bit cynical when their marriage(s) don't work out. I have been blessed to find a really nice guy who is just amazing in how much he loves me, takes care of me when I need help, and is never abusive. And, as I said, good in bed, too.

I suppose one reason why people step out in a relationship is they don't think/feel their needs are being met.

I have read that some men, during their middle-age crises, have affairs and even maybe leave their wives because they know their wives have learned all their shortcomings, and they want to start over with some chick who will make them feel more like a superhero, so to speak. I've also heard that when men go to see call girls, they aren't necessarily there just for the sex, but they want a woman who will listen to them and make them feel valued. I guess that says that women shouldn't take their husbands for granted, should compliment them, and should make them feel important. How many women have we heard running their husbands down? (Of course, the wives might be disappointed when they were promised the moon, and the only moon they got was the one carved out in the johnny house in the backyard.)