When I was in high school, I had about 30-40 people that I hung out with weekly. There were the guys that I played basketball with at lunch, the guys that I hung out with during breaks and discussed life, the guys that I hung out with and discussed potential parties for the weekend, and the guys that I would goof of with in class.
And from that group I retained about fifteen people that I would call close friends and with whom I continued to hang out with after high school ended.
And then that number dwindled down to like seven or eight. Nothing major, just life. Work, school, relationships, everything takes a toll on you and then one day you wake up and realize you haven't spoken to "T-Bor" for like six months. And somehow, amazingly, especially considering the vast amount of experiences you've had together, you realize that you don't really miss him that much. You miss what you used to have, but the thought of hanging out with him doesn't really excite you like it used to.
So anyway, getting back to the matter at hand: Married friends.
Ugh, I've been out of school for a couple of years, I'm not sure if this punctuation is correct. But I'm not googling it, I refuse!
So anyway; "Married > friends'?"
From that group of eight, it is eight now that I think about it, seven of them have gone on to marry the first girl they asked out. Not dated mind you, although that is obviously the case as well, but literally the first girl they ever had the balls to ASK out.
And these women are widely varied as well. Some introverted, some extroverted, some with tons of dating experience, and some with very little. Some are absolutely gorgeous, and some are real ugmos (good thing only one of them knows this account, and I think he stopped coming on TL like three years ago).
Oh yeah, and the eighth guy ended up marrying the second girl he asked out.
I very recently ended my seventh meaningful relationship. It became very clear that we should never have dated in the first place, so I'm not terribly upset over it. I am upset over my numbers though.
I'm 26, and I've had seven relationships that have lasted five months or more.
And my friends, my god how I hate my friends.
"Well do you want to know how I bagged X?" "X and I might know someone who would be great for you" "See here's what you gotta do...."
I love my friends to death, but seriously shut up. You lucked out with the first woman you asked out. This does not make you a love guru, or a sex god. (Seriously, so much facepalm when they're bragging to me)
But they're all happy, and most of them have kids on the way, so I guess they did do something right that I'm just not getting.
One last story about my brother that I'll spoiler because this is already pretty long*...;?
Precursor: I love my brother. He's the only person I would take a bullet for. Yeah that includes you Graeme! Well maybe I would in the heat of the moment...
Anyway, my brother used to work out 3 times a week and go running every day. He has his masters and he's super talented. Sports, social interaction, humour, he's got it all baby!
But man alive, when it came to women, he had zero confidence. Tons of girls were attracted to him (obviously), but he would never act on it. He would be so worried about getting rejected that he would never take a chance.
So when he was 28 he went off to do more schooling. And once again found himself in the eyes of an attractive girl. And....did nothing again. He hung out with this girl and her friends for an entire year, not once making a move of any kind. And she fell in love with him, and finally got tired of waiting so she asked him out. And then made the first move on their first date.
My brother, who never even held a girls hand before he turned 28, got married to an absolutely gorgeous girl nine months ago by putting in no effort whatsoever. He just showed up to work, did enough to blend in, and then one day got promoted to boyfriend, and then later to husband.
Rod you were right, some guys do have all the luck.
On July 07 2013 03:46 Fumanchu wrote: I love my friends to death, but seriously shut up. You lucked out with the first woman you asked out. This does not make you a love guru, or a sex god. (Seriously, so much facepalm when they're bragging to me)
Ugh, I know exactly how you feel. Just keep with it, your time will come and it will be worth it in the end.
On July 07 2013 05:47 ninazerg wrote: Statistically, 50% of marriages will end in divorce, so just be patient and your friends will have the hammer of Thor come down on their smugness.
On July 07 2013 05:47 ninazerg wrote: Statistically, 50% of marriages will end in divorce, so just be patient and your friends will have the hammer of Thor come down on their smugness.
On July 07 2013 05:47 ninazerg wrote: Statistically, 50% of marriages will end in divorce, so just be patient and your friends will have the hammer of Thor come down on their smugness.
On July 07 2013 05:47 ninazerg wrote: Statistically, 50% of marriages will end in divorce, so just be patient and your friends will have the hammer of Thor come down on their smugness.
How is getting married smugness?
Did you even lift read his blog?
I did. His friends are trying to be helpful, even if it's annoying. Hoping half of them will get divorced is a bit disproportionate.
Well it's kind of pounded into our heads from the moment of birth that marriage and kids are what we are supposed to do, so there's a bit of a drive and (initial) satisfaction from accomplishing these feats. It's also a well-established, but usually reckless, assumption that people who aren't married by age X are, dare I say, "defective." There's something wrong with you! You should be married by now! You've seen people act this way before. So think of your nosy friends as both predictably judgmental but also like you enough to "help" you be normal.
Horror tales of people moving too fast in relationships in my village:
The guys in my old village all started working and getting wifes while im still at university. One of those wifes INSTANTLY became pregnant and also now weighs like 3 times of what she did when she was in school with me.
One guy has a lot of drama where he kinda got tricked by some girl that was looked for by the police. He even moved all her stuff into his parents house and set up some rooms for her because he thought she was fleeing from a violent boyfriend or something. Then they used my mothers city hall influence to get city sponsored flat for her, but the alarms went off and the a few days after they moved all her stuff in, police removed her and now they need to get rid of all her stuff xD.
One guy that somehow managed to make ALL the women get a crush on him (and i mean ALL of them, he is a nerdy irritating accountant guy and the hottest girls in school had a crush on him). he made out with quite a few of them. But then the last girl his magic worked on was my really pretty good friend, she had a crush on him for months, but he didnt even do anything. So she had do do all the moves and basically forced him to spend the night: She had a garden party and i took this guy bowling with a friend and then we drove to the party where she later asked me to drive off without him xD. But then on the next week his magick was all out. I dont know what ahppend with the two, but he really really pissed her off and she still strongly dislikes him 4 years later, which forced him out of the cirlce of friends. He ended up marriying the next woman that was kind enough to go out with him, she is rather fat and not pretty at all, also very boring.
I also have my poor female friend, who started dating this one guy at 16 and married him at 21. He was a total jerk and they divorced rather quickly, then she started dating another guy for years and now they recently split up again, i think he cheated on her. I dont even know why he would do that, she is really pretty and a nice person to have around while he was quite ugly, he will never get a woman like her again. Its kinda heartbreaking to see, i am really sorry for her.
then i have this one guy in my neighbouring village. He started to work quite early and was a loner, but finally lucked out on a girl. She want to university and he helped her a lot. With money and with his time. They even got a dog together. Then they statted to remodel a house of her family to move in together. When it was almost finished and she got her university degree, she took the dog and they split up....she moved right into that new shiny house LOL
We also had one guy getting a nervous breakdown over some other guy stealing his girlfriend or whatever and he showed up with a weapon during the villages schützenfest. Lucky for him people talked him down instead of taking it serious and calling police. Or you know...shooting him.
Also my parents. My mother ended up with some loser guy from the village who hates her children (because he is younger and now will never have a family of his own), driving everyone away from my mother. My father started a corporation and got rich after they seperated, he didnt even care about the divorce leagl stuff. All he did was send me for his venyl records, he didnt even care about the house. I think they never talked again. And it all started with my mother reading some mumbojumbo book about finding oneself in the spiritworld or something.
Im sure im forgetting more horror stories, but those are also way you could have ended up, marrying is not some achievement that automatically makes people better than others.
On July 07 2013 05:47 ninazerg wrote: Statistically, 50% of marriages will end in divorce, so just be patient and your friends will have the hammer of Thor come down on their smugness.
How is getting married smugness?
Did you even lift read his blog?
I did. His friends are trying to be helpful, even if it's annoying. Hoping half of them will get divorced is a bit disproportionate.
On July 07 2013 08:11 MountainDewJunkie wrote: Well it's kind of pounded into our heads from the moment of birth that marriage and kids are what we are supposed to do, so there's a bit of a drive and (initial) satisfaction from accomplishing these feats. It's also a well-established, but usually reckless, assumption that people who aren't married by age X are, dare I say, "defective." There's something wrong with you! You should be married by now! You've seen people act this way before. So think of your nosy friends as both predictably judgmental but also like you enough to "help" you be normal.
Normal.
Normal.
Normal.
"Get married and get kids" is a nice meme to have from an evolutionary point of view. We are shaped by our genes and our memes. There is little you can do about your genes, but the way your mind works - that is one different thing.
The process of shaping involves many things - our parents in the first place, than all the different things we may encounter in kindergarten, school, university traditional and social media, churches and so on. When the right time comes (reed: in the teens) we have to face a hormonal activity increase that makes flipping tables much easier. At that time it is simple to reject some things we have learned as a kid and adapt others that hang around at the moment. Certainly there are more opportunities to do this, still this one stands out.
And people just do it. They replace the "get married and get kids" meme with the one that says "marriage and kids suck (and I won't be forced by the society to embrace them ever)".
This meme is actually pretty successful in all across the western culture, with the number of marriages going down, number of divorces skyrocketing and birth rate at << 2 per woman.
This meme synergies well with some other ideas that are on the rise. The more you dislike the idea of having kids the more you like the idea that they should require great responsibility and sacrifices. If you can impose them on the foes that go alongside the "let's get married and have babies" route then the memes you like will be more likely to survive and find themselves another host. You have a lot of time to fine-tune and spread these ideas as you do not have to put in all the hours required to do otherwise.
I think it is tougher at the other side of the road. You have to put thousands hours into building up your relationship and bringing up your children. At this time you are constantly pressured to do more, commit more, sacrifice more. You do all that only to wake up one day and find out that all the time you spent changing diapers someone else spent building up and promoting the ideas that state that this is one of the worst things in the universe... and enforcing them.
Being "normal" and bringing up "normal" children gets tougher every second.. Today - if you look behind the scenes- you find out that teaching your kids that having a stable and loving family is no longer cool. And tomorrow... teaching that will be no longer legal.
do not confuse settling for the first girl that you date serious as being in a happy marriage. lots of people dont grasp that until they're a few years in, have a kid coming and fucking hate their life, whehter it is because they didn't grow on their own, realize they or their partner are completely different from the kid they fell in love with, or just straight up wonder what other women are like.
there is a reason 50% or so of marriages end within 5 years, and that a majority of high school sweethearts fall apart.
does it work for some people? absolutely, and maybe a couple of your buddies defy statistics and work out long term.
but there is also about about zero percent chance that all 8 of your friends will be in that same spot in five years. at least a few of those people settled because they were too scared to see what else is out there, or maybe were genuinely in love, but will come to realize that the kid you fell in love with at 18 is not at all the same person you know at 25 or 28.
tripping out that you havent found someone marriage material after 7 serious relationships is silly. knowing that you're not desperate, and that you have enough self value to wait until youve found somene that genuinely makes you happy instead of conforming to society's wishes for you to be married is not a problem in the slighest bit.
also, i dont think you should get bent out of shape if your friends say they know someone that might be interesting. that is harmless
And let's be fair, I'm not too confident you are intimately aware of their entire dating lives, nor do I believe the whole "did nothing and landed pretty girl" story. Do your friends describe to you ever great effort they've made for a woman? I doubt it. I certainly don't tell my friends everything about that kind of stuff. Shit's private.
Getting married (and staying married) is one of the, if not the, best way to get out of poverty or stay out of it if you're not already poor... so there's that.
I like married people because they are always either bubbling or bitchy, and either way it's entertaining as hell for the outside observer.
I have your brothers attitude when it comes to women, I don't see why you would dislike how he managed to get a gf/wife without "making moves", surely that a good thing. Not luck, he must just be a great guy like me :p
On July 08 2013 05:56 MountainDewJunkie wrote: And let's be fair, I'm not too confident you are intimately aware of their entire dating lives, nor do I believe the whole "did nothing and landed pretty girl" story. Do your friends describe to you ever great effort they've made for a woman? I doubt it. I certainly don't tell my friends everything about that kind of stuff. Shit's private.
Ya it's a fair enough assumption. For all I know, my friends asked out hundreds of girls that said no before their respective wives said yes. And as for my brother, well, he really did do nothing. Now, he was friendly, he spent time with her, and I imagine he flirted with her. But from what SHE herself told me, he never made a definitive move. And after a year, she got frustrated and decided to make something happen.
EPT
