Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I think your thinking courtships rather than relationships. How many romance novels/films are about actual established relationships?

Courtships/relationships, whats the difference?

The point is there is nothing "magical" about it, like all them pansy greebos love to read about. There is only lust, and then affection or love if you prefer to call it that, which is to me, just something that happens over time when you get used to being around someone for a long time.

In real life, there is nothing like you read in fantasy.

No "love at first sight" no "soulmates" just women you want to screw because you are physically attracted too, and then women you genuinelly like, and then women you "love" because you connect on some level, usually because you have things in common or you enjoy personality traits and you enjoy being around them.

Im not seeing the point your making mate. None of that is particularly special to me.

I know, I can't believe all those nasty sci-fi nerds reading their books about people killing each other with weird powers. They're all sweaty and nasty and they talk about the games they play then argue about them. Oh, wait...

mattyrm wrote:and then women you "love" because you connect on some level, usually because you have things in common or you enjoy personality traits and you enjoy being around them...None of that is particularly special to me.

Wow, how incredibly depressing.

Yeah ive never been a sentimental man, i might have been when i was 18, but several wars and numerous partners later.. im just not feeling it.

I guess its just logic though isnt it? I mean, ive liked lots of the women ive been out with. Granted i find many women annoying but from a population of 6 billion, im pretty sure i could marry, live, breed, get old and die quite happily with what? 200-300 million?

Why, hows it any different for you? Explain it to me and i might be able to understand.

mattyrm wrote:Why, hows it any different for you? Explain it to me and i might be able to understand.

I didn't say it was.

Oh ok, so why is it depressing then?

I dont believe in soulmates or "true love" or any of that gak, but it doesnt depress me.

Why is it depressing?

You said...

mattyrm wrote:and then women you "love" because you connect on some level, usually because you have things in common or you enjoy personality traits and you enjoy being around them...

then said

mattyrm wrote:...None of that is particularly special to me.

You can't see why that's depressing?

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Harry Potter at least has alright movies.
The books are a bit Meh...

I like my bookstores full of miliatary, history and sci-fi fantasy.
MENS BOOKS!!!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and atlases, preferably atlases that combine history... and maps.

Are you me?

I like EXACTLY those things. I love maps showing campaigns and such as well as borders, sci fi, military and history.

I have found my book twin!

Not really mate.. Whats special about it? When it happens to almost everyone, how is it special?

Almost everyone meets a woman, has kids, gets old and then dies. So in what way is it special?

Its just a normal occurence between social animals like ourselves isnt it? The realization of this does no depress me at all. I dont WANT it to be like the fething movies or the books!

Im happy with going to the pub and complaining about my partner/wife to my friends instead.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

The happy reaper wrote:

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Harry Potter at least has alright movies.
The books are a bit Meh...

I like my bookstores full of miliatary, history and sci-fi fantasy.
MENS BOOKS!!!!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and atlases, preferably atlases that combine history... and maps.

Are you me?

I like EXACTLY those things. I love maps showing campaigns and such as well as borders, sci fi, military and history.

I have found my book twin!

To be fair reaper, i think a good deal of the people on dakka will like the same things, i love those books as well.

ie. I suspect that most people that play with soldiers (military and history) in the 41st millenium (sci fi fantasy) like the books you mentioned!

If you don't think finding someone you connect with and share personality traits with is special then I must be the odd one out. Since I meet people like that very rarely.

And don't confuse me for the one claiming real life relationships are like movies and books, I never said that.

I've noticed that in the past 10 years, people are liking stupider and stupider things. Twilight was an all new level of stupid, one of the worst books I've read. People say, oh twilight is good, the book is great, but did you ever notice, Stephanie meyers never won a pulitzer prize for the books? she sold millions, but was never awarded for their supposed "quality". Its just an example of how supid people have grown in the past decade.

mattyrm wrote:Yeah ive never been a sentimental man, i might have been when i was 18, but several wars and numerous partners later.. im just not feeling it.

I guess its just logic though isnt it? I mean, ive liked lots of the women ive been out with. Granted i find many women annoying but from a population of 6 billion, im pretty sure i could marry, live, breed, get old and die quite happily with what? 200-300 million?

...

200-300 million women? I admire your enthusiasm!

I can't help thinking you would be biting off more than you can chew. Take it from me, even one wife is a big commitment in time, energy and money.

200 million women is about 3 percent of the worlds population. That means every 3 in 100 people Matty meets he's happy to spend the rest of his life/have kids/die with. That's some good going.

Me I would say about 99 out of 100 people I meet I want nothing to do with. edit: perhaps that's going a bit far, but I certainly wouldn't make any effort to befriend them.

Kilkrazy wrote:

mattyrm wrote:Yeah ive never been a sentimental man, i might have been when i was 18, but several wars and numerous partners later.. im just not feeling it.

I guess its just logic though isnt it? I mean, ive liked lots of the women ive been out with. Granted i find many women annoying but from a population of 6 billion, im pretty sure i could marry, live, breed, get old and die quite happily with what? 200-300 million?

...

200-300 million women? I admire your enthusiasm!

I can't help thinking you would be biting off more than you can chew. Take it from me, even one wife is a big commitment in time, energy and money.

That's exactly why i'm perfectly okay with never getting married. I prefer the long-term-no-papers-attached kind of relationship. Which in the end you could call marriage, but at least i can live with the illusion that i'm (partially) free.
And i know i couldn't be any more wrong

lol KK, i was meaning that i could live with ONE of the 300 million.

But i think you knew that.

And WW, 3 out of every 100 is about spot on if you ask me.

Are you telling me that for every 100 young women about your age that you meet, you dislike 99 of them?

I meet lots of charming women, its why ive had so many partners. If i was to go on a dating website, and pick 30 women that i find very attractive, i guarantee i would happily date at LEAST 3 of them.

I must stress here, i dont think im some sort of Casanova, thats me on the left (minus the tash ofc!) and i didnt get into this debate with you to have some sort of virtual cock measuring contest, im just suprised you cannot see my point.

Love is not special, it happens to almost everyone. And if you think that if you met 50 attractive women you wouldnt happily have a relationship with any of them, then im sorry, but i think your the most picky man in the world, and i have had some tasty girlfriends!

No that 100 figure is not 100 young women your age, that's every 100 people you meet. Including Men, Leppers, Hare Krishnas the whole lot.

In my entire life I have only met one person I intend to spend the rest of my life with. Thats out of god knows hos many teachers, shop keepers, bar women etc etc etc I have ever met. Now I'm not saying shes the only one in the entire world I could have found that conection, i.e. soulmate. But she's certainly not 3 in 100.

edit: on a side not I am beginning to notice our definitions of the word special are not exactly the same, in that yours seems to be similar to how I would define miraculous. So lets not get caught up no the whole 'special' thing.

lol @ lepers.

Well, we can agree to disagree then, its down to individuals and there isnt a right or a wrong answer.

I have had several women who i have thought maybe i would stay with long term, but things happened, (long military deployments for example tend to piss in your cornflakes!) and ive moved on. The point is, love isnt special, there are no soulmates, and 50% of marriages end in divorce.

I hope that this "special" person you intend to spend the rest of your life with turns out to be the one mate, but if you end up in that 50%, your going to find another one arent you? People die, divorce etc, and life goes on, and people re-marry, have new kids, meet someone else, etc etc.

I think 3 in a 100 is an entirely acceptable estimate. And if you look at people like fething Patsy Kensit its probably about 4 out of 6 billion, and that includes the women!

Your points that 50% of marriages end in divorce/people re mary etc. serves my point not yours. It basically means 50% of ever marriage is another two people who never found someone they truly connected with/were prepared to spend the rest of there life with.

And again I'm not trying to make out there are soulmates, i.e only 1 person for every one. But I do think it's more specific and more special than you do. Certainly not 3 in 100 people.

Tyyr wrote:So women buying books about girls getting raped by men and then falling in love with their rapists.

Ya know, I try to give other cultures the benefit of the doubt but there is something distinctly wrong with Japan.

...or maybe they're just more honest about innate human weirdness.

No, no, no dude. The stories are about the Oba sans, or aunties, getting raped and falling in love with their sweating, repressed admirers. Girls read more pedestrian stuff like falling in love with the captain of the baseball team and then being molested by a tentacle monster.

Woah, someone having my back? Cool. Thanks mattyrm.

I think I should elaborate on my feelings though.

To ME all romance is fantasy. Not that I don't see romance everyday. My brother and his wife, my parents, my grandparents, it's just I don't really think that romance in
the way of "Boy-meets-Girl-get-married-hvae-kids-die-happy" that you see in books and film is real.

It might also be that I don't believe in it because i've had sweet feth all luck in establishing relationships, even ones that are just friendships.

I don't think anyone honestly believes love is a magical, metaphysical force. It's not entirely something that you could work out on paper either. Sometimes people feel a strong connection between themselves, but it takes a purposeful, logical decision to maintain that relationship through the good and the bad to make a long-term relationship happen. In that sense you choose to continue to be in love. In many ways that makes it much more special, since it requires effort, not some magical magnetism.

I think GES makes more sense than some of the pansies on here, but then, im just an emotionally stunted soldier. I think we choose to be in love, and i could happen to be with a girl among thousands that you would be just as satisfied with. I fail to see how my pointing out the divorce rates does not back up my argument, im sure that of them 90% thought that they had met that "special someone"

And 5 years later they wanted to kill the bitch.

Its worth noting that women tend to be more emotionally driven than men, and that most romance novels are targeted at women. Differences of sexual perspective are often forgotten in this politically correct world of ours; particularly when the forum is dominated by lonely gamers.

Anyway, if love is not special, then I think its worth revisiting what we mean when we discuss speciality.

Yeah, it would really help getting a woman's opinion here.

Oh wait, there aren't that many around here

Where's Luna?

But yes, its been my experience that the prevailing (or at least popular) opinion of women tends to be characterized by metaphors of luck, and being chosen. Twilight is actually a very good example of this. The average high school girl is chosen by the magical, ancient, mysterious, and unique vampire.

True, much of this is based on cultural bias, and there are many women who see themselves as strong agents, but it still doesn't change the fact that such a disposition is widespread.

That's not too different from us "lonely gamers" wanting to be the big, strong alien-killers/aliens Everyone needs an outlet of some kind.

Indeed. I've always found it funny that gamers react so harshly to Twilight given our own predilection for escapism.

Khornholio wrote:

Tyyr wrote:So women buying books about girls getting raped by men and then falling in love with their rapists.

Ya know, I try to give other cultures the benefit of the doubt but there is something distinctly wrong with Japan.

...or maybe they're just more honest about innate human weirdness.

No, no, no dude. The stories are about the Oba sans, or aunties, getting raped and falling in love with their sweating, repressed admirers. Girls read more pedestrian stuff like falling in love with the captain of the baseball team and then being molested by a tentacle monster.

HOLY

LunaHound wrote:

Khornholio wrote:

Tyyr wrote:So women buying books about girls getting raped by men and then falling in love with their rapists.

Ya know, I try to give other cultures the benefit of the doubt but there is something distinctly wrong with Japan.

...or maybe they're just more honest about innate human weirdness.

No, no, no dude. The stories are about the Oba sans, or aunties, getting raped and falling in love with their sweating, repressed admirers. Girls read more pedestrian stuff like falling in love with the captain of the baseball team and then being molested by a tentacle monster.

HOLY

Yes, Luna, anyone who's ever been on 4chan knows what Japanese writers and artists are capable of.