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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted November 12, 2014 12:40 PM |
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You can have raw emotions as a result of a social construct. Desire, affection and intimacy exists in every culture but the specific construction of romantic love you are talking about is both historically and geographically non-existent in many cultures. Just compare it to how religious people talk of moral "instincts." While the motivating tendencies and the ground they are built upon are biological, the abstraction itself is cultural.
You can directly feel getting disgusted if they ask you to eat a spider, you can say that the repulsion comes from inside, naturally and spontaneously. Not so if you're from the Far East:
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 12, 2014 12:43 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 12:45, 12 Nov 2014.
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But they can feel disgust, they just interpret it according to their individual preferences which are influenced by the social and cultural context that they live in (such as it being common to eat insects). I think everyone's capable of feeling love, just like everybody can feel stress or relief, but that such emotions are interpreted differently according to our individual preferences which in turn are influenced though not wholly decided by social structure.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted November 12, 2014 12:57 PM |
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It's not a matter of can. They dont feel disgusted because they are not thought to. Love is a very broad term, putting people with certain psychiatric disabilities aside, almost everybody can feel it this way or the other, sure, but it is not always constructed as the romantically idealized, finding your soul mate, Romeo and Juliette kind of thing. In many traditional socities, it's more of a thing like going to high school or learning to drive, at a certain age, people marry and have children as many as possible because that's seen as the natural thing to do. So families get together and decide which kids will marry, nobody imagines to say something like "but I dont love her" because romance has nothing to do with it. They also feel desire, affection and intimacy through their life but most of the time, it doesnt occur to them to fall in love.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 12, 2014 01:25 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 13:27, 12 Nov 2014.
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Do you think my concept of love is Romeo & Juliet, finding the one true love style? I thought I mentioned that I prefer open relationships and see great benefits in polygamy over monogamy.
Quote:
but it is not always constructed as the romantically idealized, finding your soul mate, Romeo and Juliette kind of thing.
That's the concept of love and human concepts are very much socially contructed (though they may be based on biological factors). Though the concept of love varies from different individuals living in different sociocultural contexts, the emotion of love is surely the same for all? Isn't the actual physical love that we can feel an emotion just like fear or stress? Individuals across all cultures can feel this, but it is triggered by different things depending on individual preferences that have been influenced by social structure.
Quote:
In many traditional socities, it's more of a thing like going to high school or learning to drive, at a certain age, people marry and have children as many as possible because that's seen as the natural thing to do. So families get together and decide which kids will marry, nobody imagines to say something like "but I dont love her" because romance has nothing to do with it. They also feel desire, affection and intimacy through their life but most of the time, it doesnt occur to them to fall in love.
It seems more to be that they engage in relationships out of social expectations and necessity rather than the emotion of love. Of course that leads to a different concept of love. To a concept not so much based on emotion, but perhaps, committment.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted November 12, 2014 01:42 PM |
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Xerox, what I say seem to fly over your head, there is no strictly categorized emotion of love that can be defined and framed, it's an individual synthesis of your biological urges, emotional tendencies, personal abstractions, social norms, even what you "learn" from songs or films... Emotional potential can transform and manifest itself in many ways, what you percieve as the raw emotion is actually a combination of many things.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 12, 2014 02:05 PM |
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I feel as if you're not separating the social construct of love with the actual feeling or emotion of love. I can feel love just like I can feel fear or stress. That per se is not socially constructed, it is biochemically produced.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted November 12, 2014 02:16 PM |
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Edited by artu at 14:31, 12 Nov 2014.
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That's because you can't separate them like cutting a melon in half with a katana. The biological basis of it is roughly what you observe in all primates that live in groups and have family-like units. The rest involves a busload of abstraction and as I explained with examples, we don't see that kind of love in all human cultures.
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted November 12, 2014 02:55 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 14:57, 12 Nov 2014.
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artu said:
we don't see that kind of love in all human cultures.
Which is because the general concept of love varies in different cultrues. My point is that the biochemical component is the same for everyone, but that this is interpreted differently in different cultures. In some cultures, it might not even be classified as (the concept of) love. Their concept of love might rely on long-term commitment and/or family. But then, what do they call the feeling that people atleast in Western countries create the concept of love out of?
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted November 12, 2014 03:27 PM |
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Same raw emotions and different ways of abstracting, manifesting and chanelling them, of course, independent of West or East or whatever part of the world, up until recently things such as courtly love or the modern concept of a deep relationship mainly focused on two individuals sharing everything together on emotional and intellectual basis as partners were only seen in upper classes. For most of the world, that is still so to an extent but now media spreads around these memes to a much wider population.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted December 11, 2014 11:14 AM |
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Edited by artu at 11:16, 11 Dec 2014.
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Here is a very fun to watch debate (or more likely a conversation) about polyamory, psychopathy, politics, the middle-east and many other things. I wasn't sure where to share this but since it opens with polyamory, I guess, this thread will do just fine:
A very dangerous Q&A: Slavoj Zizek, Mona Eltahawy, Kate Adie, Jon Ronson and Greg Sheridan
Optional English subs are accurate, if you have a hard time following some of the accents.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 14, 2014 11:45 AM |
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There is a person (who is not my girlfriend) who is displaying a more-than-friendly level of interest in me. I am unsure of how best to respond. On one hand, I enjoy spending time with them, talking to them, and receiving mild physical affection from them. On the other hand, I'm not attracted to them, at least not for now. On the third hand, that's normal for me, as I rarely become interested in people quickly, and it's possible that I'll develop a greater interest in them as I spend more time with them. On the fourth hand, there are complicating factors (that I'll go into later) that make it possible that I won't develop an interest in them.
(Needless to say, said person is polyamorous, my girlfriend approves of anything that might happen between us, etc, etc.)
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Eccentric Opinion
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emilsn91
Supreme Hero
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posted January 05, 2015 07:19 PM |
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Do any of you have experience with formerly depressed and troubled women?
I am kinda going through a break up with a girl, whose past has been filled with depression and selfharm. And I have been a good part of her life for four months and now she ended it, because she was beginning to feel depressed again.
She said that she could not give me the things I need emotionally (as a boyfriend) at the moment, and decided to focus on herself and school. She said that she felt safe with me and trusted me, but she could not return anything to me.
I respected her decision and we talked it out really good. Actually it is the most healthy break up I have had in my life. And we talked for hours about everything; Our lives, stories no one knows and regular small talk.
There is just that feeling of being the trusted, good guy that is discarded.. I feel very ambivalent about that. I feel like I do not matter enough since I can be put aside.
Oh well. I have had some really great conversations with my friends, but still.. It feels weird.
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted January 05, 2015 09:06 PM |
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It's not the same issue in my opinion. The trusted good guy who can be put on her little shelve where he'll pretend to be quite happy by himself while the she-hunk is out letting her wild side loose with someone she otherwise wouldn't want any kind of future with, feeling safe, knowing that she's her back covered by her forever friend on his little shelve, is neglected and it is an unhealthy relationship for both sides.
In my opinion it differs a lot from what you described. It sounds more like she discarded herself than she discarded you and has some serious problems.. and may need you as a friend. It doesn't mean you can't find another girl and I think that's the main problem for the issue you described, that the person in question demands of himself to only focus his sexual interests on a girl who's not sexually interested in him and pretend to be happy to be there for the reasons she wants. There's no reason you can't be there for her and on the same time not being self deceiving... unless everything is about sex to you, which I kind of doubt.
Anyway relationship is a big thing for some, for others it hardly is. She apparently takes her responsibility in it very seriously when it comes to you, which means you matter and not the opposite..
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Living time backwards
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emilsn91
Supreme Hero
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posted January 05, 2015 10:19 PM |
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OhforfSake said:
It's not the same issue in my opinion. The trusted good guy who can be put on her little shelve where he'll pretend to be quite happy by himself while the she-hunk is out letting her wild side loose with someone she otherwise wouldn't want any kind of future with, feeling safe, knowing that she's her back covered by her forever friend on his little shelve, is neglected and it is an unhealthy relationship for both sides.
In my opinion it differs a lot from what you described. It sounds more like she discarded herself than she discarded you and has some serious problems.. and may need you as a friend. It doesn't mean you can't find another girl and I think that's the main problem for the issue you described, that the person in question demands of himself to only focus his sexual interests on a girl who's not sexually interested in him and pretend to be happy to be there for the reasons she wants. There's no reason you can't be there for her and on the same time not being self deceiving... unless everything is about sex to you, which I kind of doubt.
Anyway relationship is a big thing for some, for others it hardly is. She apparently takes her responsibility in it very seriously when it comes to you, which means you matter and not the opposite..
wauw. You just blew my mind really..
Some good points in there that I need to wrap my head around. But I think the last sentence was very true; I am just kinda in denial.
I will go think about this
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 25, 2015 07:21 AM |
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sharing this conversation because some people may be amused by it
my girlfriend: I'm dating a surprising number of libertarians.
me: They're grateful for it. Libertarians don't often get to date people.
her: Actually, most of them have been pretty successful. Like, [one of her boyfriends] has had 5 or 6 girlfriends, and he's in his early 30s.
me: And you're currently dating 7 people simultaneously, and you're 23.
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Eccentric Opinion
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted January 25, 2015 07:38 AM |
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5-6 around the age of thirty seems pretty normal to me, even a little below the average if you havent spent some of that time married or something. Of course, it also depends how long your relationships last, some get bored quite easily and some like to hang in there as long as nothing catastrophic happens... but still, let's say you start dating at 16, it makes roughly 15 years and that's about one girlfriend for every 3 years. Since it's quite unlikely that all 5 relationships would be long-term ones that fullfilled all the months in those 3 year periods, I wouldnt call it significantly successfull. It's certainly enough not to be called a loner, though. Ideas anyone?
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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emilsn91
Supreme Hero
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posted March 12, 2015 11:32 AM |
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When is it alright to tell a girl to back off from your friend?
I have always been a huge fan of this scene from HIMYM
"Marshall then goes to Robin, and tells her that Ted is lying about him being okay, and that Robin has to move out, which she does."
It is from an episode called "No Pressure". And I have been wondering for a long time, when it is okay to do this to tell a girl that she should leave your friend alone, because she is not doing anything good for him..
I have a friend I want to do this for and that is why I am asking.
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted March 12, 2015 12:57 PM |
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I'm prolly wrong, but my first impression is.. never.
Edit: To clarify, imagine in stead of a gf it's another friend.. it's my impression it looks more antagonizing and obsessive than someone trying to help.
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Living time backwards
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 12, 2015 02:06 PM |
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i had a similar problem with an ex-friend. she was flat-out nuts, and his dumb ass loved her. looking back, i wish i had left them both as soon as possible.
but that's probably not the situation you're in. i sure hope not. a relative of mine is in a situation similar to the aforementioned relationship. i stay as far away from them both as i can. neither of them have any sense.
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PandaTar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
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posted March 12, 2015 03:39 PM |
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I had a friend that likely stopped seeing or even talking to us (to us I mean just about all of his friends ...) because we all didn't truly like his girlfriend. The girl was ok overall speaking, but pretty much too dominant, would cut across our conversations with completely different subjects (most of the time, very stupid ones), wouldn't greet us whenever she entered OUR home and was quite glued to him, didn't let him breath or go out alone - but all these do's and don't's were quite subdued. You simply knew they were there, lurking.
But it seems he weighted her in a better way than all of us together - talk about how we felt back then ... Sometimes, when I remembered, I would send him a happy birthday message, but that's that. I learned that he's dating another woman now, for almost a year. I have no idea of whom she is, but I do hope she's a better person than the previous one.
If going to interfere on one's relationship - I'm a bit torn. If you do like/love your friend (of course, as friend), and you really know that's a bad path he/she's taking, you ought to show your view in the least aggressive way possible. Only if you do know and have enough intimacy to deal with such matter - when your friend also like/loves you equally. And that kind of thing you can tell.
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"Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
GlaDOS – Portal 2
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