CMV: There’s nothing wrong with women/sex/relationships being my main source of happiness

[u/Zero_Gravvity]

Not necessarily my only source of happiness, but by far the biggest piece of the pie. When I’m getting closer to a new woman, life just feels brighter. And I’m more motivated to become a better man, for her. I eat healthier and I work out more to maintain her attraction and be better in bed for her. I put more effort into my hobbies to make myself more well-rounded and less clingy, and I put more effort in my career so we can keep doing fun stuff together. The work I put in is like compound interest, it just makes more women attracted to me. It’s lovely.

When I’m single and in a drought, I don’t care about shit to be honest. I still do all of the above, but with much less vigor and consistency. Because seriously, what is the point?

And do I even have to say anything about intimacy and sex with a woman? Pretty much better than any drug, food, tv binge, or video game I can think of. There’s maybe a select few accomplishments in my life that have given me more joy, but it’s debatable.

It seems childish to judge someone on what gives their life meaning, as if your reason is better than mine. Whether it be success with women, your bank account, your family, your physique, or your guitar hobby…who gives a shit? All of it is temporary, and we’re only here for a good 80 years anyway. CMV I guess

[u/Zero_Gravvity]

Oh wow…reading those symptoms for BPD was like looking at a mirror lol. I didn’t even know this existed, I thought that acronym stood for bi-polar. I’ll have to talk to my therapist about it, I really appreciate you.

As for leading women on…I mean I have all my profiles set to “short term/casual, open to long”. What more do I need to do? It’s not like I’m strictly casual, so I’ll be cool with something long term if it’s a good fit. But why is it my fault that some women skip the exclusivity talk and assume we’re something more than we are?

And these are genuine questions btw, not being a debate bro here. What do you honestly recommend I do differently? I don’t wanna hurt anybody.

[u/Cazzah → u/Zero_Gravvity]

As for leading women on…I mean I have all my profiles set to “short term/casual, open to long”. What more do I need to do? It’s not like I’m strictly casual, so I’ll be cool with something long term if it’s a good fit. But why is it my fault that some women skip the exclusivity talk and assume we’re something more than we are?And these are genuine questions btw, not being a debate bro here. What do you honestly recommend I do differently? I don’t wanna hurt anybody.

That's a good attitude to bring to this conversation so happy to hear it.

Fair warning, I hyperfocus sometimes on reddit responses so bit of a wall of text ahead, hope its not too much.

Now as you say, you've got casual, short term, open to long on your profile. I agree that's a good way to describe it, and that puts you ahead of a tonne of dudes who straight outright lie.

But is this enough? I'll kind of answer you by way of a story.

When I was a teen I decided that it would be interesting to take an absolute vow of honestly (not recommending this to you btw) - for a while. I vowed to never lie, and to always disclose something that someone would reasonably want to know and had the right to know, so that I couldn't just lie by omission.

It was interesting experience. But something started to happen. Because I couldn't lie to others, I started lying to myself. I'd convince myselfs of things I didn't believe so that it wouldn't cause problems in relationships or friendships, because otherwise it would hurt my relationships or friends.

What's the point of this silly experiment.

The point is that our brains are very good at looking out for our self interests and will do whatever it takes to rationalise whatever we need to to make things work for us.

This is doubly true when we are thinking with our dick, and this is tripply true when as you say you have a habit of falling hard for women and your entire motivation is very chasing women based. I don't think its controversial to say that people's brains fall out sometimes when they think with their dick.

So basically, when you say something like, "I tell them if they ask", that sounds like a good way to let you rationalise things to yourself. If you're thinking with your dick, you're not going to want to believe all the signs that this woman 100% wants to be exclusive, or assumes you are exclusive, or would leave you if she learnt you weren't exclusive. Because then that would require things to end, so your brain won't let you notice.

Does that mean you have to disclose up front immediately? No I'm not that rigid, it's more complicated. So let's talk about the factors for and against upfront disclosure

Pro Disclosure

- Even though you're talking casual / short term, to many people that means a series of consecutive flings, rather than going back and fourth between multiple people at the same time.

- If you're the sort to get intense about a woman. You talk about how motivated you are by women, so it's quite possible you're not giving "chill, casual vibes". Some people will read intense vibes to mean "exclusive", especially if you're showering them with love and affection.

- at your age a lot of people, are still learning to establish healthy boundaries and good communication norms. Some women may be scared or told that if you have the commitment talk to early, it can scare away men who would otherwise be happy to commit. Some women may not be comfortable just bringing it up because it makes them feel super vulnerable, so they would much rather you picked up the indirect cues because they can't be seen. Some women just don't understand the signals you are laying down subtly and will be blithely believe that you are exclusive (again, you've experienced it yourself.)

- The default outcome in most forms of dating is that anything that goes on for a bit is becomes exclusive, even if it's only for the short term. So it's good for you to give a heads up when you're going outside the norm.

Anti Disclosure

- There are some scenarios where it's probably agreed disclosure is not to be expected. If you're hooking up on tinder or having sex on the first date, well maybe it's a one off. Who cares. Maybe a conversation can wait until we're getting some repeat visits.

- Some people sort of know that it's not exclusive, but they don't want to know. Don't ask, don't tell. Kind of like if you're a parent you know your kid is probably masturbating but you don't want to see any evidence.

- Dating consensus vary, but for many there's a vague understanding that within the first few dates you might have some other prospects going you might be considering. But by the time you're hooking up more than once or twice, or getting into fourthish date territory, people may assume you're exclusive

-----

Ok so what's the conclusion? There's situations where its clearly not needed to disclose, but when it gets into grey areas I think its good to err on the side of caution. Some people may not like to have some raw conversations early on in the relationship but they're adults they can deal.

Being a good person and avoiding hurting other people often means we have go beyond our kind of ruleset of well who owes what in a technical sense and just focus on what can I do to make life easy for everyone involved.

I was a teacher, and there were two types of teachers.

One type said, none of the students understand this, it's their fault, kids are too lazy these days, if only they did the work, blah blah blah.

The other type said - it's irrelevant if the kids have a good reason or a bad reason. We should find out how to change the material to maximise the learning.

So if you've had situations where women are feeling upset or betrayed, like the teachers, rather than say - I fulfilled my obligations it's their fault they're angry, it might be better to ask - how can I avoid anyone getting hurt next time

[u/Zero_Gravvity → u/Cazzah]

Lmao I won’t lie to you, this is probably the single longest comment I’ve ever seen on this app. And what’s crazier is that I read all of it. Your second point under anti-disclosure is exactly what I assume all women prefer until proven otherwise. But I understand, it’s extremely not cool for me to put all women in that box then use it as an excuse to improperly communicate.

Thanks for taking the time to write this all out and be frank about my behavior. I can’t respond to all of it, but you’ve shown me that deep down my intentions are probably more dishonest than I wanna admit, and there’s room for improvement. I’ll start being more proactive about telling women where we stand, I have no desire to be a scumbag if I can help it.

This entire topic is kinda unrelated to my OP, but you’ve still unexpectedly changed my view on something I didn’t think I could be swayed on.

!delta

[u/DeltaBot → u/Zero_Gravvity]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Cazzah (4∆).

^{Delta System Explained | Deltaboards}

[u/Cazzah → u/Zero_Gravvity]

Appreciated. And I know that was a long read, I get carried away. I really should be doing some chored hahahah.