Is life without love at all worth it?

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Even a brilliant career can not replace family values. In the first marriage I was a careerist. After ex left me a long time I didn't looking for anyone. I didn't have time for personal life and I had to look for a woman online. I met my current wife on https://kovla.com/datings/us/concord , we are together for 2 years)

More patronizing.

And biologically speaking, a diabetic body can't live without sugar either (or any carbohydrate/glucose), hence why all of them take insulin shots.



A male needs to be extremely attractive or suave to get that, since the female would have a lot of options for that (sex offers with no relationship) -; otherwise prostitution would be the only way.

A straight guy having difficulty in getting any long term relationship, won't have it any easier to get a casual one. For females it can be usually the case, for males it is usually not.

Omg great idea... I have never thought about doing that in my entire life. I always thought girls would just come to me and I didn't have to put in any effort at all. Dude you are a genius.

yep they are actually way more picky when looking for just sex then when they look for relationships.i guess they figure to have a relationsihp why might have to compromise on some standards but if they just want sex then you better excell at the standards.

There are different kinds of love. I think, yes, life could be still worthwhile without love especially if you are just referring only to a romantic love or a boy and girl relationship. We could be happy with the love of our parents, friends and relatives around us.

Taking it in context of 'love' being a significant other (not family type of love) the answer imo, is 'no'.

So you pull one sentence out of a post, taking it out of context, so that you can feel further patronized to?

I am sorry you feel that way. And I am sorry that my lame attempt to address one of your concerns turned out to be, well, lame. But I DID have a lot of time in my single years to address these issues for myself and realize that I COULD have a happy and fulfilling life even if I stayed single forever which, at the time, seemed extremely likely. How you make life work for you is up to you in the end, but my point was that it can be done. You don't have to be in love with a special other person to have a life worth living.

I didn't take anything out of context, here let me quote the rest of your....'wisdom'. Let me try to clarify, once for all, what's wrong in your thinking.





THOSE same single people you're talking about (who are your friends) will be OFFENDED as well if you tell them that, maybe, SHOULDN'T have a relationship or to imply in any way that they aren't relationship materials even if they don't want a relationship.

Theoretically, only psychos, abusers or anyone who inflicts harm to others shouldn't have relationships, otherwise you can't imply that they shouldn't have relationship (aka not relationship materials).

You don't dare to saying that their lives is less meaningful but you dared to suggest that some of them may not relationship materials (and I don't think you befriend psychos).

It isn't about being or not being relationship material, it is about having goals and needs that might not be compatible with relationships. I would never, ever have done the things in my life that I have done if I had been married at an earlier age, and sometimes I think about the things I could be doing now if I had never married or had kids. For a long time I lived a life that was, to put it simply, incompatible with relationships, even if I didn't fully realize it at the time. And that life was good to me, and good FOR me. It was something I needed to do, and something I eventually thrived with. I have no regrets about having lived that. On the contrary, I am extremely grateful for it. Do I consider myself lucky to have had those years AND now get to experience something different? Yes, for me the variety is a good thing, even if I do sometimes wonder what it would have been like to stay on the one road. But that isn't going to be the case for everyone; for some people, there is a lot more to be gained from continuing on paths that are incompatible with relationships.

In that time I reached the conclusion that society and hormones send us all the wrong message, fixating on us this idea that we need to be with someone, when doing such could actually get in our way, instead. It was very freeing for me when I realized that I was, actually, on exactly the path I needed to be on and actually thriving because of it (despite some really rough patches). THAT is what I have been trying to say, and I apologize for not being able to convey it. I can only hope that I finally have. I know you will tell me if I haven't.

I'm with DW_a_mom, especially after she clarified her position.

I don't think she's telling others at all that they're not relationship material. She's just saying matter of factly that some people simply aren't relationship material & they often know it themselves.

Sometimes that's for "negative" reasons - ie when I was very depressed/anxious I always felt I was Not relationship material because I didn't want to burden anyone with my issues.

But it's often for other reasons entirely, and I can relate to some of them, too. ie the time I attended business school & completed 130.5 credits in 2 years. It was an intense period of study and there's a very very slim chance I'd have been able to give a relationship the time and energy it would have deserved, so it's a good thing I was single then. Also, there have been times when I've had other things I've dedicated virtually every waking hour to that would have strained a relationship big time - ie project based work, 2-3 jobs at a time, work + sports, work/life/time with loved ones.

I've never been one to travel all that much for work or pleasure, but I can see how living a gypsy work life or travelling due to a passion for travelling could make a relationship difficult. Same with other pursuits, ie higher education, research/engineering/inventing/creating art/music/writing etc - there are some things that people put their everything into that make them poor candidates for a relationship whether they acknowledge it in the moment or not.

Then there are entirely other reasons not to be in a relationship.. ie not wanting to settle down and be with one person if you're the type of soul who's anti, or indifferent to, monogamy. And so on.. tons of reasons some people just aren't cut out for a relationship - many of them temporary for a portion of one's life, but some life long depending on the choices and priorities of the individual.

I haven't been relationship material myself for a few reasons over the years.. now, I'm ever more relationship material & am open to it if I meet the right person. I'll still have career & sports pursuits that will occupy a lot of my time, and loved ones I'll spend time with, but I feel like if I meet the right person I've now become the type of person that could balance work, life, and a relationship. Also, in some ways it might be easier and less time consuming to be in a monogamous relationship vs. the amount of time I sometime spend getting laid lol.

But it isn't just about doing things that would make a relationship difficult, but about doing things that you would not do at all if you were in a relationship. I would never have picked the job with insane overtime and travel requirements, but that I loved and grew so much as a person and a professional in. I would never have felt the desire to take some career risks or to do things completely by myself and for myself, like head out on business trips several days early just to explore a city I have never been in, taking classes after work (first finishing my masters, and later studying my first love - art), or buying and remodeling a house ALL ON MY OWN. When you have someone to lean on, you lean on them, and I would never have tested myself as fully as I did when I was on my own. It's too easy for me now to just say, "oh well, he has no interest in that, so I guess we won't." And then I grab a book or a computer and relax with entertainment. But when I was single, I DID those things; if I had an idea, I pursued it, for better or for worse, but each time it is a growing experience. Some people do more married, some people do more single, and I was definitely in the later group: I push myself a lot more when there is no one else to lean on or consult with, and eventually discovered that I was capable of much more than I had ever thought I was capable of. That was something I needed to know in order to have the kind of life I thrive best in.

People who agree on that axiom are doomed to be fundamentally unhappy all their lives.

You cannot get happiness and contentment from another person. It has to exist within you already, in order for a relationship to have a chance. When you hang your hopes for happiness and bliss on another person, you are saddling them with a cruel and unbearable burden and guaranteeing an inevitable failure.

It is possible to be happy WITH another person and you might both have a wonderful relationship sharing happiness and supporting each other emotionally. However, your personal sense of meaning and purpose has to come from within.

Because when you depend on the relationship itself to MAKE you happy, you've become a needy energy vampire and that is unsustainable. Eventually, you will drain your partner dry and they will have to escape from you for their own emotional survival.

So its essential that you find happiness and balance on your own, before you concern yourself with building a long term relationship. If you aren't happy alone, you'll create misery with someone else.

Excellent post. There's a certain freedom when you're single (as I've been my whole life, pretty much.) to pursue anything you want to. I might not have the education I have if I had a significant other I wanted to spend time with instead. I might not do the sports I love whenever I can & feel like it. etc. There can definitely be some restrictions & hinderances when you have to balance life with someone else' schedule & needs in mind all the time.

For myself, knowing that I'm not ultra self serving & that I tend to be more motivated to do things for others (even if they're things for myself, I trick myself into thinking I'm doing something for someone else I love and I'm a lot more motivated to do it.) I think that if I were partnered up with the right person I might just be even more gutsy about pursuing goals as I'd be motivated by their presence in my life. I think. Time will tell if I'm right on that or not.. but I kinda hope so. I don't want to be the type to put my career/entrepreneurial goals aside just because I'm in a relationship. Nor do I want to be a workaholic absentee partner, either lol. I just think having the right person in my life would make me more likely to go after my goals than less.

Another excellent post.

There was a time when I was codependent on a friend or two/three for my own happiness. One of them did me the life changing favour of pointing it out to me, which set me on a determined path to learn how not to do that. I've since changed significantly and am perfectly happy w/o Needing to see my friends, which makes our friendships better when we do see each other and all parties are in positive & present moods.

Most of my life I was a lot more negative & felt I shouldn't be in a relationship because of it. Since treating my symptoms over the past couple of years, I'm a WAY happier person and feel like I'm a lot more ready to be in a relationship if/when I meet the right person. Time will tell how that works out.. but I am definitely open to it now vs. before when I wasn't exactly a happy guy.

suppose I'll just have to live a short lonely and sad life then. curse of being a people person i guess.
if that is the universal prerequisite to a relationship.

There's a big difference between involuntary celibacy and voluntary celibacy, not the same thing at all.

Your perspective on the matter is of a someone who had the life choice between continuing in voluntary celibacy and going for relationship.

You are on so different wavelength, you will not understand, ever, so let's cut this discussion.