Seeing all long-term relationships as fundamentally boring

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Thing about LTR's is, you usually don't choose the one's you end up with, and I mean that metaphorically, not figuratively.

I mean to say if we by chance meet someone, and start hanging out with them, and there is a mutual attraction, this usually happened beyond our control.

We usually develop emotional attractions beyond our control and have to hope we get lucky and that it's mutual.

But we could simply fall in love with someone who has completely incompatible ideas of what they want in a relationship compared to yourself.

Sometimes compromise isn't entirely effective at helping prevent this, as some people's goals are just far too different.

Perhaps it is all in OP's head, as well as mine, but I do find the majority of friendships and relationships I've been in, it seems to always be the other person's way by default, and to make a difference on has to make a conscious effort.

It's a little odd.

For instance, if I am friends with introverts, by default we do things THEIR way, and not my own. It takes an extreme effort from me to ensure my own needs are met.

I commuicate my needs in friendships and relationships but as said - I'M the one making the effort to steer things in a direction that satisfies me.

Maybe everyone I know just sucks at compromise except for myself.

Interesting interpretation and response, but not what I asked.

This scenario is not someone trying to change you, and it's not really about change anyway. To be clear, there is no such pressure or insistence from them for that. You meet someone, and are so overwhelmed by them that all the joys you presently have simply cannot match the wonder of being in her company.

It's a thought experiment. I was interested in how, from where you are now, you felt about the possibility of that happening.

Maybe I have an unhealthy view of relationships - I've felt one has to change who they are TO be capable of compromise.

Perhaps Aspie1 does as well.

The idea of actually being yourself around others seems foreign to me, at least without driving the majority of people away or them staying but treating you as different or lesser (e.g. I haven't revealed my Bisexuality to my homophobic family and friend members, and prefer it stay that way).

I seem to keep most parts of my life separately categorized into neat little boxes, and become uncomfortable or freak out when elements of one clash and mix with another.

What I mean is, I am capable of being friends with and connecting with a large variety of people, and this is because I'm an actor who changes roles depending on the scenario.

A lot of my friends are complete opposites and so different, they would hate the other if they met each other, and would each see themselves as 'in the right' and the other person as the 'a55h•le'. For this reason, I ensure they never, ever meet.

This has caused my difficulty with girlfriends/relationships, as I rarely feel comfortable introducing my girlfriend's to my friends - I feel friend's are a signficant source of judgement from others, and so feel it would damage my reputation if she meets certain friends.

But, most women don't like a secretive male who hides parts of himself, and want to feel 'a part of my world' as much as I feel a part of theirs.

However, interestingly enough, I don't like to meet the friend's of my girlfriend either for the very same reasons - that they will judge me negatively, and once doing so, may influence her opinion of me and convince her to stop seeing me.

I just don't want to bother the effort of making good impressions on her friends, people I could care less about and have no interest in.

I'd rather avoid many things than have to make the effort. Just like I'd rather two different groups of friends I have stay separate than go through the effort of making them meet.

So this is my way of getting along with others, because back in high school when I did 'be myself', I unforunately showed too much of the negative aspects of my personality, and to this day no one from high school is interested in seeing me or being friends with me anymore.

That's what I got for actually letting my true qualities show for once instead of simply tailoring whatever situation as a means to an end.

There's absolutely no freakin' way that's ever going to happen! Oh wait, it happened with my first girlfriend (sort of). I was a college freshman, and had no dating experience whatsoever. So despite finding her boring to be around---I liked trendy restaurants and artsy neighborhoods; she just wanted to hang out on campus---I was more than happy to have her as a girlfriend. Still, despite the "joy" of being with her, there was a constant undercurrent of dissatisfaction and resentment. I completely stopping talking to her when we went out dancing (it took coaxing on my part), and she didn't want to dance close. I'm partially to blame: I was very meek and unassertive at that age, so not getting my way was the norm for me, which included romantic relationships, perhaps especially so.

That also happened with my relatively recent girlfriend, the "movie night on the couch" girl. Only I stayed in the bad relationship for two reasons: sex and a guaranteed date. I was very involved in couple-type events back then, and there was heavy police activity in my area at the time, which precluded me from seeing escorts post break-up. Also, she was intensely pressuring me into marriage, which I kept pushing back. But once my patience ran out (hers too, I'm sure), and the police activity subsided, we broke up and went our separate ways, as if the relationship never existed.

I already pointed this out to Hopper. Somehow I "know" that once I'm in a relationship, everything in the relationship, or at least 90% of it, will be about her, not me. Hey, just look at weddings: they're all about the bride, with the groom being a little more than an accessory. By contrast, casual romantic relationships, or even platonic interactions like social dancing, are very much balanced. Each person has their own role, working together to ensure the best time for both of them. It's fun, sexy, and safe. Any imbalance of power terrifies me, which it didn't at a younger age.

God I wish I was in a long term relationship.

^^^mee too.

I see alot of misconception on how a relationship is something you agree upon and then becomes a process that you need to upkeep, it is not. Its something you can state you have after you're well into it.

Ill never understand how people have become so settled with the unnatural in their expectation.

Don't get the whining about LTRs. You don't have to be in one if its not your thing.

What if it IS our thing?

We want one, but the specific type we want is damn-near impossible to find.

"I see alot of misconception on how a relationship is something you agree upon and then becomes a process that you need to upkeep, it is not. Its something you can state you have after you're well into it.

Ill never understand how people have become so settled with the unnatural in their expectation."

It's because other people make dating unnatural, specifically most N.T.'s.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather just meet some gal and get to know her and have some 'thing' with her and then ask after three months or so 'So, wait, are we actually, like, dating?" and it turns out to be a yes, but most of us can't have something that spontaneous and natural.

Aspie1: I'm starting to think maybe women's needs in general are just considered more important by society in a relationship than men's.

Just think about it: Even if both a man and woman are attracted to each other but too shy, the man is almost always usually encouraged to be the one to develop the confidence to ask her out, while she shouldn't have to lift a finger even if she's equally shy.

When it comes to marriage, if SHE wants to get married, but he hasn't thought about it, she EXPECTS him to propose to HER instead of doing it herself, and if he does not, she assumes he does not want to get married because he isn't interested in her (when he probably just doesn't believe in marriage, like me) and will dump him because he 'took too long' to propose, as if it should be considered his 'duty' in the first place!

During the actual wedding, I agree, it's almost all about the bride...

And, once they're married, the man is expected to be the main earner and breadwinner of the household. Women may be working nowadays as well and earning higher pays, but still usually want a man who earns higher than she does.

Also, finally, not sure about the U.S, but Australia seems to have this third-wave Feminism stereotype household in which the MOTHER is the head provider of the household and matriach over the man and children.

I've grown up in this sort of household and observed it many times across various different households within my family, friends, friends of family, and other random families.

Feminism seems to have had a stronger impact here than the U.S., as we also generally have a higher amount of women involved in politics and government and have had at least one female Prime Minister (Julia Gillard).

Most Australian males I meet perhaps either like being controlled, or settle for it, because most relationships I've observed have a clear slight power imbalance in favor of the women.

In terms of society and culture, we have a mish-mash of old assumptions (tradition) and new challenges to those old assumptions. I'd be surprised if the woman who wants to be the breadwinner also wants to wait for the man to approach her, or to propose to her.

The old worry was something along the lines that Aspie1 has spoken of - that women were just waiting to trap men in relationships (a favourite way of doing this being to get pregnant) and take away their freedom. Nowadays there's a rival concern to this that women don't want or need men anymore, that they have no interest in relationships and seek to keep the man from being a father, rather than trapping him into being one.

The wedding is about the bride because, as tradition has it, it is she who is being 'given away' (just think about that term for a moment), by and from her father to her husband. It is her rite of passage.

There is more at stake, socially, in being an unmarried woman than an unmarried man.

To get abstract about it, there is certainly a lot of confused thinking about such matters within society and within individuals. It is this confused thinking that is causing problems. If you enjoy analysing the concepts and ideas at play and seeing how they fit together, then it could be a worthwhile and helpful to your worldview to do so. Otherwise try and keep your focus on your particular interest.

In this thread I have largely been interested in Aspie1's psychology, in what is behind his panic over long-term relationships. Partly plain curiosity, but also because I think his life would be better if he could deal with it.

Outlander - I don't think you're in the same boat, and you're young. Given more time and experience, I think there's a very good chance you'll find someone you could be in a long-term relationship with.

As to compromise, assertiveness is important. If one fails to be assertive, and one is unlucky, one will end up with a partner who makes use of that failure. Even if one is lucky, it's a situation that forces one's partner to guess one's wants and needs and to find a way to balance them with their own, which is exhausting.

A good relationship (of any sort) allows for either party to raise a grievance, and for that grievance to be heard in good faith. I go back to what Adam Phillips said, which is that when someone can satisfy us, they can (definitionally) frustrate us. Any relationship has to deal with that ambivalence.

Change is inevitable.

I'm not sure I understood this. Isn't a conversation necessary to "make it official"? Let alone the "exclusive talk"? Although with that said, I got into my first relationship (sort of) just so I can say I'm in a relationship. I'm just glad it happened a few years before Facebook even existed.

To "deal with it", I developed a threat level scale for my romantic relationships, based on the US Homeland Security Advisory: Low, Guarded, Elevated, High, and Severe. (The UK probably has an equivalent scale of some sort.) The "threat" refers whatever I fear happening to me in a long-term relationship, which should be clear from the context of this thread. To this day, only the cruise girl got a Low level. By contrast, everyone else was at least Guarded, with the "movie nights on the couch" girlfriend being Severe. I suppose the only other thing that will also help me "deal with it" is a girlfriend with a sense of wonder and adventure. Basically, someone with a Low threat rating. (Guarded won't cut it.) But I'm guessing it's just a pipe dream, unless I take another cruise and meet another girl who has sleeve tattoos, loves to dance, and gets excited by moon phases. So I'll settle for casual dating whenever I can find it, which tends to be wondrous and adventurous by design.

My last sentence is highly ironic: at age 18, I settled for having a long-term relationship (that I hated) because I found casual dating too damn difficult.

By 'deal with' I meant more in the way of examine and work through whatever it is that is causing you to get the panic-attack phobic heebie jeebies whenever someone even says 'long-term relationship' rather than having a system to keep emotional involvement with women at a distance. That you even feel you need such a system.

That, when you meet a woman who appeals to you and is at that 'low' threat, you don't self-sabotage what could be a good thing. That you even conceive of it in terms of 'threat'. That's what I mean when I say you're not ready for an LTR.

I think I've said what I could say on the matter already, probably at least twice over. I've posed lots of questions that I think might be helpful to reflect on. Again, I'm not trying to sell you on a long-term relationship. That different people have different needs and preferences isn't a scandal. I suppose I thought it might be good for you to get to a point where you don't go into a fight-or-flight panic attack mode just because someone used the word 'settle'.

I grant it could be a UK/US difference - I don't think 'dating' has the same meaning here it does in the US - but I've pretty much fallen into relationships, and any conversation as to what kind of relationship it was was one of confirmation.

I had my first relationship at 18. I didn't consider it dating, or even (perhaps the UK equivalent) really 'going out'. It was just a relationship, for all intents and purposes one that looked to the long-term - we made plans on that basis. And it was terrible. Miserable. I got into a relationship just because I desperately wanted one. We were utterly ill-suited. I was in the midst of a nervous breakdown, and she wanted another boyfriend to replay her last relationship with. After a few months I saw it for what it was, and I left her. Ghosted her. Not my proudest moment, but necessary to try and maintain my sanity.

It didn't put me off relationships in the slightest (I've aways struggled to see the point in anything but a serious, long-term one). It did make me realise I ought to have standards, and to think about what I wanted. I'll grant I got lucky meeting Mrs Hopper about eight months later, someone with whom I got (and get) on incredibly well. We matched where necessary, and where we differed it tended to be in a complimentary way. I've never viewed it as a matter of freedom vs unfreedom.

A few weirdos aside, most people looking for a long-term relationship want someone who they get on with, who shares interests and passions. The degree to which time alone is sought varies with the individual and the dynamic, as does the worldview, the approach to a relationship, though some agreement on these is usually desired, too.

In that regard, you're in the same boat as anyone else. There are models of relationships that people follow, maybe because it's what works for them, maybe because they've never thought about what they want. One finds the same with models of life - in both instances, it is what might be referred to as the 'bourgeois'. Needless to say, there are many other models out there, and many people who reject those models. I mean, there are couples who make good, exciting relationships out of being drunks or junkies together.

You might find someone. You might not. You can live your swinging bachelor life all the while. My concern is not that that life is wrong or bad or lesser or not working for you - I don't think any of those things - but that you would do well to be open to meeting such a person, to be ready should you meet such a person. Even if you never do, it would be a good thing in itself. As things stand, I don't think you are or would be.

It doesn't sound to me like the OP wants a LTR. He has discovered a world where he is not required to be committed to anyone or anything and yet is satisfied. His only sore spot seems to be having lost his cohort who have discovered LTR satisfaction. By the way OP, people can fall in love in minutes so your saying it must not be love since it happened so fast is not necessarily true.
It seems more like he is looking for a sound argument to win the cohort back and refute his granny. If this is the case, hopefully you have deduced OP that for some the LTR fills a very deep need to be connected that some humans have. If you lack the need for a deeper connection than flirting and hookers than you may never discover what some of the others enjoy so thoroughly. Your way of life is not unique and has only the weakness of possible loneliness and a lack of that one person with whom we share a mutual dependence. There is the chnce that our partner will stick by our side through thick and thin (though that is certainly not guaranteed) but has no chance for you in your current state.
No need to fight your nature. Perhaps your "rainy day" of need will never come.

Yes I am starting to become confused as to what the OP is wanting us to tell him exactly? seems he refuses to believe a long term relationship doesn't have to be boring and you don't have to be with someone who tries to 'change' you. Then on the other hand people have tried saying he doesn't have to get in a LTR if he doesn't want to but that doesn't seem satisfactory either. Just not sure what else there is to suggest.

You know what? I think you nailed it! Props to you. I think what scared me about this statement was how forcefully she said it, even though I was over 30 at the time. Similar to Donald Trump talking about kicking out the illegals. Kind of like: "FORGET about your interests. They're NOT IMPORTANT. You can LEARN to live WITHOUT them. What REALLY matters is how your and your significant other FEEL about each other." I didn't argue back. Why not? One (1), she's an elderly person deeply set in her ways, so it'd be borderline unfair of me to do that; and two (2), my family was very traditional and hierarchical until well into my adulthood, so I'd get quickly shot down.

The "losing the cohort" thing is true too. And the dinner parties that replaced our fun outings are snoozefests! Sit and talk, sit and talk, sit and talk. I end up playing with my smartphone to pass time. While I have casual friends I hang out with that do like going out-type events, there's a catch: I can't tell them about escorts I have sex with, for fear of losing their respect. So each time I show up smiling and grinning, they have no explanation except to wonder what the hell is wrong with me. But since I'm so much fun on those nights, they probably don't really care.

Oh, and one more thing: I don't believe in love at first sight in the slightest, so I don't buy the whole "within minutes" belief. Loneliness doesn't bother me; I view it as a variation of boredom, and going places solo is far less boring than being in an LTR where you never go anywhere. And "mutual dependence" makes me run for the hills like the wind.