Intimacy

A survey of issues

About and Appearance / Reality

-physical and mental attraction; love or lust? How do romance and sexuality relate? Could one love a p-zombie?
What is the right balance of presenting strength and vulnerability?
Maybe your type is not your type and you are not your type’s type.
If you could take a pill and need no romance nor sex, would you take it?
-eros (sensual); agape (philanthropic); philia (friendship); storge (familial)
-honesty and deception (identity; plans; knowledge gluttony)

Lover/Friend demarcation

-diachronicity: boredom; decline; the chase/NRE; variety; can you be friends with your lover?
Maybe we have different types for different time horizons.
Maybe no person can meet all of our needs.
-idealisation / pedestalling; when you see someone as they truly are, does it ruin them?
Just like a new job, a relationship you’re excited to start is one that someone else cant wait to leave.

Planning

-uncertainty / stability; possession (parent-child; partner; friend)
How to live knowing you’re likely going to lose your loved ones eventually?
Must love feel possessive?
“They’re not yours, it’s just your turn”
-loyalty; trust; conditionality; fungibility; what is commitment?
See the Secretary Problem
-relationship transition ethics inc. respect, eg monkey branching
“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain”.
“Everyone you love will either betray you or die”.
The “Happily ever after” narrative seems harmful.
“Don’t wish; don’t start. Wishing only wounds the heart.”
It’s just an endless mess of sadness and trauma really, the price we pay for company. Life fucks us all.
Is it possible to protect yourself in a relationship?

Compromise and Individuality

-control; monogamy; what are acceptable levels of control of a partner?
When do demands/compromise become coercion?
What is the line between love and pathological co-dependency?
What if Jerry Maguire had said “You supplement me”?
-selfishness; fairness; investment (effort, pleasure, time); debt and desert; should you ever expect something in return?
Is romantic love purely altruistic?
Should we always put ourself first?
Can a line of selfishness be judged objectively?
“95% of people want someone hot. 100% of people just want anyone with a higher social status”.
Is romance always transactional?
It seems we need them to need us or at least care for us.
But is there always an informal scorecard?

Movie meet-cutes set unrealistic expectations

The prescription that women are to be treated like princesses seems harmful.

“Infatuation” comes from the Latin infatuare “to make a fool of”.

-“Do you love him, Loretta?”
-“No.”
-“Good. When you love them they drive you crazy cause they know they can.”

Trust is death

Relationships are a market of bids and offers; every relationship only lasts as long as both see no better options.

Free will

-changing oneself; effort (“work at it” / choosing to love?) and responsibility for relationship success; growing together
-baggage; romantic nostalgia — what is it to “let go” of an old flame? Does “moving on” in a relationship require forgiveness?

State recognition

-normalisation; incentivisation

Love might be described as:

-Socially acceptable madness.
-Caring about someone and admiring them to the extent you think they’re too good to be giving you attention.
-Being with the nicest, best-looking, smartest, richest, stablest, funniest person who will settle for us.
-The delusion that one person differs from another.
-Fawning over something that may one day destroy you.
-Feeling it in your stomach; thinking about them first and last thing.
-Being willing to die for someone who you yourself want to kill ;)
-The selfless desire to see another thrive and develop into their best self.
-Feeling you want to protect and feel protected by someone you really wanna fuck.
-Stockholm Syndrome.
-A futile game you cant win.

“Sex alleviates tension; love causes it”

Love is universally alluring, but for some people is it too dangerous a thing to rationally seek?

Beware:

-The Halo effect
-They like the chase
-Difficulty detaching emotions from sex
-Unpaid debts; regrettable compromise
-Ex-partners will review you to the neighbourhood