The Happiness Paradox, can someone explain this? chat & forums.

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Thread: The Happiness Paradox, can someone explain this?

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 10 (view)

The Happiness Paradox, can someone explain this? Posted: 8/19/2006 8:14:51 PM
Don't be friends with someone you have serious feelings for. If you can't be lovers, then lose the feelings, or drop the friendship, but don't try to have both; it won't work.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 63 (view)

why do I (+ most women) love assholes?? Posted: 7/12/2006 11:02:02 PM
Because you've got unresolved issues with a parental figure. No, seriously. People often hang out with and marry those who have the same negative qualities as their father or mother.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 17 (view)

Love Lost, Time Wasted? Posted: 7/10/2006 5:37:25 PM
To love is to risk. That's a big part of what makes it love.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 6 (view)

Show us your ROMANTIC side............ Posted: 7/7/2006 1:46:13 PM
We took some time out of our busy lives to be here for each other Kind eyes that venture below the surface Soft laughter to make us forget life's sorrows A rose here, a gift there, attention given and other small acts of kindness Who is this person before me Someone new, someone special Someone who knows me Or perhaps best of all someone who will always try A soft touch, caring Letting us finally get past words

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 87 (view)

What is Most Important in Life??? Posted: 7/6/2006 11:08:22 AM
All we really have in this life is each other.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 66 (view)

Do people only want looks? A perfect girl or guy? Posted: 7/5/2006 10:54:52 PM
It's not so much that people only want looks. It's more a question of what people require at a minimum. For example, imagine the government institutes a new forced marriage policy where they will assign, randomly and blindly, a spouse for you (one time only), and you have no choice but to accept, and can never divorce. Regardless of gender, the following sentence is most likely the one going through your mind as the hour draws near: "Please, Dear Lord, let him/her be good-looking (or good-looking enough)." Because without that, you'll probably hang yourself. But with that, you figure you can probably work on or overlook the other issues. On the positive side, if the other person accepts your looks, then you've probably cleared the biggest hurdle. What the world needs is the convenience of POF with the reality of a bar or cafe. I think school came the closest. Until then, just get out more.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 39 (view)

Should I be honest? Posted: 7/5/2006 12:58:11 PM
I don't think you did anything wrong. Some people just have their expectations concerning dating too high (which is admittedly easy to do) and take things too seriously. In one or two more lifetimes, the way medical science is going, this is probably something people will laugh about in history books anyway. :)

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 25 (view)

MEN PLEASE HELP ME OUT WHY DO YOU LEAD US WOMAN ON!!!!!! Posted: 6/30/2006 12:46:15 AM
It's like this: Boy is lonely. Boy meets girl. Boy's loneliness compromises his better judgement. Boy thinks he likes girl. After a while boy realizes the truth cannot be denied. But boy is too embarassed to say the truth or he's afraid he'll hurt girl's feelings. Not knowing what to do, boy delays, ultimately doing nothing. Girls winds up confused. Cue tragic music. He let his instincts get ahead of his heart, and some guys (and some girls too) need time to learn how to see the truth early instead of late. People are complex; each of us contains multitudes. For what it's worth, take solace that a lot of his multitudes were attracted. Love is when all the "people" within a couple like each other.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 79 (view)

I need some Advice on this one Posted: 6/8/2006 10:41:45 PM
I'm curious, what would you do if the situation were reversed? -- your new lady friend asking if it's okay that she still lives with an ex-bf raising a child.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 19 (view)

why are all the good ones so far away? Posted: 5/14/2006 12:39:01 AM
Because most people are farther than closer. Of the set of people that click with you, statistically, they will be part of that population. People forget what a very small percentage of the world lives nearby. The POF membership of your city is a fraction of the worldwide POF membership. You need to search more exclusively closer to home. Ideally, a dating service has all the people who are looking, using its service. The problem is that not enough of the people near you are using POF. If you're the conspiracy theorist type, a dating service may be deliberately hiding compatible nearby people to keep you using the service more frequently. Match.com was accused of this, I believe. The ideal sting is to report most of the compatibles in the second or third town away; close enough to keep you interested, far enough to prevent you from practically hitting it off anytime soon. This is always a possibility in a service that a) they all behave alike and b) have something else besides your lovelife as a priority. For example, bars... they all exist to sell alcohol, and do their best to keep you single (like playing deafening music so that you can't talk to anyone. Of course, this works for them since it doesn't interfere at all with your ability to drink).

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 18 (view)

Young guy with dating troubles Posted: 2/12/2006 2:54:38 PM
Hmm... well, I guess it's a question of fit then. I'm guessing things go alright until the other person realizes that you're not a typical youngster (deeper, smarter, able to talk about more fringe topics, etc.). Especially younger people, they're looking more for just someone ordinary to have fun with. Even adults have that problem -- I've seen deep/smart people told to climb a mountain peak and stay there if they want to reflect on life's heavier meanings. Folks generally don't like being reminded how ordinary they are, and like attracts like. If your looks hint at unusualness, and then you say stuff that's also off the bell curve, then it's like a double whammy for the average person and they probably can't deal with it. And I suspect people are more judgmental these days... I've certainly met folks who size up a person super fast and have no qualms about taking off the nanosecond they lose interest. I had a relative who was a good musician, perfect pitch and all... but man was he blunt. I think that scares ordinary people too when they meet talent, they're afraid of coming up short sooner or later. In fact, 90% of the good musicians I've met are rude and temperamental, they have no patience for mere mortals, so I generally take it careful when meeting them. A pity for the other 10%, who are really nice people. I wouldn't advise turning into someone else, but expand your interests a bit, try to discover and celebrate the goodness in others and focus on that, build common ground. For example: She: "I'm pretty baffled by life." He: "Really? It's not so hard, actually, even the ancient Greeks made a lot of headway on..." She: "Oh, look at the time, gotta run." He (take two): "Yeah, me too, and that's even after giving it a lot of thought. It's damn mysterious, that's for sure." She: "Yeah, I'll probably never get it. So..." Long story short, the lady is not looking for answers, she just wants to be sympatico with someone who's in the same ditch. And let's face it -- even the smartest/deepest people don't really know anything anyway, so there's no harm in admitting that. And there's always time later to get into it if they're interested. Now that might not be too applicable to your situation, but I mention it just in case it's of any use. Good luck.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 12 (view)

Young guy with dating troubles Posted: 2/11/2006 10:54:25 PM
Okay, another item on the list ruled out, always a good thing. Could it be reputation? Small town, everyone already knows you (and hasn't forgiven some earlier snafu) and anyone new quickly gets told about you from others? Maybe try another town for a weekend, one where you're a complete stranger?

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 10 (view)

Young guy with dating troubles Posted: 2/11/2006 3:32:59 PM
Hmm... well, it's quite the mystery. Looking at your photo again, I'm gonna go with something my instincts are telling me, even if it doesn't hold up: You're young and that combined with the long hair may be giving you too much of a feminine look, which would subconsciously creep people out (both genders) due to "Pat-phobia". The good thing is, hair grows back, so if you want to try a test, just cut it short to make it really obvious that you're a guy, and see what happens.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 4 (view)

Young guy with dating troubles Posted: 2/10/2006 8:00:52 PM
Hmm... be handy if you had more information, but if people won't talk with you in a crowd, then it is probably something visual. It could be something you're unware of yourself (it happens) and people are so polite/p.c. these days, they'll never tell you what's wrong. I hesitate to say it's the hair... long hair on a guy isn't that uncommon nor necessarily bad looking anyway. Posture? Breath? Body odor? Teeth? Voice? Nose hair? Weird facial hair? Birthmarks? Bad skin? Greasy hair? Lice? Bad shoes? Any tasteless visible tattoos? Bad jewelry? Satanic pentagrams or over-the-top sayings on your shirt? Limb weirdness? Legs too long/short? Hunchback hump? Hyena laugh? Eyes mismatched? Missing eyebrow? Overactive blush response? Too thin or heavy? Are you carrying something weird (e.g., Buck Rogers lunchbox)? Always chewing gum? As long as you're by yourself, it's a perfect time to go through the full checklist. Seek out the local Casanova and insist on a totally objective evaluation. If you're okay on the material plane, the problem must be inside. But you gotta rule out the physical first.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 634 (view)

Compatiblity by Sign Posted: 1/24/2006 12:31:31 AM
If nothing else, you at least get to explore the possible compatibilty of how you and the other person appreciate astrology. Not a bad way either to start a conversation about related things, like karma, the soul, angels, philosophy, astronomy, take your pick... :)

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 67 (view)

The Male Ego Posted: 12/8/2005 2:09:41 AM
> Don't know what this has to do with the price of eggs in China, but it's true. cotter, think about it: men are generally going to pursue those women who stimulate them enough to cause an erection. And for most men, that means visual beauty, regardless of what the man himself looks like. The whole male decision-making process isn't happening entirely on a "I look like this, so I'll go after the same" approach. The reverse also happens. A marriage counselor noticed that a lot of her male clients had affairs with women who were less pretty then their wives. The reason: the men were in unloving relationships and had grown more attracted to someone who liked them for who they were, even if they were less pretty. It got to the point where that quality even became sexually attractive. So it could be the 'deserve prettiness' phenomenon is limited more to younger or unmarried men.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 40 (view)

The Male Ego Posted: 11/8/2005 12:01:46 PM
A woman can reproduce without having an orgasm. But a man cannot.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 22 (view)

Materialism is a turn-off. Posted: 10/26/2005 11:28:04 AM
Desire breeds disappointment. But to be human is to have emotions including desire. It depends on the goal. To have things for a purpose, or merely for the sake of having? the material is here to help improve the immaterial. Own a brush in order to make art that moves people's souls. Ownership is illusory and fleeting. We are born, we splash about making waves in the surrounding environment, then we die, and the water flattens once more as if we had never been. The anxious moments in life are those when we have yet to learn that we are mortal (and thus think that we can actually own things), and some people get stuck in this youthful phase.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 3 (view)

The greatest Questions without answers Posted: 10/20/2005 12:11:25 AM
That ineffable thing we call 'the sense of self' is eternal; the universe is always being observed by someone somewhere. When we die, something else becomes self-aware and starts experiencing life all over again, but without memories of the past (just like we cannot remember anything before our birth -- channelers notwithstanding). The question "where do we go after we die?" is the same as "where were we before we were born?". The answer is, nowhere -- the sense of self cannot go away. It just keeps experiencing life in different material wrappers (for us now, human bodies). So don't sweat the present iteration. There have been many before and will be many after. Some worse, some better. The best you can do for all of these 'selves' is to make the universe as nice as you can, because you keep inheriting it from yourself each time. If you have trouble picturing it, just ponder a universe with only two or three people in it, constantly dying and being born (or better still, a universe with only one person in it).

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 38 (view)

What's love feel like to you? Posted: 9/6/2005 11:19:50 PM
Love feels like being perfectly balanced on top of a soft transcendant fulcrum whose base lies infinitely far down. You feel way above everything, beyond earthly concern. You feel that you have finally returned to the place where it all began, where everything at last makes sense not because you understand, but because you finally feel the true connection to everything. You feel extended, and cannot tell where you begin and everything else starts. The distinction has melted away; become fuzzy, unimportant. You are her and she is you, and you realize that these words are merely a language of convenience; labels. Fear is banished, unable to withstand the sincere outpouring of your soul. Even when the feeling tapers down as you return to everday existence, you are forever changed; no longer quite the same, but now something better. Your step is lighter, the great burden of mortal existence presses now slightly less on your shoulders. More confident, less angry, more understanding. Things that mystified earlier now do not.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 3 (view)

Does there ever come a point.... Posted: 8/25/2005 12:57:02 AM
I don't know if your photos show you as you are currently, or how you appear when you date men, but assuming they do: - Grow your hair longer or let it be long. Short hair on you looks... boyish. - Lose a little weight. Some of your body fat is in your face, making it less appealing. - Try more feminine clothing. - De-emphasize tattoos. Yes, they're cool and fun, but they also represent an all-or-none issue with people (because they're a **** to remove). People subconsciously get the feeling that you expect them to make permanent choices. Men who like women generally need them to be feminine. Each thing that reminds them of a guy turns them off. I know I'm probably going to get flak for saying the above, but the fact is, you need a neutral party to just critique you objectively (as far as objectivity has meaning in dating). Or at the very least, get the opinion of a man who doesn't have anything invested in relating to you so that you can get some frank guy-side evaluation. People don't normally say what is bothering them, and sadly, that's a big obstacle to other's personal growth. If you experience another rejection, you might even want to tell the guy, "I promise I won't get mad, just tell me what's bothering you." You might not enjoy what you hear, but if he's honest, at least you will get something you can use. Now, I'm all for "being yourself." But that concept has limits. If a person, say, truly enjoys farting a lot and is just "being himself", well, his chances are effectively zero of finding romance. Don't let constructive/honest criticism be devalued by unnecessarily thinking that you would be compromising who you are. Change, after all, is the only constant, and all of us are constantly evolving. There is always a "worse" and "better" version of each of us. Dating is like going on a job interview... you do it with some style, and that doesn't mean you stop being you. If losing weight sounds impossible, meditate. Why? - Meditation helps you deal with pain. - Dealing with pain helps you deal with hunger. - Dealing with hunger helps you reduce calories. - Dealing with pain lets you exercise harder. - Hard exercise burns calories faster. - Pain management lets you eat less while exercising hard, and the fat will literally fall off when you do that. That's why the fad diets fail, btw, because they never address the fundamental ability to overcome hunger (which is a force to be reckoned with). One last thing: you don't actually have to do any of the above. Finding romance is all probabilities anyway. The only thing self-improvement will do is raise the probabilities. However, even experimenting will let you discover what helps and what doesn't. People fail mostly because they don't try anything different.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 16 (view)

The 2nd Date Lie. Guys? Posted: 8/20/2005 7:13:36 PM
There is at least one absolute truth in life, and guys tend to learn it early: "Hath no fury like a woman scorned." I have seen the toughest, bravest men do lots of things, but violate that rule they won't. I'd sooner bungee jump or get teeth pulled than tell (or otherwise indicate to) a lady that I don't find her attractive. It's the same reason guys will proceed with the date and just suffer til the end instead of bail out early. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. The only possible exception I can think of is you outright asking the guy how he feels, and adding "I won't kick you in the balls, I promise."

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 4 (view)

advice anyone? Posted: 8/20/2005 6:54:09 PM
People are not singular units that behave in an all-or-nothing sense. There's no singular "him" that's being confused, only a large collection of "his attributes" that are independantly attracted or repelled. Same with women; same with all living things. One could be attracted by wit but repelled by height, or whatever. So your qualities, altogether, leave him in a state where the parts of him that are attracted are balanced by the other parts that are repelled. He can't move on until one side gains the upper hand, and that could take a while. My advice, for what it's worth: find someone else. Even when borderline cases look like they might go in your favor, they can just as easily blow the other way. Build the house of love on a solid foundation.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 104 (view)

IS IT POSSIBLE TO FALL IN "LOVE" ONLINE? Posted: 12/15/2004 1:33:14 PM
The short answer: sometimes its even easier when there's distance, since the object of your love is more up to your imagination (and the other person's). Without the distraction of sex, it is also easier to focus on character. Love can be relative. Consider a world in which people (pick whatever reason you like) can never physically meet (procreation is done, say, through mail). People would still get lonely and still talk, and they would have preferences about who their "talk-partners" were. Really good conversations would lead to deep relationships and serious feelings. It's tempting to say that such love isn't real -- after all, you don't really know who is on the other end of the line. But even in our world, we never have absolute knowledge or truth about anything or anyone either. Love is always a matter of risk and faith, and the best we can do is minimize it. In a world where everyone cannot meet, their minimum may be larger than ours, but it is the best they can do so their love is as real to them as ours is to us. Conversely, there can be a world where people directly exchange thoughts and consider us to be trapped in little cells, and our love to be a pathetic shadow of the real thing.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 6 (view)

Are we born as losers? Posted: 11/28/2004 9:01:34 PM
We are not what we want to be, but what we choose to be. So just choose what you want to be. The simple fact is, we live in a reality which has this unfortunate thing called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In other words, it is easier to destroy than to create, it is more likely for things to run down and go wrong than to work out and succeed. Anything worth doing and having takes... sigh... effort, and desire strong enough to translate continuously into effort. And before you say, "yeah, but love should be easy", I say, anything hard is easy when you truly embrace it and accept the grind. If you do it right, you won't even notice and you'll come to believe it really is easy. The future is unwritten, so seize the day. Be bold and make bold choices. If you're getting the same things out of life, it's because you're putting the same things in, so try something different. Anything. What's to lose? Each of us is important. All the cause and effect that has occurred so far has also led to _your_ existence. Even if all you ever do is make one person happy, for even a moment, that is something. Because that one moment may be the start of a chain of events that leads to great things. We are each far more important than we know.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 13 (view)

what would you do for love Posted: 11/28/2004 5:15:16 PM
Might depend on the specific circumstances, but generally, no. She would live, the stranger would die, but I too would be dead... inside. The person she knew would cease to exist. And if she's gone, I might not be able to live without her either. So I'm toast either way.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 16 (view)

Why Do You Have To Be Drop Dead Gorgeous? Posted: 11/21/2004 6:02:40 PM
Looks are a relative phenomenon. If we all had three fingers on the left hand, we'd think it perfectly normal and would think others more beautiful if they had three fingers on the left hand too. People's expectations parallel their surroundings and what they see most of the time. We have media bombarding us with Photoshopped beauties 24/7. Visit a different culture and you'll discover looks are taken more with a grain of salt.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 3 (view)

My last date I thought was a man. Posted: 11/16/2004 4:12:38 PM
You didn't notice her lack of Adam's apple? Or did she somehow manage to have one?

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 42 (view)

If you were given the ability to..... Posted: 11/14/2004 1:39:34 PM
I'd go back to the point where I was about to bet red on the roulette wheel and change to black.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 41 (view)

Interracial Dating.... Posted: 11/4/2004 11:30:03 PM
My father told me, "Date or marry whomever you want. It's your choice, but obviously some pairings are going to be easier for everyone around you to handle than others." So it boils down to whether you mind what everyone else's reaction is going to be. In fact, you could say that applies to same-race couples too. Some guys, e.g., who want to be with a sophisticated crowd feel pressured to stop going out with a simple lady (like in that movie "Legally Blond"). You see famous people who have interracial relationships in real life bring up the subject of getting along with their environment. I think Wesley Snipes (?) mentioned it once; he was going out with a white woman but switched to a black woman to avoid having to deal with other people's reactions and the way they were looking at him and his girlfriend. There was also that movie he was in -- "Do the Right Thing" I believe it was -- where he shows the practical problems that crop up in interracial relationships. There was nothing wrong except with people around him being racist.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 48 (view)

A Few Extra Pounds Posted: 10/29/2004 1:26:13 PM
Personally I never let weight influence what I think about a person. I have friends of all shapes, and some of them have even varied in shape over time. :) The only thing that another person's overweightness does to me is stifle the sex drive. But that is a separate issue from liking them or being friends with them. Life is enriched by all sorts of people, not just the ones you can play under the sheets with. And to the man who can go all the way with his plump bedmate: more power to you. I secretly envy you, for you are a better man than I. :)

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 7 (view)

Why is it?????? Posted: 10/28/2004 3:13:13 AM
As a handsome friend of mine once said, looks are what people sense first. It's the initial draw; it gets your foot in the door and whether you can stay inside depends on your other qualities. Now he was a simple fellow so he attracted more of the simpler girls, which drove him batty sometimes, so it's not like looks alone will solve everything. Even plain people judge on looks. Would you go out with someone who was highly wrinkled, or three feet tall or who has really bad acne or weighed 500 pounds? Probably not. Everyone has their "minimum bar" that others must visually pass. You _might_ hang out with someone like that if you knew them really well, but if you can't stomach the first five minutes, then you'll never get to know them that well, right? And we all have friends that we'd never have sex with. :) My favorite description of that bar is "easy on the eyes." As long as a person doesn't make the other person grit their teeth, things should go alright. What amazes me is how much one's hair can affect things -- if you haven't, just experiment with different styles and see if you can hike things up a notch. And it won't make you vain; you're just making it easier for others to get to know you well enough to switch over to your finer qualities. Even if you don't quite hit the heights, it impresses others that you went and made that effort. It shows respect, and people like that. A plain woman who watches her weight and has good posture and charm and who knows how to dress turns heads, and that's true for guys as well. Focus on what you can control, and don't worry about the stuff you can't. Attitude/poise helps too. If I'm ever (God forbid!) in a club, I don't fidget, I don't wallflower, I don't look down, I don't do anything nervous or timid. I just dress well and behave laid back, and chat along an even keel, a nice pleasant pace. And no acting; "posers" and "losers" spell nearly the same for a reason. Sincerity attracts people. The ladies don't come running, no, but more often than not they linger and chat for a while. They like to see a guy who's honest, who looks and acts like he's got his stuff together, who isn't worried if he doesn't "score" that night or only has women on the brain, who has some easygoing confidence, who knows who he is and is okay with himself the way he is. This is getting long. Tell you what: just notice the qualities of women you admire, especially the plainer ones, and make them your qualities. If they can appeal to you despite their plainness, then you want to do what they're doing. And if or when someone disparages your looks, you'll like yourself enough that it won't bother you, and then you'll be even more attractive.

Joined: 8/8/2004

Msg: 10 (view)

Y dont guys just like to hang out? Posted: 10/8/2004 2:40:03 AM
Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. They find different things important and it's naturally difficult to be interested when each person finds the conversation "off topic". Men don't place much value, e.g., in talking about feelings, or who's-doing-what-to-whom-and-how-they-felt-about-that. Men like to _do_ things, to make something tangible happen. Men need to accomplish things, not just find out if someone else is feeling okay. Women are happy when everyone else is happy; men are happy when they're getting things done. If a guy wants to be in your pants, it doesn't necessarily mean he's oversexed; the sex act itself can be his way of "getting something done" (since perhaps nothing else presents itself, and asking a lady if she wants to help build an arcade cabinet... well, it just seems too weird :) Suggestion: if you feel a guy is bored during a date, just ask him to help you do something, and his spirits should lift. Find a puddle and ask him to lay his jacket on it so you can step over. If he's tall, ask him to get things off the top shelf. Or even carry your shopping. Don't expect him to be a girlfriend and share your interest in "feelier" topics -- you've already got women friends for that. He's a guy; this is your chance to let a guy do things for you. Ever wanted to go somewhere? Ask him to take you there. If you have to get into feelings, then say something like "I'd love it if you told me..." because now the guy will see that there is some tangible purpose to sharing his feelings. If you just say "So how are you feeling now about such-and-such?" he's liable to just shrug and wonder what the point is. No wonder relationships are so hard nowadays: women are so self-sufficient, the whole feature set that men evolved (being problem solvers, protectors, providers) is outdated. So we're stuck just "hanging out" doing literally nothing. But we're all pretty smart -- put a little more thought into it, and you can have the guys interested. :)

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