How Do You Feel About Love/Relationships At This Point In Your Life?

This was a forum topic I recently encountered and the following was my response:

At this point, having been married, single and everything in between, as well as seeing the experiences of people around me and reading about these things online, I have to say that I am opposed to relationships in which the two parties are living together. At least for now. I own my own house and am perfectly content being alone in it. I have absolutely no desire to live with another woman at this point (I have lived with 2 in my life).

As far as relationships that don't involve cohabitation go, I am not necessarily opposed to them but at this point in my life I don't even want that. To be honest, I have much more fun hanging out with friends/my brother than I ever did with a girlfriend/my ex wife. Really, if you take sex out of it, you have a friend, but in most cases, one that isn't as fun to be around as are your male friends since females and males are often so different (what they consider fun, the conversations you can have, etc). Of course I am generalizing here but that's the nature of the conversation.

I really believe that despite what we tell ourselves, access to sex might really be the biggest/most potent motivator for the forming of relationships. Not many relationships survive without it and guys will go to extreme lengths to put up with **** that they would NEVER take from friends and the reason for that is sexual desire- which, if you really want to deconstruct this, is simply the biological urge to procreate. I believe that alone is the basis for all of it, and everything else is  a nice little narrative constructed around it.



Note: This of course is where the accusations of being bitter or hating women come in, but that's just a defense mechanism against the possible onset of cognitive dissonance kicking in. Assessing reality (as you see it; there's no guarantee that you're right) and coming to a (at least tentative) conclusion that dispels some happy myths is not an act of bitterness or malevolence. People seem to mistake a non emotional look at reality for pessimism. Women are great (many of them), relationships can be wonderful things and sex can be awesome. I'm not denying any of that. My ex wife is a terrific person and I will always love her/consider her a friend, so let's dispel the "bitterness" accusation right here and now.

I do not need another person around in order to be happy. In fact, I do best when I am alone. I love the absolute freedom afforded me by being the only one in my house (well, except for my dog). I can do exactly what I want when I want, and for me at least, that is the best situation to be in. I don't need someone sleeping beside me (don't need to be held nor hold someone else), I don't want to always have to consider someone else when making decisions, and I don't want to have to deal with obligations put on me by my significant other (I don't [i]want[/i] to go to Ikea at 9am on Saturday, k? I want to sleep in until 12 and then play video games for a few hours before hanging out with friends). And then of course there is the inevitable relationship drama. Ugh. I may be missing out on the good stuff but I think my freedom and the fact that I don't have to deal with whatever drama there currently is going on (a fight, break up, whatever).....just ugh. No thanks. At least not for right now.

As far as love goes, it's great but once again, I think we tell ourselves a lot of nice stories. You meet a girl, start going on and on about how perfect she is, and how this time it's different, and then x amount of time later you you do it again with the next girl (and again and again, etc). I believe that as much as people might not like to hear it or think it, people are mostly interchangeable and those feelings you have for that person who is just oh so (insert positive attributes here) aren't specific to that person- you could (and likely will) have them for someone else. And really, take away sexual attraction, then see what happens. I believe most of it is just window dressing; sex is the bottom line, imo. Well, sex can be had without relationships, and so the question becomes are relationships worth it? That's up to each individual to decide for themselves but for me, right now at least, the answer is no.

Oh, and as far as how I feel about getting into relationships, if that is the decision you make, I recently wrote about it offering some basic advice/perspective to younger people: http://magx01.blogspot.ca/2013/03/women-should-be-treated-like.html if anyone wants to read it.

Anyway, that's the basic idea of where I am at this point. I could have articulated it a bit better and more clearly but I'm not feeling great and so I rushed it. If anyone wants to question something, ask for elaboration or challenge what I said feel free; I'm always up for (non combative) discussion.