Love Thread

[Bristel]

You really are an evil person!

My niceness is all a sham!

Maybe this is why I'm afraid of visiting you in Israel, not the prospect of war with the Iranians.

teehee

[Astraios]

Maybe this is why I'm afraid of visiting you in Israel, not the prospect of war with the Iranians.

teehee

Grrr. Bad Bristel. :3

[Qwynegold]

I got to make out with someone tonight. That is all.

[Torco]

yay for making out

[Gulliver]

My partner is going away for six weeks later this month and I may propose before he goes.

I think it would be a romantic time to do it, and it's bound to happen sooner or later.

[linguoboy]

My partner is going away for six weeks later this month and I may propose before he goes.

Out of curiosity, is that who you're making out with tonight or did you have someone else in mind?

[Torco]

I think you're confusing gully with qwyne

[linguoboy]

I think you're confusing gully with qwyne

I wouldn't be the first.

[Qwynegold]

I think you're confusing gully with qwyne

I wouldn't be the first.

Huh?

[Dewrad]

I think you're confusing gully with qwyne

I wouldn't be the first.

Huh?

Being fair, there aren't all that many queers on the board. Surely it's not just me that finds all you perverts merge into one.

[linguoboy]

Shout out to my awesome man, who rolled with it when I made the last-minute decision to run around with my old college friends all weekend even though it meant I was late for my own cocktail party and he was on his own for dinner two nights in a row.

[Torco]

Shout out to my awesome man, who rolled with it when I made the last-minute decision to run around with my old college friends all weekend even though it meant I was late for my own cocktail party and he was on his own for dinner two nights in a row.

that's awesome! kudos to the dude.

[Radius Solis]

Now is tiem for drunken spiel full of unasked-for advice about love.

The fairytale concept of it is something that may not actually exist, as far as I can tell, beyond constructing a fantasy of it from the individual feelings that do exist. It's not just a "love? Y/N" situation, maybe ever. There's zomg-hawt-ness, there's caring about someone and having their concerns matter to you, there's infatuation, there's having fun with someone, there's having high regard for someone, there's friendship, there's desire for someone to simply be in your life - and maybe wanting to settle down and grow old with them, there's companionship, there's connectedness and getting each other, there's good sex, there's not wanting sex with anyone else anymore, there's joining of individual lives into an amalgam of the two what with families getting to know each other and so on, there's joining into one economic family-unit, there's having someone you feel you can truly open up to, there's , , ,.

But these things don't just automatically come as a package. Any given "couple" may have one or two or ten or theoretically all of them. But it's astonishing, observing what people do, how many reject a relationship because it's missing some despite having the rest. Because of the fairytale, with its goal of monogamous permanent union. But are the other things, the ones not missing from a relationship, of so little value that they must be thrown away so that The One with whom you get all of them can be sought? Bah! Humbug!

I say, let each relationship with each person be what it is, don't hold it to unmeetable standards, and be openminded enough to take some parts of your life fulfillment from some people and other parts from others, if that's how the cookie crumbles in your life.

That's the word from someone who's tried to force the fairytale, smartened up, and is doing enormously better in his current relationship because of it. Our relationship does not meet all of those things by any stretch, but it certainly meets some of them, and thus far we've found it appropriate to call ourselves a couple and present ourselves thusly to the rest of the world so as to fit into our society's dysfunctional expectations as best we can. But if I, or he, meets someone tomorrow with whom other of those elements can happen, why shouldn't we be free to fully explore both? If it were me, say, and found with the new guy a number of the elements I currently am lacking in, this could cause me to announce to others that Pharazon and I were now "just friends" and that I was now in a couple with the new person, all without the existing relationship having changed - just for the purpose of telling society who I'm fulfilling the fairytale with. So stupid.

I give it 100% chance that I will regret this post in the morning. "No more drunk-posting to the ZBB" is a rule I formed a couple years ago and generally hold to. But this time I'll hit submit, on the off chance it helps someone.

[Thry]

I give it 100% chance that I will regret this post in the morning. "No more drunk-posting to the ZBB" is a rule I formed a couple years ago and generally hold to. But this time I'll hit submit, on the off chance it helps someone.

pss, why would you regret speaking truth.

[Shrdlu]

Humans ain't supposed to form bonds.

[Thry]

Humans ain't supposed to form bonds.

yes we are.

[Shrdlu]

[Thry]

1-({(4R,7S,10S,13S,16S,19R)-19-amino-​7-(2-amino-2-oxoethyl)-​10-(3-amino-3-oxopropyl)-​16-(4-hydroxybenzoyl)-​13-[(1S)-1-methylpropyl]-​6,9,12,15,18-pentaoxo-​1,2-dithia-​5,8,11,14,17-pentaazacycloicosan-4-yl}carbonyl)-​L-prolyl-​L-leucylglycinamide's fault.

[Shrdlu]

Yeah, I know and I was supposed to have written something more but I forgot it.

[Torco]

Okay, I'll bite

I say, let each relationship with each person be what it is, don't hold it to unmeetable standards, and be openminded enough to take some parts of your life fulfillment from some people and other parts from others, if that's how the cookie crumbles in your life.

for the most part this makes sense, save that the kind of role constellations that traditional couple roles encompass is by no means untenable or impossible to uphold, just not at all easy, which is fine; how sad it would be it if were easy, some might say. Further, there are synergies that explain and, to a degree, give meaning and reason to the particular constellations of ingredients, as it were, that we are culturally, and personally sometimes, inclined to seek out in partnerships.

For example, humans need trust, dependability and loyalty. humans also need sex [most of us, anyway]. there's a reason why this culture recommends, so to speak, that those two things be provided by the same person: it's quite unadvisable to have regular sex with someone you don't trust, for example, because of STDs, childrearing, and for the general purpose of being able to explore one's kinks without fear of the other person disclosing them and shaming you, for example.

As another point, domestic companionship and sex are also deux mots que vont tres bien ensemble: domestic cohabitation implies plenty of smalltime tensions, for example, for which sex is a pretty good stabilizer. It's also inconvenient to live with one person and sleep with another, inasmuch as, for example, the non-sexual partner'd have to feel a bit inconveniently alienated, or put up with the noise, or stuff. Also, again, for childrearing it's more efficient, it seems.

Also, and related to the childrearing thingamajig, it's quite often the structural qualities of family that define the functional characteristics of familial roles, and familial roles [say, spouse or wife or whatever] are what, for the most part, subsidiary roles like girlfriend/boyfriend are based on, and those, in time, inform the relatively new, or at least rediscovered roles of homosexual partner, I imagine. This means that these atavisms, if you will, are a natural consequence of history, and, to a degree, actually make sense often! imagine, as an exercise, a completely different set of social roles and/or a different portfolio of function for each role.

say, in our society, we have: [incomplete, obviously]

parent: gives ego money, love, guidance, resources and discipline.
brother: gives ego partnership, loyalty, and is sometimes co-conspirator.
pal: gives ego recreation, companionship for certain events, social interaction, connections and understanding, is also peer often.
close friend: gives ego emotional and social support, recreation, understanding, and favours. also, humour and a kinship based on common interests or likes.
boygirlfriend: gives ego emotional support, intimacy, sex, and stuff.

now let's jumble things a bit with only 3 roles.

close friend: gives ego emotional support, intimacy, sex, connections and understanding
boygirlfriend: gives ego money, sex, resources, partnership, and is sometimes co-conspirator.
pal: gives ego social interaction, recreation, connections and discipline.

connections and discipline might not go together as well, I mean, it'd be a bit opressive for pals to repress you constantly, and it'd be hardly recreation to hang out with them if they did.

emotional support and money might not be the best of both worlds, since power dynamics would perhaps jumble up the sort of risk-free environment conducent to honesty and emotional containment.

sex and resources and money makes this new version of the boygirlfriend a bit sex-commercy, I think... also, co-conspirator and money and resources tend not to go together great, becasue co-conspirators must be peers, and giving you money is hierarchical. [complementary versus symmetrical, if you will]

some combos work even worse: for example, co-conspirator and disciplinarian, for example, go together horribly, benig a bit opposed, even.

so while this isn't by any means the best of both worlds, it does configure an overarching system that's, to a degree, functionally coherent.

[Xephyr]

Shout out to my awesome man, who rolled with it when I made the last-minute decision to run around with my old college friends all weekend even though it meant I was late for my own cocktail party and he was on his own for dinner two nights in a row.

that's awesome! kudos to the dude.

It's seen as exceptional when a significant other lets you spend two measly days with your old friends instead of them? What the fuck is wrong with the world?

[Kereb]

well it sounds more like LB bailed on a prior obligation to be someplace with the BF, and BF was forgiving

[Torco]

sactley

[Qwynegold]

That guy I wrote about earlier; it didn't work out with him. Then today I got to meet a guy who's the cutest ever! But I get the feeling that he likes me more like a friend.

[Herr Dunkel]

I'm really going to be careful saying this, but I think I have found somebody I really like on a level beyond "omg niec titz gurl!!".