God?
The ultimate wikipedia and wingman who can do anything?

Other than that, probably no one...be with for "eternity?"
Just seems too much potential for a monkey paw wish similar to:
https://youtu.be/l_8yPap-k_s

Great. I get to be Ebenezer to this specious crap.


It's not your age. It's your ability to critically think.
What do you think, and why, son?


Truth isn't a gift.
It's a hard won prize you have to struggle to capture and keep alive.
Honesty is a gift.


So the kid isn't capable of figuring out whether or not Santa Claus exists by his own abilities.
But in a short conversation the kid is asked to make and be responsible for a life altering choice?
"hey dad, is big bird really a bird?"
"Here's a gun kid. You sure you are responsible enough for it?"
Kid pauses. "Of course dad!"
"Great. Let's go duck hunting."


Great. So the guy confesses to a lie.
Why should the kid actually believe what the dad tells him next?
And if the kid (unable to figure out whether or not Santa is real on his own) just believes that which his dad now tells him...kinda invalidates the idea that he isn't a kid anymore, or is mentally capable of actually taking responsibility for whatever "truth" bomb his dad hands him.

So is the moral of the story "really" just "hey kid, parents lie to you for their own emotional enjoyment. But you have to take what we say at face value when we decide you should. Don't question it! Don't think! Just come to me with your questions and I'll decide for you. I am trying to train you in how you should think, feel, and behave."


So the dad is equating material gifts w/ civic duty and compassion, giving a kid a transformer the same as saving someones life/not ignoring someone hurt?

Other than that, the dad is lying to the kid again.
There is no such thing as pure altruism.
The only thing the dad in this scenario is teaching the kid is how to conform to and perpetuate group moral standards. Again, all based on lying to "children."

The actual truth is altruism is "hardwired" into human biology (people are her/group creatures, what helps the herd helps the individual), we receive an emotional high from doing it.
You have the choice of doing it for that emotional high, or social credit to spend towards placement in the hierarchy.
Parents like to perpetuate fantasy's to manipulate their kids to give themselves a huge high and pocket some for social credit when they "confess" that there's really no santa claus.
Good luck kid.

I see it like dragons, alligators, and apes.

IMO a lot of people sit around and in their life they encounter an alligator.
Then it runs off.
They build up stories and legends about the alligator ultimately turning it into a dragon; then they need knights and princesses, mental and emotional wizardry, to run around and fight and rescue and capture it and crap.

Personally, I'd rather be like Dian Fossey and let the direct experience define itself, keep my eyes open, respond, adapt, and be able to live among the apes.

IOW find someone and we define it in a way that's relevant to our relationship founded in reality.

I could sit here and spew some romantic nonsense that has no real meaning in practical reality, emotional masturbation, but how would that actually help you?
How would that actually not harm you? Especially if it influences you to adopt some specious notion that could possibly blind you to some reality you might find with someone else?

It's a specious stereotype.

You can easily say "men should just make sure they 'can' have who they want!"
Making it a pointless stereotype.

Other than that, is anybody getting who they "need?"

Physiologically we sorta can.
And for the most part I doubt it.

You have very few emotions.
They are like the rainbow. Roy G. Biv.
You have a lot of feelings. (chartreuse, magenta, ochre, fire engine red, ecru,)
Feelings are those things that occur when the colors of that emotion rainbow blend together.

You ever seen an old t.v. with dials?
Where you turn to channel 1 and it's that one program.
Then you turn the dial and it goes to channel 2 and it's a completely different program.
Then you go to your friends house and turn their t.v.'s dial to channel 1 and it's the same exact show as on your t.v. on channel 1?

Emotions/feelings don't really work the same way.
Again, they're mostly like colors in varying shades, triggered by different experiences to different degrees associating with them in different ways, on the subjective/individual level.
Generally the same chemicals involved in the brain and body person to person, but different subjective tolerance, associative degree, and understanding of what's going on and subsequent behavioral response.


So it's "possible" to "love and hate at a time."
But IMO most people don't really understand why.
Simply because they don't really understand what's "really" going on with themselves.
Try to get a consistent definition of what exactly defines "love" or even "hate."


Everyone does.
The issue is being able to effectively communicate that to another person, have them understand, and give a crap.

My guess would be:
1. Not beg.
2. Not ask them to take responsibility for you and have to tell you what to do.
3. Be attractive.
4. Be interesting.
5. Be what they're looking for.
6. Not make it all about you while promoting/hiding behind false altruism.

Just a guess.

Of course.
It's natural.
"Comfort" only really comes after a process of determining comparative social hierarchy. Group forming and norming.


It would help to be more specific.

I mean there are some things that one person may think the other is "competing" about but they really aren't.

Like those sometimes labeled as "one uppers."
If you share something and then they come up with something "worse," it might not actually be about "one upping" your experience so much as trying to empathize and communicate something you have in common so are similar.

It may still be "competing" but they may actually be trying to cooperate with you, competing with everyone else to show you they have more in common with you than someone else (or possibly just trying to adhere to perceived group rules).

Some people are competitive.
Some people are insecure and look for competition where it really isn't.
Sometimes it's a combination.
Sometimes it's a failure in communication.
Sometimes "competition" can actually help in developing a relationship and communication.


It should be (among many other things) both competitive and cooperative.
Both offer levels of feedback and knowledge and opportunity.
But like anything else, it can be taken to an unhealthy degree.

A specific situation would be better for discussion, IMO.

My opinion is if you feel the need/desire to go and ask internet strangers to validate what you want, then you are most likely doing something wrong, you just want to not listen to yourself or think about it too deeply.

Other than that, what do you expect to happen?
Are you going to print out this, or any of the million other older women/younger men forums, and go around town, approaching older women, showing them the pages and say "see? Now you have to date me!" and older women will say "Loophole! Pick me up at 8 so I can give you some care!" or whatever personality trait has been objectified, compartmentalized, fetishized?


IME women tend to shy away from being used as someone's mommy just as much as they avoid being used for sex.

There is a huge difference between appreciating that someone you're with is caring and understanding to a degree you notice and can appreciate, and categorizing, compartmentalizing, objectifying, deconstructing, and stereotyping a group in order to specifically seek out traits that offer a desired benefit to any emotional need at any given moment

I did. And it started a subreddit that just calls me "ok boomer," blames me for everything, and demands repfartations.

When I was growing up I wish there was a planned gashood clinic so I could exercise my choice to safely and humanely terminate my flatulence.

The entire experience has just left a bad taste in my mouth.

The farting preacher always makes me laugh:
http://youtu.be/me2H7Ja93Wg

Both? Hopefully they're the same person?

Otherwise either "choice" (assuming it's for a long term, stable, healthy romantic relationship) could be considered "settling" and eventually any "love" could easily turn to loathing, regret, etc.?


Or is the scenario more like "your mom and your spouse are in the hospital. Both need a kidney to live! And yours is the only possible match. No doctor will agree to take both your kidneys, killing you. Which do you choose? Save your spouse? Or your mother?!?!"

Then I'd go with my spouse, "the one I love," over "the one who loves me."
(IMO parent/child love is vastly different and unequal compared to peer romantic love)

...Unless I was the character in a Netflix/Lifetime/Japanese horror mashup.
Then I'd let them both die and cash in on the multi million dollar life insurance policies I took out the day before, and run off with Meredith Baxter Birney whom I met on the internet. Only to have an affair with her underage daughter, who is haunted by a pair of Onryo that live in a well on our creepy estate. And their Japanese names translate into those of my spouse and mother. But what really kills me is Baxter Birney's stalker ex-husband that's really from the future!

Sort of.
No one is perfectly ethical.
Ultimately, IMO, everyone will do things against their ethics, values, or identity, for the sake of "winning" (love or a fight), rationalizing why they "had" to do it.

"Everything is fair in love and war," is not a saying meant to give you permission to behave however you want to any degree, so much as a saying expressing the realization that pretty much everyone compromises who they think they are (behaves like an idiot, solipsist, or an a-hole) for the sake of the ultimate benefit/survival. That everyone rationalizes their "bad" behavior.

Depends on the individual specimen of the opposite sex.

Seems a really vague question.
Are they mutually exclusive?
If I choose "love" does that mean any feelings associated with "friendship" will magically turn into antagonistic feelings?

Are we talking would I just ghost someone I was "friends" with for 20 years all to chase some stranger on the off chance we "may" fall in love?

Are you asking if a woman I was extremely attracted to approached me and said "hey, we can either be friends, or we can fall in love, both are guaranteed, which would you choose?" Then I'd choose love.


It would help if there was a scenario where this choice was actually viable and meaningful.

Because for all I know the scenario could be "you're friends with someone of the same sex. They tell you they're really gay and are attracted to you. Would you choose to remain friends, or be a diverse, multicultural, accepting, open minded individual and explore your ability to expand your ability to love in exploring a same sex relationship? Would you choose friendship or love?"

I think you might want to look up the definition of addiction.

Depends on the people, the nature of their relationship, and their mood.


Beats me.
Last time I sat on the phone chatting I was a teenager.
Being an adult and not having to be home before dark I can use the phone to set up face to face meetings.


Delaying shallow gratification, experience, thought, cogency, deliberation.
Lots of things.

I'll help you out by simplifying the questions:


Because they can, because they don't have to, and/or because the risk/reward outweighs an alternative option.


Changes in culture, technology,relationship expectations/purpose, and/or social roles/rules, risks/consequences.

In a fight to the death in the post apocalypse world of cannibalism and monster trucks? Depends. Is gimp proxy and hair pulling allowed?

Or are you talking about dating? Like approaching a stranger (seeing as I've yet to encounter anyone in a parking lot with a sack saying "psst, c'mere, I've got a skinny and chubby chick in the bag and both are guaranteed to fall in love with you and you'll fall in love with them and it'll be a perfect relationship, but you can only choose one, so which is it?) to possibly date?
Then it depends. It has more to do with golden ratio's and symmetry and personality and communication. I mean some "chubby" women I'm more attracted to than some skinny women. Some skinny women I've been more attracted to than other chubby women.
It's just not that great of a metric.

Or are you asking about in a relationship? Like we've already established how we feel about each other and bonded?
Then I would "prefer" skinny (also making the assumption she wasn't chubby then went to an unhealthy level of skinny, denoting some serious mental or physical health issues).
Because IME it's easier and more fun the path to gaining weight than the troubles involved in trying to lose it, and/or convince someone else to.

But really I wouldn't think about it that much unless it was to (what I would consider) an extreme and/or someone forced me to focus on it.

I feel absolutely nothing positive about them, or comes from them.

For dating and relationships if I find out she has/had a FWB relationship I pretty much see her the same as if she did porn, had a sugardaddy, or walked the corner to make ends meet.

IMO it's one of those life mistakes that are easy to avoid with common sense, and if you're incapable of doing so, or felt the need you had to explore that option, then that really says nothing positive about you as a person.

I feel FWB relationships are a symptom of a failure of society/parents to adequately teach people how to become adults or think beyond themselves, or the immediate.

I don't know about genocide, unless you're talking about cultural, intellectual, and freedom genocide...

http://apnews.com/4ab0b341a4ec4e648423f2ec47ea5c47
http://apnews.com/6e151296fb194f85ba69a8babd972e4b

I just get a "put the lotion in the f'n basket and get under the UV light!" vibe.
...Don't know why.