After many years of effortless romance and/or sex (I had the good fortune in my younger days to look like sort of a cross between Rob Lowe and Andre Agassi), I finally just burnt out on it and deliberately chose to pursue bachelorhood. I’ve never regretted it. (For whatever that’s worth).
I believe that bachelorhood is genuinely the best choice for some people, but most of them don’t realize it, and/or get pushed into marriage by societal expectations. Congratulations on figuring out what’s best for you, and following that path!
I think there’s a particular brand of person I’ve seen a few times in real life and in media who gives off strong incel energy despite regularly having sex, and I think many of these people are the same as you describe. I think the toxicity that gives them the incel vibes are a product of “I have been conditioned to chase after sex and to measure my worth in how easily I can acquire sex, and now that I have achieved that, I feel hollow because it doesn’t give me fulfillment”
I spoke to a guy friend about this and he said that his own experience of losing his virginity in his mid 20s gave him a sense of discomfort that he later recognised as a sort of gender dysphoria (as a cis man), because suddenly he was “winning” at being a man (according to how society tends to frame it), but he was less happy than before.
Regardless of what is the best path for you, making major life choices because “it is expected” or “it is the default thing to do” is not a good choice.
It really can get exhausting and repetitive, especially if one’s stringing one failed attempt after another…
I second the idea of bachelorhood, can work miracles even if it’s just for a year or two. A break from any and all things relationship/romance can aid with recalibration and recuperation, I think the whole idea of romance has become more of a societal pressure than anything else nowadays and it’s very easy for it to become stressful.
Romance has also been skewed by media to this constant thing that’s also become a bit of an expectation. In my experience those romantic moments are just that, moments. They’re created from feelings and random interactions. It can be effort and planned of course but not as a non-stop fairytale style of life which seems to be increasingly desired/expected.
Media really only shows the good and intense parts, similar to the porn problem, that people end up forgetting that it’s a small portion of the actual time together. Instagram lives are a good example of this. Cute times while cooking dinner happen, but not every meal, not every day. It becomes special when it’s not all the time, when your partner notices something and acts on it. Otherwise it’s exhausting and draining.
True. Relationships are mostly made up of mundane things, like washing socks and farting on the couch, just like single life. A lot of people seem to forget that any potential partner will be just as physiologically and psychologically human as they are. There are good days (or VERY good days if it’s a good relationship) and there are bad days. And the most important thing is how you get through the bad ones.
I’m not even going to get into the fictitious idea of love presented by media, it’s borderline delusional…
It is not even just good and bad days in terms of the romance itself, often it is just days where mundane things have to be prioritized in real life where a story would just skip over them or keep them out of the story completely.
After many years of effortless romance and/or sex (I had the good fortune in my younger days to look like sort of a cross between Rob Lowe and Andre Agassi), I finally just burnt out on it and deliberately chose to pursue bachelorhood. I’ve never regretted it. (For whatever that’s worth).
I believe that bachelorhood is genuinely the best choice for some people, but most of them don’t realize it, and/or get pushed into marriage by societal expectations. Congratulations on figuring out what’s best for you, and following that path!
I think there’s a particular brand of person I’ve seen a few times in real life and in media who gives off strong incel energy despite regularly having sex, and I think many of these people are the same as you describe. I think the toxicity that gives them the incel vibes are a product of “I have been conditioned to chase after sex and to measure my worth in how easily I can acquire sex, and now that I have achieved that, I feel hollow because it doesn’t give me fulfillment”
I spoke to a guy friend about this and he said that his own experience of losing his virginity in his mid 20s gave him a sense of discomfort that he later recognised as a sort of gender dysphoria (as a cis man), because suddenly he was “winning” at being a man (according to how society tends to frame it), but he was less happy than before.
Regardless of what is the best path for you, making major life choices because “it is expected” or “it is the default thing to do” is not a good choice.
It really can get exhausting and repetitive, especially if one’s stringing one failed attempt after another…
I second the idea of bachelorhood, can work miracles even if it’s just for a year or two. A break from any and all things relationship/romance can aid with recalibration and recuperation, I think the whole idea of romance has become more of a societal pressure than anything else nowadays and it’s very easy for it to become stressful.
Romance has also been skewed by media to this constant thing that’s also become a bit of an expectation. In my experience those romantic moments are just that, moments. They’re created from feelings and random interactions. It can be effort and planned of course but not as a non-stop fairytale style of life which seems to be increasingly desired/expected.
Media really only shows the good and intense parts, similar to the porn problem, that people end up forgetting that it’s a small portion of the actual time together. Instagram lives are a good example of this. Cute times while cooking dinner happen, but not every meal, not every day. It becomes special when it’s not all the time, when your partner notices something and acts on it. Otherwise it’s exhausting and draining.
True. Relationships are mostly made up of mundane things, like washing socks and farting on the couch, just like single life. A lot of people seem to forget that any potential partner will be just as physiologically and psychologically human as they are. There are good days (or VERY good days if it’s a good relationship) and there are bad days. And the most important thing is how you get through the bad ones.
I’m not even going to get into the fictitious idea of love presented by media, it’s borderline delusional…
It is not even just good and bad days in terms of the romance itself, often it is just days where mundane things have to be prioritized in real life where a story would just skip over them or keep them out of the story completely.