In your early/mid 20s - is there any reason to be in a serious relationship?

[comic_relief]

Refer to your local cheating percentage, which I'm sure can be found in your local Cosmo. Last I checked it was topping 80% for males.

Not to change the subject or anything. Why were you reading cosmo?

comic_relief

 

[MacDiddy]

Not to change the subject or anything. Why were you reading cosmo?

comic_relief

Not to imply that I did, but why wouldn't you? I'm sure such surveys are published in many other publications including your favorite comics.

 

[Crank_It_Up]

...Anyway, for anyone who's dated a bit, what do you think? The more I witness/read/hear the more I wonder if there's any point in getting into a serious (read: monogomous) relationship with any one girl while in your early/mid 20s. I remember Rollo Tomassi or whatever his name is writing something along the lines of "you shouldn't even consider marriage until you're 28", yet half the people I know (girls and guys alike) in their early/mid 20s are in a serious relationship and are either married or getting there...

Some guys start dating, mature, and learn faster than others, so I wouldn't think you could really pick a best age to get married. I've met 40 year olds that have the social maturity of an adolescent. Conversely, I've known much younger guys who really have their act together. I guess it depends on both the individual and whoever he has been lucky enough to become involved with. Usually in a relationship, one side values the other more. It's a rare thing when both sides seem equally impressed with their mate. If you are ready, and this happens to you, I'd say go for it and hang on, but that's just me.

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

I remember Rollo Tomassi or whatever his name is writing something along the lines of "you shouldn't even consider marriage until you're 28", yet half the people I know (girls and guys alike) in their early/mid 20s are in a serious relationship and are either married or getting there.

And then there's this whole thing about girls cheating on their bfs without much thought.

Exactly. How common it is today to be married or getting married before we've realized any of our potential. The longer you remain uncommitted the more opportunities will be available to you. It's been repeated by wiser Men than I that women are dream-killers -and while I do agree with this I'd say this is due more to the man involved, and their own complicity and apathy, than some grand scheme of women.

It's actually in women's best interest that you don't commit to them for a variety of reasons. I realize how counterintuitive that reads, but in your being so readily available you decrease your value as a commodity to them. Scarcity increases value, and particularly when the reason for that scarcity is something that serves another's interest (hers in this example). The mid-20s Man pursuing his ambition to become an attorney in law school or the intern spending long hours at the hospital with aspirations of becoming a doctor is hindered and encumbered with the complications that maintaining a monogamous relationship necessitates of him. His time and efforts need to be applied toward acheiving his goals to become an even higher value Man - not just in terms of financial success but for his own edification and confidence. Needless to say, the constraints and obligations that maintaining a monogamous relationship require - both time-wise and with emotional investment - make achieving these ambitions more difficult.

Those are a couple of obvious illustrations of how this works, but the world is littered with "could've-been" men who voluntarily (and enthusiastically)discarded their ambitions and passions, no matter how mundane, in order to hold together a relationship that they should never have engaged in in the first place. They trade their ambition for a pseudo-satisfaction of allying an emotional insecurity (which is never really satisfied). Their monogamy and the liabilities needed for maintaining it becomes their new ambition, and only later do they realize that by doing so they only encouraged its end in the long term because the Man that their women thought they would become dropped his ambition to be a lesser man for her. This is why women cheat on the "could've-been" man.

I've taken a lot of heat for Plate Theory from AFCs who think it's a promotion of some hedonistic lifestyle of the chauvinist male or a return to the free-love era. This is exactly how a feminized social convention would expect a man to respond, but there's much more to the theory than just access to more available sex. It's not a numbers game of how many women a guy can sleep with, but rather a challenge to remain available to more experience.

Say there were two men; one who never left rural Montana his whole life and another who'd been to dozens of countries, seen countless cultures and decided to settle down in New Zealand. Both would tell you that they love their homes very much and would give you reasons why they're comfortable in their homes and why you ought to live there too, but who's experience would convince that you ought to make your home near them or anywhere else for that matter?

I tend to promote the idea that Men should be sexually and emotionally non-exclusive until age 28, but this is a minimal suggestion. I think 30 or 32 may even serve better for Men. The importance being that as a Man ages and matures in his career, his ambitions and passions, his personality, his ability to better judge character, his overall understanding of behavior and motivations, etc. he becomes more valuable to the most desirable women and therefore enjoys better opportunity in this respect. Women's sexual value decreases as they age and the balance tips into the older Man's favor. It's the Men who realize this early and understand that bettering themselves in the now will pay off better in the future while still enjoying (and learning from) the opportunities that come from being non-exclusive and non-commital make him a Man that women will compete for in the long term.

 

[Mr.Fantastic]

Bravo That Last Post!!

 

[Dark Chivalry]

Most of them should have been cut after 6 months, but a few of them went on past the one year mark. When you let it drag on, THATS when you are wasting your life.

What I see and don't want are the folks who have been together for a couple years and start thinking they are married. As if the commitment crept up on them while all the guy intended wasd to get laid or have some temporary companionship.

If I meet a girl or woman that is feminine, passionate, intelligent and beautiful, one who would make a good wife and mother, and I want to marry, then I'll commit. Until then, I'm single and date women when I enjoy dating them and leave when it's no longer enjoyable to date them.