The Joys of Being Single

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^ agreed. It is interesting.

I imagine a lot of people fantasize more about things like love, romance, and closeness, than sex. It seems to be a common thing for so many people...they want their forever person; they want that love.

I never thought about what people fantasize about. Now I'm curious.

It’s quiet.
I also don’t have to deal with annoying in-laws.

I fantasize about alot of things. Not just in the Interpersonal relationship domain a.k.a. "Love"... or its more cruder counterpart "humping."

I've always been more interested in giving love to a partner, than receiving it.
I don't always trust what I receive, or the person's intent.
Showing love to someone else is much more fulfilling, and I get to open my whole heart.
I'm not just referring to partners, but to friends.
When I love someone, it's based on who they are and it never ends.
When they love me, it might.

Just a thought.

Hmmn...on surface, my impression is, you're talking about altruism.

A Psychologist might say that's....because you don't feel worthy of love?


A Psychologist might say that's....because you feel people can't be trusted, are corrupt, incapable of being honest, inherent deceptive. Again tied into the self worth. To suspect ulterior motives. e.g. "Well, there's no way they could like me, for who i am, there must be other reasons, they are doing x y &z."



Altriusm. Sense of well being through providing for others. Deriving pleasent feelings from service to others.



SO your love is everlasting, and everybody else's love is temporal, and subject to failure or breakdown, but yours is of a higher grade?
Ans based on who they're, as opposed to what, who they're are not? based on their personality. Intangible things like that, as opposed to material things? That's what I gather you mean.

Pardon me? That's a lot of presumption.

It's not self-serving or altruistic, or with any ulterior motive.
It's not a higher grade.
It's not virtue signalling, but thanks for making it sound that way (not).

Most people who have claimed to love me, didn't know me at all.
They loved who they thought I was, or an image in their own mind. ("Oh you're so smart")
They loved what I could do for them (e.g., three gay men admitted they used me, to appear straight)
They loved my independence without thinking I was also vulnerable.
Or they loved my vulnerability without thinking I was independent.
Most of them couldn't answer a single question about my life history, beyond the superficial.
This includes the man I married, who chose me because of what I could do for him.

No one has ever really understood the whole package, or cared much to investigate.
Either that or I'm some mystery to solve, and they like the adrenaline rush more than they like me.
They're usually disappointed in what they find, because I'm a regular person instead of an illusion.
I'm not faulting anyone.
I'm not saying I don't deserve love. It's not a pathological self-reproach.
It's just what it is.

Lots of people act this way ^ when they think they're in love.
It's especially common for autistic people to be misunderstood or misread, by those who say they love us.
People are often attracted to our quirkiness, but that doesn't make it love.



I'm not being critical of anyone, that's just how it's been.
At the time I loved being loved. It was great. No complaints. I thought it was real.

Even if it was real (or as real as the other person could make it), I love the act of knowing and loving them.

I don't know if I'm explaining it right.
I guess I have a different vision of what love is, than most of the people I've met.
They think: "My partner makes ME feel great!", instead of "I admire / understand who THEY are".

When I love someone, it's because of who they are. All parts of them.
It's not about how they make me feel, or what they do for me.

I guess I'm saying that I love being an active participant, instead of a passive recipient.

I never said you were self-serving or you had a ulterior motive. I said it seems altruistic.
You can be altruistic without any ulterior motives. And altruistic by its very concept means other-serving.

Again where does virtue signalling even come in to play? Altruism is either 100% other-serving, or partially self-serving, which would be virtue signalling, which would be ulterior, or concurrent motives.

Presumption. I'm throwing out ideas. I not saying any of it is factual, pertaining to you, only you know that. Since I'm, not inside your head. Only you know what makes you do a thing. In that sense, we always presuming, when we interpret, analyze others behaviors.

Like, I'm gonna go ahead and presume, that you were presuming that I'm presuming you're a virtue signaler. I said you MAY suspect other people of having ulterior motives, if your statement was any indication. I never said you your self had ulterior motives.

Self-reproach, Is I believe a common reason, people MAY engage in altruism. Self-esteem related = self-reprocah motivated. Or image-related, Which would be virtual signalling.

A bunch of people could all the same thing, same action, on the surface, and have completely different reasons for doing so/motivations, internally.


As far as love. That's a very complicated thing. Altruism and love are similar. But there are many nuances. And variations. This is turning into philosophy discussion.

The joys of being single:-

You have a whole bed to yourself and don't have to wear earplugs all the time to muffle the sound of their snoring.

You can do what you want, when you want, without being affected by their moods and strange opinions on things.


OK I do love my boyfriend and it's normal to get annoyed by little things when you live together, but still.

I get chucked on the couch when I snore

Normally I let my wife go to sleep first before going to bed

@ theprisoner,

You did use the phrase "ulterior motive". I just can't be arsed to quote it right now.

I thought I'd just written a little musing. A random thought about love. Innocuous.

It seemed strange to have it deconstructed into a psychological analysis of my psyche, culminating in the idea that I thought my love was better than other people's love or "a higher grade". That's the same idea as virtue signalling. You suggested that perhaps I thought I was morally superior somehow. Better than others.

You also suggested that maybe I feel unworthy of love.
I hadn't said anything like that either.
It's frustrating that no matter what I write on WP, you like to question or second-guess what I mean.

You're always pulling my posts apart to add a layer of meaning, which is unnecessary -- and almost always wrong.

Examples -
I wrote a post saying that I was thinking about a friend. You felt the need to assert that it was probably Raleigh??
I said it wasn't. You still persisted in wanting to know who it was.

I wrote that I once had a bad day / panic attack involving police. You felt the need to add a series of action GIFs showing police storming someone. Then you persisted in suggesting the reasons. You said all you could think of was a drug offence.

Gee thanks. Not only did you give me visual flashbacks of a traumatic event with the GIFs, you wrote a public post that suggested I might be a federal drug criminal.

This needs to stop. You know I have trauma and it isn't supportive to treat me like that.

Yes we're friends. Yes we can joke back and forth sometimes given the right context.

Please stop microanalysing nearly everything I say, and deriving meaning which isn't true.


Sorry folks for the derail. I didn't intend this exchange, and I don't want to PM about it.

Isabella is clearly upset.
Perhaps you need to give her some space?

Plato believed a pure love devoid of sexual content to be the pinnacle of caring emotions.
It is hard to argue against that.

I have chosen not to compromise my freedoms.
I have been this way for most of my wife life.
At my age, and with my life experience, I see no reason to embrace a significant other relationship ever again.

I beg to differ.
I am a suburban recluse and have absolutely no need for real-life interactions.
Admittedly, I have been on the receiving end of 50 years of gang stalking which may have hardened me up.

Yup - I think it's more fulfilling to love than to sit there being adored.
What's the fun in that?
It wasn't meant to be a huge philosophical statement or anything.
Just common sense.

Of course the ideal is that it's reciprocal.
Your job is to love them.
Their job is to love you.

End of story.

But being single is wonderful too, as we've all said in this thread.

Well said. Learning to receive can be harder than learning to give. This is why Gandhi never wrote The Prince.