Do you find the stages in a relationship a little... fake?

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Stage One: Attraction and Romance
Stage Two: Reality Sets In
Stage Three: Disappointment
Stage Four: Stability
Stage Five: Commitment

"Fake" might be the wrong word to use, but that's the best one I can come up with at the moment. I've always found it odd that despite the predictability of these stages people still get overly excited in stage one, still get into lots of conflicts in stage two, and still become really disappointed in stage three. It's almost as if they're actors who are just following a script for the sake of following a script.

I think the realization that half of the first stages in a relationship are mostly an act is the reason I've never been interested in having a relationship. I remember saying "I don't want a boyfriend, I want a husband" when I was younger, and I guess even then what I wanted really was the stability and the permanence of a having a husband rather than the physical or emotional intimacy that I'd have with a boyfriend.

Hope burns eternal

personally I'm all out of hope (in a good way)

I see what you're getting at. My philosophy throughout high school and college was, "Why waste my time, money, and emotional energy on someone who I probably won't marry?" I figured dating was stupid until you were of proper marriage age. In a way, it is, but I've come to the recent revelation that, had I attempted to do so, I may have learned something along the way. Now I'm ignorant of the subject, of the age that I'm tired of being lonely, and clueless as to where to go from here. I feel like suppressing my feelings for females in my teenage years was probably a mistake.

What confuses me is how people are OK with just having fun for a while, or seeing if it COULD become something great. Or, not wanting to go somewhere unless you had a date, even if that date wasn't anything serious. Apparently people are scared of commitment, and don't want to talk about serious stuff early on. I mean, from my point of view, if I were to be dating a girl, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I'd like it to become serious. If I didn't think it could be, I wouldn't have bothered. I'm worried that the person I would be dating would get the wrong impression about me because of their conceptions of the relationship flow.

I'm all for working through challenges in life, but the perfect wife is something I don't want to have to work for... I wish some divination could just tell me who she was, bring us together, and that was that.

I don't think I could get to the commitment phase if I reached the disappointment phase. I think sometimes 2 and 3 actually come after 5.

I don't think it's an act or fake so much as the unsurprising outcome of human emotions and biology. One facet of biology/psychology brings us together for sex (to have children, evolutionarily) whether we are suited to be co-parents or not. Another facet of biology/psychology guides us to settling down and being parents to those children (evolutionarily, I realize many, many couples don't have children). The gulf between those two facets is where we decide if the person our DNA wanted to match up with is really the right person with whom to combine DNA and raise children. Stages two and three are really just the gear switch from mating to parenting (I am including couples who don't have children because the gears are in place evolutionarily, not just for individuals.) Some people break up during that gear switch. Some don't.

Of course the reality of couples is far more messy and complex and frequently doesn't involve children. But I think that relationships follow that general arc you described for evolutionary reasons having to do with the differences between conceiving and raising children.

yeah i find it kind of fake too. my stages went like this:

1. infatuation
2. love
3. despair
4. repeat cycle over and over with same person

1. Emotional connection
2. Reality sets in
3. Disappointment
4. Disappointment
5. Disappointment
6. Disappointment
7. Watching Stroszek on your own
8. Putting on Iggy Pop's The Idiot
9. Dangling from the kitchen ceiling

At the moment, I'm at stage 4.

I've not had a disappointment stage with my husband and we've been together over 16 years. I don't know that the reality setting in happened in that order either. Only in the last few years have I realized that wives are expected to have babies. That was my only reality check with him - and really that's more a societal thing than anything having to do with him personally. Everything else has flowed.

I had a disappointment stage with a bf in high school, and that was the end of that. I wouldn't bother continuing with someone I was disappointed in.

Well, if you're female and have defects, you can pick and choose; but if you're a male with defects, you don't have that luxury. But I'm not disappointed with her, but that a later-age relationship lacks a lot of things. There's a reason why everyone talks about "young lovers", and NEVER middle-age or old "lovers," as no-one would willingly go there.

It really is like actors playing parts.

I hate the way romantic relationships develop so unnaturally compared to friendships. To me, every relationship must be built on a friendship or it's fake.

I think stage 3 happens because of the "pink glasses" when being in love... everything about this person seems to be great and amazing (or so I've been told). But then the hormones change in order to form a lasting relationship (that is necessary for raising children but cannot work if the partner is seen as faultless) - and reality sets in, usually resulting in disappointment.

I think if you're aware that at first love will give you an impression of the person that is much more perfect that reality, you can prevent this.

That being said I've never been in love (I did have a crush for someone sometimes, but they never lasted long and I never thought of my feelings as serious), and, being logical even when feeling strong emotions, doubt that I will ever experience these "pink glasses"... and thus don't think I will experience that disappointment. Could be wrong, though...

Welcome to life, even all the good things suck.