Seeing all long-term relationships as fundamentally boring

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Seems you are mostly afraid you would get bored of your S.O and the relationship, and will just become stagnant. But it also seems like you think that 'has' to occur if you get in a long term relationship, which I don't think it does. Its more dependent on individuals, if you got into a serious relationship you'd just have to address these things with your S.O...even tell them that is your fear about getting serious if a relationship goes that far, maybe they'd be afraid of that to.

I mean what you describe as a long term relationship certainly does exist, but that usually seems to be when there is some divide between the couple like lack of communication or being with someone you're not really compatable with so you just kind of grudgingly do things mostly their way so they don't nag you. I mean maybe movies make this kind of thing seem more common than it is....since that is the main place I have seen those kinds of couples.

So don't date anyone long term. Easy-peast.

It's not the stagnation I'm afraid of. I'm terrified of my relationship being like my friends' current relationships. That is, very homebound, quiet, and sedate. Their weekends shifted from going Latin dancing as a group and recommending good dance partners to each other (taking both skill and kino level into account), to having snoozefest dinner parties at home with other couples. I know 'cause I attended one of them as a odd man out. The conversation topics revolved heavily around TV, who just bought a house, and planning more dinners. I actually almost fell asleep at the table. So if that's what relationships are like, then I'd rather die alone, and have distant relatives fly in to pay their respects.

I've always been slightly to moderately apprehensive of serious relationships for most my adult life. But I became utterly terrified of them after seeing what my friends' current relationships are like. Not to mention one girlfriend has a loud, Hollywood-esque personality. The other is more down-to-earth, but still lacks that feisty warmth.

Although I try hard not to project my feelings onto my friends, I still can't help but wonder: Are they actually happy with such sedate, introverted relationships, or are they "happy" because it's socially expected of them? (I guess it's also an aspie/NT dichotomy, not just a single/coupled one). I'm asking because my friends are far from introverts.

How old are your friends? Could this fear be related to growing old (or even 'up')?

Are you scared that your friends are actually happy as they are? Does it scare you that you might be happy in such a life?

The obvious point is that this could be fear of intimacy. That you use the 'fear of dullness' (though genuine in itself) as a way to keep that at bay. Does that ring true for you?

Relationships are what you make them. There is a 'default' model of sorts that people fall into, assuming if they do the dull chatter and routine, that's how they know they're in a relationship. Just as there are 'default' models of life.

Mrs Hopper and I are homebodies, to be sure. We've never hosted or been to a dinner party. We've never had a conversation about what kitchen tiles to use. We talk about TV shows we like, as we talk about films and art and books and places and philosophy and psychology and politics etc. These are the things that interest us, excite us.

In our younger, child-free years, we'd have been all about "If we ride this rail line out to the last station, what's out there, and will we catch the last train back in time?". Such curiousity take a bit more planning now, but the interest and inclination is still there.

Nope, don't feel the same. I don't experience my long term relationship as boring at all.

My friends are all my age: early 30's. While staying out in clubs until 5:00 AM no longer appeals to me (unless I'm dancing and making out with multiple women), I can't help but be shocked at how BORING their relationships look: almost like 70-something couples than 30-something fun guys. (I know, I know: "they changed".) So I'm not scared that they're happy; I'm shocked. However, they're NTs, so there's a possibility that they're only happy because it's socially expected to be happy in a relationship.

My last ex-girlfriend was like that too. Her idea of fun was movie nights on the couch, and it was usually the genre I hated that she coerced me into watching. She generally hated going out unless it was something fancy or special. Or to go shopping, of course. Unless it was my birthday or something (and even then, I exercised extreme due diligence), I wouldn't dare ask her to do something "silly" like ride a train aimlessly. But she loved wandering around a mall. Also, my first relationship (sort of) many years prior was quite boring too, not to mention she was very plain-looking; but I was "happy" because I felt like no one else could ever like me again.

However, the final nail in the coffin for wanting a relationship was something my grandmother said: "Forget about your interests! They're not important. You can live without them. What matters is how your and your significant other feel about each other." Which I interpreted as that all my relationships will be about what my girlfriend wants, never me. So why be relegated to an accessory status, when I can be single and stay 100% human?

I started to think that intimacy is dull by definition. Especially considering that they're based on something inconsistent, vague, and easily-fabricated, like "feelings". You're just rehashing the same "feelings" over and over and over and over. So if relationship are supposed to be like that, then I never want to be in one again.

If you're happy, I can sympathize/empathize/something or other. Hope your life stays that way. Plus, you have other lives (kids) to care for; they take priority over rail line riding. But I could never live like that, unless I was coerced and threatened into it, either by my girlfriend herself or her father.

"Get therapy!", some of you might say. But why in the world would I pay $200 an hour for someone to tell me I'm stupid and give me a bunch of useless platitudes? I can---and have done so many times---spend that on an escort instead, and get much more enjoyment out of it.

I don't 'do' or particularly value happiness. I prefer contentment. I'm not very keen on emotion. Don't handle it very well, and I prefer 'feeling slightly upbeat' to extravagent exaltation.

I was using my life as an illustration, not a recommendation. What I want and need from a relationship, what I can offer in a relationship, is probably quite different to your situation. But, it works for me. I wouldn't expect it to work for many others. I'd have to give more detail than anyone's tedium limit could bear to really flesh it out, but where I am/we are now is the result of trying to follow certain 'models', realising they don't work for us, and then throwing them away and experimenting, being more honest with ourselves and each other. The recommendation is not in my results but in the process - forget what you have been and are told you should want or do, and experiment.

I settled down very early. All around me in my teens and early twenties, I had acquaintences (not really any friends) who thought of little but Going Out, of nightclubs and parties and drinking. And dear God, that bored me. It looked boring from the outside. I dipped my toe and found it to be even more boring than I imagined. A lot of social pressure to be like that, that there was something wrong with me if I didn't want to do that stuff. I even thought, as you think of your friends, 'they don't really enjoy this. Who could? This must surely be a big put on'.

But really, diff'rent strokes.

'Rehashing the same feelings over and over' sounds to me like a description of the life you want to carry on living. The same thrill-seeking hedonism. Looking for the heady rush, the 'fall' of a new woman every so often, yet holding back incase it gets 'serious' (and thus 'dull').

Something is only a problem if it's a problem. That I find nightclubs tedious and headache-inducing isn't a problem, as I have no interest in nightclubbing. That I struggle to feel calm and in control when driving at over 45mph has been a problem in my learning to drive and getting a car. My difficulty in handling emotion has been and is a problem, seeing me say and do stupid things. And so on.

I think a good therapist can do two things in particular. The first is bear what you have to say, to give you a space to hear what you're thinking, how you sound, to encourage you to listen to what you're saying. The other is, where necessary and requested, to guide that in such a way that you can change, can move from being one way to being another.

Do you want to change? Half the time here you sound pretty sorted, other times divided, like you're trying to convince yourself that it's not a problem.

When I was a kid, there was some National Front (far right nationalist group) activity in my area. Their favoured tactic was the time-honoured 'setting fire to a bag of dog s**t left on non-white household's front step'. Sometimes they'd be more creative, and shove the flaming bag through people's letterboxes. Grotesque use of dog excremement was second only to their love of the Union Flag. This carry on happened at just such a time that that flag is now inextricably linked with dog crap in my mind. I see the flag, and dog crap is my first association. I'd like to think that my loathing of nationalism and patriotism was one of reason and principle, but it probably comes back to that.

Were I wanting to be patriotic, to feel some stirring of pride or such when I saw that flag, I'd have to do some serious work to untangle that particular knot. Going by the shadow your grandmother's words cast and the 'pure, unadulterated FEAR' you feel when even contemplating a long-term relationship, you may need to do similar to be open to the idea of one.

As I said before, I think your disdain for what you find 'boring' is sincere. But it does look to me to also be providing cover for other concerns.

You aren't interested in long term relationships. You're not in a long term relationship. No one can force you to be in one against your will.

Not seeing the problem here!

I disagree. I think our friend here has a somewhat fetishistic fascination with them. I think there's a part of him that wants one (I'd guess sincerely, but it could just be internalised social norms), and he is troubled by this and the division he feels.

In my case (I feel VERY similar to the OP--in fact I started that thread he keeps quoting), this is definitely a part of it. I have a huge, HUGE dread of the whole idea of adulthood, of growing up.

To me, a big part of what he's describing is, I think, a reflection of people "dreaming" less as they move on from their teenage years, of thinking more about less "magical" and "awesome" things that are within reach as opposed to things that are more exciting to think about but far outside of their real lives.

I'm with this. If he's was satisfied with his present lifestyle he wouldn't have brought all this up. He's conflicted.

What about if our "lifestyle" is being left all alone because we can't find anyone who is on the same page relationship-wise? It's not like he said he's having lots of short-term relationships, and then being critical of long-term relationships from that POV.

Well, given OP spoke about his 'attraction to flings' and 'dancing and making out with multipe women' in nightclubs well into the wee hours, and even hiring escorts, I'm assuming he doesn't lack for female company. I don't know if he'd find satisfaction in a long-term relationship even if he resolved his issues with them, but it seems clear to me it's something that's troubling him in some way.

Unsurprisingly, Springsteen had something to say about that:



How you grow up, and who you grow up to be - a large part of that is up to you.

This whole thread has sent me back to this short video:


ETA

I just read your first post on that 'two kinds of love' thread - astute stuff. I'm too in need of sleep to read the rest of it. Will do tomorrow. I wouldn't - couldn't - accept any relationship that wasn't essentially a combination of the two you describe. My ideal is what I think of as the couple as conspiracy, the couple-as-a-world-unto-themselves. This involves a closeness that, almost definitionally, means always having each others' back as well as 'getting' each other in a way that means our conversations have fantastic (in many senses of the world) tangents.

In a review of Douglas Coupland's 'Player One', Scarlett Thomas said:



Which is pretty close to what I want (and, luckily, have).

One thing "troubling me" (notice the quote marks) is that ALL my friends jumped into relationships within 3 short months, with the most popular guy in the group (who's also a bit snooty) doing so first. Which makes me believe they did it because they were driven to it by groupthink or blindly copying the snooty guy, rather than by their own wishes.

Another major thing is seeing my significant other as an authority figure, rather than a partner in life. So the notion of playful interactions with her like running hand-in-hand in the rain, or even more "mature" things like ballroom dancing, are difficult for me to fathom. Shoe shopping, on the other hand, I have no problem imagining, because it's something most women love and I hate. Ditto for errands, because they're a necessary evil for all couples.

Not to mention I feel like I just now learned flirting and male/female dynamics. At least the beginning/flirting part, rather than the relationship/commitment part. Escorts played a HUGE part in helping me learn it all, despite me paying them. They also taught me to think on my feet, predict other people actions (the police's, in my case), think critically about what I hear/read (escorts' ads), and act discreet in public. Skills that are extremely helpful with flirting/attraction.

So, getting into any relationship would mean I'd have to throw away all those newly acquired skills. The ones I'm just now beginning to make full use of and enjoy. All while NT men have been doing so since age 12.

Next month I will have been married for 29 years. Long term relationships don't stay exciting and new feeling the way you feel at the beginning of a relationship, and sometimes you do get bored, but the whole point of being in a ltr is not to just be in a relationship and choosing the person for your ltr who you think you will be comparable with down the road. Wanting to be with the other person forever, being in love with them, wanting them to be part of your life and share it is the reason for the relationship. I think you are seeing everything backwards.

You seem to think that you would choose to be in a ltr and then find a girl to be in it with you. That is not at all how its done. At least it's not how its done in our culture where we don't have arranged marriages. A ltr just happens because you meet someone and you date them and fall in love with them and just want them in your life from now on. Having a ltr is not the same as having one long date. They become your family and are an important part of your life, but you still have your life and she has hers, but you share it with each other. If you are in love with her then it all becomes obvious. Ltr are based on love. Without being in live it doesn't work.

It's not one long date either. Once you are past a certain point and just want to be with each other but don't have any need to feel like you have to entertain each other then sure there are dull times. But dull doesn't mean bad. You sit home and do things now don't you? And you enjoy doing them right? You maybe come home and eat dinner and watch something on TV or get online. Maybe you lay in the bed and read a book. Maybe you go to the store for something. Maybe you take the dog to the park. You do regular every day things that maybe arent exciting but they are enjoyable. That's what you do when you're in a ltr. Maybe she watches TV or goes to the park with you or maybe she watches a different show in another room or gets on her laptop or does her toenails or is talking on the phone in the bedroom or whatever. It's regular ordinary life that you live with another person because you love them. You both do the ordinary things, sometimes together and sometimes not. The point isn't what you do, the point is that you are with the person you love. You don't do everything together after a while, or even most things. You don't have to. That isn't the point of it. A ltr is when you love someone else so much that you just want to live with them and you do your ordinary stuff and she does her ordinary stuff and sometimes you do ordinary stuff together and sometimes you do spontaneous and exciting stuff together or whatever but the point of the relationship is that you are in live, not what you do.

You can decide all you want to now about what you want in a ltr or if you even want one, but until you meet and fall in love with someone and then want that relationship with them, all you're deciding on now might as well be either a roommate to kick in on rent or a very long date with one of your hookers. Because without being in love, it's just one or the other of that.

When you fall in love with her and she falls in love with you, then it all makes sense. Until that happens you can't really wrap your brain around it. You could just as easily be planning an arranged marriage, which while comparable and pleasant at times even, just isn't the same thing at all.

You say you don't believe in feelings, but without them you won't ever understand an ltr. I've been with my husband 29 years. My oldest daughter and her fiance got lucky and found each other as childhood sweethearts basically and they have been together almost nine years. They are in love as well and will be marrying this year or next. Without the feelings, you're never going to understand the relationship.