Netzach
>semiotics?
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2003
- Posts
- 21,732
stirbird said:I'm not sure of the circumstances of the relationships you are thinking about, obviously, but I've noticed a general trend in all relationships (whatever the sex details) over the last decade or so. In general (not saying this is true for everyone--it certainly wasn't true for me and a couple people I know!), if relationships begin online they tend end rather quickly because people jump too fast into online relationships.
The medium inspires a false sense of intimacy, in particular a belief that you know your partner very very well long before you actually do. You do get to know a part of them very very well online, maybe one fifth of them, but you can't get to the other four-fifths well that way because these parts do not communicate well through the medium, even when aided with voip (internet chat/phone) and cams. People are very impatient these days (again, this trait is encouraged by the media which needs greedy consumers who want it all NOW in order to sell more stuff) and do not think much about the fact that very difficult and special and worthwhile things sometimes take a great deal of work and time. They expect nearly instant gratification, even in relationships, and that virtually guarantees failure because people are so very complicated. If you are looking for someone you're going to be able to spend most of your life with without going crazy from irritation, frustration, or hurt, you have to go very slow, ask a lot of questions, test the waters, watch carefully how the other person responds over a long time (you can't learn their full range in a short period) and toward difficulties, and keep a part of your mind observing and critical. I don't see many folks doing this. Instead they fall almost instantaneous and madly in love with their "image" of their lover, not with who that person really is.
So couples commit, perhaps after a few short visits in which both people have been on their best behavior and not really spent much time together just being who they naturally are. More importantly, the two commit before they've experienced any difficulties together, both as individuals and in the relationship. Neither has tested the other's mettle, in other words, and discovered whether they can handle the tough stuff together.
The resulting relationship is a crapshoot, and, like most gambles, the majority of the time it doesnt' pay off, the two aren't compatible enough to make it work when things get hard.
As to what goes through a person's head when such a relationship ends? I'd like to say that they figure out all of the above and learn to proceed slowly and patiently, but I don't think that's true in the majority of situations. I think what happens (based on the countless bitter rants I read on collarme profiles and from letters I've received on this situation) is that you blame the your former partner for all the troubles and you do not learn very much from the experience--or you draw wrong conclusions. People of lower intelligence very frequently declare, "That person was a FAKE!" What actually happened was that the actual reality of that person, which inevitably shows itself over time, was nothing at all like what they expected based on their limited 1/5th-of-total exposure to that individual over a period of a few short months (or even weeks) and their romatisizing of that person's image. So the former partner becomes the evil bad person who purposed "tricked" you or "faked" someone they really weren't when the actual problem was inside you. The same thing happens when you shop too quickly for something valuable. If you're in a hurry, you may spend thousands of dollars on a very shoddy quality item, when a tiny bit of research would have turned up a product one-tenth as expensive and of far high performance, durability, or beauty.
Something else that seems related to relationship failures: the phrase "you get what you pay for," is often used to refer to the idea that the amount of effort someone makes to obtain something is somehow magically and inevitably correlated with the result or product that they get. It's a very misleading statement, because it's so incomplete. Success may require at least two other important factors: 1. Quality of effort. To suceed at getting something valuable, you often have to work very smart as well as very hard. Simple analogy: two athletes train for a race. One runs frequently. The other lifts weights prodigiously. While person two may be putting even more effort into his endeavor than the first person, does all that hard work actually make him more likely to suceed (win the race)? 2. Dumb luck. Lots of people work very hard and very smart to get something they want and never achieve any lasting success, while others flourish. That's just becuase when dealing with extremely complex systems such as the economy and the factors that effect it or with other people, you are always dealing with huge unknowns and random factors. The more complex or difficult your goal, the more unknown factors that affect your outcome can creep in. Sometimes these unknows help you, sometimes they hinder you. Some people get lucky and get a lot more in return than their effort would dictate. Later, they (or others who envy or admire them) attribute their success in life or in love with simplistic cause-and-effect: they practiced sterling qualities, like a rigorous work ethic. Others work much harder and smarter than Mr. or Ms. Sterling and, when the day is done, have very little to show for their effort.
The only thing I know of that counteracts the dumb luck or "unknowns" principle is persistence in the face of failure. If you really want something, you pick yourself up no matter how many times you fail, and try again, without a lot of bitterness or blaming other things (or yourself). And again. And again. And then some more. You also try hard to learn the right lessons from each experience so as to reduce the randomness somewhat. In life and love there are patterns that repeat, and that you can use for prediction. It can get tricky though, because people who want easy or fast answers or something to blame for their misfortunes see overly simplistic patterns (i.e., "All the doms (or subs) are FAKE!") which make them even less likely to suceed and these further failures make them even more entrenched in their misleading ideas.
This is a lovely bit of analysis done with care and consideration. Really really well stated.
