On Not Looking

hyperskeptic

New member
I was recently introduced to a long-standing "mindvirus" called "The Game".

Even by mentioning it, I may draw the ire of people in the grips of said mindvirus: you see, the only way to win the game is to never think about the game. You can make someone lose the game just by mentioning it. The most mean-spirited way of doing this is to say to someone: "You just lost the game."

(Sorry to anyone whose day I spoiled by bringing it up! There is a cure, though. See this: http://xkcd.com/391/ )

Now, why do I bring this up?

My wife and I started discussing polyamory back in March of this year, and we both took to the idea of it very quickly. As a matter of principle, I reject compulsory monogamy and embrace honesty and freely-given consent as the basis for healthy relationships.

In the first flush of enthusiasm for the idea, I joined OKCupid and polymatchmaker.com, and set out to look for another relationship.

But, the more I think about it, the more uncomfortable I am with that way of going about things, as though rejecting monogamy requires that I seek a girlfriend.

To make a long story short, I quit OKC . . . then rejoined OKC . . . and am now quitting OKC again. I quit PMM, then rejoined PMM, then quit PMM again.

I've reached the point at which, while I remain open to possibilities, I'm not actively looking for a relationship. If I find myself getting close to someone, by and by, I'll know what to do, but I'm not going to hang around online with the express purpose of finding someone to be close to.

Part of the reason has to do with a love-hate relationship I have with the internet, and with computers generally. I am trying to limit my exposure to screens, the better to live what the poet Wendell Berry calls "a three-dimensional life". ("Stay away from anything that obscures the place it is in", he writes.)

Part of the reason has to do with the fact that I've got a lot going on right now, with my marriage, my children, my career, and my very time-consuming avocation (traditional music and dance).

But part of the reason is also that I now find myself with a very odd outlook on polyamory that reminds me too much of "The Game": it seems to me that a good, healthy relationship can develop only if I'm not looking for "a relationship".

If, in the ordinary course of my busy life, I find a mutual interest developing between me and someone else, I'm now free to see what might develop from that interest.

But to look around at the world sizing up candidates to be "my girlfriend" - as though it is a job vacancy that needs filling - seems wrongheaded, artificial, forced . . . and puts a kind of distance between me and anyone with whom I might, in the fulness of time, develop a deep relationship.

Like "The Game", I can only succeed by not thinking about succeeding. I just have to get on with living my life, upholding all my present commitments, and let things happen (or not) as they will.
 
I like that approach...good for you. (and I lost the game)
 
I think you just happily lost the battle, to win the war.

The only successful ( in my mind) poly relationships I know of,...Involve people who haven`t a clue about all the poly-bible rules, who Franklin Veaux is, or any of what they call 'popular poly'.

They just fell into it. No expectations. They had a genuine interest to be respectful to each other, and when it stopped working, they wouldn`t force the issue.

10 years later, they are still together. 4 people, who just live their lives.
 
Is "The Game" that nonsense about not finding a relationship if you're looking for one?

That's so much hokum. I've never found a relationship without looking for one. Ever. I have never started a relationship when I wasn't looking for one.
 
I know that just meeting people doing whatever things you do is a nice way of going about it, but, I would never have crossed paths with my boyfriend without OKCupid. We look back at all the paths that we could have taken that would not have had us meeting up and wonder, occasionally, at our amazing luck.

All that said, I suppose if I didn't have him, someone else might have come along. There's a Tim Minchin song to that effect:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KynIKjRwqDI&feature=youtube_gdata_player
 
I've never found a relationship without looking for one. Ever. I have never started a relationship when I wasn't looking for one.

Ditto.

Although, I do believe there is something to be said about maintaining a Flirtatious Mindfulness in everyday life. That is, I need to work on pulling myself out of whatever it is that I am focused on and seize upon Opportunities for Flirtatious Behavior. I really suck at it. But fortunately, my wife is teaching me how to flirt. She's an expert.

Of course, capitalizing Opportunities for Flirtatious Behavior like it's some program or method really tells me how bad my mindset is.... boy do I suck.

Anyway, I've had relationships that started on-line and IRL. The ones that started IRL tended to last longer.
 
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Semantics, maybe:) I can't "shop" for relationships like groceries. Sometimes they happen by accident, but I think most times they happen because I'm at least open to them.
 
Well, if it never happened to you, it must not be possible then. My mistake. ;)

Some reason for the jackassery? I pointed out that a widely spread meme is all sorts of wrong because it obviously isn't accurate and sucks as a generalization. I never said others couldn't have a different experience.

Why take a shot at me via the strawman?
 
Some reason for the jackassery? I pointed out that a widely spread meme is all sorts of wrong because it obviously isn't accurate and sucks as a generalization. I never said others couldn't have a different experience.

Why take a shot at me via the strawman?

I think Hyper poking a little fun isn't entirely out of line. He posited an idea -- that for him, right now, thinking too much about finding a relationship might not be the best way to go (seems reasonable to me). "The game", which he was using as an analogy, isn't about dating at all, its a silly thought experiment like "try not to think of white elephants". He never tried to say this was the one true way for everyone, just that it might be a better way to go for him. You called it nonsense and hokum. So, who's being harsh?
 
I've never found good relationships when looking. When I decided to just focus on having a happy life in and of myself, I forgot about relationships for a while and soon thereafter, good relationships just fell into my life.

I think the success of looking vs not looking depends on the person, lifestyle, stage of life, and what you're actively doing to look or not look

You can't manipulate the universe by deliberately not looking, it will call your bluff. But when you focus on yourself and being an independent person with a healthy mind and body, you naturally attract the kinds of people you want in your life.

When you look too hard, you begin to appear dependent. Nobody wants to be dated just to fill a void.
 
really! I lost the game! I hate you and all that you are...

now seriously... sometimes the best way is to stop looking. Your stress goes down and you appear more open to everything, you become more attractive by being relaxed and comfortable with yourself.
 
Some reason for the jackassery? I pointed out that a widely spread meme is all sorts of wrong because it obviously isn't accurate and sucks as a generalization. I never said others couldn't have a different experience.

Why take a shot at me via the strawman?

Sorry, I think my response came across as more snarky than was intended.

One thing I especially dislike about online communication is that all nuance of feeling is lost. I was not intending to "take a shot" but to to engage in a little light-hearted ribbing.

I was mildly annoyed by what I perceived as dismissal of my point, as "nonsense", etc., but there really wasn't any animus behind my response. I should probably have held my virtual tongue, or found some more constructive way to reply.

I'll try to be better about that.
 
You can't manipulate the universe by deliberately not looking, it will call your bluff.

Indeed not. I was not engaging in magical thinking, nor even thinking in terms of Taoist action-by-inaction (though there may be some wisdom in the latter).

What I'm really aiming for is something like this:

But when you focus on yourself and being an independent person with a healthy mind and body, you naturally attract the kinds of people you want in your life.

I guess what I've come to is the realization that I do not have a girlfriend-shaped hole in my life. If I act as though I do, I end up neglecting or, at least, undervaluing my present commitments.

Worse,if I think as if I have a girlfriend-shaped hole in my life, I put an obstacle in the way of the free development of relationships with other people.

Say I'm attracted to particular woman. Wouldn't it be better for me to get to know her as an individual person, in all the fulness of her own self, without pressure or expectation, rather than taking measurements (as it were) to see how well she might fit the requirements of my supposed lack?

And what lack? The thing is, when I look at it, my life is really very good right now. I have a strong and constantly renewed relationship with my partner, two marvelous daughters, a really satisfying vocation, and an utterly joyful avocation.

I do need to develop my own ability to connect with other people, something that has never come easily to me. I think that need is best filled just by being open to other people, learning to see them as they are, not as I hope or want or need them to be for some particular purpose.

Even if I never have a girlfriend, I will be well content if I can connect more openly with the people I encounter in my everyday life.

Or so I keep telling myself.

(This is what reminds me of "The Game": old mental and emotional habits keep kicking in, and I keep thinking in terms of potential dates or potential mates. "Don't think of a girlfriend!" Argh!)
 
I understand your approach. I don't think being poly means you have to have multiple partners. For me what matters more is the freedom and openness.

I'm using OKCupid, but not like "desperately" looking. I'm pretty casual and don't care much about the result. I try to make friends first, then let things develop naturally. Even if nothing romantic happens in the end, it's still good to have more friends.

Ideally I also prefer developing relationships with people encountered in daily life, but the probability of meeting poly-minded people in real life is very low. Well, depends on where you live and what you do, I guess.
 
You called it nonsense and hokum. So, who's being harsh?

It's rather difficult to be harsh to an idea. I commented on the idea without any suggestion that he might be deficient for offering it up. His response was, at best, a simple logical fallacy (strawman), and at worst, aimed at me instead of the ideas in play.

Criticism of an idea is AOK.
Criticism of the person isn't.
 
It's rather difficult to be harsh to an idea. I commented on the idea without any suggestion that he might be deficient for offering it up. His response was, at best, a simple logical fallacy (strawman), and at worst, aimed at me instead of the ideas in play.

Criticism of an idea is AOK.
Criticism of the person isn't.

In truth, the point of my ribbing was aimed at neither the idea nor at the person, but rather at the logic of the response.

As it happens, I was not, in my original post, making a general claim about what is best for everyone, simply describing an approach that makes sense to me right now.

Your response seemed to assume I was making a general claim and, instead of offering an argument, you offered what amounts to a series of anecdotes - your own experience - as conclusive falsification of that supposedly general claim.

It is as if I said: I am going to go looking for a black swan, because I would enjoy seeing one. And you replied: Hah! Not that black swan nonsense again! I've only ever seen white swans!

Following the analogy, my (too snarky) reply would have been: Well, if you've never seen a black swan, I guess I should stop looking right now!

A better reply might have been to point out that "data" is not the plural of "anecdote". If one person - or even a million people - have only ever seen white swans, in the course of their ordinary, casual experience (that is, anecdotally), there is still the possibility that I may someday see a black one, if I keep looking. That there are black swans is a fact established by the more systematic collection of observations by natural historians and, later, ornithologists.

Even if the existence of black swans had not been substantiated, it is still the case that no amount of anecdotal evidence would be sufficient to rule out the possibility that black swans exist.

(Oh, and technically, there is no sense in which my response was either a straw man or an ad hominem. It was mere sarcasm, an attempt at an Oxford-style logical put-down of which I am still not proud.)
 
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