Do I believe it? Not generally. I’ve never had a relationship like that. I can see it making sense in some situations but it’d have to be pretty bad.
I think there are men out there who believe it (at least contextually based on the gf) and I think there are women crazy enough out there for it to be a valid strategy some of the time. I think these later cases are probably rare, but it’s hard to tell.
Okay, to clarify, I think this logic is inverted from reality in the overwhelming majority of situations one will experience.
I am fine believing edge case exceptions exist. But I think in the vast majority of cases, breaking up with someone while they still like you is going to be much more pleasant and go much smoother than waiting until someone hates you so much they choose to break up with you.
I think most guys who believe otherwise are confused and incorrect. Most of the time, they are not in the edge case exception to this. They are either confused, or doing it for a different reason (e.g. quiet quitting like Elliot said, which has clearer short term benefits.)
It seems like you’re being argumentative or defensive. In general, it’s not a crime to not report a murder, right? Instead of acknowledging that it’s largely legal throughout the US and most other western or English-speaking countries, you started focusing on a special case (Texas, which is only a partial exception: the duty to report is only if you observe it, not otherwise, and also has some other limitations).
That’s not what you said earlier though. Those are different scenarios than failure to report.
Huh. Looks like there’s something like that in the federal code. 18 U.S. Code § 4 - Misprision of felony | U.S. Code | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute :
Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
However, from this reddit post, there’s a court case that states:
Just pointing out that even under 18 U.S.C. 4, courts have held that you need to be actively concealing thr crime, not just failing to report it. See United States v. Johnson 546 F.2d 1225, 1227 (5th Cir. 1977)
From https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/591494d8add7b049345c3e16 :
The mere failure to report a felony is not sufficient to constitute a violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 4. Lancey v. United States, 356 F.2d 407 (9th Cir.), cert. denied,
Could be case law governing what you shared. I don’t know what basis this would have on Texas law. From what I’ve seen so far, generally speaking, don’t fully just go off of a statute. Court cases play a big role in understanding them. The cases mean more than the statute sometimes (tbh I think more than sometimes).
Ok I started reading Lancey and this lead to a further rabbit hole that I don’t think matters for this discussion here (or maybe it does, I’ve only been loosely falling along).
I don’t think it’s a good example at all.
If someone is threatening your survival (which interference with employment might do), then being stoic or liking stoicism isn’t really that relevant. It might not be as urgent as an immediately life threatening situation, but how you handle it might have a big impact on your life. A stoic approach might be (I’m guessing) to approach it calmly and rationally, and focus on self preservation and untangling yourself.
I also think it’s notable you needed to add “wanting to invest a lot of time and energy in avoiding any chance that you might have to deal with emotions” in addition to liking stoicism (or being stoic, which I think you meant instead). This isn’t stoicism and it sounds like a bad thing to do.
So I agree with you in that trying to shut yourself down emotionally all the time results in terrible dating strategies, but I don’t think it’s a good example.
Also sometimes masculine traits are good here. Like being okay with confrontation and addressing hard topics quickly and decisively.
Good point!
In general I would guess that most masculine traits are going to be better for breaking up than for maintaining relationships. The behavior in question being a notable exception.
I didn’t think that was the case (I thought it was more common for it to be a crime).
I checked my (non-US) jurisdiction and it seems like it is an offence to not report a murder (including if you think a report is credible).
I also thought it was a crime not to report a death, especially an unattended death. I guess I’m overgeneralizing.
Hmm idk. I’m conscious that it would be easy to be evasive so want to think about it.
Is the use of past tense here an indirect way of conceding?
There are lots of masculine traits that are good for maintaining relationships:
Listening might not seem masculine, but it synergizes with quieter, calmer, rational traits. Also a common observation is that women sometimes like to talk a lot. I’ve been complimented before in relationships for being a good listener (it wouldn’t surprise me if you have been too).
All in all, there are plenty of both feminine and masculine traits that are good for relationships. There are plenty of both that are bad for relationships, too. It’s not so much the traits that are the problem but how we use them. Since it’s more about use and expression, I think it’s kind of problematic to talk about one side having ‘more’ or ‘fewer’. It’s up to each person in a relationship to cooperate and figure out how each of their traits can be best used to improve the relationship instead of harming it.
Yeah.
It’s also reflecting that I now know, since then, that it’s mostly not a crime in common law / western countries, or at least that I can’t take it for granted.
Abstractly I agree. My comments are about general trends, not individual cases. Any individual man could be amazing and embody masculine traits in a positive way that avoids all of the issues I’ve identified.
Do you see how that is an unclear way to concede and suggests defensiveness, argumentativeness or bias?
FYI I am really on the fence about whether or not I should reply to this.
I think some of your examples could easily not reveal what you think they reveal. But I’m unsure how to raise those possibilities without you potentially feeling attacked in a fairly specific/personal way. I don’t want to upset you.
Not sure how to proceed. I guess we have plenty of other pending arguments to have. Just noting this because I’m not trying to simply be dismissive. I have questions/disagreements/assumptions about your self reporting.
You had questions/disagreements/assumptions about my self reporting, too, e.g. the dating app stuff. I don’t think questioning self reporting is necessarily dismissive. I think maybe you are interpreting my behavior as dismissive because I am reluctant to say the entirety of my thoughts so as not to be too offensive.
It’s offensive to assume queer people won’t be parents. You sound prejudiced.
Also, a lot of the same traits that are important for parenting are also important for long term childfree relationships.
And many straight people are childfree.
Yes, and not sure.
My use of the past tense wasn’t intentionally a way to concede unclearly.
I did feel pressured to concede (though I’m not exactly sure for what), and that pressure does evoke some defensiveness. I think I felt somewhat attacked for not being specific about the US first, and then for not knowing about the broader English-speaking legal systems in enough depth and/or not being specific enough about the exact crime.
Thinking about it, I can see how finding out I’m wrong and then bringing up a special case where I’m right might be defensive (and would look defensive).
There are some explanations (evasions?) that come to mind as to why I’d do that which aren’t about being defensive. Like I didn’t know if it was a crime or not, googled it, found something I thought was useful, and wanted to share what I found. I can see how posting a big chunk of legal stuff would seem defensive. One reason (evasion?) for that is the legal document linked is badly formatted and worse to read than if I copied it in as a quote.
My intuition is telling me it’s starting to feel like a pile on against @anonymous45 and leaning into unbounded criticism in a part of the forum that is not Unbounded. My instinct was to call it out.
I think this is a fair concern. I have been concerned about dogpiling, which is why I have not replied to a lot of stuff I disagreed with, especially when reading @anonymous45 replies to @anonymous111 (but also other stuff).
I don’t think my criticisms have been unbounded though. I’ve been very intentionally trying to bind them in various ways. I’m not sure what the best approach would be at this point.
In hindsight, I can see how it reads like that, but that wasn’t my intention. I would not say that children aren’t so much of an issue for queer relationships, but rather aren’t so much of an issue when selecting a partner. This is because it’s easier in some important ways assuming the couple want a genetic child (as much as is practical).
To clarify by example: out of gay, lesbian, and heterosexual trans relationships, fertility constraints are comparable to cis-het relationships only in the latter case. In the two former cases, the gay couple can use a surrogate and the lesbian couple just need a sperm donor and have more opportunity for fertility than a couple with one woman (unless both want a genetic child). So in those cases, if the couple have the goal of having children, there aren’t as many constraints.
Maybe I’m still wrong or prejudiced about this. I do think I was probably thinking too much about my own concerns (for my situation), though, which bled through.
There are other kinds of queer relationships, for example poly. Plus various kinds of nonbinary that you could lump into trans umbrella. Also two bisexual people in a hetero relationship may have queer relationship dynamics and have options for standard pregnancy. I did specify that “queer” generally is not a synonym simply for “gay” earlier.
Also, basically 100% of the options for having kids that are available to gay men and lesbians are also available to straight couples. Straight couples are just less likely to avail themselves. So even in that case it’s hard to see how it is easier, if straight couples have all the same options + more.
@Neo and @anonymous105, I appreciate the concern. This isn’t to disagree with you but I feel like I should comment:
I should say that I don’t mind the unbounded criticism (I assume, @Neo, you were referring to Elliot’s replies about law and concessions). I also don’t mind criticisms like pointing out that I might be prejudiced.
I also trust @Elliot’s judgement about what are important things to focus on, and appreciate the attention. I see these as good opportunities to discuss some harder things, like evasion. It’s not necessarily comfortable or pleasant, and is somewhat confronting, but I expect these kinds of issues to be uncomfortable to discuss. I think it’s easy to believe lies about yourself and be dishonest in other ways, and I think I still do both, and I want to learn to not do those things as best I can.
If I don’t have enough bandwidth to reply I’ll take a break. Granted, that’s not always easy to remember to do (like if I have an emotional reaction to something or am caught up in it), but I’ll try.
@anonymous105, it might be useful if we took stock a bit. I’m not really sure of the point of some of our discussion; like it came via hypergamy but some of our discussion seems a bit aimless. If there are things you particularly want to discuss from other branches (like my replies to anon111), feel free to bring them up, but otherwise it is probably useful if we organize things a bit. That will also help with volume and breadth which both probably contribute to the feeling of ‘piling on’.
We could try a debate tree about something specific if you like. They’re more specialized than a discussion tree and would need both of us to agree and collaborate on it. @Elliot might be willing to help us, too.