jasper-isis wrote:EDIT: Oh yeah, and as for me, I have been dating
my boyfriend for four years now, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. We've had our share of bumps along the way, but we always try to put effort into working things out and making our relationship stronger.
I gotta say, now that I've met you guys in person, so far out of all the couples I know you two are the relationship I look up to the most!

Not at all because you look like a stereotypical "perfect couple", but exactly because with you two, it's very easy to see (or at least sense) the communication and effort that goes on, without it ever seeming out of balance or unnatural. By the same token, it can also be a bit irritating (and I mean that in the most endearing way possible) to be around you two sometimes cause you communicate pretty much telepathically >__>
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Me? I've never been in a serious relationship, I guess. Which is ironic considering that unlike a lot of guys I know, I a) genuinely enjoy the process of working things out between people; b) in general, get along with girls far better than with guys. But if you look closer, those two things are actually tied to personality traits which pretty much shoot me in the foot, so to speak. I am a relatively passive person who connects to people less through activities and more through sympathy and emotional connections. I am sensitive to other people's moods and invest myself into other people's feelings, often to an extreme extent; and I loathe confrontation to the point where I will take fault or get out of the way if I think it will help defuse situations even a little (to those who know me - this is where my habit of apologizing profusely for everything comes from). Of course, what this practically translates into is that I come off as indecisive, overly-emotional, oversensitive and otherwise flat-out unmanly. So, that's obstacle #1. (maybe this part is better-suited to debate in Beo's thread)
Obstacle #2 is that while I may not expect some sudden perfect-girl to come along and I not only acknowledge the hard work relationships take but actually look forward to it, I still do have romantic ideals I'm hung up on which I categorically refuse to give up. I don't understand dating culture. I see dating culture as inevitably bound up in consumer culture, relationships-of-convenience and safety nets to shield people from actual emotional connections by falling back on purchased experience. I'm not interested in putting on acts or being an audience for one. The day I stoop to viewing relationships as nothing more than a commodity is the day I will consider my life to have turned out a total failure. And I will sooner stay single than compromise on this. Of course, this also does not reflect how comfortable or resigned I am to being single. I am disappointed, bitter and sometimes jealous. My single-ness deprives me of a source of support that I grew up expecting and a definite point of orientation/goal in life, and it drives me nuts.
On that topic, reason #3 is my fucked up cultural mindset, thank you Russia and thank you my parents' upbringing. I have a set of values, norms and standards of relationships that are lost in translation and as outdated as Soviet 'communism' itself.
All of which goes to say, I'll probably die alone.
(how's this for a relationship thread post?

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