Approach to finding relationship

Approach to finding relationship

tallslenderguy​(other male) • Jan 8, 2023

i recently responded to another thread, and it got me thinking on this topic, so thought i'd submit for discussion the topic of how we approach finding a relationship.

To me it seems we often leave one of the most significant decisions of our life (finding a mate), largely to chance. For example, we often call it "falling in love," as though love is something one stumbles into by chance. Why not jumping into love? Or at least, stepping into love?

i think part of the problem, and subsequent blurriness, is we don't have a working definition of "love." While we seem to consider it a prerequisite for intimate relationship, we don't seem to have much of a handle on how to find it, or use it once we think we have?

i've written about this in other places, so i hope those already exposed to my thoughts and notions will forgive the redundancy redundancy.

While i think 'love' is an important ingredient for relationship, i think we put to much reliance on it, and not enough on compatibility. i think our lack of concern for compatibility is often why we fail to find a mate, or once we do because we 'fell' in love, we are not able to sustain the relationship on love alone.

In the interest of brevity (hopefully the details get filled in during discussion), i think practical needs to be purposefully applied to our approach in finding a mate. i am continually amazed by the lack of substantive content in profiles, on dating sites- which purported purpose is to find a mate?

i think it's partly a cultural thing (malady), that we are not taught introspection or how to know ourself. Add to that, we are not taught how to articulate about that self once we know it. i often think those empty profiles where a person claims to be "an open book," is really the empty journal of an owner with writers block. These people often seem to rely on pictures to attract another. Really? Picture books (without substantive text) are for kids, eh?

Others still have a simple sentence like: "looking for ltr," or "looking for the love of my life," or "looking for my soul-mate," with nothing else? i cannot figure out if these people are just looking and not expecting to be found since they are virtually invisible. But honestly, i fear that many don't actually realize they are invisible if they don't put something out there. Then there's the generic profile that fills space with virtually nothing individual.

i believe, in addition to us not being taught how to know and be open about ourselves, is underlying fear of vulnerability. Being open is vulnerable, being intimately open is intimately vulnerable. i get the rationale that one doesn't want to wear their feelings on their proverbial sleeve... and that seems to be a reasonable tactic at the grocery store, or even at work. But a meeting/dating environment is different?

Personally, i think it makes sense for us to know ourself, our needs and wants, then simply make a list of those things that are most important to our daily living, and put it out there. my guess is, that's where a lot of people will run into challenges, because i do not think many people actually know what they want or need, let alone how to put it into words. That, or fear seems to keep people from trying?

okay, i'll stop here and hope this fuels discussion?

Estaria​(sub female) • Jan 8, 2023

That was... amazing. I'm going to take the day to think and then write tonight. Thank you for that.

Miki​(masochist female) • Jan 8, 2023

If I might== what you said is As finely written dissertatioin if ever I seen one!


You not only look like Scott Bakula.. You outclassed him by ten miles.

Estaria​(sub female) • Jan 8, 2023

I'm entering a season in my life now where I am doing a whole lot of introspection. I'm single after 20 years of not being single and my entire life has completely changed in every way possible. I have had many discussions with friends on love and relationships and arranged marriages etc. When I was younger I was the typical 'he's my soulmate and I love him so that is all we will ever need for the rest of our lives' girl.

I thought, like so many, love was all that mattered until I went to couples counseling. We were in a horrible place and we decided it made sense to work on things and try. We were sitting on the couch and the counselor said she thought we were going to make it because we had a deep rooted respect for each other, she could see from us that even though we didn't particularly 'love' each other at the time we still had an immense amount of respect for each other and treated each other accordingly. She said it was very rare to see a struggling couple come in and still have respect for each other. That's the first time it sparked in my head that maybe it's not all about love.

Since then my way of thinking of relationships and 'love' has changed. Love is not all you need, I understand now that there is so much more that goes into a relationship than just feeling love for someone. That might seem like a 'duh' comment, but it's really not an easy thing for people nowadays to understand in my opinion. The definition of love since I was a child was the princess and prince and they fall in love and love conquers all and they ride off into the sunset. No, what conquers all is the respect you have for your partner even when you don't like them, it's looking at him in the middle of the day when you 'hate him' for whatever reason but then thinking the next second that there's no one else you'd rather go through all your lowest points with, it's knowing that regardless of whatever happens or however mad you two get at each other there is always going to be someone who has your back when you need it, it's knowing that no matter how messy things get or how bad things look you both have made the decision to commit to each other and you know they will meet you in the middle to solve anything. It's the conscious decision that two people make for each other that this is it and no one is running, we are going to do this. There will always be the few things you two put on the table, like cheating/drug use/etc. that is an instant done for some...but apart from those discussed few issues we are promising each other it's us for life.

As far as introspection goes for many people, I understand that's a hard thing for some to do. It's hard to look honestly at yourself and see your faults and shortcomings, so I think most shy away from it or don't fully look at themselves. I think people are afraid to air their messy sides, the not perfect side of them...because who wants to see that when you're first getting to know each other? Uh...me! I do! If I'm talking to someone I'm going to just say what comes to mind, I'm not going to give you the dolled up version of me just to show up on moving day looking like the rolled out of bed version of myself. If I'm committing to someone it's because I KNOW, not because I assume love will solve our problems. I want to know who I'm talking to, that means the good the bad the messy the annoying the scary sides of someone. I also understand why people don't want to just be themselves, why they feel they have to give the 'dating' or 'just meeting' versions of themselves. Let me tell you, I've scared away many people because I can be intense...I've been told me it's part of me being a Leo. I know if I'm allowed to I will burn everything to the ground with my me...ness. I need someone who is going to help contain me.


Making a list as to what you need, lets see:

I need someone who can support a family because I absolutely hate working, I am a housewife and stay at home mom to the core. If you don't have a job that can support a family it's going to have to be a pass from me because it doesn't align with what I feel I need to be happy and fulfilled.

I need someone who cares about their looks and is not overweight, does have bad eating habits, and is pleasing to my eyes.

I need someone who is going to cook me dinner, rub my feet, be in charge of all the housework and be ready for sex whenever and wherever I please.


You know the people....the people that would come out of the wood works and start to comment on those needs or wants as though you're a horrible person for not wanting to work and wanting a man that can fully support you, or being shallow and an asshole for thinking large people are not attractive or eating junk food is disgusting or that men who want a woman like that just want a slave (which I guess might not actually be an issue on this site! Lol). Just trying to make a point that putting yourself out there can be very hard when there are people, no matter where you go, that are just waiting to criticize you.

Yes I believe that two people can meet and have an instant connection that lights up your entire world, but I also know people I have deeply loved and had that spark with have not worked out. I think most people get to a certain point in their lives, they realize the actual love comes from the moments in between the highlights. My love for someone is not most evident when we're living our best times, it's not from the spark. My love is in the moments most people would walk away, but I choose to stay. Maybe it's a maturity thing, you look past the bells and whistles and appreciate who is willing to crawl through the mud with you.

Hopefully some of that made sense! I'm overwhelmed by everything you said and everything I WANT to reply with...but I won't torture everyone with hours of reading! Haha

Zhivago • Jan 9, 2023

Well online dating today is much different than it was in the late 90s. And internet dating is much different than before then when there was the personals ad in the newspaper. With that you'd get two or three sentences before the first date.

Solace​(dom male) • Jan 10, 2023

Good post. While I may not be vocal about it I enjoy your writing and character.

Your opening paragraphs express that in general people leave love to chance and lack a concrete definition of it. I agree with this but I wouldn't change it. If one were to make a dichotomy of it, the western world embraces the concept of falling in love as you say. Most often this is a passionate process that is deeply exciting to find that special person amongst the many, and then taking the plunge into making this person a significant part of your entire world. Removing the aspect of chance significantly diminishes love as a reward and the thrill of finding the person.

The opposing side of the dichotomy is cleverly called the eastern world in the places where arranged marriages still exist. Here the concept is not learning to love, but falling in love. It is more like what you ask for with better education and definitions, but the focus is shifted to learning to love. While western culture is an exciting plunge, eastern is about learning how your partner adds to you, builds you, is an asset to you and completes you.

Realistically, long term relationships are most vibrant when they have that spark of discovery and romance by falling in love, and then when the rush dies down they learn to love. One can argue all they want about compatibility, and it is wonderful to have, but entire cultures go significantly without it in comparison to the west. It boils down to a simple concept of does my partner and I have to be the same person having all the same interests, or can we be separate individuals who are radically different in nature but come together for our shared respect and investment in each other. I strongly encourage others as Gentleman or Lady about the arranged marriage system they practice there. Its a different perspective.

Later you discuss the emptiness of some profiles. At the moment I can only speak for the ladies and some of my fellow Men. The truth is ladies simply don't have to invest more than a clever photo and at most a few words. They'll still have regular suitors because men are in general the hunters of relationships and there is huge disparity in the ratio of men to women. Think of the Sadie Hawkins Dance, Think of how Dommes despite being the dominant partner are still bombarded by messages. Compared to men who need to use their profiles to qualify their messages to be taken seriously, its simply not the worth the effort for most ladies. Any details a lady chooses to add to her profile lengthy in words or not, are simply to direct word traffic, generate talking points or dissuade needless applicants. If you wish to verify this, there are a large number of vanilla social dating experiments which demonstrate this. So men...fill out your profiles and make yourself at least seem respectable and valuable so you earn the approval to be heard. Ladies...Its not worth your time unless you wish to add some sort of filter to your applicants or wish to help us Gentlemen out by giving us a starting point for conversation. I do not wish to convey that I as a man don't value women filling out their profile, only that if I were girl... I wouldn't bother. Men would find me. If I want a specific breed of Man, I would reach out to him and immediately stand out from other girls because men don't get messaged on the same scale and that initiative is greatly valued.

Miki​(masochist female) • Jan 10, 2023

All these posts.. are amazing.. and thought provoking.. I want to invite any and all to read my profile. I am incapable of "love" I enjoy the hell out of just having sex.. There are those who find fault with that, and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but so am I. I am a human female and being fucked is my purpose.

tallslenderguy​(other male) • Jan 10, 2023

Thank you for your thought out reply, i appreciate you adding your thoughts to the discussion.

i would not advocate for eleminating the romantic element of love, rather thinking of balancing that with what i label "compatibility." i'd interject an attempt at working definition of both "love" and "compatibility" at this point.

Starting with love, i appreciate how some cultures/languages have more than one word for love. For instance, the Greeks have agape, eros and phileo (losely defined unconditional love, sexual love, friendship love, respectively). Not that Greek culture has "love" nailed down, not sure it can be? i don't find the exciting, somewhat mysterious love that you identify as "western," to be very definable either. While i enjoy the feeling of it, i don't think it works well as a reason for commitment or a foundation to build on.
i see "love" and "compatibility" as two ingredients, sort of like cement and water combine to make a foundation on which to build.

i think there can be a practical 'love" that we can learn and commit to. When i look at it, i think the kind of love i am talking about in this case is a universal need/desire, so it has universal potential? Simplifying "love" to try and make this generally functional i see it as the response to the universal desire/need to be seen, heard and affirmed as having value. Conversely, "loving" is looking in order to see another, listening in order to hear another, then acknowledging and/or affirming their value. i know that sounds very clinical in writing, and it can be if one is not truly engaged, but i see the exercise of love, as so defined, as a preservative and binder for relationship when both parties are honestly committed to the practice (again, i know that sounds way clinical, but i find the reality to be anything but).

i think in order for this kind of "love" to work in intimate/romantic relationship, there needs to be a large dose of compatibility. i do not see compatibility as necessarily as us both liking tacos, i.e., 'the same thing.' Almost the opposite. The nerd in me looks at nature and how opposites attract, and when there is chemistry, for a strong bond. Looking at it in a sexual context (and way over simplifying for brevity), 'Top' does not attract to 'Top,' "Top" attracts to "bottom," yin to Yang, etc..

The list i initially suggested making is not intended to be exhaustive or necessarily static, given the fluidity of life. But i do think some of our parts are more fluid than others, sort of like glass is less fluid than water. For instance, i'm "gay." i can trace that part off me back to age 7 and it hasn't noticably changed in my lifetime. i was in an 'arranged' marriage of sorts. in that certain 'rules' applied from the religious culture i was a part of. "Love" (the sacrificial kind) was hugely emphasized, compatibility was not considered at all, the romantic, mysterious 'love' was allowed, but not a really big consideration. i leave out lot of detail here, but i married a woman, even though i knew i am "gay," i thought i could change and love could overcome that. i did and do love my former wife, in several of its various forms, but that love was not enough to overcome our incompatibility. It was a tortured relationship for both of us.

For me, being gay goes on my list, as does being bottom. i also have a piss kink, among several others. They are not on my 'need' list though because i can live with out those if i have the former from an "opposite/compatible" who is gay and Top and has those at the top of their list. Really oversimplification here, but it makes sense to me to do. i use sexual stuff as an example, but i'm not trying to make this all about sex. Look at the top reasons couples separate though and sex is at the top of the list, so is finances though.

I think the important thing is self awareness and openness. i think the kind of love i defined earlier can help us through Taco Tuesday types of conflicts where i want tacos and you want burgers, but it will not cover for our essential needs.

a few thoughts on a vast topic.

Solace​(dom male) • Jan 10, 2023

My apologies, it seems I've been unclear and have failed to include details. To clarify something I believe has been alarmingly implied, I neither think you, tallslenderguy, nor myself intend to say that the romance aspect should be or is removed. I also mean that for either side of the dichotomy I laid out.

I believe I understand your discussion point about self discovery and lists now. If I am correct, you are emphasizing the benefit of knowing what makes you fall for someone and listing what one feels will lead to longevity in a relationship. I agree with this and would only add that the list items will change with over time. Not all of us have the wisdom of encounters nor the years to draw upon.

I also hear your expression of a "clinical view" of love as you call it and value in a reason or foundation for commitment. For the sake of this discussion and point I will take a loosely opposing view. It is my impression that if one embraces a more clinical view and reason for commitment approach, then they begin to exit the western model of love and enter the more structured eastern model. I would justify this with the concept of qualifying someone as opposed to disqualifying someone. Falling in love is akin to an explorer learning the rocky crags of a new continent, zero expectations but seeking new beauty in its starkness and discoveries. Learning to love might be described more as an interview and in truth this is how it begins in many arranged marriages, but develops into a passion for how unexpectedly exceptional the partner is. Depending on the strictness and number of qualities one's list has its easy to see how it pushes one closer to arranging a marriage for strengths rather than the passion for it, if my analogy is accepted to have some merit. This is not an issue but a manner of preference.

I am not arguing that compatibility isn't a valuable trait. My issue is that few can predict what makes compatibility between people for it to be useful as opposed to geometry where its visibly obvious that two shapes go together. Western culture is about finding the matching shapes through passion and trial while Eastern culture is about learning what the shapes are over time and then changing them to fit perfectly. Neither scenario guarantees success or a relative form of it.

Your clinical definition of love I find just fine. However I will also say that its my exact definition of the respect I gave to the professors of my college. Through this one could say I was quite love struck with as many as six different people every semester of college. Understandably this may be enough for some, but as I believe you would agree not sufficient for all. I see love as a raw and deep need for someone or something. And I cannot define what that need and gravity is centered around. My first was for a the way a girl skipped forward to close the gap in a line. Another for clever comebacks she always had. Another for the way she shivered at my touch. All very distinctly focused and disconnected, moments frozen in my mind for life.

There are some studies we can pull from for what makes a successful relationship. Successful being defined by length and binary happiness. To outline the one I refer most to, a selection of men and women were identified as candidates and were questioned years down the road. Data about their relationship history was categorized after an interview several years post marriage. For girls it was found that 80% said they were happy in the marriage if they had fewer than five relationships in their life, the number dropping to 20% if they had more than 10. For the men of the study it was found that they were happiest around 10-15 relationships but were lower at less than 5 and over 15 partners. This and other studies demonstrate that in general men and women tend to perceive love differently. Over time ladies take the best of their partners and expect this in new partners, i.e. after dating a tall guy all guys must be tall, i.e. after dating a wealthy man all men must be some level of wealthy. Men learn from relationships what will make them satisfied, hence why they need more relationships to establish this. In general the conclusion was that a happy relationship is largely about believing your partner is the best they can be and you can get. Too many partners and the ladies of the study believed they could do better or tended to reflect greatly on "The One That Got Away", Too few partners for men and they're inexperienced in what brings them joy. Despite either study for men or women, the happiest and best results were for when both man and women were virgins upon marriage.

Too long didn't read, I conclude that random chance of falling in love needs to be random and unstructured for its success, but there is nothing wrong with the structured affections adopted from the business like arranged marriages/relationships. To have a successful relationship put simply, you have to worship your partner. Believe that they are incredible and the best option for you, think of what they do for you and them you, and view breaking the relationship as an absolute last resort scenario.

Slavehandler​(dom male) • Feb 17, 2023

Love is in theory and practical term a chemical reaction similar to other experiences when having any kind of addiction. That is why when people experience breakup it has the same reaction in brain as if they don't get ... cocaine or smoke for that matter. So, building a whole relationship and future based on love is idealistic and unrealistic. That said, building a relationship around financial exchange is somewhat also dangerous as it is not in your control either, and if money is gone so is the relationship.

It is therefore important to ensure you are respected for who you are but willing to be a better version of yourself at the same time. Solely being with someone who does not become a better version whilst in a relationship is somewhat difficult. A relationship is work. Everyday. Every week. Every month. Every year. You simply don't wake up feeling in love or respecting somewhat. It is something two people need to do daily and that is where compatibility is key.

That is why being with someone regardless of submissive, slave, dominant or whatever who is still self driven, wanting to improve themselves, not lazy, able to intellectually improve, stay physical fit and things you have control over to improve regardless of love or money is vital for an interesting relationship.