General boredom is what has led me to end all my relationships. When a person stops being stimulating, i move on. i wasn't projecting my own experiences to anything.

You find value in it, i find it boring. Also, i'm actually quite interested in your reasoning for sustaining a relationship. Unless it's means to keep the charade up. If that is the case then i can see the benefit of it, even though i woulnd't operate in the same manner. Maybe it's because you're a woman (unless i misunderstood you), so it's socially more easy to be in a relationship. Especially if your spouse is aware and accepts the fact that you will never feel anything "deeper" for them.

When someone no longer interests or amuses me, I stop knowing them. I think the closest I can come to understanding love is the feeling I have for my spouse. I continue to prefer to know him - day after day, week after week, year after year.

You're a bit of a sexist, there, aren't you? ;) It's no easier to be in or out of a relationship, socially speaking, for a female - at least not in my country.

There are many practical reasons for staying married - if you have children, it's better for them; if you work together, you'll get further along financially than if you lived alone your whole life; you've always got a dependable and reliable friend at your back no matter what you do; etc, etc, etc.

In my case, however, the important thing is the balance we provide each other. I see the patterns in people's behaviour and can mimic them. He actually understands why they do what they do. I find overly emotional people to be weak, as a general rule. He is very emotional but never weak. I "fit in" because I follow a strict code of rules that I developed for myself after finally recognizing what behaviours empaths see as good and which they see as bad. Rules based on what my mother taught me, what I admired about interesting people along the way, what I've analyzed and determined to be "for the greater good" - but what are still just rules for me. They carry no real meaning, and if I changed all the rules, it wouldn't disturb me overly. I've learned over my life that when I break my rules, bad things happen to me, and when I follow them, good things happen to me. My rules appear to be the same rules as those my husband lives by, but there's something fascinatingly confusing to me about his rules. They change based on every situation, and yet ... bad things rarely if ever happen to him.

Do you remember Plato and his treatment of forms? I believe in the concept of the ideal and always seek to reach the perfect form of anything on which I bother to focus my attention. So, while you may say marriage is useless, I say you haven't experienced a true marriage and can't know that - empirically speaking.

In other words .... Many, many people get in relationships, but few ever truly relate to another. Many, many people get married, but few ever experience a marriage. My marriage works because we are at once both polar opposites and mirror images of each other - we are more than the sum of our parts.

Ah, i see your reasons and in hindsight, it did come out a bit sexists, though it wasn't meant as such :P I just prefer my independence over the pros and i'm too paranoid to trust anyone without incentive to not let me down when it counts, it's what i would do afterall. If i need help in whatever i have 2 older brothers to go to who i've gotten to feel guilty about picking on me when i was young, so they won't refuse.

Or maybe i just haven't met anyone who will keep me amused long enough, heh. Why are strong, intelligent women so rare :(

For exactly the same reason strong, intelligent men are so rare ...... people are, generally speaking, sniveling, useless, brainless beasts ;)

Yeah, i hear you :)

Yes! Say more please.

Ah, what a relief. At last a conversation not dominated by the absurd psychopathic claims of superiority and the ridiculous ensuing flame wars.

To be honest, I was thinking of closing this Forum down because the psychopath ego trips and the counter-arguments were getting very boring (and this is my dime).

Enough about and from psychopaths. Enough about psychopathic fantasies of power and prestige. Enough fantasies of all the would be psychopaths. Nothing really wrong with being a psychopath or being a psychopath groupie (Toby), but reading about it does get old fast, and a little of it goes a long way. I never intended this space to be psychopath central.

Enough of the god bull**** too. That conversation never goes anywhere. If you like bronze age mythology, fine, but please don't try to defend it. Be honest with yourself: you believe it because you are afraid to die, and like imagining a so-called "afterlife." What a crock. The talking snake and all the rest of it is obvious nonsense. Even little children reject it.

Please, let's discuss life and love in the here and now, not who is better than whom. When you claim superiority you confess your fear of inferiority. A first year psychology student knows that much.

Website: www.dr-robert.com

I'm not afraid of death, but I am in no hurry to die.



Fair enough.



Little children also believe in a flying fat man delivering various gifts.



Great idea!

That's an interesting statement to me. When I had my first child, my husband and I discovered our first philosophical difference. I had no intention of perpetuating the Santa myth because I did not want to lie to my children.

I did want the Santa effect and had every intention of placing presents around the tree and in his stocking on Christmas morning with no tags to indicate from whom they came, but I was not going to say these things came from a silly fat man delivered via the chimney. I mean, really, that's absurd.

The point of the Santa concept, to my mind, is to give you an opportunity to give a present to someone unconditionally - there are no strings attached as there is no real giver involved. It's a true gift - one which requires no follow up or reciprocal action.

My husband was very strongly in favor of Santa as a real entity. I never once told them Santa did not exist, but when asked where the presents came from, I always replied, "From someone who loves you very much." I didn't betray his desire to continue with Santa, but neither did I betray my sense that lying to my children was definitely wrong.

All of that preamble was to say this: only one of my three children ever believed in Santa. I have one child of moderately above average to average intelligence and two who are of genius level intelligence. Go figure. ;)

I didn't want to tell my children that Santa existed at first, but my wife managed to persuade me. -_-

:)



I say that kind of thing all the time, it's not exactly telling the truth, but it's not lying. :)

That's precisely why I married my husband. He's the only man I've ever met who could win an argument with me - not an argument of reason and facts but one of opinion - one relating to "the-meaning-of-life" sort of concepts - like this sort of argument would be. Something causes me to stop and consider his point of view might be right for some esoteric reason I cannot fathom.

I love my wife; we can have arguments, or 'heated debates', forgive eachother, get along, and start again. :)

Gets on my nerves, but I really can't remember a time I've won an argument with her, I'll often keep arguing long after I realise I have lost... :)

Great post, Doctor R. I check in here everyday and was also getting very tired of the proud, boastful so-call psychopaths. As you said, Doctor, nothing wrong with being a psychopath. . . that's just the way you were born. But when swagger and show off about your "freedom", it is obvious to everyone that you are completely hung up on yourself and your supposed "superiority" which really means you are afraid that you are just another ordinary idiot.

And the rest of you begging whitewolf not to leave. What a bunch of asslickers. No wonder wolf feels so special, you are all licking his ass for him.

I asked him not to leave as I find him interesting, funny and I enjoy (most) of his random posts.

You're well spoken!

Thanks, Toby. You are not too bad yourself.

Right on, Unknown. Say more please.

Honestly? Yes, I do. :o)



Eh.

Well perhaps it's just for more sexual creatures. Sex is a pleasure to most. Something that should be enjoyed. I'm sure Arab women disagree. They get fixed just to make sure they don't get out of hand. How sad. Then again.. Most of the world is MAE dominated. Asian nations, India, all the muslims, south America and even Africa but thats no surprise.

So really where you come from determines many aspects of how you interput things. Meaning.. weren't not all going to agree on anything and even if we did our perception of that agreement would be different. To each their own.

But I know that most of you are somewhat of a western culture.