[HN Gopher] Open-relationship enthusiasts crash mainstream roman...
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       Open-relationship enthusiasts crash mainstream romance apps
        
       Author : andygcook
       Score  : 16 points
       Date   : 2024-01-19 19:38 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
        
       | thr0way120 wrote:
       | There is an epidemic of narcissists in society which is not being
       | talked about enough. And when I say "Narcissist," you have to
       | understand it goes WAY BEYOND the idea of "oh, this person is
       | just selfish."
       | 
       | I was BLINDSIDED by running into a woman at work who was: -
       | Dating a dozen different men - On every dating app -
       | Pathologically flirting with new men everywhere she goes -
       | Flirting with me and co-workers - Texting / Calling me all the
       | time at odd hours - Living a lifestyle of traveling all over the
       | place every weekend, maintaining multiple relationships with
       | multiple men at the same time - Constantly on the hunt for new
       | men - Meeting and immediately texting broad and deep with new men
       | on the spot - Deliberately hurting / breaking up with men in a
       | nasty way just to enjoy harming them and gaining power over them
       | 
       | IT WAS WEIRD.
       | 
       | It wasn't until I learned about Covert Narcissism and how it is a
       | really severe psychological condition that I understood what I
       | was seeing.
       | 
       | These are the people who are pretending to be "polygamous" or
       | "dating multiple people." It is NOT NORMAL and NOT HEALTHY and
       | you DO NOT WANT IT AROUND YOU TRUST ME.
       | 
       | Society has become extremely sick, and social media, dating apps
       | have given the sickest people the equivalent of methamphetamines
       | to feed their addiction for relationship "supply" nonstop.
       | 
       | IF you grew up in the prior era, you may not understand JUST HOW
       | BAD AND TOXIC IT HAS GOTTEN. It has FALLEN APART.
       | 
       | Stay away from these people, learn to spot them, they are sneaky
       | and out to harm you ( I was personally harmed by this woman who
       | was playing games with me ).
       | 
       | There needs to be broader awareness of narcissists, how they act
       | and how to spot and avoid them. They are a societal cancer and
       | the cancer is spreading.
        
         | dudinax wrote:
         | These sorts of people have been around forever.
        
           | matrix_overload wrote:
           | They have been. But in the old times such behavior would
           | quickly get you labelled as a village slut and become avoided
           | by most people.
           | 
           | But in the social media age companies need such people to
           | generate content that drives engagement, and serves a a
           | conduit for ads. This creates incentives for such destructive
           | behavior, and forces such people into others' attention
           | spans, reinforcing the loop.
        
             | chias wrote:
             | I think it was also just harder to do at scale.
             | 
             | In the aftermath of his death, we discovered that one of my
             | great grandfathers had a whole other family a few villages
             | over, and neither family knew of the other. Being
             | logistically limited to just two groups probably helped
             | make it "work".
        
         | borroka wrote:
         | > I was personally harmed by this woman who was playing games
         | with me
         | 
         | Let's assume you were a willing participant. I don't know your
         | situation, how it developed, what kind of tricks they used to
         | make you a consenting person, but, if you think deeply and
         | objectively, you were.
         | 
         | Looking back on the bad relationships I had, with the wisdom,
         | reflections and experience that age and life give us, I realize
         | that I could have said no, taken a different path, lived a
         | different life. Sure, they were bad, and I was bad with them
         | and with others, but there was no chain holding me there,
         | except the one I myself was willing to fasten around my ankle,
         | perhaps because I was lonely, or scared, or immature. Or
         | because sex was amazing, and they were a great cook, so sweet
         | when they wanted to be.
         | 
         | Bad relationships should make us reflect on the faults of
         | others, but especially on our own shortcomings. At least, that
         | is I see them today, and my life got much better because of it.
        
         | ben_w wrote:
         | Narcissists are absolutely a thing, but it sounds like you're
         | conflating two groups.
         | 
         | The poly relationships I know, and the open relationships I
         | know, just aren't even close to what you're describing. Even
         | the closest singular example to what you're describing -- one
         | out of a dozen people who are open about being poly and a dozen
         | more who are open about being open -- was, despite being
         | extremely selfish, not sadistic as the person you describe
         | appears to be.
        
       | garciasn wrote:
       | Open relationships are nearly impossible to navigate from either
       | side and as someone who has done it on more than one occasion, I
       | very strongly recommend that if you're considering it, reconsider
       | --hard.
       | 
       | They are often a last ditch effort at offsetting dead bedrooms,
       | relationship problems, or other significant issues and they are
       | often a cause of severe dating stress on you, your primary, and
       | your secondary/tertiary/etc partners.
       | 
       | If you do want to absolutely do it, don't do it via a mainstream
       | app or don't do it as a relationship--keep it as a hookup. But,
       | if you insist this is good for you, instead join some sort of
       | tight-knit community that is more open to such alternative
       | relationship styles or you're going to have a bad time. A really
       | bad time.
       | 
       | In my extensive experience, of those who are open to
       | open/polyamory are either doing it themselves or have serious
       | issues with self-image and/or mental health. Of those who aren't
       | in these camps, the stress of the relationship dynamics will end
       | up in hurt, pain, and a never-ending conversation about the
       | situation or the lack of separation from the primary.
       | 
       | Again, keep it to hookups or tight-knit pro-open communities and
       | away from those looking for something normal or stable. It's not
       | fair to anyone involved.
       | 
       | If it's "working" for you via those mainstream dating
       | communities, you're either missing/ignoring the issues or you're
       | in a very tiny minority.
        
         | Mandelmus wrote:
         | I was in open relationships in Berlin's polyamorous community
         | for nearly five years and I concur with everything you said.
        
         | damascus wrote:
         | When I first started down this path my first red flag appeared
         | when I started asking poly people how long they'd been poly.
         | The first 30 people I asked over a period of about 4 months,
         | the longest anyone had been poly was 14 months. It wasn't until
         | I got involved in a smaller alt-art community that I found a
         | few old timers with more than 5 years under their belts, and
         | all of them were solo poly (they live alone, unmarried, but
         | date multiple people).
        
       | potatosalad21 wrote:
       | https://archive.ph/a3Bps
        
       | alpineidyll3 wrote:
       | Human beings are naturally envious and covetous creatures.
       | Everyone loves to talk about other people's love lives, and
       | maintains strong opinions about how they should be, while
       | paradoxically relating to the fact that love makes fools of us
       | all.
       | 
       | Meanwhile journalists rest more and more on sexual politics to
       | elicit interest in a public who is very tired of what they have
       | to say.
       | 
       | How about we build stuff, and let people worry about their own
       | love lives?
        
       | lgkk wrote:
       | If you're a normal person you're better off just going offline
       | and seeking actual connections.
       | 
       | Most of these open relationship and poly whatever people.. kinda
       | weird people to begin with. Let them live online and in therapy.
       | It's just not a normal way to live regardless of how much people
       | defend it lol so the sooner normal people realize that happiness
       | and love is found offline the better.
       | 
       | Personally I am all in on VR and stuff like that so normal people
       | can finally enjoy being outside while all the others are forever
       | online doing whatever. Not my problem, it's contained. Everyone
       | will have a place they can find happiness which is the most
       | utilitarian solution.
        
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       (page generated 2024-01-19 23:01 UTC)