site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   4482 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 30, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Yeah you're just going to have to deal with it. I was fucked up from my major break up for around 1.5-2 years (depending on who you ask). But it does get better eventually.

Probably every {Time Period Unique to the Person and Relationship}, things get half as bad until you live with it.

Not to freak you out but it's now been 12 years and I still had a dream/nightmare about her last week. It'd been forever since that'd happened though.

12 years? Jesus.

Have you had any sort of contact with her during that time?

Not really, we hooked up again maybe a year after the breakup but haven't talked since then and aren't friends on social media.

To be very clear I'm still 100% functional and happy - I've been married with 2 kids for quite a while. Just very strange having my subconscious toss me a random gut-punch on a Saturday.

I know what you're saying. One can 'move on' in all ways that count but the brain still has this person's image indelibly carved in it such that it pops back up, unbidden, on occasion.

In my case, I'm still a bit hung up on my high school girlfriend who broke up with me the first semester of college (different colleges, mind). That wrecked me for like a year and then later, just as I was patching things up with her (friendshipwise, at least) she died in an unlucky accident.

I'm on good terms with my second ex, although it took years to come back around. But I made a concerted effort to work on that since, well, I didn't want to leave us on a negative note in case something like the above happened.

With the current Ex, its frustrating because I kinda want to skip ahead to the part where we at least 'tolerate' each other again. But I don't even know if that's in the cards this time.

Still aiming to get to the 'married with kids' stage at some point.

That wrecked me for like a year and then later, just as I was patching things up with her (friendshipwise, at least) she died in an unlucky accident.

Dude, that sucks. I'm sorry to hear it!

Yeah, long enough ago that it doesn't bother me daily, but I still have her face seared into my memory and I know the world is slightly worse off than it could have been.

Suffering through that event really impacted my perspective on maintaining relationships even through hardships. Namely: I generally refuse to give up on friendships that I've come to value.

Another thing I get the feeling you may also experience is that this is the sort of conversation that isn't possible to have in almost any context.

With friends, they may listen for a bit, but eventually, it's mopey and "too heavy". You don't want to pay a therapist for the privilege of discussing it. At least I learned that a long time ago...

I generally refuse to give up on friendships that I've come to value.

I hope this doesn't translate to anything dysfunctional. I try to hold onto relationships as long as possible too, in general. For exes, it's almost comically absurd how you can go from the most intense intimacy imaginable to being strangers. But I've also tried to get more comfortable about letting relationships go when the other person has radically changed. I used to take it as a personal affront when there was a slow growing apart.

I hope this doesn't translate to anything dysfunctional. I try to hold onto relationships as long as possible too.

The way it seems to manifest is that I am aware of how I become strongly attached to my relationships, so I put up pretty significant barriers to letting other people get close to me, and thus only those very few who manage to penetrate said layers end up being part of my 'close' circle of friends.

Which, I have to say, has generally served me well in avoiding too much emotional distress. The last ex just managed to get through those barriers and did so in a way that led me to actually think I had finally found somebody worth trusting and keeping long term, then cut it off in a way that almost seemed designed to be maximally distressing to me. Just shattered my trust for no good reason.

So it reinforced my possible unhealthy tendency to distrust people's intentions. I've worked through a lot of it but I have a hard time visualizing a situation where I trust someone else that deeply ever again.

For exes, it's almost comically absurd how you can go from the most intense intimacy imaginable to being strangers.

I occasionally laugh at the ridiculousness of having some random person out there walking around knowing most of your deepest, darkest secrets, possibly enough to nuke your entire life if they chose, and you are explicitly NOT on speaking terms with this person, and yet there's the general expectation that they won't do it.

But I've also tried to get more comfortable about letting relationships go when the other person has radically changed. I used to take it as a personal affront when there was a slow growing apart.

Similar with me. I think I'm able to recognize when a relationship becomes actively toxic and cut it off (and as mentioned above, I rarely let someone in close enough for it to get to that point), but I much prefer to just kind of render an appropriate amount of distance as the situation requires, whilst not severing the link.

This tends to get MOST tricky with family members, where I still feel some obligation to render aid and comfort.

I HAVE managed to mostly purge my innate tendency to try to help people even when they reject good faith attempts at assistance.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats