I don't really know how to boil it down any further. Either you want to spend your life with them or you don't. If you don't think you know, then it's probably the latter.
I reckon plenty of people get married out of fear and comfort these days. A proposal can be the difference between a mortgage, a comfy enough existence and someone to do things with, and renting a room in your 30s with no one to speak to outside of work.
Ideally, you find someone that you'd do anything for - you'll put up with their bullshit, you'll give up your dreams for theirs, you'll wish them well if they decide they'd be happier without you. More realistically, you settle for someone who seems better than dying alone and learn to tolerate them. In either case, you just know.
>>30091 Think of the worst case scenario - dying alone from a heart attack, in a cold studio flat. Your body found after some three months, because the neighbours complained about the smell.
Or, dying surrounded by a wife you can stand only 60% of the time, and two or three kids. Hell, maybe you even got a grandkid there who is sad, but doesn't understand what is going on. Probably named after you too.
I say all this while being single. Although my background is a bit different to the average Brit, and I could get married tomorrow if I just told my mum I wanted someone to marry. But, I still remain single...
>>30099 In your observations, are arranged (or semi-arranged) marriages more or less successful than their Western counterparts? I can see some logic behind the idea that someone who's a bit older, has seen more of life and people and their interactions and whatnot might have a better idea of how well two people might get along, when many conventional relationships occur through pure happenstance and limited options. I know that traditionally there was a transactional element to arranged marriages, is that less the case now?
All the lads I know who got into arranged marriages are with cousins and the like - isn't it something like >50% of laplanderstanis in the UK marry their first cousins?
The thought of marrying any of my cousins is stomach churning, I've no idea how they do it.
>>30100 It seems a bit stable based on my anecdotal evidence (friends and relatives). Some of my cousins who had arranged marriages seem happily married compared to the conventional marriages. The only weird thing is that if it goes bad, it goes really bad. A friend divorced after just three months because they were not a match at all.
>>30101 I think that's a more cultural thing practiced by Arabs and other Asians. East African eskimos, and South East Asians like Indonesia and Malaysia tend to not do it. The arranged aspect of it doesn't sound as horrific as people tend to make it seem. For instance, I'm in my mid 30s, and mum/aunties tend to ask when I will be getting married, if I have someone I am going out with, or if I would like to be introduced to a girl from [insert family friend]. You aren't expected to just blindly marry as well. My brother "dated" his girl for 8 months before they got married.
Didn't this sort of thing happen in 1800s England?
>>30101 Familiarity breeds contempt and that's the only reason we don't all cop off with family members. There have been documented instances of siblings separated at birth ending up in long-term relationships. Hell assuming I didn't grow up with them I'd get off with an attractive cousin.
>>30103 >Familiarity breeds contempt and that's the only reason we don't all cop off with family members. There have been documented instances of siblings separated at birth ending up in long-term relationships.
I always thought of it as a sort of tribal bloodline thing; if your family-tribe gets wiped out then a decade later you run into your sister, it's evolutionarily beneficial for you to breed with her to give your genes an extra generation's go of it.
At least 70% of Laplanderstanis in Bradford marry their cousin. They're mostly from Azad Kashmir, where that sort of thing is apparently the norm. The council have leaflets about it and everything, because there are so many mongy inbred kids.
I read an account of this, which was something along the lines of, we all carry a recessive mutational load. If we recombine our genes with family, we multiply the risk of inheriting the same mutated recessive gene, which can then show up in our phenotype as a damaging trait. I'm sure a biologist will correct me on the specifics, but that's the gist. We've evolved predispositions against incest, which constantly work to stop us reproducing with overfamiliar mates. I think this has a role to play in sex tapering in long term relationships.
There was some research done on how many candidates should be interviewed before the hiring team should select one. I'll look up the specifics, but an author adapted it to dating, something like:
1) Interview 8 people
2) Identify the Best One
3) Continue interviewing, and pick the first person you find who's better than the previous Best One
The research suggested this was a fairly optimal strategy in terms of resources spent.
My first thought on how this applied to my own circumstances was "I haven't dated enough". On a rethink, I don't think an interview is necessarily a date. It could be swiping left on Tinder, in which case I've interviewed hundreds.
>>30100 Not him but if I remember right arranged marriages have turbulent starts but over time have a higher rate of satisfaction. At a guess I'd say that after 10-20 years you've really grown into each other no matter who you match with.
Unless you marry a shithouse at any rate which might be less common if you let your parents pick out your wife from Matalan. "You'll grow into her IYKWIM"
On the flip-side if you grow up in the same household with someone you won't be attracted to them. Even if they were adopted. Which makes sense as we're a tribal species.
>>30107 Yes, that's what I wanted to say but I didn't want to back it up with links/sources because I really didn't want that in my search history. Thanks for taking the hit.
Isn't the modern, idealistic romantic concept of marriage a relatively recent development?
Similar how the eskimolads have arranged ones, in our own past it was pretty common to view marriage as more of a business partnership between families. Certainly it always was and still is that way for the blue-bloods, but even for us common-folk it was a practical, pragmatic affair where each partner had their role to play in running the household. We've trod similar ground before, but I would say our modern cultural concept of marriage has only really been made possible by the combined liberation or capitalist appropriation of women and labour-saving household appliances.
Of course you got couples who did love each other and what have you before, but it was much more common and normal to just marry someone because you needed to get married and your dad knew a bloke who had a daughter in the same position. I think you actually still see a similar thing today in those mid-30s birds on dating websites who still haven't had kids or settled down, and they know the clock is ticking, so they are almost predatorily after the first bloke who isn't a complete reject to extract some seed from and put a ring on- And their counterpart, the desperate bloke who'll settle for anyone.
We had a brief period in the late 20th century where living alone as an eternal bachelor was viable, but I don't think it's still true today unless you're earning well above the average, or live in a shithole, where there's no point living alone because there's no life to participate in. More and more couples are together for practical financial reasons these days.
Anyway, to answer the OP: If you don't KNOW, then the answer is no.
>>30109 >Isn't the modern, idealistic romantic concept of marriage a relatively recent development?
Arguably yes, if by "recent" you mean the 1400s.
I sort of joke. That's when it started but it's a lot more complictated now.
>>30106 It's called the Optimal Stopping algorithm. It's been applied to looking for a partner, when to sell your house, but clasically is described around hiring someone, the traditional example is of hiring a secretary. It's about knowing "when to stop looking" (or waiting), depending on how much information you have.
It is described in detail in a number of books, but my favourite is Algorithms to Live By, by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths.
>>30107 I'm the product of donor sperm, and have 15 half-siblings out there somewhere, all of whom are a similar age to me.
It is a bit strange to think that I may end up meeting and being attracted to my half-sister, but then I remember I'm a raging turbovirgin and that's never going to be an issue.
OP here, this kind of confirms my fears. If we break up, realistcally, I won't find anyone else. All of my friends moved away and I don't live near family so I won't even had anyone to talk to. Wish I chose wisely 5 years ago instead of just getting comfortable.
