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I’ve been poly for almost 5-6 years now and I do better than most, but nowhere near as well as women.
I have some women friends who see several men a night.
I did well in my 20s with hookups but also I was a touring musician, comedian and actor who lived in major cities, a rakish waif and, at least at the time, I was kinda cute if I do say so myself.
Married for 8 years now and although I am confident I have a lot to bring to a relationship should something unthinkable happen to my marriage but I am under no illusion that I would not do nearly as well in my mid 40s with a stable regular job, 20 extra lbs and an inch less hairline.
I’m mid 40s and have a stable job. Hair is full but a bit heavier since my 20s.
What I’ve learned is that most women that I end up dating are usually looking for consistency and not being an asshole. Having a decent personality helps as well.
I’m in competition with a lot of conservative men. If I can’t win against them, I should look inward.
It’s like that retort when people ask why being a slut is viewed negatively while being a stud isn’t, it’s easy to be a slut, it’s not easy to be a stud.
It’s also easy to be a stud, you just need lower standards lol
It is always funny to read about open marriage regret, especially when the husband pushed for it.
Those guys are total morons. The dating economics are way different for women then men. My wife and I are probably both in the same league, yet if we opened our relationship I bet shed have a new guy every single weekend if she wanted. I’d probably average a handful per year. That is just a recipe for disaster.
Correction: Every hour if she wanted
why not more than 1 at once.
The question is, in an age of guns for self defense, what do men have on offer? Will they end up learning gow to diet, exercise, cook, clean, and look after the children in order to maintain stronger relationships with hot partners? Will men finally be in charge of the domestic sphere, and women rule elsewhere? Some perhaps having cicisbeo?
Uhh… Forty something man here.
Will they end up learning gow to diet
Well, I eat within my food budget.
Exercise
Yeah
cook
Yeah
clean
Sure
and look after the children
Currently on the fourth month of paid paternity leave from my well paying job.
I don’t see this as a concession. I live in an equal relationship with my partner whom I love and want to be just as happy about the relationship as I am. We equally share our chores and pleasures. How else would I want to live?
I wasn’t saying it was a concession. It’s a realignment. Traditional models are still changing. A change the world and social norms are still adapting to.
Some will not handle the change as well as you. Wider society perhaps already isn’t (it’s part of the male fragility that was exploited to put Trump in power).
What men have to offer is that they are people, who each have their own unique, inner world, shaped by their life experiences. They have the capacity to learn and grow beyond their past, and to learn how to facilitate the growth of a partner.
Some men won’t allow themselves this kind of growth, and will condemn both themselves and the people around them to being miserable, but you can’t force people to change. But there are many men who relish the chance to be something other than the narrowly defined ideal enforced by the pressures of hegemonic masculinity.
Men and women (or any genders) are not different in any meaningful way
They are just people
The only inherent difference is identity, and the exherent differences (norms, expectations, how they are viewed and treated (including by themselves)) are unnecesary and often harmful
We have penis to offer lol, not appealing to me but for some reason lots of women like it.
I was lucky to find one woman that is willing to hang out with me for life. No fucking way I’d think I could trick a second one into not realizing I’m a strong 3.5 on a good day from a great distance and while not wearing their glasses.
This is my take, too. I’m objectively decent looking, but there’s no way anyone other than Mrs. Shovel be able to tolerate me.
That’s why you get yourself a girl with bad vision and then hide her glasses. Worked for me
Even if I did, I don’t think I’ve got the physical or mental ability to disappoint two women at once!!
If, for your lack of physical and mental energy, your efforts to disappoint two women at once ended in… disappointment, I wonder if that would mean you’d technically managed to impress and satisfy at least one.
I think I’d just disappoint both, but faster
That sounds like a recipe for success
I must be a modern Hercules. I disappoint every woman who’s gotten to know me.
Like that time that I spent two days cleaning and completely rearranging the bedroom while my wife was out of town, and then accidentally slept through all of her phone calls and texts that she landed and was waiting for me at the airport. And then she told my mom and sisters at the next family gathering, as she had every right to do.
Anyway, 4 women across two families and two generations. All in one well-intentioned fuck-up. They weren’t mad, just disappointed…
That’s outstanding! Fantastic effort!
So many dumdums trying to gaslight their partners into thinking that it’s not cheating, it’s an open relationship.
If you have to convince your partner, it’s not an open relationship, it’s a toxic one.
It’s really no wonder most marriages end up in divorce, when I see the quality of the relationships I wonder how they lasted more than two weeks.
As a polyamorous individual, I whole-heartedly agree! Actual polyamory is often hard and requires a lot of attention and dedication.
I was open with every, single person involved about the fact I am this way, and have done my best at every step and with each new addition that none of them felt like a “side-piece.”
Real polyamory is made of much of the same stuff as real monogamy: hardcore honesty, vulnerability (especially when it’s hard), open, crystal clear communication, and most importantly, consent! Safe, sane, informed consent. If you haven’t put every, single goddamn card on the table, you’re not polyamorous, you’re a playboy.
“years of pleading” for an open relationship is kind of a flag. Maybe not a red one, but certainly a warning of some sort.
Also, not to repeat myself, but I think a lot of guys are kind of bad at dating and dating apps. There’s a lot of self sabotage and then blaming external forces. A message of “hey” isn’t going to win any prizes, and yet that’s all some people can muster.
Idk i think asking to open up the relationship is always a mistake, you should just break up instead. Open relationships work but they have to be that way from the outset. At least ive seen about a dozen relationships open up and every single one ended badly. I know three successful open couples and they were all like that from the beginning.
This has been my experience as well. The default mode of monogamous relationships has a lot of bad habits and anti-patterns, too.
There was a good blog post I read a while ago I can’t find now (it was a title like “the missing step”, but most blog posts with that title are about toxic people in communities that are ignored like a missing step on a staircase you avoid without fixing). It essentially argued that when people are monogamous, they tend to slide towards a sort of all-access codependence, where you just kind of assume your partner is there all for you the time. When such a couple tries to open up, and your partner suddenly has plans without you, people don’t know what to do. You always used to just do stuff together, and now your partner is out somewhere with Alex? Fuck Alex! Who do they think they are??
It’s pretty bad, but happens frequently.
The post’s advice was to make plans with your current partner, before you “open up”. Even if you never open up. Make plans together, but also explicitly and intentionally keep time for yourself. Even if you don’t actually do anything, take a day a week that’s just yours to do what you want. Go out of the house. You don’t have to tell them any details. Maybe you’ll go for a hike. Maybe you’ll go bowling. Doesn’t matter. It’s your time. Personal. Private.
Once you both get used to that, where the other person is just off doing stuff without you sometimes, it’s much easier to slot “they went on a date” into that space.
Yeah and that’s healthy for permanent monogamous relationships too. It’s just hard i think everyone gets cheated on st some point in your teens or twenties so people develop fear of partner having free time, but yeah eventually in like 30s plus relationships you get more security like we’re not all put there trying to discover our sexuality anymore
To me it seems the only way opening up after works, is if “after” is “after they’ve become empty nesters.” Because a lot of the people with functioning open relationships seem to be 50+.
A message comes after matches.
That depends on the app. On hinge, you can (and should) send a message with your like.
On tinder and close relatives, you can only work on your profile.
Bumble matches you, but only women can send first! So even if you match, you can’t chat lol.
True. I had a very poor experience on bumble, where I didn’t get many interactions. Not being able to message first I think takes away one of my few advantages.
Hasn’t this changed ages ago? IIRC they lost the one thing that made them unique.
Yea, I understand hey it’s not a way to start, yet women are waiting for something smart and interesting in the first couple messages, otherwise they will ghost and go for someone else. With a friend you can say “hey”, but with a woman on a dating site you should go “Was your father thief ? cause you stole my heart!” and then go showcase your reach hobbies.
I might be wrong, but do tell me.While I don’t disagree, many of the women I’ve seen on dating apps have about as much personality as a cardboard box, yet still get tons of matches. It’s just annoying having to be super funny and interesting and etc to get any attention at all, compared to the other person actually just existing and saying “hey.”
True on all counts. Unfortunately, there’s little to be done to change those things. Putting in the effort to be funny and interesting will have better outcomes than focusing on how it’s not fair you have to do more work. This might be one of the few scenarios where men are mildly disadvantaged
I mean I would still rather not be the woman in that situation since you don’t know who actually cares about you. Just that it’s pretty unfortunate that we still do the basic evolution thing of “males compete for a female’s interest!” I don’t really want to play that game, and irl I didn’t feel I needed to nearly as much.
Getting loads of matches isn’t necessarily a boon. I’ve had quite a few times where it turns out that a person I’ve matched with actually doesn’t find me attractive at all, but they were just liking profiles en masse to maximise their chance of getting likes.
Although, I prefer the people who are honest about the fact they consider me ugly than the ones who consider me unattractive but go on a date with me anyway, because I’m better than nothing. I once even ended up finding out that a dude was 0% attracted to me after we had been on a few dates and I had ended up at his place; he was unable to maintain an erection, and this led to him confessing that he wasn’t physically into me at all, but that I was the best option available.
I’m far from conventionally attractive, but I also know that I’m not the repugnant ogre that these instances made me feel like. It’s exhausting to do online dating because even the excessive number of likes just ends up being a source of stress: “is this person actually into me, or am I functionally a fleshlight to them?”
It’s especially frustrating because dudes who are like this are also making it worse for other men on the app who actually want to meet someone. It puts women more on guard, and makes us feel overwhelmed, which makes it less likely that we’ll have the emotional or mental energy spare to message back someone who’ll end up being genuine
Yep 100%, I didn’t mean to make it seem like the other side is better, I think online dating is pretty terrible for everyone. I’ll think a long time about if I want to match with someone but I’ve heard many people say “just spam like and then you can decide on the couple matches you actually get.” I don’t go on because I don’t want to see the cardboard personalities, and actually cool women don’t go on for the exact reasons you said.
Hopefully in person hangout spaces become a thing again, since that’s so much better than online.
Don’t worry, I didn’t get the sense that you were saying it in “we have it worse” kind of way. I was just giving some additional perspective from my side of the aisle — because solidarity is always good when facing something a bit grim
I don’t think it’s necessary to have to put too much thought into clicking “like” on people when online dating; The landscape pretty much requires casting a wide net, regardless of gender. Some people go way overboard on that though — they treat people like they’re pieces of meat at the market, and then they mope about how lonely they are.
I have met good people on these apps, but man, it sure does take a lot of effort to get past the initial “vibe checking” stages (which can include the first in person date or so). Fortunately my profile is weird as hell, and whilst that doesn’t put off the creeps, it does draw in the people who are like “damn, this chick is weird…I bet we’d get on!”
Having to plead with your partner for years about something you consider to be quite important to the relationship (like opening it to other people) is weird in general.
If you’re having to harangue them like that, it seems like a sign that the two of you might not be compatible with each other.
we were having lunch beside a pond the other day, a bunch of fairy wrens came close by, a single male with about 3 or 4 female wrens in toe. My gf asked if I had ever thought about having a harem, i was “no no no, waaaay toooo much work”, she laughed and laughed
Gender…
My wife and I actually met because of this kind of thing. Not only that, but the relationship I was in before meeting her ended because my partner at the time decided that she wanted an open relationship exactly long enough to get involved with one of my friends and then leave me for him.
Her late spouse did the whole forced poly/open relationship crap and I was one of the people they started talking to. It’s actually seeing how her ex treated me that let her finally realize she was in an abusive marriage and put her foot down and leave. We’ve been together 10 years now, married for almost 8.
That’s kind of awesome.
There’s an episode of South Park like this where Randy and his wife go on Only Fans. She’s making a ton of money within a month, he is obliviously not.
Jealous of other people being born with things you can’t have again, aren’t we?
The best approach is to focus on the stuff that really matters: How you measure up to your own metrics.
Not how you measure up to someone else’s.
Not how much of stuff everyone else has, you have.
Health, Growth, Ethics, and personal goals.
Forget about begging other people to give you a chance.
you are completely missing the point i think
Go ahead and enlighten me.
Dude is an idiot. Should’ve just find other couples who wants to swap.
If you’re going to do this as a man, you need to be in amazing physical shape. Otherwise it’s going to be difficult for you. Hit the gym and get stacked.
Interesting. I don’t find that’s the case at all. I’m certainly not “stacked”, yet I’ve managed to find two partners that I absolutely adore. They each have other partners as well.
I’m pretty sure being open, honest, and vulnerable with a high EQ is far more important than having great abs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to the gym when I can, but real open relationships are about more than sex appeal and jealousy.
what’s your personal wealth at?
Good question, and I’m happy to answer.
My personal wealth is damn near zero (and also no one’s business, but relevant here). A series of events led me to losing a number of assets, and scraping myself up from a deep depressive stretch.
A ton of therapy, personal development, and some medication has helped me to live a healthy balanced life. That’s what my partners find attractive. It’s not my wealth or abs, but the work I’ve done my myself.
Yeah, that scans with my own experience. I’ve known plenty of poly dudes who aren’t necessarily “conventionally attractive” (ugh, I hate that phrase) who have multiple partners and/or lots of casual sex. All of them are pretty charismatic and sensitive, and that’s a big deal even if we’re just looking at sexual relationships.
Recently I’ve been trying out online dating, and something that has been super striking to me is the number of guys who end up being terrible in bed because they go into things with a sort of guidebook, treating “good at sex” as being some kind of objective trait, and measuring their self worth by whether or not I orgasm. That’s one “archetype” I’ve stumbled across a bunch, but the other is much more like the kind of guy who successfully does polyamory, regardless of their physical appearance. Their “strategy” involves actually listening and being open to learning what makes me in particular tick. You used the word “vulnerable” in your comment, and that’s exactly it — in my view, that’s an essential quality, even in more casual relationships. You’ve got to be comfortable in your own skin.
And for some people, going to the gym does help with that. I know that I felt a lot more confident when I was more of a beefcake. But it’s certainly not the only way to do it
You don’t need to be in amazing shape (though it probably doesn’t hurt) but you need to be way more interesting and emotionally mature than the average guy.
If you’re the kind of person who gets upset like in this meme that your newly non-monogamous wife got more dates than you did, you are not mature enough to be getting dates with other non-monogamous people.
Yep, otherwise get used to sitting at home playing video games on a Saturday night while your wife is our getting plowed.
I wanna play video games while My spouse gets plowed! My fiance has a much higher sex drive than Me. I like sex sometimes, but most of the time I’d rather play Hades 2.
Hello! I’d like to sign up to either play videogames with you, or plow your wife, please. But not both at the same time.
@Mechoselachia@multiverse.soulism.net Hey someone wants to fuck you I think
relationship goals
The secret is love and respect. I want strangers to fuck My fiance’s brains out because I love it and want it to be pleasured. I just have more important things to do most of the time. Like 100%ing Opus Magnum.
I have a lot of respect for those who can live such a lifestyle and have everyone involved happy. I feel I could never be comfortable in the scenario although I think I would like to be okay with such scenarios.
Thank you! That’s very considerate. Sounds like it’s mating and/or gaming season.
Hah
Sure, you may have multiple partners
But do you have four feral cats you feed regularly who think you’re the best human being on earth?
No. You don’t. Losers.
this
Bro should have tried Grindr.
