evolution-is-just-a-theorem:

A while ago (years, not months) I decided that I was just never going to deliberately pursue romantic or sexual partners. I wouldn’t ask people out, invite them to events just to be near them, deliberately flirt with them*, or otherwise make any special effort to initiate a relationship with them**.

This is an excellent choice (for me, at least). It completely removes a semi-significant source of stress in my life. It lets me forget about this entire aspect of social interaction and spend all my attention on other things.

Of course it only works because the base rate of other people asking me out is high enough to meet my sexual/romantic needs. Mostly this is because those needs are minimal compared to most men (AFAICT), so getting 2-3 new long term partners a year is enough to keep me polysaturated.

* I still occasionally end up in very long two-person conversations and this is kind of flirty, but I never enter these conversations with the goal of seducing someone. If it happens (hello @existentialsiren) it’s just a nice bonus.

** I am willing to put in some minimal effort to create common knowledge of attraction, if I am very confident (>95%) that the other person is interested.

If you acquire 2-3 long-term partners a year, I’d say that’s probably a higher rate than average for men, even controlling for age. It’s also very relevant how long the average relationship lasts: if it’s 4 months, that’s very different from if it lasts five years. I’m not disputing that your sexual/romantic needs may be lower than average, but what you’ve said isn’t enough to justify the statement.

Notes

  1. evolution-is-just-a-theorem reblogged this from dataandphilosophy and added:
    Yes but I didn’t want to come out and say ‘i get asked out more than average’, so instead I provided the relevant...
  2. dataandphilosophy reblogged this from evolution-is-just-a-theorem and added:
    If you acquire 2-3 long-term partners a year, I’d say that’s probably a higher rate than average for men, even...