I created this poll based on discussions here and elsewhere about romantic relationships.  I initially expected myself to answer "locate a lifetime soul mate" but have instead chosen "exchange psychological visibility for the moment" based on my general observations of how people actually behave beginning with the onset of puberty.  Young and inexperienced people know too little even to grasp what they actually need from a lifetime soul mate.  The technical term "psychological visibility" is a fancy name for "companionship" or, put negatively, "avoiding loneliness."  When I posed the question as "long-range" it depends entirely upon how "long" the "range" of the participant is.

In a perfect world, every adult who instructs every child would have perfect knowledge of every child's needs for the indefinite future and offer perfect instruction perfectly absorbed the first time perfectly by every child so every child could immediately know the traits of a suitable lifetime soul mate beginning with the onset of puberty.

When you find that perfect world, please provide us a map so we can all go there.

What is actually needed is instruction on self-knowledge and how to acquire it based on the "psychological visibility" principle including cautions against the "warped social mirror" so prevalent everywhere.

I would like to see this thread explore how people's self-knowledge has grown from the "date" experience, which "dates" proved worthwhile even if they never led to "relationships," how you ended bad "dates" or bad "relationships," how you determined which "relationships" to turn into "commitments," etc.

Friendships are fundamentally different from romances so it is very difficult even to compare them in terms of their "psychological visibility" value but I welcome insights into this contrast as well.

Are you talking about dating (the process) or a date (a single event in the process)?  The answer could be different depending on which you mean, and it could also depend on whether or not the person is dating (or going on a date) within an exclusive relationship or not.

This very quibble is evidence that, like you, I've thought a good deal about the topic and have noted that not many other people have.  In Christie Hartman's book "It's Not Him, It's You" she points out that there are boatloads of self-help books available that call themselves dating books when, in fact, they are relationship books.  They assume the reader is already in a relationship or interested in relationship-building.  There aren't many resources available for the person who wants help with dating, before a relationship even exists.

Assuming you mean a date, my response would be closest to the one that you said was equivalent to companionship, although based on your qualification that the negative of that is "avoiding loneliness" it doesn't quite fit since I don't typically experience loneliness, not at this point in my life.  I've learned that I enjoy new people and new experiences and a date turns out best when I don't overthink it beyond that.

If I was single I'd date DD! 😈

Could the person who answered "gratify my physical desires" please elucidate how to achieve this honestly without the meaning running deeper for self or interlocutor in a way that harms one or both parties?

At least a paid sexual services provider and the provider's client make no pretense of the nature of the transaction.

"Prospective victim assessment" is missing. 

Teresa, I sanctioned your observation about "prospective victim assessment" as a definite "Other purpose not listed" because I have seen that happen.  My lawn service man was widowed a few years ago when he lost his wife of many years to cancer.  He later got a girlfriend who proved quite the financial and emotional predator.  She bled him dry of every penny.  Poor guy had a heart way bigger than his brain.  He finally got rid of her but it was too late as too much damage had already been done to him.  He is in what appears to be a much healthier relationship now.

My point in Post 8 is that too many people treat their sexual partners as whores and ATMs rather than as soul mates while merely pretending they are soul mates.  Ugh.  The dishonesty of this continues to astound me.  I had college roommates who regularly lied to their girlfriends so they could always "get some on the side."  One turned an old saying on its ear:

Old saying: "Women: Can't live with 'em.  Can't live without 'em."
His saying: "Women: Can't live without 'em.  Can't live without 'em."

Worse was his attitude about the barrier desired between body and soul.  He started a "side" relationship with a girl down the street while his "main squeeze" was out of state.  "I don't want her to start 'liking' me, though," he fretted.  Good grief.  My life was complicated enough with zero women in it.  I was just struggling to make ends meet and make sense of where I was going.  Here he was drinking and fornicating on a regular basis.  Meh.  His "main squeeze" eventually got pregnant with another man and married him.

Meanwhile, his buddy pulled the same sorts of stunts and then some.  He told me his girlfriend asked if he was seeing other women.  "I told her what she wanted to hear," he giggled.  I think much of the rush of these scenarios comes, not from the sex, but from the manipulation.

So, again, how is "gratify my physical desires" an honest purpose of a date?

Can two people engage in this type of purely physical relationship honestly?

I have not yet mentioned that bane of high school, prom night.  Is it necessary to attend with a "date" to such an event?  Why?  Are you really interested in this person or do you just want to "impress others with my arm candy" and "gratify my physical desires"?  I knew at least one girl with a sharp mind and a promising future who got pregnant on prom night.  Ugh.  Prom night has always struck me as the climax of Deweyite social metaphysics.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 12/03, 4:59am)

Luke:

My point being, your question above,

"Can two people engage in this type of purely physical relationship honestly?"

to me, is "Can two reptilian thinkers have an honest relationship?"

A reptile would ask "What is honest?   Can I eat it?  Can it eat me?"

So, under the filters of can, may, should, I think the answer is, they cannot.

regards,

Fred 

Fred,

Post #13 - can, may, should... brilliant!

Steve:

I wish.

But a goal I try to imperfectly strive for when pondering difficult political (or any) concepts is to seek out additional axes when a single axis doesn't seem to lead(me)to any help in understanding the concept.   Not enough axes is a problem(results in bewilderment) too many axes is also a problem(results in confusion.)   So a goal is, finding the right number of axes to understand a given concept.    And by axes, I just mean, independent/orthogonal 'classifiers' or directions in which to examine the concept.

Looking for the axes is actually a corollary of a deeper bias of mine;  looking for the inevitable gradient.   Not just in science pr engineering topics, but in everything.   Including politics.    Including love. I literally mean, in everything.   I've found only one concept in this universe devoid of gradient; we call it Death.   I've no interest in Death.

Early in my adult life, when pondering poltics, I was drawn by singular vs. plural, and became sensitive(to a fault) to singular being over-applied.   'The' Economy.... 'The' "S"ociety, etc.   I've also found "can may should" to be useful classifiers.   Also, free vs forced association.   

This helped me with some confusion I had over my own interpretation of Rand;  at one level, when I was younger and first exposed to her, I interpreted her as leading a (necessary) reactionary war of "I vs. We".  Made explicit in Anthem.      But I think that is an incomplete over-simplification, because it is too easily deconstructed into 'every man is an island nation onto himself, waging an endless reptilian war against all.'   A more nuanced(to me)interpretation of 'We' distinguishes the 'we's (plural) formed via free association vs. the We (singlular) formed via forced association;  it is only the latter-- singular Totalitarianism--, I think, that Rand was, and her ideas still are, at war with.    With that additional 'axis' I find it harder for Rand's detractors to spraypaint her ideas with cartoon accusations(not that it will stop them in the least; they must cling to their attacks on her or confront a horrible self-realization, bordering on existential crisis); eventualy, to me, those additional axes corral her detractors into a corner along with rapists and slave owners, which if I were them, I'd find an uncomfortable corner to be in.    

Of course, to them, the villians in all that are folks who introduce the new axes.   Why can't we stick to their script and keep this all about selfish reptilian sinner I vs. selfless saints We?    Because political life is so easy when opponents agree to act like the offered sand bottom blow up clowns, waiting only for the next punch.

regards,

Fred