I was being somewhat hyperbolic with the middle school thing, but I think the main point still stands, because the article is specifically about marriage rather than relationships in general and it seems to me that by the time a person's ready to get married they ought to have a realistic idea of what that actually entails.
I don't know that I was ever exceptionally mature about relationships, but I was a phenomenally cynical person from a very young age (and I wasn't really exposed to Disney or religion; my parents were atheists whose idea of appropriate entertainment for children was the unabridged Brothers Grimm). I've certainly made some big mistakes in the relationship department, but I never married any of them.
I think there are lots of people who don't know these things, but just saying them in so many words won't help. It's like reading an article saying "math is hard, so you have to work really hard at it"--true enough, but I won't be any better at math after reading it.
I think that's what bugs me. I can get how these can be hard to implement in practice. The problem is that no one ever seems to give practical advice about how to do that part of it. It's just these constant, incredibly repetitive articles telling people that relationships take work while being mysterious about what that means.
Every once in a while I toy with the idea of making my fortune writing relationship advice books. You don't seem to need any kind of special training or knowledge (beyond common sense) and they sell like crazy. So far, my ethics have been getting in the way, but...
The thing that drives me nuts about relationship advice books is that they always give catchy/obnoxious names to things that already have very simple names. I have a longstanding hobby of reducing pop psych to the words "good" and "bad" and it's amazing how often it works.
"You can have an internal or external locus of control." "You can have a good or bad locus of control."
"Relationships can be codependent or independent." "Relationships can be bad or good."
"Communication can be aggressive, passive, or assertive." "Communication can be bad, bad, or good."
Hell, maybe that should be my gimmick! I'll write the first relationship book that just doesn't have any unnecessary labeling! (I've long been a believer that people who want to sound smart use big words; people who really are smart use clear words.) It won't get published though, there's no hook.
I've long been a believer that people who want to sound smart use big words; people who really are smart use clear words.
This is why you get along so well with radfems (and others of that stripe).
To a certain degree big words are useful--complex language for complex ideas and all that--but when you're using complex language for simple ideas, it mostly makes you an asshole.
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I don't know that I was ever exceptionally mature about relationships, but I was a phenomenally cynical person from a very young age (and I wasn't really exposed to Disney or religion; my parents were atheists whose idea of appropriate entertainment for children was the unabridged Brothers Grimm). I've certainly made some big mistakes in the relationship department, but I never married any of them.
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Every once in a while I toy with the idea of making my fortune writing relationship advice books. You don't seem to need any kind of special training or knowledge (beyond common sense) and they sell like crazy. So far, my ethics have been getting in the way, but...
Reply
"You can have an internal or external locus of control."
"You can have a good or bad locus of control."
"Relationships can be codependent or independent."
"Relationships can be bad or good."
"Communication can be aggressive, passive, or assertive."
"Communication can be bad, bad, or good."
Hell, maybe that should be my gimmick! I'll write the first relationship book that just doesn't have any unnecessary labeling! (I've long been a believer that people who want to sound smart use big words; people who really are smart use clear words.) It won't get published though, there's no hook.
Reply
This is why you get along so well with radfems (and others of that stripe).
To a certain degree big words are useful--complex language for complex ideas and all that--but when you're using complex language for simple ideas, it mostly makes you an asshole.
Reply
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