I have just started dating a woman who is 22, she has advanced ovarian cancer and a life expectancy that is 12 months and is scheduled for surgery and chemo in January (but this may be sooner given the pain).
This is just a fact between us, and it's something we'll have to deal with. I fell for her, she fell for me, we work well on so many levels.
I know she is likely to die (a 12 month life expectancy isn't a foregone conclusion) but we don't discuss this or make it a focus. Our focus is on living life with passion, a clock that counts 70 years or 1 year doesn't change our approach to life.
I don't really know what to say, I just wanted to put an acknowledgement from myself to the universe down somewhere that yes I know what I'm getting myself into, and yet I love her and it's worth it.
This is good stuff man. It takes a lot of courage for the both of you. My wife was diagnosed with stage 3C ovarian cancer 1 year, 11 months and 1 week ago. She's been through remission, recurrence and is now on her fourth type of chemo to try to push it back. We've had a little bit of encouraging news recently but there's still a long way to go.
I'm sure you've already done some research but I would definitely suggest familiarizing yourself with the various treatment options that are 'standard of care', gain an understanding about the pros/cons of clinical trials, how they select candidate patients and maybe scan around for trials that are applicable to her case. Also it becomes incredibly difficult to keep weight on, at least for my wife who is by any standard presently malnourished. Finding simple to eat shakes/smoothies/etc are very helpful.
If she has a full hysterectomy she's likely to struggle with night sweats. I bought my wife a BedJet last year for that but it has turned out to be a wonderful thing in the winter as well to help keep her warm.
I have young kids, and I've lately found myself experiencing a lot of anxiety about the various ways in which the randomness of the universe might harm them, or harm me and deprive them of a parent. Just reading "Live life qualitatively not quantitatively" gave me an instant, deep sense of calm. Thank you for sharing that.
I hope that your journey together is wonderful, no matter how long it is.
"The median is not the message" is a quote brought up by Siddhartha M regarding life expectancy and cancer. It's very unfortunate for a bright young person to have this unluckiest of messages, however the median does not tell of the range of expectancies, nor of the potential richness of life in every moment.
I'm glad you're taking it well, I hope you both find peace and equanimity with the situation.
"The enemy's gate is down" is a subtle Ender's Game reference, and it's beautiful in this post. This person's life expectancy is not oriented in the usual way, so the phrase becomes a call to re-establish norms and consider life in a way that suits the present reality. This isn't just a lesson to be learned by the dying, either.
For me it's rather curious that people place such a high value on finding an SO even when dying. This seems to speak to one (or two) things: that it is a tragedy to have lived and never been in love, and that having someone with you in the pain and the last period of your live is very highly valued.
It makes me think of all the people who don't have a terminal disease but still never manage to find someone. Their case, while sad, is perhaps not as tragic.
An obituary is not written for you, it's written for the deceased person. It's an entirely symbolic deed that's done selflessly (the writer does not aim to gain anything from it) and that's why interrupting it to ask for money feels rude.
> An obituary is not written for you, it's written for the deceased person.
Actually it is not. It's quite the opposite. The obituary is written and published for the living, to inform everyone of your death and to let family and loved ones express themselves. You are dead, so you don't care or read the obituary. the ones surviving you will handle that.
Capitalism knows no bounds. I dealt with that after my dad died, and went to the funeral home.
Every fucking thing is an upsell. Every goddamned thing. And the funeral home salespeople use the fact it's a death to capitalize on it any way they can.
sales: 'Do you want flowers for the casket? $1100'
mom: 'No'
sales: 'Don't you think he's worth flowers?'
mom: 'alright...'
sales: 'heres our selection of caskets, many families choose these ($6000)'
mom: 'but he doesnt care, he's dead'
sales: 'dont you love your husband?'
You know that something is wrong with a lot of Americans if they're dropping $1100 on flowers or $6000 on a casket... I mean c'mon, $6000 on a piece of furniture (?) that you'll see for maybe an hour and then bury it into the ground to rot?
Some people do splurge for flowers and a casket, but the last 4 or 5 funerals i have been to stated "in lieu of flowers" donate to such and such. Some people dont do that and still buy flowers.
As for the casket, I believe the cheapest pine box is good enough for me (or cremation). Of course the metal vault around the casket is defiantly needed...you know in case of a zombie outbreak ;)
I went to a funeral home recently to discuss what to do when I die. This is in France (west of Paris) where these discussions are not that common.
I told them I want the cheapest solution and the best logistics (so that someone did all the paperwork when I die). And that nobody discusses what we agreed upon once I am not here anymore to negotiate :)
It was great. They showed me the catalog going straight for the cheapest options and suggested I come back a year later as it will be cheaper for me.
I think the funeral business is changing in France because more prone are like me, they plan their funerals in advance so they are much more relaxed discussing than the ones who come right after someone's death, to fall with it.
My father died of cancer when I was 17. In our culture, I was now "man of the house" and was involved in the funeral decisions. That means I had to go along with my uncles to make some decisions. And the sales guys were still peddling and upselling products to a 17 year old kid in their time of grief.
My local newspaper went from having an open, freely accessible archive of obituaries to a time-limited paywall that you can have removed for various periods of time at correspondingly increasing prices. Just the lowest of the low.
And how do you expect your local paper to survive when the classifieds (the largest source of income for many local papers IIRC) have moved online and physical subscription numbers and ad buys are declining?
This line of reasoning could also justify shoplifting to stock their break room. What I would "expect" (or really "hope") is that they would not do immoral/distasteful things.
As it is, obits are paid for by the word when they're printed. But apparently a few hundred dollars isn't enough to serve a simple webpage for a few decades.
It would be one thing if it were just an upfront one-time fee along with the publishing. But hitting you up after it's been "published", and instant-but-short-gratification options like $3 to unlock for 24 hours (etc) is just predatory.
Contrast the experience of buying a paper with the obit, keeping it, and running across it in ten years with the experience of hitting a truncated webpage that uses your lament to hit you up for money.
"She'd coyly mention shedding a twelve-year-long relationship with an abusive narcissist to find a love who didn't leave hospice for two weeks and was at her side when the cancer finally ended her life on December 3rd at 1:30AM in Brooklyn, at Calvary Hospice."
I'm glad she found someone worthy to spend her last days with. I can definitely relate to overreacting toward the existential dread of social situations/interactions.
A long time ago I knew a young woman who was facing breast cancer, I don't remember what stage it was, but she said doctors told her she might only have a year to live, even with aggressive treatment. She had accepted her fate and was just trying to live her live as well as she could.
A few months after I met her, she was killed in a drunk driving accident.
On the other hand, I also met someone who had a brain tumor when she was in her 20's, her life expectancy was unknown, her long-term boyfriend at the time left her because he couldn't deal with it. When I met her she was in her mid-40's, happily married with kids - she had successful surgery to remove the tumor.
Everyone has a limited lifetime and you don't always know how short it will be.
I'm not complaining about the paywall per-se, I'm complaining about the fact that an obituary of an author that is linked from a page that is not paywalled should also not be paywalled, that's common courtesy. To attempt to get people to subscribe over the backs of your recently deceased contributors is something no self respecting newspaper should ever want to be seen doing. At best it is tone-deaf, at worst simply callous.
How is it not productive? Just because your position is that obituaries should be paywalled, doesn't mean we all agree. Why is it that because you hold a different opinion, we aren't allowed to discuss it?
I think this is a great post to remember her by. It is funny, it is sad and also contains pain. It is very human and it shows how one thing in life can be multi-dimensional at the same time. I think this showcases the complexity of the human condition and how life ends up being the way we decide to look at it. My condolences to her friends and family and may she rest in peace
I may not be dying, but I am losing my eyesight. This article is about a very one-sided phenomenon, and largely speaks to the desperation of men in the current dating market. I literally cannot imagine reciprocal treatment from a woman. I have not been in a relationship since I got this condition, and I don't expect that I ever will be again.
I am sorry about your condition. But I don't think your understanding of dating and gender dynamics is accurate. Please don't give up on dating if you would like to be in a relationship. The dating apps are a minefield, but sometimes the only game in town. The best place to meet new people (not necessarily people to date) is through activities.
Loneliness is awful, and dating sucks. But I assure you, the behavior from this woman's boyfriend is a human trait that can be found across all genders. Please do not give up and consider yourself undatable.
You're looking at it wrong, like a transaction. But imagine a guy who finds humor and joy while progressively losing eyesight. A guy who's passion for seeing things before they're gone livens and betters all who know him. That guy is somebody people will want to be around. If you sink into bitterness it'll form a self-reinforcing pattern that will ensure your loneliness. And please talk with a professional if you haven't, because that is a heavy thing you're facing and perspective can really be helped by the right person.
Would you also congratulate a terminal cancer patient on their opportunity to become a better person? Did you honestly read what you wrote? I am a real person, with real feelings. This is not a feel-good movie: it is real life. This is horrid and you are telling me to be grateful for my suffering.
He is not telling you to "be grateful for [your] suffering." You are projecting a bit here or otherwise reading into it the wrong way. He is saying that despite your ongoing issue with your eyesight (and I am sorry to hear that), you are much more than that. What would happen if you met a funny, cute, good-spirited woman that was stuck in a self-defeating thought loop and letting a health issue define her outlook and worldview? I think it would make her less fun and less attractive and would more or less be awkward. I've been struggling with depression and anxiety for 15 years and haven't dated anyone since 2015 and can't afford therapy to "fix" this stuff, but as parent suggested, a change in perspective can be extremely potent.
No, they're telling you if you can't change it, how you deal with it has an impact on your relationships with others. Gloomy, angry, defeated people have trouble dating whether they're blind or not.
Are you in therapy or a support group of some kind to deal with the very real, very legitimate feelings this change of circumstances causes?
Please seek out support groups or one-on-one counseling related to your condition. I think a good place to start would be through the doctor's who diagnosed you. You could ask for referrals to counselors or support groups.
This is a beautiful post and while it wasn't addressed to me, it struck an emotional chord in me. I don't think its intended recipient feels the same way, but that's OK. Thank you for saying this.
I'm sorry about your health issues, but it appears to me that they are (understandably) affecting your overall mindset.
There are plenty of disabled men in functional relatioships (and not-so-functional ones, there is a subset of people, male or female, that are specifically attracted to ill or dying partners for problematic reasons). Please lose the incel angle.
This crosses into personal attack, which is not allowed on HN. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and edit that kind of thing out of your comments in the future. Your comments in this thread have broken several of the guidelines, most importantly Be kind.
It's already a bit dodgy when people respond to other's experience by telling them what's wrong with them, especially when their experience is painful. But blunt one-liners and internet tropes ("lose the incel angle") should be right out. Upping the ante like you did in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21721545 is seriously not ok.
What to do instead? First edit out personal criticisms—they're unlikely to land well. Second, it's always ok to share your own experience. For example, if your comment here was based on experiences or observations of your own, it might have been both interesting and respectful to share some of that.
Complaining about the dating scene does not make you an incel. You're being condescending for no reason at all. Nothing he said is related to the usual talking points of incels.
Also, men are lonely and this reflects heavily in suicide rates by gender. If someone is lonely, they should be allowed to complain. Casting them away with a label only makes things worse for them. Don't you have empathy? Can't you garner sympathy for a person who is missing out on one of the basic human needs (emotional connection)?
That is however not just about partners, but also about having good friends that count. About having meaningful relationships with all kinds of people, not just partner.
The amount of women in stable heterosexual relationship is the same as amount of males in heterosexual relationship. If you talk about people having one night stands randomly, there is no connection except sex there.
The most lonely isolating experience I ever had was being at home with children. It may just be that this gives one training for how to deal with being alone and tilts female culture towards behavior that prevents loneliness. Plus it makes it more acceptable for woman to display behavior that prevents loneliness in long term.
Yes, of course. But I think people usually consider romance to be more important than friendships. I don't know if it's because of evolutionary reasons, or cultural reasons; just that it happens that way. Of course, my knowledge is mostly limited to men's opinions and it's also possible women have a different perspective on this. Which leads to the following:
> The amount of women in stable heterosexual relationship is the same as amount of males in heterosexual relationship.
Yes, you're completely right. However (in the culture I'm in) men usually take action to ask out/talk to women. This asymmetry theoretically leads to men getting rejected until they're not, and women meeting unworthy men until they don't. So each gender has an entirely different perspective on the same dating market. Personally speaking, it is hard for me to fully understand my female friends' difficulties with dating (or friendships) because I've only experienced it as a male, so many things they have difficulty with are things I take for granted (this usually goes the other way too).
Unless there's a huge cultural shift, men and women will keep having completely orthogonal experiences and until then, empathy remains the biggest asset for us to treat each other with.
> But I think people usually consider romance to be more important than friendships.
It is not binary either choice. And ideally partners have shared friends.
One of the things you learn when being in situation I describes is value of causual connections and friends. And the need to work for them in various ways.
> Nothing he said is related to the usual talking points of incels.
From my understanding, explicit, fatalist despairing of your sex life is the red/black pills to which incels refer. It is definitely an attitude to be concerned about, regardless of what labels you want to use, because it's a worldview that will reproduce itself without intervention.
> Can't you garner sympathy for a person who is missing out on one of the basic human needs (emotional connection)?
Do you think the advice to lose the incel angle (i.e. and actually admit the possibility of future relationships) was bad advice? That strikes me as more helpful than pitying him.
"For suicide attempts, for which the rate is estimated to be 20 times higher than that of suicides , the gender gap is less pronounced, with females demonstrating a disproportionately higher rate of suicide attempts compared to males ."
It's not random, though, that men choose different methods for attempting suicide than women. This isn't merely about access to guns--people in countries with few gun suicides also show a substantial gendered difference in success rate. And if women account for 3/4 of suicide attempts, but men account for 3/4 of completed suicides, that means that men are choosing methods that are almost 10x deadlier than women, which does demand explanation.
One theory is that things we code as suicide attempts are instead acts of self-harm intended to act as a cry for help instead of a genuine attempts to end your life. In which case, if women do have stronger social support networks that would respond to these cries for help, you'd expect exactly that kind of weird imbalance and difference in success rates.
I believe this accounts for part of the difference. Another element is that someone who attempts suicide and fails is likely to attempt to commit suicide repeatedly. If the average man attempts suicide once before succeeding, and the average woman attempts suicide three times before succeeding, even assuming equal propensities to suicide women will show up in the statistics as attempting it three times as often as men.
> This isn't merely about access to guns--people in countries with few gun suicides also show a substantial gendered difference in success rate.
There are countries where women die by suicide more often than men.
You need to be careful with how you're defining a death by suicide too. Someone who shoots themself in the head is more likely to be counted as a death by suicide than someone who overdoses on prescription meds, because the intent is clearer.
> Another element is that someone who attempts suicide and fails is likely to attempt to commit suicide repeatedly.
This is incorrect. Some people do make multiple attempts, but plenty of people don't.
> There are countries where women die by suicide more often than men.
Agreed. We might take the fact that more women die by suicide than men in those countries to say that women are relatively worse off than men in those countries than women are to men in countries where the ratio is reversed.
> You need to be careful with how you're defining a death by suicide too. Someone who shoots themself in the head is more likely to be counted as a death by suicide than someone who overdoses on prescription meds, because the intent is clearer.
Agreed, but it's unclear which direction this would push the numbers: more men die by drug overdose than do women, though I can't find a breakdown by gender of prescription drug overdose. And plenty of other methods can also be miscoded, e.g. intentional car crashes, which are one of men's preferred methods. The only ones that I'd expect to be coded correctly most of the time are exsanguination and hanging. But we've got to do the best we can with the numbers we have, and try to improve accuracy while we're at it.
> This is incorrect. Some people do make multiple attempts, but plenty of people don't.
Correction noted. A previous attempt at death by suicide is a significant risk factor for future attempts at suicide, with somewhere between a third and a half of deaths by suicide being on a second-or-more attempt, but my "likely" was incorrect. It also seems like reattempts aren't likely to account for the gendered divergence in attempts versus deaths, because the large majority of first attempts at suicide don't result in future attempts.
Men are more likely to shoot themselves or use other violent method. That is more effective and makes it harder to save the person then trying to poison yourself and such (female choice).
Eh, you don't need to get zero ass to make observations about the "dating market". If you can't acknowledge that dating definitely is a crapshoot and can't enumerate some reasons why, then you simply haven't tried.
But there's this meme that any time you lament a negative experience about dating as a man, you're called an incel, an epithet that comes with so much baggage it has no place for HN, imo. Just speak to their points independently.
Being disabled sucks pretty bad. Here's a paraplegic justifying his suicide at the end of his essay: http://www.2arms1head.com/ -- I think stepping in to call someone an incel is just some weird shaming. I'd attract a minuscule fraction of the women I currently if I were a blind guy assuming I even hold it together enough to remain positive. I completely sympathize with their catharsis.
> Men used it a ton more and women didn’t because they didn’t have to since men mostly did the reaching out. Basically men and women used the rating system differently.
> Also the study the data came from stated that despite the ratings, women consistently messaged both guys they ranked attractive and guys they ranked below average, while men consistently ONLY messaged the women they ranked absolutely topmost. Thus demonstrating that the messaging habits of the sexes are the reverse of the rating data.
whether there are flaws in the analysis or not, every reasonable person knows that if you go to a social setting like club for example, a woman can get laid pretty much anytime as long as she's willing, she only has to signal she is down to it and there will be plenty of men who will jump on board ... now try to go to club as a man and signal your willingness to get laid ... you'll get zero ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBtF3I7fDfU there's many such videos ... is anyone surprised by the results a great deal of men say yes, when reversed, and a jacked model looking guys asked women for sex guess the results 0.
The reality is that men are willing to have sex with broader range of women while most women want the same guys as all other women ... this is evolutionary as for a guy to reproduce bears no risk so he wants quantity while a woman is incapacitated for 9 months minimum, therefore the choices.
The above guy who called the poor dude an incel just acted like an idiot.
I don't see how I'm bullying him. I told him that he should not resign himself to being lonely due to his disability, because I think that his understandable distress about his issues might lead him to perceive his situation as bleaker that it is from that standpoint.
Telling someone that their situation isn't how they think it is, unless you've taken the time first to establish a real connection with that person—one that they can feel—is likely to come across as a dismissal of their experience and a putdown. I'm sure your intention is to help, but this is a way to hurt rather than help. Bluntly firing facts at someone, assuming they are facts, is definitely not going to do it. The truer the information, the worse the effect: in order to shield themselves from the blow, they will defend against the truth, which moves them further away from a solution.
If you want to help, the first question is how to create a felt connection with the other person, which will give them some reason to be open to what you're saying. That's not so easy to do on the internet, though maybe sometimes possible. Words like "I have significant sympathy for him" and "his understandable distress" aren't sufficient though.
Show me some. If you are able to find examples, they will most likely be famous billionaires or actors. However I can point you to an equal number of examples where fame and fortune still didn't cut it.
You cannot discount my experiences and observations unless you have gone through this yourself.
>Show me some. If you are able to find examples, they will most likely be famous billionaires or actors.
Are you saying this seriously? Go to a local club for blind people, or some club for people with some other disability, and you'll find many living perfectly normal lives, in relationships, etc. You will also find several who don't have a relationship (which also true in abled people). But it's in no way like you need to be a famous artist/billionaire etc to be blind/disabled/etc and have a relationship. Not even close.
>You cannot discount my experiences and observations unless you have gone through this yourself.
I am not blind, but I do have a condition which causes my eyesight to get progressively worse (luckily on an elongated timespan). I by happenstance ended up becoming best friends with a blind student when I was in college during a period where I was trying to learn about and understand my condition. That introduced me to organizations like the NFB, and I even attended some regional NFB conferences. I'd definitely recommend you get involved in blindness advocacy groups in your area.
What I found might surprise you. Blind people have normal relationships just like anyone else, and conferences tend to be a hotbed of dating and connection-making beyond just the topic of the day. My best friend is happily married now for more than 10 years, and I am in a long-term relationship coming up on my 2nd year anniversary. I've since met multiple blind people in the tech industry and found most of them to be successful in their career and in their relationships.
I'd heavily recommend you get involved in local groups and also to go out and do whatever activities interest you. Most people are more accepting than you might imagine. There's a lot of things that might be difficult due to visual acuity, but people are understanding are willing to give you space to be part of the group. For instance, I've found that board gaming and D&D are very popular activities with the geekier folks I know in the blind community, and for those who are partially sighted using assistive technology like magnification cameras on their phone or similar makes these things possible to do without significant impairment. You'll be more likely to meet someone you're compatible with if you get out of the house and go participate in mixed gender hobbies.
You may not want to hear this, but it's the truest observation I've made. Those folks who are struggling in the blind community have often put themselves in a situation to struggle. There's pervasive negative feedback loops when someone becomes disabled, especially if they become disabled later in life. It's easy to become hopeless, and it's easy for your own insecurities about your disability to sabotage the relationships you'd otherwise have, both professional and romantic. In the words of my best friend, "You're blind. So what? So am I. Go make something of yourself." Don't get fooled into throwing yourself a pity party. Instead go do the things necessary in your life to be an attractive romantic partner, and you will find that your disability is not the impediment you imagine. Romance is about emotional connection, first and foremost.
The idea that blind people don't/can't date is readily disprovable. Examples of anything will tend to be notable; that doesn't mean non-notable people don't exist.
Those are both written by women about their experiences.
Any examples of men successfully dating after starting to lose their eyesight? Or other disabilities?
I think I've read other articles in the past about women with disabilities having a relatively easy time dating, but men with disabilities having a lot more difficulty.
The first mentions dating within the blind community, which would likely make things substantially easier on both parties.
I've seen enough weird parings and horrible people in relationships to feel quite comfortable with the statement "blind isn't a guaranteed deal-breaker". I do suspect the recency matters a lot - grief after loss can be all-consuming and take time to come to terms with.
Side note: My spouse is disabled, so I'm also quite comfortable with the concept of dating someone with a disability.
I have an invisible illness, after seeing more physicians that I can count. The conclusion appears to be some neurological issues with connective tissue problems which result in chronic pain and fatigue most likely caused by antibiotic I took 7 years as symptoms started right after my allergic reaction.
I got married after symptoms began. It was not easy but life doesn't stop. I'm still coming to terms and searching for something that works meds/supplements/physical therapy. However, I don't considered myself disabled even though this is quite limiting and I require more rest.
I think once one accepts your alignment and find ways of still being a member of the society, one will have a much better luck dating. I think the depression that these problems bring is just really hard to deal with and affects people around us.
One of my best friends in high school's dad was blind. He was married to her mom. The family was just as normal as could be, I didn't even know he was blind at first.
> There are plenty of disabled men in functional relationships
That would be such an unacceptable response in any other context ( eg: there are plenty of women who are CEOs, there are plenty of <minority> millionaires. Please lose the victim angle). But somehow such cruelty is acceptable towards "incel" men.
I personally know someone who is an wheelchair and was abandoned by their SO ( can't really blame her ) after his condition and has ever since been unable to find someone.
Anecdote in the opposite direction: Varlam Shalamov was a Russian writer who spent over a decade in various Gulags and then wrote many semi-autobiographical stories about them. In one he observed that he saw many wives join their husbands in the camp after the husband was sentenced, even though the wife could remain free, but that he never saw a husband do the same.
I don't know what to make of that anecdote. Maybe it means nothing. But it has stuck in my mind ever since I read it.
The women joining their husbands could serve as a survival stategy for the women. If you were a member of a family of the intelligentsia, and your husband was arrested, it was likely just a matter of time before they arrested you, too. Leaving Moscow or Saint-Petersburg for that kind of voluntary internal exile was thus a way for women to escape the notice of the authorities and keep their own records clean.
>I personally know someone who is an wheelchair and was abandoned by their SO ( can't really blame her ) after his condition and has ever since been unable to find someone.
Yeah, so? And I know people who stick to their spouses.
Yes, and former house speaker Newt Gingrich famously left his dying wife while branding the GOP as the party of family values, for which everyone should in fact blame him. Anecdotes are useless, do you have any data that suggests that women are more likely than men to leave a partner due to illness?
These are all good points but they feel very insensitive in tone given that OP has shared something personal; I'm not sure if you realise what you're doing
When something personal is shared, it becomes something to discuss. Especially when its a larger observation concerning what others, not the person, do.
There may be something else at play in that case, not simply "there is somebody to date for everyone".
Would actually be interesting to learn more about it.
Could be women attracted to bad boys. Or many they like the safety of the guy being behind bars. Or not being able to see someone makes it possible to dwell on the imagination. Also, helper syndrome.
"Psychologist and psychometrician Dr. Robert Sternberg, a former president of the University of Wyoming who currently teaches human development courses at Cornell, said: ‘Falling in love with a prisoner reduces your risk while preserving some of the excitement. For people who have issues with intimacy and commitment, it gives them an out of a having a relationship in which you can have the exciting passion without having to put in too much intimacy or passion."
"‘I think that what happens in these kinds of cases is that people, tend to build up a fantasy world. That’s what people do and who is to say to another person that you’re crazy and I’m not.’"
> arrested and convicted [...] we see an association with a variety of negative trends later in life, including lower chances of being married and less economic success,” Smith said.
> Could be women attracted to bad boys. Or many they like the safety of the guy being behind bars. Or not being able to see someone makes it possible to dwell on the imagination. Also, helper syndrome.
The answer to that is no, being man in or after prison does not make you more attractive to women. No, average woman is not attracted to safety of imprisoned males nor to he badness. Nor does absent husband makes imagination go wild and marriage better.
All these speculations as speculations about women are wrong based on stats.
And the bit about serial killer finding love is also dubious. We are talking about people with several emotional problems and lifetime of abuse (typically both as victims and perpetrators) on both sides. These are not kind of relationship a healthy blind or non blind person wants.
"No, average woman is not attracted to safety of imprisoned males nor to he badness."
Nobody claimed it's "average women" who are attracted to prisoners.
As for speculations, it seems to be a fact that some prisoners manage to form relationships with women. And the article I linked to also states some of the same reasons I speculated about.
What bothers you about it?
" These are not kind of relationship a healthy blind or non blind person wants."
Nobody is saying you should date a prisoner. Just that it seems to happen. That is not a matter of opinion, it is just reality.
As more Americans are arrested and convicted during their younger years, we see an association with a variety of negative trends later in life, including lower chances of being married and less economic success,” Smith said.
You keep sharing this survey, but it's talking about population-wide trends, not specific cases, so it's irrelevant to your parent commenter's point.
Their point was simply that a non-negligible number of men in prison can attract partners, which is obviously true.
That said, I don't think that's helpful information to an individual with an increasingly severe disability, and a belief or lived experience that others won't or don't see them as an attractive partner.
Once again you’re seeking to refute the existence of a small but significant number of cases by pointing to overall averages and trends.
It’s a significant enough phenomenon that media articles are written about it, academic studies are done on it, a scientific term has been coined for it, and multiple websites operate to facilitate it:
None of this contradicts your assertion that “people after prison have huge problems getting back to life including finding partners” - but that’s not a refutation of what I or the original commenter are arguing.
The article does not say significant number of prisoners finds love that way. It says literally: "It does occur - but as Cavendish points out, these instances are rare; [...] In short, the fantasy of these type situations rarely match the reality."
Article says the service exists and also that many those who write letters dont seek partner. (And also, I know about program where males write with prisoners and it is not about them being gay).
Quoting article: For those who instigate and sustain a relationship with a man imprisoned for a lengthy period of time, physical contact is obviously limited. They often never progress beyond the courting stage.
Yep, I read the article. Nobody said it wasn’t rare, or that many interactions that happen while the prisoner is inside turn into relationships after release. It’s a question of whether these interactions, or subsequent relationships, happen at all.
Anyway, we’re clearly in futile territory when we’re debating the definition of words like “significant” in a topic that has nothing to do with the article posted, so I’m certainly done here.
For the record I still don’t think it’s a helpful thing to point out to someone with a worsening disability; as the article and other commenters have pointed out, people who want to interact with prisoners have particular motivations, and they likely won’t apply to people with disabilities.
The blind man up thread wanted actual relationship, not just some communication over letters with someone who pitty you that ends soon.
It is not that he does not have chance. But common, it is harder for disabled people of both genders.
And yes, this thread made prison relationships sound way more probable then they are. It is much less convincing argument that "it is not entirely impossible and some few people can find relationship as prisoners".
And from discussion people did seemed to buy the "significant amount of prisoners get love" argument in it. Even speculating about women finding safety in ot or "liking bad" guys. Both very wrong conclusions.
Gee I have to use my time more carefully, otherwise I’ll live like I’m immortal until I’m not.
I’m a doctor‘s visit away from going from a relaxed life to fighting for life, clinging on remote hopes of survival.
Being able to date someone in that state is astonishing.
Everything I’d do would be tainted by the thought „this is the last time I do this before I die“.
> otherwise I’ll live like I’m immortal until I’m not
Yeah. I recall a cancer surgeon commenting, roughly, that they thought people with an early onset, and then a long life, were the lucky ones. And among the saddest, those healthy until blindsided by discovering they were mortal. And always had been. But now had little time to live shaped by that realization.
As with many things, it can be cheaper to learn from others' experiences. Or to notice and successfully learn from hints in one's own.
But it can be hard. I was friends with someone with a large extended family. So funerals were recurrent. Some expected, some randomized blows. For days after, it was easier to treasure time, life. But with passing weeks, the effect would decay. Easier to be distracted. To forget that some very few things are important, and most not. Until the next funeral.
That's how you get plenty of disabled (or dead) young men, who do reckless stuff on motorbikes, skis or jump head-first into shallow water etc. I've recklessly damaged my health [1] while 22 and I gotta say it sucks.
[1] Maybe not even recklessly, I just wasn't aware that ultra-loud music for hours in a disco can cause tinnitus.
> Honestly, that sounds much more fun than living with a constant obsession over your own mortality.
It sounds fun until it's not. The reality of how fragile we are catches up to everyone, and living life like you're invincible just speeds up that process.
There must be a happy medium if we consider there is another class of people who live very cautiously - avoiding the pleasures of food, spirits, the flesh, of danger and risk and reward, to live as long as possible, and ultimately implode in a sudden cacophony of regret and self pity. Split the difference, invite the neighbors over for cocktails once in a while.
There are properly dumb ways to 'live life to fullest' - driving too fast, especially on bikes. Destructive addictive drugs and doing stupid stuff on those (psychedelics are mostly not those). And probably thousands more.
On the other side, there are those who make you feel amazing every time you do it, and the real risks are minimal. One example - sport climbing. Facing fear of one's death, while being safely belayed on rope that can hold 2 tonnes of static load. Overcoming that fear. Backpacking around the developing (but not so much) world, an extremely rewarding experience every single time. I would add tons of social activities with good friends to this.
Such a life won't feel 'wasted' in any measurable way, while being almost as safe as sitting at home reading books (and probably better for your eyesight).
The idea is that if you can internalize your acceptance of mortality, you will make better life decisions.
Living like you're immortal until you're not is how people end up on their death bed regretting how they spent their time on earth. Like arguing on HN instead of calling your mother.
Living like you're mortal, to me, suggests someone who lives in the moment and maximizes their life fulfillment. Not someone who lives in fear of death, which I'd argue is why we spend so much time living like we're immortal.
> I asked my boyfriend what he thought happens after we die. He says you live on in other people’s memories, and I won’t be forgotten.
If that moves you, I recommend I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas R. Hofstadter (2007).[0]
> Theories aside, it's impossible not to experience this book as a tender, remarkably personal and poignant effort to understand the death of his wife from cancer in 1993—and to grasp how consciousness mediates our otherwise ineffable relationships. In the end, Hofstadter's view is deeply philosophical rather than scientific. It's hopeful and romantic as well, as his model allows one consciousness to create and maintain within itself true representations of the essence of another.
This article strikes a very personal chord with me. My girlfriend of six months broke up with me without giving any apparent reason. After several months, I found out that she had discovered that she had tumor. Before she started on chemo, she decided to break up with me.
The irony of the situation is that she won't really tell me what happened, and without violating her trust and respecting her privacy, and her choice to face this alone, I have no way of even finding out how she is doing.
All I can do is silently hope that she would regain her health again.
Well I am not dieing I nearly did this year. I will need a heart transplant in the next ten years. And I probably have 20 years left. But I still date. Trying to find that someone to share my remaining years with
Reading quote 1: "...just relieved it was her and not me putting down a credit card at the bar to buy his drinks" I was like "wtf", but then reading quote 2: "Plus, after years of paying for myself and my ex, it still seems like a good deal." I realized that she was in a toxic relation for 12 years. I mean, c'mon, 12 years only one partner to pay for everything, that's way too much. I know people who divorced faster because of one partner was lazy and she went through with it while having diagnosed for years?
This is just a fact between us, and it's something we'll have to deal with. I fell for her, she fell for me, we work well on so many levels.
I know she is likely to die (a 12 month life expectancy isn't a foregone conclusion) but we don't discuss this or make it a focus. Our focus is on living life with passion, a clock that counts 70 years or 1 year doesn't change our approach to life.
I don't really know what to say, I just wanted to put an acknowledgement from myself to the universe down somewhere that yes I know what I'm getting myself into, and yet I love her and it's worth it.
Live life qualitatively not quantitatively.