This is a guest post by Kid Strangelove. Kid originally published this article at his own blog, but he deleted the site a while ago so he could focus on other projects. He asked me if I’d be willing to re-post some of his articles on my blog and I said yes.
Ok, now that I got that out of the way, I’d like to share with you some thoughts I’ve been having recently. It all started when I was browsing the r/bestof/ subreddit and a comment to a picture stood out.
Here is the picture.
The comment that got the most attention (and r/bestof mention) was:
The answer, which I’m sure you’ve heard before, is because you don’t love yourself. Any external validation causes you to feel worthwhile. Relationships don’t validate you, you validate you. Relationships are a challenge to enrich an already stable life.
There were some debates about the nature and meaning of the comment in a few subreddits, but one word stuck with me the most: validation.
Validation, validation, validation, validation: it swirled in my head. Just how much is the concept of love really about validation?
Flash back to around Christmas. I’m on a date with a girl who’s pretty cute. She’s giving me the usual talks about the usual subjects. Honestly, I’m getting a little bit bored. The date managed to pick up solely because it was my best friend’s birthday, and he and his wife hit me up and wanted to hang out.
I’ll give my friend credit: he winged hard. The girl I was with was feeling it. Within hours, I was inside her giant apartment; then I was inside her minutes after that. She had maybe two drinks and passed the rest to me, and I had way more due to my friend’s birthday. I was drunk off my ass and still managed to have sex with a semi-erection. Needless to say, the night didn’t lead anywhere after.
At least this night ended up a bit more fun than my previous date. Cute girl, drinks, talking, fun venue, boring, boring, boring, and then my friend had an emergency.
Why the fuck was I so bored? I know it had to be something wrong with me. These girls were really pretty, the kind of girls I would kill for years earlier. But something about them just wasn’t doing it for me… at all.
Around the same time, I had drunk five-hour gaming sessions with friends, went to several NHL games with my family, turned my CrossFit hobby into a complete health overhaul, coded and was happy, entertained, and fulfilled.
I didn’t care if I fucked ten girls that week or zero. It simply didn’t register anymore. Have I reached the level of indifference that people say is a sign of game mastery? Eh…
Validation, validation, validation. It all made sense.
Think back to your original social programming: study, go to school, graduate, get a job, get married, have kids. There it is: validation. We grew up thinking that if we did the right things, a woman would come along and tell us we did the right things by dating us. And yes, that’s very objectifying towards women.
But when we grew up, said and did all the right things, and the women didn’t come, our brains started to explode. Some of us wanted to learn game so we could meet women and get that validation we so desperately desired. Some of us realized that the system is pretty shitty when there is no female validation present and decided to drop out. Let’s face it: paper-pushing careers suck. They aren’t interesting, but you do what you gotta do to provide for your family. But when you don’t have a family, you don’t have an incentive to work a shitty job. Validation.
And here we are, attracted to attention and approval: Facebook and Instagram likes, re-Tweets, +1’s, Reddit karma. Validation. When we get validation, we get a high; when we’re deprived of it, we reach a low.
Hey bodybuilder, what are you in the gym for? Do you have any intention of ever competing? Oh, you’re doing this for better health? Sure, I believe you, bodybuilder. Men have somehow been healthy for thousands of years without six-pack abs, giant biceps, and cartoonish pecs.
Look at the guy above. I bet you he is extremely unhealthy. What a fuckup. He’ll never have a girlfriend.
You get the picture. Most of us live for human validation; we chase it. We roll it up and smoke it. God, that high is so good. Fuck, that low is so bad.
But what happens when the need for validation disappears? What happens when you are perfectly happy with your life, even if you have detractors? What does love become?
I don’t know the answer to this question. I don’t know if my own hypothesis makes sense. On the one hand, I go on these lame and boring dates with these really pretty girls. On the other hand, I’m still communicating with a girl I met and hooked up with one week before she had to go back home halfway across the world. She seemed enamored with me and it seemed like I could do no wrong in her eyes.
Maybe I was in need of a stronger dose of validation.
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The post What is the Nature of Love? appeared first on Matt Forney.