[jmills8]

I'm just trying to figure out human behavior. I'm trying to understand how men fall in love with strangers after they marry them. It's more of me learning about other people's minds.

A man can fall in "love" when they see good looking legs ir nice size breats.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

Tell that to any girl and she will never love you but they might have a use for you.

 

I do actually, and their reaction is amazement that the Greece of their imagination is nothing like the reality I talk about. If we're really close, it's an opportunity for hilarity because they'll ask which of our friends I'd get that brotastic with, and I'd go on a diatribe that causes people in our little "symposium" to laugh mid-gulp and cough beer out their nostrils.

 

[jmills8]

I do actually, and their reaction is amazement that the Greece of their imagination is nothing like the reality I talk about. If we're really close, it's an opportunity for hilarity because they'll ask which of our friends I'd get that brotastic with, and I'd go on a diatribe that causes people in our little "symposium" to laugh mid-gulp and cough beer out their nostrils.

maybe the writers were home writing and hanging out with bots whike the guys who fought were with the girls.

 

[wink]

The trick is not to fall in love with someone else's wife.......  naughty, naughty.    

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

maybe the writers were home writing and hanging out with bots whike the guys who fought were with the girls.

 

Actually if you had been reading up on it, like on the Symposium, Socrates despite having some hetairae was also into the dudes. And they were into him because he was unmatched in valor on the battlefield just as he was within the Lyceum.

 

Which brings me to another point about something people do not popularly know about Ancient Greece, because most people, yourself included, base your knowledge of it on Frank Miller comics or the movies based on them. Here's some new info: the Spartans were not the only warlike Greeks. Ever seen Troy? Despite the inaccuracies meant to make it more realistic (ie because the text that movie is based on had the kinds of beings we can't talk about on Head-Fi but somehow it's alright to mention Magni and Modi and Mani) what was representative of what Greece was like even up to the Macedonian hegemony was that every Greek city was actually technically a warrior state. If we're going to go into semantics, the difference with Sparta is that while every other city-state was basically like China, Singapore or South Korea on steroids (mandatory military service for every citizen of age, not just a couple of years), Sparta would be more like if the PLA owned an entire region in China or if the US Marines had their own 52nd state. Macedon later just became what would be more familiar to us now, with society elites serving as cavalry (because they own horses) or as officers, except today it's determined by your military academy ranking than by how much land your family manages, some middle class cavalry and infantry, and then there's the bulk of the infantry usually recruited with the promise of travel, booty, and glory that living as a peasant on a farm will never give you, pretty much like how the Army recruiters promise teens in tha hood to get the INS off their back.

 

Basically, what I am getting at is that you read actual books instead of going with movies that describe the Athenians as "philosophers and boy-lovers" and imply they were nothing beyond that. Up to the point in history in that part of the movie, Athens's scorecard vs Sparta was actually higher. Sparta helped kick out Hippias, the last tyrant of Athens, but then they treated the city as a client state. The Athenians managed to kick them out, then managed to repel the Spartan army that tried to get Athens back. That makes the score 2-1, and techically, that 1pt that Sparta got is dubious considering it was Sparta's field army plus Athens' citizens vs Hippias' royal guard. The Greeks back then aren't just sitting around the Lyceum with a pen, when a messenger runs in with news of an army marching their way the same citizens walk around with a sword on their belt and then go home to pull down the aspis or hoplon and their dory or spear on top of the fireplace (the kind of thing that people now do just for decoration), and their helmet, thorax armor, and grieves aren't too far away from those. 

 

Similarly, the elite infantry of Thebes was called the Sacred Band, a force of 300 inspired by Leonidas' royal guard, but with a twist: it was made up of 150 pairs of lovers, all male. The idea was partly based on the points raised by Phaedrus in his speech in the Symposium - eros confers great benefits as it inspires one to earn the admiration of the beloved. His example was in showing bravery on the battlefield, because nothing got a Greek man hotter than to see a Greek man thrusting his spear (there's a euphemism there somewhere), as well as how one would feel no worse shame than for one's beloved to see him being inglorious, the same way that in our time you wouldn't want your girlfriend to see that you can't come up with a comeback to a "yo momma" insult. Putting lovers in the same spot on the battlefield basically made their bravery mutually reinforcing. That said, excavations at the site of the Battle of Chaeronea, where Alexander swung around and annihilated the Athenians allowing Philip to get around the rear (snicker) of the Sacred Band, contradicts the popular account (commemorated with a lion monument, because back then there were actually lions in that part of the world) that all of them died on the field because the plot for them had less than 300 skeletons.

 

The Greeks weren't even unique in that regard. The Romans for example were only scandalized by the rumor that Caesar was seeing a Greek king in Asia not because they were both dudes, but because the rumor was that it was Caesar bending over. So in their minds, a boy descended directly from the line of Aeneas, whose mother was someone I can't talk about on Head-Fi and received warnings for made it seem that it was all of Rome bending over for their client state. Caesar then overcompensated by bedding the wife of every Senator who took that against him.  

 

[jmills8]

Actually if you had been reading up on it, like on the Symposium, Socrates despite having some hetairae was also into the dudes. And they were into him because he was unmatched in valor on the battlefield just as he was within the Lyceum.

Which brings me to another point about something people do not popularly know about Ancient Greece, because most people, yourself included, base your knowledge of it on Frank Miller comics or the movies based on them. Here's some new info: the Spartans were not the only warlike Greeks. Ever seen Troy? Despite the inaccuracies meant to make it more realistic (ie because the text that movie is based on had the kinds of beings we can't talk about on Head-Fi but somehow it's alright to mention Magni and Modi and Mani) what was representative of what Greece was like even up to the Macedonian hegemony was that every Greek city was actually technically a warrior state. If we're going to go into semantics, the difference with Sparta is that while every other city-state was basically like China, Singapore or South Korea on steroids (mandatory military service for every citizen of age, not just a couple of years), Sparta would be more like if the PLA owned an entire region in China or if the US Marines had their own 52nd state. Macedon later just became what would be more familiar to us now, with society elites serving as cavalry (because they own horses) or as officers, except today it's determined by your military academy ranking than by how much land your family manages, some middle class cavalry and infantry, and then there's the bulk of the infantry usually recruited with the promise of travel, booty, and glory that living as a peasant on a farm will never give you, pretty much like how the Army recruiters promise teens in tha hood to get the INS off their back.

Basically, what I am getting at is that you read actual books instead of going with movies that describe the Athenians as "philosophers and boy-lovers" and imply they were nothing beyond that. Up to the point in history in that part of the movie, Athens's scorecard vs Sparta was actually higher. Sparta helped kick out Hippias, the last tyrant of Athens, but then they treated the city as a client state. The Athenians managed to kick them out, then managed to repel the Spartan army that tried to get Athens back. That makes the score 2-1, and techically, that 1pt that Sparta got is dubious considering it was Sparta's field army plus Athens' citizens vs Hippias' royal guard. The Greeks back then aren't just sitting around the Lyceum with a pen, when a messenger runs in with news of an army marching their way the same citizens walk around with a sword on their belt and then go home to pull down the aspis or hoplon and their dory or spear on top of the fireplace (the kind of thing that people now do just for decoration), and their helmet, thorax armor, and grieves aren't too far away from those. 

Similarly, the elite infantry of Thebes was called the Sacred Band, a force of 300 inspired by Leonidas' royal guard, but with a twist: it was made up of 150 pairs of lovers, all male. The idea was partly based on the points raised by Phaedrus in his speech in the Symposium - eros confers great benefits as it inspires one to earn the admiration of the beloved. His example was in showing bravery on the battlefield, because nothing got a Greek man hotter than to see a Greek man thrusting his spear (there's a euphemism there somewhere), as well as how one would feel no worse shame than for one's beloved to see him being inglorious, the same way that in our time you wouldn't want your girlfriend to see that you can't come up with a comeback to a "yo momma" insult. Putting lovers in the same spot on the battlefield basically made their bravery mutually reinforcing. That said, excavations at the site of the Battle of Chaeronea, where Alexander swung around and annihilated the Athenians allowing Philip to get around the rear (snicker) of the Sacred Band, contradicts the popular account (commemorated with a lion monument, because back then there were actually lions in that part of the world) that all of them died on the field because the plot for them had less than 300 skeletons.

The Greeks weren't even unique in that regard. The Romans for example were only scandalized by the rumor that Caesar was seeing a Greek king in Asia not because they were both dudes, but because the rumor was that it was Caesar bending over. So in their minds, a boy descended directly from the line of Aeneas, whose mother was someone I can't talk about on Head-Fi and received warnings for made it seem that it was all of Rome bending over for their client state. Caesar then overcompensated by bedding the wife of every Senator who took that against him.  

Just a novel not facts unless you chose to believe it is.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

Just a novel not facts unless you chose to believe it is.

 

Hmmmmm...let's see what is more reliable. A collection of monologues written by a philosopher who lived in the era, or a comic book-turned movie written by a guy who lived in an era where the thing I can't discuss on Head-Fi has reinforced beliefs in their believers that the supposed entity I can't discuss on Head-Fi but Schiit can mention Magni and Modi or weapons belonging to Thor and Odin for some reason has decreed pederasty "unnatural," however, if you happen to serve this entity that I can't discuss on Head-Fi and you practice pederasty on the boys who carry candles and books while walking in front of you, you deserve forgiveness and just get transferred elsewhere. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Band_of_Thebes

http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/175/examining-greek-pederastic-relationships

https://tomtomrant.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/ancient-greek-pederasty-love-lust-power-pedagogy/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty_in_ancient_Greece

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_pederasty

 

Oh hey guess what...they didn't just write those down into "novels" (not that I expect someone like you to know the difference between something written by that person who wrote Twilight and something written by Plato), they depicted them in visual arts. Not that I can paste the link, because depending on how it was depicted either you will argue that we're not sure that both of them are male, or when one is bearded and the other is shown the relevant body parts out (and more) the mods will delete this post.

 

[Beyakusenn]

Marriages are not always made because of love; that I know for sure. Just taking the people close to my (Chinese) girlfriend as examples:
Her best friend wants to marry a guy she has known for many years even though they started going out just recently. Nothing unusual you'd normally say, but that guy used to be a playboy (I doubt he has changed his ways so quickly) and the girl wants to marry because she wants to bind him as soon as she can. Can this be called love? I think that at this point, it isn't. It could eventually become love, but even though I do not have statistical prove, I am quite sure that a marriage that starts this way is more likely to break up than a marriage that started with mutual trust.
Another person who is very close to my girlfriend has been married for a few years now to the 'perfect son in law'. Good, stable job, good looking and known by the family for years before they married. They also seemed to be in love wen they married and everyone (except my girlfriend) said they were a good match, so what could possibly go wrong? Skipping a few years, the husband wants kids, so he tries to approach his wife more often. He even decided to live together with her recently, but after it all had already gone downhill. The husband is clearly more interested in the kid than in his wife, so te wife feels no love. She is now avoiding her husband as much as she can because she doesn't want to be just a 'tool' for making a kid. So even a marriage that seemed ideal to most of her peers is not going well and I think that is because the original feelings weren't true mutual love. The girl is very introverted and easily influenced, so she just took the advice from others, while the husband was just looking for a cute girl to bear his kids.
 
So I think that the way a marriage develops depends on culture just as strongly as it depends on the individuals and on the initial feelings.

 

[Spareribs]

Good post.

I knew a married couple who unfortunately did not fall in love with each other after they got married. They only got married because of social pressures and they were already in their late 20s and early 30s. I lost contact with them but last time I heard they were planning a divorce.

But let's not give up hope. I'm sure there are lots of other married couples out there who eventually fall in love after the wedding.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

But let's not give up hope. I'm sure there are lots of other married couples out there who eventually fall in love after the wedding.

 
Especially girls in Yemen and Afghanistan. They have a great figure to look up to for inspiration on that.

 

[BobG55]

I'm not trying to turn the topic into a religious one.  I am mainly using a prayer which was showed to me many years ago and which I go back to from time to time when I feel down.  The point of this prayer is to point out what "true love" is.   True love is when one's motives are totally devoid of the self.  It is called the Saint Francis prayer :
 

"Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.​

 ​

I believe that it's impossible to love/live this way 100% of the time, in a loving relationship.  The point is to use this prayer as a personal guideline with the aim of progress instead of perfection which we cannot attain since we are human, thus fallible.  It serves me well in my relationship with my wife and others.