I suspect I will find some agreement here when I say that, for the most part, LTR's suck. I'm not talking about your best ever, love of your life, one who got away situation. I'm also not talking about LTR's with women who are crazy, or ugly, or who withhold sex, or who cheat on you. I'm talking about your typical "good relationship" kind of LTR that your typical man gets drawn into at various points throughout his life, and which absolutely just sucks shit to be a part of.

You see, I've noticed that the mere thought of cohabitation with a woman, even with a woman who I enjoy going on dates with, fills me with dread. And this is not how I felt as a young man, this is something that has developed over time.

For a long time I couldn't pinpoint the source of this dread, but I've had an epiphany: it's all the talking, the petty gossip, the "sharing of feelings," the planning of stupid shit that needs to be done around the house and which I am expected to participate in. In short, it's all the boring shit you are expected to submit yourself to in the interest of building a caring, sharing "friendship" with a woman.

You want to get new drapes? Great, if we can afford it, go get some new drapes. But I don't want to go drape shopping with you. I don't give a shit about drapes, and find it boring as shit to spend hours looking at them. It's the most boring fucking thing in the world, the most boring thing in the FUCKING WORLD!

However, the modern expectation that women seem to have is that a truly "loving" partner will care about all the same shit they do, and want to talk to them about these things endlessly on a daily basis, and participate with them in activities involving these things. In short, the typical modern woman seems to think that, in an ideal relationship, the man is not only the perfect, sexy man for her, he's also the perfect girlfriend for her. And if a man doesn't give a shit about these things, then that is somehow considered equivalent to not caring about her. And this leads to arguments, which waste even more of your time.

Now, I remember a time when the norm was to have a large extended family which got together on a regular basis. When this happened, the women and girls split into their own group and gossiped about who was going to marry who, good lasagna recipes, and drapes, and to be honest I'm not entirely sure because I was hardly ever there. The men and boys split off into their own group and talked hunting, politics, and sports. And everybody had a great time.

See, I don't bore the shit out of the women I'm with by talking about my workout routine, or how I kicked ass at work that day, or the best caliber of rifle for hunting deer. Because I know this will bore the shit out of them, and besides, I really don't have any desire to discuss a topic with someone who has no knowledge to offer me, nor any interest in my own knowledge. It doesn't bother me at all not to talk about that stuff with her, in fact I prefer not to. But this has decidedly not been the attitude of any woman I've ever dated.

Not only that, the fact that I don't care about many of the things that my girlfriends want to talk to me about endlessly is considered to be dismissive and self-centered on my part. So I either have to feign interest and get stuck in the boredom trap until I just can't stand it any more and find a reason to dump her, or I have to be an "asshole" and tell her that I'm not interested. And if any of you guys know a way to tell a woman that you're not interested in what she has to say without being considered an asshole, I'm all ears.

I think the typical guy's solution to this is to just accept the boredom, and this is what leads to married men feeling like their wife is sucking the life out of them. You are expected to turn into your wife's girlfriend (or worse), which in turn leads to endless boredom and the end of sex, and eventually the end of the relationship anyway, with a whole lot of wasted time in between.

For this I blame the modern societal expectation that the modern "loving" male partner will turn into his wife/girlfriend's girlfriend. This is a ridiculous and impossible standard. I think the idea that "your spouse should be your best friend" is horse shit, if "best friend" is meant in the way that women understand it. What I have seen in days gone by is that man and wife can have a very close bond, a "good relationship," but it's not the same as a woman's relationship to her sister or best friend. It is caring, trustful, and respectful on both sides, that's the most important thing, but that doesn't mean the man sits around nodding his head while the woman blathers at him all day.

Women who are interested in having a happy marriage need to be educated on this, they need to learn to put themselves in the man's shoes. What if they had to come home from work every day to a man who insisted on talking about his day of deer hunting, how he stalked the deer, where he shot it, how his buddies reacted, and his plans for him and her to go shopping together for a new rifle, and so on, endlessly. And worse, what if the man got all butthurt when she says, "listen I just want to relax right now, okay?" with the guy saying whiney shit like, "Well you know I shot that deer for you, but I guess you don't appreciate that, do you?" It would drive her fucking nuts, it would suck the life right out of her, she would start spending extra time at work because it's better than being at home. Well, welcome to the world of the modern husband.