I think this reverses cause and effect. If a person has some underlying problem with being in a relationship, then consistent ONSs, without any long-term relationships, may be his brain telling him that this is all the intimacy he can handle. If he decides that he wants to change his pattern and pursue an LTR, then the task is not to give up ONSs, but rather to solve the underlying problem that leads to ONSs.
This is all spoken hypothetically, of course. I don’t mean to suggest that I think you have a problem, or that I think ONSs are necessarily pathological. There may be any number of healthy reasons why this pattern fits you. I’m just suggesting that IF you’re starting to feel like something’s not right for you with the way you’re living this part of your life, maybe it would be most effective to look at ONSs as a symptom rather than a problem in themselves.
The reason it is harming your chances for a meaningful relationship is that the process for landing a ONS is very different from the process for entering into a meaningful relationship.
Most ONS are a result of you going out with some of your boys, spending the next 5 hours at a party, bar or club and then trying to couple off with an available girl before closing time. Even better if it’s before the Skanking Hour when there’s nothing but the dregs left. For the most part, anyone you meet in a bar is never as good looking or interesting the next morning in the sober light of day. And it works both ways.
With relationships, you go out on a couple dates, at some point you have sex and take it from there. You are actually getting to know the person outside of the fantasy world of drunken 2:00am nights out on the town.
I really don’t know what to tell you. I mean you don’t want to be the 50 year old dude cruising for chicks. But do you want to be the 50 year old locked into marriage once your wife is like 50 and fat and you never have sex anymore outside of prostitutes and extra marital affairs?
Also, your question might make more sense if you were going home with a strange girl every other weekend, instead of 3-4 times a year. That’s kind of like saying “I think I might have a drinking problem because I have a few too many on New Years Eve, St Pattricks Day, the Weds before Thanksgiving and my birthday.”
Your outlook on marriage is so uniformly cheerful, I always enjoy it when you weigh in on threads like these. You manage to bring so much valuable experience to the table, and are never spiteful or abrasive. Threads never turn out to be all about you, either.
Yes, msmith’s other insights aside, it’s fully possible to find there’s no chemistry with someone mid- or post-coitus. You can get drunk, make out in the cab home then find you’re totally incompatible in bed. To the point where you both know there’ll be no seconds. Or you have great sex then try to force a relationship and figure out you have nothing in common. It’s not out of the question to have a ONS turn into a ‘real’ relationship, but it’s got to be something you’re open to (and that includes being open to dating the ‘type of girl’ who’d go home with you for a ONS).
An ideal is an ideal and subject to the acceptance or rejection of the individual. The attraction of polyamorism simply eludes some (most?) people, but that doesn’t make lifetime monogamy any less ideal for the minority who want it.
Actually, you just made it about me. Or you are trying to make it about you. I’m not sure which. In either case, if you didn’t like something I wrote you probably should have either ignored it or just said you found it offensive (at which point I probably would have apologized). Instead you launched into a personal attack as if we have some sort of history where I should know you find me abrasive. And I’m not even sure why my comment should bother you so much. It wasn’t directed at you (or anyone) personally. Could it be that you are projecting your own issues and insecurities on me? NinetyWt, I noticed you were quick to jump on Elysian’s bandwagon. But I would characterizine your comment about “pathetic chain-smoking leather-skinned loser slut in a leopard-print mini skirt” to be potentially just as offensive to older single women as mine was. Let’s not be too judgemental.
Back to the OP (if you don’t mind).
SHAKES, it occurs to me we are making a lot of assumptions here. Why are these relationships ONS? I’m assuming that they are the typical “hit it off with a girl in a bar” sort of thing, but I could be mistaken. And why do the relationships not progress into a second or third date?
Not at all. One was a bar pickup where we met just before closing time, went to his place. We ended up staying together four years. The other was an online pickup for sex and the same thing ended up happening. We’ve been together almost eight years now. Neither was intended as anything but a ONS but turned into more.
Now I’m thinking of Laser Cats from SNL, but with sluts. Like Nitro and Captain Spaceship go into a strip club and all of a sudden the strippers start shooting lasers.
I’ve had four one night stands that I can remember and they all had one thing in common. I was in a bar and the " beer goggles " were working overtime. Alcohol impairs judgement? Hah, judging by who I have woke up next to at dawn, delusional or nearly comatose is probably a better description. I didn’t need to make an effort to stop one nighters, the last one cured me of it ( at least while heavily drinking ) forever.
In the cruel unforgiving daylight she could have passed as Roseanne Barr’s sister. When she got up to take a shower I noticed that she nearly had as much hair on her ass than me ( this is not a good thing ). The reason I didn’t notice the hair is because I wasn’t able to reach that far.
This happened about eleven years ago and the trauma is going away. Thanks to the internet it is easier to avoid one night stands now.
