So, only a small percentage of women are looking for a relationship to escape boredom?

This seem to be my experience.

However, going by some of the relationship and hook-up advice I read, suggests the opposite. That most women are bored out of their minds, and a man (or lesbian) shouldn’t even bother trying to pick up a woman if he dosen’t live an interesting life.

I’ve been on a serious hunt for a woman for almost three years, I only came across one woman who said she was bored by her current partner (and she was leaving her for that reason), and was looking someone who could entertain her.

I am also a woman, by the way, and am seduced by those who live exciting lives.

I mean this can a good thing, I don’t think I live a boring life, but not a super exciting one either. So, if that isn’t a very important thing, that’s just one less thing I have to worry about.

I’m just wondering why us women looking excitement in relationshps seem to be in the minority. It seems like this is an important thing for men, I am more likely to hear them complain about boredom in a relationships than women.

I don’t know, but I don’t want to be expected to keep someone entertained all the time in a relationship like I am some kind of clown who’s there for their amusement. In a good relationship both people will contribute to the excitement. If you are expecting the other person to provide it for you then they will get drained very quickly.

In other words: boring people only deserve to be with other boring people.

Imho, “mature” means “enduring boredom.”

Imagine this: if you marry someone and “settle down,” you’re going to be doing the same thing every day, every month, for the next 40 years. If you have kids, you can’t easily quit your job, move, or anything. If you can’t embrace this kind of overwhelmingly boring life, then you aren’t ready to “settle down.” Everybody I know who’s had issues with fidelity has been unable to accept this simple fact of life: life is inherently boring.

I’ve stated this theory previously, and one argument that comes up is “life doesn’t have to be boring.” Yes, it does. An exciting life is both expensive and time consuming. How much does a parachute jump cost? How often can you go? Let’s say after you get off work at 5pm on Friday afternoon, and then jump every hour on the hour until Sunday at 9pm. What kind of condition will you be in on Monday morning when you have to go back to work? How much of the salary you just earned went into this one weekend? If you took your spouse and your kids, how much more would it cost?

I think people confuse an “exciting life” with an “interesting life.” You can have quiet hobbies at home. You can have “family nights” and “date nights.” You can rent movies or go to the beach or any number of things that most people wouldn’t call “exciting,” yet have a full and rich life.

It sounds to me like you have are being needlessly critical of people who choose a different lifestyle than you. Millions of people do manage to have families and financial security while not settling down into suburban boredom. There are countless expats of all stripes- from businesspeople to aid workers- who get perfectly good salaries while travelling. Even with little money it’s easy to do stuff like a road trip to Mexico with the kids. Anyone besides the truly destitute who says they can’t travel is lying- the can travel, they just don’t choose to. While daily parachute jumps may be out of the picture, even those stuck in one place have museums, festivals, camping trips, clubs, classes, concerts and plays to spice up their lives. Some of these are good with the kids, some are not.

Anyway, you may be perfectly happy with quiet home-based hobbies. I promise you that I am not. It doesn’t need I need constant stimulation, but I do intend to keep traveling and keep an active out-and-about lifestyle. As long as I am supporting myself and not abusing my kids, I don’t see how that is any bit worse.

Erm… most people don’t equate “not boring” with “daily skydiving”. After all, skydiving would get boring if you did it every day.

People get intermittently bored with their lives no matter how ‘exciting’ their lives are. Deciding to *stay *bored isn’t a sign of maturity, it’s a failure of imagination. Not being bored doesn’t require vast investments of time and money, it requires tiny steps out of your normal day, and an open enough mind to try new things, and to remember to find joy in the old ones . Also note that there’s a huge difference between actually being bored, and worrying that your life may appear boring to other people, which is a whole other issue.

So, are you saying that you are specifically looking for a woman who seems to lead an exciting life? Well, good luck with that one. Because in my experience, perceived ‘exciting’ lesbians - the life and soul of the party-types - tend to have short attention spans, lack the ability to just be calm and quiet when it’s needed, dislike their own company, and turn clingy, dissatisfied and insecure very quickly. In a word, drama queens. Yuck.

There’s a big gap between ‘boring’ and ‘exciting’. Most people fit somewhere in between - and they also tend to be the happier people who provide the most fulfilling long-term relationships.

IIRC, Diamonds, you are in your early 20’s. Quit trying to find your soulmate at such an early age. Have fun date lot’s of different people. This way you might be surprised at some of the qualities you find in different people. Give it about 7 years. My guess that by their late 20’s, most people have matured in life enough to have a more firm grasp on who they really are and what they truly desire in a long term relationship.

Give it time.

You could join the 82nd airborne or become a smoke jumper or a sky diving instructor. Then jumping out of airplanes would be your 9 to 5. Of course, you’d better be young and in shape.

I’m not on fire or dead broke or deathly ill. Gee. Life is boring.

Boredom is for the few and the fortunate.

I value boredom and repetition. So should you. You will not always have the luxury of it.

Boredom means your life is A-OK.

I think it depends on your life experience. I had a psycho ex and my husband had a previous wife who we think had borderline personality disorder. We weren’t looking for excitement, we both were looking for someone normal we could come home to without anything whizzing past our heads.

At one point in our early dating period we both made the statement ‘I just want a peaceful life with someone normal’ or something to that effect.

Screw excitement. I can always go on vacation to an amusement park.

Maybe this is why I don’t read magazine articles about relationships. Most women are bored out of their minds? Really? Are they that boring then?

Perhaps the ones who aren’t bored are too busy to write magazine articles. :smiley:

No, it doesn’t. Too much boredom can produce a great deal of misery and even cause mental degradation due to a lack of stimulation. The brain needs a middling level of stimulation to function well; not endless boredom or endless stress. Just like the healthiest level of physical activity is neither lying on the couch all day nor working till you drop.

True. I’ll take a compatible sense of humor, a few shared interests and a peaceful existence, please.

That’s not boring, but I can see where a relationship with no shared interests and nothing to talk about would be. There’s routine and reliable, and then there’s in a rut. Huge difference.

Nah…they’re just writing them on something other than how they’re bored out of their minds.

What I don’t understand is why would someone look for a relationship (which I take to mean a somewhat-long-term romantic relationship, in this context) in order to relieve boredom. It reminds me of when we were little and my youngest brother would say “I’m bored, entertain me!” “I’m busy, entertain yourself.”

Wanting your relationships (romantic and otherwise) to not be boring? Well, yeah. But “expecting your relationship to be what enlivens your life”? I don’t get it. Maybe that’s why I’m not married, I expect neither my entertainment nor my happiness to come from other people.

Nail on the head, as usual, Nava. You’re responsible for your own happiness/excitement, a partner is there to join you on the ride.

The impression I get is that you think the only “mature” way to be an adult is to live in the burbs (with or without kids) in a single job where you do the same things every day. Sure, that is one way to live, but if you don’t follow that path it doesn’t mean you’re immature necessarily (just like having a “boring” life doesn’t mean you’re mature).

Word.

And word again.

I’m married, but I don’t expect my husband to make me happy. I think that’s a recipe for failure.

There are so many teenaged girls and grown women running around thinking the only thing they need to be happy is a boy/man. Having interests of their own or actually doing something never even occurs to them.