the dating game divorced

I was thinking about dating the other day. I'm head-over heels into a relationship and coming down the final stretch of my singlehood and i was thinking about the whole 'dating world' and 'courting world' (which are vastly different arenas). A few years ago i read a tome of a book called "The Kaballah of the Soul" by leonora leet and was struck by one of her analyses (analysis plural, the blog won't say it's spelled right). Her analysis was that the fundamental exchange between man and woman is power for beauty. That's why the bad-boys get the hot chicks, they've got social power. Now, geeks, with economic power are starting to get play - my analysis anyway.

So in "the game" of dating, there is an underlying ethic of man conquers woman. And whatever man conquers the most women 'wins'. But there is a white stripe down the back of that skunk that goes counter, but not many people have been analyzing and talking about. What i'm talking about is the heroism of a faithful man.

Lots of people will agree that people become attractive when they're taken. First and foremost there's someone's stamp of approval that they're worth dealing with. Secondly, there's the 'i want what i can't have' line of thinking. Probably a couple other lines of thinking two. Regardless of how many lines of thinking, there's almost a social movement to destroy relationships. But nobody acknowledges the heroism, bravery, integrity and stick-to-it-ness that it takes to remain faithful during the onslaught (overt and covert) of flirting, propositions and sometimes downright molestations.

So when i say the dating game 'divorced', i mean that i'm distinguishing two ways to win it. One is to have sex with as many people as possible (and of course neither get caught nor infected) and the other way is to enter into a long-term relationship and remain faithful.

The 'problem' is that people don't see these as completely separate games with completely different rule sets. Therefore they oscillate between them, so they'll be 'single and loving it' for a while then switch to 'coupled and loving it' and rotate between the two games. The problem is that marriage isn't explicitly interpreted in terms of a 'winner' being able to be faithful.

The most important thing to note in this line of thinking is that 'winning' at marriage doesn't mean that you marry a faithful partner. Winning at the sex game in marriage means that you stay faithful. And if the other person doesn't cut it, you don't loose, they do.