Can you use people for their minds?
Say I know a girl. I don't expect much long-term compatibility between us, but she interests me and she's hot. But I expect personality clashes, and have no expectation that it would last very long. So, sure, to one extent you could say I'm using her for her body (she's hot, after all), but the primary motivator in asking her out would be because I suspect spending time around her will make me smarter. And girls who have things to teach me get a multiplier factored into their sexy.
But anyway - if I went into a relationship with the exact same attitude, but without thinking she'd have something to teach me, it seems like I'd be a jerk. But I suspect that the responses I'll receive for this (if I received more than one or two responses on a blog, for once) will be more sympathetic, telling me that not every relationship has to last forever, and that a person's intellect is a fundamental part of that person, and that appreciating that isn't "using" someone in the same sense as people can "use" other people for their bodies.
But I don't know. Bodies seem like a pretty fundamental part of the individual as well. You can tell because the person changes when the body changes. How we view ourselves does seem to be, in a powerful way, tied to what we expect to see in the mirror.
So is one alright, and the other not? Or are they the same - either okay or not okay?
If I was smarter, I could just reason through these things myself and I wouldn't have to write them up as half-baked, pop philosophy here.
I can think of just a few girls who match the description I posted. Thinking about it, they're all in academic fields. Shit. I picked the wrong major. Maybe I need to go back to school with some night classes or something...
Say I know a girl. I don't expect much long-term compatibility between us, but she interests me and she's hot. But I expect personality clashes, and have no expectation that it would last very long. So, sure, to one extent you could say I'm using her for her body (she's hot, after all), but the primary motivator in asking her out would be because I suspect spending time around her will make me smarter. And girls who have things to teach me get a multiplier factored into their sexy.
But anyway - if I went into a relationship with the exact same attitude, but without thinking she'd have something to teach me, it seems like I'd be a jerk. But I suspect that the responses I'll receive for this (if I received more than one or two responses on a blog, for once) will be more sympathetic, telling me that not every relationship has to last forever, and that a person's intellect is a fundamental part of that person, and that appreciating that isn't "using" someone in the same sense as people can "use" other people for their bodies.
But I don't know. Bodies seem like a pretty fundamental part of the individual as well. You can tell because the person changes when the body changes. How we view ourselves does seem to be, in a powerful way, tied to what we expect to see in the mirror.
So is one alright, and the other not? Or are they the same - either okay or not okay?
If I was smarter, I could just reason through these things myself and I wouldn't have to write them up as half-baked, pop philosophy here.
I can think of just a few girls who match the description I posted. Thinking about it, they're all in academic fields. Shit. I picked the wrong major. Maybe I need to go back to school with some night classes or something...
and all the girls are whores.
So if you lose the one you love,
there's always plenty more.
-Squirrel Nut Zippers
Also, keep in mind that we are all complex self-replicating proteins crawling around on a rock hurtling through space, constantly falling into a barely significant nuclear furnace but missing.
We are all so infintesimal that we barely exist in the big picture. Round it just one decimal point and we don't exist at all.
Yet at the same time we are each to ourselves the entire universe.
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
-Shakespeare
I disagree about the body thing, but I can't be with a girl that isn't smart. Or at least I can't fully respect her. Same way with guys. Except I don't sleep with guys.
Don't listen too much to my advice, I'm just about to start talking in circles.