Been a bit introspective lately (hence the lack of posting) but had an interesting dialogue with a friend about commitment, relationship longevity as it relates to investment. This was his post:

I have watched many of the people that I know in my life suffer major break ups and divorces as of late. Since we know that girls love to chase and win you over how does the concept of marriage work once she “has you?”

I believe Entropy even said once that you should always be the less committed one in the relationship but I feel from talking about things like this that that concept would devalue the power of your love.

What do you think?

I don’t know if committed is the word I used, but probably attachment.

First of all, as a disclaimer, I have no data to go on other than personal experience (a lot for my age) and everyone I’ve known in relationships (an above average amount I would guess).

But with that said, I repeatedly observed the following:
- When the man values the relationship more than a woman, the woman usually gets bored and leaves him for someone else.
- When the woman values the relationship more than man, the relationship tends to last a long time and the couple is very, very happy.

I know this isn’t PC or a commonly accepted belief. And this isn’t to say that men always have the upper hand in a relationship, but I really believe that 80% of the time, men are the driving force in the interaction before sex and women are the driving force after sex. There are plain evolutionary and psychological reasons to explain this.

Again, I have no study to support this (I doubt one has been done), but I’ve seen it over and over and over and over again — from my parents, to old friends, to movies/books/stories, to people in this lair to my own relationships. If I have seen counter-examples, they’re extremely rare.

Now this isn’t to say or imply anything about how much you love the other person. I love my girlfriend to death. I probably always will. I’d do anything for her.

But if/when we break up, I wouldn’t be too worried about it. It’d suck and I’d be devastatingly sad, but it wouldn’t be such an end-of-the-world scenario that it seems to be for my girlfriend.

It kind of harkens back to your post a couple weeks ago about one-itis and abundance mentality. I know I can always fall in love again. I’ve been in love with multiple women already in my life, and I know I can fall in love with dozens more. As a man, my stock only increases as I get older, wiser, and more successful.

As a woman, on the other hand, her stock is dropping — the biological clock is always ticking. She only has a 10-15 year window to settle down and pro-create, and probably even less than that before her looks start fading. Also, getting a high-quality male to settle down with her is no simple task (not like picking up is for us). So I think women definitely have more of a built-in scarcity mentality when it comes to love and relationships.

That’s the way it should be. As soon as the guy starts having a bigger scarcity mentality than the woman, it signifies that she’s perceived to be much higher value than him and as a result she loses attraction for him (sound familiar?). This is when she breaks up with you saying that you’re a great guy but the chemistry is gone or she just doesn’t feel the way she used to, blah, blah, blah. I’m sure most of us have been there.