Dating: a psyop turned rogue

Seeing as any major hit piece media parades and vaguely we’re here due to a long chain of elopement, however profane, maybe some evolutionary forces or ordained in Genesis, nevertheless one, surely, inevitably, eventually, may be in want of a relationship.

In the same vein, do you know what is one of the most devastating things you can do to yourself nowadays? Yes, also a relationship. If you are not careful, you can irreparably damage yourself financially, emotionally, socially and lose years of your life and your mind.

If this is also the case, how in the world did “dating” come about? How did we get here?

I mean, after all, the modern dating circuit is exposing yourself to a stray — a stray of a person you somehow met through immodest and algorithmic forced means, a mix of chance too — and then somehow imagining a life with them. There is no external initial vetting other than your dating app settings which won’t capture the aura you can only pick up on through a few months of exposure, probably. And there is no initial connection sans the fact you both signed up to a depraved platform profiting off of your lust, along with, perhaps, some consumer centric interests to truly capture the atomized individual in the global marketplace.

And you’re somehow expected to get through this while also in a, potentially, vulnerable state of mind, mixed with desperation and arousal, and now an expectation is to eventually have sex by the third or fourth date or eighth or whatever is your limit, depending. Then you can cross your fingers and hope this somehow lasts if you liked it, or hope you can wash off the disgust with yourself if you tack on another regret in a soulless union, and you can always inflict more damage on the other party in the process.

And it won’t last, most likely, because the miraculous thing about modern dating is how it’s an extension of the modern ethos of our reality: gratify yourself, nothing beyond that, dodge the very purpose of elopement: making a family to continue playing the game of humanity. There is no other reason to endure the opposite sex otherwise; you may immediately rebuke and say because it’s fun, but in fact, by delaying this purpose, you will only incur damage upon each other as you both inevitably give in to the resentment, anger, listlessness and emotional turmoil and, if you somehow last, the absolute soulcrushing reality past ~50 when you have no children and nothing more to look forward to other than a slow waltz to the grave, whether God intended or whoever seeded this planet with our existence. But hey, maybe I’m wrong. Thanks for playing!

Anyway, it’s a whole cocktail of crafted delusion long churned and perfected and the “dating” world is one aspect of it. I can’t even begin to pull them apart, it’s a sickness that infects everyone from a young age. But they’re decimating today’s generations and unborning the generations of tomorrow, fulfilling their purpose. People often wonder what’s the next calamity: it’s already here. It’s masterfully constructed and one could almost be thankful for it as the modern absurdity compared to even twenty years ago makes it more approachable, breakable, and bit by bit all the lies you believed in, like how the word “romance” has since tugged on every nation since the 1700s to much suffering. Some notable romanticists died young, probably due to the immeasurable amount of mental pain they went through trying to reconcile reality with their love-dreams.

Now, now, you must think, you’re surely getting ahead of yourself. Or you’re one of those “trad” mentalities, or you’re just a bitter one — but you must understand, I don’t want to go back to the 1950s. And most of the “trad” movements still have some contradictory ideals baked into it that deny, again, the reality of elopement. And as for bitterness, I’m perfectly okay with how things are because it’s curious to watch the slow destruction. I’ve no delusion that a relationship would fix things for me, yet another destructive popular idea in our samsara. If we want to continue the cannibalism of the youth selling these ideas, by all means, such is life. The only thing that bothers me is how no one spells out how deep the poisoned well goes, that’s all. I am just spelling it out for my own satisfaction.

So, we probably need to go back further. I suppose the late 1800s would be sufficient. Why? Because that was the last stronghold of relationship stability.

The core issue of relationships, spanning back further than the 1950s, is a lack of certain stability. The essence of a stable relationship is one that is sticky and malleable or adaptable to trials. In the modern 2025 lens, this is obviously impossible. At first sight of inconvenience, along with the cocktail of modern delusions driving everyone, you are replaceable, therefore let’s swipe to the next one.

In the 1950s lens, this still isn’t possible. At first glance the union may seem still relatively stable enough, but when one pulls in the rest of what elopement means — that is, children, and sustaining a family, properly integrating into the larger game of powers and societies — it falls apart quite readily. Why? Because there is a lack of checks and balances, a lack of support systems.

For thousands of years we have been subject to the checks and balances of a village, tribe. Village elders — or just the general concern of your local community, wherever you did spawn — helped with these things. Not only would there probably be an implicit understanding of who is going to marry who, but there was help for all — kids are overwhelming, and the 1950s model is awfully isolating, and there are no checks and balances when it comes to family disputes. If the husband starts acting up, the wife has no recourse. If the wife starts acting up, well, you could beat her, but that isn’t necessarily a path to success, and this power imbalance is unsustainable and would need to be “checked” by the village. You can always divorce, but nothing will necessarily be roses after.

Without a sound impartial third party — whether a more amusing venue of a “village elder” or the more Roman solution of a patriarch — such disputes destroy the family, and the kids, and the entire reason to even have a relationship: something vaguely stable and therefore helpful when dealing with whatever life comes to break you next with, along with continuing the game of humanity.

Modern dating is such a beautiful poison because it promises so much and it’s infused in a socially validating criteria — after all, if you are single, well, there is clearly something wrong with you. And yet we always turn our heads away from those who had relationships, are now single, and dealing with vague regrets no one will talk about, vague ideas of what’s next even though what’s actually next is more of the same thing until you’re completely discarded well into middle age. For those in a relationship currently, well, let’s keep dodging the question till we get back on the circuit once more. Is this what success looks like? The “stickiness” from patriarchs and societal agreements, contracts, would prevent such things, provide clarity, and infuse purpose.

In case it wasn’t clear: a successful relationship is one that lasts, as that is how one reaps benefits which are useful to both parties, and this is rarely acknowledged, as though it’s more important to have a relationship rather than a valuable long-lasting one. Relationships are contracts and, with the village as the enforcer, societal shame too, customs, one must understand what you provide each other. The man gets extra purpose through protection and reason to even work and a home to return to when dealing with business and life and death and the woman gets purpose in cultivating a home, society, family, whatever. The whole point of it. Exposing yourself to many relationships that don’t last messes with you and makes life harder as you deal with each of them breaking down and barring you from a place to belong until you are saddled with haunting memories and melancholy, and, unfortunately, makes you worse off in the relationship marketplace. After all, contracts are conditional, you must uphold your end and what value you provide: the cocktail of delusions may want you to believe otherwise…

Furthermore, even if you somehow swing this idealized relationship, the level of isolation makes it laughable. You got the modern internet injecting poison in both parties anyway, and maybe divorce proceeds from there: it is quite difficult to maintain a purpose and sense of mental stableness in a suburban community. Why? Because it’s an extension of highschool, and there’s still a fundamental disconnect of bond.

The importance of the village is a shared future. Sorry Tim, but we don’t have a shared future seeing as I’m planning to move to Nevada, Nebraska, maybe New Orleans too. And well, my kids, well, they’re going to NYC, they’re going international to “find themselves” and well, I guess that’s it (for a lot of unrelated reasons between the recent generations… another can of worms for another day if I could even bother).

You only have a shared future if you have the bond that is the future which is children. Furthermore, that shared future persists only if these children of the future carry that village’s torch, that they don’t run away. Ideally this “village” is a larger cohort of family; and maybe I’m just being disingenuous here seeing as “village” has a physical aspect of it; I imagine the word “patriarch” is more evocative toward a shared future because it is bound by blood. No children, no future. Children get delusions of the city which eats you as the ideal meat for the marketplace, well, no future there either. The modern world is designed, almost, to destroy the family, funny enough. You can certainly try to swing beyond the family, to find someone to commiserate with the same as those vaguely middle aged couples resigned to their fate in some Houellebecqian taste, but there’s not necessarily a lot to look forward to.

There is just so much wrong with the modern conception of relationships, and, by extension, modern lifestyles (out of necessity at times…), that I can’t even put a cohesive point to it. Everything is so backwards that up is in fact down, left is in fact right, and the rightful way of living is too boring when you can instead get some beers and nightlife until you are hollowed out, because that’s what a consumer’s life gives you: a hollowed existence for the hollowed men. It is inherently purposeless because everything is designed to entertain you today rather than work on things which fuel the heart of any man: long term projects, beautiful structures, lives, dreams and systems. But maybe such things are passé and for the bitter ones.

What’s your course of action then, you may wonder. I think there are two things, and most of this thus far covered “what happens after” while mildly influencing “who to be with”. In terms of actually getting there, the landscape is pretty brutal.

You probably have to discard all social shame and approach people in public. Not even approach, just generally talk, even if it’s hard. If the worst risk is being called a creep for talking to people, well, the alternative of never interacting with anyone again seems strange too. Even though this doesn’t solve the vetting, at least it is grounded in reality. Interacting with those who do online dating are not in reality and therefore more prone to discarding. The trick is to talk about an event that’s happening in proximity, rather than directly starting a conversation.

Maybe there’ll be a resurgence of actual interest in matchmaking through parents and their friends and family. Church could possibly work.

You could do all of the above things, but I think the best thing one could do is, while accumulating resources and connections, start seeing people more as part of a family rather than an individual. Because doing the whole stray dating strategy without seeing what each family is like for each party is doing a grave disservice, as there are many clues and future revelations waiting to be found, to help understand whether you would both be compatible. Additionally, Family = strings from interactions = more stable relationship, more sane relationship too, building some semblance of a “village” again.

Start with the family, and everything flows from there. It is precisely our individualistic sickness and delusions of a grand narrative, seeking many riches abroad and around, and the crippled infrastructure making it difficult to keep family together — it is all of this which gave way to the modern psyop of dating.

But maybe there are no more families that still are around one another, so this point could likely be moot.