Thanks! (I feel so dumb now lol)

Definitely wouldn’t be the first time I immediately jumped to scripting instead of finding an easier way to do something!

Haha, yep! Sure sounds like it!

I’m guessing that there are many, many people who like reversed roles but suppress that desire because of social stigma.

I had to fight through so much insecurity and confusion to get to this point. I was raised in a deeply conservative environment and harassed by family and classmates for being emotional. As a young teenager, I had to seek outside information (via the Internet) without anyone knowing to free myself from the echo chamber and develop a progressive belief system.

It took many years of deprogramming, self-reflection, and meeting some truly wonderful people to become confident in who I am. I feel like I got lucky and escaped a cult, and I feel a sense of sadness for all of the people who are still trapped within.

I think if the world continues to become more progressive, we’ll see a lot more people openly expressing their true romantic desires and attracting wonderful partners who they absolutely adore.

A world filled with cute happy couples of all kinds is a world I want to live in.

I fucking love this thank you so much

Definitely. I didn’t want to make the post too long, but during my daydreaming phase, I began to shift my thinking towards practical concerns. I concluded that being overly idealistic is a hazard; being open-minded and willing to compromise is key. It actually makes me feel warm and fuzzy to think about how relationships are inherently imperfect because we are inherently flawed, but we can still find a way to make them work anyway. I want to compromise for my partner because I would love her so much and want to be a wonderful boyfriend for her. I think making the relationship work is a very beautiful thing.

Ultimately, the fantasy I described is just one data point. I think there are more types of potential partners for me than the one I described. My goal is to minimize the number of preferences I have while still defining a distribution of people I’d be excited to have as a partner because that casts a wide net. For example, I don’t think my future partner giving me cute nicknames is a hard requirement. It’s just nice to think about.

It’s lovely to hear about your relationship! I’m happy for you and your husband!

For me personally, I determined that it was in my best interest to be open-minded to maximize the number of potential partners.

I’m not going to go down the path of defining a million traits that my future partner should have because nobody in the world will match all of them. Instead, my goal is to minimize the number of preferences I have, while still being excited about a relationship with someone within the distribution defined by those preferences. So, for example, I don’t care what hobbies my partner has as long as we can make the relationship work. If we share hobbies, great! But if we don’t, that’s fine too. We can find other things to do together.

Even the fantasy I mentioned is likely not the full story, just a data point. I’m likely to be more flexible. There is probably no label that perfectly describes what I want my relationships to look like. While labels can help me find like-minded people, I also shouldn’t let them limit my thinking.

Also, I avoid thinking about aggregate numbers, e.g. “What percentage of people have these traits?” and instead think “Which settings and contexts maximize my odds of meeting someone like this?” It helps me recognize that I have agency to shift the odds in my favor and this isn’t a complete lottery.