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Is Love a Competition?

infinfj65

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I was watching one of those reality romance shows (The Bachelor, Bachelorette the other day and it got me thinking...
Obviously it's a competition reality show where "contestants" compete for acceptance, attention, and ultimately Love from the main character. In real life we are around many different people from both sex's. As many people know a man who is tall with broad shoulders and a flat stomach will be seen as a prospective mate because he will create healthy and strong children. It is the same from a man's point of view. A pretty woman with larger breasts and hourglass hips/curves signify that she is able to carry the man's children. We think about these things subconciously. That being said, many people do their best to look beautiful and healthy. (For personal esteem and to look/be attractive) They may see several people of the opposite sex daily. Why should they choose you? Are we in a way competing for an authentic connection just like the romance shows but without the cameras, producers, and audience?
(Note: There are many other factors that can attract mates outside of physical appearance. However, I bring up appearance because it is often the first thing we base each other off of and we are instinctively designed to subconciously see certain physical features as fit for creating offspring.
 

Siúil a Rúin

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People do seem very socially competitive for romance and to each their own. I avoid most forms of competition so that aspect of dating used to make me a bit lost and even sick. I'd avoid guys who were sought after because I couldn't deal with the social competition.

Now by by accident I'm dating a guy that unknowingly gets that response from women so I gave up on making friends. My attraction to him was because he is laid back and nice to me. I kinda dislike the reactions from others
 

Zeego

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I hate that aspect of love, and now apps like Tinder are making it even worse. In my opinion love should only be about competition if you want it to, but now society seems to impose that sense of competition upon everyone. Everything in the Western world has been becoming more and more of a competitive capitalistic system since the Industrial Revolution. I'd kill for another Renaissance...
 

Lark

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I remember Enemy At The Gates, a film ostensibly about a duel between two snipers one Nazi and one Soviet, suggested that love and attraction was the ultimate evidence that individuals were competitive and not co-operative, not so implicit was the condemnation of sovietism, communism, socialism etc.

I've heard some strange vindications of capitalism over the years but being a loser in love or smarting from unrequited feelings was one of the strangest.
 

Typh0n

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What the OP is describing sounds like mating, not love.
 

Obfuscate

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when you identified them as characters, i wondered how any mystery could remain...

reality is much more complex than syndication...
 

The Cat

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In my experience anything can be a competition... I do enjoy the competitive aspect of romance, it inspires me to keep pushing myself to be better. It's not the only thing, but it's a big one.
 

Typh0n

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In my experience anything can be a competition... I do enjoy the competitive aspect of romance, it inspires me to keep pushing myself to be better. It's not the only thing, but it's a big one.

That's interesting, I never looked at the competeitve aspect of romance as something that pushes me to be better. To be better than others maybe, but that's not a game I like to play.

How do you feel it pushes you to be better? To better yourself? :)
 

The Cat

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That's interesting, I never looked at the competeitve aspect of romance as something that pushes me to be better. To be better than others maybe, but that's not a game I like to play.

How do you feel it pushes you to be better? To better yourself? :)

More or less; in the end I'm only ever competing with myself, and improving myself is important to me for other reasons as well, but I wont deny there's a thrill in it when it deals with romance that isnt there with some of the other ways.
 

Poki

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Nope...its just no fair...i would win
 

Abcdenfp

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"Love is blind, and it will take over your mind".
 

Littleclaypot

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a competition? no, no.. you are doing it wrong
 

Lucy_Ricardo

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What the OP is describing sounds like mating, not love.

^^^YES. Nearly every answer on this equates love with sex. They're not synonymous. Sexual attraction, sex, and procreation are competitive, and not just on a physical level. A woman can find a man attractive based on more than washboard abs and chiseled jawlines, and not every man is looking for a brick house. There are several factors to consider in sexual attraction.

Love, on the other hand, transcends that. Love is not a competition, but a meeting of hearts and souls. A compromise. To paraphrase Jane Eyre, two people in love are two halves of the same soul. To reduce love to a competition is base.
 

anticlimatic

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Agree with the distinction between love and mating. Can we all agree then than mating is a competition...?
 

ceecee

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I was watching one of those reality romance shows (The Bachelor, Bachelorette the other day and it got me thinking...
Obviously it's a competition reality show where "contestants" compete for acceptance, attention, and ultimately Love from the main character. In real life we are around many different people from both sex's. As many people know a man who is tall with broad shoulders and a flat stomach will be seen as a prospective mate because he will create healthy and strong children. It is the same from a man's point of view. A pretty woman with larger breasts and hourglass hips/curves signify that she is able to carry the man's children. We think about these things subconciously. That being said, many people do their best to look beautiful and healthy. (For personal esteem and to look/be attractive) They may see several people of the opposite sex daily. Why should they choose you? Are we in a way competing for an authentic connection just like the romance shows but without the cameras, producers, and audience?
(Note: There are many other factors that can attract mates outside of physical appearance. However, I bring up appearance because it is often the first thing we base each other off of and we are instinctively designed to subconciously see certain physical features as fit for creating offspring.

None of this is love. It sounds like basic biology/mating. Shows like these introduce one thing that visual assessment alone doesn't - how mentally healthy they are. Ask anyone who has children with a mentally unhealthy person how important those physical attributes are now.
 

Bulletproof_Bastard

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a man who is tall with broad shoulders and a flat stomach will be seen as a prospective mate because he will create healthy and strong children. It is the same from a man's point of view. A pretty woman with larger breasts and hourglass hips/curves signify that she is able to carry the man's children

What are you talking about?
I'd never seen a woman marry a man due to him having physical features such as broad shoulders and a flat stomach. And neither I had ever seen a man marry a woman due to her large breasts and her curves. I mean, really, none of my girlfriends ever tell me something like "oh, I love you so much because of your broad shoulders!".

The fact is, if such physical features are so influentional to romantic relationships among humans, no one will ever be fat, short, thin, has a small breast or any other physical disadvantages for such people will not ever be able to reproduce and therefore would have been eliminated by nature from many many times ago. People would all be having a perfect body by now. But as everyone knows, we have many people with different physical appearances.

And no, we are not instinctively designed to select a mate from certain physical features like that(where the hell did you get that from?). By instinct, love isn't that controllable nor easily predictable to begin with. Instinctually, people tend to love other people for no real reason other than the romantic attraction itself. That may seem confusing. But if it isn't confusing, it isn't love.

Of course it's true that some features may make one easily more attractive than the others such as wealth, achievements, fame, appearances etc. But by instinct, it doesn't really matter. I don't think you've never seen an unexpected romance between two very different people such as when a wealthy man marry a poor woman or vice versa. Or when a pretty woman marry an ugly man and so on.

Besides, I think it's a terrible idea to contemplate about real-life topics based on reality shows. It's just a show. Just like in circus where you can see bears riding a bike. You won't see bears riding a bike in your real life situations. You'll see them tearing your face apart.
 

Mademoiselle

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I think relationship is a choice, love is a factor you should consider.
Choosing the right partner is quite complicated because it involves two people, and depends each people's knowlege of themselves, the other person and the situation, in addition to the random environmental factors that create either make opportunities or become an obstacle.
 
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