Friday, November 13, 2015

Now I know why I am not dating. Not pathological enough.

Source.
Courtesy of Scientific America:  

In the study researchers focused on nearly 1,000 heterosexual men and women with a variety of pathological personality traits whose disorders ranged in severity from none to diagnosable. Participants were referred to the study by general practitioners or other medical professionals, says Fernando Gutiérrez at the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, who led the research. Gutiérrez and his team inquired about participants’ lifetime numbers of mates and children, along with job level, income and other sociodemographic factors using a combination of self-reporting surveys and interviews. 

Their results show that people with some pathological personality types, such as those considered neurotic and impulsive, had more mates and even more children than average, suggesting that such traits are not being weeded out by natural selection and actually may confer an evolutionary advantage. 

The study results show both males and females who were pathologically reckless and impetuous attracted more short-term partners than participants with average personalities. And obsessive-compulsive males—but not females—were successful at securing long-lasting mates, an outcome strongly associated with this group’s high income (obsessive-compulsives made nearly twice as much as the less obsessive study participants), Gutiérrez says.

(So sane people make less money? Well that explains two things.) 

It should be noted that the findings of this study are considered speculative since certain personality types tend to be less trustworthy.

But putting that aside for now, there IS a grain of truth here.

There IS something to be said for the fact that pathological personalities sometimes have over inflated egos, and lack the kinds of self doubt that trouble those who are more introspective or self aware.

And perhaps there is something to be said for the fact that it requires a certain level of self delusion or fear of being alone which helps a marriage last for decades. I am of course not saying it is true of all marriages, but the possibility certainly makes me feel better about my past relationships.

For instance I do not usually have trouble attracting female attention, but cannot make relationships last for the long haul. And I ALWAYS think after a few years into the relationship that my partner has gone a little crazy.

In fact an actual Thanksgiving conversation with my family centered around whether I only attract crazy women, or whether living with me DRIVES them crazy.

I for one chose the former. Sadly that was not the consensus.

So apparently I am crazy enough to attract a woman, but not crazy enough to keep a woman. Not sure how to feel about that.

I guess my only option is to sit here ensconced in my sanity and feel smugly superior.

Yeah, THAT should keep me warm at night.

39 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:21 AM

    Gryphen, hang in there. When the relationship is right, you will know it. You don't have to wonder if it will last. There is a comfort level that is natural. I waited a long time to marry and the right fit is something that just happens. There is no crazy. There is love.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, but isn't love a form of insanity?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous6:42 AM

      "Falling in love" may be what society deems "insane," but the right relationship does not feel insane. It took me a long time to learn this, but I never gave up hope, even if I didn't say it publicly. I have been married for 11 years now. Keep the faith, Gryphen. And if you don't want to marry again, that's fine but you can still have a wonderful life partner.

      Delete
    3. fromthediagonal11:23 AM

      As far as I am concerned: People do not 'fall in love", they "fall in lust". Love may or may not come with time and trust. That's all...

      Delete
  2. Anonymous6:35 AM

    Do we know for a fact that humans are supposed to be monogamous? Even some individual animals of species that are considered to be monogamous aren't.

    You might be perfectly normal, Gryphen. In that respect, anyway ;)

    Mildred

    ReplyDelete
  3. I dated a sociopath for awhile. He was charming until his lying got old.

    As for me, I attract two types; the weak ones looking for a mother (who quickly annoy me), and the supermen (in my mind!) like my father and longtime husband.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 66gardeners7:16 AM

      My deceased brother was a sociopath, so I know how one suffers. At some point you say must realize you will no longer be their willing victim and must sever all ties. The problem is that these people can be very likeable which makes them especially dangerous.

      Delete
    2. 66gardeners7:21 AM

      Off topic but newsworthy:

      in Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” The CIA’s famous Presidential Daily Brief, presented to George W. Bush on August 6, 2001, has always been Exhibit A in the case that his administration shrugged off warnings of an Al Qaeda attack. But months earlier, starting in the spring of 2001, the CIA repeatedly and urgently began to warn the White House that an attack was coming.

      By May of 2001, says Cofer Black, then chief of the CIA’s counterterrorism center, “it was very evident that we were going to be struck, we were gonna be struck hard and lots of Americans were going to die.” “There were real plots being manifested,” Cofer’s former boss, George Tenet, told me in his first interview in eight years. “The world felt like it was on the edge of eruption. In this time period of June and July, the threat continues to rise. Terrorists were disappearing [as if in hiding, in preparation for an attack]. Camps were closing. Threat reportings on the rise.” The crisis came to a head on July 10. The critical meeting that took place that day was first reported by Bob Woodward in 2006. Tenet also wrote about it in general terms in his 2007 memoir At the Center of the Storm.


      Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/cia-directors-documentary-911-bush-213353#ixzz3rOC5PBA4

      Delete
    3. 66gardeners7:24 AM

      Tenet picked up the white phone to Bush’s National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. “I said, ‘Condi, I have to come see you,’” Tenet remembers. “It was one of the rare times in my seven years as director where I said, ‘I have to come see you. We're comin' right now. We have to get there.’”

      Tenet vividly recalls the White House meeting with Rice and her team. (George W. Bush was on a trip to Boston.) “Rich [Blee] started by saying, ‘There will be significant terrorist attacks against the United States in the coming weeks or months. The attacks will be spectacular. They may be multiple. Al Qaeda's intention is the destruction of the United States.’" [Condi said:] ‘What do you think we need to do?’ Black responded by slamming his fist on the table, and saying, ‘We need to go on a wartime footing now!’”


      Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/cia-directors-documentary-911-bush-213353#ixzz3rOCvP9wp

      Delete
  4. I suppose I should clarify; the sociopath was the "need a mother" type since he always burned his bridges. He had no longtime male friends.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous7:09 AM

    How many here are in favor of a Gryphen - Bristol marriage?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wouldn't wish that match on my worst enemy.

      Trust me, Gryph; a good friend is your best life partner. Maybe you just can't live with someone full-time??

      Delete
    2. 66gardeners7:30 AM

      is that you Bristol?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous7:37 AM

      Great idea, theyre a perfect match!

      Delete
    4. Anonymous8:54 AM

      Anonymous 7:09 AM
      How many here are in favor of a Gryphen - Bristol marriage?
      ************************************
      Can there EVER be conversation on this blog without bringing up one of the Palins?

      Delete
    5. Sometimes opposites attract! Just look at Connie Chung and Maury Povitch. Wait, no, how 'bout Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue? Andrea Mitchell and Alan Greenspan? I got it! Mary Matalin and James Carville. Love is a truly splendid thing, if not weird, unpredictable and above all, individual.

      Delete
  6. 66gardeners7:13 AM

    tRump: "If you are a child molester, a sick puppy,, there is no cure, they can't stop you. There is No cure."

    Keep your children away from Josh Duggar. a sick puppy, a child molester. There is NO cure.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you read Ben Carson's response to that specious Trump tie-in between "pathological" (describing Carson) and "child molester", Carson really shut Trump down.

      "Now that he's completed his gratuitous attack, why don't we press on and deal with the real issues," Carson told reporters in South Carolina before they could ask questions.

      "It's not the kind of dialogue that I would ever engage in and I'm hopeful that his advisers will help him to understand the word pathological and know that that does not connote incurable," Carson said. "It simply describes something that is highly abnormal and something that fortunately I've been able to be delivered from for half a century now."

      He also objected to a question saying Trump likened him to a child molester, saying that was media spin.
      [which is true, one of the few (1 in 5) statements coming from Carson]

      "I don't believe he called me a child molester," Carson said. "I always find it a little amusing what people in the press like to say. 'You compared this and therefore they're the same,' I don't buy all that."

      Delete
  7. 66gardeners7:32 AM

    WE love you Gryphen.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous7:39 AM

    OT. Really off topic but has anyone in Alaska seen Bristol lately? She should due any day -- if she hasn't had the baby yet. Check the doctor's parking lot for her car? I king up Trig and Tripp at school?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous8:46 AM

      I just figured that's why Bristol's Blog was suddenly more active. Gotta deflect from the fact that the real Bristol is off somewhere whelping her latest.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous9:02 AM

      Why does a Palin have to be incorporated into every conversation? They taint the conversation.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous9:02 AM, because there's no "open thread" option?

      Delete
  9. Anonymous7:57 AM

    My dry spell has officially become a drought. And now my dentist says I've started grinding my teeth, I think there's a connection.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. a. Get a mouth guard.
      b. Get a pet.

      Hope this helps!

      Delete
  10. Well, you're really smart, which I find sexy as hell, but some partners are uncomfortable with.

    And I agree with WA Skeptic up thread: find a good friend (and lover) and live separately.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Because "over-nighters" are fun! And you only have to worry about making coffee once in a while. And you don't have to be in a good mood ALL the time.

      Delete
  11. "(obsessive-compulsives made nearly twice as much as the less obsessive study participants), Gutiérrez says."

    "(So sane people make less money? Well that explains two things.)"

    uhm, i know this is just a quick quip of a joke, but having a mental/behavioral health condition like OCD, depression, anxiety, etc. does NOT make one "insane".

    This attempt at humor comes off as the kind of insensitive that people don't even know they are being, so I wanted to point it out for the future.

    cheers -lo

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous8:25 AM

    HRC KNOWS what SHE is doing. Has known all along.
    http://www.politicususa.com/2015/11/13/hillary-clinton-assailing-wall-street-politically-expedient.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous9:03 AM

      More Facts on this, but Nothing fake about it. This is the way the system is set up to fail. HRC has work on, in, and lived this. She was the subject of citizens United:

      http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/13/hillary-clinton-s-fake-tough-talk-on-wall-street.html

      BUT That was then, this is now. With age, patience=virtue, and learning from one mistakes, here we all are. She also said "it takes a village". YOU GO GIRL!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous9:52 AM

      And here is more right from HRC thoughts:"This calls to mind John F. Kennedy’s observation that peace and progress are “based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions . . . a process — a way of solving problems.”

      This is the whole thing:
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hillary-clinton-reviews-henry-kissingers-world-order/2014/09/04/b280c654-31ea-11e4-8f02-03c644b2d7d0_story.html

      She knows what she is doing. It is now or never. WAKE UP PEOPLE.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:13 AM

      HRC History:
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/was-hillary-clinton-a-good-secretary-of-state/2014/05/30/16daf9c0-e5d4-11e3-a86b-362fd5443d19_story.html

      Delete
  13. Anonymous8:57 AM

    Gryphen, don't feel like the Long Stranger. Sometimes *certain types* are attracted to us. I had two guys with personality disorders in my life. I am free of them both and very happy now.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous9:14 AM

    Some guys are unsuccessful at relationships because they are selfish, domineering pricks who badmouth their exes.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I am in no way qualified to speculate on your sociability factor, Gryphen, but I have a clue into your personality: this antiquated horrible blog format that you cling to so stubbornly, especially the feature that allows optional complete anonymity of commenters.

    How about joining the 21st century (yeah, yeah, I know you started the blog after 2000, you know what I mean)?

    ReplyDelete
  16. A nony mouse11:08 AM

    The person with an aberrant psychology making more money is very interesting. Look at the extreme narcissists who have made millions by lying and having people send them money. Who do we know who might fit that profile?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous12:53 PM

    I have an electric blanket to warm up my bed. It doesn't snore, hog the covers, leave the toilet seat up in the night or have dragon breath in the morning.

    I have a memory foam mattress and pillows, 600 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, and my choice of goose down, wool, cotton or silk quilts depending on the season.

    If you don't enjoy sleeping alone, Gryphen, you're doing it the wrong way.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous1:12 PM

    DISGUSTING:
    http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/court-ruling-sandusky-back-penn-state-pension-35176381

    ReplyDelete
  19. Everyone is crazy to some degree...

    I'm only crazy enough to make the sex good...

    ReplyDelete

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