Modern Vespa

You never master tact. It is kinda like idiot proofing, when you finally make it safe, they come up with a better idiot.

Ps. I only lied about being a liar.
Ps2. We are trying to argue who must be happier.

At this point I'm just confused by this thread, it has gone in so many directions. Hell I don't think we've even touched on infidelity and divorce really and we're what? 6 pages in now?

On those topics I will say people change and grow over time. Couples that can stay together over decades amaze me and I take my hat off to them. My dating years are over and I'm happy where I am now. Are we meant to mate for life? I've been affected by affairs as a child (my father) and as an adult. I can't play the victim here though as I am also no saint. This is a complicated topic and no way in hell we are all going to feel the same way about it. One of the best popcorn threads we've had on here in a while. It all started with a scooter parked in a home...

The thread is mentally stimulating enough to keep my attention. So I keep coming back. It seems to be easy going.
I did touch on infidelity. I posted about reasons for divorce was that and abuse. About page 3

I think we need an index.

Yeah, this is essentially what I'm talking about.

Or, put another way: my buddy and I spent nearly all our time discussing my new motorcycle and the sailboat he's building. I'm utterly obsessed with my motorcycle and he with his boat and neither of our wives are the least bit interested in either. But I'm really into his boat and he my bike.

And let's think honestly or at least accurately about this: my wife tells me things (many, many things) that she does not tell my best friend, so I will not discuss those when the three of us are together (more accurately, it's the four of us, cuz we go out and on vacations as couples, but whatever); ditto with my best friend telling me things he may not want my wife to know, so we dance around those topics, as well.

So I'm not talking about some deep, nefarious rule where everyone lies in groups; I'm talking about the fact that no one discusses anything of interest to everyone...and, thus, often, anyone.

Further, my wife and I are not clones. We may share 90% of the same politics, for example, but that 10% of difference will upset her if I share my real thoughts, and review this whole thread: one must compromise in any relationship, so not bringing up that 10% isn't a lie, it's simply tact, politeness etc. -- but I can say that 10% to one buddy or another because we agree on it etc.

When I go to a party with colleagues am I honest about how I feel about my job...or other people I work with? Hell no.

Do I tell my students what they told me they think of each other?

Do I tell family member x what family member y said about her?

Yeah, this, exactly.

I may just be able to answer that question better in a while. Our daughter's having counseling for depression/anxiety, counselor suggesting family therapy based on their interaction. I'm like, "*Really?*" I get that things can be good to talk about, but I know our daughter has had a far more functional household than either my wife or I grew up in (and don't feel particularly scarred by). So, not going in particularly enthusiastically. Maybe dealing with a broken leg and our time and energy stretched to its limit doesn't put me in a particularly good mood for one more diversion either.

At any rate, I'm thinking this could get interesting if we start hearing our daughter's issues and I get a rebuttal.... There clearly are things I don't say, at least in the same way with disparate individuals. There are lots of things not worth complaining about, but OTOH, don't poke me too hard, either.

The reason the mouth and brain are two separate and distinct entities separated by a few inches is to give you time to consider things like your audience, situations, the topic of conversation, emotional factors, personal factors, the weather, etc.

You wouldn't act the same to a complete stranger standing on a busy corner in -12° while on your way to work as you would your spouse, first thing in the morning on a balmy spring day. There are hundreds of factors that impact into how we behave in every moment of every day.

Nothing is disingenuous or "lying" to present yourself differently to different people.

On the point of infidelity I do really like this quote.

God gave us a brain and a penis but not enough blood for both.

You're welcome.

Bill x

Can't argue that.

My current wife started out as an affair. She wasn't happy with her husband for a number of reasons and her and I met through work. She was in finance as the comptroller and I was the senior network administrator. Her husband has since settled down with his boyfriend after "dating" a number of men. It's a strange world sometimes.

What, are you from the Midwest of something? "Oh, honey, you just need to get over yourself a little more. Here, go shovel the driveway for a couple hours and you'll feel better...."

Counseling literally saved my life when my first marriage ended and kept my second marriage from ending. Along the way I learned how to stop being a fuckup, so that was bonus.

Also I too went thru it with my daughter when she was 16, and tho it beat the shit out of me, then, I know it really helped empower her...and if I'd gone at 16 instead of 30 I'd...well, I guess I'd have missed out on some really interesting but very shitty 14 years!

Besides, ain't you a doctor? Do you only see people who fall off of ladders or play for the NFL?

An easy life teaches you how to be comfortable, not how to be happy or overcome obstacles. We can all use some help with that sometimes.

[quote="tdrake"] Nailed it.

Yeah, I get it, just in a bit of a dark place this last month....or visiting it too often.

Appreciate your wise words once again. Aren't you supposed to be older than me?

Okay, now back to finishing Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person....... a lot on my plate all of a sudden.

Hey, what's wrong with shoveling!?

Didn't Alan say in the vid that one should spend time with himself... and around here, even if you'd go to counseling, you still need to showel the driveway for a couple hours to get going...

... and, as was proved once again, we Finns are the happiest nation in the Earth. This can't be a coinsidence

Oh please that "happiest nation in the Earth" thing get tossed around more than a beachball at a Dave Matthews concert. We are constantly at that the top of or at the top of that list all the time and there are SO many lists who can tell which one is right? I'm sure are there miserable people in Finland and Canada even if they are 2 of the best countries to live in. Toronto is constantly considered to be one of the best cities in the world and believe me there are plenty of problems here as well. Everything is relative to where you are in your life. It helps to live in a good place but only so much...

but not all Fins as Finland ranks 32nd, out 180 countries, for their suicide rate.

We just need more shovels for the darkest season....that damn "Sisu" that pushes this nation through wars etc. has its flip side: too many prove their guts by reacting this way to the problems. There's a hint of "Seppuku" spirit in that for some, those damn poor guys (mainly) have to be tough to the end.

More shovels, we need more shovels...

Of course. The dead don't fill in surveys.

Nah, never seen any miserable people around here. Just trust the statistics.

Well not here but who knows what happens after they shuffle off this mortal coil? I for one "think" nothing but you never know...

Man this thread is incredible. It's like someone put a Malossi kit on it....

Let's not go too deep though as things can get dark fast. I've had an interesting life and have some pretty dark stories that are best not shared here. I love motorcycles and scooters and if a man wants to put one in his living room all the power to him. Maybe that man needs to find a woman (or man, I'm no judge) that is OK with that? OR being single is the answer to happiness and the occasional visit from a friend that comes with benefits? I want to die with someone I love by my side, that much I know.

Perhaps they're all single?

I bet that I can tell you darker ones Harbinger.

Anyway, here's a question that's a bit left of field but see it though because it's something that has often puzzled me.

So many of you have probably heard of men coming out as gay after having a successful marriage with kids in say their mid 40's to 50's.

Now I don't know about you but if I was a gay man I couldn't get aroused at the sight of a naked women just in the same way that I (being straight) couldn't get aroused at the sight of a naked man ( sorry Max) so how would you become physically aroused by a naked woman consistently enough to have children ?

I hope that was dealt with enough sensitivity.

Discuss.

Bill x

Well Bill, remember when Vespas used to do it for you but don't now?

That's a very interesting way of looking at it but my mind was changed for a reason.

I wasn't lusting after another brand all the time I was riding them.

Is that a good analogy ?

Bill x

Hmm, I could possibly have avoided (missed out on?) all this by simply adding "and sometimes it is not" to my thread title

In the case of these men, let's just call that reason "marriage".

It can't be that.

Please tell me it's something deeper.

Something that can be explained in more depth.

Bill x

Monogamy has never been a virtue with motorcycles. We kinda are like the early Rome. You know the ones I mean.

No can you please explain that one.

Be less vague ?

Bill x

Doesn't everyone? Self-delusion in a powerful tool that gets us out of bed everyday. Countless book and articles based on studies and been written on the subject.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/living-a-lie-we-deceive-ourselves-to-better-deceive-others/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130716151039-4061630-the-most-important-tool-for-entrepreneurs-self-delusion

I've always loved the book You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney. The author admits in the introduction that you don't want too much self-awareness. It could be crippling.

https://www.amazon.ca/You-Are-Not-So-Smart/dp/1592407366

Brush up on history bro. Never has it been so much fun

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuality_in_ancient_Rome

This thread has been rather interesting. It is entertaining to hear all these male views on marriage.

To the men who were there with their wives until the end, held their hands as they birthed their children, went on journeys together, cheers to you.

Why each of us get married is our choice and our definition of marriage. Some religious, some legal, some spiritual or some not at all. One decision isn't better than or worse than another. It is rather ridiculous to have this tit for tat pro/against marriage discussion. One side will never convince the other their perspective.

Live your own life and do what you want for yourself. We all define love and meaning of relationships for ourselves.

Peace and scoot on
Froggie

It was never my intention to convince others that my way is the right way just because it's such an emotive subject.

As you say, it's different for everyone but you have to know at least why your'e doing it.

It's always been the reason that people still do it these days when I don't see it as being necessary that interests me.

I'm interested in it because I don't understand it.

That's it really.

Bill x

Hmm, nobody took this and ran with it....

I'm a straight dude, always liked the ladies, but I can appreciate a handsome guy... I have a thing for Anderson Cooper and Anthony Bourdain's chef friend Eric Ripert. Perhaps it's the grey hair. Not that I have feelings for these guys or want to act on that, but I find both of them attractive. And I'm comfortable with that (my wife teases me about it, but she has her own celebrity chef crush).

Now, on to the question of how a guy can be married and then later on be gay, it's simple. In the decades leading up to the present, it was never completely "ok" to come out as gay, so many gay men hid behind the facade of marriage. I met as guy through my widow support group years ago who admitted that he didn't have a place to open up to others. He was married for 30+ years, raised a couple of kids, but his wife knew he was gay. He was about to end their marriage when she became sick, and he stuck by her side the whole way. After she died, he came out to his family.....

Yeah, I think you nail it, Larry. My brother's college dorm-mate was very gay, as in not bi, but very religious and politically conservative and he simply planned to marry and, I guess, just live a repressed life.

...this was nearly 40 years ago so I can say that when we all tripped on mushrooms together, while the rest of us were laughing ourselves breathless he saw Satan and had a horrible, horrible trip. Pretty indicative, I think, of the guilt he carried.

Unfortunately he was gunned down in Washington DC a few years later, while working as a GOP intern. Don't know why -- we were told carjacking, but now my brother thinks he was perhaps soliciting sex in a public park.

Nice guy. Breaks my heart to remember how he felt he had to live and then, probably, die.

And then years later I was friends with an older lady who'd just divorced a man who came out as gay. Same story: he'd known what he really wanted but it was taboo at the time etc. BTW, he was the chair of a major university's psychology program, and keep in mind that when in his 20s homosexuality was a) illegal and b) considered a mental illness. When he came out it was no longer either.

Also, he was Black, so for an obviously very ambitious man, he couldn't really afford an other strike against him back in the 60s.

Anyway, she said they had a horrible sex life.

And they had a daughter, but how hard is it, really, for a guy to "make a baby," literally or so to speak? I mean, are you attracted to your own hand?

If so, I hope it's the right one, cuz we don't allow no sinister sex 'round here.

Hey, wait a second.. I'm left handed!

I'll simplify the question.

I'm a straight man and I'm physically aroused by the naked form of a women.

I'm a gay man and you'd assume that I wouldn't get physically aroused by the form of a naked women.

So how can I get physically aroused enough to impregnate you if I don't find you arousing ?

How can I do that for 20 years ?

Bill x

With you on Anderson Cooper by the way but I'll settle for Christian Slater.

Keanu Reeves in full John Wick mode is pretty damn attractive also.

I see what you did there.

Just thinking on the fly here, I expect if people are capable of repressing memory of adverse events in life, they can "lose" any non-heterosexual tendencies. At least for a while.

No problems finding other guys attractive, but not moved beyond that. Frankly, a lot of attraction to women that's not particularly sexual either. There can just be a lot of beauty in people, physically and otherwise.

The family joke that somehow started back at a Disney World trip is that I had a thing for Tinkerbelle. My daughter was scandalized for a while until she understood the joke...or gave up on me. Frankly, petite blondes don't do all that much for me until you add a green body suit and wings. She could ride pillion anytime.....

Ariel does it for me.

Bill x

You don't accept that some individuals are bisexual - even though they say they are?

The Governor of the state where I live says that she is bisexual. I presume she would know. (and she is married, to stir the pot a little more )