Some of us for better or worse are, have been and ever will be denied access to the circle dance. Reasons vary. Personal quirks or awkwardness early on. Maybe a certain Aspergeriness. Maybe simply that, best efforts aside, one’s core competencies don’t and never will include fitting in. Maybe a simple inability not to notice that things don’t, however so insisted by the circle, fall upward.

It’s easier to notice that things don’t fall upward when one’s never fit in. That’s about the only thing that’s easier.

I used to fear for the Republic. I am more and more quietly resigned to its end.

I think it’s a matter of degree rather than binary. Speaking for me and me alone, I think the degree of “totalitarian” is increasing, and more and more rapidly. I hold out very little hope that it can be shaken off.

I think the best we can hope for is a retarding of the rate of increase, plus a certain amount of rolling back. But it takes an enlightened and determined populace to roll it back — and make it stick. (The totalitarian instinct among us humans is *stubborn*.)

And I hold out very little hope that the populace is going to change in a significant degree — especially given the influx of alien invaders who have little, if any, schooling in and appreciation for the liberties our founder bequeathed unto us.

“Unwin examines the data from 86 societies and civilizations to see if there is a relationship between sexual freedom and the flourishing of cultures. …

(2 of 6) Single most influential factor: Surprisingly, the data revealed that the single most important correlation with the flourishing of a culture was whether pre-nuptial chastity was required or not. It had a very significant effect either way. [in 1934]”

When I was younger, I supported the Libertarian (and libertine) ideal of “responsible promiscuity”. Now I’m sure that’s wrong for civilization. I strongly fear our civilization is increasingly unable to flourish because it has given up the ideal of pre-nuptial chastity – but I also don’t see that ideal coming back too easily or quickly.

Maybe tech progress will be fast enough to allow flourishing with sub-optimal sexual customs.

The 600 page book: https://archive.org/details/b20442580/page/n7
Durston’s good 26 page summary:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1asL0ANtZWD_hlV04dsZDbIOgJaKPOpzt/view?usp=sharing

These quotes are so delicately written but so frightening.

I wonder how likely those who participate in this blog believe the US has already become totalitarian or still have hope it will shake off the grip of it.

Mrrr. All too many lose the romance with time.

Romance is actually pretty simple… Consider:

You are, together, a couple. WHY are you a couple? Because the benefits of “couple-ness” outweigh the downsides of couple-ness.

And the downsides certainly exist — when you are alone, there is personal misfortune to be experienced. When you are a couple, there is three times that — there is your personal misfortune, there is your “others'” personal misfortune, and there is your pairwise misfortune (e.g., God Forbid, the loss of a child).

To counter this, there is glue — For one, support from others can help tremendously in bad times. Secondly, there is joy in couple-ness — things you’ve done that were pleasant and memorable (e.g., they provide pleasure as a memory, in addition to that original, instantaneous pleasure).

You stay together when things are tearing you apart because you have those memories, more than anything else.

Romance is the art of making those memories on a continuing, ongoing basis. It’s never something routine — if you’re doing it day after day after day, that’s a chore, something to schedule. It has to be at least a kind of spontaneous. It has to come from “nowhere”, to surprise, to delight, to… create good memories.

Making breakfast in bed is such an act. It should not generally be a “routine” thing, something you do all the time. It has to be a surprise, once in a while.

One thing romance often does is display: “Your happiness matters to me.”

Another thing is display: “I was thinking about you, even though I had no reason to be doing so.” This is why flowers and chocolates and surprise gifts are excellent.

For women, in particular, with the first two, “suitable” gifts for either male or female, for the other, e.g., the classic “vacuum cleaner for your birthday” is not “suitable” — mind you, it’s funny, but a shop vac for a guy generally is, esp. if he was bitching about his shop vac on the last chore day — romantic gifts generally should not be chore-solutions, not even if the recipient actually needs the chore-solution… shop vac, yes. Tools needed for a specific job “he” needs to do are not, they border, intentionally or not, on a subtle form of nagging.

Ideally, it needs to be a splurge-on-yourself kind of thing. For women, shopping trips while you patiently wait are something. Surprise dinner out (while making certain she did not cook beforehand) is often a thing (note: something that makes less work for her is usually very positive… For men, tools are often “the right thing”, because, as Tim Allen put it, “Ar Urr Urr Urr Ah!”. This is especially true if the tool is something you know “he wants but can’t justify”.

And (side note of some importance, and you’ll see why shortly):

You should have a certain equity in money. The classic, “There is her money, and our money” is a bad connective process. There needs to be equity — his money, her money, AND “our money”. And you generally keep them (his/hers) separate, with regular inputs, and once it’s there it is out of “the others'” sight and does not need justification — keep it in a bank account “the other” does not generally see or know the amount of. “It’s my money and I get to do what I damned well please with it, without having to explain, justify, or otherwise be concerned about it being frivolous.”

And part of that, is, it has romantic relevance, too. If you buy something expensive out of “our money”, then you’ve just spent their money on something for them… you should be spending “your money”… that’s why it’s “a gift”.

Giving me a discount coupon for a haircut isn’t a gift, it says you think I need to get my hair cut. 😀

Likewise, spending “our money” on me is more generally not gifting as much as giving me a discount on something…While not asking me if I really really wanted to spend “my money” (which is what “our money” has become in that situation) on THAT thing as opposed to something else.

“Our money” is for things that cover your shared needs, not for gifting (though you can agree to gift each other from it, mind you — say, a new car — but that takes discussion ahead of time, not romantic surprise).

So: Romantic gifts have to be from “my money”, not from another source. It’s one more way you’re saying, “your happiness matters to me”, being as “I spent my money on you, and not on ME.”

And to re-iterate the main point, in case it’s been forgotten:

There are ups and downs in life, and being a couple imposes costs as well as benefits. The relationship begins to fall apart when you stop thinking about each other (e.g., as “a couple”), and stop realizing that you need to behave as a couple. This is actually all too easy to do if you don’t guard against it… You get busy in life and forget what the whole thing is all about. Making sure you have regular unscheduled “us time” is important to that “memorability” part of the process. Making sure you show that you were thinking about your “other” when you had no particular reason to do so is another part of it.

It shows you are “together” in the face of things, not just “in each others’ space” in the face of things.

I was at a Serbian orthodox church wedding and the dancing was similar to what you described. I watched the chain of men and quickly picked up on the steps, put my left arm around the man at the right end of the chain and joined in. I was one of the few, non ethnic Serbs to attempt the traditional dances, and I agree with your experience. It was a great feeling.

I absolutely love to dance. I’m not particularly, naturally good, not particularly naturally bad, but I love the experience of being on a crowded dance floor and moving to music. When I was in my teens and twenties I would sometimes go to clubs and literally dance for hours. It is one of the great feelings in life.

You are a very blessed man. Like George Bailey realizes in It’s A Wonderful life, the richest man in Bedford Falls.

One of the great openings of my life, as I’ve related a few times here, was being pulled into a circle of Israeli folk dancers at the end of my first year of college. I had never realized the power of group experience. At the end of the evening I was ecstatic and near tears.

We were dancing to the “Hora Oranim Zabar Troupe” album, which was a standard of Israeli folk dancing music then.

Here’s an iconic simple circle dance celebrating water. When the circle is widest, dancers crouch then dance into the center, gradually standing upright, like a water splash after a stone is dropped.

–“Mayim”, “Hora Oranim Zabar Troupe” (1960)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQTBFVuutak

I still can’t hear this music without responding emotionally.

The problem isn’t circle dancing. It’s the fallacy that circle dancing should be a political metaphor for Everything.

One can always return to a real circle dance.

“Mayim, mayim, mayim…!”