Success raises standards and expectations, which is both a blessing and a curse.

Doing something better than we've ever done before is amazing, but there's no going back. Any lesser event afterwards isn't as satisfying as the best experience before, and that bar can only rise and never be lowered again.

I strongly feel this in every aspect of my life, but especially relating to romance, despite my only background there probably sounding like pretty nothing to others. The in-depth analysis of that would be too long to include here though and I need to put my thoughts on that together first.

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HootyTheNightOwl

Potato is setting himself up for failure and misinterpreting success.

The objective isn't always to do better and better... sometimes, success is about doing it again. Let's say that you take a lady on a date - and she really enjoys herself.

You plan to take her out again... you're obviously not going to be looking at taking her to the Ritz for lunch because it's way out of your budget - so you'll be looking at something else that you can both enjoy doing together rather than measuring your success in terms of what you can do that is bigger and better than what you did before.

NerdyPotato ·

@HootyTheNightOwl true, I don't mean better is always the goal, but what used to be good becomes boring after you've experienced something much better. And in terms of dating I don't mean activities, but hardly any people measuring up to your best partner.

HootyTheNightOwl

@NerdyPotato That's why free upgrades on cruise ships are a bad idea - especially if you gave up an inside cabin for the balcony... it's hard to miss something that you never had.

I wouldn't know about the ideal partner because I never really put much effort into trying to work out what my ideals were in my own head.

Since I was raised to believe that I was never quite good enough, that followed me into my dating life - and I still struggle to see anything about myself as "good enough". I guess that I will always have to live with my mother's insecurities now.

NerdyPotato ·

@HootyTheNightOwl yeah, I'm not quite sure yet either, but the few likes I did discover are quite specific, which is especially complicated since my dislikes already narrow down my options by about 99%.