High-Variance 2nd Dates - 10 Days in Europe

People should do more high-variance low-risk things. It’s exciting and you get to explore a lot of personal-growth ground you otherwise would never see.

Dating someone in Europe is hard. It’s super far away! Can we murder two birds with one stone here? Yes We Can! For a second date, spend ten days in a foreign country with someone you think is fantastic based on ~20 hours of previous interaction!

Reasons To Do This:

• You get to see a foreign country and do foreign stuff. Novelty, Adventure! That should be enough on it’s own!

• Travelling to/from anywhere by plane is ridiculously cheap. The real cost of travel is lodging and transportation in the foreign country. Staying with your date reduces these costs drastically.

• You get to learn a hell of a lot about your date in a super short time period.

• You get to learn several things about yourself in a super short time period.

Best Practices

• Come with hopes, but no expectations. Literally anything could happen, and you should be OK with that before you even book the plane tickets.

• Have some idea of what you’ll do if you don’t click. Be open and flexible.

• Be gracious, you’re being hosted, that’s not burden-free!

• Don’t forget you can always lean on your nascent god. As long as you have signal and battery, you always have options.

• Stay unplugged. Your nascent god is in your pocket in case you need divine help, and to take pictures. Stay away from the glass otherwise.

Next two days I’ll tackle the trip itself and discoveries along the way. But today, thoughts about using a 10-day escape to foreign countries as a high-variance second date.

So how’d it go for me?

If this had been a traditional second date, I think it would be deemed a failure. We figured out quickly that there are deep, intractable differences between us that make us incompatible. Things that are mutually anti-attractive, and put a quick kibosh on a physical relationship. If I had been on a regular date it would’ve been our last, and I think that counts as a failed date?

But since there was more than a week to go before my return flight, I got to learn a whole lot about myself instead, and that was super helpful! I count this as successful, as self-knowledge was the primary goal.

Learned Thing 1, Emotions Matter?

First - I definitely have a strong emotional component to my physical attraction. I know this is something that isn’t supposed to be news, and I’ve suspected it for quite a while. But it’s something that’s supposed to not be true for guys, and admitting to it makes one seem less masculinely-virile or whatever. I was/am loathe to admit it. Still, seeing myself very quickly switch off with “Wow, my sexual interest flipped from one extreme to the other in the span of a couple conversations! Despite the physical stuff being unchanged” was really humbling. Still kinda embarrassing to say. But part of self-discovery is acceptance, and part of acceptance is being able to say the damn thing out loud.

Related - why are hot people you don’t know still so damn attractive? Probably cuz you subconsciously fill in their personality with whatever is most attractive to you. It’s no wonder everyone is so much more attractive if you are eternally optimistic and excited about people, and everyone seems ugly if you’re a nihilistic doomy-head.

Learned Thing 2, Friendship is Magic

Second realization - It’s easy to still be kind and gracious to people you have frequent strong disagreements with, especially if you are forced to interact with them in direct physical reality. Even while still staying honest about yourself/your beliefs! Most people aren’t like your control-obsessive parent, or your actually-schizophrenic sibling, or your abusive ex. I think this comes directly from not having expectations. When you don’t strongly want/need anything from someone, and you aren’t trying to force anyone to conform to something you want or need. When this is mutual, one can stay friends with a MUCH wider variety of people.

Learned Thing 3, We Totally Rock

Third realization - Rationalists really are The Best. It’s hard to find that combination of openness, idea-seriousness, and epistemic sanity out in the wild. Having a lot of shared culture also reduces important inferential distances. Any relationship with a non-rationalist is going to have significantly more hurdles just due to the basic groundwork you need to do to even share certain opinions. (Like death is bad.) Simply being a rationalist is now +30% sexiness in my eyes.

This was actually very surprising! I half-expected all the other ones on this list.

Learned Thing 4, Touch Is Actually Super Duper Big

I first discovered this during my time in England, but it was really reinforced here. Touch is super important to me, and vital to my emotional well-being. I value a relationship without sexuality but with non-sexual touch/cuddle significantly more than I value a relationship that has sex but where touch is otherwise not done. Even sitting so shoulders/arms are touching in adjacent seats is a boon! (Discovered when, on the flight home, spent more than half the time with arm-contact with the lady in the seat next to me. After most of 10 days without physical touch, it was like water in the desert).

A holding of hands, a touching of the upper arm, a sitting side-by-side can do wonders for connection and happiness. This, more than anything else, is what makes me want to live in the Bay Area. Despite all the Bay’s flaws apparently cuddling with people you aren't sexual partners with is normal there, and it's the most healing thing I've ever experienced.

Learned Thing 5, Inner Peace is Sexy

Final realization - Inner Peace is observable and attractive.