Games Mormon women play: the "Suzanne" example

[_emilysmith]

Very amusing read. Fraught with generalizations, but a good lesson to be taken away in that people act according to their own expectations of themselves. When you surround yourself with different people, your own expectations shift and you behave differently. To avoid "games" you simply need to be honest with yourself and your partner about your expectations and make sure there is some reciprocity in that process.

I could post unnecessarily long anecdotal examples of the games men play, but their motivation tends to be a great deal more simple. Men (and boys) want sex. Maybe you have heard the old saying, "Men give love for sex and women give sex for love." Another generalization, but don't think that there isn't a lesson in it.

The main problem you have is that people's true motivations are hidden to themselves. In general, people act how they feel and don't have any idea how to control how they feel about most things. Our perceptions and expectations of relationships are shaped in innumerable ways that we have no control over.

Monogamy is relatively new to humans. Typically, the exciting kind of love people experience only lasts a few years... long enough to produce offspring and ensure its survival for a couple of years. After this stage, love evolves into a different, less lustful phase.

In civilizations passed, orgies, homosexuality and even pedophilia has been widespread and accepted. Ancient Egypt has depictions of such activities that are thousands of years old. Males produce sperm that exist solely for the purpose of attacking the sperm of other men. I can only imagine how long it took such a mechanism to evolve. I think it says a lot about the nature of the sexual practices of our ancestors.

It is an understatement to say that cheating in modern society is widespread. Nearly everyone who can cheat does cheat, at some point.

If you are consistently having a problem in relationships, then perhaps you should consider that trying to fit a relationship into some idealized cultural construct can create unnecessary problems. This generation is the first in human history where women truly don't need to be attached to a man. Salaries are becoming more equal and treatment by the law and society has become more equal. The power to be promiscuous without consequences has also become more equal.

As to women wanting to find a man with money, I don't know what to tell you. It costs a middle class family upwards of a million dollars in America to raise a child to adulthood. Men want a Playboy model who always want to have sex. Women want stability. If women can provide their own stability, perhaps their tastes would change a bit, but they certainly don't want a leech.

To somewhat echo the end of the OP... Sure, there may be plenty of people out there whose notions are skewed by expectations dictated by religion, but it is a silly point of view in many ways because no amount of faith or religion has been able to turn the tide against human nature. The games a Mormon plays are no different than the games of atheists.

[_sock puppet]

Sure, there may be plenty of people out there whose notions are skewed by expectations dictated by religion, but it is a silly point of view in many ways because no amount of faith or religion has been able to turn the tide against human nature. The games a Mormon plays are no different than the games of atheists.

Good to see you posting again, ms emily.

I think the last sentence of your post may just be the most damning indictment of Mormonism and its abject failure. Despite all its efforts and expenditures, despite all its god-fear mongering etc, in the end its members act no differently than, but simply play the same games as do non-believing humans.