For most of my life, I have avoided dating and relationships. In high school, this was a consequence of my inability to play the necessary games. (Although, I attributed it to hopeless romanticism, the justification of choice for most awkward teenagers.) In college, I learned to play the games — very well. However, I continued to not date. The adage, “why buy the cow if the milk is for free” applied. I enjoyed college.
Towards the end of college, I started to think differently. I wanted to form relationships of the non-casual variety. Many people I know date merely to be in a relationship. They are not necessarily wild about their partner, they just prefer not to be alone. This doesn’t interest me. In my case, I would date only if I found someone great. I think (very) highly of myself; I would have to think highly of the girl I would date as well. And that is just the beginning of the criteria. Physical attraction and emotional compatibility are not minor issues. Such girls are rare, but they have graced my path before.
As mentioned previously on my blog, I had a rare type of cancer for which there is still no cure. I was treated surgically to remove the macro-tumor, but microscopic remnants undoubtedly remain and, after enough doubling, it will reassert a claim on my health. Things are not likely to end well. Given this, I arrived at my dating conundrum. If I was to find a girl that I respected; a girl that I was attracted to; a girl whose company I enjoyed; a girl that I wanted to invest my time and emotions in…what happens when I get sick again? I initiated steps to nullify the Chordoma threat, and others subsequently (greatly) exceeded my efforts, but as of right now, I think the probability of tragedy exceeds that of happily ever after. This introduces my paradox, my Catch-22. The purpose of dating such a girl as the one sketched above is to allow myself to be swept along the currents, hoping to arrive at a place of deep love. (I wasn’t trying to be poetic; the preceding statement was as precise a summary on the progression of relationships as I could give.) If this point came — if I grew to love her deeply — I would want to protect her from harm and suffering. However, given Chordoma, her suffering would likely be a result of my sickness and death. Her suffering would be deeply emotional. Furthermore, as it is in a woman’s best interest to find a man in her youth — for obvious reasons — it would continue to weigh on her for a long time. Ergo, the best way to protect my as of yet unidentified and pursued love, is to never pursue her.
I realized this years ago but it is growing more difficult to maintain my restraint. For one, it’s easy to not pursue women romantically when you are young, dumb, and…in college. I might have justified my Dorian Gray phase as a consequence of this realization, but truthfully it wasn’t. I was enjoying myself in the way that a geek turned college man-whore would. Now, however, I am less interested in the simple pleasures (in isolation, at least.) Over the past year or so, I’ve started dating a few women, only to realize I was being selfish. I think I wanted the intimacy of a relationship, without the woman’s investment. This was stupid because it’s not a possibility.
To a small degree, I’m writing this hoping that someone will point out an obvious flaw. I’ve thought of some, but they are weak. I assume people smarter than myself have offered similar arguments; I’d like to read them. However, for the most part, I wrote it to solidify my resolve and understanding. That’s why I write most of my blog posts and accounts for my readership of about six people.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to do what I consider the rational course of action: try to fund a cure.
P.S. I have previously discussed my dating catch-22 with other people who had/have Chordoma; it was not pleasant. Most are deeply offended so I no longer bring it up with them. If someone from that world happens to read this post and is offended or saddened, I’m sorry. It’s not my intention.
The adage, “why by the cow if the milk is for free”
That should read “why buy the cow if the milk is for free”
Thanks, pystar.
You are absolutely right in thinking that you don’t want a woman to fall in love with you, only to bear increased agony as she deals with the terrible events involved in your (possible) decline and death.
Your case is a perfect example of the need for absolute honesty, in all aspects of life. As long as you make your romantic partner *fully* aware of what you know, as soon as you know it, your actions are both moral and practical, and you will benefit from them. If no one will date you under these circumstances, remember that any other action would be both immoral and impractical – you wouldn’t be happy, and your potential girlfriend wouldn’t be happy either.
For a more thorough exposition of these ideas, I recommend that you read Tara Smith’s book, “Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics”.
You sound like you haven’t given up hope for life, and that you have a good implicit morality (definitions of “selfish” aside). I hope that you stay well and live as long as you can.
Max: Thanks for the response. My one problem with absolute honesty is that, I think when it comes to romantic interest, it rarely is associated with being fully aware. Love and passion can make us do really stupid things.
However, you are correct: I have far from given up hope, nor am I unhappy. I’d be happier otherwise, but whether it be from being at ease with my situation, or in denial of it, (or both,) I’m doing pretty well.
You’re neglecting the other end of the equation here, my friend.
You are a unique person. Obviously you hold yourself in high self-esteem, congratulations, that’s never a bad thing (in moderation). And you’re looking for someone that you can value in the same way you value yourself.
Well, someone out there, somewhere, is doing the same. They’re looking for a person who’s also emotionally and intellectually compatible, someone who cares and with whom they click.
It’s not a one-way mirror: this magical girl that you find, show her to me and I’ll snub my nose at her. That’s the beauty of how this thing works. If you believe in a God, then you marvel at his wisdom in such matters. Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder – and it works both ways.
True love doesn’t come from you admiring and respecting a particular person, it comes from her feeling the same way towards you also.
So out there somewhere is a girl that is looking for a guy just like you. And you’re looking for a girl exactly like her. Obviously there are X number of people that will fulfill this mutual compatibility, but you’re on of the X people.
Don’t you think it’s actually selfish of you not to give this 1/x people out there, that you get lucky enough to meet and realize is a perfect match for you, a chance to find her 1/x person? Sure, there is going to be pain and suffering involved, but there will also be happiness and virtue.
Fortunately, there’s an easy way for you to adress this issue. Switch roles. You seem like a plenty intelligent person, so you should be able to arrive at an honest answer by just reversing the positions around.
If you met a wonderful young woman who was just a perfect match for everything, except she had a cancer that will probably end her life in a number of years? Mind you, we’re not talking about tomorrow, but in 5, 10, 20, 30 years. And you realized she really was 1/x that are perfect matches…… would you prefer she just didn’t bother because she knew her days were numbered, or would you rather have a say in the matter?
Again, if you have a God, think of destiny. We’re allllll going to die. Perhaps you’re lucky that you know how and (more or less) when. I could get married tomorrow, and die the very next day. It’s certainly possible. In fact, given how many people die from non-Cancer related causes, you should be more worried about dying in a car crash after 2 years rather than in 20 from cancer. I’d consider that a more pleasant scenario!
Don’t use your sickness as an excuse, you’re missing out on the big picture. The woman deserves a say, when she comes along, as do you. And cancer isn’t the end of the world, it’s just a possible ending.
I wish you the best.
“I’m making myself suffer and justifying it by imagining it’s saving someone else from suffering”. Except it’s not even doing that – if someone is going to be happy to be with you, you are actively making them unhappy right now by keeping yourself away.
Why don’t you pursue her, then make her life happier for being with you than it will be unhappy for losing you, leaving a net gain?
Why do you claim you think very highly of yourself and would have very high standards for someone else, but then drop everything because of an imaginary future about which you imagine they couldn’t cope?
“Better to have loved and lost” is one flaw in your reasoning.
“I have decided that I can’t have what I want and that makes me unhappy and now I’m trying to justify being unhappy by framing it as nobility” is a deeper flaw in your thinking.
Here’s the flaw.
1. Life is a 100% fatal disease as of now.
2. Most women, if not all, understand #1 and are willing to work with the uncertainty of life.
3. Odds are that the relationship will not last as long as your life. Why, then, do you look to sabotage it before it starts? You’re effectively internalizing self-hatred.
The proper course of action is to have full disclosure after 3-4 dates, and lay it out. Let them make the decision if they want to continue. It’s not like your expected timeframe is six months here.
The only ethical responsibility you have is disclosure.
This my first time reading your blog (you’re frontpaged on HN right now), but I think that you are placing more burden on yourself than necessary.
Most people have some combination of genetic predispositions (heart disease, cancer, etc) and self-damaging behavior (smokers, fat people, drinkers). I hear few reports of these people being concerned about the outcome of their potential deaths to their mates.
Your risk is apparently much higher, but at what point does the scale tip? Would you consider it unethical to smoke cigarettes if pursuing a mate?
I think the only logical course is to transfer the evaluation of risk to your potential partner. I believe this is what most people do implicitly.
just be honest with the girl about your situation.
personally, I’d pick a girl who’s a perfect match (one out of the set of X girls who’d be a perfect match) with cancer over a relationship with someone just to be in a relationship.
A lot of girls would pick a few years of amazing with a guy they really loved over a lifetime with someone they settled for.
If you run into a few of your perfect girls and all of them say no because of the cancer thing then you have a problem. Right now you don’t.
Level the playing field, date someone who is sick too.
I’m sorry for not responding to every comment. I want to think about some of the posts more before replying.
Regarding the reversal of roles, I don’t think this is true. Although I am very selective, I think their are probably many women who could be ideal for me. The converse is true also. Therefore, while many people say that the net of being in love and dealing with tragedy is still positive, they forget that the alternative is probably being in love and more likely not dealing with such an impending tragedy.
The cigarette argument is interesting. However, it’s not analogous. Smoking cigarettes increases the probability of getting lung cancer far into the future. My situation is that of a 26 year old man getting cancer in the near future.
Mara:
When I mentioned this to a particularly entrepreneurial friend a while back, that was his first instinct. However, I think it just exacerbates problems. For one, it severely restricts the pool of people so that the probability of finding someone I genuinely am interested in is far less likely. Secondly, for me part of this whole paradigm is having a family — kids. (I’m 26, btw.) Having two parents who got disease at a young age is not great for a variety of reasons.
If the Chordoma Foundation or someone else could yield a breakthrough in treatment — a real possibility — my whole situation changes. For me, possibly more than for most people, this makes my argument stronger. They’ve been in operation for three years and already a lot has been learned. (More than in the past 20 years!) Consequently, I think the equation reduces to me getting to the bad point in sickness within three-to-five years, or them getting successful before then.
(Ignoring the very high probability of recurrence, I am perfectly healthy and have been since my surgery five years ago. Considering the median time to recurrence is 9-12 months and median survival time is 6 years, I am in a favorable and lucky bracket.)
(P.S. This was taken verbatim from a comment I wrote on HN.)
You’re overthinking it.
Better to have loved and lost than never having loved at all.
Compared to your other little problem, your love life barely registers. In fact to tell you the truth, I’m a little pissed*, so I may not have read your carefully composed post very thoroughly.
Dude, you have cancer. I can barely imagine what that’s like. I respect you enormously for facing up to it and trying to actually solve the problem. Keep on doing that! As for the other stuff, the loneliness, the fear of your problem becoming ‘her’ problem: please, put it in perspective. Mostly the connections people make are transient and shallow. Just to make a real connection is a special event in any person’s life. Don’t deny yourself or *anybody else* the opportunity to do so because of your fear of the consequences. You’re a Less Wrong reader, you *know* what’s going to happen sooner or later – heat death – so
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
For everyone, not just you. For you, for me, for the girl in the supermarket, for your girlfriend. All your cancer should do for you is impress that constant upon you.
*Drunk.
“That’s just life” seems to be the best counter-argument. It seems like one that comes with maturity. It’s the one that makes me doubt myself the most.
She would rather have a little time with you than none.
It really sucks that you aren’t immortal and will never die, like the rest of us. I can’t imagine what a burden it is for you knowing that someday you will get sick and die. I feel for you, man, but I really don’t know of anything we could say that would help you, it’s just such an alien concept for all of us. Well, good luck to you, and keep us posted on how things go.
Instead of trying to find the perfect person it’d do you well to try and be the perfect person for someone else. Also, those who have been in healthy relationships often find starting a new relationship (after their partner dies) is relatively easy. In other words, I’d try dating and getting to know people with the idea in mind that you’ll be good partner for them while you can be. Changing your mindset often seems to trigger changes in what happens in your life and doing this exact thing seemed to help me meet my wife.
Good luck!
What Mahmoud said. You are depriving her of making the choice for herself, given all the information. You’re making the prejudgment that the benefits of being in love you are outweighed by the drawbacks of being in love with you, and this is not entirely your decision to make. There’s your fatal flaw right there.
Additionally, you are applying what seems like pretty stringent logic to a situation (being in love) that has a noted reputation for defying such logic. You are making this decision about a hypothetical partner, and this allows you to all-too-easily disregard the very heady and consuming nature of the emotions you would be feeling if you were speaking of someone real.
Consider that love will not only bring more happiness to you and her than you’ve considered, consider also that it may change you in ways that affect the world beyond just you and your partner. There is no love without loss; there is no attachment without suffering. This is ancient wisdom, yet we humans continue to love, continue to attach; perhaps it is our very purpose to do so.
If the woman will be as amazing as you expect, shouldn’t you have enough respect for her to let her make the choice about whether or not your condition is a deal breaker?
I think you are being presumptuous in deciding for the girl whether or not the value she would get from a relationship with you is worth the risk. As long as you are honest with her, then you have to respect her judgment on the matter.
Speaking as a survivor of a wonderful but sadly short relationship with a man who died too young of cancer, I have no regrets. By taking yourself off the market, not only are you depriving yourself and your potential partner from one of the most beautiful parts of life, you’re limiting your partner from growing in compassion, depth and love.
I was part of a support group, and the question came up of would we make the same choice to repeat the experience, and it was a unanimous and resounding ‘YES!’.
Women are wired differently from men and our love-logic doesn’t run like yours. By giving us the opportunity to show love in caring, nurturing ways, you give us a profound gift.
The support group was a mix if high achievers and low achievers, rich and poor. The only thing everyone had in common is that they were committed to not-bailing.
You don’t know what you’re capable of or who you truly are until you allow yourself to be in love. The world doesn’t have enough love in it. Do yourself and the world a favor and put yourself back on the market.
If you relapse, please remember that this person loves you and be careful where you direct your anger. Primary caregivers take a lot of anger from the dying person and that was the hardest thing to take. This was the most common problem in my support group – misdirected anger.
If you can learn to manage that, your ending can be a beautiful experience for both of you, faced with courage and grace.
Also, I’d recommend getting hospice care while you’re still at home so you spread the load, so to speak. Save up for extra help if you can.
Give us the respect to make our own decisions. You’re not protecting us from anything. Anyone we’re with could be hit by a car tomorrow. It’s always a crap shoot.
Now, go fall in love!
Also, the latex nurse’s uniform was really fun!
Couples who ponder having children are often fearful. They fear being bad parents, and even if they love their children completely, they fear not being able to provide for them.
They are afraid their children will be born with defects that they, as parents, will lack the emotional strength to cope.
They fear that their children will grow up to be sociopaths in spite of the parent’s best efforts. They secretly fear that their offspring will be the next Hitler.
In some ways their fears echo your own. You cannot know the future. You cannot know how any relationship you undertake will play out and another person who has come to love you and depend on you will be hurt; heartbroken.
And when those couples voice their fears, admit them out loud, they often want to put off having children “until they are able” to: provide emotionally, financially, socially, etc.
When they explain their concerns to their parents or to friends who have children the advice is almost universally the same: You can never be ready. There are no guarantees in life. If you wait until you are ready, then you will never be ready.
From reading your post, it seems to me that you have a tendency to “live in your head”. Believe me, I understand. It is an orderly place, knowable and safe. Emotional entanglements are knotty and messy and have the potential to be so incredibly painful.
I am acquainted with people who have knowingly entered into relationships, marriages even, where the partner had cancer or some other incurable illness. In one case, the husband died within months of marriage. But the woman has no regrets. Not one.
Was it painful? Yes. Losing someone you love is searingly painful. But birth is also painful. In each case, one an inverse from the other, the joy (and heartache and utter frustration) of complete intimacy with another soul, that knowing without having to say, that complete understanding, the encapsulated cocoon of two, is worth the risks. To feel the peace of complete trust, I wish that for you. I wish that for anyone who desires it.
You have to trust. Yourself, your body, life. It truly is about trust. Because nobody, not one of us, gets absolute certainty, trust is all that remains.
If I met a girl I loved and she was going to die, I would still date/marry her. 100% of humans are going to die.
You could be hit by a bus tomorrow. Or she could. Why would that stop you from loving each other now?
Listen motherfucker, you are here now and you have qualities and gifts you need to give to the world and to this girl. Do not deny them your gift.
When I was 22 I got cancer. I spent a year in and out of hospitals and it was a very low point for me. Girls that I knew were avoiding me and it was obvious it was because of the cancer.This added a lot to my depression.
Then I met this wonderful girl who wouldn’t want to hear about my cancer. She thought that the fact that I could die soon had nothing to do with her feelings about me. 3 years later we got married, and 17 years later we have 2 beautiful daughters a good life and cancer seems history.
You are theorizing too much, while what you need to do is go out and find the girl that loves you. It will improve your life immensely.
Don’t reveal anything negative about yourself if you can avoid it. The advice to be “completely honest” up front is self-defeating because it gives someone ammunition against you before either of you are in a relationship. Wait until you’re in a relationship–you won’t know that until about nine dates or so. It’s not as if you have HIV, AIDS, where you might expose someone else to a contagious life-threatening disease. And it’s not as if you have herpes either.
What if your girlfriend has a family history of estrogen sensitive cancer, and she doesn’t tell you about it? My girlfriend never told me until after she was diagnosed, and I stayed with her anyway. It is true that you know about your condition, but it’s in remission. I wouldn’t reveal my medical history to relative strangers.
I don’t believe in unrequited love. From my perspective the person you are trying to protect doesn’t exist, by definition.
I respect that you’re confronting these ethical issues and applaud your candor. But to deny someone else love because you might die is selfish.
Had to think about this one for a bit.
So I’ve been HIV+ for around a decade now. I found out when I was 24. It’s a real mess for dating, because if you date someone who’s HIV-, not only do you have to worry about infecting them, but they constantly worry that your head cold will be fatal (it won’t, yet). And if you date someone who’s HIV+, you’ll always have a nagging concern that they might be worse off than you, and who knows what happens then.
What you’re going through is, from what I can tell from talking to lots of other people, typical of the concerns that people who have a potentially-fatal disease go through when dealing with relationships. The other thing I’ve noticed is that the automatic response from folks who don’t have such a problem is a simple, “Live for today,” response. So there’s kind of a built-in reaction from both sides which should be a warning to anyone that it isn’t a very well-considered line of thinking.
I can’t tell you what the answer is. What I can tell you is that for me, I ended up being the most comfortable with someone who is also infected. Obviously for your condition, you’re unlikely to find someone who has the exact same thing (nor does it matter as much, because it’s not infectious), but I bet you can find someone who understands. I got married in 2008. My husband has full-blown AIDS, and he had a couple brushes with death before we met. Since we’ve been together, I’ve had one myself.
I wouldn’t say either of us have suffered a great deal as the result of the other’s problems. Mostly we find comfort in the shared determination to work through whatever comes our way. That’s not to say that it wouldn’t be a tragedy for either of us if the other passed away, but we’ve already reconciled ourselves with what the final outcomes of our lives are likely to be.
Anyway, the upshot of that is that I guarantee there are plenty of people in the world who are willing and capable of living with what you’re going through, and odds are good that you won’t be inflicting any unusual suffering upon them that they weren’t already prepared to face without you.
I certainly wish you well.
i have good news for ya: love is coming, it’s right around the corner in your life. can you mess it up or make it hard for yourself? absolutely. can you ultimately escape it? no chance.
the reason i’m so sure about that is that the actions (and through that, the entire life) of each and every people are governed mainly by their fears and deep emotional desires. it’s true for everyone, regardless of IQ, education or social status. and you my friend crave for love and fear love very badly.
what makes the difference between people who “seem to get it right” and those who have difficulty doing almost anything is the illusion that our life is governed by our decisions based on well built theories. people who are “living it” spend much less time and energy with the utterly useless thoughts of “what would happen if”. i know it’s the most useful thought when writing computer code. it’s just not good for anything else.
the biggest reason your love life is nonexistent is not cancer: it is the fact that you construct and maintain a complex theory about it that so far inhibited (or slowed down) any instinctive action you might take. and love is about instinct, since cheetahs are not known to procrastrinate while mating on the savannah. it has to be done, and will be done, just like hunting prey.
the best thing you have done so far was to post this on your blog. your desire to live won, and your logic of fear lost: you shared something real with other people. the best thing you can (and ultimately will) do is to stop thinking about (and thus, fearing) love anymore. it is coming for sure, the sooner the less ways you try to find around it.
and while you are waiting, read the first chapter of “the power of now” by eckhart tolle. it will inspire you to take steps in the direction of a happier life.
Isn’t our most basic emotional need to be loved and be loved? Have you really truly lived until you’ve allowed yourself to be in love? And, when you are in love, don’t you realize things about yourself that you never know – things you thought you weren’t capable of, things you thought you could never do on your own?
The type of woman you’re looking for is out there, and this will be a non-issue for her. She will understand that what you have together is more valuable than what you have not have together.
As painful as it when relationships end no, matter what the reason, I think that if you can look back on it with no regrets and say that it was better to have loved and lost than no have not taken the risk, not been vulnerable, not allowed yourself to be loved …. then it’s worth it.
Turn it around the other way – if you were in perfect health and you met the perfect girl (by the way you can’t have Natalie Portman – she’s mine) … and you knew she had cancer and was likely to die in a few years – would that stop you wanting to form a relationship?
Maybe it might – i know it wouldn’t stop me.
Go listen to Dido’s ‘See the Sun’ – there is a line in that song that pretty much sums up my post and your situation.
I was ~terminal (but not ill) for about 15 years. I’ve outlived early prognoses by 12 years and counting and I guess I’m in a kind of uncertain remission.
For exactly the reasons you describe, I avoided dating. I figured that if I was to meet someone I really cared for, the last thing I’d want for them is to experience that kind of loss. An earlier poster described it as ‘noble’ and it might seem that way, but it’s really way more pragmatic than that: Why let this thing ruin two lives?
But still. 19 years later and I’m still here.
A long time ago I abruptly lost someone I’d been getting to know for about six months. It’s had a profound effect on me for sure, but modulo the year or so immediately following his death it hasn’t made me less happy. If anything, these experiences have left me able to be happy more simply.
Even the foreshortened horizon is kind of a gift. Planning only 6 months ahead turns out to be a great way to live your life.
So I wouldn’t hesitate to date someone with a prognosis like yours. You might worry that your death will ruin some pretty girl’s whole life, but it won’t. It’ll be intense, but she’ll live through it and be happy again without you. That’s how we humans are.
There’s also that having someone to leave behind makes it harder to let go of this life.
I regret not dating, and yet I’m very happy as I am. I don’t know how else my life might have been and I can’t say for sure that I chose the wrong path, because I only get to walk down one.
Whatever you choose, I hope you make it work.
You all are a great group of compassionate, and pretty much amazing group of kids
Tx, Very nice to see!