How to approach relationships?

[Rev. Rye]

Well, Sterben asked a similar question a couple months ago, and here's what I posted then:

Well, I don't know about normal, but you're not alone. Partly due to a triple threat of A) an autism spectrum disorder, B) horrific experiences in childhood making me more anti-social than the average bear, and C) a foot fetish, I have yet to have a proper relationship. The closest I've come to one is seemingly hitting it off with a girl who actually seemed to be okay with my foot fetish (the fact that she walked barefoot everywhere until the Chicago weather became less amenable to that may have had something to do with it), and, once she figured out I wanted to be her boyfriend, said two words that guaranteed I could never be hers.

Then again, even if she was straight, I can't be sure the process of actually being in a relationship would be good. Have you seen The Phantom Thread? Apart from being yet another masterpiece from Paul Thomas Anderson with yet another masterful performance from Daniel Day-Lewis, it struck a chord with me because of the way Reynolds and Alma's relationship developed: At first, they're happy together, then he falls back into his solitary ways and he starts to view her as something of an intrusion on his life.





Then, Alma hits upon a plan: mushroom poisoning. She does not kill him, however. The mushroom she picked is poisonous, but not deadly. It will cause cramping, vomiting, and diarrhea, but he will survive, and in the meantime, Alma will nurse him back to health. When he's well, he proposes to her, and eventually he comes back full circle to the point where she has to use the mushroom again. This time, she tells him exactly what she's been doing, and what she expects to happen. He happily goes along with it.

And I suspect that if the girl I knew was straight and ended up in a relationship, the biggest difference would be that she probably might not have had the bright idea of mushroom poisoning.

Well, here's a famous parable from Arthur Schopenhauer, one of my favourite philosophers, putting this problem into perspective:





Fans of Evangelion will likely remember this little parable from Episode 4, entitled "The Hedgehog's Dilemma." I wanted to find the clip where Ritsuko tells Misato about it while trying to explain Shinji's introversion (which actually happened in the previous episode "A Transfer,") but I can't find it on Youtube. I can find the second half of the episode (which doesn't include the scene), but not the scene itself.