Unromantic Atheism?

[Exian]

Measure Your score
Relationship Avoidance: 57.5
Relationship Anxiety: 78.5
Attachment style:


Based upon your answers, it appears that your anxiety about losing relationships is greater than your tendency to avoid them defensively. This is not necessarily or even likely to be a problem. But if you are having difficulties, they are most likely to be in these areas:
Your partner may complain that you are too possessive or clingy
Relationships may feel frightening
Relationships may consume a large amount of emotional energy for both you and your partner. This amounts to time spent maintaining the relationship rather than growing the relationship
You may be overly preoccupied with your relationship
Any distress this behavior may cause you depends on how much you find yourself worrying about your attachment versus how much you try not to get overly involved. Keep in mind that some amount of anxiety about your relationship is healthy. For instance, it's probably good to be nervous if your partner stays out very late most nights.

There is also a self-balancing system involved in any relationship. The person who avoids the risks of intimacy, for instance, may be able to learn about the joys of intimacy from the anxious person who worries about losing the relationship. Similarly the anxious person may benefit from appreciating the avoidant person's naturally well-developed sense of autonomy.

Your romantic attachment style: Cool and Dismissive

You have suggested that you have a dismissing style toward attachments, that they are really not too important to you. It is likely that you get along in your relationships, but don't invest yourself very much in them. You are also likely not to experience a great deal of distress in life and you probably don't experience feelings that are extremely intense, compared to people around you. Compared to them, you probably are not as excitable and tend not to get worked up over things.

This is a perfectly fine way to be and it probably keeps you on a very even keel. However, someday you may find that you are starting to feel lonely and that you would like to have closer relationships. If this should happen, but you find that you are unable to achieve the closeness you want, you may want to engage the services of a professional psychotherapist. This is the kind of life change that a professional can really help with.

Remember that attachment styles exist in degrees, and in this test, the degree to which a style is true for you will make a difference in your interpretation. Everyone has to have some style or another, and the features of any one style only become maladaptive when they exist in the extreme.

This is what I got. I didn't even read all of it. I got to the "too clingy" part and stopped reading. The thing I need is a shit ton of time to recharge my batteries. It's a lot of mental work caring about every little thing said to me.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yeah, the whole worrying thing is a drag. I s'pose I am a happy-go-lucky sort, but there are certainly times when I'm low, or prickly, and every woman I've been with has told me I can be a right asshole when I'm in one of those moods.

[TheRealJoeFish]

Lolz:

---

Relationship Avoidance: 75.5
Relationship Anxiety: 87.5

Attachment Style: Fearful and Shy

---

[Simon Moon]

You dismiss the notion of soulmates as a flight of fancy, for obvious reasons. You also believe that emotion and sentiment have a tendency to hamper proper decision-making. 

Why? Because you're a skeptic and choose to employ a realistic approach to life, as to one entrenched in idealistic thinking. It wouldn't take much of a stretch for someone to assume that you don't put much stock in the expression of softer emotions, though they could very well be wrong. 

Are are you still open to feeling and demonstrating romantic love, in spite of your inclinations?

Just because most atheists value logic, reason and rationality when it concerns existential claims, does not mean we avoid emotions such as romantic love and feeling in other aspects of out lives.

Emotions are non-rational, not irrational.

[thesummerqueen]

It goes without saying that most people are capable love. And I'm certainly capable of romantic gestures. But I'm not comfortable with the thought of having romantic feelings or sentiment. I simply don't have the faith required to believe that love can fix everything. Or even most things.

I was aware of that before I was an atheist, though.

Define romance.

Is it Romeo and Juliet? Because that was a couple of shitty teenagers acting like brats.

I always think of romance as making someone feel happy and special - the center of your attention for a time. And none of that requires you to have faith or anything that contradicts with atheism or fall prey to the idea that it will solve anything.

People get mixed up when they talk about love and romance because they don't like to talk about the work required to maintain relationships of any sort - much of which requires letting go of your pride and humbling yourself as well as the complex nitty-gritty of negotiating and compromising.

The most romantic things done for me lately were: 1) the way I was treated during sex, where he was very slow and careful about removing my stockings and 2) when he was listening to me go on about something and actually listened and responded appropriately.

They weren't romantic because of anything having to do with beliefs. They were romantic because in the first, he had taken the time to notice my outfit and the fragility of parts of it, so he was respectful of my belongings and person (plus slow=anticipation) and 2) because the way he responded expressed appreciation for my personality and insight. It feels good to know that someone thinks that you - the real you, not some ideal they hold of you in their head which will inevitably be destroyed - is just neat to be around.

Anyone practicing romance on their partners isn't doing it because of religion. They're doing it because they want to make that person feel as special as they find them in that moment. If anything atheism could be considered more romantic than religion, because you don't believe that some deity brought you together. You can marvel at the chances of you two meeting each other out of the what, 7 billion people? on this planet and appreciate the work you two have done to come to whatever point you're at - overcoming insecurities, taking time out of each other's day to be together, the effort put into doing things with that particular person in mind, etc. None of that influenced by another power.

[Whateverist]

I hadn't realized there was a little write up that comes along with the numbers. Here is mine.

---

Measure Your score
Relationship Avoidance: 65
Relationship Anxiety: 77
Attachment style: Secure and Happy
I'm secure and happy in my relationships

Based upon your answers, it appears that your anxiety about losing relationships is greater than your tendency to avoid them defensively. Given the degree of the difference, this is not likely to be a problem. But if you are having difficulties, they are most likely to be in these areas:
Your partner may occasionally complain that you are sometimes possessive or clingy
Relationships may sometimes feel frightening
You may find yourself thinking about the relationship more often than your partner
Keep in mind that some amount of anxiety about your relationship is healthy. For instance, it's probably good to be nervous if your partner stays out very late most nights.

There is also a self-balancing system involved in any relationship. The person who avoids the risks of intimacy, for instance, may be able to learn about the joys of intimacy from the anxious person who worries about losing the relationship. Similarly the anxious person may benefit from appreciating the avoidant person's naturally well-developed sense of autonomy.

Your romantic attachment style: Secure and Happy

You have described yourself as securely attached. This means that you are likely to have happier relationships and be better able to sustain commitments than people who have an insecure attachment style.

You are likely to have more positive emotional experiences and to be more happy and outgoing in interpersonal relationships. You will be more likely to express what you really feel. You are more likely to be able to depend on others when it is appropriate, and yet able to function autonomously in your own sphere when that is appropriate. You are also more likely to raise children who themselves will have a secure attachment style.

---

[thesummerqueen]

And as far as the nitty gritty goes, at the time it happens it sucks but looking back on it can even be romantic as you think about how the two of you fought to remain together (if you do) through adversity. Romance is a narrative, not a problem-solver.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Love is never easy. I don't agree with those who say that true love is effortless, that if you have to work at a relationship then it's not "the One".

I think that any relationship, of any nature, requires some work, and I also think that the deeper the emotions, the more work required.

[Kingpin]

Love is more complex than we think.  It is more precious than we think.  It is more amazing than we think and maybe that is why it is becoming more increasingly rare.  One of the most famous love stories in American literature is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. This is a love story between a man called Mr. Darcy and a woman called Elizabeth.  Darcy falls in love with Elizabeth and he doesn’t realize it.  It is set back in the times when gentlemen were required, or at least expected, to be gentlemen.  At one point he walks in to a room and finds himself alone with this woman.  Protocol demands that he leave, he cannot be alone unsupervised with another woman in the same room.  So he turns and he gets half-way out the door and as he’s half-way out the door, he stops. He turns around and reenters the room and he says, “It will not do.  My feelings cannot be repressed.  You must allow me to tell you how much I ardently admire and love you.”  Gentlemen, listen carefully, that line is a winner.  Having made this declaration of love, he goes on to explain that he loves her even though it goes against his will, his reason and against his own better character.  She rejects that declaration of love and refuses it.  Because he is a man, he cannot understand why so he asks for explanation.  She looks at him and says, “You told me that you loved me even though it went against your will, your reason and against your own better character.”  In other words she is saying, “You told me you loved me even though it went against all better judgment”.  True love does not exist in the absence of judgment, true love only exists in the presence of it.  The words “I love you” are meaningful to you only if the person who speaks them truly knows you.

I can promise you right now, if no one knows the real you in all your weaknesses, shortcomings, failings or the darker side of your character, if nobody knows that, even if you are one of the most popular people at work, school or church, I can guarantee that you are desperately lonely.  If there are few people in this world who do know you with all your weaknesses, shortcomings and failings and they love you, those are the most meaningful relationships you have.  When anything good happens or when anything bad happens, they are the first people you call to share it with.  Because that is what love is, love does not exist in the absence of judgment, love only exists in the presence of it.

[thesummerqueen]

I was actually thinking of P&P, Kingpin, and didn't mention it.

That's a story about two people who see only the worst of each other according to their own prejudices and fall in love in bits and pieces as they learn about all the best parts. But also because in the middle of it, they begin to actually use their reason to judge the people around them and determine what their own values ought to be. Elizabeth doesn't accept Darcy until he fixes the trouble he knowingly and unwittingly caused, as well as seeing him for the man he really is (by visiting his home - Georgian standards dictated that the family seat reflect the values of the present owner in landscape and decor) and Darcy requires her to put aside her prejudices and see her family and him from a different perspective. She's too clever by half and it makes her just as arrogant as she thinks he is.

And seriously, Darcy is like the ultimate in what we would now consider the socially awkward hot guy. He's "aloof" because he sucks at talking to people. HOT INTROVERT ALERT.

Jane Austen was really plugged in to human psychology, and unfortunately the 'genre' she created has spawned only a berjillion bodice bursting Harlequin novels.