When i first started dating my wife, she wasn’t really into politics. It turns out it was because her entire family has been involved with communists since the 1900s and my politics is normal in her family.
What a twist!? Was she a staunchly communist too?!
She is, but she very much is not a particularly focused one. Her education is in animals and environmental sciences, not political theory. It was very funny, though, because i remember having a conversation with her where i remember complaining about something (not exactly sure what, this was years ago), and she mentioned i sounded like her grandparents. I didn’t know what she meant, and then she showed some pictures from her family album. There must’ve been a hammer and sickle every three pictures.
Holy shit. That’s actually a good twist
It’s especially important to do so since turning political orgs into dating sites is the best way to fuck everything up. I would advise to actually never hit on people within an org especially if you’re male because sexism is already a big enough problem you don’t want to participate in making activism even more unbearable for women.
Definitely. I’m reminded of when Hakim (I think) was talking about Fidel Castro’s body count, and he stopped himself to be like “to be clear, you shouldn’t use communism as a dating strategy or try to hook up with a bunch of people in an org.”
Yes. My gf is not ML. Not outspoken at least, but she’s a member of our party and attends actions. She’s left wing but doesn’t have to be outspoken communist imo.
Wait, she is not ML, but is a communist party member?
Yup. But I think it’s because she sees what we do and agrees with it. She comes to our actions, helps me with setting up things and eventually decided to become a member because ‘she was already doing things anyway’. But you will not yet hear her say she’s a communist lol. It has too much of a stigma for her, but with the recent Palestina conflict I feel like she is radicalizing more and more.
One can be communist sympathetic, organized, and/or a different tendency without being ML.
This has been asked many times, and thought the search function does not seem to be working for me, you could probably find those posts.
My position is Id date pretty much anyone, because there aren’t many MLs around (and I’m lonely), and one’s views will inevitably rub off on their partner. Since ML is a very strong and anti-dogmatic worldview, coming into contact with other views will only only strengthen it, while it has a good chance of “converting” others especially people close to you.
Hmm, are you sure is that potent though? There are children of Marxists that end up Soc Dems and even conservatives.
Many dick head children of famous Marxists, unfortunately. A lot of that probably comes from growing up privileged and going to the private school that your Marxist mum or dad’s parents could never have sent your parents to.
Children is another matter, they often want to rebel or be different from their parents. With a romantic partner, however, if you talk about politics enough with good arguments, try to get them to read books and stuff, they will probably become closer to you politically and maybe organize with you with or without adopting the specific tendancy.
My partner is pretty much “apolitical”.
Still, from time to time I hear strong anti capitalist rhetoric. And sometimes I get the odd “what is working class” like questions.
They won’t seed revolution, but they won’t repeat imperialistic rhetoric blindly. Which is good enough for the world we live in.
Honestly I don’t even have the means to meet people, let alone dating. I recently moved to a new state I’m unfamiliar with, with nothing around me that interests me enough to go out. Everything I wanna do I can just do at home, so I’m just kinda wallowing in loneliness
I’m also autistic so that comes with another entire set of problems 😕
Motivational, it helps if you orient your thinking not towards the activity itself but how the activity can facilitate meeting people. ime, at least
Oh yeah for sure, I just don’t have anything I actually like doing that facilitates that. I mostly smoke weed, play games, and make music, all of which I can do that at home.
I’m not really a multiplayer kinda person and don’t often play with others, (which is funny cause if someone asked me to play with them in something I would, even if I wasn’t really into it) so even amongst things I like I just tend to keep to myself.
I’m probably not really helping my own case but social media is toxic and I’ve been through a lot of trauma basically making it really difficult to interact with others, even when I really want to. I even have trouble interacting with comrades here, most times I just kinda lurk.
make music,
This is the one that seems like the best option in general. Can you find other musicians in your area?
I wouldn’t really know where to start, lol. I’m a music producer so everything I do is on my computer.
My friend, do you think there aren’t a ton of musicians out there who would kill to get a good producer? Guitarists who struggle to write drum parts? Skilled players who struggle to write anything decent? It totally depends on who happens to be around, but there’s a world of possibility out there for someone who loves production and is decent enough at it!
Yeah, it would be better if you could jam, but it’s not needed. Besides, if you use a midi controller, it’s a small step to keyboard, and getting better st playing will help your writing (and make it more fun, imo).
I can’t guarantee it’ll work out, but I also can’t stress enough that, based on what you have said, you’ve got a good shot.
I am sorry about your situation comrade, and wish that things get better for you 😊.
What made you move out of state?
Thanks, I appreciate it 🙏🏿
Had to escape an abusive situation and homelessness. It’s not even like the area I was living in was bad, just frustrating mainly cause of the paradox of being too expensive to live but too expensive to leave.
I don’t date anyone ML or otherwise because I’m too tired and miserable
copy-pasted from previous ask:
Marxist-Leninist politics is like 40% of who I am. I started studying it when I was a preteen, and it’s influenced my personality greatly ever since.
toolongpost
You will not see my eyes light up about anything quite like when I’m divulging some arcane secret regarding Trotskyists’ probable collaboration with Japanese Imperialists and Rudolf Hess in attempting to dissolve the Soviet Union, or such a smile on my face while explaining that at one point, the CPC was almost 9/10 ethnically Korean.
This leaves me in a weird position. I have other interests, other hobbies. But I like reading, I like learning about this stuff. I devote a lot of time to it, and I love to talk about it. Few and far between do I encounter another Amerikan as interested merely in politics as I am, let alone one who’s not a CIA-agent-in-training, genuine fascist, or confrontational, perpetually-offended liberal with whom constructive discussion is impossible.
I have dated open-minded people before, and they have all taken a fleeting interest in what I know or have read about. But it tires them. They typically didn’t like seeing me “obsess” over breaking international news. They’d ask to talk about something else, anything else, please.
I also am so, so very tired of hearing “I just don’t think I know enough to talk to you about this”. I don’t enjoy feeling like I’m in some sort of position of intellectual power over my partner, and I always tried to approach these conversations as conversations and not, say, lectures, but when the conversation is over before it even starts…
I don’t want to feel the need to radicalize my partner, I think. That all being said, if I wind up falling in love with someone who is not already a communist, then so be it. They will likely be ready and willing to talk with me about it, though. It’s a big part of who I am.
I also am so, so very tired of hearing “I just don’t think I know enough to talk to you about this”. I don’t enjoy feeling like I’m in some sort of position of intellectual power over my partner, and I always tried to approach these conversations as conversations and not, say, lectures, but when the conversation is over before it even starts…
This is a strange one, isn’t it? Imagine starting to talk about your Lego collection or new furniture or your job or anything else and the other person says this. It probably happens. But with important topics? So fucking annoying. Okay you don’t know, so listen, I’ll tell you, and you can tell me what you think and you might even realise that you do know something and what you don’t know, I can put you on track to learning more. The same way that any other fucking conversation goes.
at one point, the CPC was almost 9/10 ethnically Korean. I never heard that before, when was that?
Jilin Province is located in Northeast China, in Manchuria, and shares a border with north Korea. Jilin is important in the history of the Korean struggle for several reasons. It’s the place where Kim Il-sung joined the resistance movement, and also where, as a teenager, he founded the Down-With-Imperialism Union, which contemporary literature in north Korea considers as the original foundations of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK). A large number of Koreans had fled to Jilin to escape the brutal Japanese colonial occupation of Korea, and Jilin was home to the largest base of Korean resistance.
In the struggle against Japanese imperialism, Korean and Chinese communists (and at various points, nationalists) were part of a united front. In fact, at the urging of the Third International (Comintern), which at the time was organizing the world communist movement, Korean communists joined the Chinese Communist Party. It’s estimated that, when the merging process was consolidated in 1931, as much as 90 percent of the Chinese Communist Party was actually Korean, as their efforts at recruitment among the peasants in the region had been much more successful.
– Foreword to Socialist Education in Korea by Kim Il-Sung, written by Derek R. Ford and Curry Malott, emphasis mine.
Yes because I think I can radicalize any baby communist I’m dating.
“I can
fixradicalize them.”Not going to lie, that phrasing is a little yikes. A relationship shouldn’t be a radicalization project.
Honestly, I’m about out of faith enough in westerners that I genuinely think that might be the only way any of them come to the light, is if those of y’all who can still tolerate linking up with them long-term like that actually tried pulling them over. I absolutely expect them to die fash-adjacent at the very least otherwise, 'cause they’ll never come to the water themselves.
My partner was already a communist so I didn’t have to do much besides giving them Blackshirts and Reds lmao so it’s not that they’re my pet project that I’m singlehandedly “fixing/radicalizing” them so much as nudging them in the right direction.
Yeah, I’m sure it was normal and natural IRL
I disagree, every relationship is a radicalization project./hj Don’t be mean or obsessive, but we need as many comrades as we can get.
Maybe, but the way to do it isn’t through takes like this IMHO. I can only imagine liberals seeing comrades trying to do that the same as a far-right chud trying to evangelize about QAnon
Some people are simply skeptical of identifying with an ideology. That’s fine. Whether they identify with an ideology or not isn’t an issue for me. Whether they uncritically repeat shitlib takes and just accept this horrorshow as the default is the issue. That’s my litmus test for relationship prospects.
I’ve been very lucky to have a partner that radicalized with me.
I’ve got a new partner who’s not all that into politics, but she is definitely interested in learning more and knows something is wrong. That’s all I really look for.
Of course I would never ever date a Zionist, Nazi, American Conservative (why am I saying the same thing three times) or staunch capitalist, but that’s different than someone simply not being educated. If I like the person, I will engage with them romantically and then try to radicalize/share my passions with them. If they support it and join or at the very least aren’t against it and simply enable me to get involved, I’m fine with it.
Of course I’d prefer a baddie tankie gf but my partner will be developed into one, rn she just a baddie gf. Lmao sorry idk wtf that was but there’s me answer
I only date Posadists. They really dig my sex bunker covered in Soviet propaganda posters.
That sounds more like what a Hoxhist would be in to. A posadist would like dates to the beach, aquarium, or spooky field.
That sounds revisionist!!
Homie that bunker sounds tight AF.
It also has an overhead paging system set to play Bella Ciao on repeat, to set the mood.
Nope, and if that means I spend the rest of my life just having meaningless short-term physical flings, so be it. Amerikan liberalism, and the settlers who practice it, fuckin disgust me too much to ‘relation’ with for long.
This is the way 🤷🏿♂️
So they are not disgusting enough to take away your desire to be physical with them, but disgusting enough to not want to be in a relationship with them. That is funny to me 🤣
I mean, I am human (much as that alone annoys me). A lot of it is I think I don’t ever want to be around someone full time who advocates for the genocides they see on their television again (especially not a settler who does), and that’s been happening to me a lot lately. Besides, it’s entirely unrealistic with what my bank account looks like for me to leave the country and actually find someone I could without reservation, without condition love like that. In Amerika, terms and conditions apply heavily.
So we make do with the lesser clay that we have to work with, even if it’ll never form a proper ceramic.
Yes, but i only tolerate people that care about things around us. Solidarity is the main thing i look for in a partner.
Both my partners are not ML’s. As long as they are someone who support me and my revolutionary goals I’ll be fine. I would want them to be closer to my own views but I’ll work on that when we are closer. The idea of having a partner who is also revolutionary does make sense, and I get why most people here have that view. However, relationships work on mutual trust on each other. Most of the time you’ll find people who are too busy on their everyday life and have more important contradictions directly affecting their survival that they have to focus on, to give time for organizing. The point isn’t to convert them but to treat them as humans whose ideas and the things they do come from their reality they are living. Through discourse of ideas, slowly communicating your own views, (and most importantly) getting their views because they’re as much as part of the masses as you are, a more stronger relationship will come through. If they’re open to changing their mind and not terminally online on political tweeting, 99 out of 100 times they’re on your side. The ideological differences here won’t matter then.
I think this perspective doesn’t get enough credit in this community sometimes. I have my doomer days for sure, but at the same time I see the struggles of people around me, and I know that if they were better informed that they would probably be communists.
On some level, the absolute best thing you can do is just treat other people like humans and believe them when they say they’re struggling. If people who self-identify as communists are partaking in society and treating other people like humans, then That keeps us grounded and reminds us what we’re fighting for. It also slowly teaches people that communists are actually good people.
I am married to someone that is ML or ML sympathetic. We don’t really proclaime to anyone we are ML unless we are talking to marxists but it has always been relevant to our politics. It’s not at all the totality of our politics because we are also interested in Indigenous perspectives and ML simply doesn’t engage with that enough in my opinion and experience. I like plural thinking more than getting fully caught up in a single tradition.
Anyway if I wasn’t married I would avoid getting caught up with SocDems at this point in my life. If someone can’t handle criticism of first worldist politics we are absolutely not compatible. But also I would be annoyed by an ML that can’t handle critical perspectives that come from Indigenous or place-based people. I would likely be more patient with a dogmatic ML than a SocDems tho.
