How do you think personal relationships would change if people could read minds?

How do you think personal relationships would change if people could read minds?

I remember being fourteen and wishing so much that other people could look into my head and really feel my sincerity.

A lot of things would change, but a lot wouldn't. People could be more careful about getting into relationships, but we lie to ourselves as often as other people do. Even when people could know, would they want to?

People would just have to be totally straightforward about what they were thinking.

I am sure if it was always like that, there would not be any huge fights or conflicts
over things, since we'd be used to constantly hearing everyone's true thoughts.

I do agree that people in general have a very hard time communicating.
Mainly because a lot of people feel things differently. What one person
calls love, someone else calls obsession, and everyone's level of emotion
is different. So when people use words like "love" or "anger", it means
very different things to different people. One person who is angry may
be on the verge of physical violence, where someone else who says
they are angry is only mildly mentally annoyed, and isn't feeling
violent at all. Just irritated. But explaining the difference is often
difficult, and people assume we all feel things the same way...

I'd probably be single.

Personally...I think I'd get bored VERY quickly. Nothing to learn about anyone, no thoughts to probe, no coercing people into doing....things. Although it would cut right to the chase in many situations and clear up some very common misconceptions. Still....boring. I think far more amusing would be if everyone had hidden messages in Braille hidden somewhere on their bodies. That could make for HOURS of amusement.

I don't think I would have been able to ever get a date.

I think if people could read minds personal relationships would probably become sort of trivial...............................what an insane thing to even imagine

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ajax Knucklebones

I don't think I would have been able to ever get a date.

---

Sure you would have, because every guy's reading would be initially the same. The smiling and being nice thing wouldn't work for anyone anymore.

Society would be upside down for a couple years. Lotsa violence and suicides while the angstier part of humanity works out the massive dissonance between the public and socially acceptable on one side, and the realism of private humanity on the other.

On the long term it could be a good thing for everybody, though. Society really constricts itself with all of its pretense, fueling disapproval of perfectly human thoughts and feelings with skewed visibility ratios.

...Unless one group of truly similar minded people succeeds in wiping all the others out, of course. But that'd be a challenge, because not a single existing ideological demographic or organization would pass its own tests.

Imagine how boring most people's thoughts would be...

That's the downside.

Grocery lists, what they watched on TV, etc...

"I like watching the wrestling on tv...that girl's got big boobies,,, heh heh..."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mystoo

I'd probably be single.

---

Lol. +1. I was going to say there'd be a lot more breakups

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheDeathKnight

Imagine how boring most people's thoughts would be...

That's the downside.

Grocery lists, what they watched on TV, etc...

"I like watching the wrestling on tv...that girl's got big boobies,,, heh heh..."

---

Iunno; I'm not sure that having your mind read would be the same as saying everything you think because you're drunk. Less selection bias and slightly less instinctive themes on average, I would guess.

I think a lot of people try really hard to be as boring as they are, and with mind reading involved there'd be no way for them to continue pulling that off.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VoltaireBlue

Lol. +1. I was going to say there'd be a lot more breakups

---

On the short term. Breakup conditions are cultural standards loaded to breaking point with pretense, though. They would change very quickly as people realized how unrealistic and inhumane traditional demands can be - people with unconventional romantic impulses would have an easier time relating to each other and finding virtues in themselves, while the few genuine old school romantics that do pull that crap off should find each other more easily without everyone else posing as one of them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Raza

the few genuine old school romantics that do pull that crap off should find each other more easily without everyone else posing as one of them.

---

Exactly.

I think it would help women to understand how most guys brains work.
I think that sexual attraction is just a fact of nature that a lot of women
don't want to accept or understand.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheDeathKnight

I think that sexual attraction is just a fact of nature that a lot of women don't want to accept or understand.

---

Don't want to accept in the sense that they don't care if a whole bunch of dickheads can't evaluate the worth of anything past their own need to deposit semen onto a presentable item?? I think most women already know that...

Kindof? I don't really believe that they don't experience it themselves at times; it just seems difficult to relate to from any other current state of mind, where even clones could misunderstand one another if one was horny and the other wasn't. Unless mind-reading included empathy, I'm not sure that that particular obstacle would lose relevance. If anything it'd get more awkward, because keeping your mouth shut wouldn't help.

privacy would be a thing of the past.........it would suck living in a world where everyones a mindreader.........it really would

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by milkingbreast

Don't want to accept in the sense that they don't care if a whole bunch of dickheads can't evaluate the worth of anything past their own need to deposit semen onto a presentable item?? I think most women already know that...

---

Yes, because only guys are like that. Woman NEVER view the opposite gender as any kind of a sexual object. Never. Pa-lease.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheDeathKnight

Exactly.

I think it would help women to understand how most guys brains work.
I think that sexual attraction is just a fact of nature that a lot of women
don't want to accept or understand.

---

I don't think men and women are terribly different in terms of sexual desire. But there is a lot of pressure on women in heterosexual interaction to play goalie.

What Ajax said.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by amelia g

i don't think men and women are terribly different in terms of sexual desire. But there is a lot of pressure on women in heterosexual interaction to play goalie.

What ajax said.

---

Goallllllll!!!!!!!!

I suppose I was referring mainly to the issue of monogamy.

Obviously both men and women cheat, and I know women can enjoy sex just as much as men,
and be just as physically motivated. But considering all the couples I know, and all the
marriages and relationships that I have seen fail, almost all of the women seemed to
be shocked that the guy was cheating, or that he was interested in other women.

I just see women being more naturally monogamous. I have been privy to female
discussions amongst themselves, and yes, they talk about sex, but they generally
talk about sex with their partner, or past partners, or sex in general. But if you hang
around guys, single, married, or in a relationship, almost all of them spend time
checking out other women in the vicinity, etc. There is almost always open
sexual interest towards any sexy woman nearby. Whereas women don't
seem to do that stuff, even when it's just women all by themselves.
Obviously that differers if all the women are single, or most of them are.

I just don't notice women in relationships having as much open interest
in sex outside the relationship. Where almost all guys express an open
sexual interest in random women, even if they don't follow through on anything...
Women seem to cheat for emotional reasons. A crappy relationship leads to them
looking elsewhere for satisfaction. Where I have seen several guys who were
perfectly happy with their wives, still end up cheating.

So anyhow, if everyone could read minds, I think a lot of women would be shocked
by how much men think about sex. And not just with their wife or girlfriend...

I've seen quite a lot of examples of females being openly non-monogamous, cheating, or expressing interest in such.

The biggest distinction between male and female sexuality doesn't seem to lie in what they do when they're horny, but in what they do when they aren't, really. Male gender culture (amongst itself only) is very particular about viewing sex as always a desirable thing, even if you're not particularly excited there and then. With female-specific and mainstream culture, sex is loaded heavily with both positives and negatives, so people tend to be cautious making promises or expressing themselves on the subject. This affects talk much more than practice, although it does affect that too.

That said, agreed on current monogamous standards becoming quickly unsustainable, although I think it'd work both ways.

I see the behaviors equalize when the women are single.
Single women seem just as horny as single guys.

The difference seems to happen when they are in a relationship.
Then the women become much more monogamous and content with that status,
but the men remain externally horny, even if they retain their monogamy.

Women only seem to lose their monogamous bliss when the relationship
is no longer working for them, and they become unhappy. Where men
seem to be able to be horny for random women, even if they are very
happy in their relationship. That's why you see some guys who are
with supermodels, actresses, or porn stars still cheating. Because
even if they have the ideal girl, they still want more variety.

--not if people were honest with each other in the first place. relationships built on lies and intentional miscommunication are doomed from inception, whether or not people can read minds because the truth comes out eventually and almost never in the "planned explanation" one has prepared.

~K

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheDeathKnight

I suppose I was referring mainly to the issue of monogamy.

Obviously both men and women cheat, and I know women can enjoy sex just as much as men,
and be just as physically motivated. But considering all the couples I know, and all the
marriages and relationships that I have seen fail, almost all of the women seemed to
be shocked that the guy was cheating, or that he was interested in other women.

I just see women being more naturally monogamous. I have been privy to female
discussions amongst themselves, and yes, they talk about sex, but they generally
talk about sex with their partner, or past partners, or sex in general. But if you hang
around guys, single, married, or in a relationship, almost all of them spend time
checking out other women in the vicinity, etc. There is almost always open
sexual interest towards any sexy woman nearby. Whereas women don't
seem to do that stuff, even when it's just women all by themselves.
Obviously that differers if all the women are single, or most of them are.

I just don't notice women in relationships having as much open interest
in sex outside the relationship. Where almost all guys express an open
sexual interest in random women, even if they don't follow through on anything...
Women seem to cheat for emotional reasons. A crappy relationship leads to them
looking elsewhere for satisfaction. Where I have seen several guys who were
perfectly happy with their wives, still end up cheating.

So anyhow, if everyone could read minds, I think a lot of women would be shocked
by how much men think about sex. And not just with their wife or girlfriend...

---

I guess I just know a lot more wild women. I know so many guys who are at a stage of life where they are ready to settle down, have a real life partner and home and maybe kids . . . who are dating women who aggressively pursue having group sex and swinging and will complain to strangers if their man doesn't do all of the kinky stuff they like.

what's sex got to do with mind reading? Mind reading would change a lot of other things but not really sex

Depends how much you like to talk during, I guess. I think having direct, detailed insight into what your lover is thinking without the distraction of having to voice it in a manner appropriate for the moment would change quite a lot.

Not sex, but relationships.
And people's sexual thoughts, which people have all day long, but don't usually share with their co-workers, etc...
If everyone could read minds, your opposite sex co-workers would know when you were checking them out, and so on.

all those new sexual harrassment lawsuits................thought controll workshops.................possibilties for a whole new industry with thought reading

It would make it a lot harder to fake an orgasm.

'Should make it a fair bit easier to achieve a real one, though.