Under the hood.

 When I was in high school, my dad kinda... made me buy a pair of broken down Volvos.

The theory was sound, they were the same model and year range, so Frankensteining them together is kinda obvious. This plan failed.

I was 14. I was a nerd, so for safety reasons I did not take shop class with the Jocks. This was before the internet, so no YouTube. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. This was compounded by the fact that in the 2 years between the models they had rearranged shit.

Years later, I ended up taking a professional mechanic's course. I learned a lot about how the engine worked, not a specific model, more the theory behind it. What makes it work.

You need that kind of knowledge to fix a car... or really any system. Computers, engines, sewers...

Families...

Now, I know that no two families are identical, nor should they be, but there are common themes.

Relationships serve two roles, reproduction and companionship. Some are better at one than the other, and some can even drop either of them completely, but we are looking at the theoretical.

I have talked previously about reproduction, and the trials of that, but I want to step back a bit. Let's talk about companionship.

Reproduction takes, if you have stamina, a couple hours at most. Companionship requires decades. You do not become friends overnight.

With those ideas in mind, I want to lay out the general timeline of our theoretical relationship.

Now, I need to be clear, again, this is an average, human, reproductive relationship. Highly theoretical, highly idealized. I want to point out as well that this is a system in isolation, no outside input.

  1. Couple meets
  2. Couple decides to commit.
  3. Companionship begins, reproduction occurs.
  4. Sire spends majority of time and energy producing for mate and offspring, injury common in this period.
  5. Offspring mature and leave.
  6. Sire, who's long term resources have been spent as much as their short term, goes into a "retirement phase." Dam takes over primary management of system.
  7. System settles to idle state, companionship maturing until system failure.

Now, I am going to drop the veil a moment and point directly some important ideas.

Men pay up front, women's payment in this system comes at the back end. Yes, there are minor payments of time and resources throughout, but the bulk occur at these times.

"Retirement" for a man happens after 25-30 years of production, somewhere between 45-60.

Women instigate divorce about 75% of the time, primarily between the ages of 45-60.

Most divorced women seek younger men, in their 20s. We even have a name for it, cougars.

At the end of the day, theft is theft.

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