"Friends With Benefits": The Chart

I had to comment on this one because I think represents something in our culture. Why are we so risk adverse? It seems everything we do in this country (writing from USA) is attempted to be done without any risk of hurt to oneself. What are people thinking? "Wow! I can have lots and lots of superficial relationships and have all the sex I want without ever feeling rejected!"?

I have witnessed this mentality both when in college and now among my peers in the workforce. I think one book, the Paradox of Choice (why more is less), described its roots lucidly. The author's tests showed that people only wanted to make choices that had the most limited effect on their future choices. That, as our opportunities in life have abounded, we've become less willing to commit to any one of them because we aren't determined enough about any one choice to consider it the "best" and worth rejecting the other ones for. Freedom can be debilitating if you don't have the wisdom to know what to do with it... (so can externalizations of happiness -- that it is supposed to be presented to you in the form of some perfect partner instead of created by you with whichever partners you end up with in life.)