Isolation or Romantic relationships: Which is more harmful psychologically?

[Crusade]

To make things somewhat fair, let's say the debate is between a 10 year isolation vs 10 years in a bad relationship(by bad I mean with someone who's mentally abusive/uncaring).

EDIT and by "isolation" I mean no personal relationships. No dates or talking to friends or whatever. I don't mean isolation as in being in solitary confinement.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

When you're talking about beings as complicated and multi-faceted as humans, I think it all depends on the individual concerned. In my case, I've sometimes gone for week without interacting with another human being beyond ordering something when in a shop or a fast-food outlet. I'm not all that bothered with not socialising for extended periods of time.

For that reason I would pick isolation rather than being stuck with someone I hated.

[A.R.Amistad]

There's nothing programmed inside one that says that you are supposed to marry and have a white picket fence, and there's nothing that says your supposed to die 70 year old virgin either. Ones existence precedes their essence and it all depends on how they choose to live their life. Now, yes, sexual urges are very real and happen to everyone, even celibate Nuns, but it still comes down to how they choose to satisfy those urges (which are actually quite material and therefore fall under the realm of existence, not essence). If you are like most people, you have unconsciously decided that you have some sort of purpose in life, and since people are affected by and reflect society (a conglomeration of individuals' combined essences into one solid one, such as capitalist society) having a significant other of some sort, or having sexual relations of any sort is part of your plan. One feels despair when they aren't fulfilling their self forged reason in life, not because they aren't satisfying some natural "instinct." In fact, instincts rarely produce emotions. When you quickly remove your hand from a hot stove, that is an instinct. In and of itself it doesn't produce any sort of emotion, but you may produce such emotions as anger because it interfered with your short term goal (which didn't include pain.) So there is no universal truth to the question of whether humanity is better of isolated from its fellow mankind or if it will fall into inevitable despair unless loved by another.

[ZeroNowhere]

Now, yes, sexual urges are very real and happen to everyoneOn behalf of nonlibidoist asexuals everywhere, I beg to differ. I'm not sure how I got the right to speak on behalf of most nonlibidoist asexuals, but there you go. I've always found the term 'nonlibidoism' rather strange, given that it makes it sound like we're promoting something or the other.

Otherwise, I more or less agree with the other posters that it probably depends on the person, going by the vast differences between people in various aspects of personality and preference that would come into play in the scenario, and therefore an empirical test in which various subjects were subjected to one of the fates somehow would probably not be able to demonstrate anything about humanity as a whole.

[cska]

To make things somewhat fair, let's say the debate is between a 10 year isolation vs 10 years in a bad relationship(by bad I mean with someone who's mentally abusive/uncaring).

EDIT and by "isolation" I mean no personal relationships. No dates or talking to friends or whatever. I don't mean isolation as in being in solitary confinement.

No talking to friends? Humans need interaction. I would rather have the bad relationship and be able to talk to others than be almost completely isolated from social interaction.