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CronoDAS comments on Unknown knowns: Why did you choose to be monogamous? - Less Wrong
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Is 1/3 of a partner better than none?
That depends on the opportunity cost. Are you spending a lot of resources on this 1/3 of a partner, and can you reallocate them to get a better deal elsewhere? For example, if the girl doesn't demand anything and just comes over sometimes to have sex, I don't care if she spends other nights with other guys. But if she gives me drama or drains my money, I'll do the calculation and tell her to gtfo.
Reading this comment has suddenly clarified the nature of our disagreements. We have completely incompatible priorities when it comes to dating, I think, and so any disagreement we might have can probably be chased back to those priorities, independent of particular pieces of evidence or reasoning.
I would also like to know more details about the nature and origin of your disagreement. However, Cousin It's comment doesn't seem too far off of what you said elsewhere ("Don't stick your dick in crazy"). I would bet you would also drop a relationship where it seemed like you were always giving, and things didn't seem fair and balanced.
Yes, that sounds about right. If you can win the dating game on your own terms, more power to you :-) It would be interesting to trace the origins of our incompatible priorities though. Everything is a consequence of something, right?
This question doesn't make sense to me: if you are in a polyamorous relationship with someone who has two other partners, you have one partner who has two other partners. You don't have "1/3 of a partner". You also have the ability to find other partners, so you have "more" partners than you would if you were in a monogamous relationship with, say, a very busy person.
Whether this kind of relationship is better than none depends on how it goes for you: if your partner is helpful and supportive and you are ok with non-monogamy, then it probably is. I don't see how this is a "bad deal" at all.
This depends on preference. I know for me that it is far worse than none. This is influenced by such factors as:
I personally would never go below 1:1 and I also suggest that it is very rare for a self-aware person who is willing to personally develop and work towards goals to be unable to get a 1:1 relationship if that is their desire. There are far, far more people who settle for unhealthy 'bad deals' because of insecurities and false assumptions about scarcity of options (for them).
This claim gives an impression of being unfalsifiable. Any counter-example could be dismissed as the person being either insufficiently self-aware, insufficiently motivated to work towards a goal or not really desiring a 1:1 relationship. What kind of evidence would lead you to conclude that this is not as rare as you suggest?
Is insufficient self-awareness an impediment you think people could also overcome if willing to develop and work towards a goal or is it merely a convenient label for people who prove unable to get a 1:1 relationship if that is their desire?
I have seen people make similar claims in a way that is not falsifiable. That isn't what I'm going for. Let's see if I can make the terms a bit more concrete:
A significant number of people dedicating 3 hours a day for 3 years to the goal of developing social skills and sexual attraction ability and not being able to form a relationship. With that much effort it is extremely improbable for someone without significant mental or physical disability to fail and it would be enough for even most people with moderate disabilities to have quite good odds.
Self awareness usually comes with time and maturity. You know, realizing how you act, etc. I include self awareness because obviously anyone who doesn't realize (or admit to themselves) that they want to achieve a goal or notice what results they currently get will not even bother trying. The people you mention seem to already have plenty of self awareness. If they don't then they are extremely lucky and someone else has input the relevant goal while they were on auto-pilot.
One more thought: Doing a lot of something doesn't always make you better at it. There's practice, and then there's meaningful practice, and you need meaningful practice to get better, not just any practice.
For example, suppose you're a poor writer and you're trying to get better, so you set out to write more stories. However, after spending a lot of time writing, all that happens is that you've become better at writing poorly; you don't suffer from writer's block any more and can finish a story much more quickly than you used to, but each individual story isn't much better than the ones you wrote before you practiced. What went wrong?
You're the best chess player in your area, and you want to get better after getting trounced in a regional tournament. You play lots of chess games, and you rack up more and more wins against the people you always beat anyway. You then go to another regional tournament, and lose just as badly as you did before. What went wrong?
You're the worst chess player in your area, and you want to get better. So you play a lot of chess games against your computer, but it seems that no matter what you do, you still lose, and you don't seem to be any better at beating human players, either. What went wrong?
You want to be a better pianist, so you spend a lot of time practicing a number of songs on the piano until you've completely mastered them. This takes a long time. You then sit down to play a new song you've never played before and have a lot of trouble with it. It takes you just as long to master as all the others. What went wrong?
It's pretty easy to practice something and never get any better, or only show improvement in a small part of a larger skill set.
You're right, 3 hours a day practicing how to drop a piano on your toe will not help you learn to be a concert pianist, nor will 3 hours slamming the keyboard shut on your genitalia help improve your sex life. Between 'self-awareness', 'willing to work' and most particularly 'willing to personally develop' is the necessity to be willing and able to google 'how to date'.
Or hire a dating coach, I guess.
Something like that, yes. Or look at what successful daters are doing and acting kinda like what they do instead of doing the opposite and failing for another three years.
I think you're neglecting some possible failure modes. Unless you deny the existence of failures of the kind CronoDAS describes they don't seem to be fully accounted for by your model. Why is it that some things that others find difficult we find relatively easy and others that others find easy we find relatively difficult? I think there is a bit more to the answer than means, motivation and effort.
I can think of examples of things I have accomplished relatively easy that many others seem to find difficult or impossible. I can also think of things that I have made some significant effort to become good at and have met with limited success and have ultimately abandoned. I think the reasons for success or failure when trying to develop some new ability are a little more complex than you seem to be implying.
My model is probably wrong. I am sure there are many people who cannot hope to get laid.
Thanks for the clarification. Your criteria for judging if it is someone's true desire, willingness to personally develop and for self-awareness are significantly weaker than I had anticipated. The time commitment is rather higher. That level of commitment seems likely to eliminate quite a few people as it is on the order of other goals that have a significant failure or drop out rate (completing a university degree, achieving and maintaining significant weight loss, mastering a musical instrument, sport or physical activity).
Your claim seems plausible with that level of time commitment but it seems to me that it gets into somewhat ambiguous territory. For skills that require that level of commitment to develop it is unclear to what extent 'anyone' can acquire them since intrinsic motivation and innate talent become hard to separate. It is not quite on the level of 'anyone can become a concert pianist if they just learned to play the piano' but it is somewhat similar. To what extent is failure to follow through with the commitment to acquire the skill a lack of talent or a lack of drive?
The level of commitment I list as minimum primarily an indication of how confident I am in making predictions regarding the success of individuals at 5 std deviations below the norm. If someone else has more familiarity with that class of people they would be able to specify a more realistic picture. I gave my criteria to demonstrate that such a claim is, in fact, falsifiable.
It is even more like: 'anyone can become a concert pianist if they just spent 3 hours a day for 3 years practicing the piano'. (Except the piano thing is way harder.)
To add some perspective and as a belated reply to CronoDAS I would expect that anyone who could not get a relationship after spending 3 hours a day for 3 years trying and practicing would not be able to manage a full time job anyway.
Three hours a day for three years doesn't seem compatible with having a full-time job.
I never said it was easy. ;)
If we're talking about what it takes for me to have extremely high confidence that exceptions will rare then I need to be conservative. Most people need less but there are some, I'm quite sure, who do need to work extremely hard!
It is if (hypothetical generic) you have no 'life'. The three hours a day could include one hour while commuting (studying, preparing and reviewing). All other social commitments that you have also count towards the three, assuming you do use them to develop and experiment with your social skills. Finally, I think it would be safe to relax the conditions of the 'maximum required to expect rare exception' such that the weekly average is 3h/d.
It is, but it is far from a trivial commitment. I, for example, wouldn't bother spending so much time. Just wouldn't care enough. But I am not a slow learner and even without explicit practice I could meet the minimum condition ("a simple relationship"). That is a fairly low bar, most people spending significant time could be expected to work towards a more specific kind of relationship with a partner ranking higher in their preferences.
It's all about what you want. I would happily go below 1:1 (though generally things are more complicated than ratios), because the values of the factors you listed are very different for me than they seem to be for you.
Preferences should always determine lifestyle. I realize that our preferences are radically different, but that doesn't mean that I and others like me are necessarily getting a "bad deal." I suspect that if I were to take your approach it would make me miserable, but that is not a criticism of your approach.
It should be noted that the bulk of your point is an elaboration of what my answer to ChronoDAS was, yet presented as though it is is response to a position I do not hold, something which I have recently spent effort explaining to you. Whether this is explicitly intended or not it leads me to be increasingly wary of the nature of your comments.
CronoDAS does not have an "h" in it.
(Sorry, pet peeve.)
Pardon me. I typed Chronos first but obviously didn't correct it enough!
I've been getting the impression from your comments that you broadly disapprove of people who have a different set of preferences from you in this domain (i.e., "suckers"). If this is a misunderstanding of your position I apologize.
I think there are several people here who would disagree with you...
Anyway, being that I'm not as self-aware as many people here and am utterly terrified of anything that could be considered "work", does that make me not a good candidate? :(
Yes, there are. There are many people elsewhere who would also disagree and many more people who once held that belief, no longer do and coincidentally happen to be far more successful in their romantic lives.
You have far more self-awareness than is required. But yes, the thing with work (combined with internalized shame) would make things difficult for you. Unless, you know, you want to change. ;)