1 - Smart people value exactitude. So, naturally, they like to follow rules... easier to be exact that way, if you have directions to follow. The problem with rules, though, is that establishing rules for certain domains vastly reduces the information content in play. Of course, sometimes rules are well-tested and not much benefit can come from throwing them out (engineering, for example). Relationships on the other hand... I'm not so sure. A lot of talk happens on LW about vast unoccupied tracts of mindspace. I think a very similar wilderness exists in relationshipspace. Maybe the best way to explore all that real estate isn't so much to find rules and teach others to follow them, but to figure out how to not get stuck. How to improvise. I know that sounds a bit like "do magic here," and I'm sorry.

Luke referred to me quoting Nassim Taleb. I think he's (Taleb, not Luke) frequently full of shit, but he occasionally really nails something. The Socrates quote is one such example. Another is "antifragility." Scroll down the page a bit. It's the fourth entry.

Just as a package sent by mail can bear a stamp "fragile", "breakable" or "handle with care", consider the exact opposite: a package that has stamped on it "please mishandle" or "please handle carelessly". The contents of such package are not just unbreakable, impervious to shocks, but have something more than that , as they tend to benefit from shocks. This is beyond robustness.

So let us coin the appellation "antifragile" for anything that, on average, (i.e., in expectation) benefits from variability.

This sums up the result of my romantic journeys. "Keeper" relationships must be antifragile.

2 - All of my relationships have been affected positively by my being more knowledgeable about my own inner states and articulating those inner states clearly. "Affected positively" includes the removal or avoidance or arms-length-ing of people who are unable or unwilling to do the same. I don't mean to imply that I always end up with the best information, because I don't. Sometimes I'm just an asshole, but by freeing myself to be a little bit of an asshole, I also free myself to be nicer. It's a work in progress.