a. Communication is the key. Neither person, even if they are trying to be completely honest, is ever completely honest. Partially, this is because a person is not always honest with themselves.
b. Sometimes being nice is worth a white lie. (Though I am still iffy about this one.)
c. It's very important to analyze your own emotions. Why are you angry/happy/sad/apathetic?
a. Communication is the key, so "Don't propose solutions," but, rather, find all the variables first.
b. It's important to understand what both people want from the relationship. Are those goals in alignment? If you have similar goals, then it's likely you can arrange your wants for maximum mutual benefit.
Another tip for "communication is the key": try to never punish them for communicating. This is really difficult, and it isn't always an option. Sometimes communicating changes the game in itself.
For instance, imagine a couple, Casey and Pat[1]. Casey has the flu, and Pat's friend suggests they go out for some commonplace but appealing social event. Pat would feel guilty going out, as the convention in their relationship is to be present and nurture the sick person while they feel sorry for themself. What to do here? Even asking could be interpre...
Recently I asked for feedback on two versions of a new post, 'Rationality Lessons from Romance'. 'Version 2' was my original draft. 'Version 1' was a more recent draft edited in response to comments from a collaborator. We wanted to test whether my collaborator's comments genuinely improved the post. Version 2 now sits at 1 upvote and version 1 now sits at 16 upvotes, and I take this to be some evidence in favor of the hypothesis that my collaborator's comments improved the post.
My thanks to those who participated in that experiment; we got the information we wanted!
Thanks also to those of you who provided feedback on either version of the post. Most comments were critical, but this is often the case even with massively upvoted posts like Build Small Skills in the Right Order. My hope is that relationships posts on Less Wrong merely need to be better and more sensitive to a wide variety of sensitivities than my first attempt was, not that sex and relationships are inherently mind-killing topics. There is an amazing interplay between rationality and relationships, and I feel it would be a shame to leave them unexplored.
So I'm trying to learn how LessWrongers can discuss relationships productively.
One difficulty in extracting lessons from the feedback on 'Rationality Lessons from Romance' is that different people had different complaints. Some were 'seriously skeeved-out' by the overtly personal nature of the post, even though earlier posts of a similar personal nature have fared well on Less Wrong, and even though others didn't mind the personal-ness of the post. Some didn't like the promotion of polyamory, others didn't mind. Some thought my interactions with women were unethical, others didn't. Some disagreed with a premise of the post, that sexual jealousy and monogamy are suboptimal for some people. Some felt the brief lessons pulled out from the stories were effective, others didn't. Some thought I was, like Socrates, being skewered for looking at things with too much clarity, others thought my post was weird and confusing.
I may try to rewrite 'Rationality Lessons from Romance', incorporating as much of the feedback as I can. In the meantime, I'd like to ask the Less Wrong community to very different questions: