It's just too damn long
This is actually a response to a post by a particular individual on my friendslist, but as it became longer and longer i realized I had to put it here. There's no way I could make it fit. It's also hurried. sorry. i also can't link the post it's in refference too because I think their post is friends only. Sorry if the cut doesn't work. i know I get complaints on that. I'm just on my way top a meeting and I want to hit "submit"
As I understand it, and I could be wrong, is that love is when your first thought is to making your partner happy because, and here I'll fall back on my math:
if You(happy) > Me(happy)
and You(unhappy) < Me (unhappy)
Then You(happy)+ Me (unhappy) > Me (happy) + You (Unhappy)
I know you LOVE it when I boil down complex real life issues to mathmatical models, but that system works and makes sense to me.
In this context, I completely agree with the following:
"And if you're willing to cause the kind of pain that is betrayal to someone else, you don't love them. Period. You have no right to say that you love them. Love does not demand fortitude or indulgence. Love is about denying the self to give to others."
Here's the general issue I have with the way you evaluate things:
You sate, correctly, that polyamorous relationships MIGHT cause emotional distress to either or both partners.
You state, correctly, that judgement of others, or even one's own mental/emotional distress is difficult if not impossible, especially given that others may mis-represent their own emotional state.
This makes sense. However: no matter how much I like my nice neat math equations, the facts of the matter are that most things have gray "middle areas" and the formula above doesn't take that into account. Were I to attempt to create a "real formula" it would likely look like this:
correctness of action = chances of making partner happy - chances of making you unhappy
where correctness of action falls between 1 and -1, 1 indicating a highly correct action and -1 indicating a highly incorrect action.
The reason for this formula is as follows:
In most situations you cannot take into account absolutes. Most things have a CHANCE to make one partner or the other happy and to jump at every chance no matter how slim the chance of benefit to your partner and how large the risk of unhappyness to yourself would be foolish.
Love is a delicate balancing act. Since MY desire in a relationship is to make MY partner happy and their desire is to make ME happy, making one partner happy to the exclusion of the other actually makes BOTH partners unhappy.
Assuming for the sake of arguement then, that the above relationship is close enough to "the REAL formula for love" for government work, EVERY effort to make your partner or yourself happy relies on both of your abilities to accurately judge the emotions of the other and balance them against each other to see if there is a significant enough "net happiness gain" to make that action reasonable.
I could not agree with you more that this is a highly difficult process and NOT one to be undertaken lightly. And I DO agree that certain "high yield" actions like polyamorous relationships are even MORE difficult to judge because their consequences can be large (perhaps we can modify the formula to: "NHG = (volume of happyness gained by partner)X(chance of happyness gain) - (volume of happyness lost by you)X(chance of happyness loss)" this would take into account both volume and probability).
However, having been in an exclusive relationship for over eight years, i can say with confidence that there comes a time in a relationship that you can accurately judge you partner's exact mood by as little input as the way they're standing, or the length of the fraction of a second pause between when you talk and they reply.
I think that as partners as you become better suited to judge the "volume of happiness gained/lost" and "chances of happyness gain/loss" you can start to make the very hard, very delicate choices.
That being said, I do NOT think that people who aren't sufficiently experienced with each other (which of course varies per relationship and person) should be making decisions of that magnitude, in the same way as one should not get married or jointly buy a house after one week.
This begs the question "When are partners ready to start making decisions of this magnitude" and while we can speculate, our society has set our precedent at letting individual partnerships decide when they're ready for these things on their own. Sometimes we see that this has desasterous consequences, but we(collectively) are unwilling to regulate these things because of the loss of freedom involved. I think that in the same way, people are taught the magnitude of combining resources, of getting married, of having sex, of home buying, of getting drunk, etc... beyond our general rule of mental maturity, we leave it to individuals to decide if they're ready for something. I think polyamory should be in the same vein. educate people, let them understand it's magnitude, and let them make their own mind up. There WILL be casualties, but these casualties can be reduced by good education.
As I understand it, and I could be wrong, is that love is when your first thought is to making your partner happy because, and here I'll fall back on my math:
if You(happy) > Me(happy)
and You(unhappy) < Me (unhappy)
Then You(happy)+ Me (unhappy) > Me (happy) + You (Unhappy)
I know you LOVE it when I boil down complex real life issues to mathmatical models, but that system works and makes sense to me.
In this context, I completely agree with the following:
"And if you're willing to cause the kind of pain that is betrayal to someone else, you don't love them. Period. You have no right to say that you love them. Love does not demand fortitude or indulgence. Love is about denying the self to give to others."
Here's the general issue I have with the way you evaluate things:
You sate, correctly, that polyamorous relationships MIGHT cause emotional distress to either or both partners.
You state, correctly, that judgement of others, or even one's own mental/emotional distress is difficult if not impossible, especially given that others may mis-represent their own emotional state.
This makes sense. However: no matter how much I like my nice neat math equations, the facts of the matter are that most things have gray "middle areas" and the formula above doesn't take that into account. Were I to attempt to create a "real formula" it would likely look like this:
correctness of action = chances of making partner happy - chances of making you unhappy
where correctness of action falls between 1 and -1, 1 indicating a highly correct action and -1 indicating a highly incorrect action.
The reason for this formula is as follows:
In most situations you cannot take into account absolutes. Most things have a CHANCE to make one partner or the other happy and to jump at every chance no matter how slim the chance of benefit to your partner and how large the risk of unhappyness to yourself would be foolish.
Love is a delicate balancing act. Since MY desire in a relationship is to make MY partner happy and their desire is to make ME happy, making one partner happy to the exclusion of the other actually makes BOTH partners unhappy.
Assuming for the sake of arguement then, that the above relationship is close enough to "the REAL formula for love" for government work, EVERY effort to make your partner or yourself happy relies on both of your abilities to accurately judge the emotions of the other and balance them against each other to see if there is a significant enough "net happiness gain" to make that action reasonable.
I could not agree with you more that this is a highly difficult process and NOT one to be undertaken lightly. And I DO agree that certain "high yield" actions like polyamorous relationships are even MORE difficult to judge because their consequences can be large (perhaps we can modify the formula to: "NHG = (volume of happyness gained by partner)X(chance of happyness gain) - (volume of happyness lost by you)X(chance of happyness loss)" this would take into account both volume and probability).
However, having been in an exclusive relationship for over eight years, i can say with confidence that there comes a time in a relationship that you can accurately judge you partner's exact mood by as little input as the way they're standing, or the length of the fraction of a second pause between when you talk and they reply.
I think that as partners as you become better suited to judge the "volume of happiness gained/lost" and "chances of happyness gain/loss" you can start to make the very hard, very delicate choices.
That being said, I do NOT think that people who aren't sufficiently experienced with each other (which of course varies per relationship and person) should be making decisions of that magnitude, in the same way as one should not get married or jointly buy a house after one week.
This begs the question "When are partners ready to start making decisions of this magnitude" and while we can speculate, our society has set our precedent at letting individual partnerships decide when they're ready for these things on their own. Sometimes we see that this has desasterous consequences, but we(collectively) are unwilling to regulate these things because of the loss of freedom involved. I think that in the same way, people are taught the magnitude of combining resources, of getting married, of having sex, of home buying, of getting drunk, etc... beyond our general rule of mental maturity, we leave it to individuals to decide if they're ready for something. I think polyamory should be in the same vein. educate people, let them understand it's magnitude, and let them make their own mind up. There WILL be casualties, but these casualties can be reduced by good education.