Correspondent: Eliezer, now my primary partner
Date: Twelve days after I met him at a wedding, more than three years ago
Hi there.
Subject says most of it, but in case the merit of the idea isn’t immediately obvious, I’ll fill in some details.
Who am I again?
You just met me at Logan and Duncan’s wedding. I sat across from you at dinner, and later I pressed a half dozen paperclips into your hand. (Did you put any into a five-year envelope?) If that’s not enough to trigger an association, then never mind, let’s not go on a date.
Do I meet your criteria for a person worth dating?
I don’t know for sure, but I think so. Last set of criteria I saw, you posted on facebook last year, so they might be out of date. I didn’t meet them at the time, but it’s possible I do now. Let’s do the rundown. There’s a lot of words here, so I’ll just highlight the possible trouble spots.
Age 25-45: Yes, under the wire. Born [redacted].
female; not completely soured on feminity, though I’m not expecting you to go along with an entire gender stereotype any more than I do: Yeah, close enough. I’m AFAB, use she/her pronouns, lean into femme presentations at least some of the time.
poly: Yup, very much so.
not planning for kids in the next year: Well, this might be an issue, depends how you define it. I have three existing children with part-time responsibility for them. If we were to get into a relationship, we could tailor our time so that you can see those kids never, occasionally, or a lot, as we both chose. I’m guessing you would pick never or occasionally and that would be fine with me.
very nearly zero relationship drama: depends what you mean by that. All manner of sins live in that word drama. If you mean, “I never want to feel uncomfortable or have to talk about hard things,” then no, I definitely will not promise you that. If you mean, “Please don’t have borderline personality disorder,” you got it, I definitely don’t. A brief exploration of what constitutes drama and whether I’m prepared to forswear it should probably be an early conversation.
tolerance for my endless stream of dad jokes; I can do that with delight as long as you don’t mind if I don’t get the joke sometimes. I can be very literal and sometimes jokes confuse me. But mostly I will like them a lot.
tolerance for skeptical liberaltarian science-fiction fandom; Fuck, yeah. More than tolerance, delight.
enough innate cheerfulness that being around me for a year won’t drag you down; I don’t know exactly how gloomy you are, but I do have a high tolerance for human emotion and existential dread. Is it okay if I’m sometimes gloomy too or is it my job to balance you out with cheer? Tolerating your gloom is easier than counterbalancing it.
a strongly woven self that’s unlikely to be shaken by me or anything around me; Oh, now we’re getting to the hard stuff. So, there’s this famous story that when Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python programming language, interviewed to work at Google, he went through the screening steps like everyone else and gave self-ratings on a variety of programming languages. IIRC, he rated himself 7/10 on python. When I tell you that I give myself a passing grade but not an outstanding grade on self-definition, please take it in that spirit. I don’t get just a passing grade because I haven’t thought about it or done work on it or because I’m unaware it’s a Big Deal and Really Important, it’s because I’ve done all of those things and I’m keenly aware there is still substantial work to do. All that being said, Google did hire Guido van Rossum and he did just great at writing python for Google. It all worked out.
willingness to go to some currently-unknown other place for a year if materially supported in doing so; No. I live in [location], adjacent to Seattle, and I’m not willing to move. So this entire proposal is contingent on you actually moving to Seattle for other reasons and thus not needing me to move.
the capability and interest to change your pace for a year, and then go back to your previous life; This part is unlikely. But, after all, I’m only asking for a single date at the moment. In keeping with the self-definition bit above, I’ll say that I have a fairly strong drive to Do the Stuff that Matters to Me, and it will not be trivial to get me to discard most/all the plans I have going already on a whim. But I do have some space in my life for another person.
the continuing capacity for sexual desire even in this modern world... Oh yes, I definitely have this.
...which can be directed at somebody with my mind and body (this can be checked by going on dates, you do not need to know if it is true right away); Early returns are positive.
we are able to find at least one activity that we enjoy doing together, like having an overlapping taste in anime or you’re also a fiction writer or something (this too can be checked, but keep in mind that I won’t be into anything that expends physical stamina, like dancing or hiking); We can make a Venn diagram and see what’s in the middle. This is a first date topic. I am optimistic.
you are interested in me for reasons other than rationality teaching, because I don’t want to think about work in non-work hours so I’m not actually offering that kind of teaching; I’m curious about everything, so I don’t promise never to ask you any questions that end up veering in this direction. But no, I like to date humans and connect on lots of different human levels; I’m not looking for free rationality instruction. I know a fair bit about that already and you’ve done a good job both documenting it and creating whole organizations to propagate it, so if I want to know more I have plenty of ways to get that without monopolizing your time and attention.
STI freedom is a plus but not mandatory; All my tests are negative if that’s what you mean. I’d want to use barriers for at least the first long while.
any degree of BDSM compatibility would be a strong plus but not mandatory (inquire within, I lean towards D of DS and S of SM); Good news, I lean submissive and masochistic.
you are in the USA or you could get into the USA on eg a B-2 visa(??); Yup.
and you have enough self-knowledge that you have a good idea of what you’d be looking for in this relationship, so I can know myself that I’m succeeding in providing it for you and holding up my end. See below.
Do you meet my criteria for a person worth dating?
I don’t know for sure, but I think so. You moving to Seattle is a key element, and I couldn’t tell from our conversation at the wedding how sure you were about that or what the timeline might be. As you’re aware from my association with Duncan, living in Seattle is not an absolute requirement, but I’m much more interested in adding local partners than remote ones at the moment.
I’m not going to write out what I’m looking for in the form of a checklist at the moment, though I could do that if it seems useful. Please do not mistake “physical proximity” for the entire checklist.
I have quite a bit of evidence of how you think and how your brain works from your writing, and I got a lot of good signals from that before I ever met you. I’ve also heard something from Logan about what it’s like to be your partner. Still, I would have guessed you were not a fit for me based on those sources alone. Meeting you in person changed my mind. You were much warmer and more playful than I expected, and you’ve been stuck in my head ever since. I don’t have a crush, not at this point, but what I have is an intrusive idea. My brain keeps saying, “Hey, hey. Here’s something. Let’s go poke at this.”
So... poke.
Let me know what you think.
This turned out great. Possibly the highest return-on-investment email I ever sent.
For a certain kind of person, it’s very helpful to highlight potential dealbreakers up front. If there’s a major incompatibility, it saves everyone’s time and trouble to find that out immediately. And if there’s not, you’ve already built some trust.
I'm liking how each "follow me" request at the end is slightly different.
The passing but not outstanding grade and the python example is super interesting
and very nearly zero relationship drama and what that means to different people and what that means to you and what that can mean is absolutely fascinating and I'd adore a post on that topic alone