Ask YC: do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend?
I just want to know that ^_^
Seriously... this is getting stupid.
Surprisingly enough, she loved it.
(Funny, we spend all this time and energy trying to get into "startup mode" while forgetting that's the mode we were already in long ago before we let others change us.)
even those holed up in a closet working full-steam on a startup need to socialize, whether with friends or a SO. otherwise, you'll go crazy and burn out.
Looking back, I was a fool, but I am glad I lived that way for a few years. It taught me many lessons.
edit: Re-reading I laugh at how I always throw in that 'good school' part. Perhaps it is because years later I still have stress-dreams about exams there, and the courses were like getting kicked in the balls daily.
I'm sure you play videogames, read/post on non-industry forums or do SOMETHING not work related. Socializing with women will help you find "the right one" in the long run, and will keep you from being taken advantage of once you "make it."
Personally, I broke up with my girlfriend of three years before moving to SF, independent of deciding to start YC. Overall, not having to "keep up" has definitely helped me.
I've been single throughout the nosebleed "grind-and-build-and-demo" three month YC cycle, but I regularly went out in SF and even had some flings that were fun but shallow distractions.
I've recently started dating an amazing woman who's completing her studies while working in Los Angeles; she's at least as busy as I am and we're "dating" in whatever capacity is possible. Although we're both ridiculously busy we respect our space/priorities, and it's fun and affirmative.
To each his/her own I suppose.
We both are pretty hardworkers, and planning to start something toghether (she's been pulling me to apply to this YC's round). I think we are a good time, I understand computers and she understands people (BSc in Psychology).
I don't think having a gf need so much time, I always feel that I spend more time procrastinating that staying with her, and with the later I feel better! :)
So to answer your question: Yes
Seriously, I'm married, though with the amount of work I do, sometimes my wife fails to recognize me. ;-)
We have complementing skillsets, which is perfect on the work side of it.
On the relationship side of it, I have no idea how people do startups that have significant others _not_ involved. Not only do we spend the vast majority of our time on the project, but we talk about it when we aren't working on it. How could an uninvolved party tolerate that?
One blogger (relatively well known) but I can't remember which (sorry!) blogged about how he and his wife set aside a monthly date to re-connect. They go out to dinner, and exchange gifts (big or small.) There was quite a bit more detail than that and I think it's a good ready for any of today's super-busy couples. After 30 minutes of searching around I just haven't found the link. Maybe someone else here remembers the piece (or wrote it?)
I don't consider my wife a co-founder, but she is definitely a part of my team if nothing more than being in the cheerleading section.
She was not as fully committed as myself and she smartly vetoed the mortgaging of our home to get the project done, but once she caught my vision she became as dedicated as me to seeing the project become a success.
I had her read "Internet Riches" to get her non-techy mind into the mode. It was after she read that book that she became fully committed and supportive.- it only hurts foolish people; there are known solutions to all those problems
- it's worth the risk of being hurt
- there is a type of relationship that is different than conventional romance in a way that prevents being hurt, but is still romantic
So, anyone want to debate, or just stick to downvoting? None of the pro-romance positions are obviously correct.
I'd say (although maybe I'm unqualified to do so... :) ) that although it may hurt, it can also just lead to a happier lifestyle. And happier people, it seems to me, would be more productive, both in the short and long run. So while relationships may hurt people, the hurt would be short term, while the overall happiness and productivity gains might be long-term.
----- Oh, and by the way. It took me login to post, because I didn't realize that the ID's were case-sensitive. I'm not sure that they should be, eh?
It's quite easy to explain, in evolutionary terms, why it 'should' be like that. But I don't think this is the "should" that you are asking about. And the problem is, there are no other "should"s, no other "why"s.
In asking for a transcendent "why", you are negating the intrinsic "legitimacy" of our most basic instincts. You emphasize the "feel" in "feel happy" as if there was anything to happiness beyond the feeling of it.
Trying to submit instincts to reason doesn't make any more sense to me than trying to submit axioms to inference rules.
You may argue romance is kinda obsolescent now that culture is overriding genetics as the main driver of adaptation. But by the same radically disembodied reasoning, you shouldn't take romantic pain so seriously.
We just are what we are. Play to win; life is too short for anything else.
You can only play to win if you have some control over your life. If you do, then you aren't just what you are now.
If you want to win, I don't see how life strategies known for causing lots of pain and misery are wise. Couldn't we say that life is too short to to waste time with love and sex instead of working on something important (like, say, life-extension research)?
Happiness, and success are a perspective, not an objective reality. Importance is synthetic. Freedom is just a macroscopic view of determinism.
If you can find a way to be happy with or without relationships, you win. People seem to have succeeded and failed with both strategies.
Edit: Oh, and if you're actually interested in wasting some time on a little literature you might enjoy some Alain de Botton; he's a logical ninny that's written some good stuff on relationships in a weird way of combining a novel with light philosophy. On Love is probably better than The Romantic Movement; though the latter paints a prettier picture of romance.
>
> You can only play to win if you have some control
> over your life. If you do, then you aren't just what
> you are now.
Yes, for all practical purposes I assume you have much control over your life, not because I'm totally convinced, but because there's no value, for practical matters, in entertaining the alternative.
I didn't mean that we can't change what we are. We definitely have power to make changes in the cultural (and chemical) part of ourselves, which is a big part of what we are. But where does the motivation to do so come from? It ultimately boils down to the same old pulsions.
Now here's a similar, but subtly more puzzling question: imagine some day science enables us to meaningfully overwrite our genetic conditionings so we can control all we feel and desire, from hypothalamus to cortex. Our psyche could become something totally alien to humanity.
Now, what would drive our desire to reflash our EPROM in this way?
I can think of a couple motivations similar to the ones that lead people to experiment with drugs: escapism and curiosity. Or, from a rationalist perspective, we might choose to get rid of inconvenient desires so we could more wholeheartedly pursue whatever ideals have emerged in our consciousness. For example, we might renounce sex and love without regret, and feel, say, the pleasure of acquisition of knowledge with the same intense visceral passion.
So it's plausible that even sane, already happy people see this transformation as desirable.
But this brings an interesting bootstrapping question. What we are doing is changing the "coordinate system" that we use to evaluate the desirability of stuff. According to what "desirability coordinate system" do we compare the old (genetic) one with the new (reflashed) one? Obviously, it has to be according to the old one, since that is what we have at the time the change is considered.
What does it even mean that one value basis favors substituting itself by a different one?? It recalls Nietzschean thoughts: that our minds, societies and cultures are battlefields for the struggle between competing values/ideas/memes, and that our very nature is aiming to become something else.
My initial point was that there was no absolute coordinate system that allowed different coordinate systems to be compared for desirability. I still believe this, but I no longer have such a nihilistic reaction to it.
Back to the point, I think for most people going against the grain of their instincts will be more a cause of suffering (even if it's more evenly distributed through their lifetime) and deathbed regrets than any particular pain endured in the pursuit of love. Therefore, I think pain avoidance is a weak reason to avoid romance.
Then again, I can believe there are people who are genuinely disinterested in romance/sex (Da Vinci and Warhol come to mind). Also, I can understand that some people choose to focus their energy on other things. What I don't believe is that such things are intrinsically more "important". It's just how you choose to redefine your game.
If I had to convince you, I'd say that:
For many millions of years, selecting mates and being selected was much of what being animal/human was all about.
Right now, with the increasing sophistication of our brains, individual and collective, the game has diversified a lot. You can satisfy/sublimate your social and sexual instincts in other ways.
But all this is relatively recent, and our genetically conditioned pulsions haven't yet evolved to match the new conditions.
So the old thing still feels pretty damn good!
I think that sort of theory is mistaken because there has not been significant selection pressure on human genes recently. More specifically, there hasn't been selection pressure on human genes since around the time that humans first got personalities. So I don't think genetic evolution was able to have much influence on our personalities.
The reason there wasn't selection pressure on genes is that any survival needs could be filled faster and better by ideas, so genetic differences didn't have much chance to matter.
Link to external evidence to support this statement, please
Ideas can go through generations in a matter of seconds within someone's head. So that's orders of magnitude faster.
Still, rather than about personality I was talking about basic pulsions, namely those directly related to survival and reproduction.
Contrary to rms, I easily concede that ideas are faster to fill survival needs. But where do those needs come from? Why do we care about surviving, as individuals and as a species? We wouldn't ever have put our minds to work on the problem of survival if the visceral will for survival wasn't already there.
I argued that our genetic conditionings related to sexual selection persist because our genes haven't had time to 'learn' their increasing irrelevance. The slowness of genetic adaptation is an argument in favor, not against, the prevalence of genetic heritage as a factor (certainly not the only one) in our drives and personalities.
While I don't have a specific cite I can show you to back up the claims about the Greeks, it is pretty evident if you've read Plato and Aristotle. As for Muslims, this is pretty clear if you just look at how they treat women.
Frankly, I'm disappointed that there is so much knee jerk voting going on here. On the other hand, it is interesting that xLnt has really hit a nerve.
I don't mind the voting. It's useful information to find out that I hit a nerve.
I made a submission out of this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=149248
- Even love-induced pain often helps you grow personally in some way.
I guess it was downmodded cause he didn't back up his valid statement.
Of course, I disagree with his statement. No gf here but I've got a date to prom ;)
However, reading your other comments about risk and so forth, I can feel myself resigning to agreement. It does seem like it would be a heavy risk and certain to fail. I can't explain why I'm so risk-averse where as other things in my life seem just as unsure.
The last thing you need to know about girls has to do with love. Even just thinking about girls is likely to cause you more emotional anguish than anything else in your life. And it's not like getting mauled by a bear -- that kind of pain goes away after a month or so. No, love, when it goes bad, is worse than pretty much anything. So, why mess with it? Why not just avoid girls altogether? Well, I must admit I've asked myself this many times. And the answer is: can't help it. The emotions and drive are too strong to deny. So, just do the best you can. It is, actually, pretty damn good to have a girlfriend when things are going well. And try to make the best decisions you can, even though your brain isn't really running the show.