I have not applied, and I'm not going to, because my husband would never let me spend 3 months in SF by myself (and he has a job where he couldn't come with me.) And this is not a hypothetical, we've discussed it and he put his foot down.
Given the likely upside of going through YC if accepted, 12 weeks of separation seems insignificant.
(On topic: I applied this year and one of my two co-founders is female.)
I would cheat on him. I was dating two other guys when we met, and we agreed when we became serious that our relationship would be exclusive. It was worth it to me. However, I'm not terribly good at resisting temptation.
Add to the fire that my type (surprise!) is geeky males, and there's no way I could resist. A Y combinator class for me would be like tempting an Ethiopian to a buffet.
He's absolutely right; it would destroy our marriage. Some things are more important than funding.
This is just like using StayFocusd or maxvisit; you know you don't have the willpower, so you use other means to keep yourself productive (or faithful, in this case.)
Even moreso, it's a very strong indication of your commitment to the other person when, after admitting your lack of self-control, you consciously choose not to put yourself in those situations because you know how much it would hurt your S.O.
tl;dr; - A relationship where both parties are honest with each other and ok with the situation after being fully informed is the strongest possible relationship.
What do you call this, if not flirting with the idea?
But it really has nothing to do with settling; some people are just not monogamous by nature. I'm sure you can understand, since people sometimes make that generalization about the entire male sex :).
Whatever suits you guys though, if you guys are happy then more power to you. I'd would just find it incredibly difficult.
After a bad first experience I put off marrying again for a long time. When I did marry again, it was we were past those kind of trust questions. It's neither perfect nor predictable, but nor does it feel like a trade-off.
Please just knock off the amateur psychiatry. Human beings aren't naturally wired to be monogamous[1]; that's why cultures have to exert tons of social pressure on people to be monogamous. Wanting to have sex with people who aren't your partner doesn't mean something's wrong; it's the natural state of the human being. A lot of people repress this with tons of social pressure and denial, but it's still there for probably a lot of people.
If you're one of those people, I think acknowledging it and choosing to avoid temptation for the sake of accommodating a partner is, if anything, even more loving than living in denial.
[1] If you doubt me, you can start with all the literature about sperm competition in humans, or about the high incidence of adultery.
The belief that others' cognitive processes are essentially similar to one's own is called projection bias, BTW.
I'm interpreting your comments as straightforwardly as I can.
In the general case, though, it's a dick move to criticize the merits of a complete stranger's marriage. The exact substance of your criticism is a comparatively minor issue.
Well, this suggestion is now completely infeasible due to the existence of this thread, but couldn't the two of you hire a chaperone? There are a lot of cultures where there are many people who are used to the chaperone role. I think (albeit, with a bit of effort) you'd be able to find someone willing to spend 3 or 4 months hanging out in San Francisco on an unconventional but free vacation. Just offer them a sizable reward if they catch you. (There is even a fetishist scene from which you can acquire working chastity belts!)
Alternatively, just hire a "virtual personal assistant" to video chat with you once per hour and also go over a once per minute time-lapse film of you sleeping every day. IR sensitive webcams and IR LED lamps are pretty cheap. Even better, you can trade a favor with someone who handles the tech for the house arrest ankle bracelets.
Granted, none of this is foolproof. You're probably smart enough to circumvent any of these measures, but you'd have to make an active effort to do so. This takes an affair well out of the realm of circumstantial "temptation." (Though in your case, given your unusually poor impulse control, the temptation might increase because of the measures.)
EDIT: This gives me an idea for a product. Maybe call this something like "Watchdroid." It would be a battery operated remotely aimable webcam the size of a cell phone, connected over 3G.
You're all so anti-sexist it sickens me. Whenever a female posts, you put away the boxing gloves and take out the kid skin gloves. The only people that actually say negative things are the unapologetic sexists, and no, I don't like that either. But it doesn't bother me as much.
So it might just be my imagination, but just to be safe I prefer to be one of the guys for my recreational forum activities.
Also, I see that happen a lot more not because of gender, but because we're discussing gender issues. Anytime someone brings up a sensitive issue people are going to tip-toe more, regardless of the attributes of anyone actually bringing it up.
I support your right to portray yourself in whatever light you can muster, but there's no shortage of critical thinkers on Hacker News.
The phenomena that you're describing is often called "othering" and it generally sums up nicely as "a room full of dudes bending over backwards to be so accepting to a woman that it's creepy". It is a real problem.
However, I know I'm not the only person on here who couldn't care less what your gender is. I want to respect you for what you produce, and I'm not going to mince words if I think something is goofy.
Being a radical is tiring and it's not cool to put the onus for change on women, who I suspect get worn down demanding equality. I know that I would.
Yet, there are times and places where major gains come only from sticking your neck out once in a while. Being a woman on HN might be one of those places.
As a case in point, it wouldn't have occurred to me that the OP (limedaring) was female if I saw her posting in another thread, even though I recognize her name from elsewhere and could tell you she was female if I thought about it.