Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

> Kindness, on the other hand, glues couples together... Being mean is the death knell of relationships.

I think at a certain level we all know this, but in the same way we know "you lose weight by eating fewer calories." Easy understand, hard to live by.

In a way, it's amazing that 30% of marriages end up happy. It's hard to be kind to someone you don't respect, someone you think makes bad decisions, someone who isn't kind back, someone who is emotionally selfish or self-centered, etc. Take the large percentage of the population that fits into one of those categories, then square that, and you're well on your way to understanding the statistics.

Criticism is, in particular, a minefield. On one hand, once you're married, especially with a child, you have a shared future. What your spouse does or doesn't do affects you. On the other hand, it's impossible to deliver criticism in a way that doesn't tear at the relationship at least a little, and easy to deliver it in a way that tears at the relationship a lot. It can be hard to let go of the thought that: "if he/she just did X, Y would be better." But in many cases, fixing whatever our partner is doing wrong doesn't justify the stress of the criticism. As my wife says: "being right isn't a defense to the charge of being an asshole."

> It's hard to be kind to someone you don't respect, someone you think makes bad decisions, someone who isn't kind back, someone who is emotionally selfish or self-centered, etc.

I think one of the point of the article is that expressing kindness means that you should hesitate to apply negative labels like the above (i.e., fundamental attribution error). Although to be fair it's easy to be polly-anna-ish after reading the article. There are going to be terrible people around, and some/many of them would make equally terrible partners.

Sure, once you're already in a relationship, it's not good to apply that label. But how many people do you know that are: {vacuous, boring, self-centered, naive, capricious, overly sensitive, insensitive, uptight, etc}? These are characteristics we gloss over when we first start dating in favor of characteristics we like (attractive but vacuous, exciting but self-centered, funny but overly sensitive). But over time those flaws become more apparent. That makes it harder to be kind to someone you've been with for five years than to someone you just started dating.

The point is that you also are far from perfect, so it's better for both of you to find ways to be kind to each other despite one another's flaws. Kind doesn't mean pretending to like everything - it just means not creating a new problem by thinking that meanness is justified.

I know relatively few people that are {vacuous, boring, self-centered, capricious, overly sensitive, insensitive, uptight, etc}, but that could be because I don't hang out with people like that. And similarly, people that think that I exhibit those qualities - and I'm sure there are some - tend not to hang out with me.

I think that the point where you're ready for a stable adult relationship is the point where you're willing to compromise on {attractive, exciting, funny, etc.} in favor of avoiding people on the first list you described. And that's perhaps why dating is such a pain in the ass - not only do you have to meet a lot of random people to find the one that's compatible with you, but you also realize that nobody (including yourself) is perfect, and that to find the person you love you will often have to give up qualities that you like.

And yet at the same time, more positive, yet subtle characteristics become more noticeable because of the time you spend together. Which you (decide to) focus on is entirely up to you.

I think one of the problems engineers/analytical types have in relationships is that we are so accustomed to actively looking for the downside of everything, we forget to seek out the positive aspects or even notice that they are present.

I think this is a subtle but excellent point and answers the gut question I first had when reading your top post, which was to think: why would you (not YOU specifically, just the general 'you') marry someone who:

"....you don't respect, someone you think makes bad decisions, someone who isn't kind back, someone who is emotionally selfish or self-centered, etc. "

The answer being that you don't know these things going into it or they don't bother you that much; it's only when they accumulate over time that they start really bothering you. An analogy would be taking a new job at a company with lots of higher-up political BS - it doesn't bother you so much to begin with, but the more you learn the more it can do so.

EDIT: Realized I read your list of qualities as if you were talking about the same person with ALL those qualities in tandem; my "why would you marry?" obviously makes less sense if it's only one or two of those qualities in isolation.

then square that

1-(1-x)^2 to be pedantic :) (i.e. if 10% of the population is mean, 19% (=100%-(100%-10%)^2) of random pairings have at least one mean person, not 1% (=10% squared))

I don't know of a simple term to describe that relation though; is there one?

"Double that then subtract the square" just doesn’t have the same ring, huh?

Squaring alone would work if you looked at the odds of both people being nice. If 90% of the population is nice, squaring it would give you 81% of pairings being nice, which matches the above example. Just have to take the glass half full perspective.

IDK, but it reads quite eloquently: "probability of not((x1 is mean) and (x2 is mean))"

upvoted simply for your wife's saying. It's a good thing to bear in mind during any conflict.

Well said.

"being right isn't a defense to the charge of being an asshole."

So she gets to be wrong and not called on it, just because she can claim you're an a-hole?

You will regret the unwarranted power you're giving her.

That is a funny way to look at it.

Say she is making a point about cheese, and says something about the population of France. She might be wrong, but who cares? Or you can shout her down and criticize here, making her uncomfortable. Showing how smart you are, and how much of an asshole you are as well.

Reminds me of this article here: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html

She should not feel uncomfortable just because she is wrong on some minor fact. If both people accept the idea that they are often wrong it will be much easier for them to fix problems with the relationship later on.

I think rayiner will appreciate the power that he's receiving. Who cares about being right when you can be intimate?

Hard for Caucasians to live by! Talk to a hindu about it and see if they're at all conflicted. Hahahaha.

Lol. Computer brains can't handle truth. Get some black and native american friends if you want to remember what being a human is.

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