3 ms·

I liked this piece a lot. However, I think one failing, which is also tripping up many of the commenters here, is this insistence on ordering one's relationship

I liked this piece a lot. However, I think one failing, which is also tripping up many of the commenters here, is this insistence on ordering one's relationships. Who's my number one? The moment you ask that, you end up with the social norm that one's sexual-romantic partner must be the number one. So you have a ton of people in the comments here who are very defensive of that norm, and you have people like those in the article who are consciously opposing it - they have a different number one - by finding an intimate friend or platonic life partner. But what if we gave up this silly notion? I have a cohabiting sexual partner. We're sexually monogamous, because as with most human beings that works best for us. Is my partner my "number one"? I genuinely don't know how to answer that question, if I seriously think about it. There's a strong inclination to just say "yes", because that's the expectation when you have a partner like this, but I'm looking for something deeper that would ground such a response. My partner and I care for each other (the action, not the emotion) more than for anyone outside the relationship; we know more of each other's secrets. But I have friends with whom I have an enormous amount of emotional intimacy, who understand me better in many ways than my partner does. I love them very deeply; I argue less with them, and sometimes building intimacy with them is easier than with my partner. While I fall mostly into the norm, I don't feel compelled to compare these relationships to the one I have with my sexual partner. Each of them is important. They're all "friendships" of one stripe or another. I think that's the solution here: to the extent that marriage is the "center of life" it's because marriage is just a friendship like any other. What the article is really about is the American norm that one's marriage be one's only deep, emotionally intimate friendship.

skipants 3y ago
This is what I felt as well. It just feels silly to rank people and tries to distill your relationships into a black-and-white that doesn't really match the greyness of the world. I would be upset if my partner wanted me to pick them over my best-friend AND vice-versa. It has nothing to do with ranking... it's hard to describe what it is exactly. I suppose more of a disappointment that people close to you would act so immature is how I would feel if it happened. Luckily I don't haven't had those types of people in my life since my teens. And I think those people have since grown out of that, as well.
maerF0x0 3y ago
Part of this normative coupling of "number one" is incorrectly weighting sex as the most important (or even a top 3 thing in our life)[1]. Tim Keller (whom recently passed away) wrote an excellent book "The meaning of marriage" in which he points out that one of the primary functions of such an intimate relationship is to have a safe space/mirror to discover ones flaws (our own, not our partners). The bonding mechanisms of sexuality can make it so that we can have that level of vulnerability (we're bonded are less likely to leave, and less likely to be rational / play political games). It's a religious book and uses the word sin, but I think it's fairly secularly compatible if you can simply read it through the lens of "Sin" meaning "Stuff about me that sucks" ... If you think you have none, then humility is the thing you lack. [1] I'd say health, purpose, and emotionally supportive community (or for some, "family") are more important than having "good" sex, or even sex at all.
nashashmi 3y ago
I think you will have serious eggshells to walk across when faced with simulating the kinds of issues every married couple has to go through.
emodendroket 3y ago
Once your romantic relationship involves one or more children it feels like it would be hard for it to be second or co-equal to other relationships. If we reframed this to, like, “dad spends most of his time with his buddies instead of his family” I doubt judgments would be favorable.
jacooper 3y ago
> I have a cohabiting sexual partner. That's a girlfriend. Its like saying I have mechanical machine which uses 4 tires to move forward, its a car.
- zajio1am 3y ago
  Even disregarding gender issue (it may also be boyfriend, or one wants to use gender-neutral term), girlfriend/boyfriend generally implies romantic involvement, while cohabiting sexual partner could be just cohabiting FWB without romantic part.
sfink 3y ago
I suspect people who reject this silly notion tend to still get slapped in the face with it. As in the article, when you are forging another relationship with someone else, their attitude and opinions about your existing relationship are going to matter. When something goes wrong, they can't just ignore your other relationships, they'll have to form some kind of opinion as to how they factor in. It is straightforward to feel threatened by them. If you have 3 people with strong relationships (between at least 2 of the pairs), you have a classic triangle. If there is a two-person activity and A chooses to do it with B, and C wanted to do it with A, then there is some level of conflict. I'm not saying it's an impossible situation by any means. The triangle problem only comes up when the interests of the pairwise relationships overlap. (If C hates watching Gerbils On Fire, then C is unlikely to be bothered by A and B binging season 3.) But they'll often overlap at least somewhat. (C was hoping to watch Knitting With The Rats that same evening.) And it's not like pairwise relationships lack similar problems, so you don't need to compare to perfect. It's just that "giving up on this silly notion" isn't enough to erase the problems. A may not raise his relationship with B over that with C, but there will still be situations where both relationships can't occupy the same space or time.

skipants 3y ago

This is what I felt as well. It just feels silly to rank people and tries to distill your relationships into a black-and-white that doesn't really match the greyness of the world. I would be upset if my partner wanted me to pick them over my best-friend AND vice-versa. It has nothing to do with ranking... it's hard to describe what it is exactly. I suppose more of a disappointment that people close to you would act so immature is how I would feel if it happened. Luckily I don't haven't had those types of people in my life since my teens. And I think those people have since grown out of that, as well.

maerF0x0 3y ago

Part of this normative coupling of "number one" is incorrectly weighting sex as the most important (or even a top 3 thing in our life)[1]. Tim Keller (whom recently passed away) wrote an excellent book "The meaning of marriage" in which he points out that one of the primary functions of such an intimate relationship is to have a safe space/mirror to discover ones flaws (our own, not our partners). The bonding mechanisms of sexuality can make it so that we can have that level of vulnerability (we're bonded are less likely to leave, and less likely to be rational / play political games). It's a religious book and uses the word sin, but I think it's fairly secularly compatible if you can simply read it through the lens of "Sin" meaning "Stuff about me that sucks" ... If you think you have none, then humility is the thing you lack. [1] I'd say health, purpose, and emotionally supportive community (or for some, "family") are more important than having "good" sex, or even sex at all.

nashashmi 3y ago

I think you will have serious eggshells to walk across when faced with simulating the kinds of issues every married couple has to go through.

emodendroket 3y ago

Once your romantic relationship involves one or more children it feels like it would be hard for it to be second or co-equal to other relationships. If we reframed this to, like, “dad spends most of his time with his buddies instead of his family” I doubt judgments would be favorable.

jacooper 3y ago

> I have a cohabiting sexual partner. That's a girlfriend. Its like saying I have mechanical machine which uses 4 tires to move forward, its a car.

zajio1am 3y ago
Even disregarding gender issue (it may also be boyfriend, or one wants to use gender-neutral term), girlfriend/boyfriend generally implies romantic involvement, while cohabiting sexual partner could be just cohabiting FWB without romantic part.

sfink 3y ago

I suspect people who reject this silly notion tend to still get slapped in the face with it. As in the article, when you are forging another relationship with someone else, their attitude and opinions about your existing relationship are going to matter. When something goes wrong, they can't just ignore your other relationships, they'll have to form some kind of opinion as to how they factor in. It is straightforward to feel threatened by them. If you have 3 people with strong relationships (between at least 2 of the pairs), you have a classic triangle. If there is a two-person activity and A chooses to do it with B, and C wanted to do it with A, then there is some level of conflict. I'm not saying it's an impossible situation by any means. The triangle problem only comes up when the interests of the pairwise relationships overlap. (If C hates watching Gerbils On Fire, then C is unlikely to be bothered by A and B binging season 3.) But they'll often overlap at least somewhat. (C was hoping to watch Knitting With The Rats that same evening.) And it's not like pairwise relationships lack similar problems, so you don't need to compare to perfect. It's just that "giving up on this silly notion" isn't enough to erase the problems. A may not raise his relationship with B over that with C, but there will still be situations where both relationships can't occupy the same space or time.