Spreadsheets In Love

This is a part of my life that sometimes seems silly, a little bit unreal, a little bit odd even to me now. But sometimes you learn things that nobody believes. And so this post is one I make knowing that it will not be believed, and that really, I am free.

It concerns the process and practice of loving, and learning what is not love, and what is. It concerns the making of bonds, and the discovery that whatever bond was formed in ages past, it no longer exists. And perhaps, it is about discernment and the use of computers.

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I was once eighteen and full of it. It's something sublethal that happens to most boys. For it is true (although we don't learn how true till we are twice that age) that our physical and mental powers are in full bloom at that age. You will never eat so much again, you will never recover so quickly from injury, as when you are in that magical zone from about 17 to 23. And the peak of it all is 18.

I had been dating (well, those social engagements fraught with peril and silliness that we called 'dates' were part of it) since I was fourteen. And one day, it was more than four years later, and I sat down with an old computer named 'Ancient Eric' and tried to work out, with a spreadsheet and about 256k of memory, what it was that made some of my relationships last longer and some last a lot shorter.

No surprises. I used many parameters, but only a few seemed statistically significant at all. And here, to my everlasting regret and consternation (mixed with a little personal triumph and perverse happiness), are the empirical results.

The most important predictor seems to be socioeconomic compatibility. That seems mercenary, materialistic even. But it turns out to be true for various reasons: people with the same SES live in similar areas, come from similar backgrounds, talk about similar things and know the same people. I had relationships which were far more stable when the SES was within about one standard deviation of mine. It's important to remember that religion is sometimes part of SE compatibility too.

The next most important predictor is time spent in communication. I used to log all my phonecalls, my face-to-face talk and walk time, stuff like that. It's obviously true that time spent together, in which actual communication occurs, helps a relationship develop (whether for good or bad). In fact, the act of recording these things makes you more aware of them. That's always good. It's a habit I maintained deep into married life.

And the third, and least significant of the most significant, is the number of times a week that you say nice things to each other which are specific and meaningful and... randomly distributed, I think. It helps, but it isn't as powerful as the first two. But it's good to make a habit of it.

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At this point, a number of you will say, "All this is common sense, we don't need you to tell us that, and besides, God's will prevails (or something like that)." I guess my point is that I was gathering empirical data. God does tend to pick winners, and the winners have some correlations somewhere. Where He picks really odd couples, we notice because they are unusual and don't fit the normal correlations. They're outliers, and special cases. They don't perturb the data much.

I collected 43 sets of data. I got my friends to give me more input. I started on sociological research when I was pretty young, I think. And human nature remains (more or less) constant over the generations. Some day I will tell you more about that. But for now, this is all I have to say.

And of course, I am sure no one will believe me anyway. Heh.