Ahh, now I see what you were getting at. Much as I hate to say it, I think you’re giving me too much credit. While I’ve had a thoroughly delightful amount of success at polyamorous dating, I’ve only ever dated one person who I’d successfully seduced away from monogamy; she’s also the most serious and long-term S.O. I’ve had. The other polyamorous relationships I’ve had (of which there have been 4-7, I think, depending on where you draw the line) have all been with people who already considered themselves to be poly.
And while I have had a hand in convincing a couple other friends and acquaintances to give polyamory a shot, I don’t think I deserve most of the credit there, as the social circles I’m involved with have plenty of other poly people, many more persuasive (to most people; I’m not sure whether rationalists are a special case) than I.
That just pushes my confusion back a level. If you’re AS, how are you able to have such enormous social circles and ease of making strong enough personal connections?
Again, I wouldn’t say enormous. When I say my social circles have lots of poly people in them, I’m really talking in terms of proportions. Of the 10-15 people I have strong personal connections with (“friends”), about half are poly. Among folks with whom I have less strong connections (“acquaintances”), that fraction is a bit lower, but still above that of an equivalently-sized random sample of liberal, geeky, college-educated people between the ages of 18 and 25.
But yes, relative to other AS people, I am very socially successful, by dint of effort, analysis, and at least a decade of concentrated trial and error. I wasn’t born with a fully-functional socialization module, but I’ve gotten pretty good at emulating one; combined with my many other enthralling character traits (like arrogance, which was also a learned behavior), I tend to do pretty well in many social situations. I also try to avoid (the many) social situations I don’t yet understand well, which leads to my general social competence appearing to be greater than it is.
Thesecomments may provide further context and/or explanation.
It wasn’t the intellectual agreement with polygamy on your part that I was asking about, but how you’re able to convince so many to go along with it.
Ahh, now I see what you were getting at. Much as I hate to say it, I think you’re giving me too much credit. While I’ve had a thoroughly delightful amount of success at polyamorous dating, I’ve only ever dated one person who I’d successfully seduced away from monogamy; she’s also the most serious and long-term S.O. I’ve had. The other polyamorous relationships I’ve had (of which there have been 4-7, I think, depending on where you draw the line) have all been with people who already considered themselves to be poly.
And while I have had a hand in convincing a couple other friends and acquaintances to give polyamory a shot, I don’t think I deserve most of the credit there, as the social circles I’m involved with have plenty of other poly people, many more persuasive (to most people; I’m not sure whether rationalists are a special case) than I.
That just pushes my confusion back a level. If you’re AS, how are you able to have such enormous social circles and ease of making strong enough personal connections?
Again, I wouldn’t say enormous. When I say my social circles have lots of poly people in them, I’m really talking in terms of proportions. Of the 10-15 people I have strong personal connections with (“friends”), about half are poly. Among folks with whom I have less strong connections (“acquaintances”), that fraction is a bit lower, but still above that of an equivalently-sized random sample of liberal, geeky, college-educated people between the ages of 18 and 25.
But yes, relative to other AS people, I am very socially successful, by dint of effort, analysis, and at least a decade of concentrated trial and error. I wasn’t born with a fully-functional socialization module, but I’ve gotten pretty good at emulating one; combined with my many other enthralling character traits (like arrogance, which was also a learned behavior), I tend to do pretty well in many social situations. I also try to avoid (the many) social situations I don’t yet understand well, which leads to my general social competence appearing to be greater than it is.
These comments may provide further context and/or explanation.