10 Comments

Really enjoyed this. Wouldnt mind "the cringest imaginable fan-fic about a space marine and rogue pskyer" as a cherry on top, either. I mean, what's the point of puttin ourselves out there if it isn't cringe worthy?

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Writing it sounds like a lot of work but it involved the psychic battery of one of these:https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Psi-Titan and a space wolf

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I've been married for almost 46 years. I've never thought of my husband as my soulmate. I feel like the kind of romantic instinct that leans towards that has a built-in toxicity that is very dangerous to peaceful coexistence in marriage, to say nothing of the danger of realizing that you might be wrong and person X, whom you just met, is ACTUALLY your soulmate so you are justified in moving on.

I'm not a philosopher but I have kids who are so I will ask them what they think about your post.

The first time I saw my husband I said to myself, "that's the man I'm going to marry." It took him a bit to catch up to the idea but it worked out well in the end. We are deeply compatible, similar in many ways (both INTJ), aligned on the most important things, but different enough that life has been amazing and interesting and more worthwhile than I could have ever imagined.

I think becoming the best person you can be for and on behalf of your spouse is much more important than some idea that you are cosmically matched and destined to be together. Marriage is so much real work - the work of self-improvement, self-abnegation, self-control, self-analysis, self-reflection. Sometimes the most important thing you can do is to simply stay the course. I feel like the idea of a soulmate short circuits the importance of the banality of a lot of the hard work of life and how much it takes to put up with another person, to say nothing of how much other people put up with in order to live with me.

I doubt there is another person like me and I have never met another person who has been anything like my husband other than in a very superficial physical way. I do see 'types' from time to time so I know what you mean. However, I think that is part of what is amazing about getting to know another person deeply - you'll never meet someone else like them again. Ever.

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There's a lot to unpack here, but suffice it to say that I'm sympathetic to some of this. If we're gonna talk about marriage, romanticizing the sacrament can really get in the way of discernment.

What I found most illuminating about the post, though, is that it goes beyond marriage. We find ourselves drawn to some, repulsed by others, and indifferent to most. Furthermore, there appear to be regularities in the types of people and how they interact. Whether it's the Greek pantheon, the lives of the saints, the Bhagavad Gita, or the zodiac, we can look back on a rich history of attempts to describe the regularities of personal interaction.

Your point about you and your husband being absolutely unique is, of course, correct, but I think it overshoots the value of the idea. A metaphor might help: every individual Banisteriopsis caapi plant is unique. It grows in a certain soil, gets a certain amount of light, and has a particular chemical profile. The same is true of any given Psychotria viridis. Each one is special. Still, when humans imbibe a mix of those two plants, the mixture has very reliable effects. There's something about the "ethotype" of the two that causes them to react with each other in specific contexts in predictable ways.

So I wonder: if someone is seeking a stable, committed, monogamous relationship, doesn't it make sense to have a rough idea of which kinds of ethotypes "play well together"? (Actually: no matter what one is looking for, being able to make rough predictions about the chemistry seems helpful) The neatest part about our bear's post is that we needn't — and shouldn't — stop there. We can start interrogating the ways in which the best versions of ourselves call to and are called by the best versions of other people. And there, I think you're absolutely right: what that looks like in everyday life is a lot of banal, hard work.

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Also....I feel like I've never had a very "best version" of myself to offer anyone. So the love and respect and friendship of both my husband and my friends has always been a real mystery to me. What I have to offer is helpful in edge cases only. God has been nice about putting me in those situations that require what I can provide, but generally speaking, people like me are very unlikable. Most of my friends are pretty likable and nice people. Life is just weird.

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While I basically agree that having a rough idea of the ethotypes would be good, I think that most people do not approach looking for a mate that way. They want to fall in love. I fell in love the moment my husband walked in the room. You are right - he was a type I was looking for because I thought, "He looks very intelligent." My father was very bright and I wanted a smart man. But when you are young, you aren't doing a ton of analysis when you are looking for a life partner.

As for the other, I have long thought about what an early blogger called the mystery of friendship (Peter St. Andre). Why are some people drawn together and why do some of my friends love me but loathe each other? It's weird. It's a mystery. I do find that most of my closest friends have a very rational mindset, and the one close friend who is more girly is the only one with whom I have to be careful from time to time.

Interesting side note: I remember reading long ago that there are a lot of things you can gradually acclimate yourself to in another person (thinking arranged marriages here), but apparently, if you do not like the way they smell, you will *never* get over that. I broke up with a guy once because of this exact thing. Very strange.

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Just to see if I'm tracking: If we conceive of a person as an n-dimensional array of characteristics, where n is astonishingly large, then a good ethotype is just a reduction to some significant set of n. Or something like that?

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Yeah, well said. Of course, if you want to maximize accuracy, you can step into the rabbit hole and fall forever. Well, you know, the rest of your life, anyway; e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximally_informative_dimensions

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Oh yeah, I can see this spiraling out of control quickly. It's hard to choose which holes to dive into! Ars longa...

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