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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   6181 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 12, 2023

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The emotional, mental and physical work that goes into creating the sort of experience I consider 'peak intimacy' is so high, that I can't imagine how some people manage to provide that to multiple partners.

I don't think this is true for that reason. 'Literal amount of time spent with partner' is something that varies between relationships such that 'significant time spent with two people' isn't that big a barrier. Which means it's a much smaller effect than 'jealousy' ... or the very significant desire for your partner to be exclusive with you, evolved because you want them invested in your children. But yeah, multiple serious partners is something very few can manage well.

edit

I generally dislike this framing because it implies that individuals can trace their desires and emotions to the evolutionary root.

Anything from 'desire to eat food' to 'anger that friend betrayed you + wanting to get back at them' have really obvious evolutionary reasons. Of course, very important details of how they 'work' aren't obvious from evolution, and it's easy to say untrue things with evopsych speculation like 'we evolved to be TRIBAL animals so we have a dunbar number of twenty and cant have more friends than that", but it's a very useful broad approach.

but the individuals feel those raw emotions untethered from their evolutionary cause.

The mechanisms involved are very tuned towards the causes though? And become meaningless outside those contexts. What purpose does jealousy have if you're not going to have children? Why not just ... not (as poly people do)? Of course, what purpose does sex have outside having children?

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