EA - The EA Relationship Escalator by ProbablyGoodCouple

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The EA Relationship Escalator, published by ProbablyGoodCouple on April 1, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.When dating, you may typically encounter the relationship escalator, which is a social script for how relationships are supposed to unfold that is oriented around default societal expectations. Potential partners are supposed to follow a progressive set of steps and achieve specific visible milestones towards a clear goal.This escalator frequently looks like:Meet on a dating appGo on a few datesHold hands, kissBecome romantically exclusiveFall in loveMeet the parentsHave a long weekend togetherVacation togetherMove in togetherGet engagedGet marriedBuy a houseHave kidsHave a dogOf course the steps are approximate and may not unfold literally in this order, but it should be pretty close. Moreover, where you are on this escalator and how long it has been since the previous step is often used to judge whether a relationship is sufficiently significant, serious, good, healthy, committed, etc. and to tell whether the relationship is worth pursuing.Effective altruists, as a community though, are rarely mainstream like this. This suggests that it may be helpful for EAs looking to date other EAs to have a very different and more customized social script to follow to judge how their unique EA relationship is unfolding.I recommend the EA relationship escalator look like this:Meet at EA Global but definitely do not flirtRe-meet at a house party where flirting is allowedComment on their EA Forum postsReach out on their “Date Me” docGo on a few datesBecome awkwardly personally and professionally intertwinedThoroughly assess together the conflicts of interest inherent in your relationshipTalk to your HR departmentTalk to their HR departmentTalk to the CEA Community Health teamMake a spreadsheet together to thoroughly quantify the relevant risks and benefits of your romantic relationshipDecide to go for itFinally hold hands, kissSynchronize your pomodoro schedules togetherCreate a shared Complice coworking room / Cuckoo coworking room for just you twoTake the same personality tests and quantify each otherIntroduce them to your polycule, hope they get alongFall in loveMove in to the same EA group houseSynchronize your GWWC pledge donation schedulesHave your relationship details exposed by a burner account on the EA ForumHave the EA Forum moderator team encode your relationship details in rot13Meet the parentsVacation together, but exclusively touring various EA hubsDecide to fight the same x-riskRaise free range chickens together, start an animal sanctuaryCreate a Manifold market around whether or not you will get marriedGet engagedGet marriedMaximize utilityHopefully this EA Relationship Escalator helps give young EAs a social script to be able to find love with each other and be able to understand where their relationship currently is at.After all, you may spend 80,000 hours of your life in a good marriage so it’s important to get this right!Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.