minor buffy spoiler

anya: will u still make me waffles when we're married?
xander: no, i'll only make them for myself. but by california law, you'll own half of them

Minor Buffy spoiler below.

- I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

- I know we'll be together forever.

- We're going to make this relationship work, no matter what.

- I love you.

Those are the kinds of things Willow and Terra said to each other. Their relationship was so perfect, and they knew it. They'd only ever had one or two fights.

Terra left within a few days. How did it happen? They fought about Willow using too much magic. Then Willow used a spell to make Terra forget the fight. Terra was pissed when she found out. When Willow did it again, that sealed the deal. The end.

They didn't talk about it much. They didn't give it a few years (only a small part of their lives) to make sure they weren't throwing their perfect life together away. Not even a few weeks to get perspective on the matter.

And problem solving? What did they do to fix it? Nothing. Willow had a "no magic for a week, then I'll reconsider" ultimatum that she blew. That's very harsh pressure. And not very helpful.

But anyway, consider this: What is Terra's excuse for going back on her relationship promises? That Willow did something horrible. But Terra made those promises to someone capable of doing horrible things. That was her mistake, not Willow's. Willow didn't lie, trick, or mislead Terra about who she was. Well, maybe she did a little -- that is expected in romantic relationships -- but nothing relevant. Quite the opposite: Terra was catching on to Willow's magic-habit right as it formed, because Willow was so open about it.

When people say "forever", they mean, "I might leave you tomorrow if I subjectively feel betrayed or upset enough. I might make no attempt to fix things, if it seems too hard to do so. And I might blame you for everything. And the chance I'll do this is not 0.0000000000001%. It's more like 0.2% per day."

Edit:

a few days later:

Willow: it's better this way

Edit:

a bit later, Willow gets much worse (magic=drugs parallels). Buffy finds out. she has a different reaction:

so remember terra's was: omg you aren't perfect? you betrayed me. bye.

Buffy's is: omg you nearly got my sister killed? well, i'll help you now. we'll get rid of everything that might remind you of magic from the house. even though the sister you almost killed complains that she likes some of the stuff being got rid of.

so, lovers leave, friends help. that's what all those promises to stay forever amount to.

The more arrogant you are -- the more you naturaly assume you are better than everyone else -- the easier it is to treat them kindly when they make mistakes that you wouldn't have, or otherwise disappoint. It's not their fault, it's nothing important, they just aren't you.

Terra: ur using too much magic
Terra: what would giles say?
Willow: *angry*
Terra: what do u want me to do, just shut up?
Willow: good idea
Terra: if i didn't love you so much, i would

also a little later, Willow used a spell to make Terra forget that they were aruing about Willow using too much magic. heh.

Elliot Temple: (please forgive the meta)
Elliot Temple: (please forgive that meta as well)
Elliot Temple: (and that)
Elliot Temple: (and that)
Elliot Temple: etc

http://popsugar.com/124012

Because your parents intentionally make it hard.

Dear Mr. Federline,
...
last year you said in an interview, "My kids are going to have to learn what a real job is, what life is. You don't have it easy with me. Period. My kids are going to work at Taco Bell."

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa017&articleID=79C583A1-E7F2-99DF-3BE62D88C9C352E0

In online dating:

For men, the major areas of deception are educational level, income, height, age and marital status; at least 13 percent of online male suitors are thought to be married. For women, the major areas of deception are weight, physical appearance and age.

You can see what people care about, by what is lied about to get dates. Men are supposed to be:

• College educated
• Rich
• Tall
• Young
• Unmarried

And women should be:

• Thin
• Pretty
• Young

What's striking about this? Well, it's important for men to be unmarried. What? I guess a lot of the men on online dating services are married, or formerly married. For women, that's less of a problem. Why might that be? At a guess, maybe its because men have to pay child support, so it means less income.

Of course there is the obvious: personality goes unmentioned while appearance is critical.

What's perhaps even more striking is that, for girls, the entire list is physical characteristics. That's it. Period. Nothing else matters enough to bother lying about.

And you couldn't pick a much worse thing to lie about: the instant you meet someone, they will see the truth with pretty reasonable accuracy. It'd be much easier to lie about your personality and maintain the deception through a number of dates.

By the way, can you picture falling in love with someone if you haven't yet seen their picture? I didn't think so:

According to one recent survey, men's profiles without photos draw one fourth the response of those with photos, and women's profiles without photos draw only one sixth the response of those with photos.

Why do people lie so much online? Someone believes:

their ramblings are anonymous and hence not subject to social norms. There are also no physical cues or consequences--no visible communication gestures, raised eyebrows, grimaces, and so on--to keep people's behavior in check.

What interests me about this is that it says (admits) how large a role non-verbal cues play in suppressing unusual behavior. Those raised eyebrows and frowns are noticed, important, and capable of preventing a lot of "undesirable" behavior. And they are done by people who talk about how great diversity is.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/WalMart_pays_itself_rent_get_large_0201.html

I sometimes talk about how fighting with other people is bad and wasteful, and this is a reason not to steal. And working with other people -- cooperating -- is much more productive.

Here is a good example of what happens when humans use creativity against each other. New York wants to increase their state budget by tinkering with laws to take more money from Walmart. They are going to do work not to create anything but just to take more from Walmart.

And Walmart for its part spends a huge amount of effort not on making nice stores, but on finding flaws in the tax code. It spends creativity on the issue of how much it will give to the Government instead of what to make.

I don't blame Walmart. The government is the thieves here, not them. They are just protecting themselves. It's a shame that they have to. And it's a shame the tax code is so complex -- it contains so much work to take very exact amounts from many different groups and categories of people. Well if you do that, of course people will go well out of there way to be in a different category. The whole thing is stupid.

One day we will move beyond this. Our government will stop spending its effort to fight with its citizens. And it will stop using massive discrimination to make people change their lifestyle to receive better treatment. I look forward to it.