Side note/joke/context - I hope you didn't get your username from the ending to Annie Hall. When I watched it, I was about as frustrated and angry as I have ever been.

It's saying that there's a guy with a psychotic brother who thinks he's a chicken, and he doesn't want to turn his brother in because "he needs the eggs". So eggs are something that is clearly not real, and yet, the guy needs them. Then Woody Allen says that love is like that - it's crazy and irrational, but we go through with it because "we need the eggs". The way I see it, he's saying that we need the irrational to make us happy.

I think Paul Graham once said that the things that make us truly angry are things that we think might be true (you wouldn't get infuriated if I said that it's going to rain bananas tomorrow). I think that the reason I was so angry was because despite my tremendous commitment to truth, I suspected that truth might lead to net unhappiness. I also suspected that happiness might matter more than truth, and thus, being irrational... might... be... rational.

At the time, there was a girl I liked, which doesn't happen too often for me. I was sort of contemplating asking her out, which I have never seriously contemplated before. I decided not to because I knew that my liking of her was a product of some primitive brain structures, rather than actual compatibility, and that a relationship that isn't based off of real compatibility wouldn't be good (I know that you're probably thinking that this conclusion of mine was probably wrong and based on naive and impulsive thinking. I can assure you that it wasn't. I could tell what it would be like to be actually compatible with someone, and I wasn't actually compatible with her.). Anyway, I was finally becoming comfortable with the conclusion that I should forget about her, and when I watched this movie, it made me second guess.

"I like you a lot. You make me happy. But there's probably at least tens of thousands of people in the world that can provide me with what you're providing me. So you're replaceable, and if we broke up, I'd get over it after a few days/weeks and find someone else.

Yes, there are transaction costs (getting over it + finding someone new). But the point remains that people are replaceable, not just in the theoretical sense, but in a very practical sense. At some point in their lives, mostly everyone goes through a rather serious relationship, ends it, and starts a new rather serious relationship. So then, I don't think that it makes sense to pretend that they're "the one".

Best case scenario, your SO is an admirable person who you're compatible with and who brings happiness to your life. I think that this is fine, but that it strays from the absolute and romantic idea that people seem to have about love. I can't imagine any guy saying to his wife, "I love you. You're great. But you know, there are probably a good handful of people I've met in my life who I could have grown to love the way that I love you if I really got to know them. And there's probably many more people in this world who I could have grown to love the way I love you if I got to know them well enough. In fact, there are probably people in the world that I would be more compatible with than I am with you. You're great, but you're not the only one in this universe that is capable of providing me with what you provide me. That doesn't mean that I want to break up with you. I'm content with what you provide me, and I think that you're pretty good. The point is just that you probably aren't the best, and that you probably aren't the only one. Absolutes are rarely true."

The way society defines it, I don't imagine someone who thinks these things as in love. I don't see any relationships where people are open and honest about these facts. Some people in relationships might know these things. Sometimes both people in the relationship will. But it never seems acceptable (let alone comfortable) for them to be open about it.

So then, it seems to me that love involves thinking and acting like these ridiculous absolutes are true (or at the very least, pretending to think/act this way). Maybe I'm wrong though. Hopefully I'm wrong!! Are people really as committed to these absolute ideas as they seem? Are there relationships where both parties are comfortable admitting to each other that there are probably other people who they're compatible with, and that there are probably other people who they're more compatible with, but that they're deciding to satisfice with their love life? (A reducto ad absurdum argument seems most concise - thinking that there isn't anyone else who you would be more compatible with if you got to know them would mean that you found the 1 person in however many billion, which seems unlikely.)

You're signaling that you have ambitions in life which are more praiseworthy, or laudable, or of a higher caliber, than just pursuing purely selfish ends.

I don't know what my terminal value should be, but I suspect that it's my own happiness. Fortunately, my happiness is tied closely with doing good things. I see opportunity to do hugely great things. So I plan on doing them. If I'm right that I should be pursuing happiness... it'll accomplish that goal. And if I'm wrong and I should be acting as altruistically as possible, I'm doing that as well. That doesn't address knowledge and death though - I could be sacrificing those by pursuing altruistic causes. So I'll have to think this through some more, but I suspect that the right approach is to live a happy life, and divide my time between altruism and science.

It seems like you're also trying to explain that to us as readers as well.

Sort of, but not really. I think out loud a lot and don't have much of a filter.

I'm suspecting you're asking "how do I balance a commitment to such a lifestyle, while still appearing and being normal enough to do (many of) the typical things typical humans do to be happy?"

It's a concern, but not a major one. I don't care about altruism enough to sacrifice my happiness for it (well, I'd make some sacrifices, but I wouldn't live an altogether unhappy life).

The real objection is that love seems to dictate that your SO has to be the most important thing in the world to you. I can't imagine a husband saying to his wife, "I love you, and you bring me a lot of happiness, but I care more about my job than you. And I care more about science and technology than I do about you. But other than those couple of things, I think that I care more about you than anything else." So this is another aspect of love that seems nonsensical to me.

With that said, I do think that there should be some reasonable floor. Like you probably shouldn't care about more than a handful of things than you do about your SO.

Ideally, I would prefer that the practical conclusions resulting from discussions on Less Wrong could generalize to, and be implemented within, as many of its readers' lives as possible. So, I don't mean for this response to be critical of your personality, and I hope me raising these points hasn't offended you. I believe it would be better if you were to clarify what your true concern here is though,, and summon the gumption to address it to us more directly. This is because we could have a clearer discussion, that benefits, and interests, more of us.

I have the same goals. No offense taken. I apologize for any lack of clarity in my comments.

My main point is this: there seems to be this thing called love that society has invented. It requires a bunch of "absolutist" ways of thinking and acting. I think that these absolutist ways of thinking and acting are irrational, and thus I don't think that it makes sense to think and act in these ways. However, it seems that if you don't think and act in these ways, you aren't "relationship material". So then, in order to be "relationship material", you have to think and act in these ways. Which means that in order to be relationship material, you have to think and act irrationally. Relationship material ~ love. So then, in order to love, it seems that you have to think and act irrationally.