Apparently my relationships do not actually exist.

[baratron]

GRRRRRRRRR. Someone on a Sims 3 forum has just told me that you can only have one steady relationship at a time in real life.

A person requested a mod for: "Polyamory including multiple boyfriend/girlfriend --> spouses."

The modder explained that he wouldn't write such a mod because in order to do so, you have to corrupt the relationship data, since in Sims 3 EAxis have decided that you can only set the "Steady" flag between pairs of sims.

I wrote: "Bah! Bloody EAxis. Why did they have to change the perfectly good Sims 2 code, where you could have multiple Boyfriends/Girlfriends but only one Husband/Wife? That's the same as it is in real life. Whereas the current thing where you can only have one Boyfriend/Girlfriend at a time is just unrealistic! *GRUMBLE*"

The person who has upset me wrote: "Um, in real life you can have only one steady, if you are that type of person."

I wrote: "Thank you for telling me that my relationships do not exist >:(. I have a boyfriend called Richard who I've been with for 13 years, and a girlfriend called Alexa who I've been with for 9 years. As far as I'm aware, relationships that have been going on for 9 years plus are pretty damn steady.

You can only have one legal husband or wife. You can have as many steady partners as you want, as long as everyone consents. You can even call more than one a "husband" or "wife" and have a commitment ceremony to prove that, as long as you are only legally married to one at a time.

Seeing as someone even used the word polyamory in their request for a mod, it shouldn't be surprising to learn that some people in the Sims community do that in real life too.

Actually upset now :(."

How dare he say that a person can only have one steady relationship at a time! Edit: Update

Comments

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

Could "Um, in real life you can have only one steady, if you are that type of person." be a tautological statement meaning "in real life you can have only one steady, if you are the type of person who can have only one steady relationship at a time"?

Of course it's still stupid that Sims 3 doesn't permit more than one at a time, because as in real life, just because some people canhave multiple steady relationships doesn't mean that everyone has to.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Oh! Um, maybe?

"In real life most people only have one steady"? See, that statement wouldn't bother me.

Have I just made myself look stupid? *sigh*

[flippac.livejournal.com]

Eh, if so it's a bit of a trap (and you can point that out): the "if you're that kind of person" isn't an excuse for removing the ability, it'd be one for another flag that adds that constraint.

[ludy]

Could "Um, in real life you can have only one steady, if you are that type of person." be a tautological statement meaning "in real life you can have only one steady, if you are the type of person who can have only one steady relationship at a time"?

it's possible but it seems unlikely to me that someone would bother to write something so obviously tautological. My reading would be the slightly less friendly you can only have one steady if you are the kind of person who goes steady with anyone. So the old if you are in more than one relationship the aren't really serious argument. Though it may well be coming from a lack of knowledge about poly than any real judgement ...

[griffen.livejournal.com]

Sweetheart, I see you getting really upset about the clueless here. Why? They're clueless. You can't change them by yelling at them. You can only change them by being an example that they can't ignore.

I have two husbands and a girlfriend. Does the law recognize that my husband 2 is my husband? No. Does this anger me? Yes. Will being angry with the fundamentally clueless change that? Probably not.

But I still tell people "He's my husband," every chance I get. That, over time, will get them to change their minds. Yelling at them, on the other hand, will just make them even more resistant.

Our database servers have master/slave relationships

[hoopycat (from livejournal.com)]

-- ANTIPATTERN: Monogamy
CREATE TABLE SimsPeople (
sim_id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
[...]
mated_to BIGINT UNSIGNED,
FOREIGN KEY (mated_to) REFERENCES SimsPeople(sim_id)
);

-- SOLUTION: Use an intersection table for a many-to-many relationship
CREATE TABLE SimsPeople (
sim_id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
[...]
);
CREATE TABLE SimsMatings (
sim_id BIGINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
partner BIGINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
is_legally_married BOOLEAN,
PRIMARY KEY (sim_id, partner),
FOREIGN KEY (sim_id) REFERENCES SimsPeople(sim_id),
FOREIGN KEY (sim_id) REFERENCES SimsPeople(sim_id),
[...plus more constraints to enforce is_legally_married reciprocity, one is_legally_married per sim_id, etc...]
);

Re: Our database servers have master/slave relationships

[hoopycat (from livejournal.com)]

Note: is_legally_married should DEFAULT FALSE, since that's an awkward question to have to answer when INSERTing a new row. Easier to just pretend that column isn't there.

(Also, I should really change my From: name on here, eh? -HoopyCat)

Re: Our database servers have master/slave relationships

[mattp.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the fuller treatise written a couple of years ago from a DBA point of view : http://qntm.org/gay ?

Re: Our database servers have master/slave relationships

[hoopycat (from livejournal.com)]

I had not seen that, but as someone who spends Saturday afternoons preparing tax returns for fun, I will note that database schemas are the absolute last thing on the minds of lawmakers.

I don't blame the tax software for its foibles any more, that's for sure. -rt

P.S.: I'll just leave http://mytaxwise.blogspot.com/ here and see who runs away screaming first.

Re: Our database servers have master/slave relationships

[hoopycat (from livejournal.com)]

P.P.S.: I just figured out how to change my displayed name! Hooray!

Re: Our database servers have master/slave relationships

[baratron.livejournal.com]

*lol*, I almost deleted this as spam!

Update, following apology

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I feel pretty stupid since someone pointed out that you probably meant "in real life you can have only one steady, if you are the type of person who can have only one steady relationship at a time". Which a lot of people, even in the non-monogamous world do. They have one long-term/live-in partner who is a spouse or spousal equivalent, and then they have hot monkey sex with other people.

Indeed, I had a horrible experience along those lines with a partner's partner some years ago :(. He and I were both going for polyamory as meaning "multiple loving relationships at the same time", and she had the definition in her head of "one serious relationship and then sexual friendships with others". As we were using the same word, I assumed that we were also using the same meaning. It was pretty nasty, since I generally make a habit of getting on well with my partners' other partners, and she wanted nothing to do with me.

Even a statement like "In real life most people only have one steady" wouldn't have bothered me, since it's true.

It just bothers me that they changed the names for Sims 3 because, to me, "Romantic Interest" doesn't convey the same depth of feeling. It's like someone that you're thinking about dating, rather than someone with whom you're in a committed relationship. I don't quite know why they even moved the "Steady" flag into adult relationships - in Sims 2, it was only for teen relationships. So having one Boyfriend/Girlfriend and then N Romantic Interests just doesn't mean the same to me.

Here's an interesting nuance for a modder. Is it possible to set someone as a Boyfriend/Girlfriend without setting the steady flag? If that's the thing that corrupts the data.

Re: Update, following apology

[redbird]

I still think that "in real life you can only do x, if you're the kind of person who only does x" isn't a good reason to make code that assumes that everyone is that kind of person. There are lots of things that most people do in real life, and that many of them think everyone should do. That doesn't mean it's good coding to assume that everyone over a certain age drives a car, either.

Re: Update, following apology

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Re: Update, following apology

[baratron.livejournal.com]

In general, it seems like they've been trying to reduce the feeble amount of adult content in The Sims series down to zero. They took out the hug with bottom rubbing, and the dry humping animations that were in Sims 2! I don't need dry humping, but the hug with bottom rubbing was adorable, and I miss it!

Presumably, having more than one relationship at the same time is "adult" too :P

Re: Update, following apology

[keldaryth.livejournal.com]

I nearly pointed that out and yes, it seems like a bit of circular reasoning.

"You can only do x, if you're a person who does x" is like, "You can only have one religion if you're a person who only believes in having one religion" or "You can eat only vegetables (no meat) if you're a person who believes in eating only vegetables (no meat)".

It's sort of a stupid argument. You could easily turn around and say "You can only have more than one steady in real life if you're a person who believes in having more than one steady in real life..."