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

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!