

Why It Is Impossible For (Most) Entrepreneurs To Have Girlfriends - smalter
http://stevenmoody.com/2013/06/29/entrepreneurs-girlfriends/

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beat
My challenge isn't finding a girlfriend... it's that I've been married for 20
years. I have to ease my spouse into the career change, without upsetting her
more than necessary. That means I can't be careless. I'm selling to her as
much as to investors or to customers.

This is the kind of difficult dance that happens with long-term relationships.
On one hand, if I was given a choice between her and the company, I'd choose
her, in a heartbeat. On the other hand, if she made me choose, it would
probably ruin our marriage. She sees this is something I _must_ do, so she
lets me do it and supports me as much as she can. I am obligated to be as
respectful of her concerns as I can be.

------
beat
Assuming, of course, that "entrepreneurs" are a: male, b: heterosexual, and c:
unmarried.

Surely, any decent programmer knows the difference between "majority" and
"all", and the algorithmic failures that occur when you mistake one for the
other.

~~~
dvanduzer
The author is writing with heteronormative patriarchal assumptions in his
("Steven's") language, which is unfortunate. There are people doing good work
to challenge this when it is institutional.

Most of this advice applies to any relationship, though.

~~~
beat
I wouldn't be so polite as to call it "unfortunate". It's lazy, and it's
careless in the kind of way that leads to serious error.

As I pointed out, lots of entrepreneurs (including me) are in committed
relationships when the urge to create a new business strikes, and face
entirely different challenges. That goes beyond the heteronormative,
patriarchal language failures and into a general failure to understand real
people.

~~~
dvanduzer
Maybe I am being overly diplomatic, but this author is responding to an
article that includes the following paragraph:

    
    
      Women are attention whores. They hear you have money, and they flock to you.
      They can’t understand that the entrepreneurial life comes first. You
      might have to cancel your dinner plans. You might forget an anniversary.
      Drop a ho, your priorities are straight.
    

_This_ article could easily withstand some combination of
s/girlfriend/relationship/ and s/girlfriend/partner/ other than that its title
is directly addressing the _original_ article. The original article is
fundamentally conceptually broken.

(insert political reference about a primary challenge from the left. pick your
battles?)

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mdisraeli
Option D: reject society's model and find your own path

Us Queers have been doing this since, well, ever. Even in places and times
were people were not open about sexuality, we still found each other and had
long lasting relationships. Since we were already working outside of the
societal norm, this made other options even easier. I generally find that
LGBT+ folk are more openly into kink, and polyamorous relationships are fairly
common, in a number of different forms.

Just like in startups, constraints on relationships are a blessing, not a
curse. The difficulties and differences are not what will make relationships
work, but what in fact will ultimately make them /work/.

------
Qantourisc
Because I don't have enough spare time/energy to

A) Get out and find one.

B) Spend time with her.

~~~
j_rogers
I thought so too, but then

A) I found one.

B) I enjoyed being with her enough that I made more time for her.

Generalizing from my experience, if you just take a chance you'll find that
you have more time than you think and that the time you aren't spending on
other things isn't missed.

~~~
Qantourisc
Good to hear ! How did you manage A :)

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sinnerswing
"Why It Is Impossible For (Most) Entrepreneurs To Have Girlfriends"

uh..because they're geeks?

