Yeah, but how do you tell the difference? And how do you explain it to the person who's *looking* to score? Especially, if they are not aware of it themselves? I mean I'm definitely trusting my gut on it, but I do find it hard to put in words.

Yep--I see that aspect. However, perhaps there are some people who are looking for two women (or whatever) who are looking for the same reasons that someone else might be looking for a single wife. What I'm saying is that I can see how some people are more into the image of a threesome (or, again, whatever) than human beings, but maybe some who want a particular relationship structure really are looking for people, not objects. As such, perhaps what is called for when meeting someone who expresses a desire for a particular relationship structure is alertness, not immediate rush to judgement. Yellow flags, not red?

I meant "want", not "wanted".

"Just curious how right and wrong came into the discussion?"

I introduced them, simply as semantic handles. I tend to think of "squick" as a term one associates with something that is wrong on a lot of levels. It's certainly never used on anything unabashedly adorable.

But without loss of meaning, you may replace "wrong" or "right" with "squick-causing" and "non-squick-causing" if that's more clear.

The idea's still the same, the idea that as the Desire Disjoint grows, the more, well, "squicky" the interface feels.

In some cases, our desires have been constructed out of certain things, such that the Desire Disjoint will definitely provoke a reaction.

For example, say I was 8 and someone asked me who I would marry, and I chirped up "Somebody pretty!" and was chided with "What -- you don't think ugly people are worth loving, you retarded little bastard?" That would produce a LOT of shame and reinforce some idea in my head that when you are attracted to someone because they are pretty, then you are a "retarded little bastard" and your mom and dad despise you. Heck -- I might not even REMEMBER the incident, but shame doesn't give a rat's ass what we REMEMBER, it's always ready to tweak us. So, years later, I'm at a party, and a guy next to me looks over near the pool table and says "Wo -- she's one long tall drink of water" and immediately I feel shame -- and I can't even understand why. It squicks me. I flinch. Whatever.

My point with the example, is that our Desires (against which we might feel squicked when there is disjoint) might not even have come from us -- they might have been programmed into us by something we saw or encountered, or something that happened to us, something we overheard in the locker room, something we overheard at mom's bridge party, on the radio, on a talk show on TV, wherever. Maybe not even as traumatic as my example, but (shrug) still powerful.