Relationship lessons/The four scores/Lesson 6
Distance, friction, and the long game
Signs two or four places apart score higher for the long game. Three apart, or opposite, score higher for friction.
Count the shorter way around the wheel, from 0 to 6. The same sign is 0. The opposite sign is 6. Two and four are the distances this site treats as easier to keep. Three, and the opposite, are where friction rises. The long-game number is not a forecast of years. It is a guess about whether the pair needs extra arranging to stay at one speed.
High friction is a collision pattern, not a quality grade. Some pairs argue and then know how to take one sentence back. That is still a high-friction pair, and it can be a livable one. The damage starts when each collision leaves a new forbidden topic. The score cannot see the repair. You can.
A high long-game score has its own trap. Ease becomes silence. The questions that used to be asked stop, because “we already know.” The lesson on the long game in the journal is the practical half of this number: put one hour with no task back on the calendar. The score will not book it.
Try this
- Count the places between the two signs the short way, and say whether this site calls that distance sticky or abrasive.
- List one repair you actually did after the last clash, or write “none.”
- If the long-game score is high and the last two weeks had no question in them, schedule one hour.
Easy to miss: Reading high friction as an order to break up, or high longevity as permission to stop asking.