A poly thought.

[randomness]

Your worth is not measured in the number of sweeties you're seeing.

Your worth is measured in how well you treat the sweetie(s) you're seeing.

Comments

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

Your worth is not measured in the number of sweeties you're seeing.

Mmm...I confess I am confused by this statement; it seems like saying "the sky is up, and the ground is down". Well, yeah. Everyone knows that...does not everyone know that? Are there folk who measure their value by how many sweeties they have?

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Are there folk who measure their value by how many sweeties they have?

Yes, there are. In fact, my post was inspired by discussion of poly people whining that they weren't seeing enough sweeties.

(There's a quote I would add here, but I don't yet have permission.)

But yes, there are folks who measure their value by how many sweeties they have, even when (particularly when?) they're not treating the ones they have very well.

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

my post was inspired by discussion of poly people whining that they weren't seeing enough sweeties.

Well, *I* might whine that I am not seeing enough sweeties. That is *not*, however, me feeling that my worth would be higher. It is just a desire. Could this be a case of semantics, here?

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Could this be a case of semantics, here?

Not if you're making the distinction that you make here:

That is *not*, however, me feeling that my worth would be higher.

Not all who whine are whining for the same reason. But some are likely whining for the reason I mentioned.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I mean, there are people who measure their self-worth by any number of wacky metrics. One popular one is how many pieces of green pieces of paper with dead presidents on them they can amass in their lifetime. (One could argue that that is the *most* popular metric in this country. It's practical to amass a chunk of money in a capitalist society, but I think useing it as a measure of self-worth is dangerously wrong-headed.) Another is how fast the car they drive can go. That one is also popular in many countries outside the U. S.

I think, as metrics go, that counting the number of people who are willing to be emotionally intimate with you is arguably better as a measure of what kind of person you are than either of the other examples I just gave. It still isn't particularly good as a measure.

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see that.

I have a number of folk with whom I am emotionally intimate, though sex does not enter into it (no pun intended:). I know that having these folks in my life makes me feel more loved and cared for, and if I thought about it, that probably does make me feel more self-worth. Whether the folks I am connected with are "sweeties" does not enter into it so much, but I guess I could see how it might for others.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

-Tangentially, I point out that the U.S. puts Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill, and (historically) Salmon Chase on the $10,000 bill, none of whom were president.

(Corollary: I'm a geek.)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

True enough. In fact, currency portraits weren't standardized by era until the 20th century. Before that, different portraits were often found on notes with the same denomination.

These four $5 notes:

• a treasury coin note of 1891 (http://www.frbsf.org/currency/metal/treasury/642.html) depicting Gen. Thomas,
• a silver certificate of 1899 (http://www.frbsf.org/currency/metal/silvercerts/1107.html) depicting an unnamed Native American,
• 
  a legal tender note of 1907 (http://www.frbsf.org/currency/industrial/legal/523.html) with Andrew Jackson
  
• and the famous Educational Series silver certificate of 1896 (http://www.frbsf.org/currency/metal/silvercerts/591.html) showing an allegorical figure of Electricity

should serve to illustrate this.

All of these notes could be found in general circulation exactly a century ago. It was important to pay attention. :)

My favorite story about portraits on banknotes, however, is from the Civil War era:

[A]n unpopular figure named Spencer M. Clark was appointed as superintendent of the National Currency Bureau. Clark, a government bureaucrat with an unremarkable record, managed to get his own portrait on a five-cent piece of fractional currency that was issued from 1863 to 1867. Congress became so infuriated with this act of arrogance that it established a ban, which is still in effect today, on portraits of living persons on all bank notes.

Source: http://www.frbsf.org/currency/civilwar/history/text2.html

Photo at http://www.beeslife.com/currency/fractional/3rd_issue_05_cents_1.jpg

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

(Oops. Got the formatting a bit off, even the second time. My bad.)

(I'm a currency geek, too. But I won't be so much of a geek that I spam your inbox again. :) )

[redbird]

Lots. The most common case of this is the distinction between zero and one sweetie, but there are certainly notch-on-the-bedpost types out there. (There are also people who are genuinely happier with a specific number of partners higher than one, for whatever reasons--a friend who refers to herself as "bi-something-or-other-al" comes to mind--but don't measure their self-worth by whether they have that number of partners.)