Book Day 17: Third Things, Stabilizers, More on Legibility as a Third Thing
I am starting to get overwhelmed with what I had written, overwhelmed by my own content, and do not know what to write about. I am going to explore a little bit about what I can write about.
The goal is to get to 30 days, and then begin moving the content into a book shape in earnest. I do not think I have enough content here to start that now, but I think I will after 30 days for sure.
There are many things I have not written, but think I have written already. This thing on “third things” I think I have written already. I see that I have not.
This chapter below about “third things” probably should come before “how to do legibility”
and this bears repeating — the third thing is not another person, and is not the “category” of other people. it cannot be and must not be. that’s how to get in big trouble.
Triangles are just really powerful. I love triangles. I love triangulation. I do not mean “love triangles” I mean triangles as shapes to solve problems.
Actually, creating a triangle is my main purpose for writing this book.
Imagine a triangle with each vertex being one of these:
Situated knowledge
Empirical knowledge
Formalisms
People would have situated knowledge of their relationship. They might think they have empirical knowledge of how the world works, from before their relationship.
The point of this book is to create a triangle between their situated knowledge (their current relationship status, current relationship), their empirical knowledge, and formalisms, by me providing formalisms that allow them to update their situated knowledge and empirical knowledge, using various feedback loops.
In having this triangle, people can have the tools they need to not be stuck in their thinking, and if they love a person, to love them well.
Autonomy: Can each person move as themselves?
Intimacy: Can we still reach for each other?
Legibility: Can we both see what is happening and name it?
Legibility often steps in as a “third thing” that comes in as a mediator between autonomy and intimacy.
Often there is a pull between autonomy and intimacy — in monogamy and in polyamory! In monogamy there is a pull between autonomy and intimacy, of course of course.
And then this starts fights. Most things that are a “dyad” with this “push-pull dynamic” start fights.
You can make it hot or fun, like ratchet up intensity on purpose by having a push-pull that is fun. Or a sub/dom dynamic. Or ratcheting up sadism and masochism.
But when you have two things, they have this push-pull dynamic between them.
Having a fight between intimacy and autonomy is common.
“I want to go on this golf trip with my buddies” — “will you call the week you’re away, or should I expect you to just be gone?”
Ah, another fight!
There is an art and a science to using legibility to making the dance between autonomy and intimacy fun. The autonomy gives each person cool things to then legibly bring back or talk about to create intimacy. The intimacy creates energy to go pursue self-growth or other interesting things.
The legibility is the middle-man between the two, the mediator.
It is the third thing.
Where does increased autonomy actually increase intimacy (because people feel more self-congruent, have ideas about how to make things fun, don’t feel codependent), and where does it quietly erode intimacy because no one knows what’s going on anymore, there is no connection, it’s just two people doing their own thing, like roommates?
Which is more threatening in your relationship: your partner’s autonomy, or your own inability to articulate what intimacy you actually want when you’re together?
Questions
Are you using other people as third things (stabilizers) when what you really need is practices, work, or community?
When conflicts arise, do you reach first for substances, endless processing with friends, or direct conversation—and what does that say about your structural support?
If you removed all romantic/sexual partners except one, would your life still have enough third things to feel like a life? What if you had no romantic or sexual partners at all?
You can test whether something is a third thing by asking: “If this vanished for a year, would our relationship dynamic feel noticeably different?”
A third thing is a relatively stable activity, context, or system that both exists outside the couple and reliably changes how the couple interacts.
It is not just “another person” in a romantic/sexual sense; it is something you can go to together or separately that shifts the pattern.
Without third things, the relationship becomes totalizing: every feeling has to be metabolized inside the dyad, which makes opening up or handling conflict much harder.
More Exercises:
Map your current third things
List everything that currently acts as a third thing for each of you.
Classify them with this taxonomy
Good vs fragile vs pretend-neutral.
Design one new good third thing
A practice, project, or community you deliberately cultivate before or while opening.
Good third things
These are generally stabilizing; they add resilience and perspective.
Personal practices
Journaling, meditation, solo walks, workouts, creative practice.
Function: you metabolize feelings without making your partner the only container.
Shared practices
Co-running a project, sport, art practice, ritual, spiritual community.
Function: gives you a shared identity that isn’t “we process our relationship 24/7.”
Village / community
Close friends, chosen family, supportive group chats, peer poly/mono circles.
Function: offers reality checks, comfort, and perspective so every wobble isn’t existential.
Good third things are: renewable, not inherently self-destructive, and don’t depend on constant drama to stay interesting.
Fragile / expensive third things
These can work, but the costs are high or the stability is low.
Substances
Alcohol, weed, party drugs as the main way you “shake up” the dynamic.
Works until it doesn’t: tolerance, health issues, avoidance of sober conflict.
Scene-based identities
Nightlife, kink scenes, festival culture as primary shared meaning-making.
Great when resourced; fragile when money, health, or community norms shift.
High-intensity joint projects
Startups, activism, parenting as the only third thing.
If the project wobbles, the relationship wobbles with it.
Fragile/expensive third things can be part of a healthy ecosystem, but you don’t want them as the only pillars.
Third things that pretend to be neutral (but aren’t)
These look like “just background” but secretly encode power or unresolved issues.
Other romantic/sexual partners as third things
Using a third person to regulate the dyad, rather than as a relationship in their own right.
The “we’re fine as long as there’s always someone new to flirt with” configuration.
Therapists, coaches, and gurus
Framed as neutral outsiders, but they have their own biases and power.
One partner often aligns more with them, creating a hidden triangle.
Work as an escape hatch
“I’m just busy” when actually it’s a way to avoid intimacy or conflict.
Looks responsible; functions as avoidance.
These third things are risky because both partners can pretend they’re neutral “facts of life,” while they’re actually steering the relationship.
Multi Colored Triangle / Variegation in the triangle, Wassily Kandinsky, 1927
