127. Intimacy Gradient Problem Unless the spaces in a building are arranged in a sequence which corresponds to their degrees of privateness, the visits made by strangers, friends, guests, clients, family, will always be a little awkward. Solution Lay out the spaces of a building so that they create a sequence which begins with the entrance and the most public parts of the building, then leads into the slightly more private areas, and finally to the most private domains. Christopher Alexander, Murray Silverstein & Sara Ishikawa, A Pattern Language intimacy
Trust beyond reason An Article by David R. MacIver notebook.drmaciver.com In this sense, trust is a polarizing strategy, and it's one that is important to apply early on in the relationship before someone becomes important to you. If you trust someone excessively and it goes badly, but they don't matter to you, you can just kick them to the curb. In general, trusting someone at a level that seems slightly excessive for their level of importance to you will help you sort people in your life who you want to be more important to you than they are from those who you want to be less important than they are. And it does need to be excessive. It needs to be trust beyond reason. Not beyond all reason, but somewhat beyond what currently seems reasonable. If it is not, then unless they are prepared to take the first move, you will never find the signs you need to move to a higher level of mutual trust. Sometimes this will go badly, but you need to be able to try bad things. trustlovefriendship