The model's variable notation, the two strategies it prices, and the disclosures that apply to using it on a real case.

Glossary and risk disclosures#

This page is reference material, not required weekly reading. It exists for students who want the model’s variables named precisely, and it carries the disclosures the model comes with — read once, at the point they become relevant to a real case, not skimmed in week 1.

Variable notation#

The lectures avoid notation because the prose doesn’t need it. Use the table below only when a discussion needs to distinguish two states more precisely than a sentence conveniently does.

The full pipeline the course covers, in this notation, is a strictly increasing dependency chain, not eight independent scores:

V → A/R (attraction, weeks 2-3)
  → repeated, reliable interaction (week 3)
  → D (dependency, week 4)
  → S (specificity, week 5)
  → reciprocal small-scale investment (week 6)
  → E (the commitment gate, week 7)
  → J (expanded joint investment, weeks 9-10)
  → I (partner identity, week 12)

Each arrow is a probability increase, not a guarantee. A case can stop at any arrow — see Disclosure 1, below.

Two strategies, not one relationship type#

The model prices two different strategies, and most misreadings of a case come from applying one strategy’s success criteria to the other.

Short-term. The objective is to exchange romance, contact and novelty under low commitment and low joint investment. It still requires real inputs — mutual attraction, a stated romantic intent, clear boundaries, an explicit position on exclusivity and communication frequency, and a willingness to close the position promptly once goals diverge. Its main failure mode is not the absence of dependency; it’s letting emotional dependency (D) run ahead of the low-commitment rules the position was opened under.

Long-term. The objective is to convert two independently viable people into a reliable, reciprocal, jointly profitable two-party system. It requires reliable presence, shared routines, bidirectional disclosure, conflict repair, continually expanding joint investment (J), and renegotiating the relationship’s rules as soon as real dependency has outgrown them. A short-term position is not an unfinished long-term one — they are different instruments with different entry requirements, and treating the first as a lesser version of the second misprices both.

Risk disclosures#

1. The pipeline is not mandatory or guaranteed. Every arrow above raises the probability of the next state; none of them force it. A case “stalling” between two states is a normal outcome, not evidence that something is broken — see week 8.
2. Sequencing varies by context. The order in which exclusivity, partner labels and cohabitation happen is not fixed across cultures or communities. Treat the week 2-12 ordering as this course’s reference case, not a universal spec.
3. High dependency is not, by itself, a health signal. Dependency produced by inconsistency, isolation from other relationships, or a manufactured inability to exit reads as high D on a naive score and produces real difficulty leaving — but it is not the reciprocal, reliable dependency this model treats as valuable. Score the source of a dependency, not only its magnitude.
4. Non-exclusive structures can still protect joint investment. Exclusivity (E) is one way to protect J; explicit, consented boundaries in a non-monogamous structure can do the same job. The model prices the protection, not the specific rule that provides it.
5. Behavioural signals update an estimate; they do not read a mind. Every signal in week 10’s audit narrows uncertainty about someone’s position. None of them, singly or combined, proves what someone feels. A low signal can also mean low capacity or a constrained situation, not low interest — distinguish these before pricing an exit.