19 Glossary
19.1 Acquisition
The creation of a new contact, invitation, match, or relationship edge. Acquisition becomes durable only through retention. See Stateful systems.
19.2 Alternative salience
How vividly a person perceives other romantic or social options. Salience can matter even when the alternatives are poorly verified. See Channels.
19.3 Activity scaffold
A recurring shared practice that lowers the coordination and conversational cost of relationship formation. See Social attractors.
19.4 Bonding tie
A relationship characterized by shared identity, depth, and reliable support. Bonding ties complement bridge ties. See Social capital.
19.5 Bridge relationship
A tie that connects otherwise separate people or circles, increasing variety of information and opportunity. See Social capital.
19.6 Cold start
An interaction with little shared context, provenance, or expectation of recurrence. See From Cold Starts to Stateful Systems.
19.7 Consensus value
The aggregate signal implied by how other people treat someone. It can inform private judgment but should not replace it. See Private and consensus value.
19.8 Freedom of action
The absence of a direct constraint on choosing among options. It differs from freedom of opportunity, in which meaningful options actually exist. See Opportunity and compounding.
19.9 Healthy moat
Accumulated value that gives partners reasons to repair ordinary conflict while preserving the ability to exit serious harm. See Healthy Moats.
19.10 Hostage moat
Accumulated exit cost that keeps someone inside a relationship principally because leaving is unsafe or socially catastrophic. See Healthy Moats.
19.12 Legibility
The ease with which other people can correctly interpret what is valuable, safe, compatible, or distinctive about someone. See Legibility Without Performance.
19.13 Network capital
The wider graph’s capacity to move information, support, reputation, coordination, and opportunity. See Social Capital.
19.14 Opportunity set
The range of actions realistically available because the necessary relationships, trust, invitations, skills, and contexts exist. See Opportunity and compounding.
19.15 Private attraction
The direct preference one person feels, distinct from the surrounding network’s evaluation. See Private and consensus value.
19.16 Relationship capital
Retained trust and shared history within a particular relationship. See Social Capital.
19.17 Relationship funnel
The sequence of transitions from encounter to recognition, acquaintance, cross-context contact, and durable mutual care. See The Relationship Funnel.
19.18 Reputation equilibrium
The relatively stable story a network uses to predict someone’s behavior. See Reputation.
19.22 State
Whatever a social system remembers: familiarity, trust, shared history, obligations, reputation, context, and future expectation. See Start Here.
19.23 Stateful channel
A channel that naturally preserves history, reputation, relationships, or future opportunity after an interaction. See From Cold Starts to Stateful Systems.
19.24 Stateless channel
A channel whose default interaction resets with little retained context or expected recurrence. See Channels.
19.25 Warm start
An interaction that inherits context, trust, or recurrence from a shared person or institution. See Dating Is Not One-to-One.
19.19 Social attractor
A person, place, or institution that repeatedly draws compatible people into contact. See Social Attractors.