text; an important survey

[indispensable]

Type: Text
Sender ID: indispensable (Alhaitham)
To: Public. So, so public.
Subject: A Survey on Romantic Relationships
Warnings: Potential discussions about sex? I guess?? But mostly this is just Alhaitham being the most obliviously shameless man alive.

This is Alhaitham.

I have a survey that I would like people to fill. There are no restrictions or stipulations to the nature of the responder. The only request is for you to be honest when filling it up.

1) Are you currently in a romantic relationship or have been in one? (yes/no)
2) If yes, does your current or previous relationship involve sex? (yes/no)
3) List down 5 to 10 words that describe what your significant other (past or present) makes you feel.
4) What is your main priority when you are with your significant other (past or present)?
5) How do you measure or recognize your feelings as love? What separates them infatuation or sexual attraction? Describe in 100 words or less.

You are free to leave your answers in this post or direct them to my inbox. I will be following up on whatever answers I feel are necessary.

Thank you for your time.

[OOC: ICly, this network post comes up about five minutes after the one Kaveh makes.]

Comments

[spectacleofphantasmagoria]

[He can't stop the Fontainian flair that his words take on, but he can at least lessen them a bit and make them vague. He hopes.]

[Really, Lyney could leave the answer there and walk away... but he can't help but be a little curious.]

What is the purpose of this survey?

[indispensable]

To gather information about the emotion that people tend to call 'love'.

[Considering how this person is unknown on the other end (and lacks an identifier) Alhaitham is less willing to get personal, but he has said this much in here already, so. This is fine for now.]

[spectacleofphantasmagoria]

And why would you want to learn about something like that?

[indispensable]

Recent events in my life have shown me the necessity of understanding it. Thus I am doing what I feel is necessary to achieve it.

[spectacleofphantasmagoria]

Have you never experienced love before?

[indispensable]

In a general sense, yes.

[He knows that his grandmother had loved him. And he knows that he had loved her too, in turn—and still does, to this very day.]

But the one I am trying to understand now is different from the type of love I am familiar with. That is why I wish to know more, from people who do.

[Alhaitham has never been embarrassed to admit the things which he has little understanding of. Knowledge has never had a place for one's ego.]

[spectacleofphantasmagoria]

[So the scribe does have a heart... how curious. And hearing the man openly admit his lack of knowledge is... strangely humbling, in a sense. He may be confident to a fault, but apparently he's not arrogant. It's refreshing.]

[He wonders if the man would be this open had he known who he was talking to.]

Have you ever felt anything different than general love? Say, a strong feeling for someone that's different than what you'd feel for a family member or close friend?

[indispensable]

That is what I am trying to understand. My familial ties are not many, and my personal connections beyond that are few, so I personally do not have much experiences to work with.

[He does understand that what he feels for his grandmother is different from what he feels towards Kaveh, but beyonf that difference everything else is inherently nebulous.]

[spectacleofphantasmagoria]

[It's understandable, Lyney supposes. In any case, he feels like he's learned as much as he can from his questions, at least the questions he can ask without giving himself away.]

It seems you have a specific goal in mind. In that case, I will wish you luck with this experiment of yours.

Just be warned; love is a wonderful thing, but it can also be quite dangerous. Take care with how you handle it. Do not let it blind you or lead you to do foolish things.

[indispensable]

I agree that most dangers and troubles are usually not worth the hassle to deal with. But some are, and I believe that this one falls into that particular category.

[Kaveh has—and will always be—worth it.]

[spectacleofphantasmagoria]

Just remember to not let yourself get carried away or taken advantage of.

[Lyney knows how to seek out weaknesses in others thanks to his Fatui training, and knows that love can be an exploitable weakness. But as much as he and Alhaitham may be on rocky terms, he genuinely doesn’t want the other man to get hurt over something as complicated and trivial as love. So he hopes the warning is taken in good faith, and that the man is careful with his heart. Especially since he is so naive to what it can entail.]

I bid you good luck on the rest of your experiment.

[indispensable]

[Alhaitham won't pretend that he isn't unfamiliar with matters of the heart, but at the same time its not as if he has been static either. He has learned, and he has grown with the times, and with the mistakes that he recognizes. But even so, there is no true end point in learning—just as there is no shame in discovering something that perhaps had come to him far later than most. But what is life, if he kept himself contained within his own structured walls and refuses to go out and see the other things that he is able to learn?]

You don't need to worry. I know my limits and where to stop, unlike some others.

[And that's all he will say for that bit of concern, really.]