You're thinking about it the wrong way... bartonfink's issue was that for this issue his input had a conflict of interest. You remove that by getting a separate person to lead the input... which you can reference later on.

This is not so different from the standard sales approach of gaining the confidence of an SME on the client side who advises the decision maker.

In my experience if I'm her largest influence, then something's gone horribly wrong. I don't mean to be offensive, but this concept sounds more like codependency than a partnership.

Well, I can balance it by saying that largest doesn't mean only.

Yeah, sorry my initial reply was borderline knee jerk. I'm even questionable on even largest, but it's all on the back of my own experience.

The successful relationships I've had were always ones where my partner had their own, multiple criteria for happiness. I want to be at most say, a third of someone's life and contribute as much to their emotional state.

Between work, hobbies, social circles, working out, etc etc, I've always found relationships to fit into that but they place about no. 3-4, and anecdotally, its always made for better outcomes. When they hit no. 1 or 2, it means we're both giving up on something that's a significant part of our character, and I've never found it to be a positive indicator.

There was an article in the NYTimes called "Are your Friends Making you Fat?" that's surprisingly relevant to that comment: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/magazine/13contagion-t.htm...

This is a great read.I have submitted it independent submission here. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2220912