An alternative to relationship anniversaries.

[StachuK1992]

skip to tl;dr at bottom if you'd like.
I should really know better than to relate or connect mathematics to relationships (see http://xkcd.com/55/), but nonetheless, I thought this might be interesting to some.

Rather than celebrate a monthly/yearly/etc anniversary (or, in addition), I like the idea of celebrating a percentage-based anniversary. This can be done with how long a relationship has been in tact, how long one has been doing a hobby, etc.

To explain, let me just show an example:
Typing in "May 24, 1992" into the services of WolfRam Alpha (later reffered to as WR, found on wolframalpha.com), I can see that I have been alive for about 6849 earth days.

Typing in "October 13, 2007" into WR, I can see that I've been with my current hobby for 1229 earth days.

Quick devision -> 1229/6849 ~= 17.9% of my life.

Assuming you know your starting date of something (relationship, hobby, etc), you can easily find out what percentage of your life you've been with something or someone; what's slightly more difficult is to find out "When will I have been with x for n%?"
A simple re-writing of equations gives us the following:

Original equation = (days with/days alive)*100
p is percentage; n is days doing something; l is days alive; n is number of days until x percentage
solve p = (n+x)/(l+x)*100 for x
x = (100 n-l p)/(p-100)
p!=100 (and l!=n)

What that basically says ^^
the number of days from today in which you will be celebrating your p% "anniversary"/celebration etc., will be x.
So if I wanted to find out when I will have been cubing for, say, 1/5 of my life, I would plug in the following:
x = (100 n-l p)/(p-100)
x = (100 1229-6839 20)/(20-100)
x = 173.5
So that many days from now, I will have been cubing for 1/5 of my life. (using an astereotypical example)
Then, I can just go back to WR and type in "173.5 days from now," and the date of August 16th, this year, will come up.



tl;dr

"How long out have I been with my girlfriend?"
(days together/your lifespan)*100

"How long until I've been with her for n% of my life?"
x = (100 (time together)-(your lifespan) n)/(n-100)

Find out "time together" and "your lifespan" by inputting dates into WolfRamAlpha.com.
You can also have that do the math if you'd like.

As a side note: 2 months today, and 1% on Monday.
As a secondary side note: I should really know better than to relate such things to math. Oh well.

A fun advantage:
You can celebrate "1%" twice! One for each partner (assuming different birthdays, which is most likely).

Also, something like 1% just seems so much more than "two months;" maybe I'm just crazy.

Thoughts?
-statue

 

[Sa967St]

Cute. The thing with using an anniversary over this is that you don't have to calculate anything complicated, it's just a date to remember which is very simple.

 

[DavidWoner]

lol at trying to overhaul long established social customs.

 

[StachuK1992]

x = (100 (time together)-(your lifespan) n)/(n-100)
That's not *too* complicated!
Okay, maybe "relationship anniversaries for people who like maff"?


Also,

Celebrations get less and less as you get older. If you started at 30, for example, you wouldn't get to celebrate 1% until slightly less than 4 months in.

 

[Sa967St]

x = (100 (time together)-(your lifespan) n)/(n-100)
That's not *too* complicated!
Okay, maybe "relationship anniversaries for people who like maff"?

Still more complicated than (current year)-(year you started dating).

 

[Toad]

It also means that past relationships gradually depreciate in significance...

 

[Rinfiyks]

Alternatively: other planet year anniversaries, 10^n seconds/minutes, 10^n other interesting units of time such as planck seconds, time together as a percentage of the universe's estimated age, etc.

 

[Escher]

It also means that past relationships gradually depreciate in significance...

Quite apt.

 

[qqwref]

It's an interesting idea, but those numbers are only meaningful at the time - you might have spent 1% of your life with someone so far, but if you break up with them right now, it won't be 1% for very long. On the other hand, you can look back on a month/year anniversary forever.

Plus, I'd say that a weird-sounding percent ("our 14% anniversary!") sounds a bit less legitimate than something like a 14 year anniversary, although it could just be culture talking here.