So, what happens when you get a bunch of polyamorous geeks together at a party? Someone starts charting relationship configurations, and someone else starts wondering how many possible relationship configurations there are in a particular group, and someone else gets out a calculator and a sheet of paper, and…

As it turns out, the equation that will tell you for any size group of people n how many possible relationship configurations (couples, triads, and so on) are possible within that group is pretty complicated. It took a lot of work and many sheets of paper, and the considerable brainpower of a couple people with degrees in mathematics, but the equation is:

This will tell you for any group of people n how many possible relationship configurations exist in that group.

And the number goes up fast. Scary fast. For n=9, there are 502 possible relationship configurations in that group. The number of people in the Squiggle I belong to is 15; I haven’t calculated the number of possible relationship configurations exist in such a group.

I think I’m going to make this formula into a T-shirt.