The article excerpt from Heather Havrilesky's work suggests an exploration of relationship dynamics and personal feelings of ambivalence, which connects to the user's interest in agency, relationships, and conversation. However, the provided text is limited and primarily anecdotal without detailed development of ideas, mechanisms, or reflective depth. The style is clear, but due to the paywall preview constraints, the substance and argument cannot be fully assessed, leading to a cautious neutral prediction rather than a stronger positive reaction. The piece's focus on rethinking old habits aligns somewhat with themes of personal agency and feedback loops but lacks enough evidence of substantive exploration or original analysis to confidently like or love at this stage.
How this was scored
- Rule
- María’s reading compass · v2
- Provider / model
- openai / gpt-4.1-mini
- Scored
- 2026-10-17T18:46:18+00:00
- Source text
- Revision 135 · paywall_preview
- Text selection
- All available text
- Prompt / schema
- reader-1 / reaction-1
- Settings
- {"max_output_tokens":800,"store":false}
- Tokens in / out
- 1181 / 195
- Estimated cost
- $0.000784
- Run
- #6
Exact rule used
This is an editable starter reading profile inferred from my existing subscriptions and a set of articles shared with me. Treat the examples as exploratory positive signals, not as confirmed favorite articles or evidence that I agree with their arguments.
Prioritize thoughtful essays about agency and how people build a life: learning, feedback loops, creative work, finding one's craft, relationships, friendship, conversation, and attention. Look for specific lived experience that develops into an interesting, useful idea. Make room for literary criticism, art, design, history, institutional analysis, and substantial book reviews.
Also consider AI, technology, startups, product strategy, and venture investing, reflecting my subscription mix. Favor explanations of mechanisms, concrete examples, original reporting or analysis, and arguments that acknowledge uncertainty. A piece should offer more than a headline, a trend summary, or a promotional pitch. Do not infer my political views or endorsement from the sources I follow.
Reward clear, distinctive prose and real intellectual substance. Both reflective personal writing and technically detailed analysis can fit. Length is fine when it earns its space. As an initial hypothesis, downrank repetitive advice, vague inspiration, generic hot takes, and hype unsupported by evidence. These style preferences are provisional and can be corrected with my feedback. Evaluate English and Spanish writing on substance without preferring one language.
When explaining a prediction, identify the specific connection to these themes and any mismatch. Do not give a high score solely because an author appears in my subscriptions or examples. Evaluate only the supplied article text; a title or paywall preview is not proof of the full argument.
Reference titles (sample signals; not actual ratings):
- For a long time, nothing. Then, suddenly one has the right eyes.
- Love is to be invested in someone’s continual expansion
- How to walk through walls
- Book Review: From Bauhaus To Our House
- half the world's writing should remain unpublished
- We think better when our minds are entwined
- The Hacking Will Continue While Market Morale Improves
- the delight of specificity
- Why we ended up homeschooling
- Bangers from Gibbon
- searching for your life's work is a multi-turn endeavor
- Why I Changed My Mind About AI Risk
- The hyperlocal
- The Specter Of Neuralese
- Your Book Review: Lee Kuan Yew's Memoirs
- Agentic fragments
- Average moments of a long-term meditator
- a case for sharing your dreams with friends
- the best conversations help you hear yourself
- First we shape our feedback loops; then they shape us
- timing
Exact article input
Do You Feel Guilty and Try to “Fix” Your Ambivalence Towards Others?
If you invest a lot of energy in relationships that feel incomplete or unfulfilling, it might be time to rethink your old habits and try something new.
Heather Havrilesky
Oct 14, 2026
∙
Paid
45
8
4
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Untitled (1928), Yves Tanguy
A few months ago, I went to a party and got into a pretty good conversation with an acquaintance. This person seemed fairly engaged and interested at first, but then she seemed to grow distracted. After a while, she seemed very detached — checking her phone, looking around the room, but still talking to me. It was disconcert…
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Input metadata
{"authors":"Heather Havrilesky","availability":"paywall_preview","canonical_url":"https://www.ask-polly.com/p/do-you-feel-guilty-and-try-to-fix","publication":"Ask Polly","publication_id":38,"published_at":"2026-10-14T13:48:48+00:00","subtitle":"If you invest a lot of energy in relationships that feel incomplete or unfulfilling, it might be time to rethink your old habits and try something new.","title":"Do You Feel Guilty and Try to “Fix” Your Ambivalence Towards Others?"}