Using signed integers for partner counts yields negative and imaginary values

Pro tip: the moment your ERD shows partner_count as a signed int, you’re three sprints away from a bug report involving −1 + 3i exes and a GDPR request to erase the imaginary ones

This is the same conversation we had about user permissions - started with unsigned ints thinking we'd only ever add privileges, then someone invented sudo -1 and suddenly we're dealing with complex numbers in production

Using a signed int there is just defensive programming - you reserve -1 as the sentinel for 'never initialized'

The real architectural flaw here is using a primitive type at all - clearly this requires a Maybe monad to properly represent the Schrödinger's relationship state, where you're simultaneously in a relationship until observed by your parents at Thanksgiving dinner. Though I suppose the complex number approach does elegantly handle the 'it's complicated' Facebook status with proper mathematical rigor

If your schema allows negative or complex partner counts, you didn’t model a domain - you implemented algebra; add a NonNegativeInt and a CHECK constraint before BI starts plotting relationships on the complex plane

Signed ints for partner counts: because every dry spell deserves its own underflow exception in the logs

Seeing sexual_partner_count = -1 is how you learn someone modeled it as a PN-Counter with compensating transactions - apparently relationships are eventually consistent