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j4I don't need to know, but I'm interested to know:
What (if anything) do people regard as essential for a successful relationship?
(I'm thinking more in the general sense than the personal -- I'm not really interested to know whether individual people couldn't possibly have a relationship with somebody who worked for Microsoft, or whether they need somebody who will accept and indulge their Swarfega fetish.)
Or do you think relationships are so individual that they're impossible to generalise about?
(20 marks.)
Further questions:
Do you think there's a (moral?) judgement implicit in a suggestion that anything is "essential" for a successful relationship? By stating the question in those terms, are we imposing our own definition of "success" on other people? (I'm assuming a broad context of Western culture; at the moment I'm not really interested in hearing, say, how the Mgosh tribe regard a "successful" relationship as one where the female bears twenty children and then eats her mate.) Or do questions like this merely make us disappear rapidly up our own solipsistic arses?
(40 marks.)
Note: You may define "relationship" as broadly as you wish, but please make your working definition explicit. Do not attempt to write on both sides of the paper at once.
What (if anything) do people regard as essential for a successful relationship?
(I'm thinking more in the general sense than the personal -- I'm not really interested to know whether individual people couldn't possibly have a relationship with somebody who worked for Microsoft, or whether they need somebody who will accept and indulge their Swarfega fetish.)
Or do you think relationships are so individual that they're impossible to generalise about?
(20 marks.)
Further questions:
Do you think there's a (moral?) judgement implicit in a suggestion that anything is "essential" for a successful relationship? By stating the question in those terms, are we imposing our own definition of "success" on other people? (I'm assuming a broad context of Western culture; at the moment I'm not really interested in hearing, say, how the Mgosh tribe regard a "successful" relationship as one where the female bears twenty children and then eats her mate.) Or do questions like this merely make us disappear rapidly up our own solipsistic arses?
(40 marks.)
Note: You may define "relationship" as broadly as you wish, but please make your working definition explicit. Do not attempt to write on both sides of the paper at once.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-16 06:20 am (UTC)It seems to me that it would be very hard to have anything which could be classed as a "successful" relationship without this... but I'm willing to believe that there are people who manage it, and who would class their relationships as "successsful".
Defining "successful" is more tricky, and I'm not sure I could do it. Can't use "sharing living space without killing one another" since there are plenty of people in "successful relationships" who don't live together. Can't use "the propagation of the species" because, viewed in that light, none of my relationships are, or ever have been, successful. "Enjoy spending time together and plan to continue to spend time together"? Bit wishy-washy, isn't it?
Re:
Date: 2004-02-19 06:36 am (UTC)"Plan to continue to spend time together" sort of suggests that a relationship is only "successful" if neither party can envisage it ending. Does this mean that short-term (or perhaps I should say known-in-advance-to-be-unlikely-to-be-long-term) relationships can't be successful?
Re:
Date: 2004-02-19 06:48 am (UTC)Um. I don't think they would work well for me, and so therefore I would probably not consider them successful for me. However, I know plenty of people to whom this wouldn't apply.
I can't see any reason why a relationship which has ended can't be viewed as "successful" in some sense. If it made its participants happy, or at least not actively homicidal or indeed suicidal, during its span, then that probably counts as "successful" too.
"Plan to continue to spend time together" probably ought to have been qualified with something along the lines of "as long as all concerned are still willing to do so".
Actually, here's a possible summary version. How about: "a relationship is successful if those within the relationship are happier for it to continue than to end it"?