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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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essential for a successful relationship
Date: 2004-02-16 02:51 pm (UTC)Being uneducated, I would ask a simpler question:
What did you want out of 'it',the relationship?
A lot of women want strength, support, warmth and anything but that awful loneliness, and they are prepared to trade sex for that. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't: two people live a lifetime of bad sex and emotional abuse. A lot of men just want shagging and give nothing back, other than a natural talent for ejaculation and insensitivity: more bad sex and unhappiness. I wouldn't call that successful, even if everyone involved deludes themselves that this is the best that they can ever have in life, and flaunts a public facade of sexual satisfaction to the world of lonely single people.
Some people just want a good, uncomplicated fuck and get exactly that. Not often both sexes want that, and I suspect that's the reason why homosexual couples have active sex lives through year after year of a relationship. But, whatever the plumbing, two or so people are getting what they want and that's probably a good thing. I'd call it successful, even if the rest of their lives are a depressing ruin and they never have a partner longer than a week. Of course, there's no such thing as uninvolved physical sex, and the people who think they are getting it are so emotionally detached that - I suspect - they lack the passion that makes for good sex.
So now the difficult bit... both people giving and getting strength, support, and human warmth. Needs two emotionally-stable people. Doesn't absolutely need sex, but we're built that way and it binds us. Too bad that needs 'fanciability', pheremonal chemistry, mutual attraction or whatever you want to call it. Also needs trust and one hell of an ability to look into people and give them what they really want - have you got that? I know I haven't.
So let's stick with the simple questions:
~ Are you getting what you wanted?
~ Do you think they have it to offer?
~ Do you know what they want?
~ ...and will you enjoy giving them that?
Lotus, the expert in relationships.
Re: essential for a successful relationship
Date: 2004-02-16 04:01 pm (UTC)A lot of women want strength, support, warmth and anything but that awful loneliness, and they are prepared to trade sex for that.
Hey, that's me, :). [Apart from the woman bit :)].
Re: essential for a successful relationship
Date: 2004-02-19 07:56 am (UTC)I don't think either of those models of behaviour is determined by gender...
Some people just want a good, uncomplicated fuck and get exactly that. Not often both sexes want that, and I suspect that's the reason why homosexual couples have active sex lives through year after year of a relationship.
I think that may be a bit of a sweeping generalisation. I think both genders sometimes want no-strings-attached sex (if there's any such thing), the problem is that often one partner attaches more importance to the act than the other. I guess this can probably be generalised into something to do with relationships being threatened by a "mismatch of expectations" (for want of a better description), but somehow that mismatch seems to become more obvious where sex is concerned ... perhaps it's just that sex is a context in which people are very vulnerable, so people are more likely to feel "used" when the other partner has different expectations about sex.
(Not expressed very well but I hope you see what I mean!)
Needs two emotionally-stable people.
I'm not sure about this. Partly because I'm not sure what constitutes emotional stability; partly because I suspect that to some extent everybody is emotionally unstable. I suspect there's a continuum: two extremely emotionally unstable people whose instabilities work badly together are less likely to have a smooth and uncomplicated relationship; two extremely emotionally stable people... well, I'm not sure I've ever seen two such people in the same room together, to be honest! But I guess they'd be more likely to have a smooth and uncomplicated relationship. Most people are somewhere inbetween, trying to make the best they can of the average hand they've been dealt.
Sometimes I think two "unstable" people can support each other fairly well because they're unstable in different ways, but both have enough understanding that they can be generally accepting and supportive of the other person. (I certainly saw a lot of this on u.p.s.d.!)
[wanders off to muse on some of the other stuff]