![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-02-18 09:16 am (UTC)A willingness to accept that human nature is inherently flawed and to give all the other people in the relationship the benefit of the doubt.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-19 08:31 am (UTC)(I agree it's important to accept that human nature is inherently flawed, though ... hm, this is one of my personal hangups. I try to maintain a constructive tension between "Everything is inherently flawed" and "Most things can be changed for the better". Just because something is inherently flawed doesn't mean it couldn't be improved, IYSWIM.)
Re:
Date: 2004-02-20 07:30 am (UTC)Parenthesised paragraph: definitely agreed.