If you point me to a romantic relationship, I would instantly understand the dynamic. But if you ask me to explain it, the understanding becomes harder to articulate.
Most people would feel that this concept is immediately recognizable. Just like what constitutes as loving actions, but this is a different matter on its own…. But that a romantic relationship involves people that are exercising romantic love towards each other. And that romance is an emotional attitude exercised by people in a romantic relationship.
Some would still try to explain it further. They would say that a romantic relationship is a provisional commitment of love between two people that invokes the possibility of marriage; a commitment that nevertheless leaves open the mutual choice to last beyond this rite. And I say marriage because it takes the bulk of an individual’s life (from the married individuals of course), so the commitment shifts from momentary and low-stakes to perpetual and long-bearing. All that would be to say that a considerable amount of people would have marriage in mind when they think of a romantic relationship.
This has been true for the larger part of history. Although the priorities have since shifted from a focus on dynastic honour and the children in those days, where romance was secondary; toward a greater focus on the partners themselves as the foundation of a stable home in the modern age. So let us examine the modern concept of marriage, which is more relevant to the current cultural context.
They would be justified in pointing out that within this institution, the lovebirds continue having this loving commitment to each other beyond the matrimonial bed: by each person willfully sharing in the perspectives of their partner, showing up for each other in drama from the extended family, giving extra special treatment to each other periodically, respecting the decisions of each other in raising their children, building a family business that would be handed down generations… you name it.
Except… All this is achievable to a comparable extent in a platonic friendship. To lock into this, platonic friends can achieve similar levels of financial protections (through co-signing, co-ownership and planning of inheritance) and legal provisions (such as medical power of attorney, guardianship arrangements where children and incapacitated individuals are involved, and contractual agreements) to their married counterparts.
The dynamic (platonic friendship) that would mirror this romantic relationship closest would be a healthy co-parenting. Life happens, and people may decide that they are incompatible with each other. But the few gems would still decide to have something platonic in reserve, or at least mutual respect for the sake of their children; so they still participate in all these other things as they did when the marriage was functional, except for being sexually active.
So the question becomes: Would they still be considered as the partakers of a romantic relationship?
This would likely generate a dismissive knee-jerk response based on the fact that these two people are divorced or separated, but then it would fail to take into account these other non-sexual acts of commitment that would have been laid out moments ago. But let’s grant that they had a history for a moment; the history in question referring to the romantic involvement that existed before the dissolution of the marriage.
I would have to point out, though, that granting the reasoning of history for the person who decides to take this alternative approach would implicitly concede that a romantic relationship can still exist after marriage in this regard. This is still debatable, but with a less confidence than the first-glance confidence in the distinction between romantic relationships and platonic friendship.
So… What if the history of the relationship between these two people involved a purely platonic friendship from the get-go; still assuming that romance is a legitimate relationship dynamic that they chose not to take in this alternative?
Say, they both lacked the need of having a marriage partner but wanted to raise children, and through some rare occurrence, jointly decided to have a baby through in-vitro fertilization. So legally, they aren’t bound to the matrimonial bed, but at the same time they have to be together through their commitment for the child. This legal arrangement would, in practice, be blind to their cordial, non-sexual commitment to each other as far as the child is concerned. So they engage in different acts of cordial commitment to each other for about 18 years as they did before the child, and added acts of commitment to the children they sired together.
The question from the previous hypothetical situation would still persist, this time through a different form: Would this still be a platonic friendship, or would it have automatically transferred to a romantic dynamic? It blurs the distinction between these two kinds of dynamics even further.
So what does this mean for our hopeless, hapless romantics?
Can a married couple be limited to romance to mean that they are friends with benefits? Can siblings and cousins romance each other under the pretext of non-sexual dynamics? It would be up to the deep-thinkers to tell us.
The whole point here would be to question whether the distinctions commonly used to separate romantic relationships from deep friendship are as clear as we assume.
The turndown in question, that "I/they don't owe you anything" is used in situations where someone made an expectation of someone else, but then is stumped by the difference between their own priorities and the (realistic) priorities of that who is turning them down.
I mean, looking at this at surface-level, it is brutally honest that they weren't somehow indebted to you because of a picture you formed about them in your mind. You weren't entitled to receiving their mile because they gave you an inch, and for reference; you weren't entitled to receiving that promotion because your manager had faith in you while mentoring you.
But it is still unfair. I feel like it shifts that burden of hindsight on you. You should have known better. You should have strategized yourself to invest your energy in people who would finally appreciate you. And it is especially worse if you know, and they know, that they were stringing you along just to deny you this opportunity (for some sadistic pleasure, it often seems).
At the same time, you are not entitled to everyone operating within your locus of expectations. People are not robots; they may have been drawn to something different that you were not privy to until this disappointing moment. So you can't really blame them for not noticing that like a beacon, you burnt yourself out to shine brightest.
Even "moving on" is something other people who can't share in the intensity of your disappointment always say in passing. Often to minimize the emotional effort they put into processing with you what has just transpired. It may be well-intentioned, it may be a further handwave; but it doesn't provide a satisfactory outlook... not especially if it is a lifeline that has been cut and you can't clutch onto anything else.
Perhaps this (being dissatisfied with this particular outlook because of the apparent lack of access to other lifelines) is a hyperbolic stance though, because realistically speaking, opportunities to heal and move on are somewhat there. We can at least anticipate that... But what do you cling onto in the known present, how do you know when to next cling onto; when you have just been thrust into the mud, and your vision has as such been murkied in that moment?
All things considered, perhaps this is why this imagery of the proverbial drowning man seems to bring everything together so neatly. If I were to tie all these motifs: this now-smouldering beacon… the now-rudderless lifeline… the now-groping clutching and clinging… the now gritty, itching mud…; all these, into one coherent visual narrative, I would picture this man, adrift, holding onto that straw of a lifeline, while trying to look for that undrenched beacon that will guide him ashore. He is stranded across a stretch of sea frequented by freight traffic, so it is a reasonable assurance of him getting safety; but at the moment he just doesn’t know where to go.
The spice in chicken masala may have a punchful or hot appeal to the taste buds, but it would only take for people who have tried it to understand what this means. Some duck pottage may be dense and filling but people who haven't tried it don't know whether to relate it to the feeling of being satisfied or feeling bloated until they try it themselves.
Perhaps the most notorious contender for describing the experiences in question is the word sweet. Chocolate brownie is sweet. So are watermelon-flavoured sweets(candy). And French vanilla ice-cream. Don't forget some fruit-flavoured medication. To some people, even biryani and saeurkraut are sweet.
Such that even when (the very rare) food influencers go out of their way to describe a particular experience with a novel treat, you still don't know whether it is something worth spending your money on, or spending your time and energy to make. It places the burden on you to find out, because again, taste is very subjective. Although I would argue that there are some common traits that can be derived from those subjective tastes.
Is it concerning that I know what 911 is (from watching too many movies) and 999, but I don't know even one Kenyan emergency contact? Or is it a common Kenyan occurrence?
Ama ni nuksi mtu anajitakia akimemorize hizi numbers?
Similarly, I am realizing that a lot of us also don't understand basic first aid procedures. We just don't know what to do when someone has fainted, or when they are injured. Bado kuna disagreement about how you should hold your head ukinosebleed, with some people claiming that you are supposed to hold it up.
A while ago, I was looking into emotivism (just looking at its surface-level elements) when I stumbled upon the concepts of moral and descriptive claims. I came to the conclusion that descriptive claims assert various expressions of an abstract concept in a very neutral way; while moral claims now gauge whether said expressions have a positive or negative attitude within an individual.
This made me now reflect on 1 Corinthians 13, where love is described as patient, kind, selfless, etc; and particularly on whether these adjectives made out the depictions of love to serve as descriptive claims, or if they served as moral claims.
To fully grasp the neutrality in these adjectives, I considered the example that it could be kind to withhold certain information from someone with an informed presumption that they would respond negatively to it, and at the same time it could be deceptive and cruel to have to assure them of a false sense of safety and deny them the dignity of nevertheless knowing the uncomfortable truth.
Likewise, I considered that it would have been selfless for a parent to decline a prestigious job opportunity across the globe because it would require constant travel, choosing instead to be present for their children during important developmental years. It may as well be self-serving for a parent to underweight the material repercussions that come with staking a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity on the hidden fears of accepting the uncertainties that come with change., such as what it would mean for their relationship with their children.
Frankly speaking, I had concluded at the time that the depiction was rather ingenuine because the claims could be interpreted either positively or negatively, and as such could be misused by people to further their own means in the name of "love". I mean... What if someone sought an idealized version of love from another person as a means of completing themselves, while failing to consciously recognize that the other person is an individual whose own needs and desires require equal consideration, in stead of a (probably, yet another) source of emotional fulfillment?
At the same time, a focus that I had underwhelmed at the time is that all these concepts were context-dependent. Patience... Kindness.... Selflessness... Even love itself. That, going back to our example of kindness, for instance, it was loving for this person to withhold this critical piece of information from their partner at an especially vulnerable moment; not because an external perspective would portray it as loving, but that the person who is shielded from an uncomfortable truth would themselves acknowledge the action as loving.
So it now brings my title question into clearer focus, that self-evident in this case would require a shared context in which both people mutually acknowledge the role of certain actions in showing love. In the same way that a concept like moral/legal justice is self-evident in the eyes of its citizens because they are subject to an external, objective weight of morality/justice; people within an overarching loving framework are allowed to honestly depict this dynamic as self-evident in the sense that they can both perceive the weight of love in their actions.
Perhaps an additional insight into this chapter would be that love is compatible. Both within the standards of the loved ones and with God. Especially with God, also bearing in mind that trauma bonds exist, although I am yet to fully conceptualize how healthy love would still exist aside from this context.
Of course, this newfound interpretation is open to discussion, and I would even appreciate some philosophical insights on this as much as theological ones.
I believe many of you can connect to the context. Just to make sure that everyone is on the same page, this question addresses a common trope among people who fail to notice from hindsight how much toxic their partner actually were. That they usually say that "The signs were never there".
This question has been on my mind for a while, and considering both naturalistic and religious perspectives, it appears that it is impossible to achieve absolute free will; because there will always be consequences for your actions, whether positive or negative, that skews your perspective towards the positive consequence.
Looking at the religious perspective, specifically the Christian one since this is what I am most exposed to, believers often say that God gives us free will to choose whether to accept Him or reject Him. On surface level, it appears that upon being presented with options, the ball is now in your court whether you would go to heaven or to hell; and this argument typically reinforces a notion within Christian circles that “hell is locked from the inside”. From an objective perspective, however, we see God earnest in exacting suffering in those who rejected Him (Proverbs 1:26) and it becomes clearer that there is some divine resentment that is sparked by making the unacceptable choice. So in practice, it appears like we have a choice, but we don’t have complete freedom to choose what aligns best with our interests without the fear of looming punishment. We have to compromise on our personal interests to align with the will of God.
Even beyond the religious perspective, we can see in the natural world how much it can get to achieve the absolute form of free will. I have been reading some excerpts from Arendt’s book: The Banality of Evil; and this is not to say that it forms an overarching explanation on this subject matter, but I believe it is comprehensive enough in trying to do so. To explain it in a manner I am most comfortable with, we have our inner world containing our desires and thoughts, which we have to negotiate with the outer world to arrive at a similar compromise. To this end, our thoughts have to collaborate with our judgements to achieve what we call the enlarged mentality: the ability to share in the perspective of others as much of our own to make a properly informed judgement. The incapacity to perform this social act imposes social consequences upon the person who acts in their own interests, especially if it comes at the expense of others.
Now, the extent to which absolute free will produces positive and negative consequences heavily depends on context, but I would want to see how a hypothetical world with absolute free will would operate. Specifically, I would want to be enticed by a utopic depiction, where said free will conveniently aligns with everyone’s interests to be considerate of each other’s needs. Where the free will of one will not impede on that of the other.
...or could it just be a personal preference?
Might they have an altered neurological functioning as well?
What I mean is that you are really starting from scratch; like, you want to find new friends to form lifelong bonds with now that you are alone in the purest sense. Of course this does not often reflect the social realities of most people, including introverts, but I am still convinced that this is someone's life.
I always see that adult relationships are difficult to build, and get more difficult to build as you continue growing up, especially if there is no institution or social activity that incentivizes people to interact, so I want to make the most out of my 20s so I don't die alone.
There’s this Swahili expression: Kila mcheza ngoma huivuta ngozi kwake(Every drum player pulls the hides towards themselves); that people look to benefit themselves through a social advantage, sometimes even as it comes at the expense of others.
I believe this is what makes the broaching of the difficulties that actually face African countries sensitive: that said difficulties are treated as a coveted pie that everyone stands to gain social acceptance from partaking in. That even as we want to shed light on areas that the world tends to forget, we always walk a thin line in ensuring that what we say is not used to benefit the biases that the world holds against us. That we always anticipate loaded questions stemming from a place of ignorance as we strive to defend our honour, our humanity.
That kept in mind, the key question now becomes: How do people in different African countries respond to non-Africans knowing, or wanting to know, about their social issues? At what point does the conversation set them on edge?
I see this more commonly in experiences involving sexual assault, where the harm the victim has to go through is minimized under dismissive statements like "They're looking for attention" or that "They could have [changed how they presented themselves in that situation] so it didn't have to happen to them" or "They could have said something sooner; they probably want to gain something from the accusation".
These statements especially seem to have greater influence over the initiative taken to address the experience when there is no evidence at the moment to support the experience of the victim... until there is. Or until the victim appears desperate enough to want to be believed. Then people suddenly "realize" how neglected the victim must have felt when they dismissed them.
But then I often wonder: What do they really mean about this "realization"? Why should it only matter now that they should have intervened more proactively, and not when they still had the chance to show their concern for the victim? What does the victim stand to gain from acknowledging that they were doubtful at one point, but have now realized the severity of the experience? And why is the victim now expected to understand that these people never understood them at one point?