Posts tagged with "relationships"

Relationships As A Nash Equilbrium

A sub­ject I find dif­fi­cult to express myself about is that of free­dom.

Freedom is a dif­fi­cult thing to under­stand. In a rela­tion­ship, free­dom is always bound­ed by some con­straint imposed when the rela­tion­ship is first made. Yet free­dom is a very gen­er­al state­ment, even if nar­rowed down to the sit­u­a­tion with­in a rela­tion­ship.

The free­dom I wish to speak about is that of depen­dence with­in a rela­tion­ship. Freedom in this case is relat­ed to a sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty.

As a per­son, I find respon­si­bil­i­ties to be detestable. I have always tried to avoid respon­si­bil­i­ties in my life, and I do it well. The only thing that I am respon­si­ble for is myself, a fact that I’ve very will­ing­ly accept­ed, unlike oth­ers that I know.

However, in a rela­tion­ship, I’ve always felt that one should be respon­si­ble for his or her bet­ter half. I’ve always believed that it should be a com­mit­ment when enter­ing such a bond. Yet there is always the sep­a­ra­tion between being respon­si­ble for some­one, and being forced to be with some­one to serve their whim.

As a respon­si­ble per­son, it is one’s job to make sure that one is there if the oth­er needs it. However, this oth­er per­son must under­stand that when­ev­er he or she feels this “need”, he or she should not inter­fere with the free­dom allowed with­in the bound­aries of the rela­tion­ship.

A gener­ic exam­ple may make things clear­er. If a boyfriend want­ed to spend some time at home on the week­end with his girl­friend, but his girl­friend want­ed to go ski­ing for the week­end with her friends, then the male should not hin­der the activ­i­ties of the female, unless he was in dis­tress, or in great need of com­pa­ny. If his demand for her time is too great and con­stant­ly smoth­er­ing oth­er activ­i­ties she wish­es to do, then he is not being a respon­si­ble per­son and respect­ing his part­ners’ wish­es.

It has always seemed like such a self­ish thing to me, to be inor­di­nate­ly demand­ing, or unsat­is­fi­ably clingy. It begins as a form of flat­tery, to be sure, but exces­sive con­straints become a bur­den or strain on the rela­tion­ship. One finds one­self con­stant­ly try­ing to please the oth­er, with­out pre­vail.

I believe that such greed­i­ness stems from inse­cu­ri­ty. When some­one is inse­cure, he or she is scared that his or her part­ner is hav­ing too good a time, and will hence for­get about the rela­tion­ship. Perhaps jeal­ous­ly plays a part in such a vague sub­ject, and serves as a more con­scious man­i­fes­ta­tion of a sub­con­scious feel­ing.

Of course, I am guilty of such self­ish­ness myself at times, though I wish I was­n’t. I feel that I’ve improved, that I can respect the desires of oth­er peo­ple, so that they may be free to do what they wish. Perhaps this is a sign of increased con­fi­dence in my rela­tion­ships, that all I wish is for oth­ers to be hap­py.

A Nash equi­lib­ri­um is a ter­ri­ble thing.

Stay Away

A few days ago I had a strange feel­ing. The idea that I was a virus stuck in my head. Anything I came in con­tact with became infect­ed.

It just seemed like any­one I’ve become close with has been hurt in some way. It felt as if all my rela­tion­ships always take a turn for the worse, and it’s my fault. I’ll find some tiny, for­giv­able trait, and turn it into a detestable prob­lem. I’ll close off. I’ll hurt some­one.

Sometimes I think that I hurt peo­ple to test my bound­aries, to know how much they care. Perhaps I’m so inse­cure in my rela­tion­ships that I need to be sure about how some­one feels about me.

It’s as if I try to be friends with peo­ple I want to offend, so that they will hurt me back in some way, like Travis Bickle. Perhaps I need to be hurt.

I con­stant­ly feel as if I don’t know how to love. It’s such a fright­en­ing­ly scary idea. I wish I loved more. So many times I believe that I am expe­ri­enc­ing love, only to real­ize that I’m not, that it was just a fleet­ing emo­tion. Perhaps I need to be hurt to know that I can love.

I’ve only tru­ly loved once. Perhaps it was so intense, so pas­sion­ate, that all oth­er emo­tions feel numb in com­par­i­son.

Perhaps I sim­ply don’t know what love is.

I just know that I don’t want to hurt any­more.

Test Update, A Nietzsche Quote, And Racial Profiling

Why do I feel the need to write again so soon? Why can’t I just live one more day with­out hav­ing to tell my thoughts to some­thing, any­thing that will accept with­out judg­ment? Sometimes I wish that I could­n’t write for months.

I think I passed my DNA Computing and Quantum Computing test today. It turns out that I was miss­ing about 1/4 of the notes, so I real­ly had to do some last minute study­ing. The prof made it fair­ly easy though, which I was glad to see.

I stum­bled across some Taoist teach­ings today, and I was intrigued by what I read. I think it’s some­thing that I’ll have to research more, along with my Buddhist beliefs and Confucianism.

Women are quite able to make friends with a man; but to pre­serve such a friend­ship — that no doubt requires the assis­tance of a slight phys­i­cal antipa­thy.

—Nietzsche

When I first read this, I was­n’t too sure about the valid­i­ty of it, or per­haps even the valid­i­ty per­tain­ing to myself. In the last month, how­ev­er, it seems to be so true that any con­sid­er­a­tion of the pos­si­bil­i­ty to the con­trary would be ridicu­lous.

Today, some­one told me that ever since she first met me, she thought I was Korean. It was pret­ty sur­priz­ing, since this girl was Chinese her­self. It’s the first time I’d ever been mis­tak­en for Korean, although peo­ple often con­fuse my last name as being Vietnamese. Do we real­ly all look the same? Well, since even I failed the test, I sup­pose it’s true.