Is Possessiveness Uncondionally Bad?

If you have read my previous posts, you might seem to get an idea that I am totally against possessiveness in relationships. But it isn't completely true. 

Say A and B are in love and A is possessive about B. The complete analysis is only keeping myself in B's shoes. Now what would I feel if I am B? Lose of freedom, feeling bad that A does not trust, Or If I am not worthy of trust then A should risk it to know whether the love is strong enough to survive etc etc. However, there is another school of thought which thinks differently.. In fact they feel good about the fact that their spouse/lover feels possessive. B is feeling good because of the attention he/she is getting. B is feeling good that A is surely in love and that is being expressed in a way of wanting B to be always together. It's nice to feel loved and it's nice when somebody wants you so badly (i e being possessed). As I told, this had not appealed to me so much.

But when I looked at myself in the past, it is not that I have hated possessiveness completely. I have liked when someone has felt possessive about me. So I kept thinking, what is my real take on that. So here I come with my new interpretation.

Plot a graph of "Feel good factor" felt by B (Y axis) Vs "possessiveness" of A ( X axis)

When there is little possessiveness, it is surely a feel good factor for B. I mean some feelings are meant to be expressed. Love being there is not enough, it needs to be expressed. One might know the love of the other person but our senses also needs feedback. The eyes need to see it and ears needs to hear it. So if all this is coming as a "bit" of possessiveness , it's ok. But if it keeps increasing, then you hit a point of diminishing returns where the expressions are redundant and has less value. If your partner keeps telling "love you" 100 times a day, you don't feel much. If it even continues further, then we hit the point of negative returns. It's starts to bite you. You feel choked and suffocated, lose of freedom and finally hate the other person for being so intrusive in your life.

So the feeling of being loved, wanted is nice but the feeling of being possessed??

How to care by not caring?

…………… Or how to not care by caring?

It's pretty obvious that I am using the word “care” in 2 different senses but it's care nevertheless. So what are these 2 different types of care? I will just give 2 examples and it might be clear after that.

1. Suppose you have a 1 year old kid and you have taken him/her for vaccination. You know the kid is going to cry a lot due to the pain of the injection. Will you stop vaccination because of that or will you go ahead? Here you have cared (By careful considering of the importance of vaccination) for the kid by not caring (about the pain the kid has to suffer).
   
   
2. Suppose you have a strong ideology and you have your reasons for it. The ideology is a consequence of your experiences and learnings. Now that ideology might not particularly please the close people around you. Also, it is very difficult for them to understand the importance of the ideology because they have not had the experience which you have had. So it is very difficult for them to put themselves in your shoes. But it troubles them nevertheless. So what are you going to do about it? If you give up on those beliefs because you “care” for them, somewhere you have not cared by caring. I would say not caring because it gives a distorted image of what you are to them but probably they deserve more. They might deserve to know the sensitivities behind your ideology. It's just that you need (also them) perseverance to finally get to a point where the ideology stays and also the relationship. And that is real caring in my opinion.
   
   
   
   
   So yeah. In my title, the first “care” is giving importance to the person by giving importance to the deeper meaning/purpose behind certain beliefs and actions. The second “care” is giving importance to the person by giving importance to their emotions of pain, trouble, fear etc etc. 
   
   

Double standards – Cont

My previous post was on double standards that exists in relationships. Here I am going to write about double standards in ideologies. Though this idea very much applies to any ideology, I am going to take one ideology as an example and elaborate. The ideology I have chosen is Khalil Gibran's take on possessiveness. It can be summarized in the following quote:

“If you love someone set him/her free. If he/she comes back, he/she is yours. If not, he/she was never meant to be.”

What is the Double standard here? There are 2 types of double standards actually.

• This makes one a hypocrite - Suppose A and B are in a romantic relationship. Romantic relationships are usually accompanied by possessiveness though to varying degrees. But A claims that he/she doesn't believe in possessiveness and regularly quotes the above sentence. A also uses it to his/her convenience to flirt/have fun with other people. But in case B does the same, A is very agitated.

• This makes one a Gandhi* - Suppose A and B are in a romantic relationship. Romantic relationships are usually accompanied by possessiveness though to varying degrees. But A claims that he/she doesn't believe in possessiveness and regularly quotes the above sentence. A also makes sure he/she never comes in the way of B's freedom. A is also fine if B has multiple sexual partners. However A remains very loyal and committed. Now this can have 2 reasons.
   
  • A just feels to be committed and loyal.
  • A stays committed in order to be extra good by giving freedom but not using it for oneself. Now, I would call this as double standards because if one fundamentally doesn't believe in possessiveness, it should be equally applicable to both parties. It means he/she doesn't possess anyone nor likes to be possessed. 

I am not telling about the category to which I belong. But if one has read my previous posts, it's not hard to come up with a guess :-)

P S : I have no idea about Gandhi's take on possessiveness. I am using the name Gandhi as a metaphor for a person with high moral standards (Double standards nevertheless ;-))

Difference between “Agree to Disagree” and “Agree even though you Disagree”

We all are quite aware of what “Agree to Disagree” means. According to me it is one of the most important aspects needed for healthy human relationships. But why doesn't “Agree to Disagree” often happen or even come in handy? I am going to write about 2 types of “Agree to Disagree” and 2 types of “Agree even though you Disagree”.

The 2 types of “Agree to Disagree” are

• Symmetrical “Agree to Disagree” - This generally is the best form of agree to disagree but also quite rare. Suppose X and Y go for a multiplex. X is a big fan of “SRK” and Y is a big fan of “Salman Khan”. They argue why one is better over the other for 10 min but reach no where. So they agree to disagree and X will go for SRK's movie and Y will go for Salman Khan's movie. Chapter closed. No sulking and no nothings.
• Asymmetrical “Agree to Disagree” - Suppose X and Y are a couple and X wants to have sex with Y because he/she is in the mood that day. But Y is bogged down by some office pressures and not in the mood. X tries to convince that sex might help the situation blah blah bah but Y is not in the mood at all. So they agree to disagree. Now the asymmetry comes in the picture. After agreeing to disagreeing, what follows? They DON'T have sex. Which means it is titled towards what Y wanted. It is different from symmetrical one where X and Y got to watch their favorite hero's movie. Here it is not like X will have sex and Y will not. At most, X can masturbate and be happy. So you can force yourself not to have sex but it is very difficult to force yourself to have sex. Even if Y succumbs and has sex, it is pretty certain that it will not be enjoyable for X. ( When I say sex, I imply the one which is filled with love and emotions and not just the mechanical intercourse).

The 2 types of “Agree even though you Disagree” are :

• The Nature of the Situation : Suppose 4 people (A,B,C and D) are on a very difficult and risky trek and they have lost their way. They reach a fork and in that place, A feels the left direction is the correct one and B,C and D feels the right one is correct. They argue for sometime and explain to each other why they think what they think is correct. But still not convincing for all the 4 to be on the same path. It is possible that A takes the left and B,C and takes the right but A will be taking a much higher risk by being alone on an already risky trek. In such a scenario, more often than not, A joins B,C and D and continues. Though A technically has not agreed to B,C and D, A 's action mimics agreeing even though disagreeing.
• The Nature of the Opposite Person : Suppose A and B are in relationship and they are arguing about a particular action of A's. From A's perspective, he/she has his/her reasons as to why things happened the way it happened. But B is simply not in a position to comprehend/accept that. “Agree to Disagree” and leaving the matter is definitely an option (Unless B is very certain that action is unjustifiable on any grounds. But this also means the relationship is strained). But what I have observed is, “Agree to Disagree” seldom happens in these kind of scenarios. Instead, the rationale behind the argument is compromised and it become very high on emotions. If A's emotions peak, then B will “Agree even though Disagree” and vice versa. My strong belief here is, emotions should have no space in an argument. I am not saying emotions have no space in a relationship. It obviously has. So if B(or even A) is angry/pissed/irritated, so be it. He/She can sulk/throwing tantrums or whatever. But one cannot have an objective unbiased argument in an emotional state. Arguments have to be purely rationale in nature. Arguments which are high on emotions don't even qualify to be called as arguments. The word “Fight” suits better probably. Or if the word argument has a very fight like connotation, I would choose to use the word discussion instead. 
   

Barriers to Honesty

Note: I am using examples of parent-child relationship and friendship to write this post but the idea is applicable to many other types of human relationships as well.

In my Older post “Honesty is the best policy”.. Really?”, I had written about the price one has to pay if he/she chooses to be honest, i e social rejection. In this post, I am going to highlight the nature of barriers that exist which prevents one to be honest. I will broadly classify the barriers in to 3 sets

1) The barrier that exist because of the intrinsic nature of human relationships: These are the situations where it is even inappropriate to use the word honesty or dishonesty. Suppose a 8 year old kid asks the parents “What did you both do at night?” in the morning, no one would call the parents dishonest if their reply is “We prayed to god and slept” .Of course you can't expect them to say that they had sex (assuming they did). Certain circumstances, just by the nature of it, expects people to be dishonest.

2) The barrier that is created by external forces: Suppose a well meaning, honest 18 year old teenager girl wants to tell her parents that she likes a boy and she needs to explore that relationship. If the parents are matured, objective enough to listen to their daughter without biases, it will comfort the daughter to be open about the relationship. By saying this, I don't intend the parents should give green signal or even accept the relationship. I just mean if the parents listen without biases or judgements and if need be, be an integral part to help the daughter analyze the merits and demerits of the relationship, she will be more honest about things. But this seldom happens and becomes a huge barrier for children to be honest with their parents. But what are the reasons behind this?

• Parents are too used to (from scenario 1) treating children as immatured kids and feel it's their responsibility to take decision on behalf of them. This behavior one can see even if the children are 18, 25 or 30. Or even when the children have children of their own ;-)
• In many cases, the children are very immature and a proper dialogue is not even possible and so parents choose to use force. But one definite outcome is, the dishonesty will only increase.
• In some cases, the situation presented by the child is so atypical that it might appear bizarre for the parents. Such situations will force the child to be dishonest though he/she doesn't want to. Basically it's the fear of “not being understood”

3) The barrier that is created by internal forces: Suppose A and B are acquaintances and they are getting closer to become friends. The reason they are getting close is because there is some intersection of qualities. But it's very rare that intersection is full or near full. Initially we choose to ignore the differences and highlight the intersections and that's probably because we are in need of that relationship. As this grows, it becomes hard to be honest about the differences. So the friendship is now between distorted A and B and not real A and B. With time, the barrier to honesty has only become harder to break.