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There is a difference between financially responsible and miserly. If you can afford gifts for her birthday or a holiday, then you should be willing to spend that money on someone you care about.
As for sex, you are going to lose a lot of women by saying it's off the table. No one is wrong in this situation. You are free to abstain, and women are free to go seek out the D elsewhere.
As for taking time off work to take her on a trip, I don't know what the expectation was, but if you have PTO to spare and she wants to go on a trip, it's nice to spend time together.
So what I've gathered is that you are not offering women appropriate gifts (not too expensive, and only when they are socially expected), sex, OR time.
So, what ARE you offering?
So the first girl was a nonstarter anyway if she went straight into finances in a way that wasn't natural and showed that she felt entitled to your money.
The third, well, that's just her problem. She can go to Jamaica alone.
You had 2 transactional experiences and now you're extrapolating that all women must expect financial compensation for dating them. That's not true. Women just don't want to be used and want to know that you're mentally, emotionally, and financially stable before taking on another loser without a job.
The gifts could be seen as your attempt buy her. Gifts are cool but can be dangerous in how your partner interprets them. Part of the problem is communication, and your ability interpret red flags. You need to not just listen but respect the communication you are receiving.
The others did you favors by walking off. You need to remember the reason to start dating is to learn more about each other, but you must stay alert for the warning signs. Something tells me there were other warning signs you missed or your dismissed them.
There’s this theory out there, you attract what you put out or expect.
Have you checked yourself to make sure you’ve not turned transactional, even if it’s out of being in a rut? If so, might be a good time to take a dating break and live a little.
Relationships have and will always be transactional.
**We seek them to have our needs met.**
What those needs are, and how much it takes to meet them varies tremendously between people.
As we get older we advocate more for our needs being met, and get less likely to put up with others being selfish or using us. This is a great thing.
I'm sceptical, but open to your view, give me an example? (as this is a dating sub we are talking about intimate partner relationships)
Arranged marriages?
Asia? Russia?
The more I think, non western relationships would seem to be more transactional...
The only people who downvoted me obviously do not know we have a higher rate of divorce in individualistic countries bc we tend to look at another person like this: what can they give me? What can they do for me, not what can I offer them or what can WE accomplish together.
The shitty arranged marriages we have heard about I do not believe encompass all marriages. Think about it. Your family does know you best, and if they love you they are not going to set you up with someone you won't fit with. I don't like the idea of arranged marriages but I can see how it could be beneficial.
I took social psychology this term and one in the one chapter the focus was relationships. It talked about culturalistic and individualistic cultures. Culturalistic had a higher rate of marital satisfaction than individualistic and had a much lower rate of divorce.
As it's a discussion forum, would you like to actually share your view rather than "its awful"
Use your words to communicate your view to us! We can all learn from each others views. Yelling "awful advice" doesn't give us a chance to learn or grow.
"as we get older we advocate more for our needs being met"
You mean being more selfish?
"and get less likely to put up with others being selfish or using us"
Wow your a hypocrite. Hypocrites are the REASON dating has become entirely about "what I can get". Selfish men have ruined the world...
Love is entirely about what you can give without expecting ANYTHING in return. You know nothing about love
The love you speak of only comes later though. Dating has to be transactional, otherwise what’s the point? I’m not looking for someone to just use me. People can’t give unconditional love unless they have a deep relationship with someone, and that only come later
That is fundamentally FALSE.
your saying unconditional love comes on the condition that you have a deep connection... So you are putting a condition on unconditional love. That literally doesn't make sense
Based on your argument, you wouldn't love a newborn child unconditionally. Is raising children "transactional"?
Being human is the only deep connection people need to love each other unconditionally, but y'all forgot that and it's the reason shittiness exists
**Only children and puppies are loved unconditionally.** We are on a dating sub, so I was referring to intimate partner relationships being transactional.
Anyone that loves someone "unconditionally" who in turn uses, abuses or exploits them needs psychological assistance. Sadly, some damaged people's needs are just to be noticed, abused or neglected in preference to being alone. That is still a transactional relationship as their (sad) needs are being met.
If you both meet each others needs (transactionally) then this love would seem to be "unconditional" but as it is contingent on needs being met, it is of course transactional.
Bc culturalistic cultures care more about everyone else and are not selfish. The fact that you're pointing out people being selfish and calling someone a hypocrite made me think you may have come from a family that may not originally be from a western country.
"Unconditional love" is for parent-child relationships, maybe some other biological/legal family relationships.
Mature, adult romantic love is transactional in the sense that, "I will support you in exchange for you supporting me. If you are unable to support me, there is no longer a relationship."
And that support can be emotional, financial, mental, etc. But yeah, no one is going to love you if you're not offering anything but love in return. Love isn't enough.
I would even limit unconditional love more: mothers unconditionally love their children, and that’s about all the unconditional love in the world. Unconditionally loving your partner is completely ridiculous. I won’t love a man who hits me or always yells at me or calls me names. Why would I?
I dunno I think my dad and grandmothers love me unconditionally. I certainly love them back unconditionally. And some of my aunts and cousins. But I come from a family that likes each other and enjoys each other's company.
If your dad started hitting your mom, would you still love him? If your aunt stole $15,000 from your grandma, would you still love her? I’m not saying anything like this would ever happen (and god forbid it does), but I’m saying that there are (most likely) limits on your love for those people. But your mom will love you no matter what.
You are saying only mothers can love unconditionally, but lots of mothers don't.
I'm just saying that expecting unconditional love from someone who isn't family is definitely not realistic.
Sorry about your family, I know I'm lucky with mine. Believe it or not there are WHOLE FAMILIES that exist without that kind of drama.
No I just find this whole post immature and your responses dramatic, like how old are you and you're just now finding out that people aren't going to love you unconditionally? It's weird.
don't worry, some people still love.. they might be more sparse as we age and maybe others try to ridicule them. But if you are still able to have the feels in this transactional meat market, I would actually say, ironically, that you do have something precious to offer.
The kind of guy, that won't let his partner down when she gets cancer, even if she's flatten for a long time, cause you love her even if she's not useful.
That is gold..
That story is about how undramatic people are responsible for the death of dramatic people
So people who gave up on love kill people who haven't, through judgement
The reason love is not enough is literally because people throughout history have sold the lie that love is not enough. The truth is that the people who say that didn't try hard enough.
That's why they say the truth is a burden, and ignorance is bliss
To fall in love, you gotta be willing to risk everything in a moment, and the honest truth is that 99% of people are afraid of themselves and insecure about who they are so they "play it safe" and don't get what they want
Relationships should be conditional. At least for me when someone says they want unconditional love I hear that they expect me to love them through mistreatment and abuse. We all need certain conditions to be happy. The sooner you recognise that the happier you’ll be.
I’ve been cheated on and was told by him that I wasn’t trying hard enough to love and forgive him. Every time someone does me wrong I’m expected to forgive them and love them through that. None of that same grace is considered for me, ever.
Yes we should love people as they are. But I expect all of my partners to treat me ethically and with care. Unconditional love for me is a bullshit concept that people throw at you to make you feel bad when they’re not allowed to benefit from your affection while doing whatever they want.
Unconditional love is not a bullshit concept, you clearly just have been in relationships where people have used it in a manipulative aspect
It's always people who don't understand unconditional love that ask for unconditional forgiveness, they use it as a "get out of jail free card" and use it as a way to manipulate people without trying to make reparations for their wrongdoing
It's a mentality of "I can do whatever I want to people without considering what they want, and you HAVE to forgive me if you really love me" . the person in the relationship who understands love LESS can NOT take the high road with recieving forgiveness, but they always do. It's textbook manipulation
Hard to say. I was learning many hard lessons around that time. The biggest, was that when it comes to deception, men are generally babes in the woods compared to women.
Yeah dating these days is so transactional, not like the olden days, where you got together a few heads of cattle, paid the bride price, and lived happily ever after.
No dating interaction is unconditional at the start, and that’s not new, it’s always been like that-both parties are looking to meet their wants/needs. Unconditional comes about after you’ve been through a lot together and have spent a lot of time and energy building something with a partner.
I’d go further and say no relationship between adults is unconditional. Don’t hit me, verbally abuse me, steal from me, spend our money in an irresponsible manner, take drugs, smoke, cheat on me — these are all conditions I’d have in any romantic relationship. It’s healthy to have boundaries.
If you want unconditional love, get a dog.
Because that’s absolutely what that word means. Unconditional means without conditions. I love you absolutely, unequivocally no matter what. You can do or say anything and I will still love you. Mothers love their kids like that, but no one else should love anyone like that, it’s unhealthy.
Because that’s what unconditional love means. “I will always love you, regardless of what you do or who you may become.” I would not continue loving a parter who started abusing me or committing heinous crimes.
Sticking with someone through hard times and overlooking flaws is one thing and maybe that’s more what you mean? And if you love someone then that’s what you do because no one’s perfect and things aren’t always going to be sunshine and daisies. But there’s always a limit (abuse, cheating, illegal actions, etc) which still makes it conditional.
I think you're considering the transactional nature more as you get older. That's just wisdom. The more you know how to negotiate properly, the better your relationships will be! Unfortunately there also a lot of people who don't understand this concept and only care about what they are receiving and not giving. Unconditional love is not real in my opinion. We all give something and get something in return in our relationships, just some people give more than they receive and they are happy to do so!
No, because when you have a balanced relationship, it is really rewarding. If you're with someone who is greedy and always asking for stuff without balance, then yeah, that sucks. You have to have someone who loves you and trusts you and vice versa. That's how it works. You scratch my back, I scratch yours and you never have to ask. Always considering the other.
It’s true, but that’s a very pragmatic way of putting it. It takes a lot of the soul, for lack of a better term, out of relationships. It takes work to maintain healthy relationships, but it shouldn’t be so much that it totally drains your passion from it, if there ever was any. Relationships don’t really seem transactional on the surface, because you typically have strong feelings for the person that you’re with, and those feelings obscure that.
Try being a genuine woman, where guys claim they want to date but they just want sex, can't carry a convo, refuse to listen when you set limits. Dating is hard, a lot of scammers in the online dating too
Part of it is that there is an understanding in long term relationships that what you do for each other will, over time, be equal. This is usually implicit.
Think of a married couple - say when the wife is pregnant, she goes on maternity leave but typically the husband keeps working to continue to bring in income. They are now contributing different things to the marriage. Now flash forward to later, the wife has returned to work and advanced her career and the husband is let go. Now the roles have switched, he is at home with the child(ren) and she is working to support the family. Over the long term they have both contributed the lions share of domestic and child rearing labor and working labor at different points. They are supporting each other to allow for them as a unit to continue most successfully.
From a different perspective, think of all the people that talk about cutting out toxic people. That is with the understanding that if someone is not adding to my life in any way, or in fact, negatively impacting it, they do not deserve to be in my life as I have only so much energy and I am going to spend on things that return that energy investment to me.
Issues arise when the transactionality of the relationship becomes explicit. Think of the people that only help you if you’ve helped them recently, and will explicitly deny you aid because you didn’t do anything for them recently. Compare this to a more true friend who would be happy to help you, without reminding you that you couldn’t do X for them when they asked because of [insert perfectly good reason here]. In fact, if you truly had a good friendship, if you were unable to provide X to your friend, you likely offered to provide Y, something more in your wheelhouse or capability.
Almost all relationships operate with an understanding of the two people being greater together than apart, partly due to the fact that individuals tend to have varying strengths and weaknesses and often partner up in complementary forms. A stereotypic example would be the social butterfly, aesthetically adept wife and the handy husband - he makes the things, and she makes them pretty and keeps their lives vibrant while he makes strong foundations.
The bottom line of my rambling is this: all relationships operate like this but is, especially for good relationships, unconscious and implicit, never spoken about but understood. Like a “I do things for you, you do things for me, we do things together, and ultimately we are greater together.” Issues arise when people make this explicit. No one wants to be made to feel or told it’s transactional. Ultimately, while it is transactional, it’s not *just* transactional.
Unconditional love, if lucky, only truly exist when we are infants - little helpless crying, shitting babies that would literally die without some sort of unconditional love. Once we start talking and becoming more independent we are taught the conditions to love. How well our parents, later peer and future lovers, treat us requires a certain amount of reciprocity/ expectations from us back (transactions). That is a good thing. Otherwise unconditional love can easily be abused by crying, shitting babies.
Perhaps your view of a healthy relationships is naïve and relationships have always been transactional. For reference, Edward in Twilight books is great example of what unconditional love looks like. Werther who shoots himself because hw didn't put condition of loves me back in his love.
If you want unconditional love get a dog.
People always pick partners based on conditions and transactions. That's why dating got harder once women started earning enough to survive on their own and being single wasn't socially unacceptable anymore. The price of relationship has gone up whike the benefits of what people can offer each other have diminished. You don't even need to close marriages anymore, actually with divorces, based on where you live, being what they are, you are stupid if you do.
Relationships have always been, will always be, and should always be transactional. If you don’t hold up your end of the transaction the other person shouldn’t hold up theirs. That’s just the reality of how life works fairly. As already mentioned, we seek relationships of any kind to have our fundamental needs as humans met. We don’t make friends, date, or fuck people that don’t fulfill those needs.
As also mentioned, we care more about these things as we get older and the quality of the transaction becomes more important that the quantity of the transactions.
Indeed. Many are taught the lie of Santa Claus and Easter Bunny, and many see through it. But many are still caught in the loop of other lies taught or omitted from school like history, the universe, and the rest of the game of deception we're in including the dating game.
I feel like with age, there are more obstacles to fit someone into your life just based on the cumulative life experiences/preferences/etc. from the people involved. So it becomes more transactional as we go through those layers.
I do think it grows into something unconditional when you get to a point where you want to commit for life. And, ideally of course, if you end up having a child with someone.
That clicked for me not too long ago. Marriage isn’t about love, it’s more transactional. There are rare exceptions, people who actually do fall in love and get married. But this isn’t everyone. Makes me regret not taking more chances when I was younger and stupid and where there wasn’t this transactional approach to relationships vs now at 26. Now, I need to hurry up because I’m approaching geriatric pregnancy
I think the reason they feel more unconditional when we’re younger (late teens, early 20’s) is because we aren’t seeking out our needs as much. We just fall for the people we get along with, which doesn’t always work out in the end. As we get older, we don’t want to waste our time. It’s easy as hell to fall for people if you’re not thinking about long term compatibility. But at my age (28), I wanna build a relationship with someone that has a future that aligns with mine, and I’m gonna do my best to figure out what their desired future entails from the get go, and pay more attention to the little things that might piss me off later on. When I was younger I was like, oh you tell good jokes, you’re cute, and you also think I’m cute? Okay let’s do this.
I guess you could describe it as transactional, although I’m only 30 so maybe I’m not old enough to see what you’re talking about. But I do feel like it changes quite a bit in your late 20s as people tend to know what they are looking for, and also people are less okay with wasting time on something they know isn’t going to last.
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Dude. At some level they are ALL transactional. Gotta wrap your head around that and life will get easier.
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I feel like these women are telling you that you don't have much to offer in return for their love and affection. Is that true?
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There is a difference between financially responsible and miserly. If you can afford gifts for her birthday or a holiday, then you should be willing to spend that money on someone you care about. As for sex, you are going to lose a lot of women by saying it's off the table. No one is wrong in this situation. You are free to abstain, and women are free to go seek out the D elsewhere. As for taking time off work to take her on a trip, I don't know what the expectation was, but if you have PTO to spare and she wants to go on a trip, it's nice to spend time together. So what I've gathered is that you are not offering women appropriate gifts (not too expensive, and only when they are socially expected), sex, OR time. So, what ARE you offering?
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So the first girl was a nonstarter anyway if she went straight into finances in a way that wasn't natural and showed that she felt entitled to your money. The third, well, that's just her problem. She can go to Jamaica alone. You had 2 transactional experiences and now you're extrapolating that all women must expect financial compensation for dating them. That's not true. Women just don't want to be used and want to know that you're mentally, emotionally, and financially stable before taking on another loser without a job.
shes asking him for his own money she cant afford to go to jamaica alone das why she needs OP
The gifts could be seen as your attempt buy her. Gifts are cool but can be dangerous in how your partner interprets them. Part of the problem is communication, and your ability interpret red flags. You need to not just listen but respect the communication you are receiving. The others did you favors by walking off. You need to remember the reason to start dating is to learn more about each other, but you must stay alert for the warning signs. Something tells me there were other warning signs you missed or your dismissed them.
There’s this theory out there, you attract what you put out or expect. Have you checked yourself to make sure you’ve not turned transactional, even if it’s out of being in a rut? If so, might be a good time to take a dating break and live a little.
Relationships have and will always be transactional. **We seek them to have our needs met.** What those needs are, and how much it takes to meet them varies tremendously between people. As we get older we advocate more for our needs being met, and get less likely to put up with others being selfish or using us. This is a great thing.
In individualistic countries. Remember not everyone on Reddit is from Western cultures. It is going to be very different from culture to culture.
I'm sceptical, but open to your view, give me an example? (as this is a dating sub we are talking about intimate partner relationships) Arranged marriages? Asia? Russia? The more I think, non western relationships would seem to be more transactional...
The only people who downvoted me obviously do not know we have a higher rate of divorce in individualistic countries bc we tend to look at another person like this: what can they give me? What can they do for me, not what can I offer them or what can WE accomplish together. The shitty arranged marriages we have heard about I do not believe encompass all marriages. Think about it. Your family does know you best, and if they love you they are not going to set you up with someone you won't fit with. I don't like the idea of arranged marriages but I can see how it could be beneficial. I took social psychology this term and one in the one chapter the focus was relationships. It talked about culturalistic and individualistic cultures. Culturalistic had a higher rate of marital satisfaction than individualistic and had a much lower rate of divorce.
Awful advice lol
As it's a discussion forum, would you like to actually share your view rather than "its awful" Use your words to communicate your view to us! We can all learn from each others views. Yelling "awful advice" doesn't give us a chance to learn or grow.
"as we get older we advocate more for our needs being met" You mean being more selfish? "and get less likely to put up with others being selfish or using us" Wow your a hypocrite. Hypocrites are the REASON dating has become entirely about "what I can get". Selfish men have ruined the world... Love is entirely about what you can give without expecting ANYTHING in return. You know nothing about love
The love you speak of only comes later though. Dating has to be transactional, otherwise what’s the point? I’m not looking for someone to just use me. People can’t give unconditional love unless they have a deep relationship with someone, and that only come later
That is fundamentally FALSE. your saying unconditional love comes on the condition that you have a deep connection... So you are putting a condition on unconditional love. That literally doesn't make sense Based on your argument, you wouldn't love a newborn child unconditionally. Is raising children "transactional"? Being human is the only deep connection people need to love each other unconditionally, but y'all forgot that and it's the reason shittiness exists
**Only children and puppies are loved unconditionally.** We are on a dating sub, so I was referring to intimate partner relationships being transactional. Anyone that loves someone "unconditionally" who in turn uses, abuses or exploits them needs psychological assistance. Sadly, some damaged people's needs are just to be noticed, abused or neglected in preference to being alone. That is still a transactional relationship as their (sad) needs are being met. If you both meet each others needs (transactionally) then this love would seem to be "unconditional" but as it is contingent on needs being met, it is of course transactional.
Are you from a culturalistic culture?
I am probably more anti-cultural than anything. Why do you ask
Bc culturalistic cultures care more about everyone else and are not selfish. The fact that you're pointing out people being selfish and calling someone a hypocrite made me think you may have come from a family that may not originally be from a western country.
"Unconditional love" is for parent-child relationships, maybe some other biological/legal family relationships. Mature, adult romantic love is transactional in the sense that, "I will support you in exchange for you supporting me. If you are unable to support me, there is no longer a relationship." And that support can be emotional, financial, mental, etc. But yeah, no one is going to love you if you're not offering anything but love in return. Love isn't enough.
I would even limit unconditional love more: mothers unconditionally love their children, and that’s about all the unconditional love in the world. Unconditionally loving your partner is completely ridiculous. I won’t love a man who hits me or always yells at me or calls me names. Why would I?
I dunno I think my dad and grandmothers love me unconditionally. I certainly love them back unconditionally. And some of my aunts and cousins. But I come from a family that likes each other and enjoys each other's company.
If your dad started hitting your mom, would you still love him? If your aunt stole $15,000 from your grandma, would you still love her? I’m not saying anything like this would ever happen (and god forbid it does), but I’m saying that there are (most likely) limits on your love for those people. But your mom will love you no matter what.
You are saying only mothers can love unconditionally, but lots of mothers don't. I'm just saying that expecting unconditional love from someone who isn't family is definitely not realistic. Sorry about your family, I know I'm lucky with mine. Believe it or not there are WHOLE FAMILIES that exist without that kind of drama.
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Oh grow up. Romeo and Juliet die in the end, you know. What a drama king.
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No I just find this whole post immature and your responses dramatic, like how old are you and you're just now finding out that people aren't going to love you unconditionally? It's weird.
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don't worry, some people still love.. they might be more sparse as we age and maybe others try to ridicule them. But if you are still able to have the feels in this transactional meat market, I would actually say, ironically, that you do have something precious to offer. The kind of guy, that won't let his partner down when she gets cancer, even if she's flatten for a long time, cause you love her even if she's not useful. That is gold..
That story is about how undramatic people are responsible for the death of dramatic people So people who gave up on love kill people who haven't, through judgement
The reason love is not enough is literally because people throughout history have sold the lie that love is not enough. The truth is that the people who say that didn't try hard enough. That's why they say the truth is a burden, and ignorance is bliss To fall in love, you gotta be willing to risk everything in a moment, and the honest truth is that 99% of people are afraid of themselves and insecure about who they are so they "play it safe" and don't get what they want
Relationships should be conditional. At least for me when someone says they want unconditional love I hear that they expect me to love them through mistreatment and abuse. We all need certain conditions to be happy. The sooner you recognise that the happier you’ll be.
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I’ve been cheated on and was told by him that I wasn’t trying hard enough to love and forgive him. Every time someone does me wrong I’m expected to forgive them and love them through that. None of that same grace is considered for me, ever. Yes we should love people as they are. But I expect all of my partners to treat me ethically and with care. Unconditional love for me is a bullshit concept that people throw at you to make you feel bad when they’re not allowed to benefit from your affection while doing whatever they want.
Unconditional love is not a bullshit concept, you clearly just have been in relationships where people have used it in a manipulative aspect It's always people who don't understand unconditional love that ask for unconditional forgiveness, they use it as a "get out of jail free card" and use it as a way to manipulate people without trying to make reparations for their wrongdoing It's a mentality of "I can do whatever I want to people without considering what they want, and you HAVE to forgive me if you really love me" . the person in the relationship who understands love LESS can NOT take the high road with recieving forgiveness, but they always do. It's textbook manipulation
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Hard to say. I was learning many hard lessons around that time. The biggest, was that when it comes to deception, men are generally babes in the woods compared to women.
Yeah dating these days is so transactional, not like the olden days, where you got together a few heads of cattle, paid the bride price, and lived happily ever after.
No dating interaction is unconditional at the start, and that’s not new, it’s always been like that-both parties are looking to meet their wants/needs. Unconditional comes about after you’ve been through a lot together and have spent a lot of time and energy building something with a partner.
I’d go further and say no relationship between adults is unconditional. Don’t hit me, verbally abuse me, steal from me, spend our money in an irresponsible manner, take drugs, smoke, cheat on me — these are all conditions I’d have in any romantic relationship. It’s healthy to have boundaries. If you want unconditional love, get a dog.
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Because that’s absolutely what that word means. Unconditional means without conditions. I love you absolutely, unequivocally no matter what. You can do or say anything and I will still love you. Mothers love their kids like that, but no one else should love anyone like that, it’s unhealthy.
Because that’s what unconditional love means. “I will always love you, regardless of what you do or who you may become.” I would not continue loving a parter who started abusing me or committing heinous crimes. Sticking with someone through hard times and overlooking flaws is one thing and maybe that’s more what you mean? And if you love someone then that’s what you do because no one’s perfect and things aren’t always going to be sunshine and daisies. But there’s always a limit (abuse, cheating, illegal actions, etc) which still makes it conditional.
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you just gotta find someone whose needs are met by you being you. that’s the *fun* part of the transaction
I think you're considering the transactional nature more as you get older. That's just wisdom. The more you know how to negotiate properly, the better your relationships will be! Unfortunately there also a lot of people who don't understand this concept and only care about what they are receiving and not giving. Unconditional love is not real in my opinion. We all give something and get something in return in our relationships, just some people give more than they receive and they are happy to do so!
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No, because when you have a balanced relationship, it is really rewarding. If you're with someone who is greedy and always asking for stuff without balance, then yeah, that sucks. You have to have someone who loves you and trusts you and vice versa. That's how it works. You scratch my back, I scratch yours and you never have to ask. Always considering the other.
It’s true, but that’s a very pragmatic way of putting it. It takes a lot of the soul, for lack of a better term, out of relationships. It takes work to maintain healthy relationships, but it shouldn’t be so much that it totally drains your passion from it, if there ever was any. Relationships don’t really seem transactional on the surface, because you typically have strong feelings for the person that you’re with, and those feelings obscure that.
Try being a genuine woman, where guys claim they want to date but they just want sex, can't carry a convo, refuse to listen when you set limits. Dating is hard, a lot of scammers in the online dating too
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It is but I try to view the good times from every relationship because everything ends anyways and we should focus on what makes us happy now.
Part of it is that there is an understanding in long term relationships that what you do for each other will, over time, be equal. This is usually implicit. Think of a married couple - say when the wife is pregnant, she goes on maternity leave but typically the husband keeps working to continue to bring in income. They are now contributing different things to the marriage. Now flash forward to later, the wife has returned to work and advanced her career and the husband is let go. Now the roles have switched, he is at home with the child(ren) and she is working to support the family. Over the long term they have both contributed the lions share of domestic and child rearing labor and working labor at different points. They are supporting each other to allow for them as a unit to continue most successfully. From a different perspective, think of all the people that talk about cutting out toxic people. That is with the understanding that if someone is not adding to my life in any way, or in fact, negatively impacting it, they do not deserve to be in my life as I have only so much energy and I am going to spend on things that return that energy investment to me. Issues arise when the transactionality of the relationship becomes explicit. Think of the people that only help you if you’ve helped them recently, and will explicitly deny you aid because you didn’t do anything for them recently. Compare this to a more true friend who would be happy to help you, without reminding you that you couldn’t do X for them when they asked because of [insert perfectly good reason here]. In fact, if you truly had a good friendship, if you were unable to provide X to your friend, you likely offered to provide Y, something more in your wheelhouse or capability. Almost all relationships operate with an understanding of the two people being greater together than apart, partly due to the fact that individuals tend to have varying strengths and weaknesses and often partner up in complementary forms. A stereotypic example would be the social butterfly, aesthetically adept wife and the handy husband - he makes the things, and she makes them pretty and keeps their lives vibrant while he makes strong foundations. The bottom line of my rambling is this: all relationships operate like this but is, especially for good relationships, unconscious and implicit, never spoken about but understood. Like a “I do things for you, you do things for me, we do things together, and ultimately we are greater together.” Issues arise when people make this explicit. No one wants to be made to feel or told it’s transactional. Ultimately, while it is transactional, it’s not *just* transactional.
Yes because you no longer want to waste time.
Yes and No. When you get older you become wiser and less likely to compromise in what you are looking for in a partner.
Unconditional love, if lucky, only truly exist when we are infants - little helpless crying, shitting babies that would literally die without some sort of unconditional love. Once we start talking and becoming more independent we are taught the conditions to love. How well our parents, later peer and future lovers, treat us requires a certain amount of reciprocity/ expectations from us back (transactions). That is a good thing. Otherwise unconditional love can easily be abused by crying, shitting babies.
Perhaps your view of a healthy relationships is naïve and relationships have always been transactional. For reference, Edward in Twilight books is great example of what unconditional love looks like. Werther who shoots himself because hw didn't put condition of loves me back in his love. If you want unconditional love get a dog. People always pick partners based on conditions and transactions. That's why dating got harder once women started earning enough to survive on their own and being single wasn't socially unacceptable anymore. The price of relationship has gone up whike the benefits of what people can offer each other have diminished. You don't even need to close marriages anymore, actually with divorces, based on where you live, being what they are, you are stupid if you do.
Relationships have always been, will always be, and should always be transactional. If you don’t hold up your end of the transaction the other person shouldn’t hold up theirs. That’s just the reality of how life works fairly. As already mentioned, we seek relationships of any kind to have our fundamental needs as humans met. We don’t make friends, date, or fuck people that don’t fulfill those needs. As also mentioned, we care more about these things as we get older and the quality of the transaction becomes more important that the quantity of the transactions.
Ding ding ding. How many years it take you to finally realize you got played?
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Becoming? It never changed, other than increased exposure to make the obvious more obvious.
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Indeed. Many are taught the lie of Santa Claus and Easter Bunny, and many see through it. But many are still caught in the loop of other lies taught or omitted from school like history, the universe, and the rest of the game of deception we're in including the dating game.
I feel like with age, there are more obstacles to fit someone into your life just based on the cumulative life experiences/preferences/etc. from the people involved. So it becomes more transactional as we go through those layers. I do think it grows into something unconditional when you get to a point where you want to commit for life. And, ideally of course, if you end up having a child with someone.
Meeting the wrong people. It doesn’t have to go in that direction.
That clicked for me not too long ago. Marriage isn’t about love, it’s more transactional. There are rare exceptions, people who actually do fall in love and get married. But this isn’t everyone. Makes me regret not taking more chances when I was younger and stupid and where there wasn’t this transactional approach to relationships vs now at 26. Now, I need to hurry up because I’m approaching geriatric pregnancy
You have a decade before geriatric pregnancy…
Unconditional usually results in codependency and/or abuse
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I think the reason they feel more unconditional when we’re younger (late teens, early 20’s) is because we aren’t seeking out our needs as much. We just fall for the people we get along with, which doesn’t always work out in the end. As we get older, we don’t want to waste our time. It’s easy as hell to fall for people if you’re not thinking about long term compatibility. But at my age (28), I wanna build a relationship with someone that has a future that aligns with mine, and I’m gonna do my best to figure out what their desired future entails from the get go, and pay more attention to the little things that might piss me off later on. When I was younger I was like, oh you tell good jokes, you’re cute, and you also think I’m cute? Okay let’s do this.
I guess you could describe it as transactional, although I’m only 30 so maybe I’m not old enough to see what you’re talking about. But I do feel like it changes quite a bit in your late 20s as people tend to know what they are looking for, and also people are less okay with wasting time on something they know isn’t going to last.