Category Archives: Relationships

Major Categories of Relationships

Life Education, Relationships

Here are a couple of ways to think about, classify, and understand the relationships you make.

Business vs. Personal – A business relationship is about achieving a goal or objective: you care about the services and skills, and you will not stay with someone with inferior services and skills if you don’t have to.  A personal relationship is about bonding with another person, and you may stay with them even if they have inferior services and skills.

Business

  • Decisions motivated by money; competition and ruthlessness abound
  • Job/Career – If the world wasn’t based on money, perhaps I’d stay at a job because I liked my co-workers, but if two opportunities are equal except for pay, then despite liking the people at both I would switch–it’s business, not personal.
  • products/skills. You’re sick? See a Doctor. Want to learn dance? Hire an instructor.

Personal

  • Decisions motivated by kindness, empathy, human connection/relationship.
  • Help – there are things outside your control, that’s what friends and family are for. If you are ill and there’s nothing anyone can do, you will suffer something. This is where friends and family come to help you get through it. If you have to pay or bribe them to come, then it’s business. Same with love. It is in the un-necessities and the lack of “I give you this for that,” in the involuntary acts, that love and friendship is found.

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Conversations Friendship

Conversation, Friendships

A collection of indicators of friendship that can be found through conversation.

Example 1: Bob mentions he has been promoted, but is concerned and tired at the large amount of work he has now been given.

  • Acquaintance response: congrats on the promotion!  Surface level conversation about positive issues
  • Friend response: how are you feeling?  Caring conversation about deeper issues; feeling the friend’s concern and exhaustion and empathizing.

If you don’t know what to say, think of a compliment and say it.

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Fears Associated with Relationships

Life Education, Mental Health, Relationships
  • Fear of Attachment.
    • To avoid the pain of loss.  However, never getting attached results in a lonely, lifeless life empty of people that isn’t worth living.  It is better to feel pain, but have the chance at joy, than to feel nothing.  
    • To avoid hurting others. However, you should realize that people are selective about who they depend on, so you don’t have to worry about them being overly reliant on you.  Even if they are overly reliant on you, accept imperfection: mistakes will happen (Overcome Perfectionism).  In addition to doing your best to prevent them, you need to learn how to deal with them (Guide to Handling Emotions and Problems)
  • Trust and Betrayal. 
    • Some people are bad, but some people are good. Don’t let the bad keep you from finding the good.  Don’t give up the search.  Also, realize that if you do meet a bad person, you can get through it–it is only temporary.
    • Betrayal is, unfortunately, part of life.  A good way to prevent it is to be careful about who you trust by picking people less likely to break your trust: someone who would have little motivation to break it, and a strong enough character to maintain it.  Another way to prevent betray is to only trust as much as you need to, and no more: don’t risk more than you need to.  Finally, when it has happened, take some lessons from it, and then move on with your life.
  • Fear of Judgement
    • You will be judged, it’s a fact of life.  The question therefore is how to deal with it.  A good first step is to understand the situation with some resources: “Understand the World” and “Relationships” from Life Education Curriculum, Nature of Your Own Identity
    • You can overcome it by logically think through the fear: is there any legitimate reason to be afraid of the consequences of being judged?  If you’re going into court about life and death, maybe, but if it’s harmless like what does someone think of me, then it doesn’t matter.  Differentiate between Needs vs Wants–you need to be judged innocent to avoid jail, you want to have an apple instead of apple juice.  More resources in Social Anxiety and Overcome Irrational Fears due to Imagination

Resources

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