What we want from the one we have a realtionship with

When I say - what we want from the one we have a relation with, I sound somewhat selfish. Isn't it a common characteristic of us that we "want" something from our relations? Selfishness is a common trait that we all share. All. The difference is quantity and quality of selfishness. This is not to say there are only selfish people on the planet, in fact, the word itself is little too strong.

There is this phrase "returning favour" which in itself is based on some sort of selfish attitude. Just look at the structure of a relationship and you will find there is always a kind of reciprocal element in most of them. The relations that are mutual in nature are also in some ways dependent on this "reciprocal" element. Consider a mother-child relationship, which I think is one of the strongest relations we have. A mother cares for her child no matter what the child does. Some call it divine and others call it natural (essentially both lead to same thing). Even if the relation is divine, their are certain expectations the two have from one another. A child "wants" his/her mother to feed him/her, which if not done may change the equation of their relation. What did you say? this is not selfishness? well, I agree. This is not the kind of selfishness we generally know, but it certainly is one of its kind.

My post is not about proving we all are selfish people. Not at all. What I want to say is there are some expectations from relations and this understanding is very helpful in managing our relations. Expectations are there even if there appear to be no relation at all. For example, my friend Jaunesk posted "Questions are The Answers" on his blog, in which he highlights how a salesman needs to be a good listener. I put that in this way - the relationship of a sales person and his potential customer is dependent on how good the sales person fulfils what the customer "wants" and the better listener the sales person is, the better he satisfies the requirement of this relationship.

If we focus on what the other person in our relationship wants, we are not serving the God of Selfishness but just managing our relation. They say expectations are the root of our sorrows. They are right. But, the fact is we just can't be machines and if we are humans, we got to have some expectations. So do the ones who have a relationship with us. Like anything else, too much of it can be as bad as the lack of it. It has to be balanced - both the expectations as well as our desire to fulfil them.

Who You Chose to be Your Partner

When it comes to the choice of choosing our partner for love and life we look at a lot of options ranging from looks to physique to skills etc. Most people will agree there is not one final formula of attraction and it varies from person to person. Some people want good communication skills in their potential partners while others are just satisfied by the looks. Some like well built and physically sound partners while others would not even look at these factors.

We human beings though a lot different than other species still have the natural forces at work and there is always a lot more to choosing our partners than to what meets the eyes. The theory of natural selection and its supplementary - theory of sexual selection have most of the answers when we research into the issue and these theories have some general criteria like - the partner should be healthy, attractive and dominant in the group. Also, for women the one must quality they look in their potential partners is - caring. When it comes to natural and sexual selection, at the core of all conditions is need for healthy and survival genes. A symmetric face, for example, implies a healthy individual who has better genes. The original motive behind all this is to have offspring that can survive.

Oddly enough but there is a new finding by scientists that says a woman is attracted to those men who resemble her father !!! Same for a man but here mother replaces father. How unbelievable that sounds ! Well, a woman likes someone whose face is similar to that of her father, whose body odor smells like her father's and many more things. This is also probably related to our choice of seeking better genes. For more details about this, visit the following link where you will find full text of the story:

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/903/1

As we humans are different than other species, we have more options that are somewhat different than the purely biological ones. I told about memes in my past post and this has to with it. Yes, being an intelligent species we need to look beyond genes and then memes come into picture. As evolutionary biologists put it memes are the memory elements as genes are genetic elements. So how do they work? Well, when we are impressed with the wit of a person and are attracted, its our memes at work. The recognition of intelligence is a function of memes however, as a matter of fact, the evolution of memes is itself from genes as by the time we evolved into a "thinking" kind of species we are said to have started having memes. Unlike genes, memes don't have a physical presence and are more an intangible aspect of our personality and bio.

Reading this you can ask this question - what if a woman's father has unhealthy body or if he is not intelligent enough to be attractive in consideration by memes? Well, my answer is - again its a battle between various considerations and the one that is stronger should win. For example, such a woman would go for a person who has the best of combination required by both her genes and memes.

If you have your arguments on the topic, kindly leave your comments by clicking on the comments link.

Why Men Cheat

For long it has been said that men pathologically promiscuous and most are always ready for extramarital relationships. Well, this may not be entirely true for all men but many of the male sex are promiscuous - it is said. There are a lot of theories on this and a lot of research is being carried out on the issue by psychologists and biologists.

Biologists, yes, if it is pathological then biologists have better chance of decoding it and they have found one clue ! Scientists have recently found a gene - AVPR1a, which governs a receptor that regulates the production of a hormone called vasopressin produced by brain and this hormone contributes to attachment behaviour with mates and offspring.

My source of the above is www.sciencemag.org which has the following article. I express my thanks to the scientists who have found out this research and the people of sciencemag.org to publish it. You can find the article with complete text here:

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/902/1?etoc

Please read the entire article as it shows good insight into the matter.

Relationship - Make It Simple

In our daily life there are so many things to do, to think, to understand and take note of. We have to deal with so many situations that sometimes we get so puzzled and ask this question – is there any end to our problems? Very simple things look like mountains of trouble if we fail to understand the concept of keeping things simple. Same happens with our relations. If we understand the fact that relations need to be strong and not complex then we can enjoy life to the fullest.

A friend is someone with whom we can have good time, chat, share, enjoy and cry if we are sad. A friend can be anyone – a classmate, colleague, room partner, family member, anyone. Friendship is a relation which can be there along with another relation. For example, a father and son can be friends along with their father-son relationship. It’s the understanding of relations that has to be there, simpler we keep it, better we handle it. A father has to be father when the situation demands it. If his son is in bad company and having trouble then he needs to act like a father and do his best to see that son doesn’t get into trouble. But if he messes up the two relations there can be chaos and more importantly he might not be able to convey his message to his son. This understanding of keeping the sanctity of relations intact is not that complex – we just need to act simple, respect the boundaries and do not mess up two relations.

Another example is of a relation of a teacher and student who are otherwise friends. I deliberately emphasize “otherwise” as the two relations do have the potential to mess up with each other if not handled properly. The teacher’s act as a teacher sometimes requires that the friendship between them doesn’t act as an obstacle.

These are simple things but still people manage to understand the basics and fall into totally unnecessary mess up. Keep your relations simple and understand the boundaries and you will enjoy them to the fullest.