I was thinking about reciprocity during the whole read. The cynicism in the Transact_2 model stems from it being modeled on economic relations and not humane ones. It implies always something I really cannot stand: that you cannot never ever receive or give anything for free.
this saying has always bothered me, and i was never quite able to put my finger on why - it's the equivocation (which actually seems fairly obvious in hindsight, but as you say, it's a scary beast indeed). reciprocal is a much more appropriate way to put it. i think anyone who, like me, has this knee-jerk reaction to oppose relationships being transactional could do with reminding ourselves of this. when you always give for the sake of giving, without expecting or getting anything in return, you will eventually run out of steam. and honestly, the person you are giving your all to may not even want it in the first place, because someone who did would probably *want* to give something in return. not the exact same thing, quantity, or at the same time, because then we would be back to transac_2 tit-for-tatting, but just something at all.
your takes on love are such a breath of fresh air in this crisis of (often self-imposed) isolation many people seem to have resigned themselves to. a very needed bloomer among doomers
Ah what a sweet point of view. I do believe that not all relationships are transactional but an overwhelming amount are. I get the impression that we live in a day and age where most connection is disposable. People just don’t have the will to give anything time because there is this illusion of the hypothetical next best option being just within reach. That being said, some of us will be lucky enough to find a truly mutually fulfilling connection and can look at the idea of all relationships being transactional and feel thankful that’s not us.
Although keeping in mind your recent enthusiasm for sophistry, gives rise to nagging doubts about motives underlying this essay of yours and fleeting fate of my comments here, let's express the opinion. For the game of it AND according to socratic rather than sophistic principles/purpose of debate. Let's be an old bore and look for truth rather than a win.
A relationship is basically a teamwork matter, as such it will depend on team members attitude towards teamwork. It is transac_1, ideally.
It is a team of huskies pulling a heavy sledge through the snow storms. You give your best, expecting your fellow huskies to do likewise as this is what successful completion of the task essentially requires. Whenever you can, you give your best, and you trust that your teammates actively share your attitude. Whenever you see no effort from them, you apply charitable approach, assuming they don't pull simply because they are incapable of doing so at that very moment. Noone is a perfect sledge dog, everyone has their ups and down. Muy bien, so you try to pull for the two of you, let them skip their turn, invest even more of your energy into the task to give them a break when they need it. You trust/anticipate they will do the same on your bad day. Lovely.
Until when in need of the receiving end of support, charity, active empathy, all that you receive is getting scolded for not doing your job properly. Your job of perpetual giver.
Then if you're even up to pulling this sledge together with your flaky herd again, you'll do this with less and less heartfelt effort or good feelings towards them. Next time you'd rather test your team before swearing to pull any sledge with them, unless it would be a spring run to a nearby town, anything easy for you to make on your own in case they leave you high and dry. You'd rather go cynically transac_2 than risk getting let down somewhere nowhere in siberia, when you're painfully dependent and in need of external help, in need of promises fulfilled.
Contracts, such as marriage, are good, beneficial to both parts. But it is better not to be tied to a parasite even though a parasite sees it differently and spins it nicely.
Words are cheap once you shrug the burden on accountability off. Believing words might cost you dearly if you naively choose to build anything significant with a con artist. And the true masters in the art of deception are capable of presenting themselves as givers of the greatest gifts: the wake up call, the opening of your puppy eyes, making you confront your silly mantras so you mature and grow. They will shatter your rose-tinted glasses and claim you owe them, as it is them who made you see the world as it truly is. If not for them, you would live deluded, with no clue that people lie, abuse, manipulate others unscrupulously; people who always serve their own benefit no matter what they declare, brave enough to try to sell you their tender, warm poo wrapped in endless layers of glossy paper, with a fancy ribbon, heart-shaped stickers and a fresh, organic morello cherry on top.
Never left in the midst of siberia, you would have no knowledge that often times stylish ift boxes of slogans and promises are stylish gift boxes contain shit.
Now you are ready to do tit for tat, After all it is all there is. Learn to be happy with that. Learn to love the fragrance.
Or at least curb your enthusiasm if you hope it is not a correct assessment of reality.
Don't take a leap into the abyss. It's all right just to stare into it.
I don’t know if you’ve already figured out how to add subscripts on Substack without opening another app, but I hope this helps: click 'More' and search for the LaTeX option. Once you click it, you can type the symbol and the number you want to subscript. But if you want to use continuous subscripts in your text like you intended in this post, you can use Ctrl + Shift + . if you are a Windows user, or Cmd + Shift + . on a Mac.
I just realized how much you love writing and talking about love. It’s funny because YouTube's autoplay chose a video about love while I was doing my morning pages today. I really have to thank that video, because it actually changed my view of philosophy.
As for this post, I agree with your opinion on what makes a healthy long-term relationship. However, in reality, I see how people around me date, marry, or choose divorce—or even swallow their dignity to stay in toxic marriages because of the 'transaction' they agreed to. Let’s be real, Joe: as long as patriarchy and misogyny exist, many relationships will be seen as transactional. Often, they aren't formed out of love, but out of the pressure to 'find the one' before the biological clock runs out. Based on your videos and posts, I can tell you’re a kind person. Whoever ends up with you will be the luckiest person in the world because you treat love as something truly precious.
Your meditation on reciprocity touches a subtle dialectic between gesture and essence. What we often mistake for affection’s absence may simply be its withdrawal into quieter forms of expression. True reciprocity, I think, seldom resides in parity of action but in mutual recognition, an unspoken acknowledgment that care exists even when unperformed.
Limerence, as you describe it, exposes the interpretive restlessness of the human mind, our impulse to read indifference into ambiguity, to translate silence into negation. Yet the mature understanding of love, or of any bond, lies precisely in resisting that impulse, in allowing meaning to breathe without immediate confirmation. Your reflection reveals a sentiment all too common in the landscape of modern relationships, that subtle anxiety born from unreciprocated gestures and interpretive silence. I was once, too, a participant in that quiet restlessness, reading absence as indifference. Yet in time, reflection taught me that peace itself becomes the condition for genuine love, for only when the mind is still can affection exist without demand. Wishing you a happy and peaceful life. 🙏🏻🙏🏻
As an anti-romantic I have to ask if you have a partner would they love you even if you are not of any use to them not good looking talented or anything or even maybe disabled. In those scenarios people do tend to choose themselves. It's not about relationships being transactional though but being highly conditional.
When people say relationships are transactional, they often smuggle in the zero sum assumption without realizing it. Healthy bonds usually tolerate imbalance because trust stretches the time horizon. Reciprocity over years looks very different from scorekeeping over weeks. Framing it as reciprocal rather than transactional leaves room for generosity without naïveté.
Substack’s native editor still doesn’t support subscript or superscript directly (ridiculous, I know). but we can try this one: e.g H₂O → type “H” then use the Unicode subscript “₂” (you can copy it from here).. I use this trick sometime 😁
Loved this. Now, let’s talk about reciprocity, what does it mean and how does it come to life as acts of love? Personally I have a twisted meaning of reciprocity, I admit I am wrong; because reciprocity shows itself in different ways.
To me it could be someone always liking my stories, but that’s vague as hell, superficial at its finest. But someone paying for our whole meal on a date and then writing a text saying “let me know when you get home”? That’s better than a like!
But to me, as an overthinker it’s just crazy how my limerance tells me them not liking my story is because they are not interested. (This is based on my current life hahahahaha). Let me know what you think.
I don't think it's possible to format text as subscript or superscript on Substack (except for footnote links showing up as superscript numbers), but there are Unicode characters for numerical subscripts and most letter subscripts that you can copy and paste, for example, subscript 1: ₁
Oh man. This post hits home ... Someone very close to me recently made the "every relationship is transactional" argument when I voiced my opinion that his current relationship is toxic. It bothered me on a deep, fundamental level, not only because I think so poorly of his current partner, but because I think that it's an entirely too cynical view of reality.
In a sense, it is, of course, true that all relationships are transactional, but that's a bit like saying "All that you eat is food." Food, by definition, is something that you eat. A relationship, by definition, involves a "transaction" (interaction) between two individuals. I do not transact (interact) with 99.999% of the people in China; therefore, I have no relationship with them. I do have a friend in China. We transact business, as well as sharing photos and checking in on each other as friends. These transactions (interactions) define our relationship.
Sometimes, yes, a relationship becomes unbalanced, and needs to be terminated. This happened to me recently with a friend of several years. I had come to the conclusion that the energy I spent on maintaining the relationship with this very high-maintenance person was far greater than the enjoyment I got out of her friendship, and wound up cutting communication entirely. This, however, was not a decision that I made lightly, and was made in no small part because I had also come to the gradual conclusion that she was not someone of high moral character. I no longer felt the need to have her in my life.
This leads me to the reason that the phrase so bothers me: it entirely leaves out the intangible quality of character that leads us to either pursue a relationship with someone, or else distance ourselves from them or cut ties entirely. You can be in a transactional relationship with someone of low moral character, and so long as your reciprocal needs are met, that might be just fine -- but what does it say about you?
It depends on if you consider equality or fairness in a relationship as in equal giving or equal taking. I think that’s the marked difference between the positive view and the cynical view on the give and take dynamic inherent in all relationships
I love the emphasis on reciprocity at the conclusion of this post. This topic of “transactional” romance is becoming more and more pertinent on social media, where we are constantly exposed to snippets of relationships that total strangers have with their significant others. Videos of women making their husbands lunch before work or men getting their wives flowers “just because” receive an inundation of comments like: “well what does he/she do for you?” I find that these kinds of sentiments water down what it means and looks like to deeply value our partners and want to show our appreciation for them.
I was thinking about reciprocity during the whole read. The cynicism in the Transact_2 model stems from it being modeled on economic relations and not humane ones. It implies always something I really cannot stand: that you cannot never ever receive or give anything for free.
Thanks btw! Keep it up!
Very much like your distinction between economic and humane relationships.
Sorry, but I didn’t really got it (I’m no native speaker).
"Very much like" is casual English. What I meant to say was "I very much appreciate" your distinction between economic and humane relationships.
Thank you! Also for clarifying.
this saying has always bothered me, and i was never quite able to put my finger on why - it's the equivocation (which actually seems fairly obvious in hindsight, but as you say, it's a scary beast indeed). reciprocal is a much more appropriate way to put it. i think anyone who, like me, has this knee-jerk reaction to oppose relationships being transactional could do with reminding ourselves of this. when you always give for the sake of giving, without expecting or getting anything in return, you will eventually run out of steam. and honestly, the person you are giving your all to may not even want it in the first place, because someone who did would probably *want* to give something in return. not the exact same thing, quantity, or at the same time, because then we would be back to transac_2 tit-for-tatting, but just something at all.
your takes on love are such a breath of fresh air in this crisis of (often self-imposed) isolation many people seem to have resigned themselves to. a very needed bloomer among doomers
Ah what a sweet point of view. I do believe that not all relationships are transactional but an overwhelming amount are. I get the impression that we live in a day and age where most connection is disposable. People just don’t have the will to give anything time because there is this illusion of the hypothetical next best option being just within reach. That being said, some of us will be lucky enough to find a truly mutually fulfilling connection and can look at the idea of all relationships being transactional and feel thankful that’s not us.
Ah, you're such a wizard with words!
Although keeping in mind your recent enthusiasm for sophistry, gives rise to nagging doubts about motives underlying this essay of yours and fleeting fate of my comments here, let's express the opinion. For the game of it AND according to socratic rather than sophistic principles/purpose of debate. Let's be an old bore and look for truth rather than a win.
A relationship is basically a teamwork matter, as such it will depend on team members attitude towards teamwork. It is transac_1, ideally.
It is a team of huskies pulling a heavy sledge through the snow storms. You give your best, expecting your fellow huskies to do likewise as this is what successful completion of the task essentially requires. Whenever you can, you give your best, and you trust that your teammates actively share your attitude. Whenever you see no effort from them, you apply charitable approach, assuming they don't pull simply because they are incapable of doing so at that very moment. Noone is a perfect sledge dog, everyone has their ups and down. Muy bien, so you try to pull for the two of you, let them skip their turn, invest even more of your energy into the task to give them a break when they need it. You trust/anticipate they will do the same on your bad day. Lovely.
Until when in need of the receiving end of support, charity, active empathy, all that you receive is getting scolded for not doing your job properly. Your job of perpetual giver.
Then if you're even up to pulling this sledge together with your flaky herd again, you'll do this with less and less heartfelt effort or good feelings towards them. Next time you'd rather test your team before swearing to pull any sledge with them, unless it would be a spring run to a nearby town, anything easy for you to make on your own in case they leave you high and dry. You'd rather go cynically transac_2 than risk getting let down somewhere nowhere in siberia, when you're painfully dependent and in need of external help, in need of promises fulfilled.
Contracts, such as marriage, are good, beneficial to both parts. But it is better not to be tied to a parasite even though a parasite sees it differently and spins it nicely.
Words are cheap once you shrug the burden on accountability off. Believing words might cost you dearly if you naively choose to build anything significant with a con artist. And the true masters in the art of deception are capable of presenting themselves as givers of the greatest gifts: the wake up call, the opening of your puppy eyes, making you confront your silly mantras so you mature and grow. They will shatter your rose-tinted glasses and claim you owe them, as it is them who made you see the world as it truly is. If not for them, you would live deluded, with no clue that people lie, abuse, manipulate others unscrupulously; people who always serve their own benefit no matter what they declare, brave enough to try to sell you their tender, warm poo wrapped in endless layers of glossy paper, with a fancy ribbon, heart-shaped stickers and a fresh, organic morello cherry on top.
Never left in the midst of siberia, you would have no knowledge that often times stylish ift boxes of slogans and promises are stylish gift boxes contain shit.
Now you are ready to do tit for tat, After all it is all there is. Learn to be happy with that. Learn to love the fragrance.
Or at least curb your enthusiasm if you hope it is not a correct assessment of reality.
Don't take a leap into the abyss. It's all right just to stare into it.
Hope this helps :)
https://vitotuxedo.substack.com/p/add-subscriptssuperscripts
I don’t know if you’ve already figured out how to add subscripts on Substack without opening another app, but I hope this helps: click 'More' and search for the LaTeX option. Once you click it, you can type the symbol and the number you want to subscript. But if you want to use continuous subscripts in your text like you intended in this post, you can use Ctrl + Shift + . if you are a Windows user, or Cmd + Shift + . on a Mac.
I just realized how much you love writing and talking about love. It’s funny because YouTube's autoplay chose a video about love while I was doing my morning pages today. I really have to thank that video, because it actually changed my view of philosophy.
As for this post, I agree with your opinion on what makes a healthy long-term relationship. However, in reality, I see how people around me date, marry, or choose divorce—or even swallow their dignity to stay in toxic marriages because of the 'transaction' they agreed to. Let’s be real, Joe: as long as patriarchy and misogyny exist, many relationships will be seen as transactional. Often, they aren't formed out of love, but out of the pressure to 'find the one' before the biological clock runs out. Based on your videos and posts, I can tell you’re a kind person. Whoever ends up with you will be the luckiest person in the world because you treat love as something truly precious.
This really clarified something I’d been feeling but couldn’t quite articulate. I originally wrote an undergrad essay trying to use game theory to understand my parents’ arranged marriage, and I ended up leaning too hard into the “all relationships are transactional” frame in a way that now feels… emotionally dishonest. Your piece pushed me to rework it. I ended up publishing the revision here if you’re curious: https://open.substack.com/pub/madhumithalokanandan/p/my-failed-attempt-to-model-my-parents?r=6nzmxm&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Thanks for writing this — it genuinely shifted how I think about love.
Your meditation on reciprocity touches a subtle dialectic between gesture and essence. What we often mistake for affection’s absence may simply be its withdrawal into quieter forms of expression. True reciprocity, I think, seldom resides in parity of action but in mutual recognition, an unspoken acknowledgment that care exists even when unperformed.
Limerence, as you describe it, exposes the interpretive restlessness of the human mind, our impulse to read indifference into ambiguity, to translate silence into negation. Yet the mature understanding of love, or of any bond, lies precisely in resisting that impulse, in allowing meaning to breathe without immediate confirmation. Your reflection reveals a sentiment all too common in the landscape of modern relationships, that subtle anxiety born from unreciprocated gestures and interpretive silence. I was once, too, a participant in that quiet restlessness, reading absence as indifference. Yet in time, reflection taught me that peace itself becomes the condition for genuine love, for only when the mind is still can affection exist without demand. Wishing you a happy and peaceful life. 🙏🏻🙏🏻
As an anti-romantic I have to ask if you have a partner would they love you even if you are not of any use to them not good looking talented or anything or even maybe disabled. In those scenarios people do tend to choose themselves. It's not about relationships being transactional though but being highly conditional.
When people say relationships are transactional, they often smuggle in the zero sum assumption without realizing it. Healthy bonds usually tolerate imbalance because trust stretches the time horizon. Reciprocity over years looks very different from scorekeeping over weeks. Framing it as reciprocal rather than transactional leaves room for generosity without naïveté.
Substack’s native editor still doesn’t support subscript or superscript directly (ridiculous, I know). but we can try this one: e.g H₂O → type “H” then use the Unicode subscript “₂” (you can copy it from here).. I use this trick sometime 😁
Loved this. Now, let’s talk about reciprocity, what does it mean and how does it come to life as acts of love? Personally I have a twisted meaning of reciprocity, I admit I am wrong; because reciprocity shows itself in different ways.
To me it could be someone always liking my stories, but that’s vague as hell, superficial at its finest. But someone paying for our whole meal on a date and then writing a text saying “let me know when you get home”? That’s better than a like!
But to me, as an overthinker it’s just crazy how my limerance tells me them not liking my story is because they are not interested. (This is based on my current life hahahahaha). Let me know what you think.
Thank you for writing this article. 🤌🏻
I don't think it's possible to format text as subscript or superscript on Substack (except for footnote links showing up as superscript numbers), but there are Unicode characters for numerical subscripts and most letter subscripts that you can copy and paste, for example, subscript 1: ₁
You can copy and paste them from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_subscripts_and_superscripts
Oh man. This post hits home ... Someone very close to me recently made the "every relationship is transactional" argument when I voiced my opinion that his current relationship is toxic. It bothered me on a deep, fundamental level, not only because I think so poorly of his current partner, but because I think that it's an entirely too cynical view of reality.
In a sense, it is, of course, true that all relationships are transactional, but that's a bit like saying "All that you eat is food." Food, by definition, is something that you eat. A relationship, by definition, involves a "transaction" (interaction) between two individuals. I do not transact (interact) with 99.999% of the people in China; therefore, I have no relationship with them. I do have a friend in China. We transact business, as well as sharing photos and checking in on each other as friends. These transactions (interactions) define our relationship.
Sometimes, yes, a relationship becomes unbalanced, and needs to be terminated. This happened to me recently with a friend of several years. I had come to the conclusion that the energy I spent on maintaining the relationship with this very high-maintenance person was far greater than the enjoyment I got out of her friendship, and wound up cutting communication entirely. This, however, was not a decision that I made lightly, and was made in no small part because I had also come to the gradual conclusion that she was not someone of high moral character. I no longer felt the need to have her in my life.
This leads me to the reason that the phrase so bothers me: it entirely leaves out the intangible quality of character that leads us to either pursue a relationship with someone, or else distance ourselves from them or cut ties entirely. You can be in a transactional relationship with someone of low moral character, and so long as your reciprocal needs are met, that might be just fine -- but what does it say about you?
It depends on if you consider equality or fairness in a relationship as in equal giving or equal taking. I think that’s the marked difference between the positive view and the cynical view on the give and take dynamic inherent in all relationships
I love the emphasis on reciprocity at the conclusion of this post. This topic of “transactional” romance is becoming more and more pertinent on social media, where we are constantly exposed to snippets of relationships that total strangers have with their significant others. Videos of women making their husbands lunch before work or men getting their wives flowers “just because” receive an inundation of comments like: “well what does he/she do for you?” I find that these kinds of sentiments water down what it means and looks like to deeply value our partners and want to show our appreciation for them.