-You can treat others better or worse, obviously
-And you can be intrinsically more valuable to them, or less
Those two will decide what people will want to do with you
You shouldn’t ever patch, or ameliorate, that which is already ruined.
If you’re not meant for each other — admit it as fast as possible and stop wasting fucking time
obviously this pertains to any relationship: business, friendship, romantic, political
But other than that,
There’s no reason NOT to give 100% and treat others the best you can
At the minimum, it shows to those you choose to keep in your life — that you are serious
It shows that you care
It’s both a practical matter, and symbol
(and practically symbolic — i.e. that symbol has practical value of bolstering and nourishing your relationship)
Then, additionally, it’s pragmatic, selfish, it’s a good strategy
“Giving is selfish, altruistic and RATIONAL”
You are leveraging reciprocity bias to your advantage, selfishly
And you are presupposing, fostering collaboration
You both gain, obviously
Finally, how does one set about this problem of TREATING others well?
Is it possible you treat others too well?
Or you use this noble idea to protect yourself from FEAR of conveying yourself and being honest and real? From fear of REJECTION?
Treating others well is not an on-off switch, not a binary
It is a sum of very many things
A fuzzy point between two extremes
Many things add up to what will ultimately account to someone feeling appreciated, cared for, respected,
And many things add up to what will ultimately give the impression of being not loved, not cared, not respected, rejected, ignored, demeaned
An attempt to collapse it into a simple rule, “I did this therefore I treated you so well” — obviously belies the subtlety of the matter, and steers one towards callousness — ultimately resulting in poor treatment of others, actually
Which is not to say that the matter cannot be tackled rationally
It’s just that it cannot be oversimplified, overgeneralised, rationalised and given illusion of clear objectivity
Instead it must be approached probabilistically, with fuzzy logic, if you will
As a sum of very many parts, value of each being ultimately fuzzy, but their sum consolidating into a clearer picture
Which steers one either toward the ideal of having treated others better, cared more,
or having fucked them over a little, been disingenuous, ignored them,
Again, this is not to say that you shouldn’t organise your relationships into clear rules,
Nor does it deny that we can have a very very clear reason why we want someone or something in our lives, WHAT specifically we want from them
What I am saying is that the problem of treating others well, specifically, is fuzzy and quite intangible, and must be approached intuitively and probabilistically
…so that, if you can’t tell what is wrong with your relationship, by first considering:
-advantages and disadvantages, value you get and value you give, balance sheet of the relationship
-established rules of the relationship
then well, perhaps it has something to do with how you TREAT each other,
perhaps it matters at this point,
and perhaps if one of you, or both, moved a bit closer toward BETTER treatment of each other — things would have became more clear
…and again:
Perhaps it’s the most optimal strategy to treat EVERYONE you invited into your life — even if for a moment — absolutely REGALLY