Relationships Are Easy

I was talking to a dear friend about relationships. She is currently in a good one, with a boy whom she connects in a way she never imagined (she never dated much, and never saw herself settling down). She mentioned how easy the relationship is; they just are. They simply hang out with each other, enjoy one another’s company, and it’s easy.

That got me to thinking about how easy life is. Life is meant to be simple. Look at nature. Effortless. A tree grows through rock in the mountains with ease and grace. Look at the cycles. Effortless. Grass grows without effort. Wind blows without effort. Life is meant to be easy.

We are nature. Why do we insist on making things so complicated for ourselves? We can choose to have an easy life. We can choose to have easy relationships.

So many people try in relationships. They have conversation after conversation about how to alter their dynamic so they can be “right” for one other.  They come up with tests that the other person has to pass. When there is a sense that something is not working, or not lining up, they try really hard to make it work. But the best relationships are those that happen with ease; those that just are, because life is meant to be easy and relationships are meant to be easy.

The best relationships happen naturally, without effort. They happen because the two people simply jive with each other. When we are living in alignment with ourselves, it’s easy. Think about your best friend. I assume there was not a lot of effort that caused the two of you to become best friends. It was just a few conversations. You were strangers, you hung out, you really connected, so you hung out some more. Without effort; without motivation; without “I hope this person will be my future best friend” when you’ve only just gotten to know them. Instead, we think “that person was cool, I hope we hang out again sometime”, and it is not clouded with a yearning; with a desperate sense of “oh I hope they call”. Over time and over many conversations, that person grew naturally into your best friend.

You never say to your buddy, “hey, we need to talk about our relationship because I want to be best friends with you and there are some things that are not working”. It is not fight after fight, There is not an effort to change a lot of things, or make a large amount of compromises.

It developed naturally. It developed without assumption or expectation. The relationship happened almost without any effort from yourself. It happened easily; like a tree pushing through rock.

If this hasn’t happened for you, be gentle with yourself. You just haven’t met them yet.

Martin Buber's I-Thou Relationships

In the midst of creating my last blog post; Objectifying Others, I was given a ten page paper to complete about Martin Buber’s I and Thou relationships. I smiled at the coincidence, for Buber and I share some of the same perspectives when it comes to the ways in which people interact with one another. The following is an excerpt from that paper:

We live in a world of objects; of things. We desire ownership, finding fulfillment in acquiring worldly possessions, priding ourselves of these possessions and seeking refuge in them. Yet we are left without sustenance. We long for something more, and struggle with trying to discover what this something  is.

Our culture has taught us how to use the world around us for self-gratification. We interact with possessions as if expecting them to meet our fundamental needs. Unfortunately, this mentality has extended into our interpersonal relationships. By being taught how to use material goods for self gain, we have unconsciously learned how to do the same thing with each other; interacting with one another in the same manner. People have turned into things; objects for us to use in order to sustain ourselves. Unfortunately, the very act of seeing each other as objects has prevented us from finding meaning. We are unable to find that which we really seek, that which our souls find sustaining. In seeing each other as objects, we have lost relationship. And it is relationship that makes us human.

Martin Buber addresses this issue by discussing I-It versus I-Thou relationships. For Buber, an I-It relationship is a subjective relationship where the It is experienced and utilized by the I. An I-Thou relationship refers to the joining of identities that occurs when two people come together in an authentic, meaningful way.

An I-It relationship represents the world of experiences. When we experience the world, the experience does not take place between the world and ourselves; rather, the experience happens within us. For example, they way we experience sound has to do with how our brain interprets the sound waves coming from the external environment. The experience has very little to do with the outside world, and has everything to do with the individual doing the experiencing. The world, although available to be experienced, does not participate in that experience. “It permits itself to be experienced, but has no concern in the matter” (Buber, 2004, p. 13).

The I-Thou relationship represents the world of relations. In an I-Thou relationship, we do not experience one another, rather we stand in relation to one another. This relation does not happen within the I or the Thou, rather, it happens between the I and Thou. When we stand in relation with one another, the I is shared, and the Thou is accepted. Meaning happens in I-Thou relationships because this is a place where walls come down, masks come off, and real connection occurs. In a sense, by joining with another, we are able to meet ourselves; thus finding meaning.

What is meaningful can only be acquired through what is real. Connection to It is not real connection at all. We cannot have connection with an object. We can only have connection with another. It is here, and only here, where true sharing of self can exist. For the individual who lives in I-It relationships, “his life never attains to a meaning, for it is composed of means which are without significance in themselves” (Friedman, 2002, p. 77). For the individual in an I-Thou relationship, meaning is attained because the joining is significant.

As I’ve mentioned before, the way relationships are understood and acted out in our society is reflected in the language we use. We ignorantly say phrases like “the object of my affection” and “my better half” without thinking about what these simple phrases imply. These phrases imply I-It relationships. These phrases are about what the other person is in regards to the self, that is, how the self experiences them. If the It in these phrases were to no longer be experienced by the I in the same way, their value would change dramatically in regards to the I. This is because their relationship is based on how the I is experiencing them. “I am experiencing you as the object of my affection, but if our situation changes, and I no longer experience you as such, your value to me changes”. For so many people, love “cling(s) to the I in such a way as to have the Thou only for its content, its object” (2004, p. 19). Love is about what the I experiences, and relationships are conditioned based on this experience.

In contrast, I-Thou relationships are not about experience. They are not about us giving our affection to someone or having our needs met by another. To meet Thou, one must step out of oneself; out of the realm of experience. To meet Thou, one must be open and still, without expectation, without a future plan or an alternate motive. As long as our language speaks of others in context of the role they fill for the self, we can never be in I-Thou relationship. 

So how do we create I-Thou relationships as opposed to I-It relationships? For Buber, Thou is not found by seeking, rather it is met through grace. The moment that we start to seek; the moment that we start to look for someone to fulfill a role for us, or meet a need, we are setting up a predisposition for an I-It relationship. Thou is found by existing in the moment and allowing I to be authentic and real. Thou is found when there are no expectations, no hopes or assumptions. The present is the only thing that matters, and in the present, one is able to join with the other by giving up their I, not by satisfying it. For an I-Thou relationship to occur, there can be no end goal, there is no trying or creating, there just is. This is freedom. It is in this freedom that Thou can be found; not by actively seeking, but by gracefuly allowing.

Books Cited:

Buber, M. (2004). I and Thou. T&T Clark LTD: London.

Friedman, M. S. (2002). Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue. Routledge: London.

Objectifying Others

Recently, I posted a link on facebook about effective communication. As I posted the link, a picture came up of a book entitled Catch Him and Keep Him. I scowled at the message, and considered removing the link. Instead I asked my friend, who I was staying with at the time, “what do you think of the title, Catch Him and Keep Him?” She turned her nose up and said “men aren’t fish” satisfied that at least one other person can validate my thoughts, I left the link up, and decided to address the issue here.

This title is reflective of a cultural mentality that governs our relationships. This cultural mentality says we should be seeking a romantic partner as if they were prey. Love is about “catching” something and holding on to it. It’s an active experience where you, the seeker, must be a certain way in order to capture some end product. We’ve turned the other into an object before we’ve even met him or her.

Language is a powerful tool. Our choice of words determine meaning. Language manipulates the way we define the world, the mental picture we create that helps us understand our concepts. Think of how one’s mental definition of their romantic partner changes when she describes him as “someone I connect with as more than a friend” or “the man who understands me better than most” compared to “my new boyfriend” or “my sugar daddy” or “a good catch”.

There are so many implications to the phrases we use to describe relationships, and we ignorantly speak these phrases without considering their implications. The language present in our current culture reflects a mentality of objectification; “catch him and keep him”, “the object of my affection”, “she’s a nice piece of eye candy”, the list is endless.

No wonder so many people feel their relationships lack connection. We cannot connect to objects. It’s impossible to truly open ourselves up to things. So when we create a mental definition of boyfriend as an item (whether we do this intentionally or not), we’ve already put up a barrier that prevents honest connection. By understanding him as an item to be utilized, or a thing to fill a specific, intended role, we are unable to meet with him in a mutual person-to-person way.

So when I hear people say “I really need a man”, or “Why don’t you go and get a boyfriend?”, I cringe. You do not need a man the way you need water. I should not go and get a boyfriend the way I go and get a new pair of shoes. Fulfilling relationships don’t work this way. Fulfilling relationships only happen when we join with another in connection without expectation. As soon as we seek someone to fill a role for us or meet a certain demand, we have turned them into an object. In this objectification, there is no room for mutual joining.