This has been in the forefront of my mind lately. I feel the lack of reciprocity in everything, both in a cultural sense and a personal sense. I see it in my peers and I feel it within myself. Recently, I have been exploring this feeling a lot more, as it now comes up too frequently for me to ignore it.
The following are my observations, or my meditations, on reciprocity.
What do we owe each other, if anything at all?
I have noticed that many people have been discussing this general principle a lot more lately. On a surface level, I look at it through the lens of individualism versus collectivism. Seeing people on social media complain about taking their friends to the airport, the “Hey! I am actually at capacity” therapy-speak, robot-linguist text meme.. These social artifacts, among others, seem obviously depressing and symptomatic of a culture devoid of collectivism. They signal how badly we have lost sight of the fact that we are communal creatures who depend on each other and, to some degree, owe a certain level of respect or reciprocity to each other. What is really painstaking about these specific instances is the fact that they comment on already well-formed interpersonal relationships. Sure, you shouldn’t be expected to drive a stranger to the airport, but a significant other? You might need to reevaluate how you care for others if this is too much for you.
I may sound pedantic because this critique is easy to conclude independently. However, when I challenge myself to have more nuanced thoughts and to interact with things that are not so obviously ridiculous, other feelings reveal themselves.
With hook-up and dating-app culture enveloping modern society, I have found a new avenue to explore the sentiment of reciprocity. With these particular instances, the word entitlement crosses my mind a lot. There have been many times I have come across people feeling as if they have been wronged by someone because they feel they are entitled to a certain level of reciprocity. For instance, after talking to someone for a week, people feel they are entitled to maintain this level of communication with the person. After meeting and hooking up once, people feel they are entitled to a certain level of reassurance, or at the very least, an unchanged communication schedule. I am much less convinced of this.
The problem with a society that enables and, in a sense, encourages surface level relationships is that relationships forfeit their rights to expectations. What I mean by this is that we cannot fairly implement certain expectations during the infantile stages of a relationship. I am not sure if the guy who you have been talking to for a week owes you reciprocity. I am not sure if the guy you slept with once owes you an explanation as to why he stopped talking to you after. Refer to your common sense in these scenarios. Perhaps in a perfect world we would always know people’s intentions and have explanations for these situations. But that is frankly unrealistic; be aware that there is a possibility of a justified lack of reciprocity, regardless of if it hurts your feelings or not.
When we engage in relationships long enough to instill these fair expectations, you are entitled to some level of reciprocity. This is what makes deep connections worthwhile: we now have someone to lean on for this reassurance. This being said, people change and feelings change. It is really easy to hate someone for losing feelings for you, or for not reciprocating the feelings you direct towards them. But, something that is often subconsciously forgotten is this:
No matter how bad you want it to, someone not loving you back does not make them a bad person.
This is not to say how incredibly heart crushing and soul shattering this lack of reciprocity can be– it is fucking awful. How interesting that we can feel such intense negative emotions, yet there has been no wrongdoing committed?
I promise I am not as hardened as I have portrayed myself to be in the last few paragraphs.
At this point, you may be thinking I am just cold-hearted and jaded. Trust me when I say, I wish reciprocity was guaranteed.
In my own life, I have experienced a good amount of loss and betrayal, perhaps more than the average person does within a 24 year span of time. I am chronically seeking answers for why this happens, which is why I care enough to write any of this. I enjoy being a psychoanalyst for the masses, using myself as a starting point.
I think I am still mourning the fact that I am fairly certain I am not meant to be loved. I do not mean this in the typical I am unlovable way, or even the no one could love me way. These ruminations are usually self-indulgent and reek of insecurity. I mean that I was simply not created to be loved, rather, I was created to love others and get nothing back in return. This is not to say that I am unloved, more so, it speaks to my utility as a person in society. Perhaps God created me with the ability, not unlike himself, to love others without being loved back; I accept this as my cross to bear. Another moment of a lack of reciprocity.
Explaining my own relationship with reciprocity is really just to show that we do not experience it all of the time, and that is okay. Whether we agree with this or not, we are not entitled to reciprocity. Lack of reciprocity does not entail that anyone else is a bad person, or that you on the receiving end of it are lacking in something else. We will encounter non-reciprocity whether we want to or not; better that we face how and why we feel certain things when we do. Life will never guarantee reciprocation.
<no need reply> <----my little shield.
more on the loneliness of no reciprocity: i have often thought every human alive is creative. surviving a cycle of daylight to night and back to light again, is human art. that is a kind of creativity.
another idea is this business of "discovery". what i tell myself (to feel better) is that i won't spend time or money advertising my work, my art. i won't vie to be playlisted and copied on other websites, etc. instead, i tell myself let someone (please?) discover me, and reciprocate by buying my music, or responding in some way. i tell myself, just put the "content" out there, see what happens. don't expect. then, don't get hurt. done and dusted. or, is it? what about that insatiable human need to be loved?
hi haleigh: thanks for this interesting introspective essay. oh haleigh, <no need to reply>.
you know, i often start emails with that no-need-reply direction. i think it's me warding off potential expectation and hurt. like you talk about. i've thought about this subject, too. like you, i have queries and pronouncements on reciprocity in our relations. it occurs, another word for it could be acknowledgement, "like" the way i'm acknowledging you now.
but this *lack* of reciprocity, not getting back the love you talked about, speaks to me. expectations dashed, feelings hurt. please love me. look at me, please. that's me talking, btw.
i like what you say about being created to give. not to expect. is this what a creative *must* do? it just occurred, what goes on inwardly when there is viral reciprocity? fame? i think you might say that kind of online zeitgeist reciprocity is not the same as actual relationships. probably so. we should ask someone famous about that fandom they experience. does it alter their creative paths? it *must*. wouldn't you say? but then the back to the unknown (me) love-sick creative. the artist. what will he do? i wonder about that trope...artists *must* create to survive, it is the air they breathe. is it? is it that search for love you talk about? nothing more, or less? i'm rambling now. keep going and thanks, again. j.