Reciprocity
Is it the birth or death of relationships?
Last month I joined a writer programme at Substack aimed at “supercharging your publishing efforts.” As part of this programme, we’re connected to a small group of fellow Substack writers to have brainstorming sessions and offer feedback on one another’s newsletter.
I was in Tolstoy 11. And in the introductions discussion thread, I met a fellow Tolstoy 11 member, a philosophy professor. We make each other’s acquaintance.
Fast-forward to the day of the kickoff session, my partner finds me in tears as I try (unsuccessfully) to join the Zoom webinar. No matter what I did, the “join” button wasn’t responding to my violent clicks. I couldn’t join the kickoff session and was convinced I’d now be unable to participate in the programme.1
In my hassled, tearful state, I went and left a comment in the discussion thread to the only person in Tolstoy 11 I’d previously made contact with, the philosophy professor. He calmly caught me up with what I’d missed, said the group had set up a Google Docs to keep in touch (to which I was later invited), and that we’d agreed to subscribe to each other’s newsletter so we could give feedback.
So that’s what I did. I went and dutifully subscribed to the newsletter of all the members of the group I met over the course of the workshops.
But not all of them subscribed back.
A few years back, this would have upset me greatly. I’ve subscribed to your newsletter to give support, why didn’t you do the same for me? Shouldn’t it be reciprocal?
But now, this doesn’t bother me at all. No matter what the group agreement is, I don’t expect anyone to subscribe to my newsletter just because I subscribe to theirs.
Because I’m not a fan of reciprocity. In fact, I am vehemently against it.
Reciprocity kills relationships
I think reciprocity is the death of all that’s well and good in the world.
I help you and you help me, and vice versa, devalues everything that we do.
Imagine that you’re me in this writer programme, and I’m, say, the philosophy professor. I see that you’ve subscribed to my philosophy newsletter, and because there’s a prior agreement to subscribe to one another, I subscribe to Val Thinks in return.
The thing is though, I’m only subscribing to Val Thinks because you’ve subscribed to mine. I haven’t even read Val Thinks and don’t intend to. I’m doing it to reciprocate, not because I actually want to.
How is that good for anybody? My act of subscribing is completely devoid of value. It’s a thoughtless act,2 born entirely out of reciprocity.
Let’s take a different example:
There seems to be a general expectation that when you tell people you love them, there should be something in return: an “I love you” or “me too,” a kiss, a smile, a hug, a squeeze on the shoulder, a look of adulation that will last for all of eternity.
But I think that’s fucked up. Excuse the French. But I feel very strongly that this shouldn’t be the case. We shouldn’t expect reciprocity of any kind when we tell someone we love them. We should tell people we love them expecting nothing in return.
Professing our love for someone shouldn’t be conditional upon getting something back. We shouldn’t say “I love you” because we want to hear the other person say they love us, or give us a smile, or a hug, or a kiss. Declarations of love should be unconditional.
And love itself, for that matter. We should give love freely, and not expect our love to be reciprocated in any way. Otherwise our love is conditional and thus devalued.
The same goes for giving someone a gift. If you give your Aunt Betty a nice little gift for her birthday and she doesn’t even wish you happy birthday on yours, that should be fine. You can’t go and get upset and tell all your friends that Aunt Betty is a selfish [censored] for not reciprocating.
If you help a colleague with a work presentation and they don’t thank you, that’s fine too. You should be helping someone because you want to help them, not because you expect them to be grateful for it and express that gratitude. Maybe they thank you (and that’s nice), but maybe they don’t. And that should be fine too.
But without reciprocity…
My partner asked me the other day what ideas I had for my newsletter next, and the idea for this post poured out of me like water out of a really good bum gun.
He listened attentively, then at the end, calmly said (I paraphrase), “But without reciprocity, there’d be no relationships.”
I was aghast. I’d just been on a 5-minute tirade against reciprocity. I couldn’t for the life of me conceive how this evil concept could be—not the death—but the birth of relationships.
He calmly3 went on to explain (I paraphrase again), that the reciprocity I’m vehemently attacking is a very transactional interpretation of reciprocity. It’s the idea of “I do this for you because you did that for me.”
But there is a more general, less transactional, concept of reciprocity.
He gives this example: “If you’re in a relationship with someone and they never show you any sign of their affection, how can that relationship work? If all your acts of love and affection are met with silence and blank stares, how can that relationship survive?”
My brain is whirring along, high on half a glass of red wine, trying to grasp this completely opposite view of reciprocity. I feel a great deal of resistance from tiny Val in my head who’s made reciprocity her sworn lifelong enemy.
But then I got it.
We can only have a relationship with someone if there is some degree of reciprocity. I know you love me because you show me love and affection. You may not necessarily tell me you love me or give me a hug every time I profess my love. But at some point in the relationship, you must reciprocate. You must tell me you love me sometimes, give me back hugs, look at me with an adulation that will last for all of eternity.
The same goes with friendships, work relationships, families, the security guard at your building.
No relationship can survive—get started even—without a degree of reciprocity.
What do you think?
So now I’m at an impasse. I still think reciprocity kills relationships, but I also see how without reciprocity, no relationship is possible.
It’s a bit of a mindfuck,4 I know.
So I’m asking for your thoughts.
Which Val do you agree with? Do you think reciprocity has a place in relationships? Can we have a relationship without it? Is it the road to hell or salvation?
Leave a comment, send a reply, share this with someone who did something for you in the past but you feel like you never sufficiently reciprocated and so there’s this lingering guilt at the back of your mind that has loomed over the relationship since.5
Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,
Val
Ever the drama queen
And Val doesn’t think highly of thoughtless acts.
He’s a very calm person.
Talking about mindfucks, this is a complete tangent but if you’d like your mind to be fucked in a million different ways, I highly recommend the Netflix Original Series Dark. It’s in German so if you don’t speak German you’ll have to watch it with subtitles. But it’s worth it. Give it at least 4 episodes before you give it up, it’s a slow starter.
See? See how reciprocity ruins everything?
I think you are really close, it is not the reciprocity which kills relationships - but rather it is the Expectation of reciprocity which kills them. Reciprocity is a wonderful thing, relationship enhancing IMO. Expectations, on the other hand, are 100% pure EGO. Not only do expectations kill relationships, they are also the most common root source of depression. Love your stuff, keep up the good work!
I agree with your partner, it's the idea of a relationship becoming transactional that will hurt.
The way I see it, there's layers in relationships, with the relationship with yourself to be the most important.
Just a quick dig into the works of our brain, our body simply budget our energy and analyze if the actions we take is going to benefit us or not. That in itself is a form of reciprocity.
But what makes reciprocity even more important in sustainable, deep, and meaningful relationships is the expressed gratitude, appreciation, and love. When we take out the "should" and simply do things because we want the other person to be happy.
A quote I saved => "A really great relationship is one where you ask each person independently who benefits more from the relationship, they would each say, "well I do" - Bill
That form of reciprocity is out of selflessness balanced with selfishness. If you are always selfless in a relationship, it will be draining emotionally. But a nice balanced system to the relationships you care about, it will be awesome.
I think it's also important to notice the degree of closeness of that relationship. My 5 layers are self, intimate partner, family, friends, and what I call transactional and in that order.
The form of reciprocity is also different depending who is the receiver. I'm sure you are familiar with the love languages. But it's even more important to stay up-to-date with the changes of the people around us. That way, our acts and words are received in a form that is meaningful. There's just too many tragic stories of one-sided relationship filled with regrets and misunderstanding. The more frequent we communicate our needs and wants, the better.
Reciprocity is key to sustainable relationship, especially romantic. This comes from experiencing 2398 days as of this writing...filled with happiness and gratitude in my relationship every single day.