Microlationships

(This post describes an as-yet theoretical concept in interpersonal relationships. It is my sincere hope that I have the courage and social tact to put this theory into practice. We'll see.)


A Basic Definition


A microlationship is most simply defined as a romantic relationship between two individuals that is voluntarily terminated as soon as either partner realizes that they are less excited about the relationship than they were the day before.


Romantic relationships tend to begin with a period of heightened passion and excitement between the two partners. Over time the common opinion is that the initial passion begins to subside as the relationship transitions from one form to another. Although by all accounts this is normal and arguably necessary for the stability of a long-term relationship, I'll make the uninformed observation that most members of such relationships look back with at least some sense of longing and nostalgia for the days when they were just starting out, when they were so much more romantic and passionate and couldn't stand to be apart from each other. They contrast this with the current condition of their relationship, and frequently find it lacking in many ways.


For a variety of reasons, microlationships are designed to endure only until this initial passion begins to taper off, ending before the relationship has a chance to reach that next step. I'll provide my reasoning for why this type of relationship is practical and beneficial for certain people at certain stages of their lives, but I'll start by explaining what a microlationship is not, to dismiss the most obvious condemnation as early as possible.


What a Microlationship Isn't


1. It isn't about meaningless sex or one-night stands


It's easy to interpret this concept as being a fancy way of describing an attempt to engage in shallow encounters that are primarily motivated by the satisfaction of physical desires. Conceding that sex is generally assumed to play some part in most microlationships, it's not necessarily a requirement. One of the primary goals of a microlationship, as we'll get to, is deep, engaged interaction with another person. In many cases, sex increases the magnitude and duration of that interaction, and is much more about the non-physical connection it promotes than the simple physical pleasure of the act itself.




2. It isn't about fear of commitment


As I write this I'm aware that I am a man, and I'm aware of the common stereotype regarding men and commitment. Although a microlationship, by definition, is not intended to develop into a long-term relationship, it's important to clarify that a given microlationship with a given person is not expected to evolve into a long-term relationship with that person. One of the primary motivations behind microlationships is to prepare individuals for eventual happiness in long-term, deeply committed relationships.




3. It isn't about hedonism


The basic description of a microlationship tends to give the impression that the individual seeks to maximize his pleasure above all else, abandoning one relationship the moment it reaches a point where it stops being as rewarding as possible. Although microlationships certainly encourage people to be very aware of what makes them happy, and to reject the notion that relationships necessarily involve a significant amount of self-sacrifice, it's not as much about experiencing as much pleasure as possible as it is about figuring out what you're really looking for.


Preference and the Unimaginable


The absolute core assumption behind the motivation to microlationships is this: that people generally can't know a priori exactly what they want in a romantic partner. What I mean is that I can write a list of characteristics and qualities that I believe my "ideal" woman must or must not possess in order for me to be optimistic about the possibility for long-term happiness with her. And despite my best efforts to be honest with myself in composing this list, I'm convinced that if I ended up with this incarnation of my most exacting requirements, I would end up being less satisfied than if I had picked a woman at random from some pool of reasonably attractive women.


The problem is the general inability to predict reactions to events that have not yet been experienced first-hand. The example to follow will no doubt seem shallow to many. I believe that many people elevate relationships and romance to such a point that it becomes very unpopular to consider them as anything short of mystical. Attempting to make objective comparisons between "love" and more mundane phenomena is perceived of either as being merely ignorant in the best case, or heartless in the worst case. I think most people just want love to be a magical, indescribable experience that can't be thought of in rational terms without destroying that magic (more on that later). Nevertheless, I'll continue with the example.


Consider a person who has only ever eaten or heard of a single food in his entire life. It doesn't matter whether you imagine this food as being flavorful or bland, simply that it's the only thing this person knows about food and the experience of taste, but let's call it oatmeal. (I realize this may appear to resemble the cliché statement of ennui expressed by men who bemoan having to "wake up next to the same woman for the rest of my life", but that's not where I'm going with this.) Having no other basis of comparison, it's fair to say that it never enters into this person's thoughts that there might be other substances that, when placed on the tongue, would lead to radically different experiences than the oatmeal he's used to. For someone born blind, and having no one to explain to him what "sight" means, it's impossible to have a meaningful desire such a sense. Everything we imagine must necessarily be connected, however tenuously, to some other thought or belief we hold. As a very practical example, simply attempt the following: imagine something that has nothing to do with anything else. It's an impossible task.


So the man with his oatmeal, if asked to list all of the things he considered essential to a satisfying bowl of oatmeal, might decide that he prefers the oatmeal at a certain temperature or thickness, but would not list attributes of its taste. To close this example, I believe this is very close to the situation that we're in when we try to decide what we think we want in a relationship. We can list all of the attributes with which we're familiar, but we can no more predict what will actually make us happy than this fellow could predict what a difference a few strawberries in his oatmeal would make.


Pseudo-preference and Option Paring


But that new experience doesn't solve the problem. In fact, they it has good chance of making things worse. If complete lack of experience with a phenomenon prevents us from ever considering it as an option, experience with that phenomenon tends to give us an inappropriately strong opinion that the thing we've discovered is profoundly important to us. Assuming this guy with the oatmeal tries the strawberries, and enjoys them, he will tend to gravitate towards strawberries even when other new options are available. Given alternatives, he will generally choose the strawberries over other unexperienced options, given his past affinity for them. It's a "safe" choice. Instead of learning a general truth, that the world is full of unknown experiences waiting to be discovered, his preference for strawberries limits the chance he will consider choices that appear conflictual with or redundant to his preference. 


As a practical example, imagine you're at a restaurant with a very limited selection. Breakfast costs $5.00, and you're on a budget with no money to waste. On the menu you've got pancakes with maple syrup, and some foreign word you've never heard before. Looking around the restaurant, some people are eating pancakes and a few are eating bowls of some brownish-greyish stuff you don't recognize. Chances are, you'll order the pancakes (and if you don't like pancakes, swap in some other food you like.) You might be curious about the other choice, but it's not worth the risk of not liking it and being unable to get the pancakes at that point.


For the most part, people want to be in long-term, committed relationships. We desire this before a relationship even begins. Most people, when imagining an ideal relationship, will probably think of an initial period of bliss, followed by a longer period of deepening dependence, following by a much longer "rest of their lives together" with the person they love. With this preconception in mind we go into new relationships with the hope and expectation that it will turn into something very significant and long-lasting. For this basic reason, we are less likely to take chances in new relationships after we've identified a short laundry list of traits we think we're looking for. Let's say you've found that you like people who are well read, and you believe it's important that your future partner be well read. Although there's always a chance that a non-academic person could be perfect for you, it's hard not to worry that two or three years down the road you'll find you regret not having been more "selective" when the relationship began.


The more strongly we hope that the next relationship we enter will be "the one", the less likely we are to tolerate any deviation from what we've already decided are important characteristics. This self-imposed limitation, while perhaps reasonable in certain contexts, tends to narrow the range of individuals we would consider for a relationship, to our detriment.


Microlationships - An Opportunity for Growth and Discovery


First, in order to get any real value from microlationships, it's necessary to engage in many of them. A single microlationship alone is probably indistinguishable from just another relationship that fizzled out quickly, leaving neither partner with much of a sense of value. It's only in repeating the pattern many times, and deeply and honestly considering what you came to learn each time, that microlationships offer any practical long-term benefit.


The primary purpose of the time spent in a microlationship is to develop a deep bond with another individual, learning as much about them as possible in so far as it broadens the scope of your experience. When the microlationship ends, you will hopefully have a new aggregate opinion about what you feel is important to you in a partner. Ideally, many of these traits will be completely contradictory. I'm not trying to say that the end result should be the realization that your preconceptions are all unfounded. However, a fundamental part of the microlationship experience is not just to discover what you like, but to discover that some of the things you felt you preferred aren't as critical as you might have otherwise expected.


Because you go into a microlationship knowing that it will not develop into a long-term relationship, you can "afford" to be less selective about the partners you choose. I can fairly confidently say that I would probably never consider a long-term relationship with a woman who has a tattoo on her face. But if I could spend a couple of weeks with such a person, I'm equally confident that it would have a significant effect on my perception of others and benefit me overall. Microlationships are an opportunity to experience the world without being laden with the sort of long-term thinking that leads us to be both self-conscious with and overly critical of other.


The reason for the relatively short duration of a microlationship is to compel you to continue to process with a new partner. The assumption is that you will discover the most when your excitement about the relationship is at its growing. As the excitement subsides, the opportunity for new knowledge and experience also falls off. Again, the goal is not to hoard the pleasure of the "initial bliss", but to take advantage of the accompanying passion, obsession, and thirst for discovery. It's such a remarkable thing to find out that another person actually exists in this world, and it's in that initial phase of being swept up in that person's narrative that we're most attentive to every little detail, and most likely to be open-minded about them.


Logistics


So far, this concept is entirely theoretical. As such, I don't have a sense of how best to go about starting microlationships. I'm making the rather generous assumption that greater than 90% of women (depending on their age, I suppose) would flatly refuse to consider this type of thing. Chances are excellent that anyone on a "dating" website is looking only for a long-term relationship, and would interpret a microlationship as a synonym for a "No Strings Attached" hookup. It's probably not possible to convince such a person otherwise, at least not in the context of proposing a date.


The other side of the coin are women who are explicitly looking for casual relationships primarily motivated by sex. I would assume that such a person would have a much higher standard for the physical attractiveness of their partner, which probably restricts their pool of applicants to the top 98th percentile in terms of looks. That said, this isn't really an appropriate candidate for a microlationship anyway, owing to the importance of deep and meaningful, however brief they may be.


So, while this idea looks good on paper, it may be prohibitively difficult to put into practice, unless I'm lucky enough to start a movement that sweeps the nation, and Microlationship dating sites start popping up.


I should briefly talk about the ethics of this, specifically with respect to how much the partner should know about your intentions. It's probably borderline evil to begin a microlationship with a person who does not know that it's a microlationship. Unless the person is prepared for the relationship to end at around the time things seemed to be going perfectly, the sudden break up is probably going to be ugly, and harmful to the person. In no way are microlationships meant to take unfair advantage of the other person. It's possible that the value of a microlationship may be dependent on whether the partner is informed or not, but I'm just not going to consider that at this point. For now, every microlationship will begin with full disclosure. 


That said, there's no guarantee, or even high probability, that two people voluntarily engaging in a microlationship will reach the critical point at the same time. While you may have decided that it's time to end things, the other person may still be ascending that slope. Although you both theoretically know what to expect, and that the relationship won't last forever, it's possible that this sudden severing will still come as a shock. There's a good chance that despite the verbal agreements and conscious decisions of both partners, one or both of the individuals will still harbor unconscious hope that they will stay together for the long-term. I guess what I'm saying is, assume that when the microlationship ends, so will any kind of relationship with that person. I don't know how likely it is for a microlationship to transition into a traditional friendship after, but I assume that will be the exception.


Purging the Mystical, and Distilling Happiness 


Many will condemn this concept for apparently trivializing the value of relationships. Those people may have a right to be threatened. One of the benefits of engaging in a series of microlationships is the change it is likely to produce in your perception of the significance of relationships with others. Microlationships shrug off the burden of "soulmates", "Mr Right", and "True Love" in favor of greatly increased honesty with oneself, and a more realistic and genuine appreciation for your partner. It casts aside the notion of "Fairy Tale" romance in favor of clarity. The goal is to see things for what they are, and not to be deluded either by fictional accounts of relational bliss, nor by the chemicals our bodies produce to convince us to get on with the pair bonding and reproduction in order to ensure our genetic legacy. 


I don't want to think of relationships as magical, or mystical, or fated. I want to think of them as a mature, honest, happy experiences shared by two people. But to be truly happy I think it's necessary to have broad exposure to a range of experiences, instead of unconsciously fabricating a reason why the relationship you happened upon is perfect, and that you could not be happier with anyone else. Eventually the self-deception will catch up with you, and will generally signal the mortality of the relationship.


In Plain Words


I don't know what I want in a woman. And I don't think I can know simply by thinking about it for a few hours. I worry that I will either choose to be alone for the rest of my life, motivated by my inability to commit to something unknowable, or I will eventually make an uninformed decision for the sake of approximating a "normal" life.


Perhaps for some, microlationships are redundant. Perhaps they dated a lot throughout their lives, unconsciously engaging in microlationships along the way. For my part, I can only claim to have been involved in two real relationships, both of which lasted years, with one awkward romance in between. The thought of going out and seeking another long-term relationship is as daunting to me as expecting to enroll in a PhD program in a field I've never studied. I believe I'm not only unqualified to be in a long-term relationship, I don't have a reasonable sense of what I'm actually looking for. 


It's possible that my experiment with microlationships won't get off the ground, and I realize the irony of spending the time writing up a paper on Microlationships before even giving the real thing a try. My hope is that I am able to make progress on this front. I predict that these experiences would cause me to be more open to the world, more likely to engage with other people, and less pessimistic about the worth of strangers. 


I guess, in the end, I don't want to be alone. That doesn't necessarily mean I ultimately hope to be with one person for the rest of my life. It means that I don't want to feel like I spent my entire life only within my own mind.