Equations of Relationships

Yesterday, I did a lot of deep thinking, and I came upon a number of realizations. One of them was a theory about the necessary parts of a relationship. I started working on some equations and I came up with this.

The two key elements of a relationship, whether it be friendship or romantic, are trust and care. Both are absolutely integral to make things work. When one is subtracted, problems arise. People become greedy and they care more about themselves in the relationship than the other person.

- Trust - Care = Nothing

If you don't have trust or care, you have nothing. There is no relationship. There may be a relationship on the surface but it has no deeper meaning, and offers no reward to either of the people involved.

Trust - Care = Indifference

Indifference arises when you assume your friend will always be there, so you do not make the effort to be good to them. This kind of relationship is not 50/50. Basically, you view the person as serving you, and forget about your duty to them in return. If your friend one day sees that you are not putting in the effort they think they deserve, they will likely leave. And thus the trust becomes meaningless as well.

Care - Trust = Obsession

Interesting when you reverse the circumstances, you get the opposite. When you are concerned about a person, but you don't trust them, you walk a very slippery slope. You don't want to lose the person, but you don't believe that the person will be there for you. This causes you to try to control their actions and other relationships. Obsession is also selfish because it objectifies the other person in the relationship. Essentially, you have forgotten about the other person's feelings, and you are simply using them to appease your own personal desires. You try to make the person care about you because you are afraid that if their care isn't reciprocal, then you are foolish and insignificant.

Trust + Care = Love

If you trust a person enough so that you're not desperate to hold onto them, and you care enough about a person to be good to them, you have love. Love means that you truly care about the other person and you are not using them for any underlying selfish reasons. True love for a person can only be felt when the trust and caring is mutual and unselfish.

It is difficult to find that balance, because we only have so much control over how we feel. Though it is possible to make an effort to increase trust or care, there is a certain point where you have done all you can do with a particular person. You can't force yourself to care or trust more than you do. That is the time where the relationship must be evaluated to see how it ought to continue; if it should be at a lower level of intensity, or if it shouldn't even exist.