Aristophanes, you were wrong!

I hereby declare to abandon my ever-lasted romantic idea of finding the perfect (or better put, optimal) women in life to fulfil our both dreams. I don’t blame it on the women, at least not on their intentions. They just don’t manage to live up to my expectations – at least in several fields. How do you want to optimize if every woman can only convince in like one or two fields?
However, in order to make my point clear, I first have to explain my personal dreams I would like to see fulfilled in a partnership: They cover the dimensions of joint adventures and endeavours, satisfaction in the fields of intellectual, emotional and sexual exchange and commitment for mutuality.
The first dimension is about doing and experiencing things together. This requires a woman that is ready and willing to risk and learn new things. Thus, she’s supposed to be curious and ambitious. There are several basic attitudes implied in this expectation: First, she has to be risk-neutral and progressive, to think that new things can yield both bad and good outcomes. Second, she needs self-confidence but no self-contentment, to be willing to constantly change herself, not out of unhappiness but hopes.
The second dimension is about exchange. Many people reduce a partnership to this dimension or even a subcategory of it. I don’t get tired of stressing out that I’m not looking for a mere relationship but a full-flegded partnership. Partners do not only relate to each other in exchange, but go further based on this. They try to join and use synergies to create something even better. In terms of the transaction cost theory of the new institutional economics, you could say that the partnership that is at debate here is about committing to an extent of cooperation whose opportunity costs exceed any amount that could be covered. In fact, as you should invest everything in a partnership, your opportunity costs tend towards infinite. Thus, there’s no way of compensation if your partner starts being opportunistic by shirking (freerider-problem) or extorting (moral hazard). You cannot even sue your partner for it. That’s the big, actually infinite risk of a partnership. More about it later. Now of course, there can be now joint endeavours if you do not know whether and what you both want. In this sense, emotional, sexual and intellectual exchange are the foundation of the other two dimensions. However, men and women seem to assess those three different kind of exchange in completely different way – both along and in the two genders. In my case, I probably disappointed most often in emotional aspects and got disappointed in intellectual ones. Whether the two aspects are antagonistic is questionable, however they definitely aren’t positively comparative. Personally, I’m ready, willing and in need to exchange my personal feelings – based on mutual understanding on each other’s views and attitudes. This means that I consider emotions and feelings based on personal principles and attitudes. You do not feel repulsed by homosexuals if you’ve got the principle of personal fulfillment and happiness being ultimate. You won’t feel fat when you realized and agreed that present beauty ideals are neither nice-looking nor healthy. And as you yourself never bother about such questions, you won’t do it towards your partner, either. Indeed, I consider emotional aspects as unclear or un-explained by-product of our principles and attitudes we constantly reflect in rational and reasonable ways. Thus, I consider the matching or even synchronization of these our principles and attitudes as prior and basic. You won’t be able to lead a partnership with a heavy smoker if you cannot stand out smoke yourself. Such matching queries require intellectual exchange. The most common way is careful smalltalk with the usual Likes and Don’t-Likes. Now in my case, as I’m seeking a rather profound partnership, these matching queries require much more information. I do not only want to know about their favourite food, but their political views, their opinions about and even more their suggestions for social problem. In short, I want to learn about their very way of reasoning to break through straight to their principles and attitudes, not stop there but even learn of how they’ve been enacted themselves. Such a profound intellectual exchange has two basic conditions: First, that the counterpart both has the ability as well as the experience of such profound self-reflective reasoning. Self-reflective reasoning to such an extent requires three basic factors, probably attitudes themselves: 1) self-skepticism and -criticism, 2) inter-subjectivity and 3) empathy. In short, you have to think about yourself from an exterior point of view which requires you to try to imagine other people’s point of view. Or as the notorious conclusion in philosophy is: Your true self can only be seen through the eyes of others. Thus, you’re nobody without communication with others. The second basic condition is not as much about attitude as about ability and knowledge – to express yourself. Again, this requires two factors: 1) language proficiency and 2) a common code. Obviously, you’re not able to explain anything without describing it in a distinguished and complex language. Actually, that complex facts cannot be simplified in language is just a hypothesis of mine. And when talking about hypotheses, I also would daresay that the capability of thinking in complex relations and your language proficiency are correlated. Or simply spoken: You cannot think further than you can speak. The second factor is less perceived, understood and discussed and thus shall receive more attention: You cannot discuss with each other if every single expression has a completely different meaning for each other. Think about the word “love”: Does it mean “being in love”, the typical butterflies, or is “affection” that has grown over the years and shared experiences. Now, go further and let’s discuss the case of “religion” and “belief”, maybe “socialism” and “communism” or even “second-order cybernetics”. In fact, this last example isn’t arbitrarily chosen or simply to show off, but expresses the very biggest restriction of this second basic factor: We cannot really decide how we want to think about a certain expression. This is why we should try to find an elaborate, detailed and distinct code for exchange and keep asking about each other’s very understanding of expressions where that code reaches its limits. I think, no one disagrees that science has given us the best solution in that search of a common code. In fact, this problem is the very origin of science itself and all its principles and methods are based on the goal of creating a commonly understandable code for exchange of difficult statements and questions. It’s a common misconception that science is primarily about theories and evidence. In the first place, it’s about the methods to make such theories and the analysis of evidence understood. That’s the biggest success of the invention science and anyone who calls himself a scientist since he had learned to repeat some theories, but neither knows to put them at use nor come up with theories based on exactly that catalogue of methods is nothing but a pupil.
The keyword second-order cybernetics brings up another question: Whether you actually can understand people with different principles and attitudes. Personally, I think you certainly can if you really try and manage to question your own principles, look at others’ and try to understand theirs based on simple logic. Actually, this implies that you should even be able to constantly change your own principles and attitudes. On one day, you clearly disagree to the idea of suicide, on the next day, you consider it as a reasonable option for example. However, just as science is based on theorems, atheists’ belief in the inexistence of any higher beings is a belief of its own, one have to question whether the capability of completely changing his principles isn’t just a principle itself. In this case, I simply couldn’t understand and haven’t ever understood people’s arguments that bare such “meta-principles” and have firm beliefs instead. I cannot call them wrong, either, in fact, they wouldn’t even understand. My only comfort is that my principles and attitudes are synchronized to the probably most advanced and elaborate code in human intellectuality – science – and that the numbers of people thinking in and understanding in that code will continuously grow.
So, I put intellectual exchange in front of emotional exchange – not because I consider it as more important but easier and prerequisite for emotional exchange. “You don’t understand what I mean”, is a sentence people in a relationship throw at each other quite often. Let me claim that is simply because they haven’t had enough intellectual exchange ahead. And in my case, this is a huge load.
Let’s talk about emotional exchange now. Do you understand the irony of this sentence? I cannot express emotional exchange in a written document in any other way than transcribing it in our intellectual language – which will be only understood by people who think in and understand the same code. Anyway, when it comes to emotional exchange, I stress honesty and sincerity. The first makes me to be say the truth all the time. I’m in a constant struggle of shutting up and or expressing things in an ambivalent not to hurt the less self-reflected and -confident people around me. I’ve learned of a very interesting theory that says that it doesn’t really matter what weakness people point out at you, but who it does. Thus, the more I’m close to someone, the less I should criticize him. However, I consider this theory – as interesting and convincing it might be – as rather fallacious: Isn’t it your closest friends whose opinions you can consider as honest and well-meant? This is why I never want any friends to be my supporters but always my advisors. I want them to be true and honest towards me – for the better of both of us.
Now the second, sincerity, is a problem. This is because people tend to compensate their inabilities in intellectual exchange with emotional signals leading to an inflationary use of such signals that accumulate with the age of the receiver and coherently lose their value. I’m talking about compliments, physical gestures of affection including kisses and sex. “I love you”, is used way too carelessly and once a modern woman thinks nothing about a romantic guy kissing her on the lips. We’re getting numb and cold. You cannot really counteract that tendency but nevertheless, I don’t want to feel like contributing to its trend and thus rather hold back with compliments and love-assertions. If I compliment someone, I mean it in full sincerity and hope that the counterpart will think of it for quite some time as I definitely won’t forget about it myself.
In this context, now, sex is a difficult case, as well. But again – let me be outright honest: I make a clear distinction between emotional affection and sex. Therefore, I also list it as a distinct form of exchange. People need both and maybe can’t or don’t want it from the same partner. However, again, partnership is about synergies and if you combine emotional affection with sexual exchange, I feel like I get more than trying to cover those my needs and desires separately. You’ll never enjoy sex as much as with someone you love and you will never be able to express your love as good as in sex. Well, I’m not really sure about the second and again, I blame the inflationary use of emotional exchange for that. In fact, I’ve reached a point where I focus on rather different things than sex to stress my affection or even commitment to a partner.
The third dimension is much more of a concomitant sphere to the previous two, some kind of meta-dimension, a protocol that determines how the exchange and joint endeavours shall be carried out. However, because of its importance, I treat it as a dimension of its own. This dimension is labeled commitment because this term implies and requires most of all principles and attitudes necessary for a long, stable and sustainable partnership. Commitment primarily implies mutuality and trust. Now many people seem to misunderstand these two basic concepts already. Mutuality isn’t only about giving and taking, the classic “do ut des”, but in fact, means that you can take by simply giving. The example of the enthusiastic husband shopping a marvelous new car “for his wife” might be a suitable example. In the course of the misconception of a partnership as a simple relationship, many people also tend to misunderstand the locus of these profits: You don’t reap profits out of a relationship but due to or with a relationship. You don’t profit of your relationship and your partner but the surplus of the synergies, which means in case of the first dimension the new experiences and creations and in case of exchange the things you both learn out of each other in addition. If you simply try to enjoy the other’s experience and learn from hear him talking but contributing to a discussion, you’re shirking and exploiting and aren’t a partner at all. Mark this!
Trust seems to be subject of a rather lot of misunderstanding, too. While the combination of mutuality and trust in the concept of commitment certainly results in duties and expectations, trust itself does not hold any liabilities. Thus, trust cannot be expected or claimed, but simply valued and used. Anyway, trust is supposed to lie in the best interest of both partners as trust is not only basic requirement for joint endeavours and unrestricted and thus profound exchange, but also positively correlates with the extent of the synergies. In short, the more trust in a partnership the more profit it yields. However, the biggest problem with trust is that it cannot be signaled ex ante. You can only signal your mistrust. Again, the transaction cost theory provided by the new institutional economics comes in as a rather suitable and elaborate framework for this dilemma: The more both partners invest into a partnership up-front, the more successful it’ll turn out. However, because of exterior competition, both partners have reasons to suppose that the other one holds back a certain amount of its capacities. This is rather common and normal. But then, if one of the partners alleges his counterpart of holding back investments, he only reveals his own skepticism which logically implies that he is planning on holding back investments himself. Thus, this negative signal provokes a downward spiral with no escape. Economists have puzzled many decades over the optimization of that dilemma. (There’s no solution to a dilemma.) Finally, Rappaport’s experiments brought evidence that the strategy of tit-for-tat bears the most success in such a situation. Tit-for-tat is nothing but the principle of treating someone like he’s previously treated you. Thus, you keep believing in your partner’s best intents and being as benevolent as possible as long as he doesn’t disappoint you. However, if you receive a clear signal, you’ll send the same back – straight away. This can turn out rather tricky as sending back the same signal might be in your interest. I don’t really feel like I want to sleep with a complete stranger just because my partner cheated on me. In fact, in such a situation, I either cancel the whole relationship or I’ll make him stay in debt. This debt is to be paid back – either as a call long option by the harmed or a put short option by the wrongdoer. I reserve the right to do the same in the future or I’ll make him agree on compensating with something of the same value – for me. I consider it as rather important to pay back debts in a partnership as quickly as possible as it implies the out-coming commitment is of passive dependence. A partnership shouldn’t be based on debt from the past but prospects of the future.
Of course, trust, again, implies various principles and attitudes like honesty, sincerity and respectability which seem rather self-explanatory. In case of honesty and sincerity, I would like to stress that requires honesty and sincerity towards oneself and one’s own interests in the first place. Your own wishes shouldn’t be considered as egoistic but fertile for both and thus for the partnership’s sake. Anyway, if they don’t, you either haven’t realized that the partnership bears the best for yourself or you’ve just realized that the partnership won’t do that.
So much to my own dreams about a perfect partnership. Now, what concerns, troubles or simply disappoints me about women’s stance on this my rather complex concept of partnership? Basically, it’s not their incapability to meet my expectations – at all. Rather, they simply can’t or don’t want to see the complexity of these my dreams I try to fulfill. There are different kinds of simplifications. The first and most annoying one is the obstinate idea that men seek nothing but a relationship for sexual exchange. Of course, there are many men who ended up looking for nothing but that – either because they’re as simplistic as their women’s counterparts or maybe because they’ve already ceased that extreme effort of looking for that optimal woman and started satisfying their different needs in various relationships. They might find their need for intellectual change satisfied with their male friends or co-workers, their emotional one with their mothers and prefer to set on endeavours with complete strangers. However, they will never manage to cover the third dimension of a partnership and thus will always remain in various, rather unilateral relationship that simply don’t yield the synergies of a true partnership. Again, let me explain this dilemma with the notorious transaction cost theory of the new institutional economics: In the transaction cost theory, there are basically two ways of covering your (economic) needs – either you buy in on markets or you produce it yourself. In general, markets have rather low prices because of competition. On the other hand, to start your own production requires rather high setup investments. You need to invest a lot of resources into your own enterprise before reaping any profits. Now why would one want to create his own enterprise anyway? Why are their enterprises anyway? The answer lies in the imperfections of the markets. Well, the principal-agent-theory brings up a second dilemma which can be optimized through joint ventures, though. Anyway, both supply and demand on the market cannot perfectly signal either their intentions nor the quality and quantity of goods. That’s where the principal-agent-theory with the idea of information asymmetries sets in, by the way. Thus, the basic lack of markets is trust. In the course, customers cannot ask for highly specific goods on markets as they neither manage to perfectly explain their intention and cannot supervise the producer of the expected quality or his costs while the producer cannot be sure whether he’ll really manage to meet the customer’s expectations and sell the product and in case, they make a contract, whether the customer tries to hold him up. After all, he would have invested a massive amount of effort, time and money that are sunk. In short, specific investments bear too high opportunity costs to profitably sell them on markets. That’s too abstract for you? Well, fine, this means that in a club, a guy will never ask some attractive stranger about her most favourite accessories, sets out in the late evening to try to get it and get back to please her and raise her chances of a decent one-night-stand. That doesn’t only pay off, but it’s too risky anyway. The girl could have lied to him, she could have be gone by the time he gets back or she simply doesn’t know how to shag. To cut a long story short, as such people have to renounce of trust, they will never reap as much satisfaction as in a partnership. However, this doesn’t have to be unreasonable. Some men as well as women have simply concluded that the additional investment costs up-front of a partnership will never be paid-off by the profits of their both synergies. Thus, fucking is fucking and that extra pleasure won’t be worth the whole effort. As in economy, whether this holds true or not doesn’t only depend on the economic situation and the market environment, but basically about the prevalent paradigms which influence us in what we value how much. In short, it depends on your principles and attitudes and has to be decided by everyone himself. However, it certainly doesn’t hold true in my case. The idea of compensating my sexual needs on the market, thus with strangers, certainly has occurred many times so far, but most often, I felt repulsed – and may that be because I’ve considered the prices for a standard good way too high. By the way, that’s why I claim that women can be much more easily of a hypocrite than a men: They keep accusing men for their need of sexual satisfaction, however, they themselves can end up in the bed of stranger much more easily – since they have even smaller transaction costs on the market than men and thus don’t have to consider it that much. And don’t forget: Affairs always requires both sexes, at least among heterosexual partners. [work in progress]