“The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives”
Esther Perel
“I regret cheating on my partner” I regret ghosting that person because I was too immature to have a conversation with them at the time.” “I wish I wasn’t such a bully in high school” “I wish I had reached out”. These are all anecdotes from a podcast episode on “How to Avoid Regrets” by Bobo’s Void or as the OG listeners know it as Bobo, Mango and Donavon’s Void. Bobo who runs the podcast asked people on Instagram stories “what do you regret the most in your life”, amongst the four recurring themes two were particularly fascinating. What Bobo terms relational regrets and moral and ethical regrets. These were regrets about the dismantling of relationships, the poor treatment of people, and the failure to do the right thing. This concurs with what has been written on the common regrets amongst the dying at the end of their lives. With many lamenting about not keeping in touch with friends and family as well as taking people in their life for granted. It is quite clear that the quality of our relationships is a core tenet to what we perceive as having lived a good life. With this being the case, is it not then just as equally important to approach this part of our life with as much ethical and moral rigour, we would anything else we deem worthwhile?
This brings us to the question, what do we owe each other, if anything? This is a question philosophers have been mulling over for decades, but it seems ever more pertinent in the context of our current dating landscape to ask, what do we owe each other in dating and romance? An area which has become more and more reflective of the capitalistic structures that govern other facets of our lives. The capitalistic paradigm that glorifies over-consumption and incentivises unethical and morally questionable behaviour in pursuit of profit, is now the lens through which we view our dating lives. Swiping left or right on the “products” we want or do not want, flattens the entire existence and complexity of an individual into a single profile. Starting conversations maybe even meeting face to face and quickly disposing of those who do not fit our criteria without a second thought. Value is no longer placed on the beauty of sharing a moment in time with another human being but on meeting the requirements of our shopping lists. Traits of the dark triad (narcissism, machiavellianism and psychopathy) often observed in CEOs of Fortune 500 companies now ever more present in our dating interactions. The most ruthless amongst us stopping at nothing to get what they want, causing trauma and emotional damage in their wake, because that’s what it takes to win in a romance capitalistic enterprise where the currency is attention, and the human being is disposable. After all there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
Our interactions with family, friends, colleagues are awash with numerous tales of mistreatment as well as their mistreatment of others in the pursuit of romance and companionship. It seems like every day there is new dating lexicon; ghosting, breadcrumbing, love bombing, vulturing, kittenfishing naming behaviours which fall under the umbrella of emotional abuse. However soo normalised and often subtle in how they are deployed they leave you soo confused and wondering. “Well, it’s not like they screamed profanities at me they just stopped responding to my texts, but why does it hurt so fucking bad?” In a moment of weakness you engage in self-gaslighting questioning “maybe its me? maybe I ruined this, its my fault I expected too much”.
This is something I believe is a manifestation of the ethical and moral ambiguity that is commonplace within the dating sphere. Where you know you have been done wrong or someone you know has been done wrong but you can’t quite articulate how, what, when, where and why. You also can’t quite see what the philosophical tenets of morality and ethics have to do with dating, but something just feels wrong. In an attempt to articulate the full breadth of this experience and its accompanying feelings, you are met with confusion, because the burden to create the language to articulate that which cannot be easily articulated is always placed on those who have been wronged. To share a recent experience of my own that left me perplexed. I went on a date during a trip to South Africa earlier in the year. The date was nice, nice enough for me to consider a trial run long-distance situation, which the other person was also keen on. Upon my arrival back in the UK I was just not sure about the whole thing, and I articulated my anxiety and confusion. To which this person responded “I am a lot confused and overwhelmed just give me a sec” little did I know this was the precursor to being a ghostee.Never heard from them again, concerned messages and phone calls were met with silence. Fast forward a few months later I came to find out via twitter that there was a girlfriend in the picture the whole time. The thought that I had unknowingly participated in a case of infidelity was disconcerting. What was even more unsettling was the nonchalant way this individual went about their unscrupulous activities when they really should have just blocked me, or said the truth “you don’t have to worry about me I am in peak physical and mental health condition, I just have a girlfriend I didn’t tell you about.” After which I would have gone about my business, all that was required was clarity , regardless they continued the tired game of the silent treatment.
I am no psychologist, but my best guess is the attention they continued to receive, despite their silence, was a temporary panacea to a deep-rooted sense of what I would term relational inadequacy. To soothe this self-perceived lack they found that grey area where fault can only be made visible through nuance, and not only capitalised on it , but caused harm in the process. This is something so well articulated by Arabella’s monologue in the hit TV series I May Destroy You which goes as follows:
“Bob found the line that separated him from everything else. Rather than crossing it, he tip-toed on it, and he experienced this feeling of being on the boundary, on the border. Right on the line of being neither in one place or another and saw how in this grey area where nothing was quite clear, no one could be clear. They can’t articulate, fuddle our words. They couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was he did that we felt was so wrong.”
Even as I write this despite knowing the truth, I still can’t help but question whether they did anything wrong or whether it was actually me who was at fault. “Where nothing is quite clear, no one can ever be clear.”
One of my all-time favourite YouTube channels The Hopeless Romantic Society chronicles the trials and tribulations of the dating landscape, and while comical and reassuring that we are not experiencing this dire state of affairs alone. It also forces us to ask the question, if so many people are going through this, are we collectively creating an environment that is not conducive to the development and maintenance of true love? When I speak of true love, I am referring to the definition proposed by our lord and savior bell hooks in her book All About Love. Which goes as follows:
“Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” Explaining further “Love is as love does. Love is an act of will — namely, both an intention and an action. Love is a choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.” Since the choice must be made to nurture growth, this definition counters the more widely accepted assumption that we love instinctually.”
Hooks goes on to list six core ingredients for love and proposes that you need all six to truly practice love as a verb: care, commitment knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust. Accompanied with being vulnerable and true to yourself and others; and, being gentle with the vulnerability that others show to you. I am also referring to the love spoken about by Khalil Gibran in the Prophet when he said,
“For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.”
There is a misconception that we can treat everyone else horribly in the pursuit of companionship and still achieve the Hooks and Gibran sort of love within the enclosure of a committed relationship. I would argue that on the road to transformative love how we treat others on the way is equally as important as how we treat our chosen partner and/or partners. The respect, trust, and honesty with which we approach a first date is equally as important as the approach to a long-term healthy, and fulfilling relationship because exercising ethics and morality in all our relations and interactions decreases what Misuvva calls misery pollution. ”This describes the way that suffering anywhere causes suffering everywhere, how it isn’t possible to section off suffering, misery seeps into every aspect of society and to be human is to be part of society” Within the context of dating the relational trauma that we inflict on each other continues to be compounded and inflicted on many others decreasing our collective chances of finding healthy partners and forming healthy bonds. Bearing in mind that,
“Trauma works not just on the body, but on the body politic, it ricochets through populations and generations, transforming everything it touches.”
So, when we ask the question what do we owe each other we are also inadvertently asking the question what do we owe ourselves. The work of creating an environment that is conducive to true love devoid of misery pollution is a collective responsibility, maybe that is what we owe ourselves, maybe that is what we owe each other.
Some suggestions for an ethical dating framework, this is an ongoing internal dialogue so I welcome any and all discussion:
- It has to begin with self, we are all deeply flawed human beings, this does not make us unworthy of love and relationships, but it does mean we need to be aware of how we might hurt others as a result of our own deeply rooted traumas and inadequacies.
- “Without virtue, it is difficult to bear gracefully the honours of fortune” Aristotle. Ethics should not be reserved for long-term partnerships but should be the cornerstone of all our dating practices. A lack of virtue whilst pursuing companionship and romance does not beget virtue within the context of a relationship.
- Decentering the aesthetics of romance for critical discourse on modern dating and romance. Most relationships are not something to aspire to despite the nice pictures, and decentering aesthetics allows us to have the hard conversations about what actually constitutes a HEALTHY relationship, and whether on an individual level, we have the capacity and the maturity for what it takes.
- Radical honesty with self and others accompanied by fierce and unrelenting compassion, and if you do not have the capacity for this, to be okay with being alone until you do, as you are going to cause damage otherwise.
This piece first appeared on Medium.
