the question meme

[pastwatcher]

OK, so I'd like to do edjoesu's question meme, but so far I only have two questions and no clear opinions on his questions. So I'm giving up and posting, for now.

1. What, other than oxytocin, makes one miss people, or care so specifically about them? Why can it be hard to give up the people you know and love, when the people you'll meet next may have just as good a chance of being good for you? I guess specifically, this means something like why is familiarity so appealing? And it's from my perspective as a ridiculously nostalgic person. The problem with this question is it can easily lead to a discussion of "what is love" and that's far too obviously complicated and probably over-discussed already, though actually I'd be interested in my friends' (readers'?) opinions anyway.

2. I just made the statement that there's a basic "you're-asking-too-much" contradiction between wanting to keep a culture to those to whom it belongs and wanting it to be accepted mainstream. Or to put it differently, pride in one's culture and few people ignorant or intolerant of it. I feel this way, for example, about HRSFA, and geek culture--geekiness is becoming more mainstream, apparently, and if that's true it's somewhat of a relief because people are less likely to be mean to geeks, but I also sort of don't want it to because I have an admittedly snobbish feeling that a lot of people can't properly appreciate geekiness. (I'm not sure; to me, it still feels like geek culture is a product of people who are not accepted mainstream, who enjoy or get obsessed things that it's hard to believe most people don't, and therefore end up with each other, often by choice. This seems unlike more interest/background-specific subcultures. I think I'm going on too long.) What do you think?

Comments

[tiamat360.livejournal.com]

Ah, but low energy results in stable bonds. Perhaps a better way of putting it is to say that the high energy bonds are more volatile, more likely to break. By low energy bonds, I don't mean to imply that the relationships they correspond to are low energy, but that like low energy bonds they are less likely to break.

So a long, well-established relationship itself might not be low energy, but how both people feel about it could be described as being in a well-worn groove; a low energy state, if you will. They know how they feel about the other person and how the other person feels about them, which is comforting. If they wish to break this relationship in order to form a new one, they have to wrench themselves and their partner out of the groove. Sometimes, it's okay, because they then form other relationships that end up being just as stable, if not more so. But it's always a risk - you can never know if you just destroyed one of the best things you had going for you until it's already demolished.*

Abused spouses/significant others might be a good way of illustrating this. They've become well-worn into their relationship and are reluctant to leave, even when they know there's something rotten about their current relationship. But it's still stable; they know how they relate to the other person. Not that I'm suggesting that's a good thing, but it's kind of an extreme example of a "groove."

On the other hand, just as there are volatile molecules, there are people who can't stay in a relationship for long. They're willing to take the risk of breaking one relationship in order to try another out. That's fine, but there is a definite risk involved, that they may never fall into a stable relationship again.

*While I don't have any data, I'd be willing to bet that couples that have been together longer are less likely to leave each other.