Theory of Reduced Dividends

This intends to be a precipitate of my experience with human beings in the last 10 years or so. The Theory states that, the dividends one accrues out of a relationship or association diminishes vis-a-vis the emotional and physical effort it takes to sustain it, as the relationship thickens. The theory has the following corollaries:- (a) The lesser the depth of association with another person in a relationship, the more one is likely to benefit out of it. (b) A person who has several shallow relationships stands to gain more in terms of emotional and physical satisfaction, than someone who’s deeply committed in a single one considering all other factors remain the same. Now, let me try to explain my proposition with suitable examples. With my several years of association of various levels with near and dear friends and some more than friends, I have had a unique opportunity to get an insight into the human behaviour with regards to a relationship. When we fall in love, or develop a new friendship, the buoyancy it lends to our existence is unmatched in its freshness and energy. The euphoria of this new association is essentially due to the naive hope it engenders in all of us. It shuts down often the part of brain responsible for rational or logical thoughts, and the lust, love or the attraction as may be case, guides our hopes with this newfound occupation. The mystery that’s part of a new relationship adds to its charm as the mind fills up the gaps with positive tidings. For instance, If the guy you are dating drops you early home, you assume he’s going to go straight back to his home and think about you. When he doesn’t call you the whole day, the mystique builds up and creates an aura about him. When he meets you all prim and pruned up on the coffee dates, you assume that is the case throughout the day. When he offers to pay up for the party, you assume it to be his typical behaviour. It never occurs to you that most countries have different policies for tourists and immigrants. Therein lays the folly of all relationships. They paint glorious picture of the involved parties, a picture that one has to either live up to, often at the cost of bearing the pain silently for the rest of your life or in some other cases, result in the relationship deteriorate into a shadow of its former self. In either case, it’s not a happy situation. When the relationship culminates in a marriage, former of the two is the usually the result in closed societies like ours. Now coming back to my corollary No 1 which postulates that the lesser the association the more the benefits one has in a relationship. This can be aptly proved as in the following cases:- (a) When the mystery element remains, the relationship is filled with possibilities and thus the euphoric feeling persists. This euphoric feelings can often trigger a chain of positive events in other aspects of your life such as work and relationships. (b) When we meet people less often, we only carry the good memories of these meetings and it’s seldom that rudimentary heterosexual association turn practical in their scope or execution. (c) When very few words are being exchanged, they are likely to be sweet nothings rather than snide barbs. (d) The knowledge that one is going to be free after a short time being spent with the partner in question makes us euphoric about the association in most cases and in some cases switches off the logic switch of the brain and ups the emotions, making the people involved assess each other in more positive light than they might do otherwise. Now, I think I have done more justice than required explaining corollary 1 and will move to the second which states that, if one has several ‘shallow’ relationships rather than one deeply committed one, he’ll gain more satisfaction. I base this on the premise that every relationship loses its charm one fine day. The drudgery of everyday living, routine existence and dealing with constantly increasing financial targets while fending for the family takes one a long way from the days when there was ‘love’ in the relationship. One soon finds gestures that came naturally earlier such as a peck on the cheek of your spouse, or a small ‘I love you’ note becoming a chore. I am not going to touch the ‘point system’ that couples in committed relationship often maintain as a check on each other. You forgot the anniversary date, she’s one up. She got stuck in the elevator till you rescued her you got your point back. Such are the games people play. The self esteem touches a new low with passing time and when you are over the hill with your youth, one can’t help but get melancholic. Detractors of my theory will try to pulverise your better judgement with titillation of ‘joy of parenthood’ and ‘bliss of committed love’ etc. But don’t you fool yourselves my friends. To me, children are in the ‘cute’ bracket for finite amount of time. The cute little children soon grow into little brats thanks to the hours spent in bad company while you were away trudging to make ends meet. They demand amounts of pocket money that you as a child supported the yearly education budget on. Their demands for gadgets, games and computers outdo every bonus that you receive at the workplace for your overtime. Now, unless you are a true lover of mankind and had children for the pure joy of it, you aren’t going to like this situation. And if you are a mean man whose sole purpose of having children was to ensure care in old age, I don’t need to tell you how wrong you were. With this as background, now this is the groundbreaking reality that shallow relationships afford you:- (a) They afford you the ability to be totally honest with the partner. Every woman will sooner or later begin to appreciate a man who has been honest with her. So even if you lose out on a potential short term partner due to your propensity for hard truths in the initial days, in all likelihood you’ll regain lost ground later. (b) While a man who goes out looking for shallow associations might not find ‘true love’, he will surely find true friends. And friends with benefits are just what the doctor ordered for a joyous life. (c) I believe that all of us as thinking human beings have several layers and one needs to either find the perfect partner, a possibility that’s rather rare or find more ‘friends’ than one to lead a fulfilled life. Monogamy was invented by human beings to assure security to the offspring and is not a product of nature. And so all I am advocating is follow nature- be open to multiple love. (d) Multiple ‘friends’ gives you freedom to love each one in a unique way. We can’t underestimate the buoyant power of love and someone has said sagaciously, always be in love, never get married. So finally, coming back to the stated law- The law of diminishing returns, with its two corollaries, I think now stands explained.