Who sets the standards for relationships? Who imposes the amount of love a couple needs to have for each other ( let’s measure this in doves-so there, I’ve just invented a new unit of measurement) before they agree upon a relationship?
‘We are 5 doves in love, let’s get together’
‘2 doves? Sorry, but I don’t think i can commit here’
‘We used to be 6 doves in love but now it’s just a 4’
Indeed, what sets the ‘bar’ for our everyday life? While our automatic response would be ‘Society sets our standards’, let’s put some honest thought here. First, what is this ‘society’ we’re refering to?
Here are a few definitions I’ve gathered, credits to the merriam-webster online dictionary.
1 : an enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another 2 : a community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests 3 : a part of a community that is a unit distinguishable by particular aims or standards of living or conduct : a social circle or a group of social circles having a clearly marked identity <literary society> 4 : a natural group of plants usually of a single species or habit within an association 5 : the progeny of a pair of insects when constituting a social unit (as a hive of bees); broadly : an interdependent system of organisms or biological units
We can safely rule out options 4 and 5 in our current usage. (Unless the dear reader is a tree, in which case, disregard my earlier statement.) For the rest of us, I think the first definition bears the most relevance. A ‘cooperating social group’ with ‘organised patterns of relationships through interactions with one another’.
Humans are social creatures. What kind of behavior makes a gentleman a gentleman? How do we classify someone as gentlemanly?
Here we have Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs, developed by the psychologist Abraham Mazlow in the 1940s and expressed in simple pyramidal form. Our most basic needs are the base of the pyramid. Safety is set on the second tier of the pyramid and love/belonging in the middle tier.
The basic instinct of any creature when threatened, most cleverly demonstrated by our dear friend the chameleon, is to blend in with it’s environment. Safety is to be found in being around a large group. Easiest done by mimicking each others attitudes and behaviour. Of course, in doing so, we also fulfill our need to belong, somewhere, some place.
So i think I’ve just answered my first question. We get into a relationship to feel a sense of belonging. We belong together. We separate what we determine as a passing fancy from love based on society’s norm for love; We might eventually adopt my use of doves as a unit of measurement after all!
But now here’s a follow up. Now we know why we have standards as a society, why aren’t we mindless (okay maybe not mindless, just blind) carbon copies of one another?
This question, I feel, is best answered by our individual thresholds for the fulfillment of our own needs; Those of safety and belonging. People that stand out will be scrutinized, they will be judged, they will then either be accepted or outcast in our eyes. That’s where we have terms such as ‘weird’, ‘hipster’, ‘cool’ and even ‘visionary’. Contrarian investing is a good analogy here. Investing against the masses. A successful contrarian investment could net a huge windfall, but at a high risk- You are, after all going against the majority of the market. Some people are built for this. The majority are content with average returns en masse.
Do i dare to think differently from the rest? Will I still be accepted by others if I think this way? How much do I care about blending in? Start asking these questions the next time you make decisions that are more than just a fulfillment of our herd mentality. Nay, start asking yourself at every turn; ‘Am I making a choice out of my own logic processors, ethical code, philosophy and rationale, or am I just the blind following the blind.
Put some thought.