Social Relativity (Part II)

As promised, however late, hier ist mein Wortschwall der soziale relativität. Any relationship (used here to describe any rapport between two persons, whether it be familial, friendly, or romantic) is always in three states: the state in which it "is", the state in which party A thinks it is, and the state in which party B thinks it is. And in any relationship, since one's perspective is the only one that one has, it is the only one one cares about.
Therein, tragically, lies the difficulty. A relationship may actually be a tremendous success, but one party might tend to think negatively and see it as only doomed to go downhill. Or both parties could be delusioned with failure, when the relationship could have been a success.
In considering this, imagine how different things would be if one could know "the" truth about one's relationships with others. How many people would be freed from their burdens, and how many more would find happiness? (Although I do realize that knowing something and acting on that knowledge are two different things. Prime example being me; I *know* it's healthy to exercise, but I'm still the skinny, sedentary, senescent sesquipedalianist.)
Although I do have certain very specific relationships in mind (some of which directly include me, others which have me included), I shan't specify them here, for fear of discovery. (I've found that anonymity seems to be a popular practice on the internet.)
But here basically are the facts: with varying personalities, there are also varying abilities. People have different compatibility rates, and people also have varying degrees of observation. One can therefore easily speculate how a relationship could hypothetically contain two persons with a relatively low compatibility rate (given their personalities), where one of the two parties has a particularly low level of observation, therefore being more prone to delusions of emotions, elongating the duration of the relationship, and only further torturing and tormenting the poor soul on the other end. Let this sort of relationship be called the "Blind" relationship (because as humans, we all have an obsession for naming things).
One ought also to easily be able to conceive of a relationship in which the two parties have a reasonably high compatibility rate (for their personalities), but one of the two parties is particularly sensitive and tends to dwell on the negative, thereby concluding the relationship to be in decline. This relationship we shall name the "hypochondrial" relationship.
It is easy for us (or perhaps some of us) to think of relationships in our own lives which fit the description of the blind and the hypochrondrial. But imagine every friendship in which you were the one who tended to initiate contact, propell the conversation forward, advocate get-togethers. What if you were the blind one in a blind relationship?
Think of all the relationships in which you think you easily get along, but too much history has happened and there's simply too much "past" for things to go back to the way they used to be. What if you were the hypochondriac in a hypochondrial relationship?
In the same way that you would wish to instantly break all ties with the blind in blind relationships, would you appreciate it if your "friends" instantly broke all ties with you for being equally blind?
In the same way that you would wish to end all relationships that simply had too much history, would you appreciate it if your friends ended their relationships with you for their hypochondria?
It's easy to answer those questions when we only think about ourselves, but how many of us bother to consider if we've ever been on the receiving end of our own actions?

Of course, there are less destructive relationships which also illustrate this relativity (or imbalance). Between the pair AB, A may consider B to be A's best friend, but B may only see A as a good friend. Reasons are innumerable. A might have fewer friends, or B might have more criteria, &c, etc.
How, then, are we to proceed? In every one of our relationships, the other person is certain to think differently of you than you of him/her. Communication, obviously. But there is one small problem about language. A lawyer put it best when he said, "years in the legal service have only taught me to distrust language".
Then perhaps in actions? After all, actions speak louder than words, right? With our acts of respect and affection, surely we would be able to convey what we wish? Ah, but there is one small problem -- the loophole, as it were, of the Golden Rule. (The Golden Rule being "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".) Say, for example, that one respects another by not looking at his watch -- he feels that it implies he is bored and finds more excitement in knowing the time than continue conversing with his partner. Suppose the partner is meticulous about punctuality and is also incidentally eternally busy with meetings. Then they are eternally offending each other while still observing the golden rule because while the one is willing to be a little late for the sake of a good conversation, the latter is always obsessing over time, subtlely insulting the one. The latter is also perpetually insulted at the lack of one's punctuality and untimely partings, which often are the cause of his tardiness at his following meetings. And this isn't even an extreme example (because it would be easily resolved through the imprecision of words). But other times it cannot be remedied, if the faults are integral to the personality. (If, for example, one were considerably more contact-based, and the other not touchy-feely.)
The purpose of this rant is not to say that we're all doomed, or to give some sort of clever solution to this problem (is there a solution to the egocentric predicament? I don't remember..), but rather, to just make aware the possibility that the relationships you are in may not quite be the same condition as you think of them.
So remember kids, if I take a long time to respond to your MSN messages, and come up with half-baked excuses, you can depend upon it that I probably think of you as being in a blind relationship.
Or more seriously, don't be too quick to dismiss people, especially if you're unsure of your own faults. Nobody's perfect, and nobody should be. But do you really want to be the sort of idiot who would break off relationships with people for the same faults that your other friends have been forgiving you for for a long time? Hrmm...