It was an intresting concept I came across accidentally while reading someone's blogs on line. This article is my take on that rather than adapting it. We might have come across many people sticking in a wrong relationship undergoing verbal and physical abuse. We wonder why the hell they are suffering like this rather than walking out of the relationship. Sometimes such things might have happened to us also. We might have liked somebody immensely that we stick to thim even though there used to be lot of problems. Some of us might have come out such situations and look back why we tolerated those things at that time. This piece of article is a part of self realisation and evaluation exercises I normally do. What is "Intermittent Reinforcement"? See it later part of the article.
Had you ever vocalised why you stick to such relationship despite continuous turbulent happenings? If you had ever verbalised it might have been like this - "I like him / her very much" and this response is almost unanimous. In my previous blog, which indicated the importance of understanding the person completely before falling into a relationship, I had written that we fail to conduct ourself with dignity in the deperation to woo / retain the relationship. What binds us towards the relationship? When the pain is inflicted into the attachment, it becomes a traumatic bond. More traumatic the bond is, tougher becomes to get out of it. Which is why people find easy to part with casual relationships but harder to part a painful bond, that they stick with it for a long.
Some people say "Those who conduct such way suffer from low self esteem. If for a moment they think what is there in him/her and not in me that I am so, they 'll come out of the relationship". But I totally disagree with that - the element of Self Esteem never features in this. There are other elements like patience and perseverance in the relationship that makes people behave certain way. If the relationship is with right person then the patience will ultimately pay off, but the question is about the wrong relationship. The individuals in the question might be good as individuals but when it comes in terms of relationship the incompatibility crops up. Neither any of the person in the wrong relationship needs to be totally white nor black.
I feel I had been in wrong relationship twice. Again I maintain that I am not complaining about the individuals, but as the relationship as whole. The first one reminds me of "Intermittent Reinforcement" concept. The "IR" concept goes like this - to train a rat to respond in a certain way, rather than giving a steady reward of "Sugar Pellet", give it intermittently and this was found more powerful than steady reinforcement. I was at my Engineering college when I had this troubled friendship with MS. Whenever I had decided to walk out of the blindly obsessive friendship, a smile, a short sweet conversation dragged me back to the groove. It was like crumbs of love that was offered infrequently that kept me hooked in the relationship. It took 4 - 5 years after the seperation to completely get out of it.
In the second case of friendship, looking back now I feel unknowingly I was in the "giver" position. I realised that we are seriously were incompatible, despite he being a wonderful person who was extremely affectionate with me, but somewhere the period of fights and quarrels extended longer even after the realisation. I could have done the process abrupt by severing all the ties one fine morning, but I wanted the parting to be amicable without any hardfeelings and I think to an extent I succeeded in it. But in the due process atleast to show that I have no grudges against him, I kept calling him, entertained his long calls that were sometimes very sweet, sometimes verbally abusive, sometimes begging & pleading, sometimes threatening dire consequences. Now I realise that my actions to prove my "virtue" have served as "crumbs of love and hope".
Still we get attracted to the unavailable persons, does this mean that we haven't learnt our lessons properly? My concept of success is not avoiding a fall, but the speed at which you bounce back. I too recently come across a couple of friends who were offering me "infrequent crumbs of hopes", but I have decided not to pursue this friendship for the moment despite my repeated attempts to reach them proved futile.
One is Bala and another one is Selvaraj, my friend from school days. I don't have any grudges against them because I understand their problems. Bala is suffering from serious insecurity pangs regarding his career and also is in awe of people who he feels are "talented" than him. If I pursue this friendship in the name of patience and selfless love, it will be like jumping into the well with eyes open.
Selvaraj might have been still my friend if I had been now in Cuddalore somewhere frustrated like him that the career didn't take off. What surprises me is that why people bring professional success with personal relationships. Do professional success have a say in the personal relationships? Admitted there is a pain in some corner when you remember those "crumbs", but this is the small price we pay for falling for incompatible persons.
Notice: This article is an unbiased observation of things happened in my life. The intention is just a self evaluation rather than alleging or hurting somebody. I stand by the names / references I had made, besides these if this article unintentionally hurts anyone, I sincerely apologise for that.
