Equal Value In Relationships

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If we go back to dating, and equal value in that context, I'll just conclude that none of my desires about a partner is possible to degrade to a simple and crude value system.

I'll list my desires for a partner:
I want to have a crush
We both desire to become soul mates
She has a compatible neurotype
We both desire a mind-to-mind connection
We both should desire to build a relationship based on trust and not on tit for tat, trade, or value-for-value
She must be persistent
She has no desire for drama

These are things you cannot use to search for a partner with (online) dating, and none of these can be assigned meaningful value (other than infinite). Thus, if she meets my values or not, and if our values are balanced or not becomes impossible to determine. I thus claim that my preferences (which probably are not unique to me, but are shared by other NDs to some extent), are completely incompatible with both dating and transactional views of courtship.

People can be in a relationship without anything to gain, not everyone’s out gain something from people.some people just enjoy spending time with others it’s not that complicated. You won’t every make me become some stupid capitalist who view everything and everyone with money signs.

Last edited by envirozentinel on 17 Dec 2018, 9:00 am, edited 1 time in total.: Inappropriate comment

This is true. It's possible. Not everyone IS out to gain something.

What ends up happening is people are conned into relationships in which they are expected to meet the parasite's demands at their own expense. They may not realize it, or they're tricked into thinking it's a good thing. The parasite may use fear--give me what I want or someone gets hurt. Or maybe guilt--If you loved me, you would _____. Perhaps it's shame--Go ahead and leave me; you really think anyone else is going to want you, you dirty slut? Maybe it's outright deceit.

If two "honest" people get together and there's no exchange AT ALL, no values AT ALL, then there's no relationship that has any meaning in objective reality. You almost never see couples in relationships without shared values. If nobody has any value, why are they together? You can't say "love." Why not? Because love is an expression of value.


You can't make the above statement in non-transactional terms.

enjoy=pleasure. Someone has taken pleasure in someone or something.
spending=giving something in exchange, in your case "time."

That's a transactional expression.

And no, value-for-value isn't complicated at all.


You are free to do as you please, sly. It would be immoral for me to make you do anything you don't want to do. But there's no shame in pursuing money. There's no shame in loving people because you think they're valuable. Nothing wrong with benevolence. Nothing wrong with generosity. Love and generosity are products of value-for-value trade. You don't get love without value, and you don't get value without love.

And then you immediately post a list of your values.

Maybe I should start a bodycount of all the suicidal arguments we've seen in this thread.


Sounds like baseless mysticism to me.

Human beings do possess infinite value. Infinite value by definition is immeasurable. You can't really do anything with that in objective reality, which is why the only meaningful exchange of infinite value is life-for-life. I don't really have a problem with that--I'm willingly giving my life to my partner because she is who I want to be with for the duration. And she has willingly given herself to me. Either one of us could take that back at any time at a loss to and of the other. Neither of us want that. Our value of each other has made us stuck together. I don't live my life for her, and I'm not asking her to live her life for me. But I do WANT her in my life, and I consider it worth life itself to have her. I'm not in this for her. I'm in it for me. And I don't mind freely doing what it takes to make sure she's well and happy because, a) she deserves it for being with me, and b) I only stand to benefit from her well-being. I could take it all back any time; I simply just don't want to. There's no REASON to.

The problem isn't that anybody can set a value on priceless human life. While human life is priceless and infinite in VALUE, life itself is finite in objective terms. The clock will eventually run out for all of us. Most human exchanges span a few seconds to a few minutes. You cannot reward someone for their ACTUAL worth. It's not physically possible. Instead, what you reward them with is the equivalence of what they give you. You can't reward someone just for being alive. You can reward them for spending an hour with you. You're here for an hour, I'm here for an hour. Value-for-value exchange in time. What is said or done during that hour adds value. If you want someone to spend one or three hours with you on a date, your reward is getting to be with that person for that duration. If that time with someone is worth something to you, what's wrong with showing someone, or at least making the effort to show, what their time with you is worth? There's a phrase we often like to use: "...a token of appreciation." Paying for dinner and entertainment likely won't match the value of being with someone you really like within a certain time frame. It usually will be inadequate (which is why prostitution is morally wrong). But it is a token of something greater that you feel for someone.

It takes something you "feel inside" and translates those feelings into something objective, something real and measurable. Something meaningful. It takes the intangible and turns it into something tangible. Something real that another person can believe and know. Something of value. Something of worth. Something the recipient of the gift can take back and say she didn't walk away from the date empty-handed or that the date was a complete waste of time. I never want to end an evening with my date asking herself, "Did I shave my legs for THIS?"

So you evaluate the potential date night in terms of what you have to offer and whether what you want to offer is appropriate in terms of how much you value time with the other person. Her value is infinite. Her time on earth is NOT. Her value is infinite. How much time you have for a date is NOT. Her value is unlimited. You ability to reward is not. You can only set values on time and effort, and reward appropriately.

While the value of human life is infinite, not everyone is going to value YOUR life infinitely. There are objective, physical limits to what a person can give in terms of rewarding value. Exchanging life-for-life is the ultimate expression of value. I'm sure we'd all willingly give our lives for others based on their inherent value. But the problem here is we each only get one life. If one is to make the ultimate sacrifice, the most moral sacrifice he can make is one he deems worth making--one for someone he considers worthy, or for a life he values more than his own. In that sense, he isn't really sacrificing anything.

Altruism, which is the alternative, doesn't make the distinction. Altruism doesn't deal in value or rewards. It doesn't deal in logic or objective reality. It doesn't ask the question, "Why should I ____?" People who are compelled to live under some form of altruism are typically bitter, resentful, and unhappy, as are those who do the compelling. People who stay in unhappy marriages out of mindless "sense of duty." Women who stay with abusive men because "but mommy, I loooooove hiiiiimmmm!! !" Men who put up with brainless, abusive, entitled GIRLS because it's expedient or the dumb idea that girls are just like that, or fear of being alone, or it's chivalrous, or noble, or fear/shame of being seen as selfish--it makes no logical sense. Or...to put it another way, it's just a bad idea.

Altruism, LITERALLY, doesn't work. And that's what you reduce people to when you strip them of value--walking dead. Withholding reward from those who do good things means you have no more regard for them than a corpse. And by allowing yourself to be a willing participant in a relationship that has nothing to offer, you're little better than a zombie.

And I'm just not into dead people.

There is nothing wrong with showing people that they are valuable to you and rewarding them for the time you get with them.

Last edited by AngelRho on 17 Dec 2018, 10:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

By that standard, if a man marries a woman and a week later, she becomes the victim of a disfiguring illness, he ought to divorce her at once. It is the transactional view of marriage, inherent in our economic view of life, that is destroying not only marriage (and with it, the offspring involved), but society.

Wrong. Marriage is a lifelong, continuing exchange of value. It is the life of both partners that is up for exchange, not a woman's face. It is morally wrong to make such a commitment only to rescind it for something of such low-value as physical appearance for its own sake. Human life is more valuable than that. If that's all it takes to divorce someone, then he never valued her in the first place. He doesn't deserve to have her, and she can do better.

I think society does better when society expects more from itself. Much of the problem of marriage and society is expectations are low and pessimistic. Whatever happened to just honoring your wedding vows? You fell in love for a reason, right? The problem isn't the transaction. The problem is that couples fail to honor the transaction in the first place. We agree to value each other "for richer or for poorer" until we miss the first credit card payment, the car gets repo'd, or the lights get turned off. We agree to "sickness and health" until someone actually gets sick. Suddenly this isn't what we signed up for. If there's even the remotest possibility you'll split at the first sign of trouble (aka "sh!+ happens), just don't freakin' get married!

Marriages break up because people don't value anything, or they demand something for nothing.

And yes, that applies to society also. Divorce is merely a symptom, a sign of societal illness. People don't value trade. They value instant gratification with the least amount or no amount of expenditure in time or effort. So when they actually do get what they think they want, it has no value for them. So people and things all become disposable, as common as garbage. It creates a mentality of "I HAVE to" as opposed to "I WANT to." They expect very little of others but demand much. They impose conditions on others without offering anything of value or meeting any conditions themselves. So people generally wake up expecting a world that doesn't value or honor them.

If you believe that the problem is mostly transactional, you're right. Most interactions ARE transactional to some extent, which is why you have so many arguments in this thread committing suicide. You can't blame NTR for the problem because NTR don't represent most interactions. Many, yes, but not most. The problem is in how TR transactions are most often carried out. People want value, but are unwilling to give value to get value. The give to get because they don't see that they have any other choice. They will go to the store to buy food, but then they grumble because they don't feel they should have to pay money just to stay alive. They don't value the producers behind the product, so they're always grumbling about how people only do things because they want money. They don't begrudge rewards. They just think EVERYONE should be rewarded equally without regard for what it actually takes to achieve. They show up to jobs they hate, do the bare minimum amount of work required, and then complain about not getting paid enough when they make no effort to achieve anything meaningful. I believe that's mostly the problem--not with NTR, but rather what emotional value people bring to TR. They engage in transaction, but they do so mindlessly with little more desire than to attempt to satisfy their own greed. They're free to do that, I suppose, but I'm just not into hanging out with zombies.

I see you have been having a discussion with someone else above which also centred around the transactional view of marriage. I haven't read any of this discussion, but from context, I'm guessing you thought that my post was a response to it; it wasn't, but rather to the OP's post.

Certainly, there is and should be an element of marriage which is transactional in nature, but once this becomes the sole consideration, the view I mentioned in my initial response is the logical conclusion, and indeed, is what we observe.

My mistake.

I don’t think that “transaction for the sake of transaction” is the way to go, if that’s what you mean. There has to be an actual reason to want to trade, else what’s the point? And you cannot trade something that your partner doesn’t value at least as much as you. If I set a high value on myself, I may increase the likelihood of forming a relationship. But that’s not a guarantee that a girl actually value me enough for a date.

Once it becomes about the transaction itself, the thing of value that is traded, and not the relationship—which in our case would be the goal of trade—then yeah, you might be in trouble.

Another problem is more psychology than philosophy. Much of the problem are the assumptions being made and how people are largely conditioned to view material possessions, money, value, etc. They see value as reducing people to dollar signs—though I fail to see the problem. I see value as celebrating human worth, hence why I don’t see the problem. What problem? Healthy relationships are TR involving ongoing trade in value. When one or both willingly chooses to dishonor their covenant, the transaction ceases and the nature of the relationship changes. The partners will either adapt to their new roles, or they’ll end the relationship.

But as to whether value is good or bad is matter of psychology and education.

It was NOT a list of values. Nothing of that can realistically be put in the category "values".



If you want to bring value into that, fine. I see no reason why value has any relevance in that context at all. It looks more like real altruism than anything else.



So, you are proposing that if I spend an hour with my love, then somebody (me, her, both?) should reward that. I don't see the logic. We both use the same amount of time, and I think my time is just as "valuable" as hers, and so there no imbalance. So, who is it that should give the reward and why? Is it the guy because guys always should pay for things? Maybe you have in mind that we have different "value" in the dating game, and so if she is more attractive than me, then I should reward her for spending time with me? A kind of prostitute-like gift for hanging out with me?

If I would guess you are thinking about something similar to when you are invited to a party, you thank the host/hostess afterward and maybe give a "reward"?

Personally, I've not seen a single couple give this kind of reward (although I mostly know ND couples), but I wouldn't exclude the possibility that some might actually do that.



This is completely alien to me.



I "reward" her (I wouldn't call it that but for the sake of argument) by sending her happy emotions.



The difference between real altruism (no expectations) and fake altruism (like tit for tat and value-for-value) is that fake altruism is selfish and not based on a real desire to help somebody since there is always ifs and whys and everything is conditional. If "you don't scratch my back I won't scratch yours".



Nope. Real altruism is the finest form of giving, and people involving in it are typically happy and nice. It's people that involve in fake altruism that are full of negativity and entitlement.



As I already wrote, it is fake altruism that relates to negativity and entitlement. Abuse can often be entitlement too, and so can relate to fake altruism.



Real altruism works. Especially in relationships with mutual and strong bonds.

You have presented so many conflicting views of marriage & relationships and the above excerpts kind of shows the range of your inconsistency.

In my (perhaps wildest) dreams I imagined that the reason for the exclusive talk was to make a mutual exclusive commitment. However, from what you write, one in the couple can simply stop participating in the value-for-value exchange, and then the relationship will quickly end. If it is that simple to get out of a monogamous commitment (a simple quarrel about not reciprocating properly) what exactly is the use of the commitment in the first place? It doesn't seem to be worth anything.

In a typical ND relationship that you so often call "predatory", a strong bond typically makes people stay together, regardless if they have made a verbal commitment or not, even after heavy and emotional fighting.

If your transactional (NT-type) relationships are this fragile, it becomes yet another reason why NDs should keep away from them as if they were as lethal as the plague.

Anything that is wanted is something of value.


You know what altruism is, right?


If you want to spend an hour with your partner, the hour with your partner IS the reward. You because she is giving you herself for that segment of time, she should be rewarded.

If she values your company just as much, she may choose to reward you above and beyond her mere presence. There's nothing wrong with that if she considers you worth it.


See above.

The problem of prostitution is that it's the BUSINESS of devaluing yourself for the pleasure of others. And anyone who hires a prostitute is immoral, too, because he mindlessly satisfies a purely animal urge at the cost of another person's real value. I value women more than that. And I'm not into bestiality or necrophilia. Prostitution is for animals and zombies.

Going out on a date doesn't carry with it the demand of someone's body for a price. One cannot EXPECT sex, either, because that interferes with the partner's agency. You CAN, however, expect pleasure in some other form. But you can expect it because your pleasure is not bound up in another person. You are perfectly fine without the other person. You don't NEED the other for pleasure. The other person is not a slave to your pleasure. But you do expect to get what you want just by being with her and accept the potential for more as a possibility rather than a necessity. Therefore, you can realistically expect take pleasure in going out with your date.


Why not? Aren't you glad you were thought highly enough of to be invited?


It used to be considered good manners.


A lot of things are, apparently.


If you make someone happy, that is a reward. "Sending" happy emotions sounds a little mystic to me. Warm bodies, on the other hand, are OBJECTIVE. Bottles of wine are objective. A good meal is objective. If "happy emotions" aren't realized in some objective form, they don't exist.


Value-for-value is never altruistic. Who said I was masquerading as an altruist? I make no bones about being selfish.

Emphasis on "selfish," by the way. I'm selfish, not greedy. Selfishness seeks for the good of the individual. I believe in rational self-interest. Logic dictates that the welfare of others ensures the welfare of the individual. It places emphasis on the freedom of individuals to act in their own favor. The emphasis on freedom means respecting the freedom of other individuals to act for their own benefit as well. Acting abusively towards others means having to accept one's own freedom may be marginalized by others, therefore it's illogical to act immorally. It also means restricting the ability of people to benefit you through their own productive effort. To harm others is to harm yourself.

Greed refers to wanting or taking that which you have neither earned nor deserved. My wife wasn't forced to marry me or do whatever I want for my own pleasure. Likewise, I don't exist for her sake. I've made the free choice to be with her for as long as life will permit me. For as long as she willingly gives herself to me, I want to make sure I've made every effort to deserve her affection.

If it were altruism, I wouldn't be allowed to take any pleasure in it. Altruism demands sacrifice. I don't want her to sacrifice herself for me. Altruism is death. I want to live.


I don't do altruism. Altruism is misery and death.


Let me put it another way--there either is altruism or there is not altruism. I don't deal in altruism. I'm not an altruist. I'm not pretending to be an altruist. I'm in it for myself. An altruist can't honestly say that. I'm hiding nothing.

Altruism opens people up to abuse. It means you would give up your life for a perfect stranger for NO REASON WHATSOEVER. Altruism doesn't deal in logic. Altruism doesn't ask "why?" Altruism is mindless sacrifice with no reward. Altruism is death. I don't deal in death.


"Real" altruism (what other kind of altruism is there?) doesn't work because "real" altruism doesn't DO anything. It makes no effort. It produces nothing for the individual. It merely makes demands and takes, takes, takes until your very life is used up and you have nothing to show for all the sacrifice you've made.

I deal in life and optimistic hope for the very best of humanity. Death is not to be celebrated or expected. It is to be avoided. I would gladly give my life to save my wife and my children should it come to that. Because of altruism? No. Because I'm selfish. I believe their lives are worth more than my own, and the loss of my family would condemn me to an empty life devoid of that which holds the most value for me. I don't want that. I don't fear death. I fear the most valuable things being taken from me. If my death meant that which I value most may continue to live on beyond my life, I would gladly give it. Not because I believe in altruism, but because I stand to gain more through my own death than through the death of someone else. We don't mourn the dead because we're happy to see them go. We mourn because we're selfish and wish our loved one was still alive with us. We mourn with our loved ones for their loved ones not because we genuinely miss someone we're not directly connected to. We mourn with others because we know our time could come up at any moment and we don't want to be alone when we face the inevitable. Few motivations are genuinely selfless at their core.

But there are those people who make every effort to life selfless, altruistic lives. They are quite often miserable because earthly life has little meaning for them. They are often bitter and are confounded by others who always seem to have more than they do. To them, the world is a rotten, unjust place. Well, I agree the world CAN be a rotten, unjust place. It's a place where those who don't deserve loot those who DO deserve. It's a world that often does withhold justice. But any individual can turn that around at any time he chooses. The altruist doesn't get to choose. He can only accept the world as it is and wish for a better life from promises that will always remain unfulfilled.

I expect better and will have better. If something in my day or in my relationships doesn't meet my expectations, I immediately want to know why and what has to be done to put everything back on track. Am I not getting results because I said something to upset someone? If so, why did I say it? Is it because I'm dealing with willful incompetence? Then I'll banish this person from my life and find someone who can get results. Or was I not clear in my expectations and directives? Then I'm incompetent and must act quickly and directly to resolve the issue.

I was with the same girl for over 5 years and almost married her. She made my life miserable. A life apart from her became worth more than a life with her. I broke up with her. I became a happier person. And since then (it took some work) I've learned to spot women who would meet my expectations and those who couldn't. I'd break up with those who were incapable, and I found my way back to someone who proved herself capable and worthy time and time again. I married that one. I have no regrets.

I see no shame whatsoever in that. Granted, I was not consciously aware of a lot of things back then, but I was following a very similar pattern to how I approach relationships now. It's a learning process. It was realizing I had always done things that made my unhappy because I unquestioningly believed that was "just the right thing to do."

It's actually quite simple: If you want to be happy, do things that make you happy. If you want to become a martyr, hate yourself and live for others who will never fully appreciate you. If you value the respect of others, give them something to respect you for. They won't respect you for living for them. They'll respect you for being the very best at what you do. Not only will they respect you, but they'll SHOW their respect by returning their value for yours. Pats on the shoulder and "kudos" are all very nice, but they don't put food on my table. I want cold, hard, CASH. I want ACTUAL value.

I expect no less from my children and my wife. She never abandons me, she never speaks ill of me, she works hard, and she shows me every day that I have value--also commonly stated as "She loves me." Those are just some of the things that are important to me that she returns to me every day that we're together.

I wouldn't say your attempt at defending altruism committed suicide. I can't figure out whether it was stillborn or was frail to begin with and died of natural causes. I wouldn't rule out old age, either. The Biblical concept of altruism has been twisted by various religious movements into a weapon used to control the minds of entire nations. Even Jesus had a purpose, a value, for which He willingly died on the cross. People use Jesus as the posterboy for altruism, and there's no shortage of novels and films that feature ghastly displays of self-hate in a sick imitation of Christ. Jesus died because He wanted us to LIVE. His was an exchange of value--His life for ours, one man for the whole world. It very well could be that I might find myself called to die. But I won't go quietly without a REASON. Altruism doesn't ask for reasons. It merely demands, and that I cannot have.

Meh...already pretty much covered all this is in what I just posted to your previous response. "Bonds" is tyrant-slave talk. My wife should want and love me on her OWN terms. She can freely choose to be with me or not. All I can do is show gratitude that she continues to make the choice day by day to do so.

And who said it was a "typical" ND relationship? From what I've noticed at least on WP, most guys (and girls) on the spectrum want relationships akin to what they see as NT relationships. They may not necessarily care to reference it as "transactional" or something else, or maybe they have their own reasons for craving NTR.

REGARDLESS...I'm sure from what I've gathered from conversations with other ND's on WP they want something real--an actual WARM BODY. I don't think they want mystical, fairyland woo.

Makes no sense.



I find that completely unwanted. I don't want to be rewarded for hanging out with her. That's super-creepy.



That's just an excuse used to justify a behavior. There are many things in between that isn't out-right prostitution, but still exists in the same framework. Examples include FWB and other sexual favors that women give men they have some connection to. Prostitution is just at the extreme end of women trading sex with men for money or favors. At the other extreme end is sex in a transactional relationship.



Completely alien, and I'm glad I never dated, and never will.



Nope. Being invited to a party because somebody thought highly of me is super-creepy.



Nope. It has a high creep-factor.



I think you are using an indirect method. You hope to affect somebody indirectly with gifts and bribery so they become happy about you. It's more efficient to do that directly. Besides, I really hate bribery, and it is at the heart of corruption which is one of the worst things that always exists in NT-controlled cultures.



I think you are the one not understanding altruism.

Altruism is the act of giving something without expecting anything in return. As simple as that. Has nothing to do with sacrifice, bitterness, resentfulness or happiness.



I'm not (generally) altruistic to strangers.



A single case "report" doesn't prove your claims that altruism doesn't work. Maybe it didn't work for you, but it might for others.

Using your own terminology, a bond is something (most) people want, and so is a "value". In a relationship, a bond is something we should expect, and so when you don't want to give that to your wife, you fail to reward her for her "favors", and so she should move on. Or am I missing something important here?



Sure, other NDs should be able to choose what kind of relationships they want. Problem is, you cannot choose things you don't know exist, and when all focus is on NT-relationships like it usually is here, then people will not be able to choose.

I'll take an example of different ways to communicate a desire (let's say a woman wanting to travel to place X with her man).

Non-transactional:
The woman tells her man she wants to travel to place X. The man can reply: a) When do you want to go? b) We cannot afford it, but some other time. c) I'm not fond of that place, but you can go by yourself or with somebody else. d) You shouldn't go there.

Transactional:
The woman tells her man she wants to travel to place X. The man tells her she needs to offer him something of value. The woman has sex with her man several times (even if she doesn't really want to) to get the scores up. She then tells her man that he owes her a trip to place X. The man then either will agree (everything is fine) or refuse. If he refuses, then the woman will tell him he will get no more sex until he changes his mind. The man then will retaliate by withdrawing something else, and so on.

The non-transactional scenario is an altruistic one, while the transactional one is full of owes, entitlement, fighting and withdrawing things because the value-for-value game is viewed as unfair.