Kara says that people's relationships are like video game characters... Each relationship has two people, and each person has a little experience bar above their head that says where the relationship is at. When it's full the relationship is very strong and when it's empty the relationship is... well non-existent... and when it's in the middle you are acquaintances or friends or maybe you just recognize each other from class, depending on how full it is, exactly.
People's relationship meter dictates several things... How comfortable they are talking about emotions, how much of their personal story they share, how much attention they pay to the other person. And like video game characters, not everyone starts out the same. Some people (the world calls them extroverts) start out with their bar already partially filled with everyone they meet... some people even have it filled most of the way. There are others who start out with nothing in the bar... but even these people have different reactions... There might be someone with whom you just click, and your meter will be filled at 3 times the normal rate... there might also be someone with whom you automatically clash and your meter will subsequently be filled at 1/3 the normal rate. Family automatically starts with higher base stats than most people do... and people who are socially awkward really are just bad at reading where the other person's meter is in regards to them.
"So," you ask, "how does one fill these relationship meters?" Well, the same way they do in video games... Quests! Ok, so here in the real world they call them "shared experiences" but you get the point. You need to be in the other person's presence... even if that presence isn't physical. (Thank you internet and phones!) Say you are in highschool with someone. Automatic shared experiences... You grow up in the same place, probably with the same values. You cheer for the same team, you have the same teachers, you are the same age, and so go through the same changes at the same time.... Pretty much all it takes to make you friends with someone is to be on the same team, or club, or organization, or spend any amount of time with the person. College is a little different... you don't have the same base relationship stats, so you have to search out people who are like you... but these are the people who with whom you are more likely to click with and so your relationship meter fills up faster than it did in HS. But despite all that if you land in the same dorm with someone and happen to steal a rhino head from a boys' room and take it all over campus, taking pictures and posing it with random people you meet, you'd be surprised how quickly your relationship meter will fill up.... not that I'm speaking from experience or anything....
Unfortunately time and distance are not the only things that decrease relationship points... broaching subjects that the opposite party isn't ready to discuss, doing something offensive or thoughtless, or even misunderstandings can decrease the relationship bar... and sometimes this becomes a slippery slope. You say something which lowers your relationship points and then say something else that would have been acceptable, before, but no longer is, and soon you find yourself staring at an empty relationship bar asking yourself what just happened.
But there is a positive side to this as well. With the people you have the highest relationship points, you have the most relationship points to spend, and usually your actions cost less, too. So say for example you've just been widowed and you are spending relationship points right and left. The points that it would normally cost your best friend to stay 3 nights away from her husband are almost negligent. Or you snap at your wife. Even if she doesn't credit you with the "he's in pain" discount, 10 points out of 1,000 are a lot easier to deal with than 10 out of 20. The points are insurance in the friendship. I bring up something that you aren't comfortable discussing... with someone with lower relationship points you might brush it off, chalk it up to a morbid curiosity, or even get angry... with high relationship points you still might not want to discuss it, but you will also assume the best about me and my motives.
Post college it's a lot harder to get shared experiences... you can't just go over to eat at the same time as someone else over and over until you are friends. That's why the workplace or church (or other place you spend a lot of time at) is where you start making friends ... there are fewer "I think you are nice, but I know nothing about you" awkward conversations/situations.. which are necessary but don't feel very good.
So that's the basic gist of it... and I'm sure Kara will read this and tell me where I have morphed her theory... but she will forgive me cause we have lots of relationship points we can spend.
so yeah... there is a glimpse into how I see the world. Thoughts? Aren't you glad you know that, now?
It made me think of the Sims and their relationship points :) I think it's a very good theory and completely agree with how much harder it is to make friends once you're out of college.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you and Kara have come up with this, because this is very close to my personal Theory of Extroverts. You have to keep up with them and keep abreast of their changes... They need regular contact and to be asked lots of questions... whereas with my introvert friends, we can lose touch for months and when we start to talk, it will be just fine, because we will take each others' changes as fascinating topics to explore rather than ways that we have disconnected. This is not a better way or a worse way. But it does mean that I have to learn to speak extrovert-language if I want to keep my good friends who are extroverts. So I have to make a point to remember to contact my extrovert friends more frequently so that they do not think I have forgotten about them.
ReplyDeleteBut for introverts, too much time together starts to drain that bar. Which is why I have to remember not to bother my introvert friends too often, because they start to feel beleaguered by my constant presence. And I have to remember to maintain my own "cave time" so that my bar doesn't start to get lower for EVERYBODY, which is why I sometimes kick my introverted husband out of the house on a Saturday afternoon so that when he comes back hours later, we both feel much better. Because neither of us ever knows how we feel about anything until we have been able to take it back to our respective caves and poke at it with sticks for a while.
I just reread this and I don't know if I ever gave you credit for "how do you building these points? Quests!!!" I don't think I ever used that word - but it is brilliant.
ReplyDeletePlus, as I was reading, I thought, "3 night away from her husband? Who did that?" Then I remembered that it was me. I mean - it's not like I forgot that I did that, but it seems like a nice thing to do in retrospect, but at the time, it just seemed like, you know... Nathan died, so I'll breathe in and out and I'll sleep at nighttime, and I'll be with Renee as much as she'll let me. So yes - those points were immeasurably small. Unless I think someone else did it - then it seemed like - wow, what a great friend! But for us - eh. Should be taken for granted.
Anyway - I'm worried now that this post sounds like, "I'm AWESOME!" when I meant it to be, "our friendship is awesome, b/c that was no big deal, but when I read it before I remembered it was us, I thought it was nice - we're such good friends that nice is our native language.... I mean - with each other."
Heavens - I'm just gonna post this as it is, and assume if anyone ever reads it, it will only be you, b/c who goes back and re-reads blogs on the off-chance new comments have been posted a million years later? But maybe blogger will tell you about this...