Clarissa's Blog

That sounds cute, but this position does not lead to a good relationship between adults. It leads to a great parent-child relationship. With your child, you absolutely are the donor, emotionally, intellectually, financially, and in every other way. Parenthood is a pay-it-forward situation. You give to the child and feel joy because of the giving. And then the child will do the same for her own children, and so on.

But if you’re hoping for a relationship with another adult, be it romantic or a friendship, it is a big mistake to position yourself from the get-go as a donor who enters the relationship to bestow the munificence of your plenitude.

The best romantic relationships are complementary. They begin from humility and honesty. Without humility, a relationship is doomed. The woman in the quoted post isn’t really looking for a partner. She’s looking for an audience for whose benefit she can enact the spectacle of her perfection. But even the most talented actress needs to step off the stage every once in a while.

People say these things because they have become some sort of accepted wisdom these days. The idea is that you need to become completely self-sufficient before looking for a husband or a wife. But once you have turned yourself into a closed circuit of self-sufficiency, you ensure that there is no place for another person in this closed circuit. Self-sufficiency is a myth, anyway. People need each other. A time will always come when you run into health issues, emotional issues, financial trouble, etc. If you have created in your partner unreasonable expectations of always being able to give, give, give and ask for nothing in return, then they will understandably expect this arrangement to carry on forever.

The way out of this unhealthy dynamic is to be honest with yourself and others. Accept that you’re human and that, of course, you need things from other people. Of course, there are things in yourself that you lack, and that’s not a bad thing. It is the most normal thing imaginable.

People brainwash themselves with these superficial slogans about self-sufficiency, and they never have happy personal lives or friendships.