Equity and Enhancing Intimacy

The topic that I found interesting in this week’s reading was that equity must be maintained in Family relationships and daily choices should be made in a way such that intimacy is increased between the family members. First of all the equity should be maintained in a way such that all the members should have equal treatment, benefits should be equal in family and nobody should have greater benefit than one another. Secondly, in order for intimacy to prevail in the family the choices made within the family should be considered in a way that nobody is hurt. For example, the partners that want to sustain the intimacy in their life and in relationship always think about dealing with conflicts. They tend to listen to each other and stay away from choices that can destroy their future life. In a family all members should stay in touch with each other’s concerns and dreams.

Marriage Trend Prediction

I would predict that the changes in marriage will depend upon the cultural value and beliefs. It is based on the person who is getting married, whether to follow the traditional ways to get married or follow another belief. For example, in western countries most of the young people can just live together without getting married ever in life. But on the other hand, in most of the Asian communities especially in Indian community, the guy or girl are not allowed to live together until they are married. But for western countries I would predict that marriage ritual will fade away in next 50 years, compared to Asian communities I would think that as the trends are changing, so the future generations will be able to live together and get married later on. But as I said before the cultural values and beliefs that parents will tell their children will make a huge impact on how their generation will respond to the marriage rituals.

Family Definition

I would define family as a group of blood related people that care about each other's feelings by being honest and helpful. To me my family members mean a lot because they are always present for me whenever I need their support. Whenever I do something wrong they will support me and tell me to learn from my mistakes. For example, when I got my first speeding citation my parents were not angry at me, rather they asked me the reason I was speeding and told me not to speed because they cannot afford to lose me in an accident, as I am the only son in my family. I felt their love because they did not care about the car but they cared about my life and this was the reason they were upset because I could have been into an accident while I was speeding. Show respect and consideration is part of my family along with making choices to enhance intimacy, and developing equality in family. We do not fight over small stuff rather trust each other and respect each other's feelings.

Passion

All of us have been in a situation where we like someone and eventually start loving them. The love keeps on increasing due to the passion that the partners have for each other. For example, if a guy loves a girl with passion, then whenever the girl will hug him or kiss him, he will fell the same way he felt the first time with that girl. The passion is defined as an uncontrollable emotion. All the passionate relationships have passion for sexual feelings, spiritual feelings, exceptional emotion and intellectual excitement. There is another intense feeling of commitment but passion is one of these most important constituents that help relationships build stronger and deeper. Passion is not in our own will power, but if passion prevails in a relationship then is has a strong impact in making relationships stronger. Love is not only a key factor in making relations successful but passion together with commitment helps a relationship to last longer.

Online vs. Face-to-face Relations

In today's technological environment, children are getting used to computers on an early stage. It is very common to see children under the age of 18 having their profiles on social networks like face-book, my-space and many more. These children use false profile pictures to be more attractive and sometimes lie about their country of residence. Therefore, online relationships can be dangerous. I personally think it is unethical for a person to misrepresent their identity, appearance and sexual orientation.  One reason is that, in a relationship trust is the key factor which keeps the relationship strong. When a person misrepresents their identity they are lying to others, this can lead to negative affects in future of that relationship. Another reason is that deception is more likely to occur in online relationships rather than face-to-face relationship. When we meet a person face-to-face, we know about their appearance, sexual orientation and factors that can lead us to trust them. But in online relationships we just have to trust a person through their profile, which can be false. In face-to-face relationships, a person can lie but we he or she cannot lie about their identity, physical appearance and sexual orientation compared to online relations. Therefore, there is a risk of false identity in online dating and this is the reason deception is more likely to occur in online relationships as compared to the face-to-face relations.

Love or Commitment

All of us have different experiences and different opinions on relationships. I have relations that require commitment and love, but at some instances in my life I was exposed to a situation where there was no love but commitment was present. It was me and my maternal grandfather; we lost love in our relationship about three years ago. But a commitment is there that I have to take care of him because my mom asked me to. He is an angry person, with a lot of pride and it is annoying to me all the time. He always accused me of an unsuccessful person and it always got me angry. We had fights and lost love in our relationship. On the other hand, my sister and I have a love relationship but there is no commitment. We do whatever we wish to do and none of us stop each other. Both relationships have different impact in life; love is required for all relationships to go smoothly whereas commitment is merely an option. Personally I would conclude that as long as the love prevails in a relationship it is strong, as love fades the value of relationship always fades away.

Challenges to Friendship

As discussed in the chapter there are many challenges and tensions between friends that can affect friendship. Some of them are internal like misunderstandings and other are external like interests as well as geographic distance. The website is a great source to find some inspirational poems and quotes for friends. The advice forum was a great source to ask questions in how to deal with a friend of different sex. I came across an advice forum where boy wants to be only a friend with a girl so he can focus on studies and he needed help to control his sexual feelings. The advice was similar to the book that he should think that if he wants to be romantically involved with that girl or just be friends with her and carry on the friendship for a long time. Although it is hard to control feelings for person of opposite sex but it is possible. I have a female friend and we have known each other for six years, I care about her and have feelings but I don't have any sexual feelings for her because she is only my friend and trusts me. I respect her trust and since last six years we have hung out with each other almost every other day and never had any sexual contact. It depends on the person about what type of friendship they prefer.

Support

In this week's reading I found support to be really important in friend circle. It is one of many ways to show our friends that we care about them. For example, my best friend told me that he did not do well on his midterm and was upset about it. I told him that he tried his best and he can do better than that. I advised him to concentrate more hours on studies rather than playing basketball. In my communication I showed my friend that I care about his life situations and his feelings. I supported him by telling him that he can do better, and giving him an advice that he should concentrate more on studies. The level of friendship and trust increases whenever we show support or receive support. I also agree with the author that men tend to show support thorough indirect communication. For example, when men support their friends or anyone we all tend to clasp our shoulder or punch on the arm to show the support. I personally tend not to sustain in the emotional talk and show support by advising or I will provide a diversion so that I can take my friend's mind off the problem.

Best friend

My best friend lives few blocks away from my house. I was new to United States in my junior year of high school. I met my friend and we started hanging out, he helped in my homework, made me new friends. As time passed by we started trusting each other, I would tell him about my family and my origins and he would share about his family and business. One day in senior year he was sad because he was going to graduate but I could not figure out the reason for his sadness. Just like other students I was happy and expected him to be happy. I asked him the reason, first he refused but then he told me that he is graduating but he is in doubt if he would pass his math class or not. I asked him what's wrong because he was a good student just like me with all good grades. He told me that he cuts his class to be with his girlfriend. I advised him to leave her girlfriend because neither she was good at school nor she loved him. He got little angry with me and did not talk for two months, but during middle of second semester of senior year he randomly showed up to my house and just said "You were right". I did not know what was he talking about but then he told me that he caught her girlfriend cheating and broke-up with her. Now it's being almost 4 years we have been friends and he trusts me consider me as his brother. Although, we don't go to same school but whenever I need help and call him, he is always there for me as a brother. He shares everything with me and I do that too. It creates a stronger bond between him and me and our trust grows stronger. As mentioned in the book our friend ship is based on trust, acceptance and willingness. We invested time to correct our mistakes, did not give up, and accepted each other's ideas.