A friend of mine made an interesting remark the other day.
They claimed, someone respecting you is something that takes a lot more than someone simply loving you, in the way of infatuation or darned attraction:
Love at First Sight
For someone to love you, there’s a trait of yours, typically physical, that catches their attention. And then they focus in on that trait and use it as a center from which they add more and more emotions and high-held opinions to back this attraction they have to you.
But then who’s to say how strongly those connections are if one of your less attractive traits surfaces and slices through those connections? And who’s to say that with time, stress and rust won’t bend those ties? (Sorry, in the midst of a “regretting-I-switched-out-of-mech-engr-as-it-refascinates-me” phase)
Often, it’s as though the feelings come from a single point and grow like an upside-down pyramid, or one of those PlumbBob things from The Sims; sure to grow bigger over time, but not exactly resting on a strong foundation. One day, they’ll topple over, crash, and scatter.
But of course, someone loving you might also mean that you’re the whole world to them at that point in time, a certain concentrated attention, which may be appreciated or unwanted. And, maybe it’s reciprocated.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
For someone to highly respect you (and I mean beyond the everyday respect from one human to another), they typically have to know a whole lot more about you: some laudable achievement of yours, a recurring tenacity, or maybe an unrelenting work or moral ethic you seem to stand by no matter what.
And so someone builds their respect for someone over time, not in an instant the way love can often form. This connection has a stronger foundation, one that means people will listen to you, and I mean actually listen – not just that half-stare and turn away sort of listen.
Regardless, that respect is just as susceptible to attacks caused by bad traits that may surface at some point, but it’s harder to completely topple.
And, of course, it’s possible to have both. You and your partner may well both love and respect each other, with either of the two having come before the other since the point in time you had met.
But what about a situation where you won’t and can’t get both? Which is better? To be loved, or to be respected?
[Edit July 3, 2014 1830PM PST GMT-7 : I don’t mean a relationship where you can’t get both, but I mean which do think is better to get from people in general?]
“It is better to be feared than loved”
Very quickly someone might tie this sort of question to Nicc0lò Machiavelli’s “The Prince” where Machiavelli answers “It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both” to a query as to which is better. For those of you who aren’t familiar with his work, the remark was in regard to how a ruler should maintain a relationship with their subjects: a ruler would be better off instilling fear into their subjects as the subjects would thus be more obedient. In times of adversity, a ruler will not be taken seriously by their subjects if they are only loved and not seriously taken. A level of command will be lost and the subjects would be more likely to flee than obey and respect the leadership of their ruler.
Of course, none of us are really ruling anyone, so Machiavelli’s proposition can’t apply but it’s still food for thought in this similar proposition.
The Question
So? Would you rather be loved, or would you rather be respected should you not be able to have both? What’s more worth it in the end, which would you rather have?
This is the first post in an Open Conversation series, meant to be anywhere from mindless rambling to “thought-provoking”.
You pose good points, especially on the concept of respect, which I haven’t thought of very deeply. However, after reading through this, it cant help but come to mind that the “love” which you are contrasting respect with is only the very specific “first sight” love. What about the (more common) cases where love builds over time, such as (in the extreme example) those who are (childhood) friends for years before becoming a couple? Would you say that kind of love still applies in this juxtaposition or not?
(Continued thought) And if its the kind of love that builds from one point, like an upsidedown pyramid as you mentioned, can that really be called true “love” enough to be compared to uptmost respect like that?
I should have specified; but indeed I was referring more to “attraction” more so than the broader idea and concept of thoughtful love.
I may have made a mistake by not adding context, but I didn’t want to bias the post towards the original conversation, which was a comparison between myself and my friend in how one may have more people who find them attractive or such, but they find it more meaningful when people have high respect for you, as it’s something that may be much harder to come by for just anyone.
I definitively agree with you that “true love”, an inseparable love is something completely different and doesn’t quite apply to the discussion I made in the original post.
And as someone had pointed out to me, yes, having both respect and love in a relationship are equally important and necessary.