Why Relationships Matter

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People reveal their intentions through repeated investment of time, effort, money, and energy.

Emotional intensity can create the illusion of intimacy while masking deeply unequal relationships.

Romantic declarations mean nothing unless they are matched by consistent effort and real investment.

A friend recently showed me a message her sister sent her about a man she had been seeing. The message was sort of brutal:

In the span of six weeks, your boy found the time, money, and energy to go on holiday to Albania and organise more fun trips to Poland with his friends, yet somehow he still couldn’t organise seeing you. If he wanted to, he would. You see each other only when you organize it while he extracts emotional support, attention, and sex whenever it is convenient for him and entirely on his terms. Wake up.

In the span of six weeks, your boy found the time, money, and energy to go on holiday to Albania and organise more fun trips to Poland with his friends, yet somehow he still couldn’t organise seeing you.

If he wanted to, he would.

You see each other only when you organize it while he extracts emotional support, attention, and sex whenever it is convenient for him and entirely on his terms.

My friend said that despite how clearly her sister described the situation, and despite how obvious the pattern appeared from the outside, she felt confused. I asked her what exactly felt confusing in something that at least seemed relatively straightforward. She said she could not reconcile the gap between his actions and the things he told her. His behaviour communicated distance, inconsistency, and lack of prioritisation, while his words communicated emotional intensity and certainty.

He told her she was the best thing that had ever happened to him. That she was beautiful. That he connected with her “on another level.” That he had never felt this way before. He even asked her to be his........

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