Socializing with Others (friends, lovers, husbands, clergymen, bosses, etc.)... what bring people most often together. Those factors, (I am reminding you them) are:
Another but no less important factor that plays a role in bringing people together is that they may be living close to each other. However, being together for a day or a short time is one thing, living or staying together is another one. Other personal attributes come into play for those people who stay friends, lovers, husband and wife, and, even, boss and employees; those attributes are: balance in the relationship, reciprocity or exchange of feelings, and sincerity. We, all, have many friends who suit our many social needs, for we are mostly social animals. We have comrades whom we see at school or at the stadium; we have good friends with whom we go to the night club or to die party; we have very good friends on whom we can rely in any occasion or in most occasion; we have also intimate friends whom we trust and confide to. What is an Attribute?To conclude..., let us understand more what is an attribute. Can an attribute exist without being two or without being together? The people here, in the U.S., "waste"3, each year, millions of dollars to get dressed, to put on one�s make up, to have their hair cut or ironed, and to buy all what will make them look prettier. While those expenses seem, at the first sight, to be futile. they are not really so. Some surveys have indeed unveiled that those people who are good looking are also those who are the ones most looked for, the most respected and the most considered ones. Is it therefore startling to know that this ardor last a life span? What is clear is that physical attraction is linked to social approval and thus to coupling. This is explained by the theory of the attributions. Its major hypothesis is that we assign positive quality to those people and things that look pretty in our eyes and negative one to those that look ugly to us. And it is not all. What is indeed pretty and what is ugly? I have pointed earlier to the fact that what look pretty to us is what we have learned to be pretty, what we have been modeling for. If such is the case, what is pretty for one may not be pretty for another. However, some surveys have shown that a majority of people in a human society agreed on what is pretty and what is not. But it is not all, again. What may be pretty or, to put it in better words, what may be look convenient for a culture may look inconvenient for another. The Asian ladies, for example, do not have such a large breast as their American counterparts. While a big: breast is showy, here, in the U.S., and may be essential for survival in Africa (where the infant�s only daily meals might well be the milk of his/her mother), in Asia it may be a heavy weight and will not be appreciated. That may have lessened the chance of the women with large breasts to be naturally selected in Asia. However, such a factor, like the alimentation of the girl, might be also at stake, since it has been proved that there is a positive correlation between puberty at an earlier age and the wealth of a nation. The oestrogens, the hormones that build the secondary female sexual characteristics, such as her large breasts, her external sexual organs, her charming lips (mouth and vagina), her wide pelvis*, have a cholesterol lowering effect and there might be a feedback mechanism between them and the amount of saturated fat in the diet (� Ganong W F; Review of Medical Physiology). Nevertheless, in the countries or during the periods respectively where and when bottle feeding prevails over breast feeding the women might show naturally less voluminous breasts than where and when the latter are overvalued. (� Mayer J.; Human Nutrition: its physiological, medical and social aspects; part III; Is breast-feeding coming back? In short, the importance of the female breast in a human society seems to be linked to its culture**. Friendship & Behavioral FunctionalityA friendship can last more than a love�s affairs, although love and cohabitation of two loved partners are the climax of any interpersonal relationship (I insist on that between a man and a woman, although I recognize it. happens also between two people of the same sex). Nevertheless, let us not underestimate the importance of friendship since good friends become often good lovers. Friendship allows the future lovers to "taste" each other, it allows them to know each other better before living together. Since living with another person requires some sacrifice of the Self, it is not ordinarily an easy thing. Friendship, like betrothal, can thus be conceived as an apprenticeship for the future lovers. Making friends is socializing and friendship helps us to understand each other better. Many lovers fear that a new friendship outside their own can hurt their love�s affairs, and it is often seen that one of the lover tries to push away the friends of his/her partner. While this is a normal animal reaction it should not make us forget that we are also the most social animals on earth. Therefore, jealousy is an inadequate behavior and an unfit feeling among the humans. Of course, the friendship of one the partners of a couple- with an outsider can also be the harbinger of a future break or can have a negative aspect on the loving affair. However, we should also be aware that friends help often marital or loving couples to stay together and play the role of shock absorbers instead of catalysts. Indeed, many lovers are relieved after speaking about their feelings or their conflicts in their love�s affairs, and a good friend can often be a good counselor, if not a good a good "safety valve." Evidently, there is this feeling of flirting which is inherent to any friendship. After all, it is the zest of our life! --------------------------- 1 I distinguish the Self from the Ego. The Self is a more vast part of the personality comprising the Ego, the Super-Ego, and part of the Id. 2 I have even known an histrionic prostitute who might have been using her hysteria to get her clients. 3 They could have stayed in their "original costume�-- naked! *The wide, deep and flexible pelvis of the women are ideal characteristics for natural birthgiving. ** I have also noticed here, in U.S.A., that many white women have a straighter (less deep) pelvis but their is also wider. Whether or not it is due primarily to racial difference or to cultural effects (better alimentation and later birthgiving, for example), natural selection and natural choice, therefore, an attribute is there. |