One of my partners recently posed an interesting question: do I think love is transactional? I immediately responded with a “no”. I said that I think no true, proper love should be transactional. They then followed that with, “Okay, but then what’s ’true love’?” Having considered this many times, I explained that to me, true love is doing things for another person simply because you want to. After some more discussion, they were satisfied with my answer, but I kept thinking about it. A little while of introspecting later, I realized that maybe my answer wasn’t correct or complete enough. Today I’d like to expand on these ideas.

Where I Think I Was Right

I stand by the notion that “true” love means doing things for someone else simply because you want to. I can’t think of any more base of a requirement for love than that. The simple notion of caring for someone so much that you’d do anything to take care of them is so self-evident an expression of love that I can hardly conceive of a counter argument for it. Furthermore, though I left it out of the intro paragraph, I do assert that thinking of love as a transaction-based relationship is a dangerous game, and very likely to lead to heartbreak. Of course, this may depend on what one considers a “transaction-based relationship.”

To me, a relationship of any variety is transactional when the main driver for the relationship is what each person can get from the other. On one side of the relationship, or both sides, the only consideration is how the other may serve you. How you might serve them is only an after thought at best. With this definition, it should be clear why I think a transactional relationship is a dangerous game, and frankly doomed to fail. If both partners, or even just one, never considers how they can improve the life of the other, how can they ever truly grow together? Without genuinely supporting one another, sooner or later one of them is going to run out of energy to care for the other. When that time comes, it will surely be the beginning of then end.

But There Must Be Some Transaction

As I continued to think on my very quick answer, I realized that I was missing a very key part of my analysis. Love cannot be transaction, in the sense that each side is seeking something from the other, but it must be transactional, in that each partner must provide something. Each partner must provide some amount of support to the other. Without this transaction, the exact scenario I described above will take place. Throughout a relationship, each side will need support from the other. We’re all only human, and accordingly there will be times we fail to give that support, but the problems truly begin to arise when that support need goes unmet for too long. When that need goes unmet so many times, that’s when the “you’re never there for me” conversations begin.

Accepting My Role In This

I am a people pleaser. I hate to say no to anyone if I think I can help them. Even if I don’t want to, I usually shut up and put up, because I believe myself capable of helping them. To me, this is ontologically right. What this often means though, or at least has meant in the past, is that my own support needs went unmet. I didn’t consider relationships to be transactional, because I could only conceive of transactionality as meaning, “I did X for you, so now you must do Y for me,” and that just doesn’t align with my world view. But for my own health, and for yours, there needs to be the acceptance of the idea that the transaction of a relation can be accepted without being abused. You can admit that you do need somethings from your partner without keeping score.