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Chapter Five
Equity, Balance and Control: Exchanges (Transactions) in Relationships
I tried to think of the most boring chapter title I could and as you can see, I succeeded. I don’t like the chapter title but the concepts of “equity” and “balance” are extremely powerful when it comes to the way relationships work (or don’t work).
When I go to the bakery near my house (Another food reference... hello there is a vowel at the end of my surname—my ancestors were from Italy) I engage in an extremely important transaction: I give the friendly person behind the bakery counter four dollars; and in return I obtain a cannoli. As I walk out the door of the bakery and try not to eat the cannoli before I get to the car, I continue to venture to get it home in one piece so I can eat it while drinking a delicious cup of coffee. If I succeed in pulling off the event as planned, I feel satishied. My satisfaction comes from the belief that the transaction I just engaged in benehited me equally or even more than the friendly person behind the bakery counter. Four bucks might sound like a lot of money for a pastry, but imagine how much money I would have to spend to buy my own bakery, buy all the gear, buy the ingredients to make a cannoli and pay the tuition associated with becoming a pastry chef. Even if I took the easy way out and bought empty cannoli shells and learned how to make the hilling, that would still take more time than I have available to me to otherwise have a cannoli.
Staying in Love: Secret Recipes For Making Love Last 77