The way I see it is that although in most relationships people expect reciprocation, they differ in how strictly the people involved are keeping tabs on the difference between how much each is contributing.

In relationships like the ones described in this article, both parties are paying more attention to whether they're getting what they perceive to be a fair reward for what they are providing to the other, and should the balance ever shift too far out of their favor, they will presumably end the relationship.

On the other extreme, in a relationship between two very close childhood friends or between two deeply romantically involved people, one will often do nice things for the other without (I claim) necessarily checking the books to see all the nice things they've done vs. all the nice things the other's done in the past week before deciding whether to do the nice thing. They just do the nice thing, knowing that in the past the other has done the same for them. Only if there comes to be a very long period of non-reciprocation will the other party wake to the one-sidedness of the relationship and begin to reconsider.

> ... should the balance ever shift too far out of their favor, they will presumably end the relationship.

This pretty much describes all relationships except those where one falls horribly ill or the ones where one sticks around despite abuse.

> They just do the nice thing, knowing that in the past the other has done the same for them. Only if there comes to be a very long period of non-reciprocation will the other party wake to the one-sidedness of the relationship and begin to reconsider.

I think this might be the case in many sugar relationships. That's why it's sometimes hard to describe them as just sex work.

But on a scale, typically closer to sex work and much farther from friendship, right?

Right. That's what unsettling people. That and the fact that boundries are fuzzy and fluid.

It's not only how strictly you keep tabs on things, the nature of the exchanged "goods" changes as well, in particular it becomes more asymmetric.

In an equal relationship, both contribute economic resources, emotional support, domestic work, sexual pleasure, etc. Traditionally, in the West, there was an asymmetry in that the woman provided the domestic work, the man the outside work with the concomitant salary; but the asymmetry has shrunk over the decades, due also to the increased opportunities of women in the work force.

In these sugar relationships, there is massive asymmetry in the nature of the contributions; it's an intermediary between prostitution (pure money vs sex, short term) and marriage (lots and lots of stuff vs lots and lots of stuff, long term), but arguably closer to the former.

Outside marketized relationships like boss-underling, employer-employee, and salesman-customer? Pretty much no one who isn't an Adam Sandler villain.

It's a tough thing to express. Certainly, we feel like good people are ones who aren't simply calculating a benefit.

But that doesn't mean people don't expect a benefit, it's just that the people we admire expect it without crudely calculating it.

I'd say in a lot of ways, a person entering into a relationship expects benefit and expects to form an "us", a commonality, a partnership, with their other, so that what benefits is "us", the common group, and not simply the individual as a completely separated entity unconcerned with the other.

Almost nobody. But the benefits don't have to be some sort of personal gain: I'm sure most relationships are just for the "benefit" of someone who supports you emotionally rather than with money/fame/power.

Guy talking here. As a man it's best to self actualize and see you-self as a person with feelings, emotions and boundaries. Take a serious look at your health, sexual ,emotional needs and address them individually distinct from each other. After that then branch off to getting sexual relationships with other people as you yourself can identify people with mental disorders and vet people who don't align with your goals and aspiration in life.

If anyone wants a great starting point to help out I would recommend the talks by: https://youtu.be/lMBqFFnSS5U?list=PLe7tfp6fIaMwdMTW2O3-kkBiJ...

For Veting individual you can simply use `Transactional analysis` to quickly filter from people who're high value vs high drama.

This is probably the most honest one. Pay, do the thing and leave.

Do you not see the difference between a relationship providing a "career" vs a companion?

What you said is close to a tautology, and like most tautologies, they are merely a play on words and don't leave any substantial insight.

Not true. There are relationships (for example between mother and child) that are not based on reciprocation. Nothing in the definition of the word "relationship" implies expectations or getting something in return. It's a synthetic proposition, not an analytic (tautological) one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic–synthetic_distinction

Is the mother child relationship really not based on reciprocation? The child doesn't enter the relationship willingly which makes it more interesting, but most people that I talk to who want kids do have an expectation of why they want kids. I specifically don't want kids, so this is always of interest to me.

BTW, not trying to debate necessarily as I don't have a strong feeling on either side. I just found this article and your comment to be interesting.

Like giving money to charity, there is no personal gain from giving to organisation that will provide some unknown form of aid to children across the world. Yet it is worth it for some people to make the donation. As selfless as giving to charity is, having a child is magnitudes more selfless (unless you fully expect your child to care for you later in life).

Cost, time, stress, etc. At the benefit of seeing a part of you live on and be happy.

Tautologies are things that are known to be true thanks to sheer logic of them.

They are very useful becaus they can be solid foundation of any derivation.

Have you heard of ants?

Yeah, very good :)