Asymmetric Emotions
How is your relationship with love? Are you one of those people who can’t stop talking when you’re in love, or rather someone who disconnects and drifts off into daydreams? Is love a big, deep, and significant emotion for you, or a lighter and transient excitement? Is it a more physical, mental, or spiritual experience?
Psychological, artistic, and literary connotations aside, for some reason whenever love is the subject, the first concept that pops into my mind is asymmetric information. You may wonder what an economic term has to do with love or even doubt whether I have a heart at all. But just hold on, let me explain!
Simply put, asymmetric information occurs when one party within a business transaction possesses greater knowledge than the other party and uses it selectively. If the love relationship where both parties posses more information about themselves and try to gain the other’s admiration, where emotions are only divulged within chosen parameters and where (naturally) things are only perceived through a subjective perspective, isn’t asymmetric, then what is?
Let’s analyze this situation: a friend of mine thought she made her emotions for a guy way too obvious, yet this guy commented on that particular divulging moment as “you were being very cold.” On the one hand we inevitably evaluate our emotions from a subjective perspective. On the other hand, perhaps it’s this asymmetry that’s causing our attraction to one another. All of these situations, even the smallest moment, are all tiny chaotic universes where the Adams and Eves somehow find one other through misunderstanding. When perceived from this angle, every relationship is the impossible made possible, a miracle in its own right.
When I read the love stories in this article, I carried that deep smile that formed within me for a long while. I think that was also why I thought about the issue of asymmetry. Because I wondered about the other hero within these 13-word-only short stories. What do you think their 13 words would tell? Probably completely different things. But I think this is why I perceive every love as magical. Because even though we choose different paths, we miraculously end up in the same destination.
Ege
