The Four Essential Cs of Human Relationships

A relationship is defined as "a connection, association, or involvement" between people. I am related to my parents - my father's sperm and my mother's egg brought about the requisite biochemical reactions that brought me into this world 9 months after.

We have different connections with different people. At work, we do have to maintain professional relationships with our colleagues. If I am dating/am married to someone, I have to maintain the romance in the relationship. At home, family relationships are important - much more so in Asian culture than it is in Western culture. The friends that I have made over the years in different countries and from different aspects of life? All these connections are different, and rightfully so.

The deeper a relationship is, the more effort one has to put into it. No relationship starts out deep from the start, but there is a form of natural progression involved in deepening it. I can have acquaintances whom I maintain a hi-bye relationship with, and that doesn't take much work to deepen or maintain. However, if I were to want to intentionally deepen a relationship, I'd have to make more effort in learning to understand and accommodate an acquaintance. It doesn't take rocket science to figure that out.

Hollywood movies tend to paint a picture of relationship perfection - no hair is out of place, everyone is agreeable on everything, romance is idealised, and everybody "lived happily ever after".

We know that's never the case, however.

Which therefore leads me to the 4 Cs in the building of a relationship.

Firstly, compatibility.

We tend to think of "compatibility" more in a romantic manner. We see it as a method to determine if the person that we are interested in can connect and click with us, isn't it?

But let's look at compatibility on a broader scale across all different relationships. Do we think in similar manners? Same outlooks on life or different? Are we laidback or perpetually busy? Are we more future-oriented or past-oriented? Introverted or extroverted?

People may say "opposites attract", but yet "birds of a feather flock together". So what really drives the compatibility of a relationship?

Cognitively, though, I've found that the biggest thing I do look out for, whether in a dating relationship or even as a good friend, is the intellectual ability of a person to think multidimensionally. If they can think critically and not just criticise. If they can accept the possibility of alternative viewpoints, but yet have enough critical thinking juice in them to critique or accept those viewpoints.

Because that brings us then to communication.

Having the viewpoint is one thing - articulating it is yet another.

Communication is a two-way process and not a monologue, as I've been reminded of many times (Does A Lack Of Social Awareness Constitute Self-Centredness Or Narcissism?). I do love to ramble, and I can come off sounding like a monologue.

But at the same time, my communication preference is of the rambling style. While I personally prefer a long uninterrupted "monologue", I do appreciate it when people can come up with "monologues" of their own.

That's just my preference, though.

The key thing in communication is articulation. It's not going to be easy to maintain a relationship if one gives up on communicating. If I can't even communicate any of my issues across to you - whether it be logically, emotionally or psychologically, then how can you support me better and build that relationship deeper? It can be done, but it will be much more difficult.

Because it takes two hands to clap. If one hand stops trying to meet the other hand, the clapping sound of two hands hitting each other will never materialise at all.

As Tony Robbins says,

Communication in relationships, at its core, is about connecting and using your verbal, written and physical skills to fulfill your partner's needs. It's not about making small talk. It's about understanding your partner's point of view, offering support and letting your partner know you are their #1 fan.

Communication is an essential tool in maintaining a good, deep relationship with other important people in my life!

With communication comes compromise

When we choose to engage other people in a deeper relationship, we will inevitably need to come to a compromise over certain things.

In a dating relationship, that involves setting proper boundaries - for example, if I were to want to remain monogamous while my partner prefers polygamy? If we were to insist on our ways - that relationship ain't going to last. A compromise would have to be made somewhere - something that both parties agree on wholeheartedly.

If, of course, the compromise does hinge on tearing down one's value system, then it may not be that wise to engage further in that relationship. For example, I personally do not indulge in excessive drinking or gambling. I do tend to stay further away from people who do tend to have problems with regards to controlling their gambling or drinking urges. Social card game nights and chillout bars are fine with me, but not a full-blown addiction to these things.

Hence, gauging a person's character is also important before one decides to make the compromise.

And finally, commitment

Commitment entails "the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity, etc" or "an engagement or obligation that restricts freedom of action". When I am committed to something, I am actively compromising on something else.

For example, if I am committed to meeting and mentoring a person from 3-6pm on Saturdays regularly, it means that I cannot do anything else during that 3-6pm timeframe on Saturdays. If I did have a regular scheduled sports activity on during that timeslot, I would have to compromise on that activity to meet with this person instead.

It takes commitment and dedication to grow a relationship from depth to depth. It takes compatibility to initially decide if one can make the leap from acquaintance to good friend to best friend - we don't necessarily make best friends overnight.

Healthy, meaningful relationships can be a slog

But even as we're slogging it out, we do know that the best friends in our lives are the people who are willing to make the compromise to accept us and slog it out with us.

And therein lies the beauty in a flawed, imperfect relationship.

Joel Yong, PhD, is a biochemical engineer/scientist, an educator and a writer. He has authored 2 ebooks (available on Amazon.com in Kindle format) and co-authored 6 journal articles in internationally peer-reviewed scientific journals. His main focus is on finding out the fundamentals of biochemical mechanisms in the body that the doctors don’t educate the lay people about, and will then proceed to deconstruct them for your understanding — as an educator should.

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