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The Reacher-Settler Paradox.

Every relationship has a reacher and a settler. Says Ted Mosby in "How I met your Mother".
Interesting theory. Marshall and Lily start fighting about who among them is the settler and who, the reacher. Interestingly, both of them want to be the settler.

At first, it looked understandable, natural.
But on a deeper level of thought, I was deep in dilemma. Which one of them am I? Which one of them do I want to be? The reacher or the settler?

You would want to be the settler which would mean you are more desirable than your spouse . On the other hand, you should not like to be the loser who had to settle for less. The very fact that someone decided to settle for less removes the superiority/desirability from that person and (s)he cannot be the settler anymore. Similarly, the very fact that the reacher had it in him to reach for his dreams makes him desirable.. The minute you decide that you are a settler, you are reduced to a less desirable person who may not have much to settle for anyway and the moment you label yourself a reacher, you gain the desirability of a settler. This is, therefore, a paradox. You can never decide on who you are - the reacher or the settler.

I decided to ask people to test my theory and one beautiful evening in Ooty, with a group of friends in a happy high state of mind, I asked my friend what she thought of herself in her relationship. She kept changing her mind. I didn't get a chance to ask her husband about what he thought. I am not sure if this was the result of the conflict between the human need to be the best and a possible female need for a superior spouse (She seems too cool to have this need, but you never know. Afterall, natural selection has had reason to preserve the set of genes in females to want to select the best of males) . I need to`ask a guy friend to understand more about this and I shall complete this post then.
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Comments

sp said…
Very interesting post. And the line of thought about how once you become the settler, the desirability is gone. So many aspects of life are like this. N remember Heisenberg' uncertainty principle?
Wednesday, 31 August, 2011
sp said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Wednesday, 31 August, 2011
bombay dosti said…
Oh man!! This line of thought was awesome :) :)
Sunday, 11 September, 2011
deepthi said…
SP, BD,

Its been so long since I've seen comments in the blog world that I was looking for the Like button to like your comments!! :D

Thanks for the comments! Yes, I found this cause-effect thought stuck in my head for quite a long time- so I just had to pen this down.
Thursday, 15 September, 2011
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