Love, and the Utility of Ambiguity

<center> # Love, and the Utility of Ambiguity How we communicate love and overcome differences to build trust from unlikely beginnings. *Originally published 2023-05-17 by Nick Sweeting on [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/coreybreier/posts/pfbid0eK9ij6fajwRnX8diHD1w4XbV2Zj89PKzgnZEMbHbe5cbagGqac1vJepNUxHkcyyyl?comment_id=182047351090193) & [docs.sweeting.me/s/blog](https://docs.sweeting.me/s/blog).* --- </center> [TOC]  --- This is a sappy post sparked by my a wonderful discussion around people's different definitions of "I love you", started by a comment on Facebook by a friend of mine. ### Communicating Love #### What does "I love you" mean? > What do you expect from someone who says 'I love you'? > > I try to name love whenever I feel it and I notice sometimes it changes the way friends relate to me, as if there are new implicit relationship agreements at play. > You aren't them ofc, but it got me thinking - what are yours? > > -- Corey Breier My personal view is that love isn't a step function, it's always continuously growing or shrinking as trust is built and lost. I'm an "acts of service" person, because I think building trust takes showing you're willing to sacrifice personal gain for the benefit of someone else. Whether that means giving time, energy, money, attention, etc. matters less, but it has to be shown by choosing to give up valuable things you wouldn't otherwise have to, just to help someone else. "I love you" being put into words has never really made me suddenly expect anything or start acting differently (words are free and show no sacrifice after all), and I'm pretty comfortable saying it anywhere on the spectrum. I know other people definitely see it differently and this has gotten me in trouble in the past. #### Love languages I'd go so far as to say *all* the other love languages (touch, quality time, gifts, words of affirmation) can be reframed as acts of service (but not vice-versa). If sacrifice is the most irreducable love language, then we're likely to find it anywhere disparate actors with imperfect information need to build trust with each other, independent of humans and our unique biology. <a href="https://ncase.me/trust/"><img src="https://docs.monadical.com/uploads/202b6751-3c27-44d0-a1c4-4d3bf39f2ed0.png" style="float: right; max-width: 200px; border-radius: 100px; margin: 5px;"/></a> > *Theres a beautiful explorable explanation on this called:* > ["The Evoltion of Trust"](https://ncase.me/trust/) by [Nicky Case](https://ncase.me/). That doesn't mean it's the only valid love language here on earth, we still have our biology after all, I just think it's neat to peek under the hood at the underlying game theory, and see how it generalizes. Because words of affirmation hold little weight in my framework, I fall bewilderingy on both ends of the spectrum: not giving enough verbal affirmation when its expected, and then giving it gratuitously when its not needed (though this seems to be a better failure mode). In my mind, it's free to give and therefore worthless to receive, and so I have to actively remind myself that other people appreciate it even when it has no cost to give, and focus on witnessing the joy it brings them to prove it. If you have any tips on how to make words of affirmation seem more worthwile to my "acts of service" mindset, please <a href="https://twitter.com/thesquashSH">let me know</a>, I want to figure out how to improve this blindspot! #### How can we define love? > I think the vagueness and baggage of the word love creates a *lot* of relational problems and misaligned expectations if we don't define what we mean when we first tell someone we love them. > > It felt really good when I landed on my personal definition of love: > > 💔 **My love for you is the exact size and shape of the hole in my heart that I'd feel if you died.** 💔 > > I like this definition because: > 1. It accounts for people I love but don't like (e.g. family or friends I've had falling-outs with). Despite needing to maintain healthy boundaries, I can't claim that I don't love them, because I'd be heartbroken if they died. > 2. It doesn't carry expectation. It's not an "I love you and therefore I expect you to fulfill these roles for me." It's just about acknowledging how much of an impact they've had, and continue to have, on my heart. > 3. It allows me to easily measure love. While yeah, there's the "love is infinite" feeling you get in a visionary state, real life has scarcity and differentials... I do absolutely love some people more than others. When I'm trying to assess how much I love someone, I just imagine what it would feel like if they died, and the imagined pain is a pretty good indicator of how much love is there. > > With a new person that I've just recently grown to love, the pain feels like "wow, you found a small place in my heart in such a short period of time, and I'd be heartbroken to never get to find out what shape it eventually takes." > > -- Micah Daigle This is a beautiful definition posted in one of the replies, I definitely vibe with it! I believe there are some situations where *not* precicely defining "I love you" (and other statements) makes sense though. --- ### The Utility of Ambiguity I used to be annoyed at language not being literal enough. In romance, friendship, education, business, and all areas of life there seemed to be altercations that could've been avoided had everyone agreed on definitions for the words they were using at the start. As I've gotten older though, I've improved my reads of social situations, and I've come back around to liking a bit of shared ambiguity in language and romance. Ambiguity has eventual consequences if dragged on too long, but I think ambiguity might be helpful (and maybe even necessary) for the *early* flirtation phases between highly diverse groups. *In response to this part of the comment above:* > "the word love creates a lot of misaligned expectations if we don't define what we mean when we first tell someone" Maybe in some cases the ambiguity of "I love you" is a *feature*, not a bug? I wouldn't be surprised if it's stayed so ill-defined in English because it lets us get away with building bridges before we're sure the other side's foundation is ready and identical to our own. As long as the bridge meets in the middle eventually, what does it matter if *early on* it was built with different speeds and designs from each shoreline? If every difference was precise & undeniable from the start of every foreign interaction, there would be a lot fewer friendships between the diverse peoples of Earth. #### It's a Social Lubricant *Ambiguity can be a great hack to bootstrap default trust when it's othwerise unlilely.* As long as we're not going into interactions *trying* to be enemies from the start, we're forced by ambiguity to take other people's words in good faith, filling in any gaps with the best possible interpretations. The more imprecise the communication, the less we're able to over-index on unfamiliar new vibes and vocabulary choices that might otherwise deter us. Of course this can be bad too sometimes, we can be hurt by over-trusting the wrong people too fast. I'm sure my many privileges (white, male, well-off, etc.) have insulated me from the consequences of trusting bad actors more than average, and my de-weighting of words because of their low cost makes jabs at me hurt less, but I think even without these filters I'd *want* to live in a world where ataining trust across default divides is desired. I've also seen plenty of less privileged people use ambiguity as a force for good in this way, building bridges in segregated environments with stark ideological & cultural differences working against them. *Food for thought: what if alcohol serves the same purpose in society? It introduces social ambiguity, limits over-indexing on minute details, and increases the tendency to take other people's statements in good faith. We inevitably get bit by its downsides sometimes, but by-and-large, society seems to use it as a highly effective means of briefly raising default trust.* #### In Travel I've experienced this making friends traveling when my command of the local language is poor. In new encounters abroad, ambiguity helps both sides charitably gloss over issues we might have with the other person's statements if they were more precise. For example, a local's comment about a customary religious behavior expected of you is much better deflected with respectful (but ambiguous) humor, rather than shot down with: "oh, I'm not *religion xyz*", which comes across as "oh, I think that custom is silly and *relgion xyz* is wrong". In China it almost got harder for me to make local friends as my Chinese got better! As my vocabulary became more precise, it also became more apparent how different I was from local norms. The worst case of getting a simple "没有" (no / don't have it) + ??? as a response when I messed something up and trying again, started turning into "你为什么要这个, 怪人..." (why would you want that, weirdo) + personal judement that's harder to evade because I used more precisely incorrect language. I also noticed this shift while living in Colombia as my gradually improving Spanish started revealing my different expecatations and biases more than broken beginner Spanish ever could. Flirting started to become more perilous as I was more likely to be ensnared by a difficult, culturally-charged issue like marriage, kids, religion, money, etc. that I now had the vocabulary to address bluntly, but not yet the shared context to communicate eloquently. In some ways, barely being able to exchange a few senteces in broken Spanish made it easier to build trust through dance, food, experience, etc., and circle back to address bigger topics later. #### In Romance I've had some very fun relationships with people who were vastly different from myself, that were only able to proceed beyond a first date because we danced around our differences with ambiguous language rather than trying to confront them head-on before establishing trust. It's the only thing that makes flirting possible (and fun!) when you don't speak the same language. It even works even if you do speak the same language but have different upbringings. You can also use ambiguity to dance around minefields of tribalism deliberately laid by cultural, religious, or political indoctrination to discourage "fraternising with the out-group". Charging in lighting every conversational fuse on first-sight wont make you many friends, and misrepresenting your own beliefs to placate others will just bite you later on. With ambiguity, you can tread the delicate path to establish initial trust, appreciate the contexts you *do* share, and convey eagerness to understand the ones you don't. If you decide to share concerns later on, you know they're less likely to fall on deaf ears because you've shown you can listen first. Humans subconciously recognize bidirectional investments in relationships, shared core values, and demonstrations of good faith over time, but we have to give those things an opportunity to shine through all our glaring differences! #### In Politics & Business I've seen this play out in politics and business, where two very different groups communicating across a language barrier agree on some ambiguous contract or policy. They proceed in orthogonal directions for a while, only to eventually realize they had entirely different expectations of the deal from the get-go. From there it can go two ways (depending on what they learned about each other so far). The deal falls apart, or they have a new long-lasting partnership across a divide that never would've been bridged had their differences been articulated from the start! One great example is the stark contrast between Japan's work culture and the USA's, leading to quite a shock for the workers sent overseas to experience the other for the first time. Tales abound of business people stepping off the plane and finding local practices that would be bewildering, horrifying, or just plain ineffective back home. Somehow, the human tendency to work together prevails: in many cases we bend policy to meet each other half way, and when we can't, leaving room for differences with imprecise language is a surprisingly effective alternative. There are many ways to build lasting partnerships, but when they come from the most unlikely beginnings, you're sure to find some ambiguity near the start. --- I've seen ambiguity used plenty of times in my life as a tool to intentionally mislead others, but it took a long time before I considered it might be possible to use it for good. I still think it's delicate & best in moderation, but it *is possible* to have healthy gray areas in communication. <center>~~~ The benefit of doubt can be a beautiful thing as long as it isn't abused. </center> ### Related Posts - **[On Rebuilding Trust in Relationships](https://docs.sweeting.me/s/trust-and-relationships)** (what I try to do when ambiguity goes wrong) - [So you want to build a social network?](https://docs.monadical.com/s/so-you-want-to-build-a-social-network) (how I think trust is built & scaled in digital groups) - [Monadical Company Principles: Transparency](https://docs.sweeting.me/s/principles-handbook#1-Transparency) (when ambiguity fails in professional settings) - [Why I Ask Stupid Questions](https://docs.sweeting.me/s/ask-stupid-questions) (how to collapse shared ambiguity and find precision) - [Emotion and Memory](https://docs.sweeting.me/s/emotion-and-memory) (how emotional valence impacts our perception of past events) - [The Evolution of Trust by Nicky Case →](https://ncase.me/trust/) - ["Scar Tissues Make Relationships Wear Out" →](https://gist.github.com/gtallen1187/27a585fcf36d6e657db2) by John Ousterhout (Stanford CS142)