I originally write this essay in Chinese, here is a translation in English

Countless brilliant essays have been written on the subject of human relationships, most notably Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Friendship” and Niko Kolodny’s “Love as valuing a relationship.” The profound impact these works had on me when I first read them still resonates today, and I feel compelled to recommend them before I begin. This essay does not aim to provide practical criteria for choosing friends or lovers, but rather to articulate my personal understanding of human connections. However, since we all make choices about whom we associate with, let us first discuss how we evaluate others.

How to evaluate peers

While contemporary social norms dictate that we suspend judgment of others, this does not imply that evaluating someone is absurd or shameful. In fact, this social norm is designed to guard against our tendency to form premature judgments about others and to make shallow comments without careful thought. As the existentialist dictum states, "Existence precedes essence," meaning that individuals create their own essence or identity through their choices and experiences. Furthermore, through our experiences, we come to realize that our sense of self is constantly evolving; it is a constructed concept that often obscures the inherent uncertainties and contradictions within us. Consequently, it is both illogical and disrespectful to view others through the lens of prejudice. Moreover, making rash and shallow judgments is often a superficial attempt at self-amusement that ultimately demeans oneself. On the other hand, as long as we continue to hold preferences for some people over others, we are inherently making judgments, whether we acknowledge it or not.

However, even if we have de-stigmatized the act of evaluating others, there is no need to establish a universal standard for everyone. Evaluation criteria should first be applied to self-assessment and then to our peers. As Han Yu said, "The ancient gentleman is strict with himself but lenient with others." A good evaluation standard should motivate us to constantly improve and overcome our shortcomings, while also allowing us to appreciate the uniqueness and excellence of others. By "peers," I mean those whom we intentionally compare and make reference. Mocking or flattering others, are both consequences of misusing evaluation regardless of targets, revealing the evaluator's limitations and self-deprecation. Vanity and pretentiousness, on the other hand, stem from a hunger for meaningless evaluations of others, blindly conforming to shallow responses filled with clichés. Ultimately, evaluation is about assigning value to things. My criteria for evaluating peers revolve around the core concept of value and are closely related to their own values. Specifically, in descending order of priority, these criteria consist of three dimensions: contribution, aesthetics, and morality.

Firstly, there is contribution, which refers to concrete, mutually understandable practices that reflect an individual's values. We limit contribution to the outcomes of an individual's pursuit of their values because people cannot earn lasting respect based on mere luck. The difficulty of contribution lies in its communicability—the ability to be understood by others, given sufficient critical thinking and knowledge. Therefore, if an individual wants their contribution to be as widely understood as possible, their pursuits must contribute to the progress of humanity. In my view, human sociability is not rooted in the necessity of social interactions for maintaining individual mental health, but rather in the innate human desire to contribute to the development of the human species. To make significant contributions, one must possess a strong will, the patience to "search high and low," a commitment to their beliefs even in the face of adversity, and the ability to cultivate a calm and far-reaching perspective. Therefore, contribution is the most reliable criterion for evaluating oneself and others. Admittedly, making significant contributions is not something that happens overnight, but this does not mean that contribution is an unattainable façade or a mere self-deception. In fact, the dimension of contribution profoundly inspires individuals to seek meaning in life. As long as there is breath, an individual's life is an unfinished work; even seemingly insignificant practices and creations can be the raw materials of contribution, for "a towering tree grows from a tiny seed, a nine-story tower rises from a mound of earth, and a thousand-mile journey begins with a single step." Nietzsche's concept of the "three metamorphoses" in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" describes the gradual deepening of an individual's understanding of value. When the spirit first takes shape, it is subjected to the scrutiny of existing moral perspectives, but with unwavering strength, it transforms burdens into joy, elevates obedience to a state of perfect self-mastery, and becomes a camel. Existing laws inevitably tear apart its perfect harmony, but even the kneeling camel will not allow the dead ashes to suffocate its living spirit's contempt for decay; it will transform into a lion, imposing order and value on things, ever ready to defend the unquestioned dominion of its aesthetic pursuits over the spiritual world. With prolonged tranquility and accumulation, a new birth is born, and even the most tyrannical ruler in the spiritual desert cannot resist the joy of creation breaking through the existing order; it is at this moment that the lion forgets itself, becomes a child, and joins the cycle of creation. Understanding of value ultimately leads to creation, for no will can tolerate its own extinction without leaving anything behind. And contribution is the completed creation, the dwelling place of the objectified creative will.

Secondly, there is aesthetics, or taste, which refers to one's understanding of beauty and elegance. Objects themselves have no inherent meaning; they simply exist. Just as a flower is merely a flower and a stone is merely a stone, it is aesthetics that imprints them with notions of beauty or ugliness. Aesthetics is the imposition of an individual's values onto the external world, meaning that the objectivity of beauty is merely an externalization of the shared values of the human species. People vary in their ability to express themselves and reflect upon themselves, making it difficult to understand someone based solely on their self-description. However, aesthetics provides a shortcut to understanding others, effortlessly transcending barriers of background, experience, and time. A few lines of poetry, a few musical pieces, or a few elusive words can instantly resonate with our deepest emotions. This profound resonance is simple and unadorned, melting away years of loneliness. As the saying goes, "Though thousands of miles apart, a kindred spirit is near," a shared aesthetic can elevate two long-lost souls to a sacred level. But how exactly does aesthetics serve as a dimension for evaluating others? On one hand, if "absolute freedom" is not merely a fantasy, then it can only be aesthetic freedom—the freedom of an individual to assign different values to the external world. Faced with absolute freedom, what kind of image will an individual create in this "void of existence"? Some, like the roc, can soar through the heavens without hindrance, while others, like the cicada and the sparrow, are content with a narrow perspective. A strong spirit maintains an open mind to explore the vast universe, as the saying goes, "Aligning oneself with the cosmic order, mastering the dynamics of the universe, and exploring its infinite possibilities." However, in reality, many people inherit too many value judgments from the outside world, and unless they reconstruct them, they will become clouds obscuring their vision. On the other hand, aesthetics is an individual's reconstruction of the world, and their consciousness is inevitably limited by it, forming the basis of idealism. A refined taste brings forth a unique perspective, which, when combined with sufficient expressive skills, can greatly enrich our understanding of the world.

Finally, let's turn to morality. It can be understood as a perspective based on specific values. In reality, this dimension of evaluation isn't used very often; if a person's contributions are not worthy of respect and their aesthetics are mediocre, they are likely to be a boring individual. However, human growth takes time, and there is a "camel" stage in the transformation of the spirit. Therefore, let's briefly comment on morality. Morality is not an inherent attribute of events or phenomena, but rather a perspective through which we interpret them. The origins of many moralities are obscure and as unconvincing as witchcraft rituals; they are filled with resentment towards the vitality of life and are destined to be discarded by the progress of time. A morality can only be accepted by an individual after it has undergone a thorough examination by that individual's reason. The best object of moral scrutiny is oneself. Morality should be a shackle used to temper oneself, not a tool to harm others. No matter how refined or clever a person's moral perspective is, I only care about what kind of person these precepts have shaped, that is, what kind of cultivation they exhibit. Morality should be naturally revealed in a person's actions. Those who deliberately flaunt their morality are likely to be utterly hypocritical. In other words, when using morality as a dimension of evaluation, we are more concerned with how morality shapes an individual, rather than the sharpness or nobility of the moral perspective.

In essence, these three dimensions can be naturally summarized into one point: I admire my peers who possess a strong spirit or will. A strong will is not content with merely fixing its values as a moral perspective for viewing the world. It will reevaluate the external world with its values, thereby forming an aesthetic view, and in the process of continuous self-expansion, it will attempt to objectify this value as a contribution. For example, the pursuit of power has always driven me, and the value it represents is an affirmation of the vitality of life. This value orientation makes me reject the sympathy of others out of self-respect, and at the same time, I view my sympathy for others as a belittlement of others and myself. The theme of sympathy falls into the category of morality. Moreover, because life can only demonstrate its strength through its unyielding resistance to fate, I love tragedy more than comedy. Finally, even though self-transcendence is ultimately limited, I do my best to pass on knowledge and insights. That is where the profession of teaching gives me the greatest satisfaction: seeing that someone can surpass the former myself. Perhaps for the same reason, I love and actively participate in open-source communities. The contributions I can make may be limited, but I am always filled with enthusiasm, seeing myself as a ladder for superhuman beings, hoping that someone can become more free and more powerful by stepping over (surpassing) me. I also see that there are many other wills guiding me, each representing different value orientations, such as an affirmation of diversity or a preference for the artistic reality, but these wills are not as strong as the pursuit of power, so I will not mention them for now. Many people comment that we live in a nihilistic age, where all existing sacred values have fallen. In my opinion, there is only one nihilism worth promoting, and that is to create new values on the ruins of old ones.

Now let's discuss three different types of relationships.

Everyday Interactions

In this section, I want to discuss interactions that do not significantly impact our self-perception or self-evaluation. Of course, some people may be overly dependent on external opinions and unable to form an independent self-identity; This is a relatively unfortunate state, as everyday interactions may lead to manipulation. Some people, including myself in the past, may avoid these "trivial" interactions due to arrogance, disdain for superficial interactions, or a yearning for deep soul connections. Therefore, let's first vindicate this type of interaction and give it its due value. Let's use human economic activities as an analogy, as the exchange of interests is often the part of interpersonal interactions that is disliked or criticized. Some people deny the value of commercial exchanges due to a misunderstanding, which is also the starting point of the "restraining commerce and encouraging agriculture" policy: the essence of trade is speculation, and the exchange of commodities does not create new value. To refute this misunderstanding, in addition to the widely mentioned reallocation of resources, I would like to mention a very instructive perspective from economics: There is no equivalent exchange, since the existence of transaction costs would hinder people from engaging in strictly equivalent exchanges; people are willing to exchange because the value of what they obtain from the exchange is higher than what they held before the exchange. Because the value of a commodity is not necessarily the amount of labor embodied in the commodity, it also depends on scarcity. People's subjective valuations cannot be completely consistent, so the exchange of commodities can indeed create new value "out of nothing." The same is true for everyday interactions. Once we have the desire to start an interaction, it often means that this level of interpersonal relationship is beneficial to both parties, although it may be too insignificant or unnoticed. In addition, the potential of everyday interactions should not be underestimated. It can evolve into friendship or love, and it is also the foundation for social cooperation and, consequently, the promotion of social development. It is worth mentioning that not all everyday interactions have the potential to deepen. As the saying goes, conversations between two people can lead to friendship, but conversations among a group of people are just social routines. Although we cannot underestimate the value of everyday interactions, we should not have too high expectations.

For everyday interactions, as the above definition implies, we should avoid allowing others to change our self-perception or evaluation, and we should also restrain ourselves from intruding on the self of others. I believe that such an expectation is more conducive to harmonious interactions and the development of relationships. Since we have decided to maintain ourselves in such interactions, we should not evaluate others, because as explained earlier, evaluating others is precisely for the purpose of forming a reference with ourselves. The standard for measuring the satisfaction of everyday interactions is less the moral standards of the other party, but rather the depth of their cultivation. Therefore, one does not necessarily need to pretend or create a persona to cope with everyday interactions; on the contrary, with improved cultivation, everyone can naturally maintain sincerity towards oneself. If we truly practice this view, we will find that conversations in everyday interactions cannot "generate" offense. Because offense means that other people's words have affected our self-perception, and at the same time, we use our own moral perspective to fight back against others. So this is a good test standard. Once we feel "offended," we should reflect on our expectations for this interaction.

Friendship

Friendship already belongs to the realm of interactions between peers. Friends must be those who have passed the screening of our evaluative standards. The most desirable and moving aspect of friendship, and what distinguishes it from other types of interactions, is that friendship can develop entirely without constraints in chosen aesthetic direction. In other words, we can follow our own nature (value orientation) and develop friendship into the form we expect without any reservations. In fact, only friendship can bear such expectations, and the most beautiful or purest expectations we have deep in our souls for interpersonal relationships can only be realized through true friendship. This means that friendship is not merely a description of a state of interaction; it can also be a work of art with appreciative value. Usually, we sincerely show a certain aspect of ourselves to different friends, which is often the aspect that most closely aligns with our mutual aspirations (expectations of self-achievable contributions) or aesthetic pursuits. Friendship is often likened to the meeting and knowing of two souls, but this metaphor can be reduced to the mutual recognition of two wills (or two spirits) that carry the same value orientation. A person can have many different but not contradictory value orientations, and a deep friendship can be based on only a few of these value orientations. Therefore, we need not regret not having fully explained or revealed ourselves to our friends, nor do we need to get to the bottom of every aspect of our friends. At the moment when two hearts are closest, the indescribable emotion does not come from our narcissism's recognition of the similarities between us, but because at this moment, the same will or value is using our hearts as an instrument to present itself. Thanks to people's unique natures, we have the opportunity to witness many outstanding but dissimilar friendships. There is the heartfelt sympathy of "all men want to kill you, but I alone pity your talent," even if there is no news, one still murmurs with "The cool wind rises in the end of the sky, how is the gentleman?"; there is the self-restraint of "the friendship of a gentleman is as bland as water," preferring to "forget each other in the rivers and lakes" rather than being confined to a dry well and indulging in the deep affection of "moistening each other and soaking each other"; there is the priority of loyalty, "I know very well that Cao Cao treats me well, but I have received great favors from Liu Bei, and I have sworn to die with him. I cannot betray him," so he rides away without looking back; there is the open breakup with "I heard that you have been promoted, and I was startled and unhappy. I was afraid that you would be ashamed of the butcher's lonely cutting, and would ask the priest for help, to whom you recommend with a feathered knife in your hand, that spreads the fishy smell everywhere," but still entrusting his children saying "With Shan Tao, you are not orphans" before dying; there is the "our love, a covenant forged in life and death, shall endure. Hand in hand, we'll journey through the years," a friendship as close as siblings, but ultimately separated by helpless distance, lamenting "Alas, I finally failed myself"... Because people's value orientations are so different, there is no natural commonality between different friendships. For example, formidable and highly respected competitors are more like friends than enemies. So the kind of friendship that develops with a friend depends entirely on the commonalities of each other's natures. The only thing that can be certain is that a deep friendship will eventually aestheticize itself (artisticize itself), and highly coincide with the values that support its development (the reasons for mutual attraction) and the aesthetic concepts of each other's treatment of the relationship.

Another characteristic of friendship is that it is an equal relationship (as is love). It can collapse and shatter in an instant due to changes in certain core values. If it were not so fragile, where would the nobility of friendship lie? Although we may not realize it, it is precisely this fragility, this desire to win respect (love) from those we respect (love), that encourages us to constantly surpass ourselves in order to deserve the brilliance of a friendship (love). When an equal relationship breaks down, it is not that someone has betrayed us, but that they have betrayed our expectations for this relationship. I can forgive the harm you have done to me, but how can I forgive you for harming yourself, my betrayed friend? As discussed earlier, our aesthetic views on equal relationships determine the development of friendship. I might as well talk about my personal aesthetic view of friendship, these ideas may only affect my personal friendships, and not all friendships will develop in this way. In my opinion, friends are like two meteors streaking across the sky. The universe is so vast, beautiful, and magnificent. In this journey, I hope I don't stop, and you don't stop either. Let's just streak across the sky together. The purpose of friendship is to create a painting with the boundless universe as the background: only when both of us are dazzling can we live up to the opportunity of meeting each other in this life. I affirm the value of life and firmly believe that what makes a human being is their ability to redefine themselves through choices facing the future. Human beings are always in a state of becoming, striving to be what they are, while all other beings merely exist in general. Since I actively affirm the impermanence of myself, even if I am currently stagnant or even falling, then why should I not regard every meeting with a friend as a meeting with a completely new person? "After three days without seeing a friend, one should look at them with new eyes," this is a basic principle of how we treat our friends. However, even though there are often many commonalities between friends, the deep feelings between them are by no means based on narcissism. Narcissism is merely an objectification of others, while the feelings between friends are the best example to explain the rational connotation of love.

Love for an individual is, in essence, a valuing of the relationship between the two. This is the rational connotation of love. We are often misled by the intense emotions that often accompany expressions of love, leading us to believe that love must be accompanied by blind intentions or that it is merely an intense emotional experience. The truth is that love always implies concrete actions. Many people, when expressing love for others, simultaneously yearn for the other party to give the same response. Although this is normal, we cannot equate this desire with love itself (think about how absurd this fallacy is!). This desire for a response, if it is not simply flirting or a mutually cooperative play, is actually a confusion about the state of the relationship between the two. The confusion here refers to the individual's inability to confirm whether the other party has the same cognition, feelings, or evaluation of their relationship. In a stable and harmonious relationship, both parties have a consistent understanding and evaluation of the state of their relationship. Of course, there can be many inconsistencies, and to avoid the confusion, we need to be patient and adjust our perceptions appropriately based on reality. With a consistent understanding of the relationship between each other, such as when children understand their parents' care and no longer feel inexplicable, or when lovers confirm each other's intentions, or when friends replace the promise of being together forever with a promise to meet again in the world, we can see the rational core of love: those actions that can be called love can always be universally understood by human reason. In other words, when a person gives out of love, he can clearly recognize that anyone, as long as they are in the same position and have the same feelings or understanding of a certain relationship, will make the same devotion for this relationship. In fact, I have seen that I, and many others, have a keen perception and accurate evaluation of relationships. They can act unhesitatingly for the benefit of others out of their genuine feelings, and they can smell the absence of mutual respect or goodwill on the verge of a broken relationship. However, people cannot always face reality, and sometimes they would rather deceive themselves than raise a certain relationship to a height it has not yet reached. This irrational blindness and stubbornness should be understood and tolerated with kindness. They are the desperate cries in the emotional world of human beings. The love between friends is a perfect example of the aforementioned theory, because in friendship, there is often no intimate entanglement to interfere with our understanding of the relationship, and the expression of love in friendship often focuses on action rather than romantic embellishment or boasting. Because friendship can develop freely in an artistic direction, at its most extreme state, one can feel that the love of friendship is the unity of humanity and divinity (or truth, goodness, and beauty). The above theory may be subject to the following criticism: my interpretation of love is actually an abstraction or idealization of a relationship, a neglect of a specific person. This criticism argues that loving a person and loving one's relationship with that person are mutually exclusive, and that so-called love must have a person as a single and immutable object. First, I think this actually involves the misuse of the word "love". When I discussed loving a person in the previous paragraph, I defined love as an action, so in this case, the word "love" is difficult to be replaced with other words. When people say "love the relationship with this person," the "love" here can be replaced by appreciation without losing its meaning, because it simply refers to an evaluative attitude. Moreover, I do not believe that loving a person and loving one's relationship with that person are mutually exclusive. Why should I add this unreasonable uniqueness to the object of love? In fact, people in love usually also appreciate their relationship very much, and feel sincere joy or satisfaction for it, so what is the realistic basis for this hypothetical mutual exclusion?

Finally, I would like to briefly analyze the topic of trust between friends. Due to the ambiguity of everyday language, the opposite of trust is not distrust. This can be illustrated by the following two points. First, for many people, we can neither say that we trust nor distrust them. Second, when talking about trusting someone, if it is not linked to a specific task or promise, then what we express is more of an emotional attitude, and this attitude can usually be replaced by other descriptions. It is unreasonable to say in general that someone is completely trustworthy, because we do not entrust everything to them, and we would not allow ourselves to lose our autonomy or independence so completely. Excluding emotional attitudes, we can find that trusting or distrusting someone has a common premise, which is that we expect him to complete a specific task or fulfill a certain promise; and distrust simply corresponds to our expectation that he will not be able to satisfactorily complete the task entrusted to him. The reality is that we do not have such expectations for everyone, so we cannot use distrust as a negation of trust. This is very common in friendship. Sometimes we just want to do something ourselves or think that entrusting something to another person is more efficient; This does not mean that we do not trust a friend who has not been entrusted with the matter, because we simply do not have the expectation that he will do it. It is easily to be misunderstood when we say that a friend is untrustworthy, so I think the above clarification is necessary.

Romantic relationship

The rational connotation of love, as explained in the section on friendship, also applies to romantic relationship. However, people often feel that love has undeniable irrational components. Clarifying these irrational components will help us better understand and define romantic relationship.

The most easily observable irrationality in love is infatuation, and infatuation is nothing more than a more elegant way of saying "being in heat." Of course, the word "infatuation" seems less passive than "being in heat," but in fact, they are almost the same. Therefore, they are equivalent in the following text. Although this characteristic of infatuation is so obvious in love, not everyone is aware of its existence, and they persist in many hopeless courtship behaviors. Infatuation is a characteristic of humans as animals, and it follows the biological law of human reproduction. Reason, on the other hand, is more of a tool for human interaction with the environment, with the purpose of self-preservation. Therefore, infatuation is usually irrational, just as for many creatures in nature, reproduction has a higher priority than self-preservation. However, because infatuation is an animalistic characteristic, it can be studied scientifically, and many statistical laws can be derived. For example, we can see many commonalities in human mate selection and courtship behavior from David M. Buss's "Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind". Understanding these laws is necessary, and it is also a very rational behavior to adjust oneself according to them, of course, this knowledge has already been widely spread in our daily lives. It is worth mentioning that humans can pursue many other things besides reproduction, and they can have a much higher priority than reproduction, just as many animals cannot be in heat all year round. Therefore, it is completely normal not to want to fall in love, and a person may be indifferent to all courtship. For religious or cultural reasons, people may denigrate the animalistic nature of humans, and I personally believe that this is an unnecessary prejudice. The reasons or motivations for human infatuation should not be stigmatized. They do not have much essential difference from many so-called "elegant" aesthetic pursuits, and most of them are based on the same affirmation of the vitality of life. In romantic relationship, the mutual appreciation based on sexual selection or the one based on a certain rational value concept is not comparatively superior or inferior to the other. It is only that the current cultural perspective intentionally elevates rationality and devalues biological characteristics. It should be noted that infatuation and sexual desire are different concepts. In terms of observing animals, sometimes sexual desire (hormonal effects) only helps them perform better in courtship. If sexual desire is sometimes just a preparation for courtship behavior, then how do people judge whether they are infatuated? Perhaps the most common state is "tossing and turning restlessly" (fortunately, the style of the Chinese classic "Shi" is simple, otherwise we would have a hard time finding examples). But it seems that some people's infatuation can be externalized as sexual fetishes, which I do not know or understand, so I will not discuss it for this time. Friendship is usually based on rational value concepts, while romantic relationship is also based on the evaluation criteria of an animalistic perspective. Therefore, infatuation can be considered a shortcut to establishing a relationship, which makes love often develop faster than friendship. Moreover, it is only because of infatuation that romantic relationship in place of friendship becomes necessary.

In romantic relationship, how the relationship or connection is formed is not so important. What matters more is how it can and will develop. Thus, we touch upon another source of the irrationality of romantic relationship: we have inherited too many expectations of romantic relationship from culture or history. Different expectations have formed different paradigms of love, some of which are completely unrealistic, and many expectations even contradict each other. Therefore, if we carelessly talk about love, we will often feel the heavy burden of irrationality, which also highlights the freedom of friendship. Love that can get rid of these existing expectations is free, and couples with consistent expectations are lucky. But the opposite often happens. A person may not realize their expectations of romantic relationship until they are heartbroken by disappointment. Many people do hold contradictory expectations at the same time. For example, they believe that love is "an isolated moment without a future" but also persistently pursue the "true love" of growing old together; they hope that couples are completely honest with each other, but also believe that white lies are more considerate of the other person's feelings; they believe that love is based on free choice, but also expect the other party to compromise themselves for love; they advocate enjoying the moment, but also worry about the uncertain future... Perhaps adhering to absolute principles can avoid contradictions, but it is precisely because of this that people suffer the tricks of fate.

What kind of state is it to love without expectations? This should refer to trying to understand and accept a person without prejudice, avoiding interference, and with curiosity. The expectation here refers to the expectation that the other party will respond; a beautiful encounter can begin in this way, but it seems that it still has a slight expectation for the relationship between each other. So why not simply abandon all thinking and look at another person as you would do towards a river, a forest, or a cloud? Thinking means not understanding. It is already quite difficult to look at nature without concepts. I am really curious what it would be like to forget all concepts about people. That might be the state of mind of being one with nature, the so-called "eternal union without emotion." However, it is ultimately because of being moved that we cannot be completely without expectations.

Let's return to the philosophical speculation about romantic relationship. Many problems in romantic relationship either come from a misunderstanding of the state of the relationship or from a neglect of friendship. As mentioned earlier, the actions of love can be explained by reason, and it is always based on the cognition or evaluation of the state of the relationship between each other, which is commonly referred to as the "depth of mutual emotion" in colloquial language. The establishment of a relationship is indeed based on the recognition of (aesthetic or animalistic) values, but it is not these values that determine the actions of love. People who are attracted to each other may never perceive the love of the other party due to their indifference to establishing or cultivating a relationship. At the same time, people can give very high evaluations to certain characteristics of the other party because of the existence of the relationship. This is like how many children can be equally viewed as cute as angels, but a mother will think her child is cuter than all other children. In other words, evaluation does not give birth to love for a person; in fact, the love that is produced in this way is mostly a result of objectifying a person. On the contrary, out of love, people will give a higher evaluation to the person they love. The uncertainty of whether the other party loves oneself actually means that it is impossible to form a consistent understanding of each other's feelings. If we reduce love to action and accurately assess the current state of the relationship, then we will not be caught in hopeless philosophical debates about love, and we will pay more attention to cherishing and cultivating the relationship between each other. Many problems in love become clearer when discussed in the framework of friendship. Only in this way "love" will not become a tool for mutual manipulation or game-playing. The love between lovers cannot be a negation of the love they should have as friends. The love must be suspicious if we love in the way that will prevent me from pursuing the self-transcendence that both of us would affirm as friends, that will prevent me from respecting each other equally, and that will make me ignore the other person's autonomy (they have rational and emotional motivation to make decisions in their own best interests) and subjectivity (they have emotions and feelings that are independent of my own thoughts). Finally, I want to say that love is also an equal relationship, and its decline and disappearance (no longer loving each other) are normal; people change, and our confidence in love should be based on the existing depth of emotion, rather than on the prejudices that remain after a long-term being together. It doesn't really matter how a relationship is defined, what the other person wants to know is how much we cherish this relationship, and that is exactly the rational connotation of love.

Now let's talk about sex, which is often seen as a decisive feature of love. Unless a person can equate sex to romantic relationship as tennis to friendship, he cannot completely separate sex and love. The core difference between sex and tennis is that human culture gives sexual behavior profound symbolic meanings. Many human behaviors have more symbolic meaning than real meaning, and humans have long naturally adapted to these symbolic meanings and cannot imagine their disappearance. For different people, sexual behavior has different symbolic meanings. So, which meaning makes it so inseparable from love? Sex does not help much in deepening mutual understanding in a knowledge sense, because through sex we only learn some privacy about each other, and this knowledge is actually insignificant for many relationships. I think that sex in love actually symbolizes the intention to know another person more deeply. That is to say, sex itself does not bring about a substantial in-depth understanding, but it symbolizes the intention of in-depth understanding, just as words can refer to an infinite number of possible existences, but they themselves only exist as an element of language. Sex in love is a ritual, a commemoration or celebration of the current state of the relationship between each other. And celebrating something that is not worth celebrating will only lead to the emptiness and meaninglessness of sex.