The Politics of Relationship - III
Dispassionate types, on the other hand, bring to marriage expectations of mutual self-sufficiency, little diminution of individual choice for the sake of the relationship – i.e. the expectation that marriage is above all else friendship, and should entail nothing more than benevolent interest and good faith. Marriage is viewed as a pooling of common interests insofar as such interests can be shared, with only a generalized feeling of good will and well-wishing beyond this point. To these natives there is a relationship only to the extent that there is a commonality of interests.
The dispassionate types are friendly and democratic: they draw no distinctions between people, but are equally open, or closed, to strangers and spouse alike. When they are interested in someone they can be genuinely solicitous and sympathetic listeners; but when they are not especially interested in someone they can be brusque to the point of rudeness. When they give their attention they do so wholeheartedly: they stop everything they’re doing to help. But most of the time they are too busy for people (unless other horoscope factors intervene, e.g. Aquarius emphasis). Their reactions to people are more a function of the mood they’re in at the moment than what they expect to get from the people. They always maintain a reserve and privacy that they allow no one to breach. They prefer relationships with a minimum of clinging, self-adjustment, or inconvenience: where people happen to meet, they meet; and where they don’t, they go their separate ways. Within a relationship they feel a strong need for psychological elbow room: some way of distancing themselves through personal activity. They must have a life of their own. They will never permit any relationship to become the centerpiece of their existence, or permit themselves to critically depend upon anyone if they can help it. The wedding ring is a dispassionate invention – something the woman can sell after the divorce. They will not commit themselves emotionally to any situation or relationship over which they do not exercise decisive control, so they find it difficult to fully appreciate just how emotionally dependent on other people they actually are. They are impersonal and impassive, quite simply unwilling to allow themselves to be hurt. And when they are hurt, they make a conscious decision to slough it off, to ignore it, and then to turn their attention away from the problem to their other affairs. Their security lies in maintaining an unobstructed exit, thus emulating the ostrich in strategy and effectiveness. They try to gloss over conflicts and to accentuate the positive. As a result they never really know what their true feelings are, since they refuse to acknowledge their emotional dependencies. They go out of their way to please, to placate, as long as no real sacrifice is required of them. They are quite capable of maintaining a pleasant front while nursing a deep resentment. But at least they are free of the vengeful “I told you so” mentality of possessive types; they let bygones be bygones, and try to maintain a hopeful, positive, constructive attitude.
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