Relationships Without Expectations

Do you know what's true? No relationship in this world exists without expectations. Wherever there's love, a claim, an attachment, there will inevitably be expectations. Reciprocal love, reciprocal respect, reciprocal affection—all kinds of expectations come naturally. Humans can't really go beyond this.

The tea vendor at the street corner means nothing to you, which is why you have no expectations of him. Your wife or girlfriend is your closest person, so naturally you'll expect more from her. You want her to understand you, love you, care for you, give you peace and comfort, keep the household together, be someone you can rely on... You want all this from her, and she wants the same from you.

We never want anything from, never expect anything from, only those who are nobody to us. In the end, there's no such thing as a "selfless relationship" in this world. Even where a relationship is called selfless, some minimal self-interest remains. Self-interest is absent only in two places: between beggar and giver, and between call girl and client. In these two relationships, neither side has any expectations. Work finished, goodbye.

I am never selfless when it comes to you, nor are you. I too want you to love me, want you to suddenly miss me sometimes even when sitting among countless acquaintances and well-wishers, a houseful of people, or your closest ones. Even after making room for everyone else in the world, I want a small space to remain for me too—a place where no one else can even set foot, a place that belongs to me alone and no one else, such a secure place for me. I want all this. I am not a person without expectations.

You too want me to think about you, to understand you, to write stories and poems about you, and for no one else to be in the words of those writings. These desires somehow come to us... even when we don't want them to. What you call expectation is sometimes also a right.

Where there's no relationship, there's no expectation either. Doesn't the absence of expectations grant a license for recklessness?

You have no wants from my roommate because she's nobody to you. But you've always had expectations of me, and I of you, because you are many things to me, and I am many things to you, which isn't the case with others. Whether we want it or not, we have to live with all this.

From this same sense of entitlement, I mistakenly thought your room was mine alone, my own household. Can one really stay with someone whose room isn't mine alone? I got neither the room nor my own person... so did I really get anything at all?

At the end of the day, you return to the house you've built on land inherited from your ancestors, expecting comfort and shelter. Because that house, its walls, doors, windows, even the soil itself—it's all yours. You don't go stay at your neighbor's house, do you? Have you ever thought about the pain in the hearts of those who must?

When a person realizes that the room they consider home isn't actually their room, that's exactly when they become an outsider. That's exactly when they slowly drift away and gradually disappear... just as you lost me and I lost you long, long ago, crushed under the weight of "no expectations."

People end up living with those they once thought they'd never even meet. Is there really no expectation here? Can one keep someone around with absolutely no expectations? And even if they do, does anything of themselves remain with that person?