An important lesson about dyadic interaction is that different people want to interact with you in different ways and at different times (different shared project, different modes of communication, etc.) Some people may not want to interact with you at all. Trying to discuss modern art with someone who doesn’t care about modern art, or trying to go bowling with someone who doesn’t like bowling, is like trying to fit a puzzle piece in a spot where it doesn’t fit. There is no generalization that can tell you how to deal with this problem. Having a philosophy of puzzle-solving that “puzzle pieces generally fit” or “puzzle pieces generally don’t fit” is obviously too simplistic – so why should it work for humans?
There may be a temptation to analyze one’s past in terms of the aforementioned theory of dyadic interaction, and to figure out how one could have won over this or that person. But most of the time, the reason an interaction didn’t work is that you were trying to fit a puzzle piece in a spot where it doesn’t fit. Maybe that person wasn’t right for you overall, or they just weren’t right for the kind of activity you wanted to do with them. People might try a certain shared project for a while, but if it isn’t really their thing, they might eventually stop wanting to do it. That’s not your fault.
The fact that people are like puzzle pieces, which may or may not fit in a certain way, is what I’ll call dyadic specificity. A useful exercise is to go through your past interactions or relationships and acknowledge that when they didn’t work, it wasn’t because you or they were a bad person overall, but because the puzzle piece didn’t fit in the way you wanted it to fit – at least, not at that time in your and their life. You may never know exactly why it didn’t fit; they may not know either. Think about relationships that didn’t work out: can you say exactly why they didn’t work? Have you changed your mind about that from time to time throughout your life?
This is important because if you think that “not fitting” means “I am doing something wrong” then it is possible to unlearn many good behaviors. Someone rejected you while you were doing a lot of household chores? You might conclude: it must be that people don’t appreciate household chores! In this case, I would say no – it might mean that this person doesn’t appreciate the chores; or it might mean that the lack of fit was related to some entirely different problem unrelated to the chores. Someone rejected you while you were being kind? You think: it must be that people don’t appreciate kindness! Again, I would say that this person doesn’t appreciate kindness, or else the lack of fit was about some other thing. If you don’t know about dyadic specificity, you might give up on your true strengths (doing chores, kindness) because you think that if this person didn’t appreciate me, then no one will appreciate me. I must completely change myself.
No universal connections
Nexus State Theory is mostly about effort leading to pleasure when one is alone, and only secondarily about dyadic relationships. In this essay, I’ve mentioned Intrapersonal Default Human Range activities, such as mindfulness, that can be pursued independently of others. Arguably, the central moral of Nexus State Theory is that there is a time to be with others and a time to be alone; these times usually are not permanent but rather they are intermingled with one another. (“A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,” Ecclesiastes 3:5). Even in a committed, continuous relationship there are moments of difficulty and moments of easiness.
This is not to say that one shouldn’t highly value connection! Connection comes from valuing love and seeking others passionately. If you have to choose between love and wisdom, I recommend choosing love. However, one must be partly open to the kinds of connection that others want as well as the times at which they want to connect. One must be loving but not too rigid in one’s love. One cannot write down a theory of connection and then expect others to abide by that theory. That strategy will result in a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit. (Which is not a huge disaster! You don’t have to live life in fear of a puzzle piece not fitting. Sometimes the puzzle piece doesn’t fit – and sometime you or the other person are just having a bad day. If you always treat the latter like the former, you’ll miss out.)
A possible barrier to appreciating Nexus State Theory is to believe in universal connections. If I figured out the right approach to humans, the theory goes, then I would be appreciated by everyone, all the time. This approach would be universal, applying to all (or almost all) humans. Therefore, any time we are alone, it means we have failed to find the universal connection, which means we have failed at connecting to others. This means that when we are alone, our thoughts are tinged with regret or a sense of failure that ruins the pleasure we could derive from Intrapersonal Default Human Range states. We imagine that we would be much happier if we were with someone right now; the fact that we are walking alone in a forest is tantamount to admitting that no one wants to talk to us at this moment, and the purpose of walking in the forest can only be to prepare us for a conversation with others.
There are several flaws with this thought process:
- Some people don’t want to connect with a universal connector. They want to connect with a specific connector – someone who likes them specifically and even needs them specifically. Not everyone values specificity highly, but enough people do value it that there are significant limits to seeking a universal connection.
- In any case, there really is no universal connector – because of dyadic specificity. Different people will want to connect with us in different ways. No one approach (not even the approach recommended by the dyadic theory in this essay) will serve as a universal connector.
- A connector can fail to be universal in several ways: (1) a particular person might never want that puzzle piece, (2) a particular person might sometimes, but not always, want that puzzle piece. Thinking of a connector as universal is inaccurate because it ignores both of these failure modes. If you think your connector is universal, you may also misjudge people’s motives: you may think that they are being “dominant” by refusing to connect in the way you want, but actually that just isn’t their way (or time) of connecting. This may lead to unnecessary resentment.
- We likely wouldn’t enjoy being with people all the time. People often need time to themselve to cool down, re-energize, or relax.
- A person who values pleasure only as an instrument toward getting connection (and not the other way around) is likely to be unhappy, because “you often get what you ask for.” I.e. a person who prioritizes connection even above happiness is likely to be unhappily connected with others. This isn’t sustainable in any case, because being unhappily connected with others teaches the lesson that “effort doesn’t lead to pleasure” and is therefore self-defeating; it might eventually sap one’s desire to be with others in any case.
Choosing love over wisdom: the limits of Nexus State Theory
At the same time – there is a reason that the message of many religions is to value love. Caring for others, trying to fit the puzzle pieces again and again, is valuable. For this reason, I would say that Nexus State Theory is not the highest philosophy; it is a minor addendum to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Nexus State Theory is my contribution, perhaps, but it is a delta contribution (a correction) rather than a foundational contribution. Love is foundational, caution about puzzle pieces is a secondary thing – a generally good idea, but not the Big Idea. It can be worthwhile to disembed oneself from suffocating love, from mismatched love, and from trapped love – but these are minor capabilities compared with the capacity to love others.
Nexus State Theory 