[lovich]

Transactional relationships are completely fine, and personally I prefer them in the work space.

I was commenting on people who’s behavior creates transactional relationships when they wanted something with a deeper interpersonal relationships, and people whose behavior causes transactional relationships but also have nothing of value to make the transaction worth it.

If a billionaire calls me up once every five years for a favor but pays me a couple of million for it, I’ll take the call any day.

If someone I met at college a few times calls me up once every few years when they got laid off and only are talking to me for a reference but are never in a position to to help me, what reason do I have to help them other than a feeling of charity?

I guess I’m saying you shouldn’t treat others as impersonal machines to be manipulated unless you are ok with that same behavior being turned back on yourself.

[tejaskumar_]

> I guess I’m saying you shouldn’t treat others as impersonal machines to be manipulated unless you are ok with that same behavior being turned back on yourself.

This! However if you'll allow me—I think it's worth saying we shouldn’t treat others as impersonal machines to be manipulated _at all_ because we're never really okay with that same behavior being given back to us because of millenia of social, communal evolution.

[Dracophoenix]

What one may call the treatment of an "impersonal machine" is another's assessment of what an appropriate relationship looks like. Some people prefer such associations even in deeper relationships because it prevents one person's encroachment upon another's individual agency and minimizes (or at least clarifies) the incurrence of "social debt" between the two parties rather than assume mutually shared rules of engagement right off the bat.

[lovich]

>This! However if you'll allow me—I think it's worth saying we shouldn’t treat others as impersonal machines to be manipulated _at all_ because we're never really okay with that same behavior being given back to us because of millenia of social, communal evolution.

That’s an argument I think I agree with but am not ready to defend tonight.

It’s much easier to defend the point that if you treat me solely as a resource to be exploited then you shouldn’t be surprised if others or myself treat you solely as a resource to be exploited