About a couple of weeks ago i had the following YM chat with a friend:
Friend: So, my new girlfriend has a past that has been bothering me.
Me: you mean?
Friend: Well, now i feel like i’m going out with her so that i can help her out.
Me: ??? But you’re doing that because you love her, or just ’cause?
Friend: Well, i did love her but after knowing about the past, my motive changed.. i wanna fix her.
lt takes me a while before l could come up with a reply. That, my friend, is a classic example of Knight in A Shining Armor syndrome. Remember when we were young and we read all those lovely fairy tale about a beautiful princess locked in a tower, guarded by a dragon, and one day a prince on a back of white hose came, fought the dragon, and saved the princess? *Phew, that was long*. That is what it is: He is trying to be a hero who’s saving his damsel in distress.
What distract me the most is how his motive changed after knowing the girl’s past. instead of being in a relationship because he’s in love with her, he merely wants to “fix” her. is he making her his own little charity case? A person’s action are seldom altruistic. is someone being nice to others just because she likes being nice to other people? She’s being nice to them so that they will in return be nice to her back, won’t you feel the same? This might sound cynical, but if you think about it, even a religious person acts according to his/her religion, so that he/she will be rewarded for it, hence the believe in heaven and hell: Those who live according to God’s teachings will pass on to heaven, and those who don’t, will pass on to hell. Even the “good feeling” you get after you help a stranger in the street is also a reward, hence it is hard to say that a person’s action is purely selfless. Furthermore, many people loves to be needed, hence they opt for those heroic behavior. True that being needed by others will give someone a sense of importance, and in relationship it’s related to co-dependency. However, i came across people who also believe that because their partners need them, their partners would never leave them. Sigh, another example that people’s action are hardly altruistic.
Another question i raised was if it is also an example of sexism. Why would something that is helpful to a woman is considered sexism? Men’s chivalrous action came from the long existing beliefs that men are supposedly more powerful than women, that women are weaker, so men must always protect women. That, my friend, is benevolent sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996). All these will also applied if the role is swapped: the girl is the one who said she wants to change her boyfriend (and i heard cases like this too). She probably will act that way because, like most of us believe, women are believed to be more nurturing, hence the need the help the men. Both ways, the sexism is further affirmed because one party believes he/she is better than the other.
To end this rant, i need to point out that i am not against men being nice to women. What i was sad about is (and the whole point of this rant) those people who are in a relationship that is based on pity. it is no more than a big fat lie, both to your partner and to yourself when you are in such a relationship. i believe in human power to help others, but isn’t one of the important point in a relationship is to accept your partner the way he/she is?
