“No, you fed me scampi, and then you fed me pizza. The only tit for tat is spending an evening in your house, then one in mine.”
“Fair point. But with the good stuff in Principled Reciprocity, there is also a penalty. If you do something bad to me,” Dakota said, “expect the same from me. And here I can see how you and Neesa intertwined the Prisoner’s Dilemma. If both do an act of kindness, both win. If someone does an act of kindness and it’s met with a negative, the relationship loses.”
“And it’s doomed when both prisoners decide to be rats,” Rylee said. “In the game of Principled Reciprocity, it’s rarely an even back and forth. Sometimes you do two or three nice things in a row. Scampi and pizza.”
“Keep going.”
“I think that we have days of strength and days of weakness. Months of health and vigor and weeks of ill health when we need to lean more heavily.”
“You can’t show up with the same level of energy all the time,” Dakota agreed. “It would be good if I don’t feel like cooking, the other person takes on that task. When someone doesn’t feel like changing the oil, I don’t mind.”
“When we’re both just whipped and sad because of the things we’ve dealt with that day, we order takeout and collapse on the sofa in each other’s arms. But those are followed by days of adventure and boisterous laughter. Races to the tops of the mountains, and awe while standing in front of a painting that says everything that I could never put into words.” Rylee took a bite from her pizza, then covered her mouth with her hand to add. “It’s the dream.”
“I don’t think it’s a fantasy. Although it’s aspirational, sure. And communication is key.”
“And kindness,” Rylee added.
“Always.”
“Not always. I’m divorced, so I can promise you, it’s definitely not ‘always.’”
“How long ago?”
“Seven? No, eight, almost nine years ago. The end came from a revelation that began when I was deployed to Cameroon to help with a natural disaster. I speak French, but I practiced with native French speakers from France. Could I converse in Cameroon? Yes, but it was a strain and exhausting. When I found an English speaker, even one with a heavy accent, it was a relief. This was when people started talking about different love languages back in the States. I wondered if my then-husband had tried so hard to communicate in my love language that he was simply tired, like I was when I tried to speak in Cameroon.Maybe what needed to happen was that I focus on the way he expressed devotion, not how I received it.”
“Interesting,” Dakota said.
“Your love language is acts of service, I’m right, aren’t I?” Rylee asked.
“That,” Dakota said. “And quality time. Yours is service, too, or you wouldn’t have your job.”
Physical touch is up on that list, Rylee thought, but simply said. “Mine are the same as yours.”
“Your ex?” Dakota asked.
“Yeah, I thought in our relationship, maybe I was seeing things in a monolithic way. I didn’t want to say I knew the only way to love and perhaps we had incompatible love languages and that lack of communication was affecting us—me, he seemed fine—over time.”
“Listening.”
“So I’m going to call my efforts to engage with him a bid for attention. Like I’ve seen Tank communicate with you. Tank looks to you, you look back. He walks under your hand, and you give him a couple of scritches. He puts his paw on your foot. That kind of thing.”
“We’re communicating our affection or information,” Dakota said, turning to Tank.
Tank lifted his head to check in and, seeing the calm room and no signal, he lay back down.
“Imagine what would happen if Tank didn’t get those returned gestures from you?”
“He’d increase his attention seeking, and then it would fall off. Eventually, he’d stop trying and just go off to do his own thing.”
“Right, so after I got married, that’s what happened,” Rylee said. “It was almost as if my ex thought, ‘caught me a fish. It’s flopping in my boat, that’s all that’s necessary.”
Dakota’s face clouded.
“So after Cameroon, I realized my ex had a love language that he used with his friends, and that his interactions with me were more transactional conversations about running the house and finances. My bids for attention went unnoticed, and eventually, I didn’t care anymore. So I left.”
Dakota slowly shook his head as a frown tugged at his lips.
For some reason, Rylee felt the need to apologize to the man.
