To be “unplugged” from relationship culture and be you.

Ariel A. Tabaks
The Coffeelicious
Published in
2 min readMar 7, 2015

Our surrounding community has a big influence on our decisions towards how we manage relationships. In behavioral science, it’s called Social proof — people look towards other people to make decisions.

Whenever we have to make a decision how to react toward a human being, we will think unconsciously about relationship culture. Either we are nice towards that person, candid or self involved, it all comes down to our cultural roots.

“It all comes down to our cultural roots.”

These roots come from all sorts of places. Most of them come from our families, but also from television. For example a girl would develop an understanding of how she should react to someone she like, by watching romantic films.

If we go back to our childhood, we will remember that at that time there were no rules on how to manage relationships, it was natural to be in sync with our instincts. Of course, these gut feelings were driven by emotions.

If you as a child were the bravest little champ, you would easily talk and gain friendships. However, if you were shy it was a different story. But it didn’t take long to overcome the shyness and play with other kids.

To be unplugged from relationship culture is to go back to the roots of natural instincts. The best relationship managers are those who know the good cultural rules, but also know the rules that are holding them back.

It is common for them to use phrases like “You are important to me”, “I like you”, “We can be friends”. Lines that we used when we were kids.

Phrases like “I like you”.

Relationship gardeners are being true to themselves. The best ones have a unique ability to manage their own thoughts in an order to not be influenced by culture, but to overcome it by seeing what others don’t.

They are the first ones to start a conversation with a stranger. They are the first ones to call an old friend just to catch up.

It's not common for them to use Facebook to catch up, because everyone else is doing that.

Austris Tabaks / Lytham St Annes, United Kingdom

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Ariel A. Tabaks
The Coffeelicious

Expectation management, expectation positioning. Fresh ideas from a 24 year old living in UK