Rejection, a short story by Franz Kafka shows the priorities in a relationship. What do we want from the other gender. What is the basis of relationships. The story goes like this,

When I meet a pretty girl and beg her: "Be so good as to come with me," and she walks past without a word, this is what she means to say:

"You are no Duke with a famous name, no broad American with a Red Indian figure, level, brooding eyes and a skin tempered by the air of the prairies and the rivers that flow through them, you have never journeyed to the seven seas and voyaged on them wherever they may be, I don't know where. So why, pray, should a pretty girl like myself go with you?"

"You forget that no automobile swings you through the street in long thrusts; I see no gentlemen escorting you in a close half-circle, pressing on your skirts from behind and murmuring blessings on your head; your breasts are well laced into your bodice, but your thighs and hips make up for that restraint, you are wearing a taffeta dress with a pleated skirt such as delighted all of us last autumn, and yet you smile - inviting mortal danger from time to time."

"Yes, we're both in the right, and to keep us from being irrevocably aware of it. hadn't we better just go our separate ways home?"

I asked the Ask Ap feature on Acharya Prashant app that if our deep-seated need for human connection is merely an egoic attachment, how can we overcome it if it possesses a risk to our well-being?

The answer I got:

"As long as you are giving me pleasure and satisfying my needs, there will be peace. The day you stop, there will be war.” This is the usual social contract in which we exchange pleasures and dependencies. This is why there is a lot of violence. But there can be another way of relating to the other, where you are existentially complete within. There can now be beautiful, loving, compassionate relationships because you are not looking to be a parasite or a commander."

Let me know if you learned something new.

Rejection by Franz Kafka.