Openness In Relationships

Openness is not the same as honesty, but the two are inseparably linked in that there is no true openness without honesty.  The lack of ability to see into the minds of others means that before at least one party tries to reveal part of their life with someone else, there is always the possibility that honesty will lead to misunderstandings or outright hostility.   No fully rationalistic person makes assumptions, but many people are not rationalists, and they might be easily frightened or angered, unnecessarily, of course, by genuine honesty and openness even when there is nothing to object to.  Despite this, openness is a key component of any deep friendship or thriving romantic partnership.

Even two people who are very familiar with each other can still be reluctant to reveal certain aspects of themselves.  If this is logically possible when it comes to some who have already bonded with each other, the personal stakes can be far higher when first getting to know someone.  There is almost always far more room for potential (but fully avoidable) misunderstanding when there has not been any prior time spent communicating with someone.  Still, anyone who wants a relationship built on truth and deep intimacy, things that rationalists certainly want out of their closest relationships, must journey into openness.

This does not mean that literally every single trivial thought needs to be shared with friends or romantic partners.  In some cases, that could be annoying and place strain on a relationship, but the more foundational fact of the matter is that this is unnecessary even for deep bonding.  It is merely true that the strongest, most mutual, and most holistic relationships will feature a willingness to both introspect deeply and share details about each partner's lives, though not all details are automatically relevant.  It is things like philosophical knowledge, personality traits, and mental health that need to be communicated first and foremost, for they will dictate more than other things if a relationship if worthy of lasting and merely able to last more than all else.

While some things are much more central to a person's existence than others--such as their worldview--far more than just the most foundational or bare minimum things can be shared, and indeed need to be shared if a nonromantic or romantic relationship is ever to progress beyond a state of avoidable superficiality, or just skip that state completely.  A true, lasting unwillingness to show one's true self to a friend or significant other is more than just an unhelpful trend.  It quite literally hinders the potential for relationship stability and might even weaken what progress has been made.

All people who desire to be deeply known by someone else (as deeply known as epistemological limitations allow for, at least) and to in turn be deeply familiar with them will find themselves unable to bring this about without mutual openness that spans the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual components of human life.  Without rationalism, moreover, the only sound grasp of this and its ramifications that a person has is left to chance, in danger of being overturned by assumptions and arbitrary yielding to emotionalism.  It is not just the worldviews and existential standing of a person that are illuminated by rationalism, but the very relationships that are worthy of the greatest investment.