There are two ways relationships can work. Either you carefully track the balance of your contributions, making sure no one owes anyone anything. Or you allow ongoing imbalance, trusting that different types of value will flow in different directions over time.
The first creates transactions. The second creates relationships.
When I first moved to the UK, my father and I bunked with my grandparents. In the living room was an appropriately named ‘grandfather clock’. Beneath its glass panel swung a mesmeric brass pendulum. I’d sit and watch it as time disappeared.
It worked like many successful relationships do. If you force both sides into perfect equilibrium, the system becomes static. The clock doesn’t tick. But when you allow asymmetry, you create motion.
Each person trying to give more than they receive generates energy that compounds. The swings get bigger. The relationship deepens.
The motion only stops under three conditions:
complete inaction,
forced reciprocity that kills the energy, or
sustained lack of response from one side.
So long as both parties keep trying to create asymmetry in their favour—to be the one who gives more—the relationship stays alive.
Consider how Renaissance patronage actually worked. The Medici family didn’t commission specific works from Michelangelo for agreed prices. They provided ongoing support—housing, materials, stipends—without itemising deliverables. The statement was “I believe in your work, here are resources, create what you must.”
This is gift logic, not market logic, even though money changed hands. Commission work (pay me X for painting Y) is transactional. Patronage (I support you because I believe in what you do) operates on entirely different principles.
The difference lies in the expectation structure.The Medici gained something they literally couldn’t buy through normal transactions: immortality, cultural influence, a legacy that outlasted their banking empire. Michelangelo got something he couldn’t get from a commission: creative freedom, the space to develop over decades rather than delivering to specifications.
Your instinct might be to worry about exploitation; about one party overextending while the other extracts value. But to do so conflates asymmetry with unidirectionality. The most successful asymmetric relationships have different currencies flowing in different directions.
The mentor spending a hundred hours with a student isn’t losing billable work simply because there’s a ‘price on their time’. They’re gaining something they cannot purchase: intellectual legacy, the satisfaction of developing talent, and often a lifelong collaborator who will extend their ideas into the future. These aren’t consolation prizes for being generous. They’re entirely different forms of value.
The ledger doesn’t balance
Value in relationships isn’t fungible. This matters enormously.
When you insist on paying a friend for helping you move house, you’re not being fair—you’re trying to close the relationship ledger. You’re saying “I owe you nothing now.” But keeping that obligation open, accepting that gentle asymmetry, is what deepens the bond. It’s an act of trust, vulnerability, and respect to say “I won’t forget what you did.”
The alternative—settling the balance immediately—is what you do with people you don’t trust. Cash transactions. Professional services. I feel comfortable owing nothing because I don’t actually trust this to last, therefore I’d rather not be in position I need to trust them.
We love our friends because they make us feel trusted and needed.
We developed market economies precisely to handle strangers efficiently. But insisting on market logic in intimate relationships destroys them.Open sourcing leads to greater returns
There’s a software called Linux which runs most of the internet. Android operates on Linux. It’s foundational technology created through gift economy principles. A programmer called Linus Torvalds gave away thousands of hours while building it. He “lost” enormous potential licensing revenue by making it freely available.
But he gained influence, reputation, and a legacy no amount of money could buy. The asymmetry didn’t diminish his value, it created it. And as a result Linux spread far further than if he’d tried to maintain a tight grip on it.
The same pattern appears with ‘Ruby on Rails’ – a widely used coding language. David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) gave it away freely, which built his company Basecamp’s entire brand and made him an industry leader. Python, JavaScript frameworks, most modern development tools—the entire software industry runs on gift logic at its foundation.
The asymmetry generates different value: influence, hiring pipeline, community, speaking opportunities, consulting leverage. Some forms of value only emerge through apparent imbalance.
Market logic is for strangers. Gift logic is for everyone who matters. The confusion between them destroys relationships that should thrive.
When you bring transactional thinking into gift relationships, you kill the pendulum’s motion. The relationship becomes a series of settled accounts rather than an ongoing exchange. You stifle the bond by trying to perfect it.
The best relationships are unfair ones. Where both sides feel like they’re getting the better deal, and fight to be in the ‘giving’ seat.
