Bones S05E02

Great advice from Sweets tonight: be the student! Learning from someone can be a great way to strengthen your relationship with them. Quite aside from the benefits of gaining new information or a new skill, being a student for someone sends a number of valuable messages. It says that you value their knowledge, trust their judgment, share their interests. There is also an element of power in the role of teacher; submitting to another's authority also indicates that you trust them.

These signs are all doubly valuable in a relationship like the one between Bones and Booth. Particularly bright and talented people sometimes avoid anything they aren't good at, attempting to preserve an illusion that they are good at everything. Learning something new inevitably involves uncertainty and even the occasional failure, and failure can be terrifying when you're used to success. Letting someone else see you fail may seem scary, like exposing a crack in your armor. But imperfections are humanizing, and draw people together. If you don't admit to needing support in some area, nobody will ever be able to provide it.