1/26/21
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
- Rumi
We are a social species. Without human connection, even something like a vacation could lose some of its charm. Even in the holiday season, it’s clear that what makes it so special is the people, the love, and the feelings. Connection is so valuable, and for me it’s responsible for the best moments of the year and my life. In my opinion, it’s the biggest thing that the pandemic has partially robbed us of, and mental health across the country has been damaged due to the lack of interpersonal connection. Connection corresponds with longer, healthier lives. Having people around eases stresses which in turn lowers inflammation in the body. Nothing I have said is likely new to you, but it’s all part of why intimate relationships are so sought after, and marriage is often regarded as the most important decision in one’s life.
So, yeah, romantic love is important, Jack, we knew that. Well, if it’s so important, why do we rarely confront the conversation around starting it? I know that no one has ever talked to me directly about what’s important in starting a relationship and the characteristics that are helpful in it.
Acceptance of a wide range of partners used to be important -- when there were saber-tooth tigers around… now, choice in relationships is important to select partners that fit well with you. Choice, past a certain point, can be paralyzing. As explored in Barry Schwartz’s Ted talk, choice is a sort of paradox. Esther Perel also said that now the shame in leaving a relationship is gone, because it’s the “society where I deserve to be happy.” However, I’d argue that some amount of choice is a positive, and the negative effects and stresses that come with having many choices can be diminished if you’re aware of them. There is marginal happiness and value gained with each “better” choice, but past a certain point the mental wear to achieve it is greater, and it’s better to just stay where you are. Especially in relationships, the work you have put in has value, too, and the accumulation of positive experiences often makes that relationship better than a seemingly attractive alternative. So, for the sake of my argument I’ll say that choice is good, and that there are things to evaluate in yourself and another when starting to date.
One of these things that can matter to the well-being of a partnership is personal traits, and roles that society sees, or at least has seen, as gender-specific. Really, men and women are a lot closer than we may think. Behavior differences between men and women often aren’t statistically significant in studies, and when they are, they aren’t large. So, genders aren’t really “opposite,” because we are all human and that leads us to be closer than we realize, and different genders may just be “other.” Society over time has set two categories for gender characteristics -- masculine and feminine -- and has, until the last few decades, left little room for crossover or simultaneity. A man traditionally was mostly assertive, ambitious, decisive, and tough, while a true woman was tender, kind, sensitive, and emotional. It’s starkly clear in older films or films that portray older eras (cough -- Queen’s Gambit -- cough), and in these times the genders were further apart in behavior than they are now. Now, the term androgynous is coming into play, and in a lot of ways it’s more desirable to be in a relationship, as it leaves room for more common ground between partners. Being androgynous means having the instrumental traits as well as expressive ones -- for example being self-reliant and warm at the same time: “An androgynous person would be one who could effectively, emphatically stand up for himself or herself in a heated salary negotiation but who could then go home and sensitively, compassionately comfort a preschool child whose pet hamster had died” (Rowland Miller). Having an understanding of which of these traits you would want in a partner and which ones you have/want in yourself makes connection easier.
Another thing to consider in the beginning is attachment styles. Attachment styles are built from nature and genes but also from the formation of behavior through past experiences. This means that it can change in the future, too. Paramount to the discussion on attachment styles are two dimensions: avoidance/openness to intimacy and anxiety/comfort around the idea of abandonment. Someone with low avoidance and anxiety is said to be secure, while high in both is a fearful person.
(Rowland Miller -- Intimate Relationships)
Anyone who falls in any quadrant of the map has a reason to be that way. Secure mothers are more likely to have secure babies, while being cheated on is a reason to stray up and left. Seeing certain behaviors in yourself will allow you to identify what in the relationship is due to your partner vs. what is due to your nature and experience. Sometimes, anxious partners have no reason to be, but identifying that leads to growth, both personally and in the relationship.
Lastly, I want to mention the idea of love languages. If you haven’t heard of them, they come from a book by Gary Chapman, where he talked about how different people have different needs and values when it comes to giving and receiving love. The love languages he pioneered are acts of service, physical touch, words of affirmation, receiving gifts, and quality time. They are each self-explanatory, but here is a quiz to find out which ones are valuable to you. In my experience, every single person has some unique combination of these, and understanding them allows you to see who you are as a lover; it gives you a peek into how you are caring for those you love and what matters to you when receiving love from another. I’ve learned a ton about how I act based on seeing this, and knowing others’ values has led me to be better for them, too.
There are just so many variables when it comes to starting a new relationship, but often much of starting new relationships is in learning about yourself. Rumi pointed it out well -- we all have barriers to love, but identifying them surely opens us up and makes us better at the act of love.
- Jack
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