I received this email from cousin Christopher. It is really really long but bloody good read for everyone out there.
Love is possible only if two persons communicate with each other from the center of their existence - Erich Fromm
She shifted her posture. Her head tilted slightly, her shoulders lifted, and she gently fluffed her auburn hair. Suddenly, our eyes locked for a moment. She smiled, then slowly dropped her eyelids; tilted her head down and to the side. I felt dizzy and faint, as if my legs had turned to warm lead. But I wasn’t about to let this signal go unanswered. If I was reading her body language correctly—and I was—she was giving me the universal signal to approach. I did.
Without saying a word I walked toward her and reached for her hand. Every nerve ending in my fingers carried a rush of excitement to my brain. We looked at each other, only for a moment, but I could have described every contour of her face.
“Has everyone found a partner?” the voice over the loudspeaker asked. Then, suddenly, through the same crackling sound system, the piano pounded, the fiddle jumped, and the pulse pushed through the gymnasium as a latent charge of prepubescent neuro chemicals enveloped the building.
From there on the caller’s cues determined our actions. Along with thirty other awkward sixth-grade couples we kicked hack from each other, then pulled together again. For eight long heats, we stared into each other’s eyes. All else faded into the background. You guessed it. We were in gym class learning to square dance . . . and I was in love.
Her name was Caroline O’Toole, if I’m not mistaken. We never spoke a word to each other, and I can’t tell you a thing about her life now. But I still remember the feelings I had that day in the gym. This girl, I thought (or should I say I felt), was the one for inc. My feelings were too magical, too strong to mean anything else.
Not much changes as we mature. Love, it seems, is ruled by overpowering, unexplainable, mystical emotions. The ancient Greeks compared falling in love to going insane. So have modern writers. “It is the taking over of a rational and lucid mind by delusion and self-destruction,” writes American author Marilyn French. “You lose yourself, you have no power over yourself, you can’t even think straight.”’
Researchers have verified these hunches about the dizzying effect of falling in love. Michael Liehowitz of New York State Psychiatric Institute has shown that when a passionate attraction occurs, a chemical substance (called phenylethylamine) is released in the brain, causing feelings of elation and excitement, along with physical sensations such as light-headedness and a sense of being short of breath.
Even before there were scientific experiments, poets and philosophers had long noted the psychological effects of love. As Nietzsche put it: “Love is the state in which man sees things most widely different from what they are. The force of illusion reaches its zenith here.” Shakespeare put it this way: “Love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit.” And William Blake had his say on the subject as well: “Love ... breaks all chains from every mind.”
Indeed, steamy starts do not promote our best thinking. Intense emotions often block us from taking a careful and objective look at ourselves, the person we are dating, and the relationship we are forming together. Falling in love tells us nothing about whether a relationship is healthy or good for us. Intense feelings of love, no matter how consuming, are hardly a measure of true and enduring closeness. But tell that to our feelings.
Too many people lose their mind when they fall in love. And that’s when the real insanity—and eventual heartache—begins. This chapter provides an alternative. We call it smart love. And it will help you evaluate your romantic relationships with your head, not just your heart. We begin by defining exactly what smart love is and devote the hulk of the chapter to showing you how it works. We conclude with a brief discussion on keeping your love life sane once you’ve found somebody to love.
One more thing before we begin. If you think it’s somehow less exhilarating or romantic to fall in love with your brain turned on, ask yourself this: Would you bungee jump without the cord? Of course not. And if your love life is void of critical capacities, you’re headed for certain disaster. This chapter will help you keep your critical capacities intact and the thrill alive.
WHAT’S YOUR LOVE I.Q.?
Imagine walking into a crowded room, briefly milling around, and then with the help of a little computer technology, knowing, without ever saying a word, whether anyone there might be a good match for you as a dating partner. Sound like sci-fi? Not to researchers at M.I.T’s Media Lab who designed Thinking Tags.’
These little wearable computers seek out other “smart” tags in a room and swap data. The microchip-driven, infrared-transmitting cards are programmable by the wearer, who is asked to input responses to five questions designed to help you click with another. At a Thinking Tag get-together, people wander about and let their badges do the work. When they approach within five feet of each other, pairs of tags display their results in a neat row of five red and green lights. According to the inventors, you dispense with all the tired chitchat and immediately know whether it’s worth the brain cycles to attempt social intercourse.
If this artificial-intelligence approach to interaction seems a bit, well, artificial, we understand. Thinking Tags, as far as we know, are far from catching on. When it comes to getting to know one another, most people still opt for old-fashioned communication (even if it’s on the Internet). But you don’t have to sacrifice relational intelligence if you’re not wearing a smart tag. Not if you have what we call a high Love I.Q.
Have you ever thought about your intelligence when it comes to love? Not your understanding of its history or origins. But your capacity to keep your wits about you when you’re engulfed by its mysterious emotions. That’s what smart love is all about. It doesn’t take the fun out of feeling.
Smart love is still love, thrills and all, only wiser. More focused. More observant. Smart love doesn’t allow you to delude yourself into believing something that isn’t true. It may, for example, point out that the person you’re with is the person you’re better off without. On the other hand, it may help you see clearly that the person you re with makes you a better person.
It may give you confidence to know that your relationship is headed in the right direction.
While your heart is sweetly distracted by all the possibilities, smart love keeps you aware of what is taking place. You still swoon and sigh, but you also consider facts and make intelligent choices. Smart love is all about falling in love without losing your mind.
HOW SMART LOVE WORKS
Most people put more time and energy into planning a dinner party or shopping for a car than they do seeking a mate who is right for them. Unfortunately, there are serious consequences when romance is left entirely to chance. Oh, we know, it sounds so businesslike to talk “strategy” when it comes to dating. “You should just let it happen,” we often hear. But that’s a cop-out. If you’re going to date smart you have to think smart.
Have you considered the kinds of things you want in a dating relationship? What qualities are you looking for in another person? What traits, skills, abilities would fit the bill for you? Whether you’ve made your “shopping list” or not, we’ve got to tell you that it may he deceiving. Unless you are practicing smart love, what you think you’re looking for may be off the mark.
Thirty years ago when college students were asked to rank the attributes that are important to them in a potential date, they almost never put looks at the top of the list. But what they said was not always consistent with what they did.
In a classic study where more than seven hundred college students were matched at a “computer dance,” the researchers assessed each student’s intelligence, aptitude, social skills, personality traits, and physical attractiveness. During an intermission at the dance, and again a few months later, the students were asked in private how much they liked their dates. The only variable that predicted their answers was attractiveness.
Today’s students are a little more honest, if not superficial. When asked to indicate the most important quality in a dating partner, they don’t hesitate. “Looks” is the first word they utter.’ So let’s all be honest, the secret’s out: whether we admit it or not, physical attractiveness tops the list of desirable dating qualities. Is this wrong? Absolutely not. Sex appeal is part of God’s design. But here’s the clincher: there’s far more to a dating relationship than looks. The truth is physical attractiveness is a good spring, but a poor regulator. It gets love going but it doesn’t keep love going.
Smart love understands this and looks beneath the surface. Smart love looks beyond beauty to find sustaining principles for lasting love, a love that may uphold lifelong marriage. After all, the divorce rate is so high, according to Yale researcher Robert Steinberg, not because people make foolish choices, but because they are drawn together for reasons that matter less as time goes on In other words, the force that brings a couple together—physical attractiveness—has little to do with what keeps them together. For too long, couples have based the start of their relationship on superficialities and then hoped for the best. But there’s a better way. You no longer need to leave the future of your relationship to chance.
So stop torturing daisies—there’s a whole new way to rate your love life. It has to do with playing it smart; it has to do with raising your love I.Q.
Here’s how it works.
- Smart Love Seeks a Good Match
We’ve all heard it: Opposites attract. But is it true? Hardly. In reality, opposites seldom attract, and if they do they often don’t stay attracted. The old “birds of a feather” thing may sound trite, but it’s the truth. Close relationships are more likely to form and endure with someone who shares your ideas, values, and desires, a person who likes the same music, the same activities, even the same foods. For good reason the prophet Amos wondered, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
How do you know if you have a lot in common? It takes time. And it doesn’t hurt to withhold premature judgments. We have a friend who says she dates “Like Margaret Mead.” On a promising date she brings along her anthropological, oh- isn’t-that- interesting self, observing and recording differences “as if the guy were an alien species.” By considering the first few dates as an expedition, she’s learned to listen more and react less. And it pays off. She doesn’t jump to critical conclusions because he isn’t willing to try Thai food or has a different political view from hers. Over time, she patiently sifts through the dating data to discover whether she and her date are a good match on the things that matter most.
Differences emerge in any close relationship, of course. But smart love knows that for a fighting chance the relationship must be built on common ground. In one famous study of more than three hundred dating couples in Boston, those who eventually broke up were less well-matched in age, educational ambitions, intelligence, and physical attractiveness than those who stayed together: Study after study has found little support for the “opposites attract” idea. Instead, the happiest couples are those with lots of similarities.” To paraphrase Henry Ward Beecher, “A well-matched couple is winged, an ill-matched couple is shackled.” - Smart Love Pays Attention to Values
Five dates into her “last worst relationship,” Cameron overheard Jess on the telephone, screaming at his mother. “I said to myself, he’d never talk to me that way.” One year later, says Cameron, that was about the only way he did talk to her. No big surprise to learn the relationship self-destructed.
The person you date is constantly giving out clues about his or her values. And if you’re smart, you’ll pay attention. Why? Because what a person values reveals the course of your relationship and how you will he treated. If your date respects his younger sister, chances are he’ll respect you too—it’s part of his value system. How a person treats family and friends, however, is just one area where values are revealed.
You’ll also want to pay attention to how that person treats him or herself. Does she see herself as the victim? Is he always blaming others? Money is another realm of revelation when it comes to values. Is this person wise with financial decisions? Generous? How about this person’s commitments? Does he keep his promises? Is she reliable? What about this person’s spiritual values? Does he talk about spiritual issues? Is she on a spiritual quest?
You discover what people value by paying attention to what makes them laugh, what they fear, what they desire, and how they spend their time. And the more you know about their values, the smarter you become about the future of your relationship. - Smart Love Doesn’t Try to Change Others
Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 movie Vertigo startles the audience with several scary scenes, but none is as terrifying as when Kim Novak presents her remade self to Jimmy Stewart. She is dressed in a gray suit and a white blouse, and her hair is done up in a seascape of blond waves. What’s so frightening? Stewart has wholly recreated her in the image of a dead woman he had loved. By making her over he thinks that he has bought a second chance at happiness, but as the plot twists, we realize he has doomed them both.
Doom awaits any relationship where one person is trying to change the other into something or someone they aren’t. And yet that is exactly what dumb love does. We can’t tell you how many people we’ve counseled who believe they can “fix” their date. They are so desperate to he in a relationship they delude themselves into believing a lie—that the flaws they now see in this person will somehow evaporate under the influence of their love. But the flaws remain. Here’s the truth smart lovers know: What you see is what you get, and your chances of changing it are very slim.
When talking with someone who believes they can change another person we sometimes ask them to think how difficult it is to lose three pounds to slightly improve their appearance. They generally concede the struggle. We then ask, “Now, what’s the likelihood of changing an entire personality?”
Let’s make this perfectly clear: A person who recognizes flaws in his or her mate during courtship and vows to do a remake after marriage is simply looking for trouble. Smart love knows better. - Smart Love Doesn’t Try to Change Oneself
Not only does smart love not attempt to change another person, it knows better than to try and change oneself for another person. Twenty-three-year old Judy, unfortunately, hadn’t learned this lesson. When she met Don she couldn’t believe her eyes. “He was gorgeous,” she told us. “He had everything—good looks, self-confidence, a good job, a sense of humor—and I couldn’t believe he was asking me out on a date.” She went on to tell us how her girlfriend’s mother worked in the same office building with Don and could supply “the inside scoop” on him.
Judy learned that Don loved sailing and played saxophone in a jazz band. She learned he had traveled extensively in India. With this and other advanced knowledge of Don, Judy confessed to “brushing up” on her knowledge of sailing, jazz, India, and all things Don. So what’s the problem with doing a little research? Nothing, really.
The problem emerged when on their first date Judy found herself not only being knowledgeable about their “common” interests, but making up little white lies to woo him. “I love Dizzy Gillespie,” she enthusiastically told Don—a day earlier she hadn’t even known who he was. Judy, knowing next to nothing about Indian food, told Don it was her favorite. You can probably guess what happened next. Don thought he had found his soul mate— “It’s almost spooky how much we have in common,” he told her.
Spooky, indeed. A few dates later, the whole relationship fell apart. That’s when Judy walked into our office and confessed a string of similar failed relationships with great potential partners where she became whoever she thought her date wanted her to be. Like a chameleon changing colors to blend in, Judy would contort her likes and dislikes, her whole personality, if she thought it would make her more alluring. It’s no wonder Judy couldn’t maintain an ongoing dating relationship. No one can if they are not true to themselves.
Judy’s pressure to change herself came from within, but we have met plenty of people who felt the same pressure to change from the person they are dating. In either case, being true to yourself is still paramount. If you find you have to alter yourself considerably to fit in with his or her friends, for example, you’ve discovered a danger sign, and it reads, “This isn’t going to work.” Be courageous and move on. “It is better to he hated for what you are,” said André Gide, “than loved for what you are not. - Smart Love Doesn’t Play Games
Let the male take the lead and carry the conversation. Be honest but mysterious—men like a challenge. Don’t return all his calls, and never stay on the phone with him longer than ten minutes. Always he the one who ends a date or a phone call. Never accept a Saturday date if he asks later than Wednesday. Break off the relationship immediately if no gift arrives on your birthday or Valentine’s Day. Rarely say thank you for presents.
There are thirty-five of these sorts of rules in all, according to the Cosmopolitan-style magazine article gussied up as a book that has achieved bestsellerdom.
The Rules, by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider, has also achieved cult status, spawning seminars and support groups around the country. For $250 an hour, fans can get direct phone advice from the authors. The point of the whole thing? Play by the rules and you win Mr. Right. Perhaps. The question we ask is for how long? How long are you willing to play the game? Carry out the charade? Sooner or later the real you will emerge, and then what?
Rules are for games, not relationships. And smart love knows the difference. Games are meant to lure, even manipulate another person into seeing you as someone you’re not. We’re not picking on this little book of codified dating advice. The games people play in dating relationships are nothing new. They’re as old as time. As is the damage they cause. Anytime you project an image that is not real, you are hiding your true self and playing a game you’ll eventually lose. You may win attention, sympathy, or admiration for the moment, hut it won’t last— it’s only a game.
So if you’re looking for love that goes the distance, you’ve got to avoid game playing as much as possible and be real. Consider the childhood game of hide and seek. “Oh, the delicious thrill of hiding while the others come looking for you,” writes French author Jean Baudrillard, “the delicious terror of being discovered, but what panic when, after a long search, the others abandon you!”2 Dating games, played too much and too long, result in the same aloneness. So play a few games if you must, but don’t hide too well. Our advice? We’ll say it again, be who you are and the dates will follow. - Smart Love Doesn’t Run from Conflict
He didn’t follow through on his promise to pick you up at an agreed upon time. She said something embarrassing in front of your friends and you lost it. Whatever the issue, wherever the place, your first fight is inevitable. And you feel devastated. Scared. Disillusioned. Worried that you’ve ruined everything. Well, rest assured, you haven’t. Only dumb love runs from the slightest conflict. Smart love uses the harsh words and hurt feelings to better understand each other and the relationship.
Four weeks into their romance, Todd failed to invite Patricia to a fancy dinner sponsored by his company. Patricia felt hurt but kept it to herself. After all, their relationship was still brand-new. At seven weeks Todd went solo to his high school reunion. Patricia felt annoyed. They’d been dating steadily. Were they not a couple? At three months, Todd told Patricia that he was spending Thanksgiving in California with his former college roommate, not in Seattle with his family and her. “That was when I went ballistic,” says Patricia. This fledgling couple had their first real fight, complete with yelling and crying.
Afterward, they each went home and replayed the fight a thousand times in their heads—until Patricia called Todd. The rest of the night and into the next day, the two of them had their first real conversation about their relationship, about where they each hoped and feared it might go. Todd admitted some resistance to being definitively coupled” hut stressed that the relationship was meaningful to him and he wanted to move it forward.
At the end of their talk, Todd and Patricia felt exhausted and a little fragile. But they also felt closer. “I learned more about who Todd was in this one fight than I had in months of dating.” Patricia knows they’ll eventually argue again, but she also understands that they can use conflict to their advantage. Patricia’s no dummy. - Smart Love Knows the Bottom Line
When Gary and Brenda first met, their dates mostly happened like this: If Gary wanted to see Brenda on the weekend, he called her sometime on Thursday to make plans for Saturday night; otherwise she didn’t hear from him. After weeks of this, Brenda balked. “It felt too unbalanced. I had no control. If I wanted to see him, I had to wait, not make other plans.” And so the Thursday eventually came when Brenda sweetly declared herself busy on Saturday. She turned down dates with Gary until eventually he got the message and changed his pattern.
It’s a little thing, hut it illustrates a big point: Smart love has standards of behavior in a relationship. Smart love has a bottom line that says, This is what I can and cannot live with. Whether it be about common courtesy, seeing other people, or having limits on sex, smart love preserves your dignity, integrity, and well-being.
Everyone’s bottom line is different. We can’t tell you where to draw the line on every issue. That’s your decision. You call the shots about what you can and cannot live with. The point is to know what you want from a dating partner and where you are willing to bend—and where you are not.
Beware: If you are to hold to your bottom line, you must ultimately accept the possibility of being alone. You must be willing to walk if the relationship isn’t allowing your best self to flourish. Here’s the bottom line of smart love: A lousy relationship is never better than no relationship at all.
KEEPING THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE
“All beginnings are lovely,” a French proverb tells us. That’s particularly true of a promising new dating relationship. But no matter how lovely, a beginning is only a beginning. Time will tell if a relationship is built to go the distance. And smart love, not leaving everything up to chance, can once again put the odds of survival in your favor. So we conclude this chapter with one more thought for anyone who has found true love and wants to keep it.
Here it is: love is not static. Love is not something you fall into and fall out of. Love is fluid. It rises and falls like the tide. “When you love someone,” writes Anne Morrow Lindbergh in her little book Gift from the Sea, “you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment.” It’s impossible. Yet this is what dumb love demands.
Smart love, on the other hand, has faith in the ebb and flow of love, knowing that it is fluid and free. Smart love works day to day at being in love. It doesn’t sit hack and get sucked under by the happily ever-after myth. Smart love practices loving ways of being.
So if you are blessed with a healthy, budding love-relationship, don’t set yourself up for disappointment by thinking your feelings of love are permanent. Don’t leap at the flow of the tide, as Lindbergh says, and resist in terror its ebb. Be smart and know that love, no matter how lovely in the beginning, will change and change again.
I am blessed, æ e forelska!
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