Each age has its popular myths. While our age resorts to many
euphemisms and myths to hide unsavory realities, this article will
only address one such myth.
Before Intimacy, Let's Be Friends
First
In discussion groups we often hear, especially from the women,
"Before I get into another relationship, we have to be friends
first." That is a wonderful theory, but I have been doing some
research and have discovered that if that ideal does happen, it
happens very rarely.
After reviewing my own experience, I have found that it is easier to
convert lovers into friends than it is to convert friends into
lovers. In fact, although I have had dozens of female friends over
the course of my life, not one has ever evolved into a romantic
partnership.
Once I stumbled onto this realization, I started checking in with
friends regarding their experience. One friend thought he had found
an exception because one of his lovers went to being a friend and
then back to a lover again. Upon reviewing the sequence, he had not
found an exception after all.
Of course, one could simply point to our times. People get into
relationships quickly, and once the excitement dies, they exit out
the other side, all-the-while bypassing the marriage process.
However, bypassing marriage is what's new, not hasty chemistry-based
unions.
For some time now, having strong chemistry with a romantic partner
has been the primary consideration in choosing a relationship.
Consider this quote: "When two people are under the influence of the
most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of
passions, . . . they are required to swear that they will remain in
that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until
death do them part."1 This quote
was made by George Bernard Shaw who lived and wrote in the late
1800s.
While I was enjoying a nice brunch last Christmas eve, an older woman
told her story of attraction and marriage: "When I first saw him I
told my friend that I was going to marry him. We got married 3 weeks
later. I got the wedding ring and his fiancee kept the engagement
ring. Our parents said it wouldn't last, but we were married for 53
years when he died."
In those days there wasn't the tolerance for sex outside of marriage
that there is today. However, that doesn't mean they dated longer or
took more time to know each other -- they just married more quickly.
And in spite of the extra pressure by society for people to stay
married, the myth of long-lasting marriages is brought into question
"by a flatfooted statistic from the Bureau of Census abstract: "The
median duration of marriage before divorce has been about seven years
for the last half century. "The computer had caught up at last with
folk lore."2
Chemistry was king back then and it is still king today. The defining
feature that separates a romantic relationship from all other
relationships is the prospect of exciting sex and other fantasies
that bring on adrenaline rushes and hyperventilation. The only
creator of excitement that compares might be the prospect of winning
the lotto.
Consequently, the devil's bargain is that if I take time to get to
know a woman as a friend, I will automatically be disqualified as a
lover. There are several good reasons why this might be so. First, we
have a chance to add up the costs without the benefits of romance to
make paying those costs more feasible. Second, once a man becomes a
friend, becoming a lover can be thought of as a form of incest. (In
general, men are more willing to cross the barrier from friends to
lovers. Of course, the man who is willing to be a "friend" is going
to be less attractive simply because he is a "nice guy," but that's
another story.)
In any case, if something does not happen quickly, it is unlikely to
happen at all. Either the connection will be broken completely, or a
friendship will ensue. (Which is not a bad thing -- it is only the
expectation that it should be otherwise that can cause problems.)
What Is Chemistry?
Generally, chemistry is thought of as a strictly physical phenomenon.
Were that true, many people of modest physical endowments would be
disqualified to engage in the "breeding process." One of my favorite
cynical philosophers put it this way: ". . . if one of those
three-brained beings 'loves' somebody or other, then he loves him
because the latter always encourages and undeservingly flatters him;
or because his nose is much like the nose of that male or female,
with whom thanks to the cosmic law of 'polarity' or 'type' a relation
has been established which has not yet been broken;. . .
."3
When I was younger I tended to take a woman's rejection or acceptance
personally. Since then, I have learned that there are many things out
of my control, a big one being whether or not the shape of my nose
reminds her of her favorite uncle. Who I am is of little importance,
but what or who I remind her of is all important.
In the game of romance fantasy is all-important. "A vast number of
people marry someone who does not exist save in their
imagination."4 Or, as Maurice
Chevalier has been given credit for saying, "Many a man has fallen in
love with a girl in a light so dim he would not have chosen a suit by
it." That is both the good news and the bad news. If it were not for
fantasy, there would be less truth in the saying that there is
someone for everyone.
Men in particular are prone to falling for the myth that says if they
are successful, they will attract more women. However, there is one
more component of chemistry that makes this untrue. A large
percentage of the population is still beating a drum for their most
disapproving parent. Consequently, expressing disapproval will make
one attractive to more prospective partners. Peter Breggin, for one,
lays it on the line: "Nearly every client in my practice has been
tormented for years by his or her parents, all the while hoping for
some crumb of affection from
them."5
If you are too accepting, which is a popular social ideal, you might
just be reducing your attractiveness. Consider this observation.
"Wanting my product, (myself) to have a great demand in the social
marketplace, I began to act more and more selfish with a myopic,
uninterested view toward relationships. The strange thing was, the
more uninterested and selfish I became with women, the more women
would be waiting in line to spend their boyfriend's hard earned money
on me and sell me on the idea that relationships can not only be fun
and exciting, but one of the best long-term investments of my life. .
."6
Here lies another devil's bargain: being unhappy and impossible to
please generally attracts more romantic partners than being
successful or beautiful or happy. Of course, one can easily become a
burden to oneself. If you choose to be less attractive by being
happier, just keep in mind that you must meet more people in order to
find a playmate.
As chemistry has little to do with improving our practical affairs,
and is usually predicated on "unfinished business", there is no
reason why we should take the whole game so seriously. It is not the
fact that relationships fail so often that causes our pain -- it is
the belief that they should work. (The popular belief
that anything less than perfect and anything less than forever is a
ripoff.)
So, rather than hide in a dark corner for fear that the next
relationship might not be perfect, we might be better off being a
little more cavalier: fail fast, fail often, enjoy the
benefits until the costs outweigh them . And should
your chemistry-ignited union lead to a practical, long-term
association, so much the better.
Footnotes:
1. Gail Sheehy, Passages (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1974), p.
152.
2. Ibid., p. 20.
3. G.I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, Vol. 1.
(New York: E.P. Dutton, 1950), pp. 357-358.
4. Eustace Chesser, M.D., Love Without Fear (New York: Roy
Publishers, Inc., 1974), p. 13.
5. Peter R. Breggin, The Psychology of Freedom (Buffalo, NY:
Prometheus Books, 1980), p. 155.
6. F.J. Shark, How To Be The JERK Women Love : Social Success for
Men and Women in the '90's (Chicago, IL: Thunder World
Promotions, Inc., 1994), p. 47.