If you could pick your companion based on a crystal ball that determined your combined future together with another, would you? This crystal ball would be able to account for all your combined credentials. Including but not limited to goals, likes, dislikes, irritating habits, preferences in terms of travel, family, relationship type, fidelity, values, looks, achievements, etc. It could even predict the time that you would remain together and of those years how many of them would be happy years. Would you look into that crystal ball? Either to quantify the compatibility of your current partner or to see what the next one would look like? Basically, are you wasting your time?
Strength in connection and time committed to another.
Imagine if you knew you would be with someone for 5 years - and they would all be happy, very happy filled with love, joy and adventure, but then on day 1825 they’d pass away. Would you want those 5 happy years? To have been in bliss with another for 5 years. Or when compared to a semi-happy / unhappy but financially stable existence with someone else for 20 years, how would you rationalise? Which would you pick? Is 5 happy years a long time or not enough time? If the strength of connection and time are the two measuring sticks - which one is more important to you? And if you let the crystal ball’s predictions choose, would you be asking how does this crystal ball determine happiness? Or could it be your faith in the prediction that makes it come true? Some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
"The randomness in companionship and compatibility is fascinating and unpredictable by nature, but isn’t that where the fun lives, in those moments."
I suppose what I am really wondering is if knowing the formula of a relationship is an advantage or a disadvantage. I think about it in the context of my own partnership. Had I known that I would be in a relationship for many years and that there would be some really hard years thrown in the mix, would I have gone into the relationship with a different expectation? And if I had, would this insight have altered the trajectory of the relationship. When people ask me about my marriage, I’m honest. I normally say something along the lines of - I’m very happily married, we laugh at least once a day, we push each other to do better, to be better and to find the joy in life, neither of us would want to be with anyone else, but we work at it, together every day, every week, every year. It's a journey that features great stories and hard conversations but it’s all part of it. It’s the work and maintenance we choose, its love, its unpredictable, unmeasurable and at times messy.
Even though I am talking about a chosen / romantic partner, the same applies to all relationships and connections in some way or another; a family member, friendship, or colleague. I know a lot of matches are now made via apps and that romance is supposedly dead - although I cannot fully believe it. If romance was dead - why are we still making so many movies with love stories at the heart of every narrative? Why are all songs about love and why is the dating app industry a growing one? But meeting people is meeting people, right. For friendship, hookups or love. I wonder if these apps will evolve and take on a predictability function, (like the crystal ball) and if they did how many of us would use it. Would it improve our app experience? (I sense a merging of app companies here.)
Surely knowing isn’t always the answer; wasting time with 6 Tom’s might be how you find your Dick or Harry? The randomness in companionship and compatibility is fascinating and unpredictable by nature, but isn’t that where the fun lives, in those moments.
Chance or computer simulation, what would be your preference? I might be biased as I have never used an app for meeting people or hookups. Not that I mind the premise, I just haven’t been single in the last decade. I know that these apps serve us in meetings - but surely who you are on that first meeting is the determination of your success and compatibility with that match. Behaviour, body language, butterflies- you know all the stuff that’s about half way through the movie with a love interest. That is the bit that the app has nothing to do with. It’s you, in the moment, unfiltered, unscripted. Raw.
I appreciate I am talking about an industry that is huge and very lucrative for its owners, fun for its users (who I confess am not among) and in some scenarios very successful at matching people. However, I do think we have missed something, the ingredients of connection - Emotion. It cannot be really understood via screen and as emotions drive our actions, I wonder how these apps qualify their success in matches. It's far more lucrative for them if you stay a user and don’t find love. Is your happiness really a win for them or a loss?
"Let’s be truly transparent, all of us fit into a few more categories than we admit to. Curiosity is in all of us."
What if the crystal ball could be the filter that weeds out the incompatible choices. The bit the Apps are not capable of - they cannot determine if someone is an asshole. (Actually, they do have the data.) The Crystal ball could save millions of hours for those looking for love. Also in this middle ground, there is a need for the non-love hunters, the people who do just want to have fun. (An actual hook-up app - not one that looks like a dating app.) Maybe we wouldn’t need a crystal ball if individuals were able to be honest in their profiles, free from judgment. I think maybe my crystal ball is honesty - in yourself and in others. Are you looking for love, looking for fun and a third - I am open to either, maybe a fourth - looking to explore something new, maybe a fifth… you fill in the blanks. How freeing would it be if preference were just preferences, no one knows that they might like something until they try it. What if you could be honest without prejudice. We’re not ready for this yet, unfortunately, it would be seen as another form of labelling. (I’m even labelling honesty as a crystal ball) Let’s be truly transparent, all of us fit into a few more categories than we admit to. Curiosity is in all of us.
I hear many horror stories of dating, I have a sensitive ear to the bullshit that seems to be the norm but the whole story of it sucks me in every time, I really am a sucker for a love story. I just want mine with a side of honesty and realism. It seems that you have so many factors to rationalise, the first impression is shorter, your appearance now seems to carry more emphasis and the rules of the game seem to very much be in the hands of whichever party is more casual about the whole thing. (Or appearing to be more nonchalant.) I have watched many friends wait patiently for a reply, or hunt for the perfect outfit or place to meet there ‘someone.’ They always think this is the one… (ahh the lust hormones dopamine, adrenaline & oxytocin) Why do these hormones make us set such high expectation? Would you even know you were looking at the one (you want to date) on that first meeting? Sometimes it takes a while for you to grow on each other. Maybe you need a basis of friendship first. There are so many variables… So why do we have the perfect date, meeting or love match mapped out in our head? Oh yeah, those chick flicks I was talking about earlier. They create an unrealistic expectation dater… One of my girlfriends has been joking about engagement rings since date 2, and I want so much for it all to happen for her, but is that me getting sucked in again?
I long to see my single friends happy and for some, it means pairing off and going conventional, for others it means loving themselves or loving themselves first and then being brave enough to roll the dice on love, after it spat them out last time. It is as individual as it gets and we all seem to be different in our approach, but the basics are the same - for everyone. Connection, compatibility, chemistry and that wild come kiss me lust.
Connection is the true human currency
For me, I met my now-husband when I was dancing drunk with free drinks tickets, he had to rescue me from his cheating friend. It was in a bar (remember when meeting in a bar or a nightclub seemed doomed to fail.) It was 2005, RnB music was hot and we didn’t have a care in the world. (Nothing better than an exaggerated memory, in my mind we were young and beautiful - likely very different from the actual reality! Too many years of adding insta filters to the story whilst reducing the number of drinks consumed.) There was no white horse, no red roses, not even a text message for months, but it did turn into something. It was the time and the connection that changed a seamlessly non-eventful meeting into a relationship. Nothing comes from nowhere. Plants don’t grow without water.
"It’s not that I really agree with the 'you complete me' statements on greeting cards. More that 'you have given me the reflection I needed to complete myself.'”
I am not saying that what I have is the best thing in the world and that anyone is missing out by not having it, I am not so naive or arrogant, what I am saying is if you want a deep connection and you are prepared to put the work in (for the right person) it can be truly wonderful. It’s the time that is the tricky one to measure, for some it’s instant - for me it was around 10 years, not to know I loved him, but it was at this point I found an undeniable togetherness, an understanding of one and other that made me believe. I’m not sure why it was 10 years, for me it just was. Hear me out:
It’s like there is a You in the relationship (beyond the 10-year point - in my example) that is a better You because of your partner and your shared relationship. This version of You wouldn’t have been this-You if You were with anyone else. It’s as if the two identities have come together as an Us, and then evolved beyond the Us as different and hopefully better individuals. You’ve likely pushed each other into situations and circumstances that have forced growth and development. And while you were changing, they were too. You make each other better versions of yourselves.
It’s not that I really agree with the “you complete me” statements on greeting cards. More that “you have given me the reflection I needed to complete myself.” I know what you’re thinking what a load of shit, fluffy lovey mumbo jumbo, but it can be true, not just in marriage, in companionship, in friendship and sometimes in families. The fairytales we watched as children always finish on the wedding day. It's the marriage (or equivalent amount of time or effort) that makes a true partnership, team, family or lifelong friendship that feels like a sibling.
I share this bond with only one person, and this makes me grateful every day. Some people have this connection with many people and they find ways to create this bond for others - it’s these people that are the true bright lights in our world. If connection is our true human currency then these individuals are the riches people in the world.
