When my editor first intimated me about writing a piece on ‘romantic relationship’ and ‘what
attracts us to our partners’ I couldn’t help but take up a third person speech in my head. I
decided to distance myself from the topic and continue this affair.
For the next few days, I kept asking myself, “What do I look for in a partner?”
‘Love’ has always been an all-elusive topic for us. No matter how hard films and books have
tried to depict it, they have failed us. In the book called, ‘What We Talk About When We Talk
About Love’, the author Raymond Carver quite delicately yet realistically deals with the
same. It describes how every person’s understanding of love differs widely…For some it
means a sense of belonging, for some it means companionship and devotion and while for
some people like me, it means heart-wrenching emotions and undying passion. There has
never been a universality to our understanding of what it means to love.
However, psychology, over the years has helped us identify the three elements of an all
consummate love affair, namely- passion, intimacy, and commitment.
We have all been in lover per se. Yet we find it difficult to describe when asked about our
quest for “True Love”. I do not understand, how can any form of love not be true enough
when it is an emotion truly felt. There are all kinds of love that we come across in different
phases of our lives the ones that stay, the one that leaves, and sometimes the one that
leaves but remains in with us for a long time.
Another aspect of love that is quite often confused in heads, since the beginning of
romanticism, is the ‘eternity of love’. We have come to believe that a lover is an eternal
being. If not, love was never true.
From my recent conversations with my friends I have observed a repetitive pattern in their
attachment styles, what we call in psychology the classic “avoidant attachment”. It is literally
was ironic as it sounds. It prevails among us in the form of unending statements like- ‘I do not
need emotional intimacy in my life’ or ‘These are too trivial matters to focus on right now’ and
behaviors like jumping from a casual relationship to another.
Every time I have asked a friend the aforementioned question, “What do you look for in a
partner?”, I received a little delusional answer. A part of the cause is our relentless
consumption of media and glamour world images has led us to set unrealistic standards
when looking for a partner. Our own social media accounts have led us to believe in highly
skewed self-perception.
We delay commitment, almost instinctively, because as saying goes “’30s is the new 20’s”. I
personally could not find out my preference in a particular kind of man.
One of my all-time favorite comedians, Aziz Ansari says in his book ‘Modern Romance’- our
cell phone is like a 24X7 single’s bar in our pocket. I couldn’t agree more with this man.
We have an endless number of romantic possibilities at the touch of an app, which makes us all
the more skeptical about our choice of current partner.
A male friend of mine, approaching his 30’s seemed equally confused about his choice of
romantic partners. But here in his story, his priority in a career takes away the limelight. Our
chat made realize that work and the mind-numbing race of generation is another factor
making a romance aspect to focus on.
Yet my dear friend’s end to our conversation struck a chord inside me. Let me quote him for
my readers, “…maybe deep down we all have a die-hard romantic inside us. We are all too
scared to show that side of ours.”
And keeping all the variables like money, intellect or attractiveness of what attracts one
person to another…we all do want to love and be loved.
