Male Quirks and Female Foibles

Love at First Site, Bah Humbug

When Valentine's Day approaches, the thoughts of many turn to relationships and, specifically, romantic love. Our culture allows each person to choose his or her own mate and often that choice is based on a nebulous idea called romantic love.

Dr. Neil Clark Warren, who has done 30 years of research in the area of relationships, says that romantic love is a poor indicator of marital compatibility. Yet Americans tend to use only two or three factors when selecting a mate and one of those is romantic love.

He said the top two are usually appearance and mutual attraction — that nebulous spark of sexual attraction we tend to label romantic love. The third factor that most add is personality, and by personality those involved often mean: do we have fun together.

Statistics show that romantic love, that rosy feeling that your partner is the greatest person in the world, cannot last. Those who have studied the phenomenon say the longest it can survive is two years and that in most relationships it begins to falter much sooner.

I wonder if Dr. Warren's contention that these are the top three factors in mate selection is based on the fact that he is a man. I would think that men's and women's top criteria in searching for a mate might be different. When it comes to my husband, though, he is probably right on.

Wayne says he fell in love with me at first sight and from that moment was ready to make me his wife. Now for that to happen, his criteria would have to have been fairly narrow. At 99 pounds and a size three, most men did consider me a "looker." He was no exception, so physical appearance was obviously high on his list. (He now says that there are at least 40 pounds of me he's not legally married to, but the same is probably true in reverse.)

There was a sort of chemistry between us from the beginning, so that meets criteria number two. If he considered personality, it must have been a hasty assessment. To his credit, though, he would not have bundled me off to Vegas based on that first impression alone. He would have needed at least a week or two to verify his first impression.

I, on the other hand, while intrigued by him had no visions of spending my life with him during those first days. In fact, he was quite disgusted with me when I told him I preferred to be "friends" rather than being romantic exclusives. He says I strung him along, giving him just enough hope to keep him around that first year. The second year started out in the same vein; and he was so frustrated, he determined to make me fall in love with him and then dump me. Fat chance, the guy was hooked and when I did eventually fall, he was unable to back out.

Anyway, I share these tidbits just to verify that, for men at least, Dr. Warren's observations may be justified. I'm afraid in our shallow society they are becoming more and more true of women as well.

Wayne and I married after knowing one another for two years and dating for one of them. In that time, we did find out whether we were compatible in a lot of ways other than the ones mentioned previously; although there were still a lot of surprises after marriage. We also had something going for us that many of today's marriages do not. We were committed to the institution of marriage. We meant "'til death do us part" and when we had the inevitable spats, neither went home to Mama. We talked things through, determined to make our marriage work.

A lot of couples today go into marriage with the idea that if it doesn't work, they can always get a divorce. They might as well pledge "'til divorce do us part." If they are not determined to work on a marriage, and believe me a successful marriage takes work, then the marriage has little chance of surviving the inescapable conflict.

Dr. Warren has done extensive research into how to pair two people with a high likelihood of them having a successful marriage. He asked people whose marriages had stood the test of time to fill out a 650-item questionnaire. He then isolated 36 areas that are important to long term compatibility. The three most people use are on the list, but physical appearance and sexual attraction are way down the list.

Using these areas, Dr. Warren has developed a high tech "matchmaker." He has a web site called eharmony.com where singles 22 or older can find a mate. It's one of many that have become popular with younger generations. I understand from my son, who made use of match.com to find his wife, that the numerous personality inventories, psychological profiles and other questionnaires are too time consuming for some.

Since the flawed romantic love route to marital bliss has left many wondering what the chances are of meeting Mr. or Mrs. Right; rather than waiting for cupid's arrow to strike they can go on-line in search of a mate.

Whatever the system of selecting a mate, after30+ years of marriage, I can assure you that without commitment and hard work,even the most compatible of couples will experience marital discord sufficientto lead to divorce.