time comes undone

As a nod to the classic Bill Hicks bit your children aren’t special, I’d like to extend that by saying your love is not special, either.

I’m not a cynic. Nor am I one of those people who don’t know love. I’m just saying there’s no need to romanticize romance to a degree that’s irrational.

In a discussion on digg.com about some research a few years ago that revealed that passionate love fades on average a year after it begins, there was rampant resistance to the idea that scientific analysis can be applied to the phenomenon of love.

My two cents on this were the following: Why would something need to be mystical, mysterious, or beyond reduction to a scientific explanation in order for it to be beautiful? Does knowing that our experience of infatuation is regulated by hormones in any way cheapen the intensity of it?

I was always so annoyed by the scene in Contact where Matthew McConaughey turns to Jodie Foster and asks her, “Do you love your father? Prove it.” As if to imply, we can’t prove God or love, but they’re both real. Aggh, stab me with a spoon! There are several problems with this “argument,” not the least of which being that it is emotionally manipulative hollywood claptrap, but for the purposes of this blog post I will just say this. We can prove love. We can see it on an MRI and measure it on an EEG. We can observe recurrent patterns and fit it into a model of human behavior. Love is actually quite well documented.

So what is love? Love is hormones and neurons firing off in such a way as to yield an evolutionary advantage. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great ride. I just don’t entertain any illusions about the cosmic significance of it.

I have come to understand a truth that eludes many people. It is a radical concept. Many aren’t ready for it. It will shock the world. Brace yourself. Here it is:

Attraction follows love.

A lot of folks have this backwards. They believe that initial attraction is a necessary prerequisite for entertaining the possibility of love with someone. Wrong! Here’s how it can and should work. You meet someone. You allow yourself to know that person, and for them to know you. And then, maybe, you fall for that person. If that happens, they will become desirable to you. You notice features you never noticed before. The beauty they had all along will be revealed, when you’re ready to see it.

1. “This is naive/sentimental/idealist bullshit.”

It’s true that I am talking about an ideal of love, but it’s not idealist. It’s attainable. If I speak it it’s because I’ve known it. You don’t have to be a fan of Meg Ryan movies to acknowledge the universality of what I’m saying here.

2. “People have a right to their preferences. I have a type and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Fine, but your “type” is holding you back. You’re limiting your opportunities for a true and enduring connection. Why not increase your odds?

3. “It’s impossible to fall in love with someone you aren’t physically attracted to anyway.”

People fall in love sight unseen all the time on the internet these days. Real love with real symptoms: butterflies in the stomach, heart palpitations, consuming thoughts, agonizing worry, professions of commitment, the works.

4. “Men are visual creatures, you wouldn’t understand, the peni wants what the peni wants, bla bla bla…”

Don’t make this about men or women. There are actually men who agree that attraction follows love. I have a name for these men. I call them “the good ones.” Men are just as capable of transformative love as women are. And the result is the same.

5. “You talk a big game, but you wouldn’t ‘entertain the possibility of love’ if the person you met was the elephant man.”

Yes, I would. It works if you work it, people!

6. “Sounds like you have a holier than thou attitude problem.”

Partially true; I believe any philosophy that makes you more accepting of other people will uplift you as a human being. But I consider that to be secondary to the point. The real benefit of my way is that I am more likely to discover happiness. When the world is your dating pool and your heart is open, you are more likely to meet someone incredible. If that doesn’t make sense to you, then I guess you should continue following the peni.

In Conclusion:

Attraction follows love is a high ideal. You may not be ready for it, but I fully believe that all come to my way of thinking in the end, as age ripens wisdom.

If you’ve browsed the online personals for any amount of time, you will have noticed that some people have elaborate fantasies about what their ideal mate should and should not be. Some people put their checklists out in the open in the form of finicky little bulleted lists, and others do not reveal their checklists but secretly judge you anyway. Either way, these people are morons. Oh yes suh, I’m talkin to you!

People with dating checklists usually have the following attributes:

1. Superficial

Yup, these people are frequently superficial, often unapologetically so. And if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a superficial man. If you are one of those people who have not yet even come to terms with the fact that superficiality is a bad thing, then lets take it to email or the comments section, because I’m probably going to hit the word limit if I try to help you here.

2. Unrealistic

That’s right, checklist people are practically batsh*t crazy with the level of expectation they have set forth for their potential mate. They have doomed themselves to disappointment with their wild demands, like “must make 6 figures and be size 6″ or “left eye green, right eye blue.” If ONLY I were exaggerating.

3. Ineffective

And this really gets to the meat of the matter: checklists don’t work. It’s like that Woody Allen movie, the one where his daughter spies on Julia Roberts’ sessions with her therapist, and learns of every secret want that Julia wishes to find in a man. So Woody uses this knowledge to pretend to be the perfect man for Julia — he knows all her greatest passions, wants, and desires, and becomes everything she’d ever hoped she’d find. Julia is swept up at first, but then in the end she realizes that this fantasy man she had imagined doesn’t actually fulfill her after all, and that she can be at peace with the happiness she had known with her imperfect ex.

In Conclusion:

Checklists won’t bring you happiness. Free your mind, and the rest will follow!