by Amy Chan
Let’s learn a valuable lesson that all those fairy tales failed to mention: they’re all tales. We live in a society where we’ve been bombarded by fantasy ideals since childhood, brainwashed into unrealistic expectations of love. While the princess ideal is still kicking around, today we have other variations of tales running wild. The modern woman may not have the desire to be saved, but she sure as hell is pressured to have it all, be it all, and do it all. She’s the trailblazing supermom, wearing a power suit when she’s running her company and Agent Provocateur when she’s the sexual goddess at home. She has the perfect life, the perfect relationship, and a slick Instagram feed that documents her romantic vacations. She may have exchanged her glass slippers for Louboutins, but the modern-day fairy tale still creates unrealistic expectations about love.
GREAT AT FALLING IN LOVE, LOUSY AT STAYING IN IT
It wasn’t always like this. Before the 1750s, there was a more pragmatic approach to relationships. Marriages were often strategic transactions between families involving matters of power, wealth, status, land, and religion. The idea of marrying for love and passion was considered absurd, if not downright irresponsible. Romanticism emerged partially as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment.1 The movement was popularized in Europe in the mid-eighteenth century by poets, painters, and artists alike and has continued to permeate culture ever since.
Philosopher and bestselling author Alain de Botton warns that such Romantic ideals create unrealistic expectations for long-term relationships: “Romanticism has been a disaster for our relationships. It is an intellectual and spiritual movement which has had a devastating impact on the ability of ordinary people to lead successful emotional lives.”2
Romanticism tells us that the excitement and euphoria characteristic at the beginning of a relationship should continue throughout a lifetime, that choosing a partner should be guided by feelings, that we don’t need to be educated in how to love, and that our partners should understand us intuitively. Likewise, what once took a village should now be the responsibility of our partner: he must be our lover, our bedrock of safety, our best friend, our accountant, our keeper of secrets, all while being stable and intriguingly exciting and sexy at the same time. Romanticism equated sex with love and love with sex. And that sex must be mind-blowing until death do us part.
Romanticism sets up the scene for a love story’s introduction, but it fails to take us through the middle and end. Oh, you know, that pesky thing called reality. Romanticism has created a population of hopefuls who become really good at falling in love but terrible at staying in it.
Now, I’m not advocating that we go back to the notion of marriages as strategic alliances; however, I think we have swung the pendulum so far that romance trumps practicality, and that is setting us up for suffering. If we are looking to create relationships that last, we need to have a balanced perspective that unites both mindsets.
Romantic ideals pump through our veins and often go unquestioned. We become so obsessed with chasing butterflies that we rule out suitable potential partners or exit relationships as soon as the sparks fade. We blame our partners and we blame ourselves, but we don’t question if the very thing we’re searching for is illusory.
If there’s one important point for you to remember from this chapter, it is this: the intense passion that burns at the start of a relationship is scientifically and statistically unlikely to last longer than twelve to twenty-four months.3 If you are looking for a long-term partnership and basing your decision on how you feel when in a heightened state of lust that has an inevitable expiration date, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.
You don’t want to fall in love. You want to stand in love.
To create a successful relationship, we need to examine our definition of love and replace the fantasy of “falling in love” with standing in love. The former is an easy, fleeting feeling; the latter is a practice. The former you have no control over—you are a victim to the passionate throes of emotions—but the latter, you choose. The words of Jerry Maguire, “You complete me,” while swoon-worthy, are actually dysfunctional, codependent, and potentially borderline evidence of love addiction (more on this later).
We must question the belief systems that do not serve us and the plans we form that are based on our upbringing and cultural norms, and then we must create the type of relationship that we need, taking into account where we are now and where we want to go. And to do that, the first thing that we need to do is dismantle one of those age-old beliefs still kicking around: the idea of a soul mate.
BURSTING THE SOUL MATE BUBBLE
Do you believe in soul mates?
Ah, the soul mate—the perpetuating romantic myth that’s still chugging along against all odds. Literally. If you haven’t met your “soul mate” yet, don’t blame your luck, your charm, or a blip in your destiny. Blame it on numerical probability. According to a January 2011 Marist poll, a whopping 73 percent of Americans believe that they are destined to find their one true soul mate. Assuming your soul mate is set at birth, is roughly in the same age bracket, and is recognizable at first sight, mathematical estimates indicate that your chances of finding your soul mate is only 1 in 10,000 (0.01 percent).4 That figure doesn’t take into account the fact that 9,891 of those people likely live in a place you will never conceivably go. The numbers just aren’t on your side. It’s time to stop placing your bets on finding a soul mate and playing a more realistic hand instead.
When you develop an image of what your ideal type—or soul mate—is, you are creating a story. This story consists of yearning for the feeling of being “in love,” which amplifies the desire for an idealized lover, particularly when the apple of your eye is elusive or unavailable. Pining for that unattainable ideal becomes an enthrallment of the experience of the intense emotions of being in love rather than a reality-based interest in the potential partner. The never-ending chase to find one’s soul mate is no different from searching for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, which we all know is impossible, as rainbows are nothing but an optical illusion. Soul mate shopping is a surefire way to stay single, avoid true intimacy, and habitually walk away from relationships the moment sparks fade.
Research shows that people who hold a strong belief in destiny are prone to lose interest in their partner much faster and are likely to give up much more easily when a relationship starts to go through hardships.5 Whether you are soul mate shopping, projecting your fantasies onto someone, or putting potential partners on a pedestal, it’s a function of the same behavior: avoiding reality when it comes to love.
Say you finally meet a person who fits the hopes and dreams that you’ve been clinging to your whole life. You lock eyes. The connection is fast, furious, and filled with passion and intensity. Your mind then tricks you, omitting the non–soul mate qualities this person might possess, amplifying your similarities and all the things that appear perfect about that person. This is confirmation bias at play.
Confirmation bias occurs when we are motivated by the desire that a certain idea needs to be true. Instead of seeing facts, or someone’s true self, we only see evidence that supports our initial belief. You want to find your soul mate? Well, your brain is going to try its hardest to help you find that person, but once the infatuation phase is over, that idealized person becomes just another normal, flawed human being.
When I look back at the times when I fell hard for someone, only to be sorely disappointed later by how he treated me or how the relationship didn’t progress, it’s clear I wasn’t basing my feelings on reality. I was high on my own fantasy. I would have an image of who my perfect person was, I’d meet someone who sort of resembled that picture, and suddenly, my soul mate alarm bells would go off. And guess what? That image was really just my ego projecting into the future.
Creating a false story about someone can cause us to develop ideas around a connection that isn’t real or may amplify a spark into something more than what it
really is. This is especially true if you’re hungry for a relationship or in a state of desperation to meet “the one.” Even if there is an authentic connection or spark, when your mind races to create a fantasy future, you are no longer present. Instead, your mind is focusing on the next step of your goal, which objectifies the person to fill a void. You start latching on to the person to make you feel a certain way, and this is where the connection morphs from a mutual exchange to a needy attachment.
Perhaps if I had learned this lesson a little sooner, I wouldn’t have spent years pining for my soul mate, John.
DON’T GO CHASING UNICORNS
When I first met John, I felt all the things. He felt strangely familiar. My mystical side liked to think we were two souls who had previously been together in another lifetime, reconnecting in this plane. I’ve tried hard to squash that hopeless romantic in me, but it rears its heart-bedecked head every so often, and with John, my soul mate alarm bells were ringing in full force.
We adventured, and we played like children. It was sweet, beautiful, and, of course, all sorts of magical. He told me he was not looking for a relationship. I didn’t care.
It felt so good and I didn’t want it to stop. I knew he was going through a challenging time in his life: he was stressed at work and was grieving a loss in his family. When he told me he wasn’t looking for a relationship, I figured he wasn’t looking for one right now. In my head, he’d eventually change his mind. After all, we had a soul mate connection. And thus began the start of a journey—one that would be full of starts and stops, hope and hurt, and the eventual painful bursting of the bubble that inevitably happens when you refuse to face the facts.
John was easy to fall for. He was handsome, wildly successful, and kind. His gentle nature and southern charm were magnetic. I felt taken care of when I was with him. We lived in different cities and he traveled constantly for his job, so any time we saw each other it was last-minute, spontaneous, and exciting. From fancy dinners to passionate make-out sessions to deep conversations—I experienced only peak moments with John, but never for more than twenty-four hours. There were monthlong lags between our visits, during which I would replay those moments over and over again in my head. Not only would I swoon over the past; I would daydream of our possible future.
“I love you,” he told me over lunch. “I think of you often, usually when I meditate.”
There are two sides to this story. The whimsical, romantic one, in which you meet and feel all the nonsensical tingles of finding “the one.” There can be only one explanation for the intensity of these feelings: destiny has finally delivered your soul mate to you.
The other side is reality, where all of those soul mate feelings are rooted in a wash of chemical reactions, particularly dopamine, heightened by intermittent rewards that can perpetuate an addictive cycle. The growing ache and longing for someone, even when that person is not reciprocating, is your fantasy reflected back at you.
Fantasies can mess with you, because as you continually revisit the emotionally charged memories of the past starring the object of your affection, and daydream about the possibilities of the future, a cascade of feel-good chemicals are produced in the body. Your body can’t tell the difference between falling in love with a real person or the person in your head. The dopamine release ensures that both feel totally amazing, leaving you craving more, more, more!
Then the day came when John told me he was now in a committed relationship. I was shocked. I asked him why, after dancing back and forth between gray lines for the last two years, he hadn’t chosen to explore a relationship with me. John told me he didn’t “see me in the relationship bucket.”
Ouch.
Hearing that hurt, like a dart piercing my heart. It took that clear, painful message to burst my fantasy bubble and face reality. Though I had desperately wanted to believe in the mystical soul mate narrative, the reality was that I’d been chasing a unicorn.
I took a handful of loving, beautiful moments, mixed those with a dash of projection and a sprinkle of stardust, and created a romantic story and ideal of a man that wasn’t rooted in reality.
The unicorn fantasy was everything I hoped for, and with that taking up a significant portion of my heart and headspace, I hadn’t really had to let anyone else in. You see, when you chase someone with an impossible future, you delude yourself into thinking you want a relationship when, really, the unicorn is a reflection of your own unavailability. Unicorns don’t require you to go past a certain point of vulnerability, so your heart is always shielded. You don’t get to the part where you have to move through issues together, figure out how to fight well, and learn how to coexist with another person in the day-to-day. You don’t have to get emotionally intimate, where your deepest vulnerabilities come to the surface and you expose who you really are.
The words of Renew’s life coach, Trish Barillas, hit home when it comes to this topic: “Hope will fuck you. Have hope for humanity, have hope for world peace, but do not have hope for a person to change. You cannot hope your relationship into existence.”
Time and again, Coach Trish sees how her clients hang on to hope, wishing that their partner would change who they are and what they want or actually start showing up in the relationship. She explains that our personal agendas are often what keep us hanging on, because they distract us from accepting reality. Maybe if I had heeded Trish’s advice, I wouldn’t have spent so much time hoping that John would eventually choose me.
I held on to hope that maybe John would change his mind about me, maybe the starts and stops would lead to something more, maybe he just needed more time to realize I was his person. He didn’t. He hasn’t. And he won’t.
I share this story because I think my behavior is something all the hopeful romantics out there will recognize: we want the fantasy, the dream, the feeling of finally being whole. This causes us to fill in the spaces with make-believe. The pressure we put on ourselves to find “the one” blinds us to the red flags. It’s like using a handful of bread crumbs to make a decadent cake, filling the layers with projections and desires.
FUTURE TRIPPIN’
When you date someone, after a few memorable outings, do you put him on the perfection pedestal? Perhaps you google him and see his career success or his attractive pics on social media. Maybe when he talks about his dream to retire in Bali, your soul mate alarm bells go off: “Omg, that’s my dream too!” Instantly, your fantasy brain is off to the races. Suddenly, you’re imagining how cute your kids will be, how you’ll decorate your three-story house, and, of course, how peaceful it will be to retire together in Bali. You start to idealize him, and the relationship fantasy takes on a life of its own. Instead of staying present and grounded so you can really get to know this person, you’ve already projected an elaborate future scenario onto him. Unsurprisingly, your feelings start to intensify. But the relationship hasn’t caught up, nor have his feelings toward you. Along with these intense feelings, you create expectations of how he should behave and how the relationship should progress, because you like him sooo much and the possibilities of your future are sooo promising. But it is pretty likely that he doesn’t reciprocate your level of feelings. Not yet anyway. Uh-oh. Power imbalance. And when the could-be relationship ends, you’re devastated.
Even though you were seeing each other for only a few weeks, you find yourself in deep mourning. Not just for the times you had. You’re mourning all the future plans that haven’t been actualized as well.
WHEN YOU CHASE SOMEONE WITH AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE, YOU DELUDE YOURSELF INTO THINKING YOU WANT A RELATIONSHIP WHEN, REALLY, THE UNICORN IS A REFLECTION OF YOUR OWN UNAVAILABILITY.
I don’t doubt that in a short period of time, you can connect deeply with someone and feel sparks you haven’t felt before. But if your emotional intensity does not realistically match the stage of the relationship, then take this as a sign that your fantasy was in charge. You were future trippin’, and that makes the fall a lot harder.
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EXERCISE: The Stop Sign (Stop Future Trippin’ Before Takeoff)
The building of a relationship takes time. It takes gradual exchanges of vulnerability and sharing—in person. It’s a dance. And as two people get to know each other, rapport builds and you become closer and closer. To help you stay present with your current partner, here’s an exercise to try the next time your mind starts to wander into the future.
Once the thought creeps up—you imagine a trip you want to take, your destination wedding, living together in a two-story house—catch yourself. Create awareness that your mind is not being present.
Next, imagine a big red stop sign, or say the word “stop” out loud.
If you can, change your body position (if you’re sitting down, stand up, and vice versa). Or if possible, go for a walk. It’s much easier to get your mind to change when you change your physiology first.
Now, start looking around and observing the things you’re grateful for. Be keenly observant. Notice the sky, the trees, the beautiful environment around you, the weather—notice everything and anything and find the gratitude within.
Once you focus your attention on listing off all you’re grateful for, your mind will automatically lose track of its grip on the previous thought. Soon you’ll forget what you were originally thinking about.
This might be tough the first few times, but with practice, you’ll master this! While a daily gratitude ritual helps you rewire your brain for happiness, the stop sign exercise is an in-the-moment hack to help you redirect your thoughts in order to stay present.