The Arc of Love

by Aaron Ben-Ze'ev

  Can One Have Too Much Romantic Curiosity?

  My spouse said that if I (sexually) go elsewhere, he does not want to know about it.

  A MARRIED WOMAN

  Never wanna hear about it [your new girlfriend], Keep her stains away.

  KAREN MARIE ØRSTED

  There is no doubt that knowing each other can contribute to a loving relationship. Sometimes, however, too much knowledge, or curiosity, can be hurtful. In the romantic realm, people often seek to know as much as possible about their beloved, since this gives them a fuller picture of him or her, which can further enhance their intimacy. However, we do not need to know everything. For example, information about the beloved’s past lovers can help us understand the beloved’s personality, but it can also cause pain. For many people, a detailed description of the beloved’s previous sexual interactions could cast an unpleasant cloud over their sexual interactions with their partner. Ignorance can also be preferable in some cases of unfaithfulness, as the above citation from the married woman indicates. Others might want to be told about their partner’s affairs but not about sexual specifics. Yet others would prefer not to discuss such things at all.

  Romantic curiosity is tightly tied to a practical attitude; we want to understand what love and sex are about, but we also want to experience them. Relatedly, people tend to not want to leave any possible romantic door unopened. And, with our powerful imaginations, we wish to see and experience what is beyond our present circumstances. Opening every romantic door along our way, however, can have costly consequences. Those open doors can block the path to your own home. In order to leave all romantic options open, we would have to disregard reality, since reality has its own limitations, including limiting our resources. Keeping all our romantic options open can spread our investment too thin. But closing romantic doors doesn’t sit so well with our natural curiosity, nor does it jibe with the change and improvement that are such a big part of our lives. Rarely, people say that after meeting their spouse, they felt no passion toward other people. More commonly, romantic curiosity remains, but it is not translated into actual deeds.

  The question “What is love?” reflects a valuable profound curiosity; however, being haunted by never-ending curiosity about other romantic options is a kind of unproductive curiosity. Closing some open doors limits our curiosity and may lead to the feeling of being romantically compromised. This is an unpleasant experience, but a necessary one in a world of limitless options, limited resources, and conflicting values.

  Romantic Window-Shopping

  You’re window shopping . . . You’re not buying, you’re just trying.

  HANK WILLIAMS

  When I was not married, I did not realized my genuine market value. Now, when I am married and have wrinkles, it is too late.

  A MARRIED WOMAN

  Window-shopping—browsing through goods with no intent to purchase—is a popular pastime that is fueled by human curiosity. Romantic window-shopping involves browsing through people with no intent to initiate a profound romantic relationship. Window-shopping and romantic window-shopping are superficial, intrinsic activities. They are enjoyable in the short term but normally do not have a direct profound impact or a long-term outcome. However, given that they improve our sense of well-being, both types of window-shopping can also have accumulative value. In both of them, people are only looking around “to find the best deal in town.”

  Shopping is an extrinsic activity whose success is measured in its efficiency: paying as little as possible for superior merchandise. Window-shopping is an intrinsic activity; it is an enjoyable, free, and relaxing experience. Like other intrinsic activities, it is not a stressful, hurried activity. When people enjoy the activity itself, there is no reason for them to want to terminate it quickly.

  Romantic dating is like shopping: both are originally extrinsic, goal-directed activities, intended to obtain something or someone we desire. A main activity of dating, like that of shopping, is searching for a suitable “item” (person, merchandise). To succeed in the task, the search should be efficient: getting the optimal product while investing the least resources (such as money and time). Unsurprisingly, economists and other scholars often use the market metaphor when discussing mate selection.5 Like window-shopping, some kinds of dating are intrinsic, having their own value with no intent to “purchase” anyone or to make any commitments.

  Window-shopping, which is a superficial intrinsic activity, can improve your current mood, but it does not profoundly develop your essential capacities. The same is true of romantic window-shopping, such as flirting. Flirting is enjoyable, harmless playing and teasing; it involves the pleasant, magical charm associated with romance, but it lacks profundity. As is often the case, little things can contribute a lot to our sense of well-being. As I indicated above, superficial activities are not necessarily bad or worthless. We should not aim to be constantly immersed in profound activities; sometimes we need to enjoy the superficial ones. Superficial activities have short-term value when pursued in a moderate manner. It is mainly when we engage in them excessively that they become harmful.

  Studies indicate that women are more active shoppers than men and enjoy browsing more; accordingly, they are more involved in window-shopping. Most men claim to dislike shopping and browsing. Many women view most types of shopping as a leisure experience, just like dining, drinking in cafés and bars, sightseeing, and simply walking around a city. Although men have increased their participation in the traditional task of shopping, they are more likely to be efficient; they tend to “grab and go,” rather than enjoy the social or therapeutic aspects of shopping.6

  It seems, however, that men are more prone to romantic window-shopping. Men’s greater involvement in romantic window-shopping is evident in both passive romantic window-shopping, such as looking at erotic pictures, and in active romantic window-shopping, such as flirting. Men’s intrinsic activity of romantic window-shopping is more tainted with utilitarian motives than women’s romantic window-shopping. When men flirt, they are more likely to move the conversation toward sexual aspects, thereby making it easier to turn the romantic window-shopping into actual “hard-core” shopping.

  To sum up, window-shopping and romantic window-shopping are enjoyable in the short term, but they rarely have a direct profound impact or a long-term outcome. It may be enjoyable or even advisable to engage in romantic window-shopping, but it is also prudent not to sell or buy cheap.

  Can Love Become an Addiction?

  Love is like a drug and we don’t care about the long-term side effects; we just care about how high we can get.

  UNKNOWN

  When love is not madness it is not love.

  PEDRO CALDERÓN DE LA BARCA

  Romantic love as addiction or sickness is an old idea. A less extreme version of this view is that certain people simply love “too much.” There is no doubt that love can involve a persistent preoccupation with the beloved; such preoccupation is often part of addiction and excessive behavior in general. However, is the persistent preoccupation that characterizes some loving relationships always bad? Should this love be regarded as a type of addiction?

  The identification of love with addiction can be found in literature, philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, and brain studies and it remains common today. However, “love addiction” and “sex addiction” are disputed terms that do not appear in some classifications of diseases; a common alternative terminology is “excessive sexual drive.” This dispute exposes the extreme complexity of the issue. In my view, profound romantic love is not an addiction, although some features of addiction, such as preoccupation, can also be found in profound love. However, intense sexual desire or lust can become addictive. Moreover, not all types of preoccupations are harmful; when the preoccupation moves someone toward a flourishing life, it is good for the person and is not an addiction.

  An obsession, which is considered the primary symptom of any addiction, is defined as “a persistent disturbin
g preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling.”7 The terms “disturbing” and “unreasonable” are crucial here. Persistent preoccupation with an idea or a person is not harmful in itself, as long as it does not harm one’s flourishing. To clarify this issue in the romantic realm, I turn to discuss the notions of “repetition” and “loving too much.”

  Repetition is an action or event that recurs regularly or intermittently. In human behavior, repetition is often treated in a negative manner, especially when nothing is gained in saying or doing the same thing again and again. Indeed, repetition generates boredom and damps down human capacities. Why should we waste mental resources on something repetitive? This is compatible with the fact that emotions are generated by the perception of a significant change in our situation rather than by a repetition of the same event.

  Can we speak about valuable repetition? As mentioned above, many human capacities, such as dancing and swimming, are enhanced by repeatedly utilizing them. In these cases, the repeated activity is valuable, since without it, the capacity will deteriorate or fail to develop. A repeated activity can be harmful when it is excessive, or when it damages other major flourishing activities. As profound love involves a positive preoccupation that enhances one’s personal flourishing, it is not obsession, which by definition is a negative experience. Profound love involves a process of intrinsic development that does not generate boredom or damp down human capacities; on the contrary, such intrinsic development promotes one’s capacities and flourishing.

  Neither romantic profundity nor the unfinished nature of romantic intensity should be identified with obsession. The unfinished nature of intense romantic love refers to the never-ending desire to be sexually (and otherwise) with the beloved. It is not a meaningless, mechanistic repetition but rather a persistent urge to be with a meaningful person.

  When a repeated activity does not contribute to the agent’s development and flourishing, it is likely to either lose its value or become addictive. One such example is sex. Sexual activities are often rather repetitive. Because of this, excessive sex is likely to lose its value and even become addictive. One study found that although more frequent sex is associated with greater happiness for people in a relationship, this link was no longer significant at a frequency of more than once a week; hence, “the association between sexual frequency and well-being is best described by a curvilinear (as opposed to a linear) association.”8 Other repetitive activities, such as watching television, gossiping, or playing computer games, can also become addictive.

  Loving Too Much

  We have too much of everything and still we do not seem to have enough.

  PETER KURZECK

  Too many bitches, not enough queens.

  MARILYN MONROE

  Most people desire many more things than they have: more money, houses, types of chocolate, “likes” on Facebook, sexual interactions, and exciting romantic experiences. This wish, which appears to be natural, is problematic, since there is a price to pay for having too many options. One of these costs is that, faced with an abundance of options, we are likely to feel less satisfied with the option we have. I begin the discussion on this issue by considering the circumstances in which many options can be “too much” or “not enough,” and then discuss the issue of whether love can ever be “too much.”

  When Many Are Too Much and Too Many Are Not Enough

  Only those who know when enough is enough, will ever have enough.

  LAO TZU, Tao Te Ching

  In continuation of our discussion of a good-enough partner, I turn to Barry Schwartz’s distinction between people who tend to maximize and those whose tendency is to “satisfice.” Schwartz argues that maximizers are hell-bent on making only the best choices; “satisficers,” for their part, seek to make satisfying choices. Accordingly, maximizers engage in more product comparisons than satisficers, and it takes them longer to decide on a purchase: “Maximizers spend more time than satisficers comparing their purchasing decisions to the decisions of others. Maximizers are more likely to experience regret after a purchase. . . . Maximizers generally feel less positive about their purchasing decisions.”9

  Our rich romantic society is the perfect setting for applying Schwartz’s ideas. If we replace Schwartz’s word “purchase” with “romantic partner” in the passage quoted above, we have a good description of the different inclinations of people seeking a romantic partner.

  The two senses of perfect (the “flawless” partner versus the most suitable one) come to mind here. Romantic maximizers are determined to find the “best” romantic partner; romantic satisficers focus on finding the most suitable, or a good-enough, partner. Accordingly, romantic maximizers spend more time making comparisons than satisficers do: they compare their current romantic decisions with partners they have had in the past, with other existing romantic options, and with the romantic partners of others. Romantic maximizers are more likely to experience regret after a romantic “purchase” and to spend time deliberating about hypothetical romantic alternatives. Like nonromantic maximizers, they tend to feel less positive about their romantic decisions than romantic satisficers do.

  Schwartz has constructed a scale that measures the tendency to maximize or to satisfice. People with high maximization scores, he reports, experience less satisfaction with life, are less happy, less optimistic, and more depressed than people with low maximization scores. This is equally true of romantic maximizers, whose futile search for the “best” partner makes them restless, dissatisfied with life and with their current romantic relationship, and less happy and optimistic than satisficers. So, while romantic maximizers may manage to get themselves a romantic bargain, they wind up paying a high price in terms of personal well-being.

  Moreover, says Schwartz, while maximizers might do better objectively than satisficers, they often do worse subjectively. The maximizer can have a partner who has better nonrelational properties, such as appearance, education, and social status. However, as maximizers walk around with the nagging sense that they have relinquished something in making their romantic decision, they tend to feel worse in the relationship, thereby reducing the relationship’s overall quality. Romantic satisfaction has to do with being happy with your romantic lot, which is very difficult when you are plagued by the idea that there may be someone “better” yet to be discovered.10

  Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein also discuss the drive for incessant options. In their view, there is a big problem with the notion—popular in economics and ordinary life—that you can never be made worse off by having more choices because you can always turn some of them down. This principle, they argue, fails to take into account self-control, temptation, and the conflict between short-term desires and long-term welfare. Schwartz points out that maximizers’ unending desire for more leads to general dissatisfaction and reduces their sense of well-being. Thaler and Sunstein criticize the wish to have more mainly because it tends to privilege many superficial, short-term desires and ignore our fewer, profound long-terms needs. Both are powerful criticisms.11

  Oftentimes, it is, in fact, not good to have more or to be searching for more. And so, we hear: “More is less,” “Less is more,” “Too much of a good thing,” and “Too many are not enough.” Although all these expressions denote an opposition to having too much, they often focus on slightly different aspects of the negative effects of overabundance.

  The idea that “More is less,” which is similar to the idea “Many are too much,” often refers, as in Schwartz’s view, to a decision-making process. In the romantic realm, it refers to the current abundance of romantic options, which put people in an ongoing process of choosing, thereby hindering their ability to establish profound long-term love. Such circumstances often lead to frustration, sadness, and feelings of loneliness. The idea “Less is more” has a similar meaning. In focusing on fewer romantic partners, you can achieve greater profundity and meaningfulness. In this sense, less romantic quantity—that is, fewer rom
antic partners—is often associated with greater quality and romantic profundity. The expression “Too many are not enough” also refers to an imbalance preventing us from settling on what we have.

  More and less, and too much and too little, are domain- and context-dependent. Aristotle believed that the most important aspect of an activity is not its quantity, but whether it is appropriate—that is, how suitable it is in the given circumstances. Finding the appropriate balance here is the key to romantic flourishing.

  Can We Love Too Much?

  In this world of extremes, we can only love too little.

  RICH CANNARELLA

  I love you much too much . . . but yet my love is such, I can’t control my heart.

  DEAN MARTIN

  Too much of a good thing is wonderful.

  MAE WEST

  Profound love is morally desirable, as it entails caring and personal flourishing. It is difficult to see how such a phenomenon can be criticized. Nevertheless, people do criticize lovers and especially those whose love appears to be excessive. Can one tell her beloved that she loves him too much? I begin examining this issue by discussing the related issue of whether people can be too happy.

  Happiness is of great value to our well-being; indeed, research indicates that in the central domains of health, work, and love, happy people did better on average than did unhappy people.12 Nevertheless, there are still cases in which too much happiness can be harmful. Shigehiro Oishi and colleagues argue that the optimal level of happiness depends on various personal and contextual factors. Thus, people who experience the highest levels of happiness are the most successful in terms of close relationships, but those who experience slightly lower levels of happiness are the most successful in terms of income and education. They further claim that whereas wanting more may be an important motivation for income and education, in the domain of intimate relationships, wanting more might be detrimental because it prompts individuals to search for alternative partners.13