Love is like a garden.
If you don’t maintain and prune a garden, it becomes prickly, painful to navigate, and unsightly. Letting one side overrule the other becomes unhealthy and filled with weeds.
Suppose you nourish a garden, cut away the unhealthy aspects, water and seed it, and maintain it regularly without overwatering or over tending it. In that case, you can grow whatever you want to grow.
Either way, it takes work from all who are involved. In a co-op, if one person works more than the other to grow that garden, resentment develops, and the other isn’t needed anymore because they aren’t putting in the effort. That is what decades of wisdom has taught me.
After several long-term relationships, I’m single again and have felt the pressure to go back out and date. The pressure doesn’t feel right. It never has. Setting dates to meet one person after another from an app seems fruitlessly exhausting. What if I end up spending my time with someone who isn’t right for me while missing out on the person who is?
The several long-term failed relationships I’ve had made me realize I didn’t fully understand the boundaries I wanted in a relationship or why I was even in the relationship for so long to begin with.
I would rather build a relationship naturally over time without expectations. Still, most people are in a rush to go through the motions society has told them it takes to win the end goal of being partnered so that they do not spend a moment alone. Most people do not want to build the most difficult relationship you create with yourself.
Spending the last year trying to figure out what I wanted in life has been the smartest move I could make. I’ve gone to places I never would have gone to alone before, overcoming the anxiety that has always kept me from doing things I wanted to do.
I enjoyed movies that other people would never have wanted to see with me, ate food I wanted to eat instead of compromising for someone who doesn’t like eating healthy, and on holidays, I get to spend my money on myself, not someone else who has expectations that I have to spend a lot of money on them. In contrast, they get me cheap gifts I don’t like.
Valentine’s Day memories I have from past relationships are filled with expectations of having to have sex even when I didn’t feel like it. I don’t have many memories of the day that had been fun; it was more like a chore that required cultural and social standards demanding monetary consumption for frivolous, unrealistic fantasy role play in which I had to be the doll of a puppet master.
Because I’m the kind of person who stays in a relationship for a long time when I like someone—I only like them—something unbreakable, I have to be extra careful who I end up with.
So, I came up with a somewhat scientific idea of what brings people together through attraction and a metaphor for how relationships work.
Relationships are like gardens, needing gentle, timely care that requires patience and observation. If you overwater a garden and put too much attention into it or water it too little and ignore it, either way, the garden will wither and die. Flowers need pruning, toxic weeds need pulling, and dirt needs the right kind of fertilizer, depending on what you grow. Relationships are just as delicate and require the right balance of care.
Think about the relationship you are in now or the relationships you were in. Did you even understand why you were attracted to that person or those people, to begin with? I noticed most of us do not think that far into why we dive into relationships so quickly. Be it a combination of attraction, a driven desire for sex, avoiding isolation, loneliness, or social pressure, it is important to understand why we develop relationships if we want to avoid toxic, manipulative, abusive situations.
People say, “All you need is love” and “Love conquers all,” but love can be abusive. It can destroy you and drag you down if it is not the kind that nourishes you for the person you are. We are not born to meet someone who makes us whole. We are born as a whole person who may one day have a crush and wish that someone could compliment who we are, building a partnership that helps our personal and financial growth.
Let’s face it: Partnerships are naturally about improving our chances of survival in life and bringing us a little closer to being comfortably fulfilled.
Based on what I’ve learned in psychology, sociology, and anthropology, my relationships, and my observations of other people’s relationships, I came up with five types of attraction. The more types you have with someone, the stronger the bond that relationship can have. But again, the bond and love can go one way or another, good or bad, depending on how they are nurtured.
Past Valentine’s Day memories are filled with expectations of having to have sex even when I didn’t feel like it. I don’t have many memories of the day that had been fun at all, more like a chore that required cultural social standards that didn’t feel natural.
Think about the relationship you are in now or the relationships you were in. Did you even understand why you were attracted to that person or those people, to begin with? I noticed most of us do not think that far into why we dive into relationships so quickly. Be it a combination of attraction, a driven desire for sex, avoiding isolation, loneliness, social pressure; it is important to understand why to develop relationships if we want to avoid toxic, manipulative, abusive situations.
Let’s face it, partnerships are naturally about improving our chances of survival in life and making us feel a little closer to being comfortably fulfilled.
Based on what I’ve learned in psychology, sociology, anthropology, my relationships and observations with other people’s relationships, I came up with five types of attraction. The more types you have with someone the stronger the bond that relationship can have. But again, the bond and love can go one way or another, good or bad depending on how it is nurtured.
Five Types of Attraction
1. Basic physical attraction
Basic physical attraction is exactly as it sounds. It’s very visual, all about what you take in with your eyes. You can be physically attracted to someone and not interested in their personality. You can not even have good chemistry with that person. That is why it is the shallowest of attractions.
2. Chemistry attraction
Biologically, we can be attracted to a person based on chemistry. We can love the way they smell, love their energy, and become addicted to their physical touch. Often, this one tricks us into believing we are in love, but we could just be in lust, especially if the attraction does not go any further than physical.
3. Common interests attraction
Many people will try to find a partner based on common interests. Dating apps specify a person’s interests and match them according to another person’s interests because they work as a good starting point for any relationship. It’s hard to be with someone who has very little in common with you regarding common interests. Couples share intimate, fun experiences all the time as a way to bond. If you can’t do that, there’s not a lot more you can do beyond having sex or work, as some people do build relationships based on financial benefits being their common interest.
4. Intellectual attraction
The next level of relationship-building is the ability to learn with each other. If one person likes to learn and the other doesn’t, there will be a limited time the relationship can work because the person who is learning is mentally growing stronger, and that will change who they are. If one partner changes without the other, the relationship is doomed; their goals have become too far apart.
5. Spiritual connection
A spiritual connection can differ between people in what they feel is spiritual. It can be a religious connection, but that can also be a common interest. It can feel like a soulmate—like you previously knew this person even though you have no history with them.
To me, it’s the connection that makes it feel like you can communicate without saying a word. Silence is sometimes welcomed; it can be peaceful and calm. Just being in the presence of each other. All that matters is being together and knowing when to give space.
When their presence stops all-of-time and nothing else matters. When you can tell them anything without feeling shame. When you feel their energy around you even when they are not there, that is a bond that pulls at your spirit within and connects your soul, imprinting them within you for life.
Take care of your partnership, nourish your common interests, and drink in your spiritual attraction. If you are single, take care of yourself with pride. Reach out to friends to avoid loneliness.
