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Love Without A Future
We meet a person who has the right combination of traits — great conversation, fun, shared values, joy over similar things, great chemistry … everyone has their list. This person we are getting to know and feeling crazy about is hitting (most) everything on the list. And we seem to meet (most) things on their list, too. They see us, we see them, and we love what we see.
So we fall in love.
What happens next? Love is compelling. It feels delicious. We want as much of it as possible. Falling in love is akin to getting high on cocaine; while it feels really good, it isn’t sane or rational. It’s a real experience, and it’s a high. It’s a great feeling. We delight in it, we crave it, and we might behave recklessly or disrupt our lives for it.
This is where we wade into dangerous waters. Not only do we begin to figure out what we need to change, to do, or to give up in order to spend more time with this person, we also don’t want it to end. We get attached to them and to the experience. We start to think about the future and how to hold on to this experience for as long as we can. Maybe forever, we think to ourselves.
So how do we hold on to it? We want to keep the other person happy. Their happiness with us will ensure they stick around, and then we can continue to be happy, right? So, little by little, we start to compromise. We…
