Serving as permanent counsel, adviser, and general know-it-all to her friends for as long as anyone can remember, Jess has a gift for telling what’s what.

Ask Jess: There Is No Reason That You’re Single

Here’s a confession. I hate reading dating advice blogs. I read them anyway.

Tricky, I know, considering I write about dating for a blog.

It’s just that the more I read, the more confused (and depressed) I become. Maybe my heart isn’t open enough. Maybe I’m too giving. Maybe my expectations aren’t high enough. Or are they too high? Maybe I’m not out there enough. Or maybe I’m trying too hard. Maybe I have a toxic pattern with men. Maybe I only like assholes. Maybe I’m the asshole.

And if you’ve met someone you like, the reading gets even worse.

How many times has he called you this week? Does he use your name in a sentence? Is there enough passion? Is the connection only physical? Does he respect you? Does he make future plans? Does he touch your face while kissing? Does he remember things you’ve said about yourself? Does he open doors for you? Will he make a good father to your kids? Does he invite you to his place or only spend time in yours? Is his online profile still up? What has he said about his past relationships? Does he always call when he says he will? Does he text rather than calling? Is there an intellectual connection? Does he make you laugh? Does he lay golden eggs?

Good grief, it feels good to air all of that out! How could you or anyone you meet live up to these standards?

As rational beings, we have a burning need to figure things out. To solve problems and tackle our goals. We believe in mind over matter. To that end, we’ve developed strategies, theories, explanations, rationalizations, and guidelines to the pursuit of love. And some of it is truly helpful. But much of it, in my opinion, is window dressing for a part of life that is almost entirely ruled by sub-rational desires.

Recently I read a completely unscientific “study” which polled married couples about the length and quality of their marriage and compared it to the way that they met. Skipping straight to the punchline for you –the category with the longest and happiest marriages were those that met by way of a “drunken hook-up.”

Now here’s why I find that so fascinating. We put so much effort, so much concentrated thought into selecting our perfect partner. His background, his career, his personality type, his family, his emotional intelligence…. –the list goes on. But none of that analysis comes into play in the case of a drunken hook-up. When you’re drunk,  your inhibitions are lowered and you go for what feels and looks good in the moment. If that is the stuff of lasting unions, is the joke on us? Does the search for love really come back to our most basic animal urges?

Some of you may remember when I wrote about how One-Night-Stands  can be the start of a perfectly harmonious relationship (and then The Frisky posted something on the same topic soon afterward –told you I read a lot of blogs). Again, no one is saying that they are the ideal but we are saying that the taboo about them is mostly crap. And more than that, I think passion (call it attraction, chemistry, or heat) has a more powerful role in creating and sustaining relationships than we typically believe .

No, heat does not last. We all know that relationships mellow over time and committed friendships form from passionate affairs (a good thing, by the way). But I believe that early phase –that passionate crush phase — is a powerful foundation to build upon. So powerful that you turn to it when times get tough, you remember back to that excited time and look to it as a place from which to draw up some renewed energy.

And no, heat alone does not make for the perfect relationship. But when sizing up a prospective mate –maybe, just maybe, passion is worth much more than our long outline of checklist items.

So maybe your single status contains no secret to unlock. There is no set of rules that will govern when and where love will show up. The bad news is that it may be almost entirely random.  But be open to it and keep looking for that spark. The good news is that you don’t need a handbook to find it. It can happen any day, any time, often when you are least expecting it.

[Photo Credit: Photo by Bichuas on Flickr]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 7th, 2010 at 11:30 AM and is filed under Jess on Tap, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.