Love Of A Lifetime

In honor of Valentine’s Day:

A new study from the Kinsey Institute asked 10,036 single adults in the United States how many times they have been passionately in love in their lifetime.

Researchers did not provide an independent or technical definition of the term “passionately in love” as a separate, operationalized scientific construct in the methods section. Participants were simply asked to self-report their own experiences of “being passionately in love” by answering the question:

“In your lifetime, how many times have you been passionately in love?”

The average number of passionate loves in respondents’ lives was 2.05 experiences, which sounds low to me.

The average person has only felt passionate love for 2.05 people in their lifetime.

This feels like a ridiculously small number.

Here are my theories:

1. I have been in love with more people over the course of my lifetime than most people, which is unlikely.

2. People have been in love many more times, but since they are not married or currently dating any of those previous loves, and perhaps are married to the love of their life, they discount those previous relationships as something less than love.

3. They don’t accurately remember the love they once felt because people move through life forgetting damn near everything, making no attempt to retain their memories of the past.

I’m betting on a combination of my second or third theory.

I think people have either reduced previous love affairs to something less than real love or have simply forgotten their intensity and duration because they happened years or decades ago.

I think the real number for most people is much higher.

Of course, this is simply conjecture, but I think I’m probably at least a little right.

So yes, the love I feel for Elysha would far exceed any previous love I have felt in my life, but that does not mean I did not feel passionately in love with women before Elysha.

Had I been included in the study, my number would’ve been five or six.

I’m debating one.

Yes, the love I feel for Elysha far exceeds any love I’ve previously felt by a wide margin, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t feel passionate love before I met her.

Overall:

• 28 percent said they had experienced passionate love just once
• 30 percent twice
• 17 percent three times
• 11 percent four or more times

All those numbers sound low to me.

On the other hand, 14 percent of respondents said they had never experienced passionate love.

This makes me sad, but being an optimist, I also assume that love is right around the corner for these folks.

Or perhaps not if they are unwilling to take the actions necessary to find love. I recently suggested to a friend who is struggling to make a connection “on the apps” that they go out into the world and do something.

Be around people.

Find a hobby, play a sport, travel, or volunteer.

Become friendly with people whom you find physically, mentally, and spiritually attractive. See if that friendship might blossom into something more.

Or simply go to a bar or sporting event or concert or church or gaming night at your local game shop, and if you see someone whom you might want to date because they’re attractive or laugh a lot or strike you as intelligent or confident or fun or kind, approach that person and say, “If you’re not seeing someone, or if someone isn’t lucky enough to be seeing you, would you like to get together for a drink or a meal sometime?”

My friend says this would be lunchy. He claims that things are not done this way anymore. He tells me that if he approached a woman like that, she would think he was bizarre or worse.

I disagree. I haven’t dated in more than 20 years, but I still disagree.

At worst, the person says, “No,” or “No, thank you,” or “I’m with someone,” or “Get lost, creep.”

None of those responses is damaging in any way. You walk away and live to fight another day.

At best, the person sees confidence, self-esteem, assertiveness, and even courage. Rather than hiding behind an app, they might see someone who’s bold and secure enough to do something that far too many people are afraid to do these days.

It’s something I had to do again and again and again when I was dating:

Ask a woman if she wants to go out with me. I did this in clubs, at parties, at work, at the mall, at concerts, and once at Disneyland in front of her parents.

More than once, I asked a woman in the car next to me at a traffic light if she wanted to grab a bite to eat.

It almost always failed. It failed so many times.

But twice it worked. Nothing came of either date except that I took one step closer to finding the love of my life.

Leave the apps to everyone else. Be different, daring, and surprisingly memorable.

Dating advice from a guy who hasn’t dated in more than two decades.

Maybe a little naive and silly, coming from someone who last dated before an app or even a mobile phone was really a thing, but also different, daring, and bold.

And maybe right.

Happy Valentine’s Day, people. For those of you who think the holiday is a cash grab, stupid sentimentality, or a punch in the face to those who haven’t found love, I wish you better, more romantic thoughts in the future.

I’m not opposed to cynicism, but I believe in love a whole lot more.