The Four Things That Love Has Taught Me (So Far)

One of my favorite digital resources, Refinery 29, published a great Q&A last week featuring four New York City couples and how they keep the fire burning for one other. After reading this piece, I couldn’t help but be inspired to reflect on all the things I’ve learned about love and because of love thanks to my fantastic other half. 

1. Love can be one of the easiest and the most difficult feelings to both express and to experience.

Love, as it turns out, is one of the easiest and the most difficult feelings to both express and to feel. For me, giving love is far, far easier than receiving. I’ve got a proclivity for being hard on myself, which makes accepting love from others fairly difficult. I have a I-don’t-think-I-deserve-this filter that I’m doing my best to annihilate. Love is a gift; love is something all beings deserve and have a right to experience. 

2. “Comparison is the thief of joy.” - Theodore Roosevelt

If you want to suck all the joy and happiness out of yourself and a relationship (or situation), compare yourself to something or someone else. I implore you, resist the urge to compare yourself to another beautiful woman, your relationship to another couple’s, or your own relationship to a different moment in time during the relationship. Just because another woman is beautiful doesn’t mean you’re not. Just because another couple appears happier than you doesn’t mean they are. Just because your relationship feels different now than a few months or a few years ago doesn’t mean something is wrong. Instead, focus on the positive.

3. You can only be as happy with someone else as you are with yourself. You can only love someone else as deeply as you love yourself. You’ll only be as sexy as you feel.

It sounds so easy doesn’t it? For some, this is a real toughie, myself included. Being happy with yourself and loving yourself isn’t always easy. In my experience, perfectionists and women have a particularly difficult time with this. I still struggle with this on what seems to be a weekly basis. Here’s something that I should read more often:

“A powerful realization that has helped me is simply this: You’re already good enough, you already have more than enough, and you’re already perfect...if you learn to be content with who you are and where you are in life, it changes everything.”

Don’t underestimate the importance of your own happiness and well being. If everyone were more concerned with their own happiness the world would be a better place. If everyone put the same effort into being who they wanted to be as who they think their significant other wanted them to be, the world would be a much better place, too. I’ve learned that alone time away from your partner is key. So is engaging in activities and hobbies that you’re passionate about.  

Also, ladies, you are sexy and you should know it. Your man loves you just the way you are. Confidence is hotter than anything Agent Provocateur can offer you, so work what you’ve got in a way that makes you feel hot! For me, working out is the best aphrodisiac in the world!

4. Sex does not (and should not) make or break a relationship.

In the beginning, there was sex. And it was good. A year or so later, there is still sex, it is still good but it is most certainly different (and remember: different does not mean better or worse). Sex will come and go in a relationship. There will be peaks and there will be valleys. Sometimes you’ll peak together (wink, wink) and sometimes you’ll be in different places. Work, roommates, differing sex drives, pets, kids, you name it, they all can come first (no pun intended) before sex. 

It’s taken me the past three weeks to succumb to this truth. In my mind, men have the sex drive of a sports car. They’re ready to go whenever we are. This is a lie. They’re apparently human, too. (I know, I was shocked.) A lesson that has been really tough to swallow lately is a mix between numbers three and four: just because he doesn’t want to have sex with you all the time anymore doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you or doesn’t think you’re gorgeous. It just means he doesn’t want to, and you have to learn to be okay with that.

What's Love Got to Do With It?

In a recent interview with vH1 about her forthcoming new album Jennifer Lopez mused that ‘love’ should always be punctuated with a question mark. “It’s a journey,” the thrice-married star said. Journey or not, love is not the question; compatibility is.

Having exited a relationship of a year and a half four months ago (and entered into a new one three months ago) I’m far more concerned with compatibility rather than love. Love is the easy part of the relationship. If I learned anything from my most recent breakup it is that love is not always enough.

For over 30 years Helen Fisher has been paid to study what we all obsess over: love and attraction. Biological anthropologist and professor at Rutgers University, she is the leading expert on the subject. Her theory on love, attraction and compatibility is used on Chemistry.com, a dating website that matches singles.

Fisher’s compatibility theory is based upon four personality types—the Builder, Negotiator, Director and Explorer*. Each type is determined by a cluster of genes and personality traits in combination with the expression of four brain chemicals (dopamine, serotonin, estrogen and testosterone) within an individual. Each brain chemical corresponds to one of the four personality types. Fisher’s theory is based upon the fact that our biological need to create genetically diverse offspring (a diverse genetic makeup usually results in a stronger immune system) will cause us to become attracted to and eventually mate with those that are not identical to ourselves. Other benefits include a natural barrier to incest and complementary yet different parenting styles. A good thing, because chances are your kid isn’t going to respond to the parenting techniques you did.

The theory suggests every person fits into one dominant and one secondary type though we are all a mix of all four of the personality types. For example, you may be primarily a Director and secondarily a Builder but also have a little Explorer in you, no pun intended. 

*For a bare bones look at the four types please see the chart below. I'd like to point out that Bill and Hillary Clinton are compatible matches and that Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie are complete opposites. My question is, what does that make Brad Pitt?

Of course, I had to take the test. 

I am an Explorer/Negotiator. With the Explorer as my dominant type, I am novelty seeking, impulsive and spontaneous, curious, creative, flexible, open-minded and energetic. With my secondary type as the Negotiator, Fisher pegs me as being good at seeing the big picture, being imaginative, intuitive and skilled at verbally expressing myself. I am also empathetic, trusting and introspective. Fisher pegged me right. To take the test yourself, head over to Chemistry.com. 

Interestingly, Fisher assigns each type a color as seen in the chart above. Too bad we don’t all dress accordingly it would make pairing off that much easier. Unfortunately for fellow Explorers only 9.5 percent of the world’s population is classified as Explorers. Of that 9.5 percent roughly one percent of Explorers marry other Explorers, their most compatible match. How do you like them odds?

Odds aside, as we age life complicates. The possibility of knowing the probability of a relationship’s success is a good thing. Whether or not you agree with the four types that Fisher describes as playing a part in the pairing off process, the idea that compatibility is more, if not equally, important than loving someone is a completely valid one. At the end of the day the decisions we make are based on who we are and our proclivity to a certain lifestyle. Everyone wants a partner, someone who stands beside and behind them. You can’t build a life when all you do is bicker about the building materials, or in the case of the Explorer whether or not you even want a pied à terre. 

Kaleidoscope

On Monday afternoon I spent two and a half hours in therapy. I have been going to therapy since I was 15 and can assure you it's been a godsend. I had not been to see my therapist since before the ex and I broke up. It's been long overdue. 


My therapist and I discussed my past relationship, on getting rid of the residual feelings and moving forward. I cannot tell you how wonderful I felt (and still feel!) since that therapy session. The fire I was missing, the fire that was such a hallmark characteristic of mine is back and ablaze. Since Monday I have completed my MBA application, solidified a relationship, given my public relations boss my two weeks notice (not because I do not LOVE it there, but because it's time for me to move on and allow some other new underling grow in that position) and have started heavily looking for jobs and places to live in Charleston. 


The most exciting part of my therapy session is always what happens in the days that follow. In my opinion the point of therapy is to, of course, release, but also to end negative patterns much like one of my favorite quote says:

To that end, I realized that you are bound by the rules you place upon yourself. I have decided to become more daring and take better risks. I have, as of late, been far too rational to satisfy my Sagittarius tendencies.