the agony of eros: dating

But though outrage may feel liberating, it is no friend of love. In order to stand any chance of working, a relationship has to involve—on both sides—a continuous attempt to drill beneath difficult words and actions in search of their more complicated, and occasionally touching, origins. Perhaps our partner is feeling sexually insecure; maybe they

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“I have been forced to hear again and again the message that self-love is the ‘pinnacle of self-actualization’ and that craving a romantic relationship is a sign of weakness,” says maya finoh, a human rights advocate and model based in Brooklyn. But is our fear of appearing weak just feeding into rampant individualism in the dating climate and, in ... See more

Looking for love sounds more like chasing the high of an extreme sport, trust falling with someone you don’t really know like that. It demands exacting reciprocity, extreme vulnerability. It brings out people’s basest and most primal instincts and a frightening desire to merge into someone else. When the girlies on TikTok talk about dating, they ra... See more

You know a relationship matters to you in a healthy way when you are willing to act over the awkwardness of the small but scary steps that lead to change: 1. Notice which behavior of yours leads to problems for you or your partner. See through such excuses as: “This is how I am!” or “But I’m right.” Acknowledge the fear or pain behind any behavior

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We need to swap the Romantic view for a tragic (and at points comedic) awareness that every human will frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and disappoint us — and we will (without any malice) do the same to them. There can be no end to our sense of emptiness and incompleteness. But none of this is unusual or grounds for divorce. Choosing whom to commit

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Of course, we rarely approach relationships with such wisdom. Instead, we spend years failing to fully commit to any one relationship—either by finding a reason to call things off as soon as a serious liaison starts to look likely or by only halfheartedly showing up for whatever relationship we’re in. Or, alternatively, in a pattern that every expe... See more