Letters to the Editor
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I have to laugh---
I have to laugh. Trying to foist the values of efficiency and organization onto love----that's pretty damn funny. Had my husband and I filled out a questionnaire early on---and taken it seriously---we'd have dumped each other by the second date. On paper, we have nothing in common; and as people we have grown so much since that fateful day that what we thought about ourselves then might bear little resemblance to the way we see ourselves now. What these rational programs fail to address is the profound power of a mutual and joyful commitment. These programs seem to want to lower the risk inherent in love, as if that were a good thing. Ha. I am so grateful for the creativity and faith that I have developed in my marriage---because of my marriage---and for the courage to take a bold risk and laugh while doing it. Love is dangerous. Let's drink to that.
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What anonymous said
Love and compatibility have nothing to do with these outward layers we pile on ourselves and might express in a survey or interview. The success of any relationship, ultimately, comes down to is two people's willingness to be nice to eachother, stick with one another through hard times, and most importantly, make one another laugh. Of course, a relationship strong in these aspects is something that takes years of growth and nurturing. It doesn't spring out of nowhere. It's not some inherent component that has to find a 'compatible' pair. It's something that takes time, patience, openness, sacrifice, and work. This reality, of course, is the reason why finding a partner is such a timelessly difficult task for many people, especially those who tend to jettison a relationship at the first sign of trouble. The only thing this nonsense would serve to do, in my view, would be to serve as a sort of placebo, making two people believe they're 'compatible' and 'stable' enough to impel them towards the actual effort that love requires.
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Oh, for crying out loud...
There are SO many couples in my family and network of friends, who've been married anywhere from 20 to 50 years. I doubt any of them have ever actually asked each other the '99 questions.'
My parents have been married 49 years. They married young, are are still very much in love (and they've ripped each other new ones now and then). However, they did something that many couples these days can't comprehend: they made the commitment to work through any and all crap together, as it arose.
99 questions? They saved those for us kids when we missed curfew.
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Pearson's point
I don't know anything about these "singles" courses or pre-marriage counseling. I agree with the previous two readers who think compatability tests and checklists of attributes are mostly a waste of time. However, I do think that sex ed courses for teenagers are a great idea. As soon kids hit puberty they're bombarded with pictures of nasty diseases - the only sex ed they're offered is full of negative connotations. But, as we all know, kids will do what kids have done for generations - they'll ignore the nasty pictures and jump into relationships no matter how much we scare them. It wasn't until my senior year of high school that a health teacher asked us to define love in a positive way. I'll never forget the triangle she drew on the board - intimacy, passion and friendship - all essential components for complete love. We discussed self-love and how it's impossible to love others until we know ourselves. Unfortunately, many of us had already dropped the self-love piece. These discussions need to be started early on -- they're much more effective than the standard "drugs and sex are bad" schpeal.
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Balance
Hmmm. This article seemed to take the position that such classes/seminars are fairly pointless, because love is a crap shoot or a hurricane or whatever, and we need to carpe before we lose the diem.
Fine. Except not so much, in my opinion.
I completely agree that approaching a potential partner with a checklist of questions is unnecessarily neurotic and probably the wrong way to go about things. But I'm all about the idea that love is an action, not just an emotion, and that reason has a large part to play in it.
It sounds like these types of programs would be of a huge benefit to people who would like to 1) learn to communicate better and 2) learn more about themselves and what they're really looking for in a romantic relationship, not just weed out potential jerks. Using reason and caution to approach a relationship doesn't have to be unromantic unless you let it. And I think that being aware of certain cues (and training yourself to look for them) can be hugely important. How a potential partner treats a family member, friend or service worker can throw up possible red flags about compatibility, and I'd rather confront that early on than let myself be blinded by attraction.
It's all about balance. If you're overly analytical or overly emotion-driven, chances are things may not end well. But a good balance can only be more healthy in the long run. I don't see any problem with using this type of a seminar (if that's what floats your boat) in order to figure out more about yourself and your own relationship patterns.
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Abuse is a low-income problem?
"But critics charge that these programs, which were created using research with middle-class couples, aren't easily translatable to lower-income populations, who may be dealing with substance abuse or domestic violence problems."
Glad to know Salon thinks that substance abuse and violent relationships are low-income problems. I've no doubt these seminars attempt to apply middle-class algorithms to low-income couples, but terming abuse (physical or substance) a low-income problem is just perpetuating faulty stereotypes. Abuse is neither exotic to people with money nor endemic to people without - it's a human problem and one these seminars seem to deal with at least some honesty. If only the writer did the same.
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re Relationship Seminars
Sidney beat me to the tsk-tsk, and Tracker beat me to the claim that while a cookie-cutter approach is probably a bad idea, there might actually be something here. Love may be some combination of mystewy and magic and chemical compulsion, but that doesn't mean it's always a good idea; We've all fallen for at least one of the wrong people, and some of us make that mistake -- the same mistake -- again and again and again. What's wrong with demonstrating that there are other options? And perhaps more to the point, if thse seminars are such a terrible, crummy idea, what do we say to the women who keep falling for self-absorbed Bad Boys, the guys who keep falling for needy, self-loathing babes? That they're SOL, that their chemical make-up dooms them to responding only to unhealthy triggers, and that they should just go join a celibate religious order? "Go with your gut" is swell if your gut sends messages that leave you happy and fulfilled. But if your gut is a little upgefucked -- maybe because you picked up some screwy messages in childhood -- then it seems to me that introducing the gut to the brain could make for a very productive relationship.