Bright lights, big city, eligible bachelor

The allure of the city, the promise of wishes fulfilled, expectations met, dreams realised, adventures lived. Lights twinkling and shimmering, the cacophony of noise and the perpetual buzz of movement and energy. Numerous lives in simultaneous transit and convergence, one mass melting pot of simmering potential, just waiting to bubble over. Underneath the shimmering façade of the cityscape, in the dense and oppressive urban jungle roves the young single male, a twenty-first century Tarzan of sorts, noble in spirit, compelling in character and ruthless in ambition. But what of his Jane? What heights are to be reached and what pitfalls to be avoided in search of a partner? Despite its bedazzling palette of possibilities, manoeuvring the modern metropolis is no mean feat.

The city can be unforgiving, punishing at times. The constant call of our many commitments, numerous products, sites and services vying for our attention. There is considerable pressure to keep our appointments, pay our bills, keep up with the city and progress as people. The city is extensive too, sprawling masses of networks and connections that seldom flow smoothly. Sometimes just getting from A to B can seem like a journey of epic proportions. The dating game has evolved such that it times if feels like we’re swiping the entire population in search of a match. For this reason it is crucial to prioritise and utilise our most precious asset – time. Make the time for finding someone special, and don’t compromise on it. Make use of moments and minutes, whenever you have them so that you are able to allocate more time to those matters that lie closer to your heart.

After all, the super city offers a bewildering array of events and exhibitions, cultural and creative pursuits, activities and excursions, and culinary and social settings to satisfy the tastes of even the most whimsical or esoteric pleasure seeker. Add to this the plethora of publications and social media streams keeping us constantly informed and updated and it would seem more difficult not to find something that appeals. City centres are places of amazing diversity and magnetically draw in people from highly disparate backgrounds, giving practically unlimited variety in terms of a potential partner. We are also completely at liberty to choose what to do, where to go and who to see and align our day-to-day lives in accordance with our wants and wishes, beliefs and values. Suffice to say that this almost unlimited choice is there to be taken advantage of and the freedom we enjoy should be honoured and celebrated.

So as we traverse the cosmopolitan mise en scène in our quest for the love of our lives, we would do well to bear in mind the primacy of location. Review sites and location-based apps can help us find the perfect setting for a first meet, while social media keeps us informed as to upcoming events that could be the point of our sweetest and most cherished memories. Spend time online, either reviewing the blogs and vlogs of those who know and have been there before or fostering new relationships and connections on instant messaging or video chat apps. Root out those places that are genuinely interesting and that you hear people talking about, find out for yourself what they are like and make a point of visiting new places and expanding your knowledge of different areas of the city and what they have to offer. Make a second home of those places that are in line with your interests and hobbies and discover the like-minded individuals who do the same. If pushed for time, arrange meetings near transport hubs which offer a mélange of differing social options a stone’s throw away and a quick journey home to boot. Whatever you do, remember that the city is continually reshaping, transforming and evolving and will always be capable of fulfilling our deepest desires and most treasured dreams.

“You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours.”   Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

Will Cupid’s arrow find you this Valentine?

There are perhaps, few other dates in the calendar that arouse such contrasting emotions as that of February the fourteenth. For some a time of celebration or opportunity: for others a time of dread and despondency. Though its eponymous saint sacrificed his life for Christianity, its comparatively recent podgy poster boy very much represents the romantic and carnal facet of this thing called love. Cupid’s counterpart Eros has been around since the Greeks were mythologizing, perhaps a thousand years before the priest Valentinus was arrested for clandestinely marrying Christian couples and then beaten and beheaded for attempting to convert the Emperor Claudius. However, it was only once Chaucer’s poem Parlement of Foules made the association between St. Valentine’s day and courtship in the fourteenth century, that the cherubic Cupid began to emerge as the endearing icon of the international day of romantic love.

In Roman times, the plump pin-up was known as Cupido which translates from Latin as ‘desire’, making him the embodiment of erotic sentiment and physical attraction, unsurprising given that his mother Venus was the goddess of love and his father Mars, the god of war. We tend to think of desire as a strong and intense want or wish that is at least corporeal, quite often sexual and at times apparently uncontrollable and this is, for better or worse, quite fitting for February fourteenth as it is often a time when we set our sights on the object of our affections or a reaffirmation of the initial intensity and passion of newfound love. In today’s highly sexualised society, image and appearance are often overvalued at the expense of integrity and substance, nonetheless St. Valentine’s is a timely reminder of what is a crucial aspect of romantic relationships and lasting love.

The idea of a chubby boy, bewinged and brandishing a bow and arrow, though blindfolded is perhaps not the most convincing portrait of desire, but he is upon closer inspection, reassuringly symbolic. His youth represents the innocent, uninhibited and occasionally irrational nature of attraction. His wings to the flighty and fickle aspect of love, ungrounded and capricious. The bow and arrow he holds point to the deep and piercing wounds that love can leave, his torch to the fiery and inflammatory essence of passion and his blindfold to the somewhat random and incidental choice of targets. Though the most striking aspect of Cupid’s persona is his ability to instil this desire in the recipient of his golden-tipped arrows, be they humans or gods; they are powerless to overcome the intensity of the desire and the potency of the passion awoken within them, the spark of love’s flame.

So this Valentine’s day, whether you’re looking for love, looking to rekindle it, to keep it burning or to make it burn brighter; keep in mind that we are dealing with something precious yet volatile, something we do not understand and cannot control. It is often the case that we are too grounded and practical in our approach to romance, too specific about what we want yet not passionate and committed enough to truly seize it. We may not always know who is best for us or who is not and are perhaps more likely to find and keep our Valentine by letting Cupid, the original and ultimate matchmaker, do what he has always done. As the ancient Roman poet Virgil put it, ‘Love conquers all, and so let us surrender ourselves to Love’.

Make the time to make it work

Many psychological studies have tried to establish what the key factors are for successful relationships, with most emphasising communication. However what preludes communication is time. Time spent with your partner, time invested into a new relationship or an existing one. Without time or the efforts that come with it there can be no communication or growth in a relationship.

Quite often when we say we have a lack of time, we are too focused on other aspects of our life, our careers, our friends, hobbies or so on. We forget to stop and realise that the relationship we have right in front of us still takes time and effort every day. This brings to the forefront the aspect of maintenance in relationships and how this is a factor in having a successful relationship.

It is widely believed that effort and energy are only essential in the early stages of forming a relationship. That once the relationship stage has passed the honeymoon phase, the affiliation between both partners is set. However, in contrast this is where the real work begins and quite often it’s when the time we used to spend with our partner slips. Research has found that positive reassurance and task sharing activities were predictors of commitment and satisfaction in a relationship (Stafford & Canary, 1991). Here we can start to see that effective communication combined with spending time with your partner will lead to a successful relationship.

Communication is shaped by relational factors and context, both of which are associated with time and effort. It is with these factors that we can communicate effectively in our relationships allowing us to fulfil our basic human need of affection, whilst also allowing us to attain our personal goals of long lasting successful relationships.

A psychological experiment combined both daily involvement and longitudinal studies and looked at the perceived investments in relationships. What was found supported the premise that investment, with regard to time, from one partner encouraged the other partner to further commit to the relationship. These effects held even for individuals who were comparatively less satisfied with their relationships. Together, these results suggest that people feel particularly grateful for partners who have invested into the relationship, which, in turn, motivates them to further commit to the relationship.

It therefore pays off to continue spending the time needed to ensure your partner feels a sense of investment and effort from you. It can be easy to forget that we often neglect those we love the most when we are busy and stressed, as usually they are the most understanding. However this form of behaviour and understanding can only last so long and research has shown that greater commitment is found in relationships whereby your partner feels invested in. So if you feel as though you have put your relationship on the back burner or are wondering why you can’t keep hold of a relationship, ask yourself, are you making the time to make it work?

References

 Stafford, L., & Canary, D. J. (1991). Maintenance strategies and romantic relationship type, gender and relational characteristics. Journal of Social and Personal relationships, 8(2), 217-242.

Guerrero, L. K., Andersen, P. A., & Afifi, W. A. (2013). Close encounters: Communication in relationships. Sage Publications.

Cut out jealousy if you want to outsmart competitors!

Back in 2000, Susie Ambrose launched Seventy Thirty, the first matchmaking company to exclusively pair affluent and successful singles. It was an instant success, and a moneymaker. It stood out from the other agencies that had to offer cheaper fees because they catered for a non-exclusive market.

Full article here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connect/small-business/cut-out-jealousy-to-outsmart-competitors/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_tw

New year, new love? How to be proactive about creating your perfect relationship

With the presents unwrapped and the mince pies eaten, people’s attention inevitably turns from their Christmas wishes to their new year’s resolutions. Most typically spending more time at the gym and with the family and planning holidays, while cutting down on alcohol and losing weight. Often much further down the list if at all, are resolutions for our relationships; as if merely spending more time with loved ones were enough to improve things, or even worse that this was not an area of our lives to which we could apply our resolve to make our dreams and desires reality.

This stems from people’s deterministic attitudes about love. We tend to think that Mr or Mrs Right will ‘come along’, that we will ‘fall’ in love, and that meeting ‘the one’ is largely down to chance. It may be that because relationships are reciprocal and depend as much on one person as the other, that we feel we are not fully in control (or not responsible for) bringing people into our lives and initiating the relationships we wish to enjoy. By resolving to do what it takes we can effect changes that benefit both ourselves and the people in our lives as well as those we are yet to meet.

The key difference here is taking responsibility and not allowing ideas of fate, destiny, or chance to govern our relationships. This may entail asking ourselves some challenging questions, such as what it is we really want from a partner or how we can be the kind of person that someone else would want - this can be pretty uncomfortable, but ultimately very rewarding. It could also mean doing research about the dating scene, consulting experts in relationships and looking back at the rights and wrongs of previous relationships. Being proactive about the resolution involves establishing what we want and the best possible way to get it and then following through on the results.

This is all the more easy to do if we are honest with ourselves about our requirements. These touch various aspects of our lives and character, including family and work, previous relationships, life goals, physical attraction and values, and so merit considered thought and attention. By clarifying these requirements we build a picture within our subconscious minds so that it is not just more predisposed to recognise it but is actually more likely to seek it out and act in a manner that will attract it. Additionally we are therefore less likely to waste time pursuing relationships that are not in our best interests or in harmony with our beliefs and desires.

So as you write out and review your resolutions this year; while learning a new skill or losing weight are undoubtedly important for your self esteem and happiness, think about the relationships you have or the ones you want and how your resolutions could make 2017 not just a great year for you, but for the other people in your life. Make it a priority, put it at the top of the list and take action to bring about the relationship you would wish for. The more specific you can be about the kind of relationship you want, the stronger the resolve you have to make reality, what for others remains a twist of fate or a game of chance.

Another self or your other half: stepping through the looking glass

What do we look for in a potential partner - what is it that we find attractive?

Is our ideal partner, really just someone with whom we share a background and have much in common? It is certainly a widely held view that people are attracted to and initiate romantic relationships with prospective partners who are similar to themselves across a wide array of personal characteristics. But why should this be so? Our perfect match won’t necessarily be a mirror image of ourselves, but someone whose personality complements our own, often in ways that we could never have envisioned.

There are many fundamental factors that influence our perception of someone’s suitability as a possible match. These are predominantly societal as we tend to meet more people from our own economic and educational groups. This has always encouraged compatibility and stability, but a successful relationship will always be based on more than similarity in aspects of culture, background or location. Important though these criteria are, they struggle to capture the sheer diversity of experience that we are likely to encounter in seeking our perfect match.

As the twenty-first century gathers pace, we find ourselves in an increasingly unstable and fragmented society; with continual shifts and endless choice, it’s diverse yet disposable. As a result, many of the constraints that used to determine our choice of partner are disappearing or at least their influence lessening, giving way to more transient matching preferences which are based around images and profiles; locations, likes and swipes.

When considering the mind-boggling number of possible character combinations and potential matches, we tend to cling all the more to the things we have in common. We like people with similar attitudes because these attitudes are rewarding in the sense of confirming our own opinions of the world. In an age of increasing uncertainty, it’s reassuring to find like-minded people who mirror our values though this is not necessarily the best basis for long-lasting attraction.

Additionally, people place greater value on shared experiences as these give a couple the chance to create their own background; their own history, without having to fulfil pre-existing criteria or preferences. A couple dashing for shelter from a sudden shower under the one coat, a fit of giggles that comes out of nowhere, or a piece of chocolate cake simply too big for one person alone. The value of these moments cannot be measured and their importance to immense attraction and strong relationships cannot be underestimated.

Anyone can bring these experiences into their lives; all we have to do is step through the looking-glass into the topsy turvy world of dating, embrace the unknown and challenge our preconceptions of who we are and what we want, allowing our experiences with others to shape us and help us grow. Otherwise we may search in vain for our other half and only find another self. As the unicorn says to Alice, “Well, now that we have seen each other, if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you.”

References

Duck, Steve. (1999).  Relating to others 2nd ed. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Cramer, Duncan. (1998). Close Relationships: The Study of Love and Friendship. Arnold.