The Spectrum Of Desire

A-items		Need	gotta have it
B-items		Want	love it
C-items		Prefer	like it
D-items		Prefer-Not	dislike
E-items		Want-Not	hate
F-items		Need-Not	eff no

In a successful union, both parties get all their A-item needs met in copious abundance, and enjoy a lot of B-items.

Person 1's A-items must be person 2's A or B items: AA or AB are fine and dandy. But: AC (one person's need being merely the other person's like) is actually worse incompatibility than FB (one person's absolutely-not being something the other person loves). That is to say, a need well-met has more power than a loved activity summarily rejected. Because generous meeting of needs makes so much else possible. Yet another way to say it is the spectrum is not linear. A need is orders more important than a love, in turn than a like.

Ideally, large quantities of regular time are devoted to: AA, AB activities, but that's easy. Unplanned, spontaneous but still happen a lot: BB, BC. Less often but not neglected: BD, BE. Meh: CC, CD. Never: DD, DE, CE, EE or anything with an F. And no lasting intimate relationship should even be attempted when there exist any factors rated: AC, AD, AE, AF.

Crossing the center means surprises either direction are very dangerous: If he hates her friends (a BE situation) she should give him plenty of notice when they're coming over and he should be extraordinarily respectful around them. But those kinds of activities (BE) should definitely happen because the spectrum is not symmetrical: A loved activity fulfilled is worth the hated activity sucked-up. But very very carefully.

The division between like and dislike is not as sharp as between need and want. You need your needs; all else is secondary. Similarly, in an ideal union there's the other person and then there are the other six billion people.

Notice there are no don't-care items, forgoing a green center, which is a tragic sacrifice being the author's favorite color and all. But in love there are no don't-care's, there are only liars, lazy thinkers, and people who didn't understand the question. In an ideal union there's no pretense of hiding, neither the simple nor the huge.

The Only Road To Intimacy

Talking. Talking is the only road to intimacy. Now, it's not the only way to get there. I like walking on the soft side of the road. I like peeling off into the brush where no one has ever set foot before. The road is flat and harsh and tedious. You'll step on pebbles and potholes and worse. Some wordless shortcuts are fantastically useful and endlessly enjoyable.

You can get to intimacy in many directions, along many different media. You don't have to use the road. The thing about a road is, you always can.

And when the road is closed, there's a very definite limit to how far you can get through. People who never learn how to talk to each other, especially how to get through when emotions are hot, can enjoy only limited intimacy.

“If a man speaks
his mind in a forest
and no woman hears him,
is he still wrong?”

—tiddliboom.com

“Exert control over the variables that are within your control and you'll improve the odds that the uncontrollable variables will work in your favor.” —D. A. Benton

“Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.” —Emily Dickinson

And You My Friend Are No Player

Not sure if self discipline plays a part in your fairy tale, but it is the single most important skill a sentient being masters, if for no other reason than without it all your other powers will be commandeered by The Game Of Life, e.g. breeding like rats. Technically The Game is not procreation. If you believe that, you misunderstand who the players are. You are not playing the game of life, you are being played. You're not a player; you're a pawn.

This is freeing in one way. You and your mate need never be enemies. Being pawns of enemies is not the same. Discipline yourself to conspire. There is no interesting escape from The Game Of Life. All thoughts and acts are part of it. But there are thriving treasonous discussions.

Unnatural Act

Life, as naturally and most commonly played, rarely joins soulmates. C'mon, how many do you know? Granted most of the best pairings are likely to keep to themselves. Wouldn't you? So evidence may be skewed.

Soulmating is an unnatural act. Don't confuse what you feel with what you want, is with ought. Nature is not your best ally, especially not your nature. Yet there are forces within of fine, shrill wisdom. Your best ally is a force within, but not by any means your only force within. So know yourself first. Expect ambivalence around important choices. Short term rewards have major advantages, and your inner beast will pull hard toward them. But if you buy into soulmatism you are aiming high and far, beyond the horizons you now know.

Why Dating Is Hell

Dave Grossman, in his magnificent book On Killing posits that the fear of death or injury is not nearly so destructive (to army tactics or soldier psyches) as the fear of causing death or injury. In the same way, I suggest that the loathing and avoidance of courtship are not so much from fear of a broken heart, as fear of breaking a heart.

There is no honorable and comfortable way to say no. This is one reason lesser love gushes while great love may be quiet even to the point of tragic secrecy: to protect the beloved from having to say no.

Love By Counterexample

Enjoyable moments in a relationship don't instruct, they only encourage more enlightened investment. The real education comes in bad relationships, when the repetition of a particular disappointment begins to tap into memory, and eventually jack-hammer into resolve, your most vivid wants. The first learning is by counterexample.

This backwards learning happens in other spheres. Bosses have no idea who they want to hire. Job descriptions are nothing but a display-case of talismans against the ghosts of bad employees, past and present. Likewise, prospective employees at an interview, to the extent they have any functioning proactive neurons at all, are on the lookout for what they were trained to hate.

This phenomenon happens every time you hear someone say "I want a (gender) who (blah)." While the left brain is saying these words, no matter how positive or romantic they may sound, in the right brain is an image of a former so-and-so wearing a big red "X".