Beyond Butterflies: Why Chemistry Isn’t Everything in Relationships
Dear Maxwell’s: You’ve written about the idea of a “spark” in dating as the wrong thing to seek in a partner. This confuses me. If not the spark or that magical feeling, what should someone look for to gauge potential?
Dear Reader, great question. Yes, we’ve mentioned that the elusive “spark” can be more of a red flag than a green light in dating, so let’s elaborate.
First, let’s unpack why the “spark” might be more problematic.In our work as relationship and dating coaches, perhaps the most common reason that we hear from our single clients as to why they didn’t want to continue seeing somebody, who on paper, may have met all or most of their criteria, is because that elusive “spark” was missing. People use different words to describe this spark, like chemistry, magic, butterflies, fireworks, vibe, infatuation etc. But regardless of the words, they’re all referring to the same thing: this “feeling” that makes somebody feel powerfully drawn to somebody else. People describe seeing somebody from across the room and fireworks going off in their body, or that they and this other person just magically “clicked” right from the get go. This is by far the thing that people are most commonly looking for in a potential partner, and way more so than the things that make long term relationships actually work like shared values, and communication.
Part of the reason for this is because we’ve all been brainwashed to a certain extent from a young age to prioritize this feeling over everything else. We love romantic comedies and disney movies for this reason. This notion of romantic love is archetypal. Think about how Romeo and Juliet saw each other from across the room and instantly fell in love. This is part of how we all relate to love and romance on some level but the problem is that things rarely play out in that manner. We’ve said this before but romantic comedies end right as the protagonists ride off into the sunset together. We never actually see how the characters relationship unfolds after the honeymoon period has worn off. Romeo and Juliet both died before their honeymoon period wore off as well. In all likelihood if they had lived and continued dating, the probability of them staying together would be slim to none. We imagine them both waking up one day and realizing that they got together way too young, before each one of them really knew who they were and from completely different backgrounds. The burden of their respective families' disapproval weighing too heavily on the relationship, and in today’s day and age, at least one of them would have left the relationship to go “find themselves” probably at some kind of plant medicine retreat in Peru or at Burning Man.
In all seriousness though, the litmus test that all our single readers should be using is to ask themselves how this “spark” has played out for them in the past. If you were lucky enough to grow up in a functional household with two loving parents who not only loved you, but also loved each other, then yes, it’s possible that whoever you “spark” with might be a good potential for you and that your spark radar might lead you in the right direction. But if you are like most of us who grew up in a divorced family, or with parents who cheated on one another, struggled with addiction or other dysfunctionality, then it’s a good chance that whoever you “spark” with is probably somebody that will end up mirroring back to you all the unresolved issues you have with love that began in your childhood. For better or for worse, most of us tend to mistake this intense feeling of a spark with a trauma bond. So if you’re single, look back on your dating history and all the people who you’ve felt that “special something” with and ask yourself “how did those relationships turn out?” See if there is a pattern there, like only having that spark with people who ended up cheating on you, or people who you ended up cheating on. Or people who all had problems with alcohol or substance abuse. Or people who become verbally or emotionally abusive or emotionally unavailable. Use the actual real life data of your past to inform you of whether or not this elusive spark is something that has led you to greener pastures or led you astray. If in fact you are like most people, and this spark has led you astray, fear not, that doesn’t mean you have to end up with boring Jim from accounting who always wears the same dirty sneakers to work everyday. It just means that you must deal with your underlying belief systems about love and your own self worth. These underlying subconscious beliefs can and must be changed through self awareness and personal inner work in order to start attracting the right people into your life, and in order to be attracted to them!
Lastly, it means that you have to start looking for and prioritizing something different than this elusive feeling that you’ve believed is an indication of true love. Shared values, communication, a sense of humor, great sex, deep friendship, heart connection, all of these things and more should take precedence over this obsession so many have with this relatively cursory and short lasting phenomenon of romantic love.
