Intimacy vs. Desire
Dear Maxwells: Whenever I see a profile on a dating app that I like, I get excited about potentially meeting that person and start to imagine what they might be like. As soon as they match with me and send me a message, however, I start to question whether I'm actually interested. It's almost as if I lose interest as soon as I feel like they might be interested in me. I realize that this is not a healthy way of relating to dating, but it's how I feel. Why do I keep feeling like this and how can I change this?
Dear reader: Thank you so much for your question. Stress not, because this is so incredibly common that we dare say almost everybody we've ever coached in dating has dealt with this phenomenon to some degree. And not just on dating apps. This happens just as much in real-life situations as it does on apps, and it can happen in any phase of a relationship as well! This dynamic is so pervasive because it has to do with the nature of desire itself, and desire speaks the loudest when it's just beyond our reach. Think about it: Do you desire the meal that you just ate? What about the vacation you just went on? A desire fulfilled is no longer a desire, is it?
So how does this play into dating and what can we do about it? When not properly understood, the nature of desire can sabotage somebody's success in dating because people conflate the feeling of desire with whether a relationship has future potential. In other words, we place way too much importance on the feeling of desire as a deciding factor in whether we should consider dating somebody. The truth is that desire and intimacy or the potential for intimacy are not correlated. Usually, as intimacy increases, desire decreases.
If you picture an inverse graph, there is usually a sweet spot during the peak of the honeymoon phase where intimacy has increased a bit and desire has decreased a bit and both kind of meet in the middle of the graph before they continue on their trajectories. Yes, an initial desire is important to generate interest in somebody, but if we are reliant on desire only to maintain and deepen our interest, then we are at the mercy of our interest waxing and waning in relation to how available somebody is or isn't at any given time.
We must simultaneously be aware of how desire operates within us, meaning, how it waxes and wanes based upon how within our reach it may seem to be, and with that awareness, go deeper than the desire itself. This looks like getting curious about the actual person underneath the desire. What are they like? How do they think about the world? Do you have shared values and future goals? Do you have similar interests? Do you have good sexual chemistry and similar tastes in this regard? Who are they actually and is there a potential there for deeper connection? Understanding that a healthy long-term relationship requires two available people who are available for each other, what then, deeper than desire, can sustain that relationship and have it flourish over time?
This is where to put your focus in dating. Be self-aware enough to know when desire is working its magic on you versus conflating that with a potential for something deeper. For example, watch how your interest in somebody might surge when they take longer to respond to your texts or when you just aren't exactly sure how much they like you. Then watch how you might get turned off or question how much you actually might like them when they get right back to you, or tell you that they can't stop thinking about you.
Understand that this is not a sign of future compatibility or potential for intimacy in any way. But just, like the smell of pizza wafting out of a pizza parlor when you have a rumbling in your belly, the nature of desire working its magic on you. Smile at this phenomenon within yourself, and then force yourself to go deeper, asking yourself and your potential partner the real questions that make relationships last and thrive. Understand that at some point, that feeling of desire will fade, and get curious about what will be left. Make sure that you are more interested in what will be left than you are with the desire itself. Desire can always be created and recreated over time, but your intimacy, the deeper connection you have with somebody, that is what is most important to focus on.
