The Six Passions of the Red-Hot Lover

Reflecting on Tinder

By Wendy Brown August 14, 2015 Advice No Comments

Tinder seems to be the model of efficiency as a hookup or dating site. It appears to be the natural evolution of online dating. This is all good, but there’s something about it that makes me very sad.

Perhaps it’s the bottom-line of Tinder that gets to me: A quick connection with someone is easy to obtain. It’s not that valuable.

Maybe, as a therapist, I spend too much time talking with playboys and playgirls about their loneliness. I hear that the sex is rarely amazing; generally it’s good enough for two or more people who are drunk or high and who don’t know each other well. Often enough, somebody is getting hurt. And nobody seems to really care about that except the person who is hurt of course. Everybody else is just playing the game, staying in his/her individual bubble and trying not to be that person.

I think my issue with Tinder is that I can’t argue with it. But it’s part of the trend towards quick and easy people. And most connections between them are a dime a dozen.

Need help with online dating?

By Wendy Brown August 9, 2015 Articles No Comments

Let’s suppose you can describe the perfect man/woman for you. You might even be able to explain why he/she is your ideal. What you’re doing is tapping into yourself and projecting your image of your other half onto a blank screen. Fair enough. That involves you knowing yourself to some extent, which is a great start. I’d say that’s step one.

I propose that step two could be getting to know the type you’re seeking before you even try to find him/her online. You see, when you know yourself, you have some knowledge of what goes with what in your personality. Imagine that you’re uplifting and fun-loving when you fall in love. Well, you’re also probably very upset and avoidant when troubles show up. It’s this yin and yang that’s really important to understand about the man/woman of your dreams. That’s what allows you to be one step ahead in knowing the questions to ask and the ways to handle what you find out.

You might say to yourself: I want a man with a great sense of humour, a lot of ambition and frankly someone who doesn’t give a rat’s ass what other people think of him. In this, you’re looking for a Passionate Adventurer.

On humour

You need to bear in mind that there’s probably a big difference in a man who is capable of the odd funny line and someone who has a hilarious but scathing view of the world. Both come from a particular perspective or slant on life, but a lot depends on how deeply he holds it and how much vigor he puts into it.
If he has gone to a great deal of time and trouble to develop his views, he may truly and deeply believe in them. This man could be very offended if you don’t know and respect where he stands on things and why.
For all mildly to seriously humourous Passionate Adventurers, respect is enormously important. You might not have to agree with him about everything, but you very likely will have to keep his thoughts and feelings in high regard.

On ambition:

Just like not all Passionate Adventurers are hilarious, they’re not all highly ambitious. You may have found a man who appears to have the earmarks of success, but somehow just never gets off the ground. On the other hand, your guy could be driven, forward moving and powerful.
If he’s ambitious, he likely has confidence that he’s on an amazing quest. He tends to believe in himself and courageously go forward.
He may have an incredible ability to understand how people and processes work because he can see life from different angles. This allows him to have diversity and creativity in his approach to moving onward and upward.
One very important factor in making a Passionate Adventurer ambitious or not is the extent to which he’s willing to play somebody else’s game. It’s pretty much a given that a person who seeks success has to do this at least some of the time. Your guy may or may not be up for that, on principle.

On not giving a rat’s ass:

Let’s imagine you have the most agreeable and passive of all Passionate Adventurers. He might quietly and mildly dislike some of the ways of the world and the people in it. As a result, he simply pulls back and does his own thing. On the other hand, if you have a man with a mission, he could go into full-on fight mode.
Believe it or not, this man’s ability to not give a rat’s ass about what others think of him is due to the same reason he’s mysterious: There’s a tiny bit of him that he keeps for himself. It’s enough for him to have his own approval.
Plus, his pride is a big factor here. He’s generally offended by people who don’t take the time and trouble to get to know him and believe in him. That makes him feel misunderstood and disrespected. He probably finds it absolutely intolerable to be stifled, controlled, scrutinized or interrogated.
Thus it’s very important to know what pushes his buttons and how far he tends to go as a result.

As you can see, it’s greatly to your advantage to know ahead of time what all is involved in the characteristics you seek in another person:

You can develop questions for him/her that allow you to cut to the chase in determining if he/she has what you’re after.
It may be possible for you to work smoothly with an individual because you realize where the trouble spots are and you know how to get around them.
You might even be able to develop an online profile pitched towards attracting the type of your choice.

My theory of love attitudes produced the above-noted information on the Passionate Adventurer. There are also three other types: the Gripping Dramatist, Sensible Compromiser and Joyful Diversionist.

Perhaps I should explain a bit about how I developed my theory. As an individual and couples psychotherapist, I’ve spent an enormous amount of time explaining why love problems occur and trying to solve them. I have essentially studied love along with the individuals experiencing it.

I decided to figure out if it’s true that love is different for everybody. So, I kept a piece of paper in my desk and jotted down the definitions of love as I heard them from my clients. I quickly realized that I needed four pieces of paper: I was hearing that there are four different views of love. I labelled them love attitudes.

Essentially, a love attitude is a set of thoughts and feelings that determines how you think, feel and behave when you’re in love. You can’t see your love attitude clearly unless someone or something brings it to your attention. Most people need to take my test or read the full descriptions of all four love attitudes to figure out which one is theirs.

By the way, it can greatly add to the online dating experience to know your love attitude very well. That’s step three.

For your reference, here are brief descriptions of the love attitudes from the perspectives of people who have them:

I am a Gripping Dramatist lover. I’m a pretty serious-minded person who is aware of the dark side of life. I feel as though life and love haven’t treated me very well. When I fall in love, I end up in a gripping drama: I’m afraid I don’t deserve to have somebody fall in love with me and yet I want to believe that I do. I go through a painful game of he/she loves me he/she loves me not. That overwhelms me with emotion. At times, I feel terribly vulnerable, which makes me sensitive, intense and volatile. I can go into an all-out panic or I can be really fiery. Sometimes I say and do reckless things. I can be extremely controlling in my environment and towards others to make up for how out of control I feel inside myself. All of this pushes and pulls my lover and me. It can look like my lover is rejecting me even if he/she is not. I can end up sabotaging my whole love relationship.
I am a Passionate Adventurer lover. I’m a courageous person; life and love strengthen me. When I fall in love, I believe in myself and I see myself going on a passionate adventure. It’s a great opportunity for me to explore, using my lens on the world and my sense of humour. I’m confident enough to make split-second decisions and go forward immediately. That’s all part of the adventure for me. I don’t like anyone or anything interfering with my spirit for adventure. I can’t stand it to be bored, fenced in or cornered.
I am a Sensible Compromiser lover. I’m a warm and comforting person; I generally run my life so that I feel safe and secure. When I fall in love, my way of life is a sensible compromise. I really, really dislike disappointments. It’s very painful for me to disappoint myself because I’m shocked and upset that I let it happen. I almost feel like I betrayed myself. I do my level best to avoid letdowns and setbacks: I don’t set high expectations, go to extremes or have wild and crazy emotions. I even minimize romance and passion. When the inevitable losses occur anyway, I’m very realistic and practical. I reckon with them and settle for less than I had before. My way works for me, so don’t try to rush me, push me or change me.
I am a Joyful Diversionist lover. I can be as happy, self-indulgent and in-the-moment as a child at play. When I fall in love, it’s a spontaneous and glorious high. I’m in my element: I feel young at heart, I’m in love with love and I’m escaping the difficult stuff of life. Because this feels so wonderfully different from the monotony of regular daily life, I experience it as a joyful diversion. I have every confidence that my lover and I will be able to keep our love strong and thriving. I really don’t want anybody to rain on my parade: Telling me I need to grow up, that my feelings of new love will end and that I should accept this dose of sobering reality.

There’s a lot more that needs to be said than what’s reflected in these introductory statements; your love attitude is pervasive and runs deep. You might be surprised by the insights you gain about what is lovable and not so lovable about you. In many cases, what you actively dislike about yourself is the very thing that your lover finds hard to take. The detailed descriptions of your compatibility with each of the love attitudes may be really useful. As well, you’ll probably be relieved to find suggestions to help you deal with the less than lovable characteristics you and your lover have; individually and as a couple. These aren’t included here, so instead of making this part step four, let’s make it a bonus item.

‘Why Love Succeeds or Fails’ tells you exactly that. What makes love relationships stand the test of time and surmount all sorts of difficulties is a combination of how much love the two people feel for each other and how much problem-solving ability they have.

Understanding the love attitudes and how the love-matches work will help you:

You’ll have a very good idea of what you can do if you want your love relationship to succeed.
You won’t burn out the love between you in frustrated attempts to figure out what’s wrong and how to fix it.

Here’s wishing you love and the wisdom to handle it well.

Letter to the Editor: Toronto Life, July 2015

By Wendy Brown August 4, 2015 News No Comments

Bedtime Stories

I’m a Toronto-based therapist with many clients who use Tinder, and I can’t help commenting on your May issue article, “The Bay Street Tinder Diaries.” They tell me it’s a trendy, racy way to meet people as well as a hookup site. Most of them go on it not just for sex but hoping for an emotional connection. If one develops, they seem to feel it’s more of an accomplishment than if they’d used a conventional dating site. If nothing develops, they can fall back on Tinder being a hookup site. It’s sort of like cramming for exams: do well and you look like a genius; do poorly, and you have the face-saving excuse of not having studied until the night before.

This may be a well-guarded secret, but in my practice, I’ve found most people still want a loving and passionate relationship. They default into having multiple partners because it’s better than being constantly disappointed and putting their lives on hold until love happens.

7 Biggest Mistakes You Can Make in a Relationship: Article at Bustle.com

By Wendy Brown August 4, 2015 News No Comments

Wendy Brown was interviewed for an article on Bustle.com about the 7 Biggest Mistakes You Can Make in a Relationship. Read the article here.

Six Major Marriage Enders

By Wendy Brown August 4, 2015 Advice No Comments

It’s usually a lengthy and difficult process to end a marriage. That’s because most people don’t take it lightly when they promise to stay with someone forever. There has to be a really substantial problem to make them give up and declare the marriage is done.

Here are the six major things that I have seen end marriages:

1) Cheating

This is first on the list because it’s one of the most painful reasons people split up. The spouse who finds out his/her partner is cheating usually feels like he/she has been kicked in the gut and just had his/her heart ripped out. The feelings of betrayal, jealousy and humiliation are often intense and unrelenting. Some people simply cannot or will not forgive and forget: cheating leads straight to divorce in these cases.

But, there are also lots of marriages in which one individual chronically cheats, or they both do. Often, one person is more into this type of lifestyle than the other. And the other eventually gets sick of it. Or, the cheater ultimately falls in love with one of the men/women and wants to be free to have a life with him/her.

Sometimes, a marriage has pretty much had it but neither person is quite ready to throw in the towel. Then one of them meets someone and it’s game over. In this case, cheating is really just a catalyst to end it.

2) Money

There are lots of money issues that can lead a couple to divorce. One person could be making most of the money, feel resentful over it and push the other to contribute more. The other might feel his/her nonmonetary contribution is more than enough. The two may disagree about whether or not they need a budget and what should be covered in it. An individual could be very frugal and controlling; his/her partner may feel unfairly restricted. On the other hand a partner could be extremely lavish, which makes his/her spouse feel out of control and ungrounded.

Generally, money arguments make both people really angry and they just might dig their heels in over them. Over focus on finances can end up affecting every area of life; looking at the cost of the food they eat and the price tag on where they live. It’s very common for one spouse to feel as though the other loves money more than him/her.

It’s also possible that the partners watch how each person spends and they keep track. Sometimes they compete over who gets to make purchases and when. They might make accusations that are quite nasty, talking about greed, selfishness and meanness.

3) Sexual frequency and intensity

It’s really common for a couple to be exceptionally active sexually at the beginning of their relationship. Then, gradually the driving need for physical intimacy diminishes. One person may accept this reduction better than the other. It’s also possible that an individual never feels very inspired sexually in a relationship. He/she may love the other person but view sex as a necessary and undesirable obligation. That can leave the other person feeling rejected and confused.

It’s not unusual at all for a couple to have a phenomenon that they can’t understand or manage: one of them doesn’t want to be touched at all ever. If it’s a male and he’s been convinced to get a prescription for Viagra, he can’t make himself swallow the pills. The partner often feels outraged and scared by this type of development, which makes him/her push to find a way to have sex. That tends to just make the situation worse; sometimes much worse, leading the person who has shut down to hate him/her.

In most cases, the only answer to this sort of problem is lots of respect and a slow process of rebuilding to see if physical intimacy can develop. However, the individuals may not be OK with time and patience, feeling they’re giving permission for a platonic marriage. It’s also possible if not likely that one of them will meet someone else along the way. There are even cases in which the individual with low sexual desire suggests that the other should find someone. And that creates the potential for an emotional connection to develop with the new person.

4) Rage

Rage is different from anger in that it’s caused by intense anxiety, a high need for control and a deep fury. Common garden variety anger is more on the lines of hostility and indignation. Untended, rage has a cycle: it builds up, there’s an explosion and then remorse. This is very hard on a marriage.

Rage can cause possessiveness, assault, destruction of property and painful words. The partner is usually terribly upset and humiliated by this; he/she could also be terrified by it and hate it. Some spouses try to cope by just taking it, demanding that it has to stop or pressing charges.

The reasons they usually have for ending the marriage is that they’re sick and tired of it, they don’t want their kids exposed to it and they’ve been humiliated one too many times over it. In really bad cases, they may even fear for their lives.

5) Alcohol and Drugs

There are lots of people who can’t or won’t get through a day without copious amounts of some sort of substance. Often, they don’t appear to have any sort of problem; they drink at lunch, after work and over supper. But if you add up the amount of alcohol they take in over the course of a week, it’s staggering. The drug of choice may be something else, like pot, cocaine or prescription drugs.

Heavy users of alcohol and drugs are using substances to help them cope with something in life. It might be that they need to reduce their anxiety, find a way to stifle their anger, or loosen up to have a good time. But this often makes them difficult marital partners. For one thing, they’re busier coping than they are relating to their spouse. For another, the substance may be the most important thing in their lives. It could be very expensive and time consuming as well.

The spouse could also be using some sort of substance. But, typically one person in the couple will have a bigger problem than the other. And that’s who will get fed up with the lifestyle, the cost or the embarrassment. It may be that he/she has been begging his/her partner to quit for years without success. Ultimately he/she gets beyond frustrated and gives up.

6) Sexual Choices

In this, I’m including a desire for threesomes, an open marriage, polyamory or hookers that is not shared by both spouses. Also, one partner could be in the process of coming out as gay, bisexual or straight. As a result, he/she may want to explore a new relationship.

The thing about sexual choices and preferences is that they come from deep within a person. Asking someone to change his/her mind about the sexual expression he/she wants is usually a fruitless endeavour. Sometimes one spouse will ask the other to stifle or ignore his/her desires which is a very heavy-duty request. That can easily lead to anger, resentment and lying.

Sexual differences between partners can quickly lead to a lot of grief because they produce a feeling of being disconnected as a couple. Some people take the loss of intimacy better than others. There are those who experience it as a great loss, almost like a death.

At the end of the day, it’s important to realize that making a marriage work and keeping it going forever is a very tall order. Marriage is a complicated and difficult relationship that has all sorts of pressures on it from outside it and from within it. Falling prey to one of the big six reasons people split up isn’t a failure. It’s simply a reality that we as people can’t control all the elements in life. Things just go sideways sometimes.