Love is not all you need, says book
FAMOUS Israeli philosopher Aaron Ben-Ze’ev argues in his upcoming book that most of the popular ways to look for the ideal partner are not good enough to find the desired lifelong love. In The Arc of Love, Ben-Ze’ev offers a different approach on how to gain and maintain an enduring loving relationship.
The most crucial step is how to choose the right person.
The book will be released in June in the US. Ben-Ze’ev is the former president of the Israeli University of Haifa and founding president of European Philosophical Society for the study of emotions. He said building the foundations of deep love was challenging, but an enduring love could be achieved.
There are four common ways to judge a potential romantic companion. The first is the checklist method, focused on superficial negative qualities. The second is love at first sight, which refers to superficial positive attributes.
The third method seeks to identify a major flaw in a candidate’s personality, and once it is detected, the candidate is dropped. This approach offers more accurate results than the checklist, according to Ben-Ze’ev.
The fourth strategy is to observe a candidate’s interactions and notice whether they bring out the best in you, and help you to flourish in your daily life.
“Today, the greatest weight is commonly given to the first and second methods, then to the third and in the end, to the fourth.
”The order should be reversed without neglecting any information gained in each method,” said Ben-Ze’ev.
One fundamental aspect of choosing a romantic partner is the weight that we give to bad and good qualities of the potential spouse. Negative emotions and bad feedbacks have more impact than good ones. Accordingly, we are more motivated to avoid bad events than to pursue good ones.
Establishing a checklist of desired qualities for a partner is a common practice, but it has massive flaws. Love cannot be computed merely by mechanistically detecting separate negative and positive attributes.
It is hard to detect positive qualities that are valuable for the long-term relationship, partly because they are more clearly revealed through shared activities that take place over time.
It is ineffective to try to predict a successful relationship merely by calculating a partner’s qualities by following the checklist method. As no one is perfect, it may often be easier to detect negative qualities in everyone than positive ones.
On the other hand, people may get accustomed to the lack of positive characteristics. If we reject all those who have some flaws, we might remain single for the rest of our life, or end up marrying a person who has fewer positive qualities rather than someone we met at the beginning of our search. Therefore, if you realise that your potential partner is likely to bring out the best in you, you have a perfect reason to choose this person as your life companion.
Although romantic love is vital for our happiness, love is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for a happy and thriving life.
As it turns out, love is not all you need in life, though it is often a central part of it.