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Authors: Lisa A. Phillips
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person. Whitehead points out that the new system is more inclusive and gives people more freedom of choice. Yetlost in the shuffle is “any coherent set of widely accepted practices or conventions” to that marriage or a committed relationship.
All these choices can have a paralyzing effect. A recent wave of studies on decision-making show that when we’re confronted withtoo many varieties of jam ortoo many prospects in a speed-dating session, we become unrealistic, insecure, and less likely to make any choice at all.
In the current dating culture, the idea of “being led on” has become an anachronism. Where, exactly, could we expect to be led when there is no clear path to begin with? The liminal, neither-here-nor-there relationship is the perplexing default. We don’t know if we’re on a date or an outing, or how many dates mean we’re now in a relationship, or whether sleeping with your best friend means you’re “together” or merely “friends with benefits.” We don’t know whether we have grounds to be dissatisfied, because we have to consider what relationship expectations are acceptable. Are daily phone calls a right you can claim after you’ve slept together? Or only after you’ve agreed to be exclusive? Ambivalence thrives, with many relationships being neither here , firmly in the romantic, nor there , firmly not. This is particularly sofor men, who can wait longer before they have to reckon with the question of whether they want to start families. The rejecter may not want you at all—or he may not want you back as much or in the same way.
I realize I’m asking for a lot here: an understanding of the position of the rejecter and his choices, which can, without question,be selfish, clumsy, and hurtful. My purpose isn’t to let the rejecter off the hook. It’s to show that the unwanted woman and her beloved are both self-absorbed, though we’re more accustomed to using that label for the rejecter. They are living out two very different stories, with distinct sets of assumptions and expectations. The rejecter certainly should be aware of the potential impact of his erratic attention. But the hopeful lover should face the fact that the happy ending of the unrequited love script is not her rightful fate. In Janey’s situation, the myth of her perseverance clashes with his illusion of endless possibility. She fixates on The One. Her ex-boyfriend, perhaps another kind of dreamer, believes The One is in the future somewhere or slipped by him in the past.
SONYA, A TWENTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD design researcher, met Ryan through a mutual friend. The three met in Sonya’s apartment before going out to dinner, and Ryan complimented her favorite chair. She was touched, because good design was important to her and it was rare for her friends to notice it. That summer, she and Ryan spent time getting to know each other, and she developed a “large burgeoning crush” on him. Then he disappeared. No one in Sonya’s circle knew where he was. He didn’t show up for his job. She was at a loss, at times disappointed not to see him, at times angry that he didn’t tell her where he was.
Seven weeks later, he reappeared and told her what had happened: He had broken his neck in a bicycling crash. The injury, he added hauntingly, was to the same vertebrae Christopher Reeve broke when he was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident. Ryan had spent all those weeks recuperating in bed at his parents’ house outside St. Louis. Knowing what he had been through erased Sonya’s anger and amplified her feelings for him. “I felt like I wanted to take care of him,” she said.
They went out a few times. They flirted. But he made no move to start a relationship. She began to believe he never would. At the end of the summer, a night out morphed into four straight days together. They holed up in her apartment, making out. “It was a whirlwind,” she said. “Once it was moving forward, it was so fast that it was hard to
All these choices can have a paralyzing effect. A recent wave of studies on decision-making show that when we’re confronted withtoo many varieties of jam ortoo many prospects in a speed-dating session, we become unrealistic, insecure, and less likely to make any choice at all.
In the current dating culture, the idea of “being led on” has become an anachronism. Where, exactly, could we expect to be led when there is no clear path to begin with? The liminal, neither-here-nor-there relationship is the perplexing default. We don’t know if we’re on a date or an outing, or how many dates mean we’re now in a relationship, or whether sleeping with your best friend means you’re “together” or merely “friends with benefits.” We don’t know whether we have grounds to be dissatisfied, because we have to consider what relationship expectations are acceptable. Are daily phone calls a right you can claim after you’ve slept together? Or only after you’ve agreed to be exclusive? Ambivalence thrives, with many relationships being neither here , firmly in the romantic, nor there , firmly not. This is particularly sofor men, who can wait longer before they have to reckon with the question of whether they want to start families. The rejecter may not want you at all—or he may not want you back as much or in the same way.
I realize I’m asking for a lot here: an understanding of the position of the rejecter and his choices, which can, without question,be selfish, clumsy, and hurtful. My purpose isn’t to let the rejecter off the hook. It’s to show that the unwanted woman and her beloved are both self-absorbed, though we’re more accustomed to using that label for the rejecter. They are living out two very different stories, with distinct sets of assumptions and expectations. The rejecter certainly should be aware of the potential impact of his erratic attention. But the hopeful lover should face the fact that the happy ending of the unrequited love script is not her rightful fate. In Janey’s situation, the myth of her perseverance clashes with his illusion of endless possibility. She fixates on The One. Her ex-boyfriend, perhaps another kind of dreamer, believes The One is in the future somewhere or slipped by him in the past.
SONYA, A TWENTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD design researcher, met Ryan through a mutual friend. The three met in Sonya’s apartment before going out to dinner, and Ryan complimented her favorite chair. She was touched, because good design was important to her and it was rare for her friends to notice it. That summer, she and Ryan spent time getting to know each other, and she developed a “large burgeoning crush” on him. Then he disappeared. No one in Sonya’s circle knew where he was. He didn’t show up for his job. She was at a loss, at times disappointed not to see him, at times angry that he didn’t tell her where he was.
Seven weeks later, he reappeared and told her what had happened: He had broken his neck in a bicycling crash. The injury, he added hauntingly, was to the same vertebrae Christopher Reeve broke when he was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident. Ryan had spent all those weeks recuperating in bed at his parents’ house outside St. Louis. Knowing what he had been through erased Sonya’s anger and amplified her feelings for him. “I felt like I wanted to take care of him,” she said.
They went out a few times. They flirted. But he made no move to start a relationship. She began to believe he never would. At the end of the summer, a night out morphed into four straight days together. They holed up in her apartment, making out. “It was a whirlwind,” she said. “Once it was moving forward, it was so fast that it was hard to
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