commitment

love can only go so far

Louisa Matthiasdottir, Maine, Girl with Bicycle and Recumbent Man, 1976

A friend told me he recently changed his approach to dating. Now, if he likes someone, he’ll ask if they want to explore a relationship after the third date. It’s bold, it’s fast, and in New York, practically unheard of, but I think it’s brilliant because it forces both people to make a decision with whatever information they have. It weeds out ambivalence.

In dating, you can be ambivalent about the person, or you can be ambivalent about commitment. Sometimes, the two are conflated. Here’s a hot take: people drag their feet not because they’re unsure about the other person but they’re unsure about commitment.

I just finished Season 2 of Love is Blind (yes, I’m behind, and I’m about to spoil the ending for anyone who’s even more behind). As everyone was getting ready for their weddings, someone (I think it was Deepti) said: “Love can only go so far.” This is 100% true. At the end of the day, these people are looking to get married. No matter how much you love someone, how much fun you have together, if you can’t commit, you have to say goodbye.

So in a way, the show’s thesis doesn’t quite capture the full problem. Love can be blind—it’s possible to fall for someone without seeing them and continue to love them after you meet in person—but that doesn’t necessarily lead to commitment, which is the ultimate goal of the show.

Conventionally, people search for “the one” based on a predetermined set of criteria and a gut feeling. The thinking goes: if someone meets these criteria and makes me feel a certain way, I’ll have found “the one” and will commit to them. The problem with this thinking is that commitment isn’t a feeling or a kind of knowledge. It’s a decision. Someone could make you feel amazing and check all the boxes, but that doesn’t mean you’ll want to commit to them. You have to also want the life that comes with commitment.

On the show, Deepti seems like a fantastic person. Probably the most often-repeated phrase about her is how beautiful she is inside and out. Her fiancé Shake loves everything about her but doesn’t feel “an animalistic desire.” If someone says they’re not sexually attracted to you, there’s not much you can do about it. It’s not like you can prove them wrong since attraction is so personal. But I do find Shake’s claim pretty suspect. The moment they met, he was googly-eyed and couldn’t keep his hands off her. He grabbed her ass in front of the cameras, which says something else about him, but the point is, he was obviously into her physically. The switch happened when they were on their romantic getaway: she started talking about having kids and getting married and what their future might look like. That’s when shit got real for him, and you can actually see the terror in his eyes.

It’s not that Deepti isn’t “the one” for Shake. She’s perfect in every way, he even admits it himself. In fact, he’s baffled by his own lack of enthusiasm, which just shows how difficult it is to untangle your heart’s conflicting desires. My read on him: his lack of enthusiasm has very little to do with Deepti and much more to do with his own fears around commitment. The real problem is he hasn’t made the decision to commit (full stop). He’s not ready to move out of his bachelor pad and settle down.

Many guys face the same problem, and many are just as confused about the real issue. They keep telling themselves they just haven’t met the right woman yet, when in fact many amazing women have crossed their paths. They could’ve been happy with any of them and built a wonderful life together, but they passed up those opportunities because they’re unable to make the decision to commit.

Almost every couple on the show could’ve ended up happily married if they had made a different choice. There’s no right or wrong answer. It’s not like, if you fought five times in the last three weeks, your relationship is doomed, and the correct thing to do is to walk away. In fact, the pair that fought in almost every episode (Danielle and Nick) was one of only two couples to end up married. Meanwhile, the pair that everyone was certain would get married (Natalie and Shayne) ended up parting ways at the altar because of one big fight. To Natalie, the fight revealed “fundamental problems” in their relationship. Her desire to marry Shayne wasn’t strong enough to overcome her misgivings as a result of the fight. Danielle and Nick could’ve placed just as much significance on their constant fighting and made the same dire proclamation about their relationship, but they chose to take the plunge because they really, really wanted to get married and start their shared life together.

It’s hard to predict whether two people will end up married based on how often they fight or how much affection they show each other. And that’s because marriage isn’t solely predicated on the people involved and how they feel toward each other; it also depends on how much they care about mutual commitment and sharing a life together.

I don’t think we screen for this enough while dating, and people are also incredibly good at hiding their commitment phobia (or convincing themselves they want something they don’t), so we end up wasting a lot of time, which is why my friend’s “three dates to a decision” experiment is not a bad idea.

Similarly, I think it’s good that the show forces a decision about marriage after six weeks. It seems crazy: how can you possibly know you want to spend the rest of your life with someone you’ve only met six weeks ago? I think in most cases, the problem with not knowing is less about the other person and their qualities and more about your feelings toward commitment and married life. Of course, the other person is a big factor, but if you’ve made it this far, chances are, you are mostly happy with them, and the rest is about (1) whether you’re truly convinced that married life is a desirable good and (2) whether the positive gains from it outweigh the doubts you have about the person.