There’s a story, from one of my all time favorite books, that goes something like this: a musician plays a beautiful and complex piece of music for an attentive listener. When the musician concludes the piece, the listener asks, “what does it mean?” The musician, as a answer, plays the piece again, note for note.
For much of my life, I have had the same attitude about my creative work. If I was asked about the meaning of one of my texts, I’d refer the person to the text and say, “that’s what it means” or “try harder.” I’d answer any question about the text, so long as it wasn’t, “what does it mean definitively according to you?”
At some point, my attitude changed, in part, because I realized that the author’s interpretation of his own text is only one of many possible interpretations and, if someone wants to give my interpretation more weight in their assessment of the text, what difference should it make to me — especially when my own interpretation of the text evolves over time.
I think living overseas also helped to change my attitude. From that experience, I realized that we all speak our own micro-languages. Even the most banal turns of phrase can mean very different things to different people, depending on how their families and peers use the expression. I’m not sure many people understand this and, as a result, I think many people think they are communicating, when they are not.
I should be clear: I’m not claiming we can’t communicate. I’m claiming only that we can’t take communication for granted simply because we often utter the same kinds of sounds around each other. We need to probe, question, and learn each other’s languages.
This experience of talking but not communicating happens again and again in my novel, A Derivation of Love. Over and over, the characters think they are communicating, when in fact they are not. There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding because no one takes the time to probe, question, and learn — Desmond most of all.
It seems to me that this “presumption of understanding” is an important source of very many of the problems between boy and girls and boys and boys and girls and girls. It’s a problem for all the different kinds of relationships we might have with each other but it seems particularly relevant to our sexual / romantic relationships. For some reason, many people seem to think that sex, love, and romance requires a wordless understanding on the part of all those involved.
The Hintonburg Drinking Club and Debating Society came up with an idea at our last late night session that I am still thinking about: silence preserves the status quo and the preservation of the status quo always safeguards the power of whomever happens to have it.
With this idea in mind, my question is this:
Do we expect love to involve wordless understanding because each of us thinks we have the power in the relationship and we want to preserve it, or do we expect love to involve wordless understanding because we think the other — our beloved — has the power and that’s exactly where we want it to lie, or do we expect love to involve wordless understanding because it originates in a part of our brain that evolved long before we developed the capacity for language?
What do you think?
Download my ebook, A Derivation of Love.
nadinethornhill
December 15, 2011
I can believe that expectation of wordless understanding is – at least sometimes – an attempt to hold on to power. Speaking for myself, I’m *more* likely to want to keep that wordless power when I perceive that I’m the less powerful person in the relationship.
The most obvious personal example I can think of is the way I communicate with my crushes now vs. years ago when I was single.
As a single girl/woman, I had a hard time confessing my attraction to my crushes. I would almost always tell them eventually (No one gets laid if nothing gets said), but I did it reluctantly so reluctantly after long periods of mooning and pining. Because the minute I admitted I had a crush, the object of my affection would have the power to love me back or break my heart.
Now that I’m in a sexually/romantically monogamous relationship, I feel much more at ease about expressing my crushiness for people. It’s easy to flirt with people because I know it begins and ends there. I can tell people when I find them attractive, because I’m not hoping for anything more to happen. Because I’m not pursuing people, I feel less vulnerable, more powerful and more comfortable communicating my feelings.
Sterling Lynch
December 17, 2011
Although I know it to be true, it seems strange to me (even paradoxical from an evolutionary standpoint) that many people (most?) feel so vulnerable when they express their desire for someone in circumstances where that expression may lead to rejection.
Having said that, part of me is also disappointed that all the evidence seems to suggest it is easiest for me and others to win the affections of someone when nothing is at risk and there is the easy confidence that come with no feeling of vulnerability. The disappointment seems to stem from the fact that it seems much more “meaningful” to win the affections of another when I feel vulnerable about it. And I think that implies I want to win the affections of someone I hold in higher esteem. Perhaps, many of us would rather hope to have a chance with someone of higher status than be with someone of comparable or lower status.
And that seems like a distinctively “adolescent” attitude to romance or, rather, an adolescent attitude seems to be at the heart of capital-R-romance.
The only way out of this log jam seems to be: either both partners think the other person is of higher status or the partners meet as peers and the romance only comes later.
nadinethornhill
December 18, 2011
Although I know it to be true, it seems strange to me (even paradoxical from an evolutionary standpoint) that many people (most?) feel so vulnerable when they express their desire for someone in circumstances where that expression may lead to rejection.
I don’t know a lot about the human history of romance, but from the little I have learned, crushes, dating and mating as you and know it, seems to be a relatively new social phenomenon.
I can imagine that early, pre-historic humans may have been fairly straightforward about sex and mating*. It seems those dude were fairly straightforward about most things
But then mating became more pragmatic and transactional. Matches were facilitated by one’s community. Family members were all up your business, negotiating over cattle and what have you. Which isn’t to say that romantic love and sexual attraction were non-existent. But courting was less recreational and the outcome (marriage) was more predictable.
It is a somewhat adolescent attitude, but I wonder if it’s because, the way we date and mate nowadays is still kind of new and kind of unwieldy.
*NTS: Read up on prehistoric mating rituals.
Sterling Lynch
December 18, 2011
NTS: Tell Nadine about Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love by Helen Fisher — it in concludes some remarks on mating in hunting and gathering societies. The author might also have more detailed work on the topic.
I’m friendly to the idea that the new practices may have some role to play but I’m not entirely convinced. It’s easy for me to imagine the partners in an arranged marriage going through the same kind of experience (e.g I’m nervous about this arranged marriage because I’m totally moving up the social ladder and I really hope she likes me. What if she thinks she’s too good for me — I will need to endure her scorn for the rest of my life!)
nadinethornhill
December 19, 2011
NTS: Thank Sterling for the recommendation.
It’s easy for me to imagine the partners in an arranged marriage going through the same kind of experience (e.g I’m nervous about this arranged marriage because I’m totally moving up the social ladder and I really hope she likes me. What if she thinks she’s too good for me — I will need to endure her scorn for the rest of my life!)
I can imagine the same situation. I’m not suggesting that nerves are a new feeling. No doubt the betrothed in pre-arranged marriages were often scared shitless. But their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles took control and made it happen anyway. Left to his own devices, your groom may well have given into his nerves and bolted at the alter.
Now most of us are left to our own devices. There’s no community (aside from the persistent goading of one’s friends) to push us past our fear of being scorned by the object of our affection.
That having been said, I don’t disagree with your status theory. Again, that makes a lot of sense to me, given our history. Before women became all work-ified and independent, a high status man was a woman’s ticket to good living. Meanwhile men benefitted, since nabbing a high status woman was a pretty clear indication of his wealth and social power.
As it is with sex, I think the realities surrounding romance have changed and our attitudes/behaviours are slow to catch up. It’ll be interesting to see if things change in another couple of generations.
Except…we’ll be dead. Dang.
Sterling Lynch
December 20, 2011
Thanks for the clarification. I see now I totally missed the point you were driving at. You were, I now think, responding to my claim that there is something counter intuitive to the idea of being nervous about mating, from the perspective of evolution. If I’ve got it right now, your point is that we had social practices in place that would help seal the evolutionary deal.
That makes sense.
In support of your point: the author I mentioned speculates, based on the practices of contemporary hunter gatherer societies, that in our early history parents arranged the first marriage without any expectation of it lasting. If it didn’t last, no big deal and, typically, there would be at least one offspring. Training wheels, I guess.
So, if the species has always had some kind of social practice in place to ensure some mating occurred, nervous or not, a person’s genes would keep on moving. If there weren’t these kinds of practices, then, one could expect that the nervous nellies would eventually weed themselves out the species.
The question remains: why would we ever be nervous about this stuff to begin with?
nadinethornhill
December 22, 2011
Yes, that is the point I was trying to make initially!
As for why our kind seems to be imbued with mating nerves? Maybe it’s nature’s way of discouraging us from humping every person who crosses our path?
Although on second thought, I don’t see that as being a problem from an evolutionary standpoint.
I’m stumped.
Sterling Lynch
December 22, 2011
As a possible explanation, I’m going to go back to the idea that this nervousness stems from the attempt to mate above our “class”.
I can imagine this scenario: humans usually have a pretty good idea with whom they can or can not mate. There is little at stake, if we mate with our class but, a lot at stake, if we mate above our class. Jumping up a rank is a big deal; rejection is a sure sign that we are where we are meant to be. Maybe, a species that allows for this kind of social climbing to occur do better overall because the result is a more diverse gene pool.
I’ve also read that the males who have first access to a female don’t normally succeed in impregnating her. It’s primate number 3. I think it’s plausible to speculate that # 3 is there because he’s aspiring for more than he can reasonably expect.
Also, you alluded earlier to the possibility that the nervousness could be a symptom of the radical shift in human relations. Growing up in a small tribe or village, there’s probably not a whole lot of guess work when it comes to mating because there are only so many options and most of the decisions are made on our behalf.Whereas now, in principle, there is an abundance of opportunity… our tribal brains might not be able to handle it.
nadinethornhill
December 22, 2011
There is little at stake, if we mate with our class but, a lot at stake, if we mate above our class. Jumping up a rank is a big deal; rejection is a sure sign that we are where we are meant to be.
Make sense. And again, until relatively recently it was virtually impossible to change one’s class/caste in the wasp-y cultures on which Western society is based. On the one hand, dating “up” is desirable. On the other hand, nerve-wracking.
Growing up in a small tribe or village, there’s probably not a whole lot of guess work when it comes to mating because there are only so many options and most of the decisions are made on our behalf.Whereas now, in principle, there is an abundance of opportunity… our tribal brains might not be able to handle it.
Interesting theory! Selecting a mate was probably more straightforward when of the 20 people in your tribe, 15 of them were your parents, grandparents or siblings.