... but it may help you find your life's mate.
If by now you are wondering why this is relevant, you may be one of the fortunates who currently may not be experiencing the blah of an unchaperoned life. You may yet be early on in your career and enjoying the single life. If so... yaay you!! If on the other hand, you are reading and getting ahead of yourself in agreement.. well, how does Beyonce say it? "Put your hands up...!"
Here's a true story!! When I spoke with successful women who were close to the top of their organizations and some who even ran their own businesses, I learned they were all single. All but one. Why is that? Why is it so lonely at the top?? Many of the women stated that it was not so easy finding some one who was their equal... Note for some that equal may have meant professional equal, socio-economical equal, spiritual equal, intellectual equal... and on and on. But take note, I don't believe these women are snobs as some would have us believe. I suggest instead that many of these women are looking for something ... a certain je ne sais quoi.
Dr. Paul Dobransky from Psychology Today suggests that for them and others (both men and women) curiosity is the 'one trait' that will outlast or enhance your mate's other features and lead you to embrace those enduring qualities. Here's what Dobransky says:
For many busy people with heavy workloads, duties, and stress, it might not occur at first that there are good and bad investments we make - even in the very first moments of spending time, energy, or any resources on a potential date, mate, or eventual spouse. If we could only choose one thing to look for, it ought to be their capacity for curiosity.
That's right. That simple.
In the end you'll find that curiosity didn't "kill the cat." It saved the marriage - likely through the wisdom to recognize its presence as early as the first date.
Curious Dates Make Great Mates
Think about it. If you were only interested in a casual, fun flirtation - or sex - it's a bad investment to be with a person who is not curious about you, about themselves, or about people in general. It would be a boring connection - dispassionate, stilted lovers instead of meaningful intimacy promising better things to come. They wouldn't tend to enquire about your dreams, desires, and all that makes you feel alive. If the trait of curiosity is not there at the beginning, it's not likely going to get much better than this, ever. Even if it was only one date you invested in, that's one more wasted day lost from your life.
If you were looking just to befriend a person platonically, you would still likely be spending more time, energy, and other resources on them than you get back in the relationship... if they are not a curious person. They wouldn't tend to enquire what your needs, tastes and preferences are, and likely wouldn't spontaneously communicate their own. It's hard to keep up a friendship with a person whom you don't really know, and even more likely that you are going to argue, compete, and not see eye-to-eye on the very issues that cause people to enter friendships in the first place. All because you couldn't get to an emotionally intimate knowledge of each other from the get-go.
If you were considering being exclusive, having them as a boyfriend, girlfriend or spouse, or perhaps you're already in a commitment, it's a big, big problem if they are not a curious person.
Why?
There are several reasons, and they all peg to some specific working parts of the psyche, gender instincts, and character. In fact, these things will reveal to you a fair degree of what is likely to happen between you in both the near future and the long-term future.
What would it be like to be predictive about some likely future situations with a man or woman in just about any area of conflict? From the potential for betrayal, to financial challenges, management of friendships and family, health crises, and child-rearing, crossing all the most difficult divides between a man and a woman begins with the capacity to be curious.
The Self Psychologists long ago began to address the condition called pathological narcissism. This is a person with a lot of emotional maturing to do, in which they exhibit selfishness, poor boundaries, destructive attitudes and behaviors toward others, and in the realm of friendship and love, tend to fall far short of being mature, fit partners to others.
There have been quite a few pop psychology books on the subject of narcissism and its connection to "codependence," likening this condition to being like an "emotional vampire" - someone who drains the energy of romantic partners in the same way that rearing a difficult child can be exhausting to parents, leaving them emotionally spent.
Still, in matters of the heart, it is hard for logic to ever reign supreme. It is a common thing for many today to do the illogical thing - to stay with a bad relationship even though it drains your energy, to keep dating a "Bad-boy" even though he is destructive, to stay married to an entitled woman who is costly, both financially and spiritually.
We say to ourselves, "Well, they say they love me. They must love me."
We notice we still desire them even though we fight.
We find they are a devoted parent to our child even though we never even talk about our sexual needs or preferences anymore.
Then we confuse words with emotions, then emotions with romantic fitness as a partner.
Then desire, lust, love, friendship, maturity (outgrowing narcissism), and committed partnership are confused with each other.
We then just don't know what to do anymore.
It all started harmlessly - long before the "emotional involvement," the man and woman simply engaged in idle conversation. Words that led to a romance.
How about taming the illogical passions, the vague hues of emotion, and the ambivalence of a committed partnership under duress - with the cold, hard intellectual trait of curiosity.
The opposite of curiosity is the state of being judgmental or prejudiced, [DID HE SAY THAT???] which while features of one's intellectual style - our communication habits, our words - are no less narcissistic than the emotional neediness or abusiveness of others.
The judgmental, the prejudiced, are intellectually narcissistic - your clue that as you intertwine lives over time, they will be emotionally narcissistic too. Usually, we adhere to the old wise saying warning us to "judge others by their actions, not words." In the case of assessing mature curiosity versus being judgmental, the reverse may be far more useful:
Know people through curious words, not passionate actions.
On the path to your career nirvana... I believe that a healthy and satisfying relationship is one essential aspect of your ability to lead a whole and fulfilling life. Imagine for a moment, a life shared with a curious other... where you are able to share and therefore build on your ideas, your thoughts, your dreams, your desires.... a life that basks in the intimately, emotional knowledge of each other. What a mmm-mmm life that would be!!
Post your comment on this blog to share your wishes for a curious life.
Curious Dates Make Great Mates to read the full article. Here's to satisfaction!!
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