Unexpected Love Stories for Valentine's Day
A special Wise & Well newsletter for romantics, curmudgeons and everyone in between
Today is a day to celebrate love for many couples, yet one that brings abject stress and terror to others who struggle to choose the ideal token of their affection without mortgaging the home. Examples of the angst out there: Google searches for “last minute valentines gift for her” searches spiked 170% in the day leading up to the holiday.
Yet for nearly half of couples, this is a holiday to be largely ignored, at least insofar as purchases go. Such a range of emotions and behaviors may well stem from the reality of Valentine’s Day: a commercialized cardboard cutout of true romance rooted in a history of beheadings, marked by unrealistic expectations, and besmirched by much divorce. Being a warm and fuzzy guy, I wrote about all that here.
Meanwhile, Wise & Well writers have some love stories to tell, ranging from daringly personal divulgences to a scientific examination of what your partner expects from a kiss. Medium readers have some delightful and insightful comments on these stories, and we love your input, so we’ve included a sampling of that feedback here.
Author and hopeless romantic Niall Stewart doesn’t see the point in Valentine’s Day. The more performative aspects of courting — including public displays of affection on Valentine’s Day like going out to dinner with all the other would-be swooners — are firmly behind him and his partner. “We’ve both finally admitted that we don’t enjoy that particular expression of loving and being loved,” he writes. Yet even if they try to ignore such things, cultural cues like this are always there, forcing this delightful, somewhat philosophical exploration of what love actually is and how we ought to express it. Among his conclusions: “Love deeply, but also lightly.”
Valentine’s Day? Spare Me, Please. (5 min read)
Reader Reaction: “I think there’s too many material expectations wrapped up in modern relationships! Valentine’s is part of that. It’s cute, but just a day that can be to spend quality time with your partner rather than have high consumeristic expectations.” — Brittney Leigh
Carlyn Beccia begins her love story in the wrong place at the wrong time. Here she was, an atheist in a Catholic church at some ungodly hour because she promised her dying mother she’d go. She was surprised to learn some great dating advice from Pope Francis, suggestions that were sometimes cheeky but also wise and relevant to any relationship. Among the gems: “True love values the other person’s achievements. It does not see him or her as a threat.” And: “Many disagreements between couples are not about important things. Mostly they are about trivial matters. What alters the mood, however, is the way things are said or the attitude with which they are said.”
Pope Francis’s Dating Advice is Surprisingly Modern (7 min read)
Reader Reaction: “I met my girl at school when we were 7 ….. obviously she was just an annoyance until she was 18 when Cupid struck…. Now still happily married 50 years later.” — Ian Beckett
John Kruse has had three weddings, all with the same man. The second one — on Valentine’s Day in San Francisco back in 2004 — was the most surprising, given the political climate at the time. Kruse’s message to readers goes well beyond his personal journey of finally getting legally hitched, as he points out why same-sex marriage is good for society: “Marriage has multiple physical and mental health benefits for couples. Marriage taps into innate, neurochemical reward and social bonding systems. But marriage also has broader, positive effects on health beyond the individuals getting married. Areas with laws that affirm and support the unions of sexual minorities show lower rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide among their homosexual and trans inhabitants.”
Love: It Takes a Village (9 min read)
Reader Reaction: “Lovely story. I just finished making my yearly Valentines Day card for my wife. Thinking about couples today. Makes me happy that you guys have stuck together all this time. I hope you have many years together ahead.” —Danny Robinson
Your’s truly examines the science and magic of love and what goes into a successful romantic relationship, based on the 25-year odyssey my wife and I have taken through joy, sadness, struggle and triumph, frustration and anger and all the other emotions and challenges of any good relationship. And why? How in the hell did we make it? By examining the reasons in detail, I find that our romantic success aligns with what the scientists tell us: The biology of love is an ever-changing flood of hormones that takes us from lust to attraction to attachment. Love at the cerebral level requires tremendous mindfulness and emotional intelligence, in order to develop trust, commitment and calmness that carries us through the worst of times so we can enjoy the best of times.
A Love Letter to My Wife (16 min read)
Reader Reaction: “…marriage is intentional and it takes effort. The effort doesn’t feel like effort, though, when you love the other person and aren’t thinking about yourself.” — Julia Dyviniak
Some people love sloppy wet kisses. Others not so much. Beyond the feelings of closeness, the raw excitement and the tingling ecstasy, kissing is a distinctly different experience for different people, especially men versus women, the writer Kathleen Murphy explains. Each gender brings to this very intimate act vastly different attitudes, preferences, and expectations. That makes for wildly different smooching styles and sensations. Learn why a simple kiss is so arousing (a clue is seen in the bizarre but telling Sensory Homunculus sculpture) and what men and women need to understand about their partner’s lips. Oh, and can you guess why prostitutes prefer not to kiss?
Why Men and Women Kiss Differently (6 min read)
Reader Reaction: “… Which is why many women in relationships begin to resent affection altogether. They know it comes with the expectation of sex, and if they’re not in the mood for sex, they’re not going to put themselves in this position by being affectionate. It’s a bummer.” — JW Pasicznyk
RANDOM BIT OF WISDOM
“I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love
Your regularly schedule newsletter will return on Friday . — Rob