Ideas are easier to love than people.

By Gordon S. Livingston

      There are a number of activities that people engage in because they are attached to the idea of doing them more than the activity itself. If you go to any ski resort you will discover those who spend more time in the lodge than on the slopes. Some people join yacht clubs primarily for the social opportunities rather than the sailing, which can be strenuous. Certain pursuits, especially if they require skill or effort are more appealing in the abstract than in the reality.

      And so it is with people that we get attached to. Not only is it difficult to know another human being as they really are (much less who they will become), we are all prone to imagining that we have discovered the person who will fulfill our dreams as a partner, complement our own weaknesses, and save us from loneliness. Readiness is the characteristic that makes us most vulnerable to idealizing a prospective mate. We are each on different schedules of need. Traditionally, women were expected to marry in their late teens or early twenties. With more career opportunities now available the average age at first marriage has climbed to 25.5 for women, 27.5 for men. This change from marriage at younger ages is seen by most as a development that will decrease matrimonial mistakes because of a presumed increase in maturity and life experience among the newly married. But these numbers also suggest that people in their late twenties are aware that they are dropping behind their age cohort in the marriage sweepstakes and this may affect their readiness, not to mention eagerness, for a permanent relationship. This increase in readiness may be associated with a vulnerability to idealization and a concomitant decrease in discrimination.

      If this is true, and especially if we lack the insight to realize this development, we are apt to fall in love with the idea of the person we are with and overlook the characteristics that render him or her a risky choice of partner. Most people I talk to who are over thirty and single have plenty of experience on which to base their evaluations of potential mates. I hear a lot of generalizations, most of them negative, that begin with the words "All women..." or "All men..." These statements have a defensive quality as if they were being offered in response to an unspoken question: "Why aren't you married yet?" The people who tend to actually put this into words are one's parents or oneself. Most of us would like to feel that we are hitting life's milestones at roughly the same time as our contemporaries. How many weddings in which we have been bridesmaids or groomsmen does it take before we feel the burden of dropping behind?

      This whole issue of choosing the right time to marry is one of life's many and enduring paradoxes: If we marry young we may be too immature to make a sensible choice of partner; if we wait too long we may make a poor decision out of desperation. Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor?

      A wish to "catch up," conscious or unconscious, is usually combined in women with a realistic fear of declining fertility. This may be postponed somewhat in men who are more likely still to see themselves eligible to marry a younger woman, but the thought of "How old will I be at my child's high school graduation?" affects both genders. I remember vividly the first time I was mistaken for my youngest daughter's grandfather.

      The process of idealization involves a tendency to shut down one's capacity for discernment and may result in ignoring misgivings about one's prospective partner that deserve attention. So that the fatal flaw of self-absorption becomes a source of admiration for self-confidence. An affection for intoxicating substances becomes a quirk that will yield to love, children, or increasing responsibility. A need to control will surely with time dissolve into a realization that compromise is the soul of marriage. And so on.

      Nobody gets through the day without a rationalization or two. When choosing someone with whom you expect to share the rest of your life, however, ignoring real character flaws is beyond dangerous. Decisions made in a time when one is feeling even a little desperate are less reliable than flipping a coin. Whatever one might say about love, it cannot be deaf, dumb, and blind.