Q: Are the French correct in saying that "love makes the time pass and time makes love pass"? Or can friendship and commitment sustain a relationship after the initial passion cools?
A: As passionate love matures, it becomes a steadier "companionate love," says psychologist Elaine Hatfield in "A New Look at Love." There may be adaptive wisdom here:
Passionate love often produces children, whose survival is aided by the parents' waning obsession with one another.
"And if the inevitable odds against eternal passionate love were better understood, more people might choose to be satisfied with the quieter feelings of satisfaction and contentment," adds social psychologist Ellen Berscheid in "Psychology: Ninth Edition," by David G. Myers. Indeed, some societies regard passionate love as an irrational basis for marriage. Better, they say, is to choose (or have someone else choose for you) a partner with a compatible background and interests. In fact, argues cultural psychologist R. Levine, "Non-Western cultures, where people rate love less important for marriage, do have lower divorce rates."
Another key to an enduring relationship is equity:
Both partners receive in proportion to what they give. In one national survey of successful marriages, faithfulness and a good sexual relationship rated high, but close behind was a sharing of the chores. As one satisfied spouse told the Pew Research Center, "I like hugs. I like kisses. But what I really love is help with the dishes." Also vital is self-disclosure, with the two partners revealing more and more about themselves, prompting reciprocal intimacy.
"Now," says Myers, "the odds favor enduring companionate love."
Q: From what surprising source are cell-phone text-messages coming these days?
A: Possibly from one of your thirsty or waterlogged houseplants, if outfitted with a smart sensor developed by the University of Colorado for NASA's space missions and licensed by AgriHouse of Berthoud, Colo. These new devices, to go on sale soon, let plants send text-messages alerting growers if their water uptake is too little, too much or just right, says IEEE Spectrum magazine. The sensor clips onto the plant's leaf and, using proprietary algorithms, translates its relative level of turgidity into a reading of internal moisture content. Interestingly, more plants on average are overwatered than otherwise, with attendant water waste. AgriHouse claims their sensors could greatly lower the world's freshwater usage by preventing plants from getting overdoused at the wrong time.
Send STRANGE questions to brothers Bill and Rich at strangetrue@cs.com.
Bill Sones and Rich Sones, Ph.D.