Some call it love at first sight. Fireworks. Je ne sais quoi. Instant attraction. Chemistry. Whatever you call it, most if not all of us have experienced it at one point in time or another: you met someone and went, "Whoa." They swept you off your feet and it was game over. You were hooked. This is what most people crave and what society has told us to expect when it comes to falling in love. They say if you're not feeling that spark, something is wrong and it's time to move on to the next. You'll feel it with the person you're meant to be with is what we're told. But do you really? 

There is a show which just started its 6th season on January 2nd called "Married at First Sight." A team of experts pick from thousands of people who apply to find 3 couples to get married at first sight without ever having met or knowing anything about the other person. Forget going on a blind date - this is blind marriage. The experts match them based on all sorts of different compatibility factors and then they literally get married and spend a whirlwind six weeks honeymooning, moving in together, and settling in to day-to-day life. At the end of the 6 weeks they decide if they want to stay married or get divorced. Unfortunately, most of these marriages have not lasted (only 3 out of the 15 couples so far are still together - 2 of the couples have been together since the first season aired in 2014). It's really a shame that the marriages have not been more successful when these couples are so carefully selected and theoretically have all the necessary ingredients to be really happy together. But you know what gets in the way? Spark. Some couples have it right away and then it fizzles as pet peeves and frustrations set in with their spouse. They compare how they felt at the very beginning of the relationship to how they feel now, experience disappointment, and lose connection with their partner. Other couples don't have it at all and immediately write off the possibility of a successful marriage from the get-go. They have the thinking that most people have: if I'm not attracted to this person, how am I going to be happy with them? Their negative thinking gets the marriage started off on the wrong foot and it can't recover. in either scenario, the spark becomes a problem.

You see, experiencing a spark is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it feels so exciting. Of course it does: when we feel attracted to someone, our brains release a heavy dose of happy brain chemicals like dopamine. We crave lots of things that release dopamine and one of those things is love (or at the very least, lust). Is it important to experience attraction in your relationship? Absolutely. It's a key ingredient to keeping the relationship happy and satisfying, both inside and outside the bedroom. Attraction is very important. But this is where our desire for a spark can become our downfall: we think something is wrong if we don't feel it: that this person is wrong for me and that this relationship won't work. I can't force something that I don't just feel naturally. Guess what? That sets you up for failure instantly. 

Is something wrong when you don't feel a spark? In most cases, no. I bet that if I asked you what is most important out of a list of 5 simple traits (kindness, trustworthiness, hard-working, attractiveness, and being fun/adventurous), most of you would not pick attractiveness as the most important thing you're looking for in a potential partner. So why do we care about it as much as we do? Why does that so often determine who we approach when we're in a social setting? Why do we think something is wrong when that's not front and center in our minds? The answer is not really so complex: we like the "spark" stories. The happily-ever-afters. The Disney movies. They are all centered around two people experiencing an instant attraction that is constant and leads to a happy ending. Newsflash: that's not real life. Start asking the couples you know who have been together awhile about spark and you'll see it's not so cookie cutter: maybe one person felt it at first and the other didn't. Maybe it both took them years to finally figure out it was there. Or they both felt it at the beginning but man, did they struggle and lose it at times. Attraction varies over the course of a relationship just like anything else. Spark is not a solid foundation. Exciting? Yes. Stable? Nope.

Some of you are probably really bummed out by this point. Here's the thing, I'm like everyone else: I like spark. It's fun to feel it. I just believe relationships are better and longer lasting when we put less stock in feeling spark immediately and more value on other things. How would dating be different if you spent less time focused on getting up the courage to start a conversation with the most attractive person in the room and more time focusing on who is easiest to talk to, attraction or not? Or if you went on another date because they actually seem dependable and trustworthy, even if you're not quite to the point of feeling ready to get physical with them yet? True attraction to a person goes more than skin deep. If you're looking for the real thing, no matter what, it takes time to plant roots and grow. Do you want a firework or do you want a slow-burning steady candle? In upcoming blogs, I'm going to help you get really clear on what to look for instead of spark. Going beyond that is so worth it.