Reading

Read the text with the purpose of finding answers to the fol­lowing questions:

1. Why is it so difficult now to find a soul mate?

2. What is the reason for contemporary people being so choosy?

3. What do people seek in one another?

From Psychology of love by Joy Allan Lee

The problem of finding a fulfilling mutual love was never more difficult. In bygone days people held lower expectations of life. Also they were much more alike: most had about the same kind of education, few traveled far, there was no great variety of entertainment, and there were relatively few kinds of jobs. Today we live in a fast-changing pluralistic society. Finding a partner who shares our particular combination of tastes, inter­ests and opinions – our particular life-style – is far more difficult than it was once.

Our experience of different people often leads us to want this one's looks, that one's intelligence, another one's character. If only I could find one person with all the desirable qualities I seek! And if finally I find someone who "comes close", alas, I am not what the near-perfect partner is looking for. What frus­tration!

My research has found that many married people are trou­bled by a ragging awareness that they "settled" for less than they hoped for in a partner. The trouble is, most people don't get to choose between even a half-dozen possible partners. Quite often, we let one choice go by, in the hopes of a better, only to realize later that the rejected choice was the best. It is usually too late then to go back. How many partners should we review before beginning to worry that we are getting too old and it's time "to settle down"? We are not all as persevering as say, Bertrand Russel, who went through five marriages and met his ideal woman when he was in his seventies.

What do you want out of your relationship? What type of re­lationship would best fit in with your life and make you most happy? Someone answered: "I want a meaningful, committed relationship with a partner perfectly suited to my needs. I want a high level of involvement with my family, and I expect my part­ner to share my feelings about family life. I also want an excit­ing, prestigious career in which I earn a lot of money and make a contribution to the world, and I expect a partner who has achieved the same. Still I want a partner who shares hobbies and other interests of mine and participates in them together with me and our family. I want each of us to have our own set of friends, but still to spend lots of time just being together, main­taining our closeness and our relationship.