#8: Let's be friends with benefits, eh?

Vidhi Kamat

Mrs. Liamini

12 AP Literature and Composition

13 January 2023

Why is it said that “love is blind”? This phrase may refer to a heartwarming “loving someone regardless of their faults”. It may also refer to a growing epidemic: casual relationships. Healthy romantic relationships must be tended to equally by both parties; the more we nurture a bond, the more it grows. This scale can tip, though, which should result in a breakup. Yet, why can we observe Algernon and Jack (“The Importance of Being Earnest”), Tate (Ugly Love), and Tom (“500 Days of Summer”) hoping their romantic relationships with casual suitors will end positively?

First, let’s crack into the brains of those who instigate casual relationships. What exactly are casual relationships and why do people bother to enter into them? 

Casual relationships - or relationships “without the other stuff” (Hoover, pg. 136) as Miles from Ugly Love says - are becoming prevalent in our generation. Even reality TV shows such as “Love is Blind” and “Too Hot to Handle” have been created to experiment with these “serial swipers”. “Love is Blind” pairs up 15 men and 15 women in pods where they can speak to but not see one another - the purpose being to establish deeper connections without sexual desires. Later, they must either break up or get engaged in order to meet one another - leading to some drama at the end of the season on the altar if one suitor decides to not move along with the marriage. In “Too Hot to Handle”, contestants are pulled from all over the world because of their sexual tendencies, making them believe they are going to a tropical location for an entire summer full of carnality. Yet, upon their arrival to this beautiful location, they are hit with a bombshell: the contestants are not allowed to engage in any sexual activity. We watch as the contestants go through a painstaking withdrawal, while developing deeper relationships. Through personal interviews, the contestants explain their reasoning behind their decisions to engage in casual relationships over seriousness. Universally, it is fear of heartbreak. 

As quoted in a research paper by the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the University of Western Sydney, “those with secure attitudes about love expressed an aversion to casual relationships; those with casual attitudes about relationships and who were dishonest reported involvement in various casual relationships” (Jonason, Hatfield, Boler). In the end, emotions are known to either make relationships deeper, or break them; “we expect that ‘darker’ aspects of people’s personality (i.e., dishonesty) will be related to engaging in casual sex relationships as part of an exploitive/opportunistic mating strategy” (Jonason, Hatfield, Boler), the same paper reports. So this means removing emotions from the equation would make everything easier, right? 

Unfortunately, absolutely not. Let me explain:

A romantic bond is similar to any physical bond we experience on Earth - a magnetic bond, for instance. Holding two magnets in a close proximity of one another and if the bond is strong enough, they’ll attract. With humans, we can observe that chemistry may be enough to attract on its own. Tate and Miles in Colleen Hoover’s Ugly Love demonstrates this idea perfectly. Their previously casual relationship grows into something more volatile after feelings get involved. With relationships like these forming more commonly now, researchers from Texas A+M University put different couples up to challenges, such as “make these magnets attract”, in order to test the strength of their bond. As the tasks get worse in difficulty, the quicker the pair can finish the work allotted can display a stronger connection. “The magnetized blocks in a sense complete the task for the participants” (Christy, Hirsch, Schlegel), the study’s conclusion reported. Most couples were able to push two magnets together; for Tate and Miles, the easy task was simply forging a physical bond. Yet, as tasks became more difficult, multiple couples found themselves in an argument over how to proceed; Miles’s troubled past with love created a stint in his relationship, whereas Tate fell harder and harder. This reveals a reason why people tend to believe in a false sense of hope created by casual partners: as long as the relationship remains casual, the only task in front of the pair is attracting two magnets.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also heavily contributed to a shift in sexuality of couples. With decreasing social contact, the wish for casual dating has grown. The International Sexual Health and Reproductive (I-SHARE) survey reported “people who managed to maintain sexual activity during the lockdown reported lower levels of psychological distress, developed better sexual functioning, and improved relationship adaptation” (Filisetti, Tortora, Paruta, Piazza, Panzeri). Upon noticing the benefits of this activity, people’s mentality on emotional relationships shifted. Like Summer from “500 Days of Summer”, people realized mixing emotions into a relationship creates a soup of distress; whereas others remained faithful to deep love, like Tom. These people found themselves prey to falling in love whilst in a casual relationship. 

Seeing the duo break up was terrible: 

And resulted in this:

Yes. Terrible, I know.

There is another type of lover observable in media: Cecily Cardew and Gwendolyn Fairfax from “The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde. Though these ladies were attracted to their men, Jack and Algernon, their love was quite superficial. It is clear while reading that Algernon and Jack are enamored with Cecily and Gwendolyn; the women only share that love as they are under the impression Jack and Algernon bear the appealing name “Ernest”. In their first meeting, the couples flirt playfully, increasing tension. The Journal of Research in Personality studied the interplay of playfulness and relationship satisfaction, reporting that “those highest in relationship satisfaction (upper 25%) were more playful than those with lower relationship satisfaction” (Proyer). This can explain why Algernon and Jack fell in love, under Cecily and Gwendolyn’s spell; meanwhile, “his voice alone…” (Wilde, Act III) was attractive enough for the ladies. 

Oftentimes, people are so obsessed with qualities in suitors, that the mere essence of love is lost. For example, Cecily Cardew states that she is “not punctual, rather looking for punctuality in others” (Wilde, Act III). Unfortunately, Cardew and others can get away with superficiality because the couple-formation phase “is characterized by a strong sense of joy, euphoria, excitement, a constant almost obsessive need for the presence of the other, a state of intense energy, physiological hyperactivation (increase in levels of dopamine, noradrenaline and phenylethylamine), from a constant search for closeness to the other, but also from the fear of losing the loved one” (Filisetti, Tortora, Paruta, Piazza, Panzeri), I-SHARE reports.  

Our world is swarming with “serial swipers”, as they are called. Love is starting to be given the least amount of priority in relationships - most given to rather carnal desires. People who are averse to emotion engage in relationships that remove them completely. In many cases, these relationships bloom into ones blessed with love; others staggeringly end. This phenomenon is so prevalent in our generation that not only is it present in media, such as the film “500 Days of Summer”, but also in research journals. Studies have proven simply being close to a lover during the early stage of couple-formation instantly secretes hormones such as dopamine and noradrenaline, creating an “obsessive need for the presence of the other” (Filisetti, Tortora, Paruta, Piazza, Panzeri). It’s almost as if the love people feel in relationships like these is a spell created by our own bodies.

So, I guess the people who coined the phrase “love is blind” were right. 

Works Cited

Christy, Andrew G., et al. "Animal Magnetism: Metaphoric Cues Alter Perceptions of Romantic Partners and Relationships." PLoS ONE, vol. 11, no. 5, 26 May 2016. Gale in Context: Science, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A453533546/SCIC?u=lom_troyhs&sid=bookmark-SCIC&xid=214130a7. Accessed 8 Jan. 2023.

Filisetti, Sara, et al. "The Sexuality of Couples Formed during the Pandemic: An Exploratory Study." PLoS ONE, vol. 17, no. 10, 7 Oct. 2022, p. e0275068. Gale in Context: Science, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A721418590/SCIC?u=lom_troyhs&sid=bookmark-SCIC&xid=4b9ade30. Accessed 8 Jan. 2023.

Helm, Herbert W., Jr., et al. "Hook-up Culture among College Students: A Comparison of Attitudes toward Hooking-up Based on Ethnicity and Gender." North American Journal of Psychology, vol. 17, no. 2, Aug. 2015, p. 221. Gale in Context: Science, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A415109084/SCIC?u=lom_troyhs&sid=bookmark-SCIC&xid=e4adf2de. Accessed 8 Jan. 2023.

Hoover, Colleen. Ugly Love. Simon and Schuster, 2014.

Jonason, Peter K., et al. "Who engages in serious and casual sex relationships? An individual's different perspective." Personality and Individual Differences. ScienceDirect, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886914006874. Accessed 13 Jan. 2023.

Levitt, Joseph Gordon, performer. 500 Days of Summer. Directed by Marc Webb, produced by Mark Waters, 2009.

Neto, Felix. "Explorations of Psychology through Art: Love Styles." College Student Journal, vol. 44, no. 2, June 2010, p. 448+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A228428431/AONE?u=lom_troyhs&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=62fcdfa1. Accessed 8 Jan. 2023.

Proyer, Rene T. "To Love and Play: Testing the Association of Adult Playfulness with the Relationship Personality and Relationship Satisfaction." Current Psychology, vol. 33, no. 4, Dec. 2014, p. 501+. Gale in Context: Science, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A390728511/SCIC?u=lom_troyhs&sid=bookmark-SCIC&xid=cea76b8d. Accessed 8 Jan. 2023.