Why and what for are we in relationships? What do we need from a partner? How do you choose the object of your infatuation? Always in the same way? Really? Elizabeth Taylor married eight times, and every time it fell apart. So what was she looking for? And what if the criteria for choosing change as a person grows? And if they change, can we ever stop searching for our person? Or, simpler still, find them straight away?
For me these are very similar questions. Well then, let us sort it out! Conditioned partner choice is a concept of Sergey “Stalker” Shishkov (http://stalking.ru/). The things it has been criticised for at the meetings of the Freud's Legacy club! It is crude, it never occurs in pure form, it is formulaic… But that is not the point. The point is that it gives at least 12 clear answers to the questions
- What do I need from the person who is next to me?
- Where did this need come from?
- How will this need change in the future?
- What disappointment will I go through, and where will I rush afterwards?
- At what age might this happen?
At the bottom of it all lies a simple idea:
- We choose a partner in order to satisfy our needs
- Needs change over time, but there is one main one
- The search never stops.
The search has begun! From ourselves...
This search and this thrashing about look roughly like this…. Picture a hero or a heroine. You have probably already pictured yourself in that role)
1. To be protected
Ah, school romance! If only there were someone to fall in love with! To be with somebody! To be PROTECTED! Please! And here it is, first love! Rumour has it that, for the sake of mental health and growing up, first love has to be unhappy and unrequited. Otherwise — Romeo (and Julia) must die! But back to us. You have walked about holding hands. And then comes the letdown: nobody is going to protect you completely!
2. To satisfy my needs
All right, second attempt. Who shall we look for? Someone who will SATISFY MY NEEDS! So that she dances brilliantly, so that he looks cool on a motorbike. Or anything else that suits you. Time passes, and here comes the letdown! You cannot satisfy every need anyway! Dancing is dancing, but her head is empty. He rides a moped and never brings flowers. And where would you know your own needs from? Usually it is after thirty that you begin, God willing, to grasp what you need — and here you are not even twenty!
3. Like me
Third attempt…. Someone LIKE ME. It is so lovely to be alike. We are thrilled by how we understand each other from half a word. We read the same books, watch the same films, take an interest in the same politics. Only in time this gets so boring: whatever you say, the answer is yes. There is nothing new to learn.
4. Not like me
Well, to hell with it! On the fourth run we look for the OPPOSITE. If she is a good girl, then he has to be a rocker. That way we complement each other! Yin and yang! You ride around, you quarrel. Here comes the rush of adrenaline! Here everything is new and unknown! That is how Nine and a Half Weeks go by. The nervous system is drained. Coming to an agreement costs so much energy! He / she does not understand me!
From our parents...
Here comes the first creative crisis and the dead end. We have tried first sex, and our own needs, and opposites. So how are we to choose??? And then a brilliant idea arrives! I know whose relationship worked out! My parents'!
5. Like my parents
Number five: the girl ought to be like mum, the boy like dad. In short, LIKE MY PARENTS. Only that is an even bigger nightmare! The equivalent of dad for a grown woman is a five-metre giant, strong, all-knowing and all-powerful. That is exactly what dad was for a girl of six)) A sort of god out of a children's fairy tale. So another letdown….
6. Not like my parents
The sixth attempt. Like a parent — there are no such people! The pendulum swings to the opposite. NOT LIKE A PARENT! He will not be like my dad! She will not be like my mum! That is, he will be like dad, she like mum, only without dad's and mum's shortcomings! Can you feel the letdown coming?
From society...
Here comes the SECOND creative crisis. It turns out this is not about needs, and not about parents. We need a new source of information. Whose? Society's!
7. With status
The seventh attempt. Someone WITH STATUS! With a car, a flat, someone who takes you to the seaside and owns a company. Or a singer, a really big one. So you meet. So you go to the seaside, as in the film Love and Doves. You come home and find out: he is married, and she has a crowd of admirers. They are in demand, they have status! There are few of them, the ones who have made it to money, to a prestigious job and to invitations into fashionable circles. And they are busy working until late, then events, speeches, meetings… There is not much time left for a relationship. Letdown!
8. Like normal people
The eighth… Forget the villa by the sea. Let it just be LIKE IT IS FOR NORMAL PEOPLE. A little house, a garden, children running about, a dog barking. Mum and dad working for an average salary… A sort of perfect picture of the American dream of the sixties. Only advertising is advertising precisely because it is a Potemkin village. Because there is no drive, sex once a year, the children are a pain, the debts are growing, and no romance whatsoever! No emotional closeness at all! Only “what will the neighbours think!” And then we go to an exhibition, and there….
9. High-ranking
The ninth… Attempt… It takes your breath away! There stands a traveller, he or she does only what they want! They jump out of aeroplanes, race motorbikes, paint pictures… Or it is a speaker on a platform who strikes the crowd dumb. HIGH-RANKING. Putin! I want one like Putin! I want Scarlett Johansson! There you go! Life as on a volcano, as in a hurricane! Everything as in your youth, just as with number four) All in public, all travelling. And on top of that the journalists are a pain! A real pain! Not only are high-ranking people few and far between, they are like fire. Stand near and it is warm; come closer and it burns you! And so we burn up…
From plain pleasure...
Here comes the THIRD creative crisis. This is not about needs, not about parents, not about society. This is simply about enjoying life!
10. Lovers
The tenth choice. Why not simply enjoy yourself. BIOLOGY! At last we can just have sex! He is mine! He is enough for me! I like the way he smells and the way he talks. This person turns me on, and that is enough. At last, having gone through all the phases, we have allowed ourselves simply to have sex. Last Tango in Paris! By the way, the film tells the whole story. It may be a time of being shut away together in a flat. For how long, though? You cannot tell the neighbours, you cannot show your friends — they would not understand! And a relationship is not just sex! So what is to be done? We have tried everything! Spirituality kicks in, since there is nothing else left!
11. Simply to love
Number eleven! SIMPLY TO LOVE! I love you — and that is that! And I love you too! And I love him! Like Christ, I love everybody… Stop! I am not Jesus! I am not even Mother Teresa! I am just a human being, and I am not on my way to heaven. Why should I love everybody? Can I at least think about myself? Well?
12. An ally in transformation
And here comes the last, twelfth stage. Let me get on with myself and with my own growth, and let my companion simply help me with it. And I will help him. An ALLY like that in growth and transformation.
12 partners?
Rumour has it that to find your own partner you have to try out eleven) Although on average, statistically, we have four partners in a lifetime. So we will not find them?
Let me reassure you: there is another rumour! That all 12 criteria of conditioned partner choice can be tried out on one person). You can simply choose one person every day, and choose them anew! Each time by a new criterion)))
And still, which criterion matters most to me? What is mine? How do I choose?
What matters to me?
Depending on the situation, our age and our experience, we choose by different criteria. When we need safety; when we simply want to shut ourselves away in a hotel with someone for the weekend; when we want to dress up beautifully and go out into society. And you are not going to assess a person against an Excel sheet with 12 features. And yet one criterion always stays in the background, unchanged. And as a rule it comes second. That is, the first one changes with the situation, and the second is constant. That is exactly what matters to you.
How do you work it out? Through your personality type. That is possible at the Dating Club with counsellors. Fill in the form and we will call you back with the details!
