The Way We Love Now Won't Be How We Love in 10 Years

There's been a lot of hullaballoo about "A Vindication of Love" by Cristina Nehring. Enough so that even conservative "chosen one" Ross Douthat defers to it in the wake/continuing wake of GOP politicians jumping into the adultery pool. This panging for love is continued by over-educated, apparently undersexed, and recently divorced Atlantic Monthly piece by Sandra Tsing Loh.

There are so many angles to take on this essay that it could make your head explode so I'm going to take the angle of marriage as it relates to energy and to an extent what it maybe in 1o years as we head down the backside of the oil bonanza.

Loh writes of a world of middle-agers longing for love in their marriage but living lives that have become submerged by the drudgery of kids, work, and all the other facts of existence they've hoisted on themselves. She casts off the idea of marriage as "work" as if should be anything but. You and your lover should be mad, hot rabbits for each other from first kiss to last breath.

A big boo-hoo.

As Clint Eastwood said in Unforgiven, "Deserves got nothing to do with it". Yes, it'd be great if everyone who finds a serious relationship would feel on day 10,000 of that pairing as they did on Day 10. That's not how it goes even in the best of times.

But through all of Loh's marital bellyaching her complaints do reveal much of the rotteness that's created by cheap energy. For her friend who's husband has complained she's gained a few LBS maybe we need to look at food intake and level of work. If each of us had to hack out some sort of physical labor each day (and that is not only "chain-gang" type stuff but also washing clothes by hand) instead of using oil/electirc coal powered machines then I'm sure we'd all be a bit more slim. Add that to a high-carb, corn influence diet and vio-la: fat people.

Another of her associates mates is bookmarking porn sites. Not that there's nothing wrong about naked women but the ability to transmit data rapidly from all points across the globe is more than our brains were developed to deal with. Is the 36-24-36 chick, legs akimbo, better than my wife? No, but she's different and right there on the screen. No contest way in favor of alienation to one's spouse.

And for Loh herself who's traveling husband is gone 20 weeks a year (and to her Samantha-esque friend who's late night snacks take the redeye to the bedroom) wouldn't it be save to say that both situations would be different with out airline travel. If he was home more often they prob could be a bit steamier. Would the SITC chick be as free if everyone in town knew her sexual proclivities? I doubt it.

Loh tosses out the fact that attraction is on a 4yr timer, long enough to raise a baby to an age where it can fend for itself. Back then we also only lived to 30yrs on average and had no sedentary home. If anything it's a case to go back to a rough, yet sustainable hunter-gatherer society versus a latte'd-up, instant industrial society we have now.

This is not to say that nobody can benefit from the stories shared but if you are relating to what is being ready you're already suffering from the poisonous society we lived in and are medicated by the countless media options that constantly declare hot, passionate love forever. Falling in loves the easy part, making it last is hard. That's why nobody does the sequel to the "guy gets girl" called "guy and girl learn to deal with each other".