How do you embrace romance while living a solo life? In this episode, Peter McGraw is joined by two special guests who crave romance without compromising their independence. They discuss navigating the complexities of love and dating, balancing autonomy with romantic desire and rethinking traditional relationship models. What do you think? Join the Solo community and let us know: https://petermcgraw.org/solo
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Listen to Episode #231 here
Romance And Love as a Solo
A quick announcement before we get started. You may have been expecting an aging, retiring, and dying single episode, but I’m making a change to how I approach the show. Solo is approaching its five-year anniversary with over 230 episodes. Even with the bi-weekly schedule, the show has started to feel more like work than play.
I’m going to start making episodes when I feel like it and releasing them when they are ready. There’ll still be some aging single episodes, truth or truth, solo thoughts, and episodes like this one where I dive into a topic with great guests. I hate to disappoint regular readers who like the predictability of a schedule, but it’s time for a change. Fortunately, there are hundreds of hours of content in the back catalog, as well as other shows popping up to fill this void. I hope you understand and enjoy this episode. Let’s get started.
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Welcome back. People are single for a variety of reasons, by choice, by chance, or by mismatch. For that latter group, they want to have some romantic and/or sexual connections, but they struggle to find a fit because what they desire sits outside the norm. This episode explores how singles navigate the desire for romance and love while embracing the solo lifestyle. It’s a big topic and along the way, we’ll address some additional reader questions that have come up.
I’m not a romantic, but romance is not a particularly prominent desire for me at the moment. I thank our first guest for prompting me to consider this topic. She’s an entrepreneur and business consultant with a background in biophysics. Her areas of interest include science, sustainability, music, and travel. She has worked across these industries for many years. She is passionate about people, human connection, outdoor adventures, international travel, and the ocean. Welcome, Heather Newman.
Good to be here.
My second guest is an increasingly familiar voice on the show. We did it truth of truth, discussed community and talked about going solo in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Welcome back, Monique Murad.
Thanks, Peter. Always good to be back.
Romantic Fulfillment
I want to start by delving into the unique challenges and experiences of maintaining a solo identity while seeking romantic fulfillment. A frequent reader knows that sometimes these things feel at odds, at least with regard to the cultural climate, the expectations, and social norms. Let’s start with you, Heather. Why this topic? Is it special?
Peter, thanks for having me. I approached Peter at a book signing following his book release with this question, which I’ll explain now. I feel like the Solo Movement resonates with me largely. In the show, I hadn’t heard a lot about the value of being in romantic love in addition to the other ways of finding value with regard to family, community, and other sorts of relationships. That’s something that I’ve struggled with over the years. They need to find romantic relationships to feel fully fulfilled and I’m interested in how we could explore this. That’s why I approached Peter.
This is something you desire. That’s one of the things that you feel that your life is better with romance in it.
Everyone’s different, but I’m curious from the community who else finds that without having romantic love present in my life. Even if I have personal relationships, family, work fulfillment, and sexual needs met. Something feels like it’s missing and that seems to fluctuate with time and with where I’m at in my life, but it’s like an underlying feeling that is there. I’m curious to explore that and to hear from others how they might cope with that so that I can feel fully fulfilled. Maybe not be so narrow with my idea of what’s to come or what I might need.
Before we dive into this more deeply, my suspicion is as we talk about it, we’ll uncover a little bit more. As you’ve reflected on it, why is that the case? Some people are like, “I can live without romance, but I can’t live without sex,” or, “I can live without sex, but I can’t live without friendship,” or, “I can live without friendship, but I can’t live without family,” or, “I can live without all of it except for my cat or my dog.”
This is the beautiful thing about this big tent that we’re all under at the moment. Having that recognition as someone who, the little time I’ve spent with you, is you’re very clearly a SOLO according to the definition that we go by, so to speak and yet, you’ve had this realization. Do you know where it comes from? Its origins. What is it about romance that feels so maybe not sufficient but necessary?
It’s something I’ve been exploring more now since we’ve discussed it. I’m trained in science, and I think about humans as animals on the biological basis for most of our choices. If choices are even choices or if they’re like our brain controlling our behavior. I’ve thought about it in three different ways. One is just the biological basis for it and perhaps some people, including myself, have more sensitivity to that reward circuit that’s triggered or something. In terms of your upbringing, that makes you more susceptible to needing to be loved, to feel fulfilled or something like that.
There’s also the spiritual perspective, which I don’t have a belief one way or the other on this, but I do think that there’s more to me than just my biological brain activity and something like one could say soul or I might say an essence or something like that. Perhaps it’s part of my path and part of my work to cultivate romance and love or to grapple with it or wrestle with it in order to be fulfilled in this lifetime I’m on.
I want to offer one that I want to explore along the way just to get the readers reading. I think there’s a category of behaviors that are easier to engage in with a romantic partner. If you give up romance, you then give up other things that you might like beyond just the feelings. Call it a romantic lifestyle of sorts.
What would be an example of that?
Cuddling or touch. Sensual touch, perhaps. A lot of sometimes, intense social support that you can get that’s normatively appropriate for a romantic partner might be difficult. I think of this as a straight man. That might be difficult to get otherwise that there’s this whole constellation of behaviors, but then, there are also things like a candle-lit dinner that is very intense, very vulnerable and is very like one-on-one. Even just like access to dinner parties and events that feel more natural in a romantic sense. A plus one for a wedding and so on. For some people, travel can feel much more romantic and exciting when coupled with this. I’m just spitballing here at the moment because I don’t feel that way necessarily.
If I can chime in. When I think about what it is that I look for, when I’m like, “I feel I want romance in my life.” I felt a mix of what both of you two said. Heather, you’re talking a little maybe being a bit sensitive to the brainwaves or something about what it is, the dopamine that a romantic love provides us. I think resonates for me. Peter, there is something that you said that’s important that I’ve been reflecting on, which is romance, and we’ll get into maybe some definitions.
For me, there are romantic acts, and then there’s romantic love, which is confusing because I feel like it resonates with me. These actions are not accessible with my friends that I’ve been looking for, but it’s just not the norm. I’m at a party and I’m feeling anxious and there’s someone that I can just hug and be there with. There are certain norms and societal norms that I have to sit down with a friend and say, “Can I access you in this way?” Maybe that seems romantic and almost a romantic way. I don’t need a romantic partner to be able to do these things.
I felt that in this desire to have someone just on the weekends. Have a nice dinner. Spend the weekend in bed or go and travel with somebody. It’s funny because that there are actions that in the ways in which we interact with friends. Sometimes, we have to sit and have conversations with friends to have them prioritize us in that way. It’s not a given always. That’s coming up for me a little bit. The last for me in behaviors is a bit of the sexual consistency.
Having someone to evolve sexually with instead of maybe having multiple partners or having one-night stands or some type of an emotional connection with somebody also opens up for some vulnerability and ability to explore new things. It’s hard to do that without developing emotional attachments to people. That romance falls somewhere in between when I think about its necessity, what it is, and why I seek it.
I do want to echo something you just said, Monique, about sexual intimacy. That is I think that if you are engaged in sexual connections without romance, maybe with the exception of friends with benefits. It sometimes can feel a little bit more ephemeral, like people are going away. They come and go. There’s a term in business and sales called churn, which means you lose customers and you’re trying to constantly replenish customers, which is costly.
There is something bonding to Heather’s original point. Something bonding there that can make that, as you said, Monique, that sexual chemistry. Not just consistent, but also open up a chance to be vulnerable and authentic, explore, and experiment. People are just a little more likely to stick around with that additional pair bonding that can come from love.
Monique, it was helpful for you to distinguish between romantic actions versus romantic love. Also, this piece on the vulnerability with sexual acts. On that piece, I feel like it can go either way. I think that sometimes I am in love and not exposed because I feel like the in love feeling that I feel, which is more of the love and not the action. It makes me so vulnerable and exposed. At times in my life, that’s made it not feel as comfortable to be sexual. Other times, that’s been the most amazing sexual experience. For me, it can go either way but I do think that there’s just a more extreme feeling in life. It’s like just an enhanced life experience, which can be sex. It can be eating food together or doing mundane activities.
Cuddling on the couch and binge-watching Season One of Peaky Blinders, which I’ve watched alone. I would say this, Heather. There is an experience that I have had in life. It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced it, but it has been very real and was perplexing, but it makes sense from your perspective. I started dating someone and we have a strong connection. That person does not want to have sex with me because they like me so much.
That’s hard. I hate it when that happens.
That’s a good thing, but the intensity of it all. I think that helps explain perhaps some of that.
I’m going through a similar experience. When you love someone that much, I think the sex sometimes symbolizes for people commitment or it’s very intense. I understand, but that’s where I’ve been having a bit of a hard time understanding romantic love. People tend to shut themselves off to it as well. It’s easy to shut ourselves off to romantic experiences because it’s that you’re setting yourself up to be vulnerable and for things to be intense and for heartbreak as well. It’s a bit confusing, but it does get in the way of life. I’m going to be real. Romance is all gray and love makes life colorful. Also, sometimes it just gets in the way of my productivity.
Romance And Love
Those damn emotions, Monique, are just getting in the way. I’m sure people are wondering why we’re using these words. We’re using the word romance love. I solicited some questions and comments on the Solo Community, PeterMcGraw.org/solo. Sign up there. One reader writes, “I’m curious to learn how others define romance. There are so many versions of it. Is it the same thing as dating or not? How much is physical touch and/or sex or the promise of them a component?”
Another person writes, “I would appreciate an actual working PRACTICAL definition of this cliche/thing called romance. Maybe That’s just my high-functioning, unofficially diagnosed autism neurodiversity speaking, but please. I dislike such words because I can’t discern concrete meaning from them.” I did some googling, and to get us started, I would say that my initial information and dictionaries may or may not help us very much. Merriam-Webster calls romance a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love, a love affair. Especially one of an intense and passionate nature.
Oxford English Dictionary says a quality or feeling a mystery, excitement and remoteness from everyday life typically associated with love or sexual attraction, which captures a bit of this idea that we’re discussing. Love, on the other hand, is a much broader concept. Merriam-Webster says a strong affection for another arises out of kinship or personal ties. Affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interest. This is like Love of all-encompassing.
Oxford English Dictionary says an intense feeling of deep affection. A great interest and pleasure in something. The key difference as I see them is romance is often part of a courtship process. Not necessarily. While love is this deeper bond that may develop from it, love can exist without romance, but I’m not so sure romance can exist without love.
I don’t think I agree so much.
Can you have romance with someone you don’t love?
For sure.
I agree. I’m with Monique.
Romantic acts for me, and that’s what I’ve been struggling with because I’m somebody that would love to engage in more romance like more romantic acts, without this pressure of needing it to go somewhere. I easily love. I don’t say easy fall in love, but I easily love and falling in love and in romantic love with somebody is something specific. The way that I think. For me, sex can live separately than love. Romantic acts can as well. I don’t need to be in love. I meet someone and I’d love to take you to dinner, treat you and engage in romance, but it doesn’t mean I’m in love with you.
I could lead to that because these kinds of acts put us in situations in which we’re demonstrating affection and feeding into the love. I don’t know if it’s necessary. I’ve also been feeling this pressure as a solo. It’s like, I want to be solo. I don’t want to lead people on necessarily, but I do want to be romantic. Where does that leave me? Heather, what do you think?
That’s interesting. I feel like for many years, I was more or less in your camp where I felt like I wanted to have perhaps the romantic experiences without you getting on the escalator and you were expected now that something will follow. Interestingly, a few years ago, I was in a ski accident. I was a regular runner before that. What I realized this summer when I was reflecting on this topic is I think that my susceptibility to want more or to go for the in-love part following a romance. It became stronger as a result of stopping running.
It’s almost as if one of my neural circuits, like the dopamine or the pleasure circuit that I had been living on since I was a teenager, got halted. Somehow, the romance and perhaps the love following that became heightened and became more correlated. Whereas previously, Monique, like you, I could see them as two separate distinguished experiences and was frustrating sometimes when one was supposed to be paired with the other.
Does that explain why someone who just started running dumped me?
I was going to say that also stresses me out, for I’m training for an IronMan. Now, I’m afraid that I’m going to stop training for this IronMan and feel the need to get married or something.
I wouldn’t go that far.
We’re making jokes. I don’t want to make light of your situation.
Sorry, but as someone who’s sensitive to that, it makes so much sense. It makes a lot of sense that it just resonated like your experience resonated.
If you had to choose the two, would you rather go back to running, Heather? That’s a short thing. You can do that alone. You don’t need any cooperation.
That’s what’s so interesting. I feel like it’s given me some insight that what feels like this, either spiritual or basic biological need for connection and for my life to be fully fulfilled without it, seems to be related to some of my activity levels. It also makes me think of just life and how sometimes, if somebody needs to have a child, their need for this connection could go down or you’re getting older. I feel like it’s such a dynamic quality. I’m realizing now that maybe I can have a little bit more control of it than I thought was possible.
I have been in love, so I see how compelling it is. It’s almost like a super emotion, in a sense. I think of all in that way, there are moments where you just feel whether it be a nature or something. I remember I was in Buenos Aires and I went to a ballet. It was the first ballet I’ve ever gone to. It was Taichovsky. I was also coming down from a mushroom trip, so I was a little bit altered.
I sat there and at one point in time, I just started crying. I was overcome with emotion. The beauty of what I was seeing. How impressed I was with everything about it. That romance can have that feeling of you’re almost overpowered. One of the definitions is that it pulls you away from everyday life, from the mundane and the banal, which a lot of life can be.
Could I ask a question? I don’t know if it’s a suggestion. Peter, you can cut this out if we don’t like it, but I feel like we’re talking about definitions and romance in this theoretical way. You did this, Peter, which I thought was interesting, so I’d love to hear it from Heather and then, maybe, it’s a reflection of my own. There are definitions, but it feels like romance and love is a feeling. It’s this internal thing. Heather, what does it feel like for you? If you can think about the last person you were in love with, what did it feel like? How do you put into words the feeling of that romantic love? Maybe that’ll help us find a definition that connects.
I’ll see if I start to cry or not, but that’s okay because that’s effectively what it was for me. It’s this feeling that’s deeper than anything else that I can imagine. To say the peak of an orgasm or the high of some drug trip experience correlates, but that’s much more extreme and more temporary.
It’s more acute.
I’m sensitive to sunshine, and so is the feeling I have when I wake up in the morning. The sky is blue and it’s sunny all day versus when it’s gray and overcast is the best I can describe. It’s like this basis on which everything else is affected. I do think it relates to my childhood. I’m an identical twin. I think that twinship, that personal connection, and my sensitivity to that or the fact that I even shared a womb with somebody maybe makes this more extreme. The way somebody who’s an adrenaline junkie might need that adrenaline and other people who don’t want to go near it.
Certainly, this idea of individual differences is very real. There’s a scale about affective intensity that people differ. That is they experience both positive and negative emotions. Either more or less intensely, for example. I can also see how whether it be your stage in life, genetics, and experience that you experience some specific emotions more intensely than other people.
To add to that, Monique. I do feel like it’s a pendulum swinging and with both the highs and the positives of the being in love. I’ve had a super deep love. I’m talking about twice in my life and all sorts of other forms of love and romance, but just like the pendulum swings into this way of sunny skies and good weather every day. Likewise, when it swings the other way and it ends. Whether by my choice, their choice or some mutual life event. It’s the pain, like no pain I’ve ever felt. It’s physical. I feel it in my chest and in my stomach. It’s completely visceral and it’s almost debilitating.
How are you, Monique, your feelings?
If I can channel what love feels like for me, like romantic love. It feels I’m been plugged in. Everything I do is a little bit more enhanced. My capacity and my desire for things that are even beyond the relationship are a bit more enhanced. I have more interest. It feels like I’ve been plugged in, like somebody put an extra battery in my system. That’s what gets me. Also, it’s correlated with this deep feeling of feeling desired, wanted, and loved.
Someone asked me this question once. It was like, “Would you rather be in love or be loved?” It’s such an interesting question. My answer was I’d rather love. I think it’s because there’s also nothing that gets you more grounded than loving someone so much, like putting someone almost beyond yourself. When they match and when you’re equally loved, it puts you in this situation of vulnerability. As someone who’s maybe feeling some tones of heartbreak at the very moment, is quite debilitating. It feels like you don’t have control over this weight in your chest. You just want to be horizontal for a few days.
I wish we were closer and we could have an evening together.
We should. We should have wine for this conversation, Peter. We messed up. Having a romance conversation and we don’t even have a nice glass of wine to chat about all this with, but when exposing yourself to anything so intense, you’re also exposing yourself to the opposites. That’s what love does. Romantic love gets in corners and spaces that are a little bit different.
You can’t have this conversation without that notion of the risk that you’re counting on the cooperation of someone else. We talk about unrequited love and how painful that is. The feeling of hopelessness and helplessness that comes from it. I’ve had the same experience. Debilitating is a fair word or I would just say I was a mess. The only feeling of how you can repair it is to have that person change their mind, which is not likely to happen.
There’s a reason their love is unrequited. You have to heal and there’s no pill. There’s no overnight solution even though you know cognitively that it will or you’ll be okay. Especially if you’ve been through it before. It still takes time. I had an experience where I was in love. I wasn’t just in a situation where my partner did not love me back, but she cheated on me and told me. I was ill.
I knew cognitively, rationally, that I had to let this go, but the emotions were so intense. There was part of me that was trying to say, “How can we repair this? How can we do this?” I’m now at the point in life where that was naive to think that, but I was trying to do it. My friend’s father said something to me that snapped me out of it. He said, “Peter, I don’t understand why you want to be with someone who would hurt you so badly. If that person truly loved you like you loved them, why would they do this to you?”
That snapped you out of it?
It did.
I feel like it’s not a choice, exactly.
I was still hurting, but it stopped my pattern of behavior of trying to repair that connection. I was able to let it go.
Sometimes, the hurt that comes, then I wanted to talk about this with you all because I want to develop a healthy relationship with romantic love as a solo. What I feel strongly about and the reason, Peter, I fell in love with your show. It’s why I forced my friendship upon you and that’s why I am here is because I essentially found you and this show in the middle of essentially the end of my marriage. A lot of things around romance were becoming very clear to me.
In my marriage, I was the one that cheated. It was something that, although it directly reflected things in the marriage, it was also not about the marriage. It was about me. This place of romance and romantic love has held this place of confusion for me because the Solo Movement is about putting something other than romantic love is a priority in my life. It’s not my foundation. It’s not my base, but what we were talking about earlier, Heather, is that we do, as humans, have this biological need and physical need.
We can hire people now. We have a way. We talked about this, Peter, of you can be alone now in ways that you just couldn’t before. We need to connect with people. We need to have connection. We need to feel wanted and want people. We’re programmed to love and be loved. Until now, romance was the way you do that. I struggle because even in my romantic relationships, I would love to pursue romance and I want to, but then it’s so intense for me.
Heather, it seems like you feel this way. It’s sometimes hard for me to balance it all, and then I run away. I don’t know if maybe this is a question or a reflection of like, how do we as solos engage in romance and stay true to our value of life is better when you do live as a solo in that sense. It doesn’t mean I’m alone. It doesn’t mean I’m disconnected. I don’t know. It’s just a reflection.
Monique, once again, I agree with you 100%, in terms of first this show helping and give me the insight and the inspiration to not set romantic love as and in the feeling of community that we’re not alone here. To not set romantic love as this end-all-be-all or without it. Instead, as a feature of a fulfilled life and for me, it’s like one circle on this Venn diagram if in the circles are moving in and out and overlapping more and I’m in the middle, depending on how much I’m running.
It’s like a diorama or what are those things that circle over a baby’s crib that spin around? What’s that called? Is it a diorama?
I think so.
I think it shows. Do you have kids, Heather?
No.
It certainly shows that I don’t have kids.
It shows that none of us have kids for what is this thing called?
Whatever that spiny thing is above a kid’s. I’m trying to think about the right way to think about your moving then.
It’s more like circles if you were to have it projected on like a two-dimensional thing. Circles and one circle is romantic love. One circle is community, family, and health. When they’re overlapping in the middle, what I would define as the fully fulfilled Heather. Certain circles will take over other circles depending on the time. The example I gave about running or having this dopamine fixture sports that was eliminated when I had this ski accident. It made me lean on these other needs, including the romantic love in a way that I hadn’t previously.
One thing that’s helped me is recognizing that it is a piece of my full fulfillment, but it’s not underlying in the basis of my fulfillment. It has helped me not entirely detach, but not get discouraged by the reality of it. It’s not that I’m trying to talk myself out of it, but more of a, it’s this dynamic moving target that will probably be that way for the rest of my life.
Triangular Theory Of Love
Having a mental model and an understanding of yourself, independent of the cultural norms, is essential because if you rely on the cultural norms. Especially if you’re a solo at heart, you’re going to experience a lot of conflict. You’re going to have a hard time making that match. I’m going to get a little bit theoretical here. Robert Sternberg is a psychologist who’s done a lot of work on relationships, especially intimate relationships.
He’s the one who dubbed the term significant other. What’s interesting is that I gave a TEDx Talk in Boulder, and I brought this up. His original definition of significant other included deep romantic connections and partnership, but it wasn’t limited to that as that term is. It encompassed family, deep friendships, family of choice, and even meaningful professional relationships. You can imagine a mentor-mentee relationship. I said I’ve never put a ring on a finger, but I have significant others.
My friend Julie was in the audience. I said, “My soul sister is here. She’s a significant other.” I asked the audience, “Do you have significant others as a way to try to help balance a little bit of the cultural winds that blow us towards this one?” Sternberg has this triangular theory of love. It’s a useful framework because it has these three components. I’ll take my time because with three components, now you can have nine forms of love.
One is intimacy, so emotional connection. The second is passion or physical attraction. The third is commitment, so a decision to stay together. For example, you can have an infatuation in which you have passion. You’re attracted to someone without intimacy and without commitment. You can have liking. I like you. Intimacy is some connection, without passion and without commitment. You can imagine. There are nine versions of this. Romantic love, according to Sternberg, is you have intimacy, emotional closeness and passion, physical attraction without the commitment because you’re not at that point perhaps yet.
Consonant love is all three. That moves you from romantic love into this committed version of intimacy and passion. We could talk about other ones if you want, but I thought that was a very interesting way to think about what it is that you desire. In part because what I don’t want to do, I don’t want to rank these things necessarily. I don’t want to rank these things, but I can see why people do. We certainly know that society does. Consonant love is the most important and the most value and is designed to crowd out these other forms because there are rules like hierarchy.
Those factors can also change another individual over time. I don’t think that I have ever correlated commitment with love or basically, the passion and intimacy connection. I’m on board with Sternberg with regard to his association. As I’m getting older, the value of commitment is increasing for me and at some point, maybe the value of passion will decrease for me. It seems like that would also be changing with time. I think we’re so hugely influenced by our upbringing. It’s starting to catch up with me because as I’m getting older, I could see that there could be some value in the commitment piece. I don’t know how the commitment piece and the passion piece stay in bed together because I have no idea how you can predict that.
Esther Perel would argue that, in some ways, they’re at odds. The novelty is what makes things sexy and exciting and distance does that. Yet, commitment is, in some ways, the opposite of that. We’re in these worlds where in these all-or-nothing marriages, especially you’re so connected. Your lives are so intertwined that your partner can become decidedly unsexy in a sense, but it is a secure relationship that people also value. She’s fighting the good fight to help the people who want to mate and captivity to use her.
Redefining Commitment
Not to play. Double that. I’m also a huge fan of Esther Perel, as Peter knows. Her books were a game-changer for me, especially at the end of my divorce. Her whole theory, as she gets to at the end of her book, was around the other person is not a given. You do not own anybody. That’s the idea. We have to redefine commitment because commitment operates on a scale. The marriage commitment that maybe, Heather, you’re talking about and the marriage commitment that we talk about and we’re very honestly, a bit against when it comes to the type of marriage.
We’re talking about not the we’re against marriage. I know people we’re not. We’re opening up other ways, but there’s this commitment. That gets to this point of toxicity where it’s like, I own you. I own you for the rest of your life, so I feel secure about that. It’s like a pet like we own our pets. Our pets have no free will. We don’t engage in relationships with humans under that ownership. That’s what the marriage that I’m against does.
It puts somebody in this space of ownership. Passion, sometimes I read as something I have no choice over. If I have passion, I’m passionately in love with somebody, I feel like that’s something that I could be passionately in love with somebody that sucks and I have no control over it. I see intimacy as something that it’s almost a mix of chance and investment. You have to build intimacy, but also, at the same time, you have to have this natural connection with somebody to be able to have that intimacy flow.
Commitment is something that’s the one thing I have control over, which is how am I going to commit to engaging with this person? When I think about a rule book or how I would like to structure my romantic relationships, rethink commitment. This is something that came up as a struggle in my last romantic endeavor, which is, what is commitment?
When I say I want to be in a relationship with you, what am I committing to? We commit to our friends. We commit to our family in a way to structure a society. Even if we hire people to support us in our life, there’s a commitment there. There’s like, “I’m going to pay you to do this.” Commitment is what we have control over. It’s a way in which we can organize our lives. It’s even a way in which we can have freedom.
If I create a commitment with you, I’m committed to you in this way. It means that I can also engage here because we’ve discussed it. We’re giving this guideline to it. I don’t know. That’s the way I like the triangle. It’s about rethinking what commitment means and how flexible we are within it because commitment, to me, doesn’t mean ownership. That’s what it used to mean, I suppose.
Monique, can I ask you a question about that? After your divorce, and it seems you’ve thought about this a lot, I’m curious. In this relationship or endeavor, if that was discussed, if the commitment piece was discussed, like how do we codify commitment or whatever language you want to use to make it feel like it resonates with both of us?
I didn’t do it successfully, so I can’t give you a success story. The point was there wasn’t even a discussion on it because any commitment was off the table when it came to wanting to make plans and wanting to define what was happening. I struggle because it’s not something that I’ve had success with yet. That’s the thing. People tend to have a two-sided view of commitment. What I have had success with, which I can’t say is in romantic relationships, but has been with friendships.
I’m in the space where my dad passed away. Not that we had a very intimate relationship, but it’s just me and my mom. I don’t have a blood-related family support system. I’m realizing I need to make commitments to people in my life so that we can care for each other and be there for each other. If toxicity arises, but this idea is that if tomorrow I’m having a bad day, You’re not just going to give up on me. Maybe I could rely on you to go through some tough times.
Maybe I’ve had more success in the friendships and now I’m trying to replicate. As we said, once we tie it with romance, there’s this background of I’m giving up my body. I’m giving up my desires because I owe everything to this partner, which doesn’t necessarily always apply to friendships. I don’t know if that answered your question. I have not had success with it. Zero, but we’re trying here.
Let’s try to agree with your characterization of not having success with it because it depends on your timeline. If success means forever, starting at point A to now, then okay, maybe not, but that does not mean that you have not had successful or romances in your life.
True. I guess I just meant I hadn’t had success in this new phase, sitting and co-defining a commitment because, in my last romantic endeavor, we couldn’t seem to get there, I suppose.
We can spend some time on this, which is if you’re a solo, you’re now without the guardrails of culture. That is enlivening, but it’s also difficult. For example, going back to this idea of consonant love, so intimacy, passion, and commitment. Part of the problem is that passion and commitment get confounded, which is that if the love fades and the attraction fades, then what’s the point? That wasn’t the case with marriages pre-1960 because the commitment was there and expected. Even though perhaps not all the other elements were there.
There can be something freeing as a solo. Though I don’t like the word here but it’s called companion at love. This is the one that I’m a big fan of, which is intimacy and commitment without passion. I have a lot of those relationships in my life. Some of them are even with former girlfriends or lovers. I’ve had a conversation. I might have mentioned it on the show with a woman who started as a lover and became a friend and we were in between.
I said to her, “If you want sex and romance, I can give that to you, but I need you to know it’s probably going to fade. What I can give you is friendship because, for me, that’s forever.” It’s your choice, but just know that if you want the commitment, the path to commitment is not passion. It’s intimacy. For me, that was an incredible breakthrough to have that and to recognize that in my life. It’s a very solo approach.
How did she respond?
We’re very good friends. It has a little bit of a flirty element to it. I appreciate that she’s attractive, but it’s just like I am in it to win it as a friend. That’s improved my life, especially the way I date, female friendships, and so on. Figuring these things out, having your own model is important and real.
My first true love that I mentioned earlier and I together read the book, Mating in Captivity, as we’ve mentioned. I felt like that was such a great opportunity. Not coming from one of our perspectives or the other, but just to have an opportunity to discuss these ideas that she was putting forward in a safe and exploratory way. I feel like now, with the Solo Movement, Peter, what you have provided for so many of us with. The terminology relationship design or relationship later may not be your original terms, but I feel like that book was a great resource and helped me now.
When I articulate my fears around a commitment or around being able to be for you forever because I don’t know how I’ll feel in five years, at least I can refer back to this concept that was built by somebody else. I don’t know if you have suggested resources or books or anything like that. Either of you, for those of us who are trying to explore our own tendencies towards feeling the need for romance.
Seeking Romance As A Solo
Let’s see what comes out of this. I want to turn our attention to the issues and challenges of seeking romance as a solo. I’m going to lean heavily on the two of you, but I’m going to kick this off with a member of the Solo Community who wrote, “As a committed solo, I find it somewhat challenging to get into and stay in a romantic relationship. I don’t want to live with anyone and I’m certainly not going to get married again. I am protective of my peace and autonomy. As a 52-year-old woman, it’s a fun plot twist that I want to keep things casual but the Gen X men I date want to lock it down.” That’s a very real puzzle. What advice would you have for this person? Heather’s eyes are bugging out of her head.
My honest response is more than ever in my entire life, I feel like I’m seeing the value in commitment. I think I’m on the other side of the spectrum from the person who asked that question. I’ve always seen it as like a weekend needy for somebody to need that, the guy who wants to lock it down. It was just undesirable. Now, at this other point in my life and after what I’ve been through, I see it as a very positive attribute for someone to be willing to take a risk, be that vulnerable, and make some commitment that can be mutually defined. That is subject to change mutually. It doesn’t have to be till death do you part. I feel the opposite of her. I don’t have any good answers.
You said something, Heather, interesting. I don’t know this person. I don’t know what lock it down means, and I think that’s where things are tough because of what lock it down means. She could be struggling with this lack of a commitment that’s ambiguous or different or maybe, as I said, we only have one definition of commitment. I think about Teresa, Peter, on our last episode. Teresa said a little bit around how she’s become a no way over time because she’d love a partner in crime but there’s nobody that fits the bill to the type of commitment that fits with her lifestyle and respects her autonomy.
People tend to turn to this like, “I want casual,” because the commitment doesn’t fit them. The advice I would give, it’s like a priority list. Unfortunately, it’s relationships with other people. We can’t control other people. The advice I would give and I don’t know if it’s good advice is that. If you are satisfied with being autonomous, being alone, and not necessarily engaging and romantic relationships and you’re okay with them always ending in this way because somebody wants commitment. Great.
If you don’t feel satisfied, you’ve got to get out of your bubble and meet new types of people because there are people that are engaging differently. There are people, but as I said, she wants to be in Rio. She wants to be in this space and doesn’t want to go out like, I’m not going to move to London or Austria. I’m not saying that they’re there, but you have to move out of your bubble and find the circles in which these people are and adventure into those worlds. It’s a give-and-take.
It’s hard. I do. I have a friend who is ethically non-monogamous and is dating someone who prefers monogamy. I’m getting to witness the friction there, which this person adores her and is trying hard. If it was up to him, he would spend all of his time with her. She’s delightful. I get it. Seeing that the conversations and the reassurance. “No, I do like you.” “I do care about you.” “I do want to be with you, but I can’t do it in this way.” Seeing that person trying to undo some socialization or cultural norms, but maybe even something that is essential about him and a desire for monogamy that is irrespective of culture, in a sense.
Finding someone who’s already tuned in, but let’s be honest, there are not many people like us. It does feel a little bit like a needle in a haystack. If you are an advanced solo, there’s a bit of education that you have to do. There’s a bit of patience that you need to engage in and a little bit of trial and error. You were asking, Heather, about what resources. There’s not that many resources, to be honest. There’s books like The Ethical Slut, for example. That is worth having someone read.
I had a guest on who said that she and her new partner listened to the Relationship Design episode together and would stop. They were on a long road trip. They would listen and stop and discuss things, and then they would keep listening, stop, and discuss things. As they were listening, they were going through their own version of relationship design. That’s like very exciting.
I was very happy to hear. Incredibly flattered to see that someone found it so tactically beneficial in a way. This idea of co-creation is hard because you’ve got to be super vulnerable. You’ve got to risk this person you like and are attracted to be like, “No, I don’t want to do that.” They’re like, “Does this mean that we can’t do anything? Is there a way?” It’s a negotiation of sorts.
I hope that over time, and it is evolving just like all sorts of other social and societal judgments are changing with time. People are more accepting of their own identity and everything else. This Solo Movement will be not such an outlier and it will be more of a common thread where you can identify as seeking the traditional monogamy or the ethical non-monogamy or somewhere in the middle and for that to be more normalized.
I hope that that happens and we’re here. That’s what’s been so refreshing about listening to you, Peter, realizing that there are other people who see this as the way I do and struggle with it the way I do. Even if I’m on the extreme of having this deep underlying need for being in love and feeling romance to feel fulfilled so far in my life. I’m interested in exploring that.
Heather, how are you going to do that?
This conversation is out hold in terms of exploration. I think the insight that I had regarding my increased sensitivity to the being in love, the heightened fulfillment of it, as well as the soul-crushing pain of that ending. I’m curious. I’ve been struggling with that. Having the insight that my physical ability to run or ski seems to be correlated with this increased sensitivity has been helpful because it’s like, how can I integrate other fulfilling things? Maybe I need to do psychedelics and go to the ballet in Brazil and have more experiences of all.
I agree. That’s what you should definitely do. Come to Rio. Go do psychedelics and go to the ballet.
It sounds amazing.
I’m in.
Sounds fantastic.
Also, how to define commitment and what those needs might be going forward. Peter, I love what you said about your friend and the companion at love.
It’s not a great word, but it does capture my relationships very clearly. That is let’s go.
It’s funny. I was thinking about words, labels and names. Companion is when I was trying to figure out all the words. I was like, “I love that word.” I love the word for what it represents, but it’s usually used when companions are generally used in people who are in retirement homes and have lost.
Maybe your dog. My companion.
It’s so interesting because when you reach a certain age and you develop a way to see relationships differently because maybe you’ve moved past the need to go on the escalator, suddenly, companion at love is open to you. I was like, “I would like to have access to that. I don’t want to wait until I’ve married. My partner has died and then suddenly, I have permission to engage in companion at love. No, thank you. I’d like to do that now.” It’s powerful love because, as you said, Peter, that passion can fade.
Passion also has to be fed. It’s a choice. We keep putting romantic, love, and passion in this space that it’s not ever a choice. It’s this dopamine hit in the beginning. Even as Esther Pere talks through, desire is something that needs to be intentionally seen and fed as well. Companion at love gives even way. Companion at love can be between two people who don’t want to have sex and don’t want to have that passion. It can also be a way to reignite that for some people if it’s accessible.
I love it. Two comments. I say to my married male friends often, “You need to seduce your wife. If you want this relationship to work, you need to seduce your wife. She needs to feel like the object of desire.” The other thing is I use the term brother and sisters a lot. I use it. I have a sister who I adore but I have expanded my use of that term because brother and sister captures that idea of companion at love in a sense.
You’re not attracted to your siblings, but you have this intimacy and this commitment, ideally for life. Julie, my soul sister, it was nice. She was traveling. She had a rough weekend and said, “Can I come over on the way home from the airport? I need some big brother energy.” I was like, “Absolutely.” It was an intense night because we both were challenged by various things in our life, but we both felt like so much better as a result of that thing. The more we can foster these connections, the better a foundation that people can have.
The more we can even enjoy romantic love if we’re not so dependent on that as the only dopamine hit. We could even enjoy romantic love better.
Perhaps. I feel like I’m such a super failure that I don’t want it to be any more intense than it already is. I’d like it to stay that way. I think this brother/sister energy that or the commitment, Peter, you’re talking about. I like the idea of this because there’s no intrinsic competition between siblings. I have two sisters. There’s competition among siblings but in terms of having more cousins or people you love, which are family relationships. It’s not like there’s competition because you have some sexual or passionate relationship with them.
In some sense, it’s more like the more the merrier. Traditionally, with this romantic type stuff and because most people in our society are not inclined to be constantly sleeping around that it’s correlated with this one-on-one relationship. It would compete if you have all these different like intimate friends, but it’s familial. It’s not the same way. I like the model of that. It could be deeply fulfilling for me to have something, Peter, more like what you’re talking about with your friend Julie.
Ocean Of Heartache
I do think if you do want romance, that we’ve been talking about this idea about you can’t escape the potential for heartbreak and any commitment to someone risks being hurt, but there is something especially detrimental to romantic love dissolving that it hurts, as you described it, Heather. It hurts your heart and your gut. The notion of heartbreak, heartache, longing and so on.
I have been developing a perspective about this that I would call this ocean of heartache a special case of. I did a Solo thoughts episode about living versus being alive. I said that a lot of us are just merely living. We’re just living our life, going to work, doing our thing, watching our shows, making our meals, and going to the gym and we’re living. This is great. What a gift to just have your heart beating.
I contrast it with this notion of being alive. Sometimes, I’m going to bed and I was like, “I was alive. I was challenged. I was emotional.” Maybe I had moments of, “Oh.” Maybe I had great sex or whatever it is. Oftentimes, when I do shows, I feel alive. What often makes you feel very alive is not always good. You could get into a fistfight and going to bed. You were like, “I was alive.” You get into a car accident and you’re like, “I was alive,” in that sense.
It’s not always that you’re pursuing good, but it’s like there’s something effervescent about the experience. I don’t know if I’m just getting old or if I’m reading too much philosophy, but there is something about living a life like that that is more worth living than just our mere existence. The idea that a negative experience is not a bug but a feature that you’re out there mixing it up in the world. You’re challenging yourself and you’re growing.
In that way, I feel like it can incentivize the seeking of romance because you’re like, “Here we go. Let’s see how this is going to turn out.” In either case, you’re going to be alive in this vernacular and you could pick whatever. I’m not saying that my words are that good in this case, but the spirit of this. The question is like, what’s the trite saying, it’s better to have love and loss than to never have love before. There are two types of people. They’re the people who agree with that. They say, “I’m a better person for having had my heart broken.” There are people who say, “I wish that had never happened.” You have a choice. Which of those two people do you want to be?
I was in love at some point in my marriage, but that was it. I picked a life where I knew that if it ended, I wouldn’t be crushed. I was living a life where living was easy. It was almost like pleasure. It was almost like you live right here. Not too high and not too low. If I fall, it doesn’t hurt too much. I’m not going to go too high but I’m not going to experience much. That’s a choice. I don’t judge anyone for it. You live fine. You’ll probably live longer.
That’s right. You get to choose. Ample of choice.
I pursue being in love with my life, which means that that’s it. You fall in love and things happen. When I was going through it, I’m not sure if I was going to get divorced. Someone gave me a good piece of advice because I was like, “I feel like I don’t have an example, a point of reference for what love is supposed to feel and look like and when it’s healthy.” This person was like, “Monique, you have so much love in your life.”
At that point, I was living with my grandma and I was caring for her. I care a lot about my friends. She’s like, “You know exactly what healthy love looks like.” That’s why romantic love has this special place, but it’s not that different than our other loves in our lives. Maybe it’s associated with intense feelings and also sexual connection, but the love itself isn’t too different. Losing my grandma, for example, hurts profoundly. Sometimes, there are days when it feels like I got broken up with. It feels like there’s a weight on my chest that doesn’t release and it’s because I allowed myself to love her so much, engage and commit to her. I agree, Peter. I’m choosing to be very alive, but it’s a choice and it’s not for everyone.
It’s hard. It can be hard. My other experience where I was a mess. I think the majority of the reason our relationship ended was because she wanted kids and I didn’t. If you were to point to the thing, but there was a percentage of the variance to be explained in this was that I was just going to be too much. I did a panel and a person on the panel knew a new an ex-girlfriend of mine and I told her who this person was. She goes, “I’m so surprised by that. You seem too spirited for her.” I was like, “That’s kind.”
I found that to be a great compliment in a sense, but there was something about me that put this partner too far off balance. The man she ended up with was the man she left for me and went back to, and had characterized that relationship as a very close but almost brotherly, predictable kind of relationship. I think she made the right choice.
You can think about all these ways that we’re trying to match up and one of them is like someone needs more stability, more comfort, stay in your lane and behave a certain way. Another person is like, “I want an adventure in my life, in my relationships.” We’re just constantly honing, changing, trying and stuff.
I also want to highlight that can change. Somebody could maybe want the adventure in the relationship at one point in their life and then more of the secure.
You can imagine having kids and you’re like, “It’s time to.” There’s a whole bunch of reasons that someone might want that.
Your brain chemistry changes as a result.
That’s why I think it’s unfair that till death do you part is the standard because what happens when that changes? Someone’s like, “Now, you need to change, too, in order for us to stay together.” I want to ask a tip that you have for folks. When I posted this on the Solo Community, it’s a big thread. Lots of people were weighing in. I don’t have time to get to all the questions and comments and so on.
Heather, I thank you for suggesting this. Monique, I thank you for saying yes to talking about this because I’m ill-equipped to truly explore it. For the person who’s reading is like, “I want some romance.” “I want the butterflies,” “I’m willing to risk the heartbreak.” As someone who’s new to the solo lifestyle but interested in exploring romance. What would you say to them?
Heather, you’re going to go first.
Monique, you have to go first because you just tried to get out of it.
Advice To New Solos
I’m supposed to give you a couple of hours to think about this tip. My advice is, if you want to do it, you’ve got to follow your heart. It sounds so cheesy. I’m so sorry. I don’t think that there is a rulebook or the point is that opening yourself up to all of this means listening to what your heart wants, like connecting with people and being vulnerable and open. That said, it’ll come to you, but you have to take the step to open yourself up.
We all notice like when we go out and we’re having moments in our life where we’re more closed and it’s hard to meet people. It’s not about them. It’s about us. Simple things. We’re not talking to people in an open way. You got to meditate on it and then follow your heart. Be vulnerable. It’s a very cheesy tip, but I don’t know if there’s a rule to it. Heather?
I agree with you, Monique. I would say in terms of a day-to-day strategy or a short-term step. I have two things that come to mind. One is being more alive, as Peter described it, in whatever way works for you, whether it’s seeing live music or going on a bike ride or having deep philosophical conversations. Whatever makes you feel more alive and your truest self. It could be a step towards then being in the right energetic headspace, whatever you want to call it, to be receptive to that connectedness.
The second part is in line, Monique, with what you’re saying and that’s with the vulnerability and feeling feelings. Some people growing up are trained to squash their feelings. Maybe it’s more of like for men, like be tough. At least, I learned when I was younger that it adds value and meaning to my life to feel feelings, but you can’t just feel certain kinds of feelings. Maybe a practice for somebody who wants to feel this romantic love, and this is just an idea.
It would be to cultivate other emotional feelings in your life. Whether it’s reading a book about war and loss or whatever triggers your emotions instead of avoiding it. Lean into it and see if that, in addition to the being alive choices, prepares you better. In the end, it’s not just who you meet at the right place and right time. It’s also who you are in that moment.
I want to add some more tactical ones here. Tell me what you think. I agree with you, Monique, that you need to open your heart. There’s that notion. Heather, I love this idea that to get in touch with your emotion, you have to become an emotional person in some ways if you’re going to be enlivened by romance. There is something that is intoxicating about someone who approaches a relationship or a connection with a little bit of seduction, swagger, or flirtation like who is seeking something extraordinary.
What can happen a lot is if you’re dating, it can be very robotic. What are you looking for? Let’s meet for a coffee versus taking a chance and stepping outside what most people are offering. Let’s have a picnic. I have a friend. We were single at the same time and it was always a disaster for me because women would push me out of the way to talk to him. He looks like Don Draper. He’s got the square jaw.
He would tell me these stories like he’d be eating alone and a woman would come up and say, “Is this seat taken?” Join him for lunch and I’m like, “What are you talking about? This does not happen in real life.” Around the same time, met the same woman in Boulder and I took her out to lunch and he took her on a picnic and read her poetry as if I was already not disadvantaged enough.
I’m sorry. Was this an experiment?
No. It legitimately happened.
What followed?
I never went out with her again and I think he did. I think about this sometimes where I say, “Let’s get dressed up and go out and have a cocktail.” I pick a sexy bar. Those dates always go better, regardless of whether it ultimately is a connection or we become intimate or even of whether we see each other another time, but the act there. It has that feeling of its special, flirtatious, sexy, and so on. If you want romance, give romance. It’s the way I’m thinking about it.
If you want to be seduced, do some seducing, in a sense, but that’s hard to do because you have to risk being rejected. It takes more effort. It may not be reciprocated, but there is something about that. I often will get a date a gift and I’ll take a picture of the gift. I’ll send it and say like, “This is waiting for you.” “What is it?” “You’re going to have to open it.”
Peter, you’re more romantic than you give yourself credit for.
I was going to say, we started this episode and Peter was like, “I’m not a romantic, but I’m not.” You’re saying all this, I’m like, “Okay.” It’s funny, Peter. I do think that that’s where it lands with this what is romance. It’s like romantic acts are lovely and they’re sexy. Romance is sexy. I need to take back my dignity and give two practical tips. I love these two practical tips. One of my friends said this. It’s like taking back your vanity. Feel sexy. People are going to want to engage.
It’s like you need to be in romantic love with yourself in a way. Take that back like, “I’m going to go get my hair cut. I’m going to go and take care of myself. I’ll wear something that I like.” Get to know what it is you like because that helps you open up. Confidence helps us open up. A very practical tip about meeting people, we’ve got to get back to writing numbers on napkins.
I’ve done it a couple of times now and I love it. It feels so powerful and sexy and so unintrusive. I’ve gone up to somebody and I’m just like, “I think you’re attractive. Here is my number. If you want to call, great. If you don’t want to call, that’s fine.” It’s powerful. It’s super non-intrusive because I’m not imposing myself for too long on this person. I’ve done it twice in my life and I’ve gotten two texts back.
Of course, you did. If a woman handed me a napkin that said, “Call me,” and had her number on there, she is getting a call. I’ve only had that happen once in my life.
I’m going to keep doing it more often, then.
That’s also aligned with the vulnerability piece that you mentioned before, Monique. First of all, I love that. I’m super inspired. I was just thinking, “Should I set myself a goal of doing that sometime?” If I decide to do it, I’ll report back to you, guys.
Maybe you should set the goal to do it three times in a weekend.
I’ll keep that in mind.
You can go old school and bring a stick of lipstick.
Can you kiss the napkin?
You kiss the napkin.
When I think about doing that, I think about the fear of the rejection piece or if a person’s married and they weren’t wearing a wedding band. I feel embarrassed or whatever else. You don’t know what happened because you don’t hear from them. I live in a small town where you could see them the next day on the hiking trail. I do think that’s like the vulnerable piece. That’s inspiring to me. It’s like, “I see myself as this highly sensitive person,” yet, I’m afraid to make myself vulnerable and to put my number on a napkin. I think these are good for anyone who’s out there who’s trying.
Here’s the thing. You hand someone a napkin with your name, number and say, “Call me,” or, “I think you’re cute.” You’ll go to bed that night and you’ll say, “I was alive today.” I think we’ll end there.
I love it. This was lovely.
Heather, send us a text when you do that, please.
Yes. This has been great. Thank you so much for inviting me to be part of this conversation. It’s inspiring to talk with you, guys.
Thanks for making it happen. Monique, it’s great to see you as always. Your heart will heal.
As always.
Monique, I look forward to the ballet in Rio.
Cheers.
Important Links
- Heather Newman
- Monique Murad
- Mating in Captivity
- The Ethical Slut
- Single In Rio De Janeiro, Brazil – Past Episode
About Heather Newman
Heather Newman is an entrepreneur and business consultant with a background in biophysics. Her areas of interest include science, sustainability, music, and travel, and she has worked across these industries over the past fifteen years. Heather is currently enrolled in a Sustainability program at UCLA, focusing on ocean science and blue technology. She is passionate about people, human connection, outdoor adventures, international travel, and the ocean. She lives in Crested Butte, Colorado.
About Monique Murad
I am Monique Murad – I’m 27 and living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA, daughter of Brazilian immigrants, an only child, raised mostly by my single mom and grandma.
I received my Bachelor’s degree in International Studies, and my Masters in International Affairs with a focus on Economics from UC San Diego. Since graduate school, I’ve worked in research and consulting in the areas of business to business markets, corporate and federal strategy and culture development, international development and corporate social responsibility.
I love to climb, dance, be in the ocean, spend time with my people, and am a bit of an inspiration addict. In Rio, I am in the process of becoming the new host of their Creative Mornings chapter – a global monthly speaker series that seeks to bring together the creative community, celebrating the idea that everyone is creative. I am in the process of a (celebratory) divorce, and joyfully pursuing an intentionally solo life that feels most authentic to me.