I spend the afternoon getting Graeme to settle the privacy and termination advice. It’s an excruciating process, involving him scrawling over the advice in red pen, having me make the changes and print it out again, then screwing his face up and scrawling over that version, telling me to revert to the original drafting. We go through at least five rounds of this. When it’s finally settled and emailed off, Graeme and I give our hotel client a follow-up call.
‘So you’ll see from our advice,’ says Graeme, ‘that termination is not recommended. If your CEO kicks up a stink, which he surely will, you risk a finding of unfair dismissal. In short, he doesn’t seem to have done anything wrong by the company’s standards. You don’t have any policy prohibiting intra-office relationships, or requiring them to be disclosed . . .’
The head of HR, an older woman named Paula with a gravelly, pack-a-day voice, interrupts. ‘But we’ve given him opportunities to disclose the affair.’ She spits out the word ‘affair’ like a rancid scrap of food. ‘We’ve had several board meetings over the past few weeks, asked about conflicts of interest, and he hasn’t said a word. Slimy bastard.’
Graeme doesn’t react to her scathing tone. ‘But he hasn’t lied outright, has he? So it’s difficult to argue that the affair, and his failure to mention it, fundamentally undermines the trust and confidence at the heart of the employment relationship . . .’
I can almost hear Paula’s hackles rise. ‘You said you found a case where a boss–subordinate relationship was considered a conflict of interest, and the company was justified in firing him?’
‘Yes, but that case involved a direct reporting line; the boss was in a position of influence over the employee. That’s not the case here; they’re in completely separate parts of the organisation,’ Graeme continues, oblivious to Paula’s seething. ‘And there’s nothing in the performance clause which would mean that his actions constitute a breach. Nothing to suggest he’s not devoting the whole of his time, attention and skill during normal business hours and at other times reasonably necessary to the company . . .’
‘They have sex at the hotel across the street at lunchtime!’ Paula rages.
‘But you have no proof,’ says Graeme bluntly. ‘And we advise you not to use any more private investigators. And you definitely shouldn’t use the photographs you already have, either to strong-arm your CEO or as evidence if this matter goes before the FWC –’
Paula cuts Graeme off. ‘Look, I think we’re going to seek a second opinion. I’ll consider your advice, but I’m not sure it’s the approach we want to take.’
She hangs up, and Graeme turns to me and shakes his head. ‘Clients. They just want to hear what they want to hear.’
He seems to be in a slightly more philosophical mood than this morning, so I venture my opinion. ‘I can see where Paula’s coming from, though. It’s clearly improper –’
‘Why? Because he’s cheating on his wife?’ Graeme guffaws. ‘People cheat all the time. It’s not a crime, or a fireable offence.’
‘Yes, but you can’t escape the power dynamic. He’s the CEO. Even if this woman doesn’t answer directly to him, there’s an imbalance . . .’
Graeme looks bemused. ‘Romy, we gave the correct legal advice. I feel like I’m repeating myself when I say that we’re not here to play moral guardian. You have to assess these matters dispassionately.’
I bite my lip, knowing I’ve lost. ‘Yes Graeme. I’ll try.’ The woodenness of my voice betrays how unsettled I feel. I can’t quite accept that there’s so little we can do for the company, that this cheating CEO is unlikely to get his comeuppance and we’re supposed to be okay with this.
‘Don’t worry,’ he says reassuringly. ‘You do enough of these kinds of cases, you’ll stop seeing the people, you’ll just see the law.’
6
The next afternoon, Graeme shuttles off to a client function around 5.30 pm. ‘You’re in charge,’ he intones as he leaves. I wait exactly two minutes before forwarding my work phone to my mobile, slinging my bag over my shoulder and making for the door.
As I pass the kitchen, a second-year lawyer from Corporate looks up at me from his French press. He flicks his eyes pointedly down to his watch, then back up to me. ‘Training,’ I say cryptically, without breaking my stride.
I arrive at Riley Street, Surry Hills, with just a couple of minutes to spare. Nestled between a cosy Italian restaurant and a disused art supply store is my destination – a glass-fronted shop emblazoned with the words ‘Life Lessons’. I take a deep breath, trying to quell my apprehensiveness, and push open the door, setting off a tinkling bell as I do. A smiling receptionist greets me. ‘Welcome to Life Lessons – are you here for the “Intelligent Dating” class?’
I smile gingerly. ‘Um, yes. Romy?’
She marks me off, then points through to the back room. ‘They’re just about to start.’
It’s a large room, bright lights amplifying the stark white walls and blonde timber floor. About forty folding chairs are set up in rows, filled mainly with middle-aged women, notepads in hands. There are a handful of men, and a few younger women, around my age, whose high-pitched giggles rise over the rest of the chatter. As was my habit at school and university, I slip into the second-back row and sink down into a chair, hoping to be inconspicuous. Some moral support would be nice, but there’s no way I could have invited anyone along. Paloma would have teased me mercilessly (I can just imagine her reaction: ‘You’re paying good money for dating classes? What, are you going to pay for nasal breathing lessons next?’), Cameron would have turned the class into an academic debate, and my mum’s enthusiasm would have been overbearing. I figure I’ll tell them about the class later, if it proves useful.
An older woman with a pleasant face, honey-coloured highlights and a white Keatonesque turtleneck takes to the stage, clears her throat and beams at us as we quieten down. She introduces herself – ‘Dr Marisa McCormack, psychologist’ – then begins her spiel.
‘It can feel a bit strange, possibly even threatening or shameful, to attend a course like this,’ she begins, vocalising my feelings exactly. I fiddle with my pen, and pray silently that she won’t try to abate our awkwardness by doing something horrific like going around the room and asking us what we’re hoping to get out of the evening. ‘But you’re the smart ones,’ she says brightly, which elicits a collective chuckle. ‘Most of us bumble along, buoyed by our Hollywood-induced expectations of meeting The One – usually identifiable by their classical good looks and inexplicable penchant for the same music, books or pizza topping as us – facing a couple of comical setbacks before eventually living happily ever after. But you’re all here because you know that life isn’t quite like that. And you suspect there’s something you can do to influence your romantic fate.’ There’s a ripple of nods.
‘So, what are the odds of finding happily ever after? Well, the Australian divorce rate is reported at around 40 per cent. Add to this the small percentage of couples who permanently separate but don’t file for divorce, and a slightly larger percentage of couples who don’t legally separate or divorce but are persistently unhappy in their marriage, and you get around 60 per cent of married couples who don’t live happily ever after.’
‘Depressing,’ someone behind me mumbles under their breath.
‘So, where do we go wrong?’ Marisa continues. ‘Well, one likely explanation is that, when we choose whom to date, we follow feelings of lust rather than liking – a feeling based on perceptions of kindness, reciprocity and loyalty. Lust is a poor foundation for long-term happiness. Indeed, a study by Ted Huston and his colleagues at the University of Texas found that liking declines at a rate of 3 per cent a year, whereas lust declines at a rate of 8 per cent per year.’ She points a clicker at a projector at the back of the room and a line graph materialises on the screen behind her; feeling mapped against time, two curved lines plotted out. The divergence is stark; ‘lust’ dips to a depressingly low 50 per cent after just eight years,
compared to ‘liking’ which is at a healthy 78 per cent.
Marisa raises an eyebrow pointedly. ‘Clearly, if one is looking for a sustained relationship, the rational decision is to invest in liking rather than lust from the get-go. The difficulty is that we are primed from childhood by fairytales, literature and Hollywood movies to believe that “true love” is fated and inevitable, and that we should always follow our heart and the butterflies in our stomach. Did you know that a 2001 Gallup poll of Americans in their twenties indicated that 88 per cent believe in a one and only “soulmate”, and that was the key thing they were looking for in a future spouse – more than shared religious beliefs, money or parenting ability?’
There are a few guilty giggles. Marisa nods knowingly. I don’t share their chagrin; well-versed in optimal stopping theory, I’m past believing in some predestined One. But the observation about lust versus liking strikes a chord. My mum’s account of how she and my dad got together has been gnawing at me, and this just affirms the idea that instant attraction isn’t the keystone to a romantic relationship.
‘So, how do we found a relationship based on mutual liking?’ Marisa continues. I lean forward eagerly. ‘Well, relationship psychologist Ty Tashiro advises that we focus on traits – inherent or characteristic qualities of a person. These include physical qualities like facial attractiveness, height and build; capabilities like intelligence, sense of humour and artistic ability; and personality traits – the five broad personality traits being openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Traits are relatively fixed and predictable – introverted children tend to become introverted adults, for example – and the traits a partner possesses early on in the relationship are telling of how they will be and behave further down the track.’
I nod along. That old adage, leopards and spots. I remember, a few years back, making excuses to Mum about why my last boyfriend, Jackson, kept flaking on plans. I’d cite his busyness, his workload, his improv group’s haphazard schedule. She would just look at me and roll her eyes. ‘If he’s unreliable now, he’ll be unreliable in the future,’ she’d say. ‘And if he doesn’t prioritise you now, he never will.’ She was right, of course.
‘Importantly,’ Marisa says, ‘the degree of intimacy and closeness in a relationship, and its longevity, are a product of how a couple’s traits interact.’ I smile ruefully. I wonder if Marisa could have looked at that relationship – a freewheeling extrovert and a straight-laced introvert – and predicted an angst-ridden ten-month lifespan.
‘But how do we choose the traits we want in a partner? The first thing to know is that we can only choose so many. As Tashiro says, you get three wishes, and no more.’ At this point, Marisa pauses and scans the room. The pointer finger comes out, and lands on a petite brunette in the second row. ‘You,’ Marisa says. ‘What do you look for in a partner? Any boxes they have to check?’
The girl freezes and smiles awkwardly. ‘Uh . . . well, if I only get three, then tall, dark and handsome.’
Marisa nods, accepting the challenge. ‘Okay,’ she says, ‘I don’t have figures on skin-tone and hair colouring, but if we take these kinds of typical check-boxes and do the maths, you’ll get the gist. You want a – man?’ The girl nods. ‘A man who is “tall”, which we’ll define as 6 feet tall or taller. Well, only 15 per cent of Australian men are that tall. You want someone in the top, say, 10 per cent of facial attractiveness. Again, I don’t know about swarthiness, but let’s go with someone with an annual income over $100K, which is another factor people tend to prioritise.’
‘That’d be nice,’ the brunette confirms, earning a titter.
‘$100K, which is the top 20 per cent of single-income earners. Well, if we do the maths, putting aside the slight correlation between height, attractiveness and earning potential, the pool of men who meet these criteria is already narrowed down to three in 1000. That’s without even taking into account whether those men are available, straight or of dateable age.’
Marisa surveys the room; a sea of silence and, in my row, at least two gaping mouths.
‘Clearly,’ she summarises, ‘to focus on any more than three traits makes it extremely unlikely that you’ll find someone who meets your standards.’
I feel my innards seize up as I think about the discussions I’ve had, even in the last few weeks, about the ‘type’ I go for. The number of times I’ve been diagnosed as ‘too picky’. I’d always chosen to take it as a compliment, a synonym for ‘discerning’, but now I’m not so sure. It seems that I’ve been setting myself up for failure all along. But with this realisation comes a glimmer of hope. Maybe this approach, the three traits, can help me figure out who to reject and who to pursue; how to know when I’ve found someone better than anyone I’ve ever dated before.
Sensing that she’s hit a collective nerve, Marisa tells us that she’ll allow some discussion among ourselves, and will then take questions.
‘But first, I just want to give one more example to bring the point home. The excessive focus on traits, to one’s detriment, is demonstrated by the famous 2010 paper by mathematician Peter Backus, entitled “Why I Don’t Have a Girlfriend”. Backus, then aged thirty, used the Drake Equation – a formula for calculating the probable number of extraterrestrial civilisations in our galaxy – to estimate the number of eligible women for him on Earth. Narrowing down the population to women, in London, between twenty-four and thirty-four years of age, with a university education, whom he would find physically attractive (one in twenty), who would find him physically attractive (“depressingly low”), who are single (one in two), and with whom he would get along (one in ten), Backus arrived at a rough estimate of twenty-six women in London with whom he might have a great relationship. He concluded that on any given night out, he would have a 0.0000034 per cent chance of meeting one of these ladies, which is only about a hundred times better than the probability of discovering an alien civilisation we can communicate with.’
I furtively scan the room. Most of the attendees look as if they could weep.
‘I was expecting a more upbeat talk, to be honest,’ my neighbour, a Junoesque woman who looks to be in her late thirties, mutters to me. ‘This is just giving me the stats to confirm what I already know – I will never meet anyone. Or if I want to, I’ll have to completely drop my standards.’
I smile sympathetically. ‘It’s a bit confronting, isn’t it? That maybe the things we think we want just distract us from finding the real deal. My friend observed the other day that I tend to go for “tall, funny, dickish” guys. Probably not the three traits I should be prioritising.’
My neighbour laughs. ‘Yep, I guess I should change my Bumble bio, which currently reads, “Must love Japanese whisky, ocean swimming and staffies”.’
When we move to question time, hands shoot up around the room.
‘How exactly are we supposed to select the three traits?’ a woman in the front row asks in a strident tone.
‘Think about what’s really important to you,’ says Marisa. ‘Your values. Do you care if they’re funny? Are you someone who works hard and wants a similarly conscientious partner? Do you value a positive attitude? Tashiro also advises that, in identifying our “three wishes”, we should think about any patterns in our previous partner selections. Are there any common traits that may have contributed to those relationships not working out?’
‘Well,’ the woman responds to Marisa’s rhetorical question, ‘Every guy I’ve ever dated has cheated on me. And they’ve all been DJs. Could that be the common trait?’
Marisa smiles. ‘Well, no, let’s not tar all DJs with the same brush. But have a think about whether these particular men had high novelty-seeking behaviour. That can explain a tendency to cheat. If so, you might think about prioritising the trait of low novelty-seeking behaviour – look for homebodies, or men who don’t want to jump straight into bed . . . maybe try your luck outside the club scene.’
A hand goes up in the second ro
w. ‘What if you’re just not a very good judge of character?’
Marisa pauses for a moment to consider. ‘Well, I’d say do the best you can to learn from your past experiences. It’s okay to ask your family and friends to weigh in – they’re there to look out for you. And think critically from the outset. It’s well-documented that infatuation tends to give people an overly sunny perception of their partner and the quality of the relationship. So it’s beneficial to formulate a romantic strategy before we get swept up by the intoxicating forces of love and lust, while we still have a clear head.’
And the last question of the evening: ‘What happened to Peter Backus?’
‘He got married, as far as I know,’ says Marisa. She smiles. ‘There’s hope for us all.’
Back at home, I flop down on my bed and stare up at the ceiling in the dark. I’m exhausted from information overload, but sleep seems like an impossibly distant prospect. I can’t seem to shut my brain off. Marisa’s recommendation to reflect upon past relationships resounds in my head, and I wonder: have I been squandering my wishes on the wrong traits?
I think about my first real boyfriend, Adam, whom I met during the first year of college. It was a heady time; being thrown together with one hundred and fifty other freshmen, trying to make friends and keep up with the alcohol-soaked events every night, and classes and uni events during the day. New to Sydney, I embraced the freedom that came with moving out of home and leaving an all-girls school. I also tried desperately to keep up; to navigate the cliques that were, unbeknownst to me, built on a web of private schools and college legacy; and to shuck off my past identifiers – studious, quiet, small-town girl.
I remember meeting Adam in the first week at an icebreaker event. Being taken by his blue eyes and puckish grin, his height and athlete’s body. We were given a card with the question, ‘Cats or dogs?’ He said dogs, because cats are what he imagines robots would be like if they became sentient, and that cats are only good when they’re behaving like dogs. I was hooked.
Love, in Theory Page 6
