The Incurable Romantic

by Frank Tallis

  At the end of our third session Ali got up and walked directly to the door. He paused and turned to look at me. I can only speculate, but he seemed to be making some form of evaluation. Had it been wise to reveal so much?

  ‘Where are you going?’ I asked.

  ‘Right now?’ He guessed what I was thinking and laughed. ‘No—I’m not going to see a prostitute. I’m not that crazy.’

  ‘See you next week?’

  ‘Yes. See you next week.’ He smiled and left the room.

  Ali had started a relationship with me, consented to pay a fee for my services and made intimate disclosures that suggested I’d earned his trust. Yet, as soon as my concern for his welfare became explicit, he disappeared. He had treated me just like one of his escorts. A little worse, in fact, because he was a private patient and I never got paid. Ali didn’t attend his next appointment and didn’t respond to any telephone messages. Eventually his telephone numbers produced a continuous tone.

  A few years earlier, at the end of a long day spent in a busy hospital outpatient clinic, I slumped down next to a colleague who was staring through his own reflection, out across a grim, urban landscape of rooftops and chimneys. It was obvious his day had been as arduous and emotionally draining as mine.

  He raised his chin and said: ‘What’s the difference between going to see a psychotherapist and going to see a prostitute?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied, ‘Tell me.’

  ‘After seeing a prostitute at least one person feels better.’

  Chapter 5

  The Incurable Romantic

  On the impossibility of perfect love

  When I was eleven years old I fell in love. This first seizure of romantic sentiment was preceded, almost a year earlier, by what I can only describe as a sexual awakening, although naturally I didn’t think of it in those terms at the time. My mind was assailed by images of nudity associated with a shy, willowy girl in my class. These dim, fleshy intrusions were accompanied by physical sensations that I had previously associated with anxiety—quickening breath and butterflies in my stomach. As the physiological correlates of sexual arousal overlap significantly with those of fear, I found it all very confusing. The entire episode was probably attributable to my pituitary gland making some tentative secretions preparatory to my adolescence.

  The girl whom I fell in love with was called Susan. She was nothing like the shy girl from the previous year. Susan had blonde hair which she wore in a ponytail and there was something cutting and hard-edged about her. I had been aware of her for some time—but only as part of the general background noise of school. The first time she attracted my full attention was during an English lesson. The teacher was urging us to use the dictionary to improve our spelling and Susan quipped: ‘If you can’t spell a word how can you look it up?’ I judged this remark to be outstandingly clever.

  Labouring under a weight of inferiority, I found myself thinking more and more about Susan, and within a few days she had come to occupy my thoughts almost continuously. A spectral impression of blonde hair and blue eyes seemed to hover in the air in front of me, and the silence of my bedroom was broken by recollections of her voice. I began to feel miserable and wretched.

  My journey home from school involved changing buses. I was waiting for the connection and felt so distracted and agitated that I had to start walking. It was a strange compulsion, obscurely motivated by a number of poorly defined and irrational objectives. Perhaps my agitation would diminish if I was in motion? Perhaps I might somehow travel beyond the boundary of my own misery? Perhaps the persistent image of Susan’s face would fade? Whatever relief I’d hoped for didn’t come about. Home was several miles away, so I walked and walked and walked and the rhythm of my step provided a beat over which I began to compose a song—a pathetic and inane lyric that expressed the utter hopelessness of my predicament. I can still remember some of the words and the simple melody after nearly fifty years. I would never find the courage to approach a girl like Susan, a girl with hair that flashed as brightly as her scintillating wit.

  Eventually I got home. I did my homework, watched TV and went to bed. When I got up the following morning I felt a great deal better. Sitting in the classroom at school I was able to look at Susan and view her more objectively. Yes, she was pretty and I still wanted to talk to her, but the accompanying sensations and feelings were less intense. In fact, I didn’t seem to be quite so in love. By the end of the week I was fully restored. The world seemed steady and balanced and normal again. Indeed, I couldn’t understand why I had become so distracted.

  Young love is problematic. A young person usually experiences falling in love for the first time during a period of accelerated growth that has no precedent other than the exponential division of cells that occurs after conception. The physical and psychological changes associated with adolescence—mature appearance, interest in sex and brain developments—don’t always proceed harmoniously. A particular individual might appear quite manly but think and manage emotions like a child. The prefrontal cortex—which mediates problem-solving, reasoning, planning and the control of emotions and behaviour in social situations—is the last part of the brain to develop. Indeed, the prefrontal cortex doesn’t finish developing until an individual is in his or her twenties.

  This is perhaps the single most important piece of information about children and adolescents that any parent needs to know. It explains a great deal. Most young people forget to do things, act impulsively, take stupid risks and make poor decisions, not because they are being wilfully provocative, but because their brains are unfinished. Moreover, in adolescence, the emotional volatility of the unfinished brain is made more extreme by sudden fluctuations in hormone levels.

  Terms such as ‘puppy love’ and ‘crush’ trivialise the very real confusion, distress and hurt that the young can experience when they attempt to negotiate the emotional minefield of their first relationship. The consequences can be very damaging: sexual coercion, compliance because of peer pressure, abuse, regret, guilt, depression and, in some cases, rejection, heartbreak and suicide.

  My first experience of falling in love was a preview of things to come. Even though it was brief, shallow and unconsummated, it contained many of the staple ingredients of a grand, romantic passion: obsession, idealisation, admiration from afar and the compulsion to channel feelings into some form of creative expression. Even my sudden urge to walk has innumerable precursors in romantic poetry and literature, which is overpopulated with heartbroken young men, endlessly marching through varieties of indifferent landscape. Why was I behaving like a romantic stereotype at the age of eleven? How did I know what to do—even down to a certain degree of self-conscious parody? Some of my behaviour was undoubtedly programmed, but other aspects suggest that I had absorbed, unconsciously, models of behaviour by mere exposure to cultural influences. Romance has been characterised as the most significant belief system in the Western psyche. But what is romance? And what does it mean to be romantic?

  ‘I just don’t know why Imogen decided to end it. We were good together. We were happy.’

  Paul’s life had followed an ascending trajectory that reflected high expectations and achievements. He had been to a famous public school, studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford, and was subsequently offered a position in a private equity company.

  ‘There were no signs, that’s what was so shocking. She just said something like—I don’t think we should see each other any more—and that was it.’

  His delivery was flat—an inflected monotone—and his expression was curiously set. He was like a man talking through his own death mask.

  ‘That was it,’ he repeated.

  Imogen’s father was an art dealer and she worked in his central London gallery. It was while attending an exhibition at the gallery that Paul had met Imogen. He had been looking for some paintings to hang in his office—not for a new girlfriend.

  ‘What were her reasons?’ I asked.r />
  ‘She didn’t have any reasons. I asked her what the problem was, but she didn’t explain herself very well. The best she could do was to say that she thought we wanted different things.’

  ‘Why do you think she wanted to finish?’

  ‘I honestly can’t say. It’s a mystery. We were very happy together and I can’t believe I misread her.’ He was an astute man and he anticipated my next question. ‘There was no one else.’

  ‘You’re quite sure?’

  ‘That’s what she said and I have no reason to disbelieve her.’ His response was tetchy. It was as though my doubt had been ungentlemanly and he was bound to defend Imogen’s honour.

  I nodded, provisionally accepting his opinion. ‘Sometimes people just drift apart…’

  ‘We haven’t changed.’

  ‘And it isn’t always easy to specify reasons.’

  ‘We had something special. We didn’t socialise a great deal, but when we did, my friends always made a point of saying how well matched we were. They could see it too.’

  He’d stopped listening to me. He wanted answers but all that he could do was circle the problem, repeating expressions of disbelief. ‘It’s incomprehensible. I just don’t understand how this happened. We were very happy together, I know we were. We didn’t want different things. I never pressured her in any way, never made excessive demands. There was no need. How could she come to that conclusion? It doesn’t add up.’

  I thought it best to let him talk. His insistent repetitions were probably serving a purpose, helping him—I hoped—to come to terms with his situation. Eventually, he began to reminisce and he settled on the subject of Imogen’s beauty. His praise became poetic. ‘Sometimes, we’d be sitting in the same room, maybe on a Sunday morning, reading the newspapers, and I’d look up, and see her, and keep looking. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, and, after a while, she’d notice, and say, “What’s the matter?” and I’d say, “Oh nothing”, and pretend to go back to the article I’d been reading. I never tired of looking at her.’ He did much the same thing when she was asleep.

  There is widespread agreement concerning the attractiveness of faces—a consistency of opinion that is observed across and between ethnicities and cultures. The orbitofrontal cortex seems to be the location in the brain where attractiveness is evaluated and the universal index of beauty is symmetry. A human face is highly complex and difficult to make. Therefore, when we look at a face, we are looking at the precise location where genetic mutations are most likely to find expression. Faces also declare the status of an individual’s immune system. Our ancestors lived in an environment infested with disfiguring parasitic organisms. A symmetrical face and clear skin were reliable signs of resistance to infection. For ancestral humans, coupling with a beautiful mate was a good strategy for maintaining a stake in the gene pool. It still is. Handsome men have better sperm quality, and a comparable study of beautiful women would no doubt reveal a superabundance of viable eggs. Individuals with symmetrical features also smell nicer to the opposite sex.

  Psychologists and sexologists frequently refer to the Coolidge effect, a term that acknowledges the power of novelty to incite desire while simultaneously celebrating the dry humour of the thirtieth president of the United States. The story goes that Mr Coolidge and the First Lady were being shown around a farm on separate tours. When Mrs Coolidge observed a rooster mating she asked how frequently the bird managed to perform. The guide said that it was dozens of times a day. ‘Tell that to the President,’ said Mrs Coolidge. Her message was dutifully conveyed to the President, who enquired: ‘Same hen every time?’ The guide shook his head. No, the rooster mated with many hens. To which the satisfied President responded: ‘Tell that to Mrs Coolidge.’

  Paul and Imogen had been together for only four months. Novelty is a powerful aphrodisiac, even more so when it is compounded by beauty. The sudden withdrawal of the object of Paul’s desire, at a time when he was still in the first, heady throes of love, had made him profoundly depressed. There was something about him that reminded me of an addict, a shivering enfeeblement.

  He changed position, slowly and with evident discomfort, as if every muscle in his body was causing him pain, and said: ‘I’ll never meet anyone like her again.’

  The sentence was spoken with obstinate conviction.

  Paul’s relationship history was unremarkable for someone of his class and age, and he had always dealt with rejection calmly and philosophically. There were plenty of single, intelligent and beautiful women in his social circle and many of them seemed to congregate at dinner parties thrown by his friends. He had once dated a famous actress renowned for her stunning looks. There was nothing obviously different about Imogen. In many ways, she was a facsimile of all his other girlfriends.

  I asked Paul to reconsider. ‘Really? You’ll never meet anyone like Imogen again?’ He reminded me of her beauty and counted off ancillary feminine virtues using his thumb and fingers like an abacus. When he had used up all of his digits he flicked his hand, communicating a certain disdain for mathematical reductionism. ‘But she had something else—something more—something I can’t put into words.’

  Atheists often attack believers for invoking the ‘God of the gaps’. Whenever a gap in scientific knowledge is identified, the gap is enlisted as a religious proof. We cannot explain the ultimate origin of the universe. Therefore, God the creator must exist. We make the same thinking error when we are in love. The reasons why we fall in love with one person rather than another are simply too numerous, subtle, elusive and complicated to untangle. Many of them are the result of unconscious processes. Subsequently, there are always gaps in our understanding of love and like hopeful theists we tend to fill those gaps with supernatural explanations. We hint at strange affinities and the operation of mysterious forces.

  ‘She was unique.’

  ‘Isn’t everybody unique?’

  ‘She stood out from the crowd. She really did.’

  Imogen was beautiful. But she wasn’t beautiful in the same way that other women are beautiful. Her beauty was of a different order, a different magnitude. She was beautiful in the same way that a fairytale princess is. She was surrounded by swarms of glittering motes and encircled by rainbows.

  Psychoanalysts view idealisation as a defence. It simplifies the world in order to reduce the anxiety caused by inconsistency and troublesome complexities. Idealisation always incorporates a degree of denial, because in order to see someone as perfect we must deny the existence of their less favourable attributes. At some level we must ‘split’ them into two and ignore the half we don’t like. The term ‘splitting’ is most strongly associated with Melanie Klein—one of the first psychoanalysts to specialise in the treatment of children. She achieved this by introducing toys into the consulting room and interpreting play.

  For Klein, the origins of splitting date back to the early weeks of existence, when the most significant event in a baby’s life is feeding and a mother is not perceived as a person but a pair of breasts. Sometimes the milk flows, resulting in feelings of blissful contentment (a state that presages the ecstasies of being in love), and sometimes the milk is less plentiful or even worse, absent, which results in feelings of frustration and anger. The baby does not understand that the good, bountiful breast and the bad, empty breast are both attributes of a single person. Eventually, the baby develops the intellectual capacity to recognise and accept the truth. The good breast and the bad breast are part of his or her mother—an inconvenient, refractory and consternating mix of good and bad.

  The ability to assimilate the complexity of others is a measure of maturity and a necessary condition for the formation of authentic, meaningful relationships. Some people, when love sick, revert to the primitive, and continue to manage their anxieties by splitting. The good is embraced and the bad denied. In this way, a besotted man might distort reality and perceive an ordinary woman as a goddess.

  ‘Did you and Imogen ever argue?’ I asked.r />
  Paul looked around the room as if the answer to my question had been written on one of the walls. Finally, he answered: ‘No, not really.’

  ‘When you say “not really”…’

  ‘We disagreed sometimes. We used to discuss lots of things—politics, paintings, music. She had strong opinions about modern art, some of which I found quite extreme. But I loved her passion.’

  ‘While you were together, Imogen never said anything that upset you?’

  He considered my question for a few moments. ‘She…’ But he did not finish the sentence. He was unable to say anything against her. The very idea of criticising her made him feel uncomfortable. He coughed into his fist, embarrassed and suddenly wary.

  The notion of idealisation existed long before psychoanalysis. In the eleventh century, the Persian physician Avicenna considered it to be a key symptom of love sickness. He attempted to persuade patients to be more realistic about their objects of desire by challenging their beliefs—a surprising commonality with contemporary cognitive therapy. For male cases of love sickness, he also advocated exposure to articles of the beloved’s clothing smeared with menstrual blood. The purpose of this was to force the patient to acknowledge the corporeal reality of the beloved and devalue the idealised mental image. He was, in effect, attempting to provoke the therapeutic assimilation of overvalued and denied parts.

  I continued testing the strength of Paul’s idealisation with gentle challenges but Imogen had been raised on a very high pedestal. My efforts simply glanced off Paul’s defences.

  ‘I love her so much.’ He placed his elbow on the arm of the chair and supported his head with his hand. There was something affected about this pose. He seemed to be imitating Hamlet or Byron. ‘She must feel something for me…’