Desire, Love, Trust

In today’s dating climate, forming relationships is often more complex than ever. With the rise of technology, social media, and dating apps, we have more opportunities to meet potential partners than any previous generation. Yet, despite this abundance of options, many need help to build meaningful, lasting connections. Modern dating is often marked by uncertainty, ghosting, snap judgments based on appearances, and the pressure to present a curated version of oneself online.

Beyond the digital realm, cultural shifts have also changed how we approach relationships. The traditional markers of partnership, such as marriage or lifelong commitment, have evolved, with many opting for more flexible, non-traditional arrangements. At the same time, individualism and the pursuit of personal fulfillment have become central to our lives, often clashing with the compromises required for deep, committed relationships.

People today are caught in a paradox: we crave connection, yet many of us struggle to find the balance between pursuing our personal growth and maintaining a fulfilling relationship. Questions of compatibility, shared values, emotional safety, and the elusive “the one” concept dominate our thinking about love. How do we navigate the conflicting messages we receive from evolutionary biology, which emphasizes mate value, from idealism, which speaks of virtue and shared values, and from existential perspectives, which prioritize deep emotional and spiritual connection?

These challenges raise important questions: How do we create relationships that are not only sustainable but also deeply fulfilling? What is the role of desire, values, and intimacy in forming lasting bonds? And how can we reconcile the biological, ethical, and existential frameworks that inform how we approach love and commitment?

Throughout this piece, we’ll dive into these questions and explore how different perspectives on love and relationships—from evolutionary biology to spirituality—can be woven into a more holistic understanding of meaningful connections. By reflecting on personal growth, emotional safety, and the path to true intimacy, we can navigate the complexities of modern relationships and uncover what it truly means to build a lasting bond with someone.

The Diversity of Perspective on Relationships

From one perspective, exemplified by evolutionary biology and psychology, human desire is viewed as a product of natural selection. In this framework, human history has been shaped by intra-sexual competition, where each individual seeks to secure a valuable mate. This social value is typically driven by factors such as physical health, access to resources, and status. Evolutionary game theory introduces the concept of assortative mating, an equilibrium strategy in which pairing—at least in humans—tends to occur between individuals of equivalent social mate value.

For idealists, however, love is rooted in shared values, with the goal being to recognize and appreciate a person’s inner qualities—such as intelligence, creativity, or intrinsic dignity. Personal values, which reflect each individual’s unique dispositions, shape how people fulfill universal human needs. In this sense, a loving relationship represents the culmination of aligned values, often realized through a lasting legacy. While this legacy is frequently exemplified by the family unit, it could also manifest in a business, charity, or a body of artistic and intellectual work created together.

Lastly, the romantic, spiritual, or existential perspective places a strong emphasis on fidelity in love. It’s not just about shared values, but also about commitment and purpose. In this view, love involves dedicating oneself to a shared life with a soulmate or ‘the one,’ with the relationship offering deep acceptance and fulfillment. The purpose of such a connection is to unite with something meaningful that transcends the individual, fostering a sense of connection to something greater than oneself.

Resolving Conflicts Between Different Approaches 

Under the dictates of evolutionary biology, the prescription for relationship success would be to display markers of high mate value, such as a healthy appearance, access to resources, or social status. Idealism, on the other hand, emphasizes virtues like kindness, honesty, or integrity as the foundation for a successful relationship. The guidance for the contemplative or spiritual perspective would be to follow your intuition and find the person who is “meant for you.”

When taken individually and in a limited sense, each approach has the potential for conflict. For example, numerous cases of attractive or wealthy individuals mistreat their partners or fail to show genuine affection. Conversely, some kind and virtuous people remain single because they don’t stir the passions. Further, people who just follow their intuition may never find “the one,” or they could enter a marriage that turns sexless and emotionally disconnected.

However, when these approaches are integrated, they offer complementary vantage points into the complexity of human relationships. Rather than adhering strictly to one view, a more holistic approach would encourage committing to a loving person with whom you feel genuine desire. This integrated perspective acknowledges the importance of external qualities like attraction, inner virtues like kindness, and the deep connection that can emerge through intuition and shared purpose.

Personal Growth and Connection

The rejection of values like wealth, status, and beauty, particularly for ethical or spiritual reasons, often stems from the recognition that focusing on these pursuits in isolation can lead to distortions that undermine well-being. When wealth, status, or beauty are sought solely for their own sake or for external validation, it can result in burnout, corruption, exploitation, and other harmful outcomes. However, neither the pursuit of these goods nor the approval of others is a fundamental requirement for living a fulfilling life. It’s essential to reflect on what we genuinely value and prioritize.

Wealth, status, and beauty, in themselves, are neutral. These goods can be pursued honestly and constructively: wealth through leveraging one’s strengths to create value and earn money, status by taking on responsibility and gaining authority within a community or organization, and beauty through self-care, such as improving one’s fitness and health. These are simply means to an end and are best pursued for the right reasons, such as supporting basic needs, exercising self-respect, and fostering personal growth. With these intentions in mind, it becomes easier to maintain a healthy balance among these pursuits.

Similarly, the underestimation of values like respect or kindness in a more materialistic or “shallow” worldview may come from the belief that these virtues alone are insufficient to ignite desire. Indeed, romantic relationships often begin with physical attraction, which many people naturally prioritize. However, as mentioned earlier, respect and kindness do not oppose desire. Instead, the respect we show ourselves and others shape how we pursue desire more meaningfully and sustainably.

Additionally, a person can have significant physical appeal and be loving toward others yet still experience transient or shallow relationships. This can happen because the capacity for intimacy—and, by extension, commitment—is not guaranteed. The ability to form deep and lasting bonds often stems from early caregiver relationships that established a strong sense of relational safety, laying the groundwork for future connections. This capacity for intimacy can be further deepened later in life with conscious intention even without such a foundation.

Growing in our ability to form intimate connections requires vulnerability, particularly with someone who offers unconditional acceptance. Early experiences of shame can teach us to hide parts of ourselves that are deemed “bad.” However, intimacy is fostered through small acts of self-disclosure—expressing our feelings and needs and having them heard, even when the outcome doesn’t always go our way.

An emotionally resilient partner recognizes their own feelings and needs and knows when to lean on another for support. This process involves self-empathy—acknowledging one’s emotions and inner experiences—and self-compassion, which entails the intention to relieve one’s own suffering and act in one’s best interests.

Feelings of Desire, Love, and Trust and Their Respective Languages

There is a lot of ambiguity in relationships, and it’s not enough to feel attracted to someone, to love them, or even trust them for them to sense that we do, even if intellectually we understand that the two people match, are compatible or even come from a stable background. This gap has to be bridged by communication, and each of these feelings must have their appropriate expression at the level of intimacy achieved in the relationship.

First, a sense of desire motivates the initial contact between two people. This dynamic has been historically gendered across cultures, and heterosexual relationships typically involve women giving invitations and then men doing the approaching. In a gender egalitarian world, we might have norms that make it encouraged for either to initiate. From there, flirting is a low-risk way for people to assess availability and express interest. Three broad categories of flirting include physical flirting, playfulness, and attentiveness which each help to gauge the physical attraction, demonstrate intelligence, and the intention to start a serious relationship.

For example, in the checkers playing scene from Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Tea Cake invites Janie to play with him. Unlike the men in her past who dismissed her as merely ornamental or subservient, Tea Cake treats her as an equal, respecting her intellect and engaging her in a fun, lighthearted activity.

Tea Cake: “You kin gimme uh few pointers if you wants tuh. Ah’m good on uh few things, and you good on uh whole heap uh things. So it’s a fair swap.”

Tea Cake’s invitation is playful, with a respectful tone that empowers Janie by recognizing her strengths and inviting her to engage in something enjoyable with him. This moment signals the beginning of their romantic connection and shows how Tea Cake values her company.

For flirting to be successful, it incorporates a sense of respect for the other person’s boundaries. For example, in physical flirting, such as using body language and touch, there are aggressive or timid ways to do it that are the least likely to work, and assertive ways to do it are the most successful. Aggressive touch tends to be mistuned to the receptiveness of the other person and escalates in sharp jumps. Timid approaches tend to be hesitant and undermine the message one is trying to convey: that the other person is desirable. Assertive approaches are attuned to body language and escalate based on positive responses to more minor gestures.

If the relationship progresses further, it becomes increasingly crucial that feelings of love find their outward expression as a confirmation of the significance of the relationship. Similarly to flirting, these can be grouped as concrete expressions of love such as gifts, physical affection, and favors, kindnesses such as compliments, and quality time, which builds on the attentiveness of earlier stages. Expressions of love strongly indicate a willingness to confer the goods one has acquired in one’s life, whether external or intrinsic, unto another person.

For these expressions to work, it must respect the person’s preferences again. For example, a thoughtless gift or one based on what you think the person should have rather than the sort of thing they would appreciate would be less significant than a gift aligned with their interests and goals. Similarly, compliments should be sincere assessments of seeing the person for who they are rather than flattery. Couples should have open conversations about the type of physical affection they’re comfortable with. Lastly, quality time only works if you do it with the capacity to hold space for the other person and empathize without trying to fix their problems for them or disengage if it gets too emotional.

When two people love each other and are ready to co-create a life together, gestures indicating a commitment to this project become increasingly central. One could call these “trust languages.” Like flirting and affection but at a higher level, these gestures of commitment include the gift of an engagement ring or other precious items, physical intimacy, and the publicity of the relationship. What makes these trust-centric is the aspect of the gesture that involves higher stakes. People make particular vows to each other and merge their lives often in the context of sharing a home and spending significant time with each other. Critical aspects of the relationship are ritualized, including grand moments like a marriage ceremony and smaller moments like evening tea together.

In high-trust relationships, there is a symmetry between respectful conflict and trust. The goodwill between people leads to more productive conflict management, and a history of resolved conflicts also leads back to higher trust. For effective conflict resolution, both people must be willing to express themselves and listen to the other person nonjudgmentally, reflecting a fair understanding of the other’s position. Then, the solution has to honor the positions of both.

This trust is capture profoundly in the song Gentle on My Mind by John Hartford which describes a migrant worker’s reminiscence on a lost love —

It’s knowing that your door is always open
And your path is free to walk
That makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag
Rolled up and stashed behind your couch

And it’s knowing I’m not shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that are dried upon some line
That keeps you in the back roads by the rivers of my memory
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind

Becoming Soulmates

In the journey of love and partnership, it is possible to find someone who is compatible, fosters personal growth, shares our core values, and provides a sense of emotional safety. This kind of connection requires a profound trust—trust that the other person genuinely cares for us and that we will be okay, no matter what challenges arise. Every relationship will face tests, as no one is without flaws, and life inevitably brings difficulties. Yet, what sustains the bond is the mutual commitment to showing up for each other, day after day, even when it is difficult.

Trust, in this sense, is not a static feeling but an ongoing choice. It means believing in the other person’s goodness, even when they stumble, and striving to offer your best self in return. This mutual sensitivity and responsiveness create a dynamic of reciprocity, where both partners support each other’s growth and well-being. Over time, through the trials and joys of shared life, this deep bond of trust and care begins to shape something more significant than just compatibility—a relationship in which each partner becomes the other’s soulmate.

But “soulmates” do not simply exist, waiting to be found. Instead, they are created through the continual process of love, patience, and understanding. Beauty may fade, jobs may be lost, and mistakes will inevitably be made, but fidelity—the commitment to each other through “better or worse”—allows the relationship to endure. Genuine connection is built not on perfection but on navigating imperfection with grace, humility, humor too and an unyielding sense of loyalty.

Ultimately, becoming soulmates is about crafting a relationship that withstands the tests of time and circumstance. It is the trust that your partner will be there for you in moments of doubt and despair and the confidence that together, you can overcome the hardships of life. This process of becoming gives love its depth and meaning, transforming a simple partnership into a lifelong journey of shared purpose, growth, and devotion. In this way, love becomes not just a fleeting emotion but a lasting testament to the strength and beauty of human connection.

Further Reading

1. Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love by Helen Fisher. A deep dive into the biology and neuroscience of romantic love, exploring why we are drawn to certain people and how love shapes our behaviors.
2. The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating by David Buss. A foundational text on evolutionary psychology explaining the mating strategies humans have developed over millennia and how these influence modern relationships.
3. Flirtology: Stop Swiping, Start Talking and Find Love by Jean Smith. A practical guide to understanding attraction and dating in the real world, offering tips on creating genuine connections in an age of digital dating.
4. The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman. This classic book outlines five ways people give and receive love, helping couples better understand their partner’s needs and strengthen their bond.
5. Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find – and Keep – Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. A groundbreaking book that explains the science of attachment theory and how it influences romantic relationships, offering strategies to improve emotional bonds.
6. Attraction Explained: The Science of How We Form Relationships by Viren Swami. A comprehensive exploration of the psychological research on attraction, covering everything from first impressions to long-term compatibility.

Credits

This post was edited with the help of Grammarly and AI-assisted tools to ensure clarity and grammatical accuracy. The featured image was sourced from Unsplash+ under a paid subscription.