Vida Amorosa

There’s no hard science to prove it, but people generally agree that your palate changes every 7 years. That why your modern-self can’t imagine how your kid-self would eat nutritionally deficient Count Chocula for breakfast, lunch and dinner, if allowed. In the same vein, the throwback version of you would shriek in horror that you’d eat, let alone pay a week’s allowance for those torturous brussels sprouts!
The same science could also apply to your attitudes and preferences toward relationships. You’ve only changed in small, incremental ways, but you still don’t understand how you could’ve dated X person as a teenager or Y person as an adult. Wag a finger at yourself if you want, but ‘80s freestyle group Exposé said it best: “Seasons change. People change.” These are 5 of the travels your nomadic heart has experienced or will cuddle up to at some point during your lifetime:
First comes that oh-so-sweet puppy love. It’s been known to happen, but the vast majority of us aren’t fortunate enough to find our soulmate in elementary school. And, like a new wine, how could a kid even know what kind of vintage they’ll mature into or how many times their flavor profile will change before reaching its peak? At that age, the summer love you’ll think will last forever and bear many fruits wilts when school gets out for break and the camp season begins.
This, naturally, paves the way for the fleeting feelings that will inevitably follow you through the rest of your schooling. In high school and college there’s more experimenting done at house parties than in chemistry labs. Mixing with someone could yield no reaction or cause an emotional explosion that, though powerful, is often short-lived. You continue your quest for true love while juggling homecoming parties and final exams, always hoping to achieve the best results. As graduation looms, the focus changes from coupling to career and most, except for the strongest relationships, are put on the backburner in lieu of personal goals.
That’s when the catch & release comes along. An exploratory phase when your life is in order and you’re open to or actively seeking a partner. It’s an awkward stretch of online, blind dates and arranged meetings that could just as easily lead to romance, as it can eradicate your hopes for mankind as a whole. You’re essentially interviewing strangers with the possibility that he or she will play the supporting role in your life and eventually receive an invitation into your family. It’s a continuous application process and few will make into the final rounds.
Ah, adulthood. You’re educated and experienced and know by this stage in your life which physical, spiritual and character traits you’re looking for in a long-term partner. You no longer have time for the riff-raff, your standards are pretty high at this point. Work and social obligations increasingly absorb your time so you purse your passions and hope to find a kindred spirit to share them with, whether it be raising a family, traveling the world or building an empire together. Eventually, you’ll jump on the commitment train and will have to stay on the right track or risk being derailed onto another path that may or may not lead to greener pastures. All of your experiences to date have prepared you for this final journey and hopefully you won’t be doing it alone. You and your love will keep adapting to external influences and challenges that color how you see the world and will ideally change as a unit instead of individuals. Through the good times and the bad times, you’ll continue to work together to ensure the trip never ends — or at least that the final destination yields an ideal happily ever after.
Whatever stage you’re in, you’ll reach greater heights if you build a strong personal foundation, because you will be disappointed if you rely on someone else for your happiness. Being comfortable in your own skin should be your priority and if someone else enjoys that skin, they might turn into your proverbial better half and support you for a lifetime rather than merely stay around for a little while to scratch a severe 7-year itch.