My i-banker friend was in town for wedding/family stuff and we caught up over dinner the other day. Toward the end of the meal, he confided that he the prospect of dining out with his girlfriend causes him tremendous anxiety because of how difficult and shitty she is to the waitstaff. It came up because there was a mixup in our order. It just is not a real big deal, particularly at that restaurant - everything is about $10 and it's all delicious. She would have had the waitress's head on a pike. Of course, I do agree with him. I do not like eating out with his girlfriend, either.
From the article: "We yearn for what she calls �strenuously exhibitionistic happiness� � think of family photos on Facebook � but instead we should focus on the fullness and intensity of emotion."
I can probably get behind this sentiment, but the "less normal" or "more imaginative" relationships that most people are familiar with give this idea a terrible name. It is the uneven ones - the one where someone is hopelessly and catatonically devoted and the other is much less so - or the one where it is just two crazy people who are at each others throats all the time.
There was an interesting, perhaps dangerous, idea I heard a while back: you like/love another person the same as the other person like/love you. There are shocks to the equilibrium, but I think it is more or less true, particularly over time.
