At 29 I am uncharacteristically ancient for an Edger writer.

I have done a few things the average college student has not done yet, but is likely to do in the future. One of these things is marry and divorce.

That’s right, the average college student is likely to divorce. The likelihood of divorce, in the United States at least, seems to hover around 50%. This makes every marriage somewhat like a coin toss.

According to evolutionary psychologist David M. Buss there are universal gender differences between what seems to attract men to women, and women to men. Men tend to prefer women who are youthful looking, and place emphasis on appearance. Women, in contrast, will place the emphasis on a man’s resources or potential for resources. These controversial gender differences have been identified by Buss and his collaborators in countless cultures.

Furthermore, the data imply that men are far more sexually demanding than women. To clarify this means that men want sex more often and with more partners.

This seems to imply that women and men are driven towards each other for completely different reasons individually, and for no other reason universally other than to reproduce.

If these impulses are programmed into us by evolution, and with built-in conflicts of interests, why get married?

My own philosophical musings lead me to ponder that men and women are both humans only transiently on this mortal coil with no greater purpose to be had yet with tremendous drive to reproduce given to us by nature.

If this is true why get married?

An answer often given is “because we are in love.”

Falling in love is advertised throughout western culture, but what is it to fall in love?

I have heard “falling in love” described as though it where some transcendental force which possesses two people and pulls on them as if they had puppet strings to do heroic things.

What hogwash!

The whole concept of romantic love has also been largely shaped in the west by Christianity. Different sects have different approaches, but in my own Charismatic background we were all encouraged to “get a word from God” in a delusional vision quest to find our wives. The doctrine was that everybody’s amorous consort had been predestined by God and was a perfect fit.

This seems to have some parallel with the belief of the ancient Greeks who thought that humans had once existed as a pair per organism, and we were all searching for that ancient part of ourself in each other.

These ideas may be beautiful, but they seem to be little more than stories. The only destiny we have is the mindless determinism of nature, and that which we make for ourselves.

Neurochemically amorous love seems to consist of oxytocin for bonding, dopamine for the high feeling of having the other person around, and testosterone (for both males and females) gives us our sexual desire for one another.

At first glance the findings of neuroscience and evolutionary psychology may seem bleak compared to the romantic notions of the Hellenists and Charismatic Christians. Yet, if one accepts that our dilemma is that we are here without greater meaning and that our feelings are born from the chaos of nature for no other reason than reproduction, then one can take a more realistic approach to amorous love.

My own conclusions are that to exaggerate the power and importance of romantic love is nothing less than what Paul Kurtz called “the transcendental temptation.” Far better is it to make one’s own meaning based on what works, what doesn’t, and one’s own philosophical inquiry.

I enjoyed marriage, and can see how if it could be made to last it would be a worthy endeavour.

I also hold the rather traditional view that the best thing for marriage is amorous love.

Where I break with popular thought is my definition of amorous love. I believe that amorous love is two things in combination, each one able to exist without the other. The first is friendship, real friendship, Aristotelian friendship where you consider the other person’s interests more highly than your own. The second is sexual attraction.

And that’s it: friendship and fracking

There is no concept associated with amorous love that I can not find to be a worthy trait of a good and strong friendship, save sexual yearnings and indulgence.

Fracking stands on its own two feet just fine, as many who have no feelings of friendship for each other have found it in their hearts to assist their fellow humans in the eternal quest for orgasm.

However, I am not saying that one cannot frack one’s friends. In contrast, what I am saying is that a good marriage is when you frack the same friend for a lifetime.

So say we all.