Love cannot conquer all.

    Love cannot even conquer coordination problems.

    I have no idea how it came to pass that we believe that we can just think a relationship into existence.  Look, a relationship, interpersonal-interdependence, has to involve at minimum linked behaviors.

     Here I want to be clear.  Although they are linked behaviors,

     Getting a phone number, does not make it a relationship…

     Being kissed does not make it a relationship…

     Having sex does not make it a relationship…

     Let’s think this through. Why do people exchange phone numbers?  Well, it turns out that before a relationship can be formed, there must be some coordination of behavior.

     Time coordination; when are you available?  And you?

 

    Behavioral coordination; Where, to do what?  What do you like to eat?

     When you want to develop a new relationship, you immediately run into the problem-of-coordination. Why; because people do not just spring into existence, just because you get interested.  That person, who is now making your heart beat faster, was already a well functioning social being, with his or her own schedule, not to mention already with friend and family obligations.

 

     So to develop or to maintain a relationship with a new person, somehow the two people have to find spaces where their two social realities allow for a new set of coordinated behaviors. That is essential, because as Thibaut and Kelley say in their theory of interdependence, “…the essence of any interpersonal relationship is interaction.” And, you see, it is coordination of behavior that will lead to linked emotion.  You can think about the other person all you want, but that does not help the relationship to begin or develop. Actual coordination of behavior is what influences the texture of the relationship. 

   Social psychological researchers (Berscheid, Snyder & Omoto, 1989) have now shown that being close in a relationship is determined by four factors of coordinated of behavior.  They have shown that:

   “…a high degree of interdependence (or psychological closeness) between two people is revealed in four properties of their interconnected activities:

 (1)    The individuals have frequent impact on each other;

 (2)    The impact involves diverse kinds of activities for each person;

 (3)    The degree of impact per each occurrence is strong;

 (4)    All of these properties characterize the interconnected activity series for a relatively long duration of time.”

 Frequency of impact; number of hours spent alone with one’s partner (morning, afternoon and evening) on a typical day. 

        Just thinking about this dimension may raise some red flags. Given the amount of time you spend with a person, how much time does that mean they are spending with other people?  That may be natural and appropriate, but it should also tell you that you cannot expect to have as much influence on your friend or lover as you would like. No wonder that long distance relationships are always at risk of failing. 

 Diversity of impact; this has to do with the number of different activity types in which relationship partners engage together.  Examples include: eating a meal together; doing the laundry together; went hiking together).

    This could be another “oh, oh.”  If all you do is go to bars together, or sit in each others’ apartments together, you are really not having different opportunities to have impact on each other.  Even if you are having lots of sex, if that’s mostly what you do, you don’t have much of a relationship. Again, no wonder that long distance relationships are always at risk of failing.

 Strength of impact; the degree to which members of the dyad believe they are influenced by their partner (when it comes to their joint activities). To feel close, both people should feel that they can have some influence on their partner. Influences on small things, what one watches on TV; what one eats for dinner; what activities one engages in; and influences on larger matters, career plans.

    You have heard people who are having trouble with strength of impact.  “We never do the things I’m interested in; we always do what you want to do.”  That relationship is in trouble because there is no mutual strength of impact.  When that is the case, people feel that and don’t like it.

 Duration of impact; this has to do with more than just time in the relationship.  It’s the amount of time in the relationship when the two people have been having high frequency, diversity and strength of impact on each other. 

     Impact is not immediate; it takes time for each person to be willing to have the other person influence them. Is your relationship close by this definition; or is it that you just think it’s a close relationship?

     To be close, the two people, the dyad, has to engage in some real behaviors. People in a relationship must have real impact on each other before it is a real relationship.

     When you are wondering to yourself, love wherefore art thou?  Remember, love, the feeling is not all you need. 

     Carolyn Hax, the advice columnist, says it quite eloquently.  Responding to someone seeking advice about a long distance relationship, at one point in her response Ms. Hax says:

     “Love’s engine is love in the lowercase, the day-to-day companionship, the intimacy, sex and communal laundry-folding, the countless small rewards for countless small sacrifices.”

     So real love is more than a feeling; it is active interactions with each other; interactions that provide frequent impact, strong impact, diverse impact, over long duration of time.