ROMANCE SPECIAL......... Slow Love is for keeps

Slow Love is for keeps A new movement called Slow Love is changing the way people date     You can’t hurry love     You just have to wait     Love don’t come easy     It’s a game of give and take      This 1966 hit song by pop group The Supremes sums up the advice that dating gurus in the West are giving singletons today: take it slow to make love last. Called Slow Love, it is a response to mass-produced, high-tech relationships built on convenience and physical passion. “It’s a reaction to the hook-up culture,” says US-based author and relationship guru Dr Wendy Walsh, who coined the term that has become a dating movement of sorts.     Since our no-rulesrelationship-revolution in the urban world, plenty of couples enter a low-criteria relationship where they often text each other and occasionally meet for a meal and a rendezvous. “Usually the woman (or the man) is hoping that it will grow into a solid commitment, but that rarely happens when you put the cart before the horse!” says Dr Walsh. Hook-ups versus commitment Like the Slow Food Movement that started in Rome in 1986, Slow Love is a response to increased sexual opportunity, addictive dating, and a sexualised media that has people sustaining themselves on junk food relationships rather than building secure romantic attachments. “As spiritualist and Vipassana pioneer SN Goenka said, ‘You can either dig a bunch of shallow ditches everywhere, or a deep well in one place’. Physical gratification is fleeting. It takes a lifetime to get to know yourself, which helps you to know another person to some degree,” says theatre actor Ankur Vikal. Antidote for fast times Says adman and theatre personality Rahul daCunha, “The old world charm has gone out of our lives. We have come to a stage when we need to put a brake and go back to the old ways. Dating doesn’t have to be as long-winded as it was decades ago but we need to slow things down in our heads. The idea of discovery is missing.”     For instance, your social network profile and news feed constantly stream your relationship status, likes, dislikes, whereabouts and even list of friends into the public domain. Add to that the handy cellphone that leads to incessant texting and chatting at the touch of your fingertips, and you’re virtually connected without much soul connection. In the know Psychiatrist Dr Dayal Mirchandani says, “You end up going out with someone who may not be right for you. When you get physical too soon, you get attached without really getting to know the person. But isn’t it better to be in a relationship that is supportive and makes you feel good, instead of constantly playing the guessing game and stressing yourself out? It’s better to know a person’s habits and then decide to commit. In that sense, Slow Love makes for safer relationships.”     As daCunha puts it, “If you hurry love, you are likely to get burnt out fairly quickly.” Give Cupid a break. He is too tired flapping his ‘hearty’ wings too many times at too many places. Give love time. And love will come to you. WHAT IS SLOW LOVE? Dr Wendy Walsh coined this term in her book, The 30-Day Love Detox, as a cultural response to a highspeed technological life that erodes secure human attachments. HALLMARKS OF SLOW LOVE: 1. Purging of low-criteria relationships that offer sex without commitment or expressions of love. 2. Adoption of healthy sexual boundaries and learned communication skills needed to slow down the pace of a budding romantic relationship. 3. Delaying sexual activity with a new partner until a healthy degree of emotional intimacy is established. 4. Reduction in the use of digital technology in romantic courtship, and supplementing telephone conversations and face-to-face nonsexual interactions. HOW TO SLOW DOWN Don’t have sex until you’ve expressed feelings of love and discussed sexual exclusivity Avoid making excuses to see someone new in your life frequently Don’t label someone as your girlfriend or boyfriend if you’ve met just a few days or weeks before Calling multiple times a day is a no-no Don’t cut out your friends and activities to merge yourself with your new partner Kasmin Fernandes  TL131201