Why Are People So Desperate To Hook Up?

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Why Are People So Desperate to Hook Up?
by Lisa Woerly

January 8, 2002

First in a Two-Part Tag-Team Series appearing today

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Lisa Woerly Most human beings truly frighten and bewilder me. Working at a large corporation has afforded me a microscopic view of some people who probably should have their positions downgraded to the status of work-release from the local nut farm. I sit in morning production meetings and stare at the man across the table from me who just married his fourth wife, and he's only 37 years old. I share a bench on the smoking patio with a woman who claims she's found the love of her life on a weekly basis, and of course it's a different man each week. I work on a major account with another woman (let's call her Alice) who valiantly tries to meet a man and never quite succeeds--she signs up for automotive repair classes and golf lessons even though she has no interest in either--all in the futile attempt to find a man.

Spending a solo evening at home sends Alice and people like her into a tailspin of fear and anxiety. Desperation reeks from their pores and repels anyone who comes near them. Their only hope for finding a mate is to encounter another person equally as desperate to hook up.

I have very little patience for these pathetic souls, and I tend to get snippy with them when they once again regale me with tales of unbridled psychosis from the night before. The stories they recant border on harassment and stalking, and yet this unhealthy behavior is lost on the person seeking companionship. In the age of Caller ID services, calling someone twenty times in one day is no longer an anonymous act. Alice will meet a guy on a Friday night, look up his phone number that night, and then start calling Saturday morning. And calling, and calling, and calling. Then, inevitably, on Monday morning she is displaying behavior nothing short of psychotic because he never answered the phone all weekend long. The poor guy probably relocated to Iran to escape her "reach out and touch someone" advances.

What is truly frightening is that Alice has no idea that her desperate actions to find a boyfriend are pathological and that her only hope in life is a major dose of lithium. Alice is so far removed from the reality scale that John Hinkley Jr would pass her over for a coffee date. This prevalent problem in society today is called Anuptaphobia, which is the fear of remaining single, and some people are taking extreme measures to rectify their single status.

Could it be that society has actually encouraged this behavior from its citizens?

We are inundated with images of marriages, couplings, and relationships dozens of times each day. On Sex and the City, (on HBO) Carrie and her friends are constantly searching for a man--a pulse is the only evident requirement. Perfume ads target attracting and keeping a member of the opposite sex. You can't read an issue of Cosmopolitan without coming across the headlines "How to Make a Man Commit" or "Ten Things Never to do in Front of a Man if You Want Him to Call Again." We are surrounded by images of ecstatic and frolicking couples who have found relationship bliss, so it seems only inevitable that people will fall hook, line, and sinker for this categorical untruth.

People want the dream; they want Utopia. But there is no such thing as a perfect relationship. Relationships take an amazing amount of hard work in order for them to have any chance of success. The people who have yet learned to first love and accept themselves seem to be more prone to falling for the lie. In the movie Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise told Renee Zellweger, "You complete me," and I visibly cringed when I heard that line. No wonder some people believe that another human being has the power to make them whole.

Some people seem to have crossed the lines of acceptable social and psychological behavior in their zealous quest for a mate. They stalk their object of desire, they throw tantrums when said person doesn't return their interest, and then they ponder why no one wants them. How did we become so emotionally juvenile?

Living solo is preferable to latching on to any poor soul who comes your way just so you don't have to be alone in life. People who are on their fifth marriage or who start living with someone two weeks after their first meeting suffer from what can only be described as exceptionally low self-esteem, and yes, Anuptaphobia. Society and the media may have had a huge role to play in this human insanity, but ultimately we are all responsible for our own emotional well-being. I can't imagine a sadder and more destructive way to live my life than by being consumed with companionship for its own sake.

(Last week Alice asked me if I thought the new I.T. guy was cute. Alice is 39 years old. "Cute" should not even be a word in her vocabulary unless she's talking about babies or puppies. This poor guy doesn't know what he's in for.) ***

This column originally ran July 5, 2000 and is re-run with Lisa's permission
Look for Part 2 by American Partisan Editor Timothy Rollins HERE.