How Important Is Chemistry in a Relationship?

Love and respect, honesty and compassion, connection and acceptance, understanding and empathy, physical attraction and sense of humor, safety, security, comfort, future potential.

These are all some of the most important qualities people look for in a relationship.

Among these, I would add chemistry as a top contender for one of the more vital ingredients of the healthy relationship recipe.

Some people might argue that it’s not as relevant as things like compassion or honesty. Maybe they think that the most important thing is whether their partner will be a good provider or caretaker for a future family. Maybe all they need is a hot face and a sense of humor. Everyone has their preferences when it comes to what they see as the most important qualities their partner needs to have, so that’s why I’m asking, how important is chemistry?

What is chemistry?

We all know what having chemistry with a person feels like, but have you ever considered what it actually is?

An article entitled Chemistry Between People: A Sum of Their Connections defines chemistry as an “emergent phenomenon” in a relationship that arises from “interactions rather than from the attributes, expectations, or biases of the involved partners.” It’s essentially a feeling that this particular relationship is somehow special or different than other relationships one might have.

It goes on to say that chemistry is often an embodied feeling. That “Several aspects of chemistry occur nonverbally or even outside of awareness. These aspects include eye contact, mimicry of facial and bodily expressions, and synchronous movements. Interpersonal chemistry can also be felt inside one’s body.”

I couldn’t agree more about what having chemistry with a person is. However, it doesn’t answer the question of how important it is in a relationship.

Throughout my life, I’ve experienced chemistry with all kinds of people. Most of whom in which I’ve had the highest levels of chemistry are, unsurprisingly, still some of my best friends to this day. Chemistry isn’t reserved strictly for romantic relationships, after all. But I would argue that most people would still prefer it to be included in their romantic lives.

The Unspoken Language

There’s something about having chemistry with a person that you simultaneously can’t put your finger on and also feels as if you can almost touch. There’s a palpable quality to it that seems to activate as soon as you’re around the person. It’s an almost electric sense of unspoken connection and shared understanding.

It’s in the eyes, in the mannerisms, in the energy. Or, as the Observer puts it, “As the interaction cycle unfolds, partners will often develop a substantial level of behavioral synchrony (e.g., linguistic matching, nonverbal synchrony, voicing similar thoughts and ideas)”

In other words, when you feel chemistry with someone, you can’t help but mirror each other’s actions and behaviors. There’s something about the person that syncs up with you so completely that you almost feel as if, on some level, you’re the same person.

In a weird way, you almost are. At least, that specific aspect of each other is so similar, the wavelength so parallel, that within the boundaries of a specific interaction with the person, you may as well be one being possessing two bodies. You act without needing to consider how you will be interpreted; you talk without reserve because your thoughts are so undeniably similar to theirs that there’s virtually nothing you can say that they haven’t already predicted or planned on saying themselves.

After knowing all of this, and feeling it for ourselves, how could a person deny how important this quality must be in a relationship?

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Now, I say all of this and ask this question because, as someone in a relationship myself, I don’t feel as if we have the kind of chemistry I know to be so important.

I’ve tried for a long time now to work past this one nagging aspect and can’t seem to shake it. It’s something I noticed early on, but given the circumstances we were in when we started seeing each other, I gave it time to see how things would develop.

Our relationship started as many other do these days — online.

With her being in the Navy and periodically at sea without a solid internet connection our messages to each other would be long, but infrequent. We would have to respond to each other’s message in as much detail as possible because we knew that we might not hear back for a few days. This seemed to work out fine at first, but I started noticing how hard it was to have an actual rapport with each other.

Because there could be no immediacy in our responses, there never developed that back-and-forth banter that I was not only accustomed to but preferred when it came to flirting and casual conversation. Any jokes or cheekiness or playful sarcasm ended up being lost in the blocks of text we would send each other to give updates on our lives. Reactions would be get overlooked or be nonexistent, and various subjects accidentally skipped over for the understandable reason that there was just so much to respond to.

We hadn’t met in person until after speaking like this for a few weeks. After being able to talk face-to-face and hang out occasionally, things remained exciting because of the novelty of being able to finally meet up. The chemistry, or lack thereof, was overshadowed by the potential of what could be.

After about eight weeks, however, she got deployed for eight months.

Once again, we were only able to send each other multiple-page emails every few days. So, it was back to the lack of banter, but in return we were learning more and more about each other on a much deeper level than mere flirting. I wrote as well about how this period was actually the thing that ultimately made our relationship work.

After countless pages of stories and daily updates and vulnerability, it was obvious that she had everything a person would look for in a partner — honesty, compassion, acceptance of flaws, devotion, attraction, intelligence, etc.

I considered this all to be a clear sign that making the commitment to stick it out for all those months was the right decision.

But there was still that nagging feeling…

She came back at the beginning of summer, and we spent as much time as we could together going on trips and enjoying each other’s company. We relished in the mere excitement of finally being able to be together after so much time apart, especially since when she left our relationship had still been so new.

The potential and possibilities of what our relationship could turn into overshadowed any sort of apprehension we might have about how things might work out long-term.

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Now, here I am, almost ten months later, still thinking about that lack of basic chemistry, wondering how important it really is.

I think about how I’ve had stronger chemistry with platonic friends than I ever had with her. I think about whether or not I could really spend my entire life not feeling that synchronicity one feels when that spark of similarity truly lines up with a person. With so many other good qualities she offers, is chemistry really heavy enough to tip the scales and outweigh everything else?

That unspoken language just isn’t there. We can’t communicate with a single glance to know what the other is thinking; again, something I continue to have with some of my closest friends.

Shouldn’t I have that sort of connection with the person up for consideration in spending my life with? Isn’t it just as, or more, important than any of those other qualities?

The shared humor and sarcastic banter don’t emerge in the same natural way I know it should, and it’s hugely important for me to be able to connect with my partner in that way.

Then again, is it naïve or immature of me to think that having a flirtatious chemistry with your partner is more important than honesty? Than communication and vulnerability? Than compassion or security? If it’s not more important, is it not at least as important as those things?

I understand that you can’t live your life in that excited honeymoon phase of the relationship.

Things settle down, the magic gradually dampens, and eventually you are once again just two ordinary people. I get that. But even after that happens, shouldn’t there still be an underlying current of natural chemistry between the two of you?

It’s something that I’m struggling to comes to terms with. I can’t tell if it’s a legitimate concern or if I’m just idealizing and being unrealistic. I feel like I’m being ungrateful for having this amazing person willing to spend their life with me while I continually fixate on the fact that we seem to be on fundamentally different wavelengths when it comes to how we connect, what lights up our sense of fun, and our overall natural chemistry.

I can’t help it. I feel terrible for even writing all of this because it feels like an admission of guilt when really I just need it out of my head. I shouldn’t prefer time alone or see our relationship as a burden because it’s not as “fun” as it could be. I know that having fun or goofing off isn’t the only thing that makes a relationship work. It may be what initially connects you, but isn’t what’s going to sustain it over the long haul.

I’ve spoken to her about this concern before in a less direct way as to not sound judgmental of her or like there’s something wrong with her when there’s not. She doesn’t feel the same because she either doesn’t seem to care as much about that kind of thing or feels as if we have enough of a connection to warrant a lifetime together. And I’d agree that most of the ingredients are there, but the key word in that is, unfortunately, most.

We’ve shared so much and know each other so well at this point. I couldn’t ask for more understanding as acceptance from a person. I couldn’t ask for more honesty and devotion and just genuine love. So why can’t I shake this pinprick in my mind that something vital is still missing?

We might have an endless amount of other shared interests and perspectives, but when it really comes down to it, how important is chemistry?

According to this article, it is THE most important thing. So, for anyone in a similar situation, what do you think?

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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