If You Don’t Feel a Spark, That’s a Good Thing

I wrote a post almost two years ago called, “No Spark? No Problem. Date Them Anyway.” In it, I outlined how a spark — that subtle but strong sensation that implies and fosters attraction — is not only overrated, it’s potentially useless because it doesn’t result in the long-term relationship satisfaction people assumed it would.

I said it was potentially useless, but now I’m willing to go as far to say that it is useless. A spark is not a reliable variable when it comes to predicting a long-term relationship, much less a good long-term relationship.

Surprise, surprise. It seems that friendship and the dynamic of the relationship itself continue to be the predicting variables when it comes to successful romance. We probably could’ve guessed this was true, but it doesn’t hurt to have the research to support it.

If you were to think about your own friends and family, you probably have several anecdotes of friendships that turned into romances. After all, a friendship would imply that a healthy dynamic exists wouldn’t it? Otherwise the two people wouldn’t get along.

Friendships don’t begin with sparks. They begin with shared values and interests. They are then developed by pro-social behaviors (such as helping and sharing) over time. Then the friendship turns into attraction. Then love, then marriage, then a baby carriage.

So what’s the deal with sparks? Is there a science to it? In fact, there is. It’s all down to a psychological phenomenon called the misattribution of arousal.

In 1974, psychologists Arthur Aron and Donald Dutton conducted an experiment where men either crossed a small and safe bridge or a large, suspended and scary bridge.

After crossing each bridge, a cohort of the men were immediately stopped by a female interviewer who gave them a test to write a short story. The other cohort of men were given a few minutes to rest before the interviewer arrived.

The interviewer (who didn’t know the actual intent of the research) gave the men her number for them to call if they had any questions about the research.

What resulted was that men who weren’t given the time to rest after crossing the more dangerous bridge called the interviewer more compared to those who were given time to rest after crossing the dangerous bridge and those who crossed the small and safe bridge.

Moreover, the men who crossed the more dangerous bridge and who weren’t given time to rest used more sexual imagery in their short story.

This experiment provided evidence to suggest that there was a misattribution of arousal. It was theorized that the men who were experiencing fear, an elevated heart rate and shortness of breath attributed their reaction to the woman, totally forgetting the experience they just had with the bridge.

When you see someone you like, someone who makes you feel a spark, there tends to be the very same physiological traits — fear, elevated heart rate and irregular breathing. So it’s very easy to misattribute these experiences from the bridge to the woman.

In another experiment by Fishbein, Rutsein and White (1981), male participants were given an exercise regimen to perform and then asked to view a woman who was either manipulated to look attractive or unattractive.

The researchers found that the men found the attractive woman more attractive and the unattractive woman less attractive than the control group who did not perform any exercise.

How This Applies in the Real World

Consider meeting someone for the first time and feeling an elevated heart rate, irregular breathing and perhaps even fear. These are all things that people associate with attraction, but does that mean that this person is good for you?

Now consider meeting another person for the first time and you feel totally calm. A calm mind and nervous system is rarely if ever associated with attraction but it tends to yield mild camaraderie at the very least and a friendship at best.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

The point is that the very physiological experiences we attribute to attraction are never the things that actually lead to a satisfying relationship. Ironically, the physiological experiences that are similar to danger, stress and effort are erroneously linked to attraction! Is it a coincidence that the people who elicit these feelings tend to be bad partners?

One should also consider how one was treated growing up. If you experienced trauma at the hands of a caregiver and you meet someone who elicits the same fear, nervousness and bodily sensations that could easily be linked to attraction, you’d be making a sore mistake.

You would be recreating the same trauma you experienced as a kid.

As it turns out, the people you feel calm with and find cute or attractive but feel no spark for are the better option. But we have a lot of hereditary information in our genes that tell us that fear is sexy and peace is boring.

And that is why we will always go for people who we feel a spark with and never those who we feel normal around.

But perhaps you’re seeing another problem here.

This isn’t common knowledge. We do have a number of anecdotal evidence to suggest that “friends first” really is the way to go, and even the media has many examples of people who figure this out (and many examples of friends who we scream at through our TV screens to be together). But most of us still think that fear is sexy and that is therefore what we will always go for.

Allow me to get anecdotal myself. In that same post I wrote almost two years ago, I mentioned how an ex-girlfriend of mine had a date with a decent guy but never went on a second date with him. Why? Because she felt no spark. However, she’s dated dudes who were pretty scummy and shady for months and even years.

This is such a common story it’s kind of sad. I’ve been on the receiving end of this and have also sidestepped the girl who made my nervous system calm. Fortunately, I figured myself out. But so many of us are still in this trap.

As problematic as they are, people still want the narcissists and the borderlines. People want those who are unsafe.

When our nervous systems react accordingly to these dangers in our environment, our beliefs about what our bodies are doing unconsciously hurl us into relationships with people that we don’t actually want to be with.

Then when the crap hits the fan, it’s like we’ve been snapped back to reality. “What the hell was I thinking?” we say to ourselves.

We have to hack our minds. We have to replace the old, outdated software with the new.

It was probably advantageous to be with a guy who could kill you if he wanted to because as long as you got on his good side, he would protect you. It was probably advantageous to be with a woman who was unstable because it was entertaining.

But the fact of the matter is this spark wasn’t an invitation. It was a warning.

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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.

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