PEOPLE
Courtship
Girl meets boy. They fall in love. They become totally compatible,
marry and live happily ever after. This must happen occasionally, but
you only have to talk to some friends to find that it is the very rare
exception rather than the rule. There are almost as many stories as
there are couples . There are countless ways of being compatible and
incompatible. Is it more important to have the same social manners or
the same sexual tastes? One relationship will break down because she
is too untidy, another because he lacks sensuality.
But for many people the problem is a lack of understanding of how to
take the first steps. There is something about the strength of your
feelings that makes everything uncertain.
There are of course books that help – John Gray's Mars and
Venus books have been useful for many people. But the big problem with
writing a book is that it is very hard to take account of the enormous
personal differences between people. I need only mention gay
relationships to show at once how irrelevant a general book can be to
a given couple. But that is only one example. The fact is that at a
given point in a relationship it may well be that there is only one
small area of difficulty. Trawling through books or the internet to
find advice can take a lot of time, and can awake doubts about other
things that are, in fact, fine.
The advantage of talking it over with someone with some experience
is that there is a good chance of getting only the advice and
knowledge that you need, in your situation at that particular time.
Make that small improvement and life goes on. People: Courtship
