Grandma, Loretta and Maude

I've been wanting to blog about Maude. For anyone stumbling across this, Maude is a book we read for this class, by Doona Mabry. The thing with the book is, well, it's badly written. Self published for one thing, which generally tells me all I need to know about a book, i.e. that no one would buy it. It's the memoir of Donna Mabry's grandmother; based on stories her grandma told her growing up. I think if you're going to write a story, write a story. If you want to make a book out of it for friends and family heave-ho and get to it, but if you're going to write a story, write one. There are also typos in the preface. Editors exist for a reason. Had I been given this book for a look-see, I would have said, excellent, you wrote that, now bury it and write the story you want to tell.

This, however, is not an English class; it's Human Development and Family Studies. So having said my piece let me tell you about how I got into Maude. In spite of myself.

That's my Grandmother up there on the left. Mom on the right. I think that’s me getting out of the pool there, possibly 7 years old, so that would make Mom 28 and Grandma 47-ish. They look pretty awesome, I have to say. The photo tho is so old that I couldn’t get it out of the photo book to scan it. This was taken a long time ago. 1969, I’m thinking. Mom was born in 1940, and Grandma in 1921, she was just 19, and hadn’t been married very long.

Maude, in the book, was born in 1892, which makes her pretty much the same age as my Grandmothers parents. I saw a lot of parallels, or at any rate, thought a lot about my Grandmother while I was reading it. Also about Loretta Lynn, but we’ll get to her. Grandma’s first husband was a drunk, and she left him and took her baby girl (my mom) and went home to her parents. She said, Daddy, he drinks all the time and beats me. Her father said: Go back to your husband, if you were a better wife, he wouldn’t have to do that. Grandma wasn’t having it, and went off to support herself, which she did working in a nice Jewish temple, though she was Catholic through and through. You did what you had to, back in those days, to survive. She didn’t care if it wasn’t done, no one was going to treat her that way.

Now Loretta Lynn, she’s about 10 years older than my grandmother was, though you’d better not ever say it to her face. She can still muster up some Fist City when she gets riled, I hear. She got married at 14 to a man who drank, and ran around with other women. She was luckier than my Grandma in that her parents took her back, married and pregnant, but they told her: You made this bed, you lie in it. Loretta, if you’ve ever read her books, surely did, she was married to an alcoholic her entire life, to the day he died from it. You stayed. She didn’t stay quietly, though. And let it be known in no uncertain terms she wasn’t happy with all the drinking that went on. She was from the same part of the country as Maude, and many times her story parallels Maude’s. Both married young, both dirt poor, both having babies, both husbands drank, both moved away around the depression. And both made do with what they had. They survived, kind of like my Grandma, come to think on it. We had kin in those hills too.

Mostly reading Maude I kept thinking: Maude, you gots to grow some balls. I wonder exactly what the actual Maude would have had to say? Sure, she told the stories, but we’re reading them as written from memory, by a granddaughter. We know what color memories are, for the most part.

I wonder if my perspective is wrong. There’s Maude, just little and she comes home to find her parents dead and the house burned down. She moves in with her sister and pretty much takes care of her sister, the baby and house, until she’s 14 and kin decides she needs to marry the boy down the street. That’s all fine, and Maude finds the one thing I think people are always searching for: someone to love and feel safe with. Sadly for her, he dies, and enter the second husband.

Maude knew what she was doing when she went riding with him. She even says “I don’t know what I was thinking”. She wasn’t all surprised when the town told her she needed to get married. She knew that town, and the town figured young widows needed to be married.

‘Ol George wasn’t evil but there wasn’t much character going on with him, and hard work wasn’t something he cozied up to often. Once he started drinking Maude was pretty much on her own. With all those babies. Babies back then came when they did, and there wasn’t much a poor woman could do about them. Maude didn’t even know just what the heck caused those babies in the first place. After her first, she thought she was dying, and needed to have her womb put back in. Loretta too, I remember asked the doctor for something to stop her from having babies, she had four, before she was 18. My Grandma just had one, and I always wondered if she knew something she wasn’t letting onto. Maude did what she had to, to survive. She even started her own boarding house, and worked until she died. Loretta sang. My Grandma worked in the temple.

Maybe Maude had more balls than I give her credit for.

She worked hard to improve wherever it was she was living. I remember the part where she decides she wants to re-do the bedroom, and doesn’t get my help or validation from George, but stands up and does it anyway. She’s also the one, for a whole lot of the time that is supporting the family. A family where the men all drank. Like Loretta.

I’m thinking about Maude, and Loretta, who both married young and stayed with men who drank, and I’m thinking about my Grandma, who didn’t. I’m thinking about my own Mom who married at 21, had three babies, and then when the fairy tale wasn’t what she expected, started drinking herself. I’m not being entirely fair to my Mom here, because no one sets out to become alcoholic, and it’s harder than you might think to stop. I was surprised as hell when it happened to me.

Maude, Loretta and my Grandma had something in common besides the fact that their men all drank. They lived in a time when society had certain expectations about what women could and could not do. Also about what love was, sure, you could marry for love, but this was that transitional period. It was transitional in that women were marrying for love, but there were women who also had to go out and work. The depression and the wars had a lot to do with that. They were the first women who kind of straddled the line. More than chattel, but less than men, and with far fewer options. They survived, however they could.

Nowadays marriage is a choice. Being part of a couple is a choice. Women make up their own minds about marrying, or not, having babies, or not. Pretty much everyone works and the idea of the stay at home mom is that it’s a choice and a couple is lucky if they have the option of one staying home. Relationships are worked on, and women don’t generally stay in abusive ones. Or the alcoholic ones.

Mostly. I see some that do, at work. And I wonder why. I talked to one today about her options, now that her husband was drinking again, and what she could do. Not something available to Maude. Or Loretta. Or my Grandma.

Maude had balls. She survived.

Intimacy Poisons

This week we talked about Intimacy Poisons, specifically: Alcohol. It could be any drug, though. Remember the PSA from some years ago? About the Elephant in the Room? The whole family was trying to go about their lives and there was this elephant walking around and no one wanted to mention it. But it was there, and creating huge chaos, destroying everything, trumpeting about and killing people in the process.

Ok, so maybe all that didn’t happen in the PSA. It just sort of walked around, but I’m right on the reality of what alcohol or drugs do to a family.

It’s hard for family members to talk about. When you’re a child, you don’t get it. When your a partner of someone going through this it’s uncomfortable, and painful. You can’t much maintain emotional distance. You want to say things like: Why are you doing this to me? Or Can’t you just stop? 

Our lecture talked about 2/3 of adults drinking alcohol, and 1/3 reported drinking causing family problems, and also that 10% of adults meet the criteria for alcohol dependence. It didn’t mention that those 10% buy 90% of all alcohol sold in the US. But it’s true.

I think one of the biggest problems for families dealing with this is that really seriously weird things become normal. The fact that your partner is drinking all the time, or that you need to manage them when you go out because they’ll be too drunk to function, or you have to start deciding when as a couple you’re going to drink. It becomes kind of an Addiction Dance, with one person generally becoming over functioning.

For kids I think it’s that the parent leaves. I don’t mean physically, but emotionally, they aren’t there anymore. And they react in ways that you don’t understand. You get in trouble for things that are either minor, or you don’t understand. Kids pull back emotionally after a while. 

Alcohol dependence, or alcoholism as it used to be called is the only disease people get mad at a person for having. Think about that. I’m looking a lot at myself in this class, and my own fear of intimacy with people. All things that started in childhood. BUT, I am also a big proponent of I’m an adult now, and responsible for my own feelings and emotions and can change. 

On the Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization site there’s a handy Laundry List of 14 traits Adult Children have in common, generally. It’s pretty interesting, but there’s also a Flip Side of the Laundry List, which as a person in recovery from both family alcohol use AND my own, I really liked. In fact, I wanted to stand up and cheer.

The Flip Side goes like this:

We move out of isolation, and are not unrealistically afraid of people, even authority figures.

We do not depend of others to tell us who we are.

We are not automatically frightened by angry people, and no longer regard personal criticism as a threat.

We do not have a compulsive need to recreate abandonment.

We stop living life as victims.

We do not use enabling as a way to avoid looking at our own shortcomings.

We do not feel guilty when we stand up for ourselves.

We avoid emotional intoxication and choose workable relationships instead of constant upset.

We are able to distinguish love form pity.

We come out of denial about our traumatic childhoods, and regain the ability to feel and express emotions.

We stop judging ourselves and discover a sense of self worth.

We grow independent and are not terrified of abandonment.

We are dealing with out own alcoholic (or para-alcoholic) selves.

We are actors, not reactors.

As I said, this was a flip side Laundry List for ACOA’s, but I think that we can apply this to anyone who is in a relationship with an addicted person. I see it so many times, perhaps especially in women involved with alcoholic men. Men, with alcoholic wives too though, thinking on it. That walking on eggshells, trying to manage the drinking, the wet and dry periods. Also the anger. Also the helplessness.

What do you think? What’s it like being in a relationship with someone on drugs, or who is drinking? Did you grow up that way? Are you now? And remember, you can comment anonymously, please. I know it’s hard. I want to know your experience, sharing mine helps me, and hearing yours helps me more.

Tell me your story.

What Happens When We Fight?

We had a lecture this week on Conflict Resolution within couple relationships. Or anyone, really. And I started thinking about myself (we call it “reflecting” and here in Family Studies Skool we do this ALL THE TIME) and how I handle conflict. It reminded me of something the wise and wonderful Betsy Stemple once said, when we were roommates. She said:

When we fight, you and I, or Adam and I, we’re having a fight about did you take out the trash, or what are you doing, and it it means THAT is what we’re arguing over. It doesn’t mean: Do I love you, do you love me. Growing up in an alcoholic household fights were always about something else, and you never knew exactly what. It’s not like that with normal people. We disagree, we argue. But we still love each other and it’s never going to be about that.

Changed everything for me, I can tell you that. 

I think when one grows up with an alcoholic, conflict is deadly. You never do know exactly what you did wrong, or what the reason people were suddenly angry with you was. There’s a few different ways adult children of alcoholics handle conflict when grown, and if one is lucky, or learns, it’s healthily. We need to learn to think, chill, and laugh. Or to stop, pause, and ask for help.

ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) have a special set of characteristics you can read them all HERE and it’s a pretty interesting list, but for the moment, we’re talking about conflict. ACOA’s avoid conflict like the plague and have a fear of people in authority. Or people who are angry and we really truly, madly and deeply do NOT take criticism well. Sometimes ACOA’s will constantly seek approval of others, and lose themselves in the process. Often, they end up very isolated in a world where no one understands.

Ok, so that was a little dramatic, but you get my point. Go read the other characteristics, bundle of joys I tell you, but the list does go a long way towards explaining a lot of things.

People can end up not very good with conflict for a whole lot of reasons, you know? Being an ACOA doesn’t mean you get to blame your parents for the rest of your life. You can change. It starts with looking at yourself very closely.

There seem to be four basic types of Couples In Conflict (I feel like we need dramatic music here)

The first: Volatiles: They argue, they’re passionate, they seem to have fights all the time and they have totally AMAZING make-up sex. The pour the gasoline on the fire and then put it out.

Then we have the Vailidators: Calm and polite. They use phrases like “I know you’re trying..” and they work at being the others point of view, they work it out.

Moving on, here’s the Avoiders. They seldom argue, they accept differences, or let time work the heck out of the problems.

None of these are bad, just different styles of handling conflict because, hello? It’s going to happen when people get together.

The fourth type of conflict are the Hostiles. They, as my lecture mentioned “Illuminate the Four Horsemen of the Arguing Apocalypse” These would be: Criticism, Illegitimate Demands, Rebuffs and Cumulative Annoyances.

Depending on whom I am arguing (yes, I am going to spend the rest of the day pondering the use of the Who vs Whom) I am all of the first three. Different methods for different situations. I’d like to think I’m no longer Hostile, and that I’m recovered enough to be aware of it when I am. (and to make amends which is another topic entirely)

I can’t comment on how it works in relationships (Cue your job here, folks) but as I am surely PLANNING on being in one, here’s how it would look in Quiche’s perfect work, conflict-wise.

I’d use my I-Statements. Give feedback and seek information from my partner. Focus only on the situation at hand, specifically. And I already know better than thinking I have to “win”. I would think the purpose, in a relationship is to enhance and build up each other, bring you closer to the other person. I mean, you ARE each others person. You’re going to disagree, and how that gets handled is going to determine how things go between you.

I think the biggest thing a person can do, ACOA or otherwise, is to look at themselves first. Not how they’ve been wronged, or what the other’s fault is. No slipping into I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG. I mean, this other person has chosen YOU over all the other people in the world, to be with. That’s huge. And effectively communicating with that person is the greatest gift you can give them in return.

You know, reading this again, I’d date me. Who wouldn’t?

Now, how do you handle conflict in relationships? If you're not in one, want to date me?

Why I want to marry an Alcoholic

In Skool today we had to write a discussion post on "What are YOUR non-negotiables? What are you not willing to budge on when looking for a mate?" And I wrote a post but it was too long and so I thought, hells, let's blog and put it out there. Expand the thing. So, here you go:

I’m pretty flexible. There are quite a few things I’d be willing to compromise on and aren’t deal-breakers. Like race, income level, profession, religion, what the heck you look like, even man vs woman. There are things I’d like in a person, being Spanish speaking would be a bonus, or a writer. I think being with me would require an open mind and a really good sense of humor and a lot of patience. Probably mostly patience, I'm really not good at this, yet, and have no experience. I actually made a list about 6 months ago, which is dangerous, because if you do that, it’s likely your person will show up. It was a long list.

But there is one thing I’m pretty sure is non-negotiable.

I want an alcoholic.

I know. Not something many people consider an asset when looking for a mate. More specifically, I want an alcoholic in recovery. Because that’s what I am and it’s such a huge part of who I am, and it’s not a part that’s going to go away. 

I don’t want to come off sounding like the poster child for AA, but the program works for me. It’s shaped who I am, how I react to the world, and how I try to get along in the world. Mind you there's AA and there's AA and there are meetings and oh dear god there are meetings and not in a good way. If anyone reading this hasn't had a good experience with AA, I'm sorry for that, all I can suggest is try another meeting, find your people. I can promise you: They're there. Also, if you have another way, more power to you, go for it, and fly free. Recovery is unique to every person. This is about me.

We had a part of our lecture where our  Professor talked Projection Dances. Let me give you the short version: Three ways people fuck up relationships. Pursuer/Distancer, Over-functioning/Under-functioning, Submissive/Dominant (don't EVEN go there, or do if you must but keep it to a giggle) I think most people at various times can mess up their relationships, but if I might brag a little: We alcoholics are AWESOME at it.

But she also talked about Transforming Dances. Meaning you can change how you go about things with others. Self focus rather than other focus, naming the pattern, survey the emotional field, what is the fear. I thought listening that, hey, this is right out of AA. It’s what we do every day. Clean up our side of the street and don’t worry about if the other person is right or wrong (Step 9) and going thru naming all the resentments and look for patterns (Step 4) identify ways you control fear by controlling people around you (Step 5) Naming your fears, practicing the opposite (Step 6 and 7 right there) Then the section wound up suggesting with the Serenity Prayer, which AA’s say ALL THE FREAKING TIME. 

There’s a lot more to it, but you get the idea. Being with someone who understands that spirituality (not religion) is the basis of who we are is the most important thing. Someone in the program, in recovery, would get that. My primary purpose is indeed spiritual growth, and I can’t have all the other things I love and value in life if I don’t have that first. I want that in another person.

I think too that having another person in recovery around would be handy as well, for those times I get seriously wrong and off the rails. They wouldn't have to ask, "What the heck is wrong with her?" It's likely they'd know. It's also likely they wouldn't take it personally, but gently (or not so gently) suggest I call my Sponsor or get myself to a meeting.

It’s hard much of the time, and it sucks much of the time, this being alcoholic. And I can tell you for a fact that a person who has had to quit drinking has been through a battle. A person in recovery knows about that battle. And is willing to look at themselves, be honest about themselves, and to be honest with another person. Or at least they are willing (key word there) to wake up every morning and try.

That’s why I want an alcoholic. The kind in recovery.

Love and Marriage: A Historical Fairy Tale

Listen closely, dears and I will tell you some things about long ago, that you may not have known. First off, in the olden days, and by olden I mean really olden, men and women did not marry for love. Nope. It wasn’t all Cave man drags women away, but we’ve all heard how the men would hunt, and the poor women would stay home and do pretty much nothing because of the kids.

Nice theory, but not exactly true. First off there was a lot of foraging to be done, and the women did most of that. In fact, women with kids did every bit as much as the women without. Men did too. It was way more important to figure out how to get veggies and grains and eggs than it was to hunt the wooly mammoth. We may have been mislead, those of us who read Clan of the Cave Bear. When they did go our hunting meat, everyone helped.

I am possibly late to the party here but Stephanie Coontz is a fantastic writer. She also appeared on the Colbert Report, which makes her a rock star in my book. (Of course I’ll link, she was awesome.) I like the way she writes. She’s entertaining, and has a lot of good points. Her book, “Marriage, A History” was selected as one of the best books of 2005, by the Washington Post, and contrary to most books one is forced to read in college, a wonderful read.

I’ve only read the first two chapters so far, as we’re getting it online in bits and pieces, but I’ve ordered the thing. She may be my new favorite author.

Did you know that for most of history it was inconceivable that men and women would choose their own mates? Or that marriage would be based on something so silly, fragile and fleeting and irrational as love? Of course you did, you’re a well read bunch.

We learn as well that in 12^th century France Andreas Capellanus wrote that “Marriage is no real excuse for not loving” only he wasn’t talking about inside of marriage, he meant adultery. Coontz also tells us that as late as the 18^th century a French essayist wrote that any man who was in love with his wife was a man so dull no one else could love him.

She talks about Pepys too, earning more of my esteem. I’ve read bits and pieces of Pepys (the man who wrote down everything) , Pepys married for love, only sadly, it ended badly and he wrote, after a night out at a musical concert that it “did stir my soul so it made him sick, just as I have been formally in love with my wife” Which doesn’t make a lot of sense, I think it means he came to his senses thinking how on earth could I have been so stupid to marry for something like love!?! He later disinherited his nephew for doing the same. Good ‘ol Pepys.

Historically, love was often seen as something that might come after marriage, but certainly not a good reason to marry. There were more important things going on like land, money, dowry, and parents (read: men) were thought to have a better idea of who youths should marry.

We in these modern times think that marriage should be based on love, soul mates, commitment, passion and so on and so forth. But this, my friends, is kind of a radical new idea. At least historically speaking.

Tell me some stories, what of love, what of marriage, I know you know history, and so, speak to me of strange and wonderful things, tales of adventure, and answer the question:

Does love have any place in marriage? Are we better off now that in those olden days?

Found Myself in an Attachment Style

Here's the thing about this class that I didn't expect: I didn't expect to like it. I mean, I didn't think I would hate it, but I didn't expect that it would be as fun as it's turning out to be. Or as useful. In this weeks lesson I listened to the lectures, and read the applicable bits in the textbook but I approached the material with a rather Ho-hum, more psycho-stuff, one must needs learn it for Skool but it's hardly, you know, something one might use in real life.

Surprise. I enjoyed both Sternberg and Lee's love theories, but what got me was the third part of the lecture, and THIS we want to talk about here. I'll keep it simple, it is simple. And, as I mentioned, useful.

If you've had any Psych, you've seen THE STRANGE BABY. Ok, that's maybe not exactly what it's called. At any rate it's a video that talks about the different attachment styles kids have, and what all goes with them: Secure, Insecure/Ambivalent and Insecure/Avoidant. I've seen it in three classes now and have yet to get excited. But here's this:

Adults have attachment styles too. Yup, sure do. There's a lot to be said about how they're related to one's child attachment style, but for today's class, I think we'll just lay there out there and you can see where you fall. Or stand. I saw myself. Totally, and completely, and it went a long way towards explaining a lot of things, about me, and intimacy, or the lack thereof.

Adult attachment styles represent sets of expectations and beliefs about relationships, to quote our lecture. They tend to be stable, but here's this: They Can Change.

1. Secure. This is the good one. These people find it easy to become emotionally close, they're comfortable around other people, and being dependent on them. Or vis versa. They don't worry about being alone. They don't worry about others acceptance. In fact, they don't worry about much of anything, and waft around in a state of bliss (maybe I made that last bit up) They have a positive view of self, a high self esteem and a positive view of others. They have a good sense of self, and of how they are in their relationships. Nice, eh?

2. Insecure anxious/preoccupied. Competitive, emotionally intense, think this person is literally waiting by the phone for you to call, they will find someone, they are not at all happy being alone without a close relationship. They seek high levels of intimacy, and need approval and validation from their partners. The want attention and lots of it.  Lots of public displays of affection, and are seriously afraid the other person is going to leave them.. They get overly dependent of others for happiness, and tend towards clingy. They want really badly to get intimate, but find sometimes that others aren't so quick to be intimate with them. Negative view of self, these ones. But a positive view of others. They might have a constant litany going on that tells them: I am not worthy of love, or of anyone's love, I'm not good enough so I'd better find someone and keep them.

3. Insecure dismissive/avoidant. These darlings are quite comfortable without a close attachment. They'll often deny even the need for intamacy. Being independent is first and foremost important to these people, they don't depend on anyone but themselves. They need to be self-sufficient. In everything. Loners, truly, but they claim to be happy that way. Less intimacy is fine with them, they don't want people to be dependent on them, for anything. Takes them a while to say I love you, if they ever do. They'll push you away before you push them, head's off any chance of rejection by distancing. They don't trust other are going to treat them right, so they don't have too great an opinion of them. They do have a nice opinion of themselves though. They'd like to date but aren't going to let themselves be vulnerable.

4. Insecure Fearful/Avoidant. These souls have a pretty mixed bag of feelings. They tend to think pretty low of themselves, and low of others. They desire to be intimate, but are really afraid of being hurt. They suppress their feelings. They have a lot of the same qualities as the anxious/preoccupied folks, but without the belief that either they or anyone else is much good. They're scared.

There you have it. Now, the good news is, if you're seeing yourself in one of these is that they can change. You have to work at it though. I'm going to paraphrase the lecture here because my teacher put it very beautifully:

Change the pattern:

Accept that change is a process.
Share your authentic self and the journey you're on.
Purposefully do something different.
Talk about where you've been.
And where you are going.

Act. On. Purpose.

Own where you've been.
Ditch "My parents screwed me up, or this is just where I am"
Confront that.
Look at yourself and see what you do.
And ask: What can I do about it?
And take a different action.

I see myself in #3. It has a name for my Style of intimacy (who knew I had one??) Insecure dismissive/avoidant. I see myself a lot. And clearly. Like, hello, this isn't book-learning, these are real things and facts. That was ME! (she say with a great deal of surprise! Who knew!?) And seeing now, and clearly, I can take some steps, and not sure I've said this before, but I'd like to. I want to move towards a secure attachment.

Has anyone else done this? Worked through it and gotten to secure? What helped? Do you see yourself here? Talk to me?

Intimately.

Lee's Love Shack

Hello All! Today, in the Baffling World of Intimacy I'd like to talk about Lee's Love Shack. It's actually called Lee's Love Style, not Shack, but the whole thing has such a 1970's feel about it, I'm rolling with it. In fact, it was in 1973 when Canadian psychologist John Alan Lee wrote his famous book "Colors of Love: An Exploration of the Ways of Loving" It's out of print now, but we still learn about Lee, and his Love Style's in Skool. His book originally looked like this:

Which either excites you and has you saying, Hell's Yes, Lee, I'm in, or sends you running. Stick with me, it's actually kind of cool, despite the cover. Lee had the idea that there were three primary Love Style's and three Secondary. Which could them be combined into, hold you hats, NINE tertiary love styles, or combo styles as I like to call them. You can pull up a chart of Lee's Love Style's and read about them, and what they mean HERE. It will open in a new window, so you can refer to it.

There's even a test you can do, to find out your Love Style. There's quite a few online, but here's the one I took in class, HERE. It's 50 True/False questions. At the end you tally up your number, it goes to page two the tally box, so don't miss it, and you find out where you fall on the Wheel of Love. If you want to take the test before you read my own results, go ahead and do so. It's cooler than you think, and you might learn more than you think. We've been facetious about Lee and his Love Wheel here, but Lee had some ideas going on.

Lee looked at the individual, and not the relationship. He looked at over 4000 people and gave them each a 30 item questionnaire about love. He found these six styles and one is not better than the other, they're just different. It makes a person think, these six styles. The styles also present themselves differently in men and women. Research looks at the fact the women tend to be higher in Storge (pronounced STORE-GAY) and Pragma, and men higher in Ludic. Women being higher in friendship and practicality, and men in game playing. I know, we're back at the olden days hunter gatherer here, but how does this play out in todays world, maybe looking at it from a women and gender studies perspective? Research has also been conducted on the social desirability of these love styles.

Both men AND women found Mania the least desirable. The differences were men found Eros and Ludus to be the most desirable, and those associated with Agape as negative. Women, on the other hand, found Agape to be very attractive and Ludus and Eros to be the least attractive. Which makes sense if you think about stereotypes of Ludus men being being strong,  or "Players" while Ludus women are seen as "Sluts". Think about the idea that women who Agape are seen as being selfless and giving, while Agape men are seen as weak and submissive. How much do the traditional men's and women's roles play out in love styles? Like, men with a Ludus style tend to be happier in their work, while women, less so.

What does all of this mean to me? Well, here's my scores. Refer to your handy chart to read about each style.

Storge: 6
Eros: 5
Agape: 4
Pragma: 2
Ludus: 2
Mania: 0

If we look at the descriptions, it seems I am (and one wonders, if what I am looking for in a partner) is love that grows slowly out of friendship and is based more on similar interests and commitment, rather than passion AND "love at first sight" based on chemistry and a strong physical and/or emotional attraction. Of course.

Where do you fall in Lee's Love Shack, and what are your thoughts on the matter?