Yeah, I'm still in the 'newly in love' phase and googly with romantic intentions, so when I read this recent Rabbit Blog, I had to stand up with Mlle Havrilesky and echo:

Listen up, you grain-fed honky dickweeds - not just you, WW, but every fucking honky out there needs to hear this. We're not alive for very long. Have you noticed this, dickcheeses? We do not have all the fucking time in the world to draw up cost-benefit analyses on potential long-term pairings. If you're not swept the fuck away by your lady, move the fuck on. If you're not gritting your teeth and biting the palm of your hand like goddamn Squiggy every time she walks by, get over it. If you're not having the best sex of your life - and this is when you do that, dummies, in your mid-fucking-thirties, this is your big fucking shot at great sex, or at least this is where it starts - if you're not blown away, freaking out, breaking out, thrilled, shivery, talking a lot, sending stupid fucking emails to each other, rolling around, sighing, bragging, buying dumb little gifts - then how do you think you'll feel in a few years when you're fucking old and creaky and you have three little doo-doo factories in residence? You fucking dumbass honky-ass losers.

I'm a little unsure how to react, tho: I've been on both sides of the fence. When you watch others being giggly and lovey and crap, you wince at the stupidity of it all. You've done that, you remember how it felt and looked, and how it was all for shit and for all your effort it didn't get you a damn thing. No matter what you did, you ended up hurt and lonely and empty with a bunch of crap that only reminds you of the person who doesn't want to be around you anymore. After the fifth or sixth time, you tell yourself -- that's gotta be the wrong way to do it. Everything else in life that's supposed to last forever requires research, planning, and convergence of the planets. Homebuying, carbuying, career planning, estate planning -- spouses last as long (or longer), so they must take as much cost/benefit analysis too.

The big thing that relationship needs, that Havrilesky points out, is passion. House, car, lifestyle - they cost more money when you yield to passion. The sportscar, the mediterranean villa, the bohemian artistry: they're not the most cost-effective investments.

A passionate relationship, however, only requires the investment of your own passion and the return of it from the other party. If the passion is misspent on the wrong investment? So what...there's no shortage of giggly, happy, loving emotion, so there's no reason to hoard it like it's evaporating away.