Given one wish, what would you most wish for? Wealth? Power? A long life? A great job? "Given one wish in life, most people would wish to be loved --- to be able to reveal themselves entirely to another human being and be embraced, caressed, by that acceptance" (Avery, "How Do You Build Intimacy in an Age of Divorce?", Psychology Today).
It doesn't look like we are doing a very good job of getting what we most desire. You don't have to look very far to find people whose love experiences have left them with scar tissue on the heart. The world of single-life, with its often hasty desire for connection, all too often resembles a battle field of walking wounded. And the world of married-life doesn't look all that much better --- we currently have a divorce rate in the neighborhood of 50% and of those who remain in an intact marriage, maybe 50% have a self-reported happy marriage. And as many of us know, once the scar tissue begins to form, it gets more and more difficult to trust / to take the emotional risks that are necessary to achieve the love we disire. Maybe that is why it was suggested in the New York Times article earlier this month ("Anti-Love Drug May Be the Ticket to Bliss") that what we need is an anti-love vaccine. As pointed out by the author, it has worked for lots of other diseases, why not love?
