Do Readers Make Better Lovers?

According to both 2006 and 2009 studies published by Raymond Mar, a psychologist at York University in Canada, and Keith Oatley, a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto, those who read fiction are capable of the most empathy and “theory of mind,” which is the ability to hold opinions, beliefs and interests apart from their own.

Did you ever see your ex with a book? Did you ever talk about books? If you didn’t, maybe you should think about changing your type.

It’s no surprise that readers are better people. Having experienced someone else’s life through abstract eyes, they’ve learned what it’s like to leave their bodies and see the world through other frames of reference.

They have access to hundreds of souls, and the collected wisdom of all them. They have seen things you’ll never understand and have experienced deaths of people you’ll never know.  [Source: elitedaily.com 7/9/14]

The implication of this fascinating research? Reading makes you a better lover. Or a better romantic partner.

But I wonder: Does reading make you better — or are there certain choices you’ve made, and values or personality traits you possess, that make fiction reading appeal to you, in the first place? Is reading a cause, or a byproduct of, what makes you a better partner?

Think of the type of person who wants to experience someone else’s life through “abstract eyes.” Isn’t such a person drawn to reading, particularly fiction reading?

And if someone couldn’t care less about doing so, then how will reading transform him or her into something different? It seems to me that such a person would be bored with reading fiction, and resentful of any attempt to pull him away from the non-fictional or non-reading avenues he prefers to pursue.

I’m reminded, for example, of the stories about women who seek out sensitive guys; and then are disappointed. The sensitive guys, while wonderfully bright and intelligent in matters of emotions, end up being terrible partners in other respects. They’re unable to cope with concrete reality, they’re not necessarily strong in a crisis, and they’re self-centered in the worst, narcissistic sort of way — not out of rational self-interest (which includes adoration of one’s partner, the representation of one’s highest values); they’re simply neurotic, unable to cope and therefore not as attentive and loving as they might have been.

But then again, not all sensitive people are like this, and not every woman who seeks out a sensitive guy ends up disappointed.

Perhaps the real issue is integration. Integration refers to a person who doesn’t divorce reason and emotions. The solution here isn’t some vague or indefinite “balance” between the two. Rather, it’s a definite acceptance of emotion as a crucial and necessary way for one to literally experience values in life; yet, at the same time, an unqualified determination to let reason — not blind emotion — be in the driver’s seat of one’s perceptions, value judgments and decisions.

Integration, by this definition, is a very rare thing. How many people do you know who are uninhibited about experiencing their emotions fully, but absolutely diligent in utilizing rational thought to distinguish the true from merely the felt?

Put another way: If you’re integrated, you don’t let yourself feel things without thinking them over first, to ensure they make logical and rational sense. But once having done so, you feel all the passion and conviction you can muster.

Historically at least, we’re offered a false dichotomy between reason and emotion. Typically, it results in the embodiment of “male” versus “female” traits assigned to people by virtue of their gender.

The male, in this paradigm, is the representative of reason divorced from emotion; the female is representative of emotion without reference to reason.

Somehow, the incomplete halves are to come together to form a perfect union, a state of perfection rarely, if ever, to be found. (Interestingly, I’ve noticed the same dynamic at work in same-sex romantic relationships, where two partners similarly recreate the male-female dichotomy by this standard of the emotion-reason dichotomy.)

From this traditional yet still rather prevalent mindset, the woman is in search of the type of man who would (let’s say) read novels — that is, be the sensitive man. Or, you can ignore the gender aspect and simply say: One partner who’s sensitive seeks out a partner who’s also sensitive — i.e., “the type who reads novels.” But if “sensitive” is held to mean someone who divorces emotion from reason, and falls on the emotion side of the dichotomy, then you’ve got big trouble, as I indicated.

It’s true that novel or fiction-reading can definitely enhance and encourage empathy. Empathy, as I define it, involves the skill and willingness to see things from another’s point-of-view, including (most especially) their emotional view. However concerned you might claim to be about other people in general, it’s practically and objectively self-evident that when in a romantic relationship or marriage with another, empathy is a wonderfully practical skill. If you lack the ability, willingness or automatized habit of being able to see things through another’s eyes — agree or disagree not being the point here — then you won’t likely develop or keep a relationship for very long, at least not one worth having.

Are readers better romantic partners? Anyone who seeks out the complete human experience — reason and emotion, with reason in the driver’s seat while emotions are fully felt — certainly possesses the key qualities required for functioning in a happy relationship. Reading can certainly pave the way.

In that respect, I have no doubt that readers do indeed make better lovers.

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