Rrules of attraction. Some say that every love story should be an endless courtship. A net of clams for a surprise dinner, a chat of compliments sent from the office, one more opportunity to say “do you know how much I like you?”. It’s the slow falling in love that lasts a lifetime. Sometimes, however, the approach is more clumsy – a flirt made up of awkward invitations and missed appointments – or just a groping where I try to write to you and you don’t reply but then by chance we meet, we end up in bed and you disappear. Beginnings always mark the development of a story: it is the “blank page” of love, and you don’t know what is right to do. Today more than ever.
New laws of attraction
That is: can you still court without appearing inappropriate? Can you wink and not seem annoying, insist without appearing intrusive? The #MeToo has weakened the explosive charge of the approaches in the name of respect for women, there is no point in denying it, while ’68 had already cleared sexual freedom and feminism. So today we have: more prudent males on one side and more enterprising women on the other.
And what happened to the courtship? «It is no longer needed» specifies Matteo Lancini, president of the Minotauro Foundation in Milan. «Couple relationships are those that have undergone the greatest changes in recent years. The reasons must be sought in the educational models proposed in the family but also elsewhere. There is a very new phenomenon whose effects are still underestimated: that of assisted procreation. Suffice it to say that the new generations grow up knowing that the sexual act is no longer necessary for human survival. In building a story, For kids, it’s important to live in each other’s minds, to feel cared for and valued. We flirt with the aim of “sexting” rather than penetration, or rather a long-distance encounter that sometimes becomes endless courtship » she adds.
Sex is no longer a taboo
Early sensuality aimed at sex was therefore central to the old sex-phobic society. Today, when sex is not a taboo and is not useful for a couple’s planning, what then animates the “pick-up” phase? «The fear of “staying under it”. That is, that of depending too much on the minds of others. We fall in love by entrusting our identity to the idea that the other has of methat is, if he sees me as handsome, rich and charming, I am satisfied.
All this is a symptom of an identity fragility that has roots in the family. It’s not healthy but that’s how it is. When we enter the classrooms, kids are terrified of romantic relationships. Males first of all. Here because they invented the “copfriendship” precisely to create distance from a type of involvement that exposes us to the risk of being dumped and becoming “under”, that is, the one who has remained under us. In any case, we are afraid of something that will soon no longer exist because instead of the couple we will have a signed contract. Try asking a guy why he wants to create a couple today and he will answer: to pay a mortgage »specifies Lancini, author of Be yourself in my way (Curtain).
Experts and scholars agree: courtship today brings into play fragility and fears (Getty Images)
Prince Charming no longer exists
The figure of Prince Charming has exhausted its function, but also that of romantic love and that world in which the sacrificial aspect in the couple made sense in the name of the family considered sacred. «Today males and females grow up with the same educational models. It’s often her who takes the first step and it’s in the discoCompared to twenty years ago, fights are now started by girls who eye a boy, often unaware of everything” he concludes. Unaware, of course. But also confused. How can you talk about boarding without talking about “virility”? The musician Eddy de Pretto denounces male clichés in Kid and invites us to free ourselves from them: the refrain of the song is “abusive virility”. «There is a figure that shows a drastic decline in sperm numbers in recent generations. Fewer sperm means less testosterone, therefore less libido and less research into sexuality» specifies Giancarlo Di Maggio, psychiatrist and author of The Way Out (Rizzoli). Faced with this scientific fact, there is one that is cultural and works against it. «It’s what embeds men in the old image of muscles and bulky masculinity, which pushes them to perform because deep down that’s what girls expect. The data comes from online pornography accessible to all but perhaps also from some cultural consumption not filtered by family education. I think of the sexist language of trap songs” concludes Di Maggio.
Rules of Attraction: Where is the Desire?
The very explicit lyrics of Il Doc 3 by Andry the Hitmaker and VillaBanks certainly make you think. But after all, even during rock concerts of the past, sex was exhibited without restraints on stage. The point, however, is not this: the soul of courtship is always desire and it is he who is under threatto. Wanting too much is not good (you seem annoying), but not wanting is even worse (girls have a specific expectation). So? «It happens that in courtship the meeting of bodies occurs without there having been a meeting of souls» specifies Gustavo Pietropolli Charmet, psychiatrist and author of Stolen youth (Rizzoli). «Once upon a time, girls had to pretend not to be desirous and expected the male to bring out their desire with a dance of legitimate attempts. Courtship was followed by engagement and then sex. Who gives a diamond ring to a girl today? The engagement is over, the courtship is just a selection. Boys look at the female world as an opportunity to improve their quality of life to go to her house in the mountains, to feel worthy of certain friends, etc. It is narcissistic love where the self counts more than the object of love. After all, sexuality is made official in the family. The girl brings a boy home and the parents welcome him, then invite him to go on holiday together and suffer if they break up. The courtship stage is burned in the name of a freedom and precociousness that has no equals » she concludes.
It’s the era of unlikely couples
Yet among the harassment and seduction today there is a new boundary and it is called “consent”: this is where we meet, and we get there by navigating a sea of conflicting desires. They are those of the men who self-censor while waiting to be chosen by women, of those who, in response to the anxiety of inhibition, become aggressive, of those who try the path of old-fashioned gallantry in search of glances (and courage). A mutation is underway and someone is talking about a new form of “seduction with elegance”, more cerebral in short. «I believe that the clumsier the boarding, the more memorable it will be. Courtship matters only in the couple’s mythopoeia, as an exercise in relationship storytelling and nostalgia” says Luca Ricci, author of Gothic pink (The Ship of Theseus), collection of stories with memorable boardings.
The virtual attraction is real
«In my book Overlook Milanlove was born thanks to harassment on the subway but the truth is that today the first steps are also taken online. Virtuality is more real than reality because it brings together people who would never have spoken to each other, perhaps inside the same carriage. It’s the era of unlikely couples and that’s a good thing » he adds. However, the approach has changed there too, the roles of prey and hunter are often reversed.
«Yes, and men shouldn’t feel less like men for feeling hunted, and women shouldn’t feel like less women for hunting. The risk of this flirting has only one name, which is the attraction of the premise. Basically, we like that initial phase so much that the story is consumed entirely waiting to get to the point. I know people who live on chat, react to love skirmishes on WhatsApp as if they were real. But that is just the illusion of a relationship, and nothing else.”
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