Let’s have babies and then again let’s not
‘Love at first sight? More like lust at first sight.’
So says The New Paper on a new autobiographical book by the advertising mogul, Jacques Seguela, which describes in detail the evening when French President Nicolas Sakozy met former model Carla Brunei. Sarkozy and Bruni married seven weeks later in an infamous affair that set the tabloids’ tongues wagging. [Click here for a BBC report on the details.]
The account of that dinner party is an excellent example of how a relationship can be formed through reciprocity and liking, interactional and cognitive cues. Almost immediately, Ms Bruni and Mr Sakozy were drawn to each other through eye contact and, before long, Ms Bruni was using the informal ‘tu’ (you) in addressing Mr Sakozy. This shows clearly that both of them were aware that attraction existed on both sides and this led to increased efforts throughout the evening.
Of Duck’s ‘filtering theory’ of screening potential relational partners, Mr Sakozy and Ms Bruni certainly used the cues during interaction. Through their verbal barbs and teasing, they were ascertaining themselves of each other’s wit and humour, and assessing how well they would get along in future.
An example in case:
Sakozy (referring to attending Ms Bruni’s upcoming concert): “We will announce our engagement. You will see, we will do better than Marilyn and Kennedy.”
Bruni: “Engagement, never! From now on I will only live with a man who gives me a child.”
Sakozy: “I have already brought up five. Why not six?”
By assuring each other, albeit teasingly, that their interests lay within the same area, they were screening one another during the entire evening. As we now know, their screening was successful as they were very shortly married.
The opposite end of the relationship spectrum is also getting busy. Much to everyone’s surprise, Glenn Ong and Jamie Yeo went official last Friday with their split when Glenn announced it on the Morning Express. (FYI, Glenn and Jamie were a high-profile couple as they are both radio DJs and appeared to have shared an extremely strong relationship ever since they started dating in 2001.) In today’s New Paper article, ‘Glenn Ong says split with Jamie Yeo was inevitable: No quarrels, we just drifted apart’, Glenn Ong demonstrated several relationship disengagement strategies. He did not attach blame to either side, saying instead that “The split was amicable and we still talk”, and redefined their relationship positively “I still think Jamie is a great girl. I hope she still thinks I’m a great guy.”
He also justified the breakup, saying, “Jamie and I thought long and hard about it. If it didn’t happen now, it could’ve happened in 10 or 20 years. We’ve drifted apart and we have different goals.”
What do you guys think about the two relationships? Do you think Sarkozy and Bruni are really ‘soulmates’ or did they not give themselves enough time to ‘filter’ each other (hence leading to possible split in the future)? And do you think Glenn’s approach to his breakup with Jamie is a good one?
Pree replied:
Hmm, i feel that this idea of ‘soulmates’ is a tough one. Attraction cannot be denied but the word soulmate has a lot of baggage, don’t you think? I think it is interesting the way they gauge each other though – through humour and flirting, and i suppose it is a way to understand the other person better, but i really dont know. I feel like that maybe in today’s world, attraction is taken to mean something else.
It is hard for me to understand how love drifts apart ‘amicably’. How can you leave aside all those feelings without any sense of bitterness?
February 15, 2009 at 4:24 pm. Permalink.
Kimberly replied:
As an utter romantic, I would love to believe in the idea of soulmates. What’s not to like about it? The idea that these two people are destined for one another is just amazing. But at the same time, jumping head first into marriage after just 7 weeks seems rash.
Kinda in reply to Pree’s comment about love drifting apart ‘amicably’, I can totally understand how people can do something like that. It doesn’t always have to be a big affair full of raging feelings. If both party had mutually understood they were drifting apart, no matter how fond of each other they still were, then yeah, I can see that couple parting amicably.
February 15, 2009 at 4:53 pm. Permalink.
tinahyena replied:
Now a days, when someone says “I fell in love at first sight”, many people will scoff at it and say that it isn’t love it’s lust. How is it possible to fall in love with someone you’ve just met?
What I want to ask those people is “how did you fall in love?”. There had to be something that drew your attention to the person you are in love with. Something that instantly made you attracted. Some people take years to fall in love, others take weeks or months. If you ask a person how they fell in love, many will say they knew instantly.
It shouldn’t matter how quickly we fall in love. What matters is how long we stay in love. People grow out of love all the time. I think it’s great that Glenn and Jamie are still able to talk with eat other and stay friends. If there isn’t any love left in the relationship then it’s better to end it then stay in it. Loveless relationships tend to end up with angry words or infidelity. I’d rather break up on good terms then bad.
February 15, 2009 at 6:36 pm. Permalink.
Lib replied:
I’m not a big fan of gossiping or commenting on other people’s relationships, especially if I’m not one of the two involved. But in regards to Sarkozy and Bruni’s marriage, I do remember thinking that the time they’ve been involved before marriage was short, maybe too short. I think that most people, when they hear about quick engagements, are more likely to classify it as a whirlwind romance and that it’s more about physical attraction than romantic feelings. I suppose it is because people are starting to realize that life is not a fairytale and that most likely we won’t be finding our prince charmings. And I’m not sure I believe in soulmates, in a world as realistic as today, love is hard enough to find.
I actually think that Glenn’s approach to his breakup is quite good. Relationships fall apart all the time, and love is liable to dull and fade away with time. To be cliche, nothing lasts forever. It may sound pessimistic but the truth because there are so many factors in a relationship. And there are also so many stages to a relationship, such as the start, often labeled the “honeymoon” phase, in which the coupling is fresh and very passionate with one another. There’s often a cooling period that follows, a sort of, “I see you everyday and I’m tired of your face”. It takes time to build up a good relationship and I think that people often confuse relationship and love, and think of them as mutually exclusive. Just because the relationship didn’t work out, doesn’t mean you fall out of love.
February 16, 2009 at 3:48 am. Permalink.
a.m. replied:
I can’t say anything about “love at first sight” because I can’t clearly write what I feel, but I can say that I believe in such things as “lust at first sight” or even “like at first sight”. I am sure we’ve all had first meetings with people where we thought ‘this person is someone I want to be friends with’ right away. Through continuous conversation and observation, people pick out certain people whom they want to keep close to.
Of course love is different. It requires a different set of rules, energy, sacrifices. It is tricky; like Glenn and Jamie’s case, it might turn into something else. It is powerful – like Sarkozy and Bruni’s case, it might cause marriage in just seven weeks. We do not always know why it works for some people and doesn’t for others. We try to theorize and question it, but it is elusive. The most important thing for us is probably to take it when it comes to us and learn from it and grow a little bit more when it leaves.
As for Sarkozy and Bruni’s marriage, who knows? We’ll just have to see in a couple of years.
February 16, 2009 at 11:34 am. Permalink.
wen replied:
i feel ‘love at first sight’ can happen, depending on how well someone reads the signs their potential partner is displaying/offering. in all our social interactions with other people, the information we receive from them (in terms of their behaviour, responses, attitudes, etc) pass through the filter of our own experiences. we make assumptions and come to different conclusions. often a single action can be interpreted a wide variety of ways, and such results are also rather dependent on our expectations. so someone who’s looking for a partner, or love, may decide very swiftly, practically instantly, that this is the person for him or her, because the other already matches his internal criteria. whereas to someone who is not on the market, so to speak, may see nothing specially significant in the other’s behaviour or intentions at all.
i believe that the mainstay of a relationship is to have both parties focusing on similar goals, otherwise it will always be an uphill battle to sustain it. unfortunately for jamie and glenn, it seems no longer to be the case. but i agree with lib, in that even though they are no longer together, it doesn’t mean that they don’t love each other any more. when you have invested years of your life into a relationship, the emotions don’t fade away so easily. i think it’s great that they can part without bitterness, so that the good memories do not get overshadowed by the bad ones.
February 16, 2009 at 2:36 pm. Permalink.
MaC replied:
Breaking up is hard but parting on mutual terms is harder. I think that Glenn seems to have managed it well as they are still on talking terms plus he did not push the blame onto Jamie.
As for Sarkozy and Bruni, I guess we would have to wait for a couple of years to see whether they last.
February 16, 2009 at 3:40 pm. Permalink.
moonprincess87 replied:
Woah! They got married really fast huh?! Attraction is one thing but can attraction make the relationship last? I feel that communication is the most important thing in any relatioship. Even if you and your partner have similar goals, it might not mean that the two of you will be walking the same path. Both of you might take different routes to reach that similar goal.. As much as I like the idea a soulmate, I feel that we still need to maintain the relationship.. Passion and attraction will not last long….
About Jamie Yeo and Glenn Ong, I was really shock when I read the news but then again, it is quite a common thing now. It’s sad to know that they have split but if it’s for the better, we should accept their decision. Staying together for a long time doesn’t mean that the relationship is going well.. There are so many aspect of a relationship that we tend to overlook. Communication is important. Getting to know you partner or friends is also important! Of course, being in one relationship that can last that long could mean the communication between the couple is good and they are willing to compromise and make decisions that will allow them to experience lesser conflicts.
February 17, 2009 at 4:01 pm. Permalink.
Javiera replied:
This is a topic I’m not used to discuss, mostly because my friends are either way too romantic or true sarcastics at heart. I like the middle ground, though I tend to over-analyze too much to call myself a romantic, but, as people have said above, “like at first sight” and “lust at first sight” are things we can all agree on and believe in. *Love* is too strong a word for me to use in any case at the *start* of a relationship. What I don’t have any problem with -if the people involved don’t either- is them getting married on a wimp. For me marriage is just a lot of paperwork, so I don’t really “believe” in the concept of it, but *getting married* is a sentiment, a moment in life when you’re suppose to be incredibly happy, and the paperwork is a reminder of that. Nothing can be wrong with something that reminds you how happy you were at certain moment in time, right? Whether they last forever or not doesn’t matter, enjoying their time together now does. When people start worrying whether they gonna last or not, that’s wasting time. Having something to cherish *now* shouldn’t be enough?
If the future you started building together doesn’t work as planned, you get divorced. Considering I grew up with parents that split up and came back twice while I was still young and have never been married, divorce is certainly not a big deal for me. It’s the healthier solution if you’re unhappy with your relationship. Of course, it’s always better if both sides feel the same way, but even when that’s not the case (like most of the time, sadly), to split up is a better option to keep trying when one part of the couple doesn’t feel the same anymore. Of course, there are a bunch of cases when people that thought it was best to get a divorce afterward realized life was better when they were together, but considering most people won’t get that *until* they’re divorce, there’s not much point in trying something else, is there?
As for the subject of soulmates… let’s hope they’re not true. It scares the crap out of me to think there could be only ONE person out there for me, or that imperfect relationships can’t work out because there’s something “missing”. You either take a chance and enjoy the ride or build something one step at a time, relationships shouldn’t be more complicated than that. Isn’t happiness suppose to be in the simple things in life anyway?
February 17, 2009 at 9:42 pm. Permalink.
brennagh replied:
Hello!
Well, I think that relationships can be forged over a short period of time and more often than not, the time to get to know a person through “flitering”, disclosure of information, etc. sometimes take several years and yet, we still may not know the other party well enough.
As for Sarkozy and Bruni’s relationship, I feel that they should have taken time to consider their marriage, especially since Sarkozy has just recently got a divorce from his former wife. (Right?) Then again, who are we to comment? We’ll never know what are the thoughts going through their minds since we can’t be in their shoes to feel the love they have got going for each other.
As for Glenn and Jamie, it is a pity as they seem like such a model couple. But it is also a good thing they came out to comment on it and they both seem to be taking it quite well (: Other than that, drifting away seems to be such a lousy reason to ead to divorce. Relationships, after all, take lots of time and effort to make them work (:
February 19, 2009 at 5:25 pm. Permalink.
Mich replied:
I’m going to throw my pessimism out there. While I believe many can behave and feel similarly, I’m not quite sure there really are “soulmates”. The title itself is pregnant with multitudes of meaning. The two who are soulmates must understand and feel each others’ sentiments acutely and accurately. The probability of that is highly unlikely. At least not with such a vast population on the earth.
I don’t really believe Sarkoz and Bruni are true “soulmates”. They might share similar interests, believe in similar concepts and share similar perceptions, but I feel that they haven’t really “filtered” through each others true personality as of yet. There’s an element of confirmation bias. They WANT to see each other as the ideal partner and therefore claim they are each other’s “soulmate”. At the moment I might only give them credit for a little bit more than attraction and infatuation. They’re just smitten by each other’s qualities. Possible split in the future? There’s a chance of that for sure.
The Glenn and Jamie…personally I don’t think the break up is really “justified”. It’s just self-serving bias because the break up was “inevitable” and beyond reparation and therefore the right thing to do. I think that sums up what I feel towards them. Of course, over all, I’m not too interested in matters like these so I can’t really be one to judge others.
February 23, 2009 at 4:03 am. Permalink.