Jan 29 2008
Affinity
I normally would not be writing about this, but I have just finished watching the fourth episode of The L Word and it set me thinking about affinity between human beings. We tend to associate attraction with chemistry between two people, and from there some of us — or most of us — construct relationships. However, I consider chemistry to be only a small portion of the whole sensual experience of loving. It is only a start. The rest, the foundations of what later on will be the bond, is affinity. I looked the word up at Visual Thesaurus and found a couple of definitions for this term:
a close connection marked by community of interests or similarity in nature or character
a natural attraction or feeling of kinship.
The episode ends with a deep, passionate and sad kiss between one of the leading couples in the series, Bette and Tina. Well, I’m not going to digress with the full story of these two, as that would involve summarizing five seasons. So, if you are a follower you will understand what has just happened. If you are not, the DVDs are for sale. Maybe eighty percent of the viewers felt the same, or something similar, when they saw their kiss last night. In the last scene, the kiss is the only substitute for the words that they use to pretend they are doing fine dating other people when, in fact, every step along the way they realize more and more where they belong. Why? Because the affinity is there.
Now, is that enough to sustain a relationship or to keep a couple afloat? Maybe not. Sometimes people need to move on to other things. Sometimes, they need to move on, only to come back to the beginning strengthened from the experience.
Well, affinity is sometimes present, but some people need less than that to start a relationship. Chemistry has to be there, otherwise tension would be utopic
Agreed. Anyway, both affinity and chemistry tend to be hard to come by…