In last month's issue of The Cud I submitted a piece which reflected on the economics of love.

In the article I suggested that many people in their twenties are discarding otherwise satisfying relationships because the effort required to stay together is outweighed by a perception that there might be someone better out in the big wide world.

In the weeks since, I have received many comments from readers and friends about what they thought. Most of the feedback came from women, and all of them disagreed with my argument. The one response that agreed with what I had to say was from a male friend. Although a half dozen comments can never hope to capture the true state of opinion on any matter, I argue that the negative female response is evidence that my thoughts may not be without some merit.

Female responses to my argument ranged from sadness to anger. Most anger was directed at my suggestion that as we advance deeper into a relationship, there is less satisfaction gained with each additional day. One (single) friend vehemently disagreed with this depressing notion asserting that love and the satisfaction can and should grow stronger with each day. I do not disagree. I have been in relationships where this has been so, and discovering new dimensions about your partner is a wonderful part of relationships. However I have also discovered things that have made me think that I should grab my hat and make a run for the door. In at least one case I did run for the door, only to regret it later. I am sure my past girlfriends have had the same thoughts on many occasions. It is these ugly discoveries that we are less willing to handle, and the popular perception is that there is someone else out there who has the great sense of humour, but does not have the annoying habit of being a little messy around the house.

Underpinning the feedback I received is the expectation that if relationships don't continue to get more intense and more rewarding as time progresses, then it is not going to work. This goes a long way to proving my point. Small periods of stagnation in relationships equate to a terrible waste of time that could otherwise be spent doing almost anything else than, dare I say, being selfless and showing a little persistence with a relationship.

The forces that created and continue to fuel these perceptions are not small. An enormous volume of material dedicated to helping people appear better than they probably are is being published, broadcast and sold all around us. The Self Improvement sector of industry does not exist because people today are worse in nature than in days gone by, but because we have been repeatedly told how deficient we are by marketers, who in turn can sell us a whole range of goods and services to remedy our shortcomings. This mechanism has created annoying cultural typecasts like the metro'sexual. This charlatan is all things to every girl. He cares about clothes, culture, art, and personal grooming. He is fashionable and charming. He knows about sport, coffee, liquor and fine wine. He knows how to cook, how to dance, how to make love. This man does not exist, except as a counterpoint for women to diagnose the deficiencies of their partners. The same thing is evident in cultural constructions of women, who must be intelligent, financially successful, attractive, caring and self'reliant, to be at all desirable.

One of the greatest lies that we have been sold is that personal freedom is the most desirable thing in life. This is not so. It is not the greatest thing in the world to be self'reliant because this is limited by the ability to cope with one's own culturally defined deficiencies. I think you will agree that there are very few of us capable of sustaining a healthy level of sanity if left completely to our own devices. Whilst there is certainly a decline in the need for relationships based on practical or economic grounds, I do not see a reduction in the need for emotionally dependent and supportive relationships. People are still as confused about their reason for being as they have ever been. The problem is that it is not fashionable or desirable to confess that one cannot handle life on their own. Otherwise, others might think you are only human.