Beautiful, Driving Obsessions
There is a long standing tradition in American society to belittle
and disparage preadolescent infatuations. The term "puppy love" exem-
plifies the tendency on the part of many adults to make light of the early
manifestation of heterosexual love and romance. Yet all of the research
evidence currently available strongly suggests that even very young
children feel the emotions of romantic infatuations every bit as strongly
as adults do. To be sure, not all prepubescent children experience these
strong love feelings for a person of the opposite sex. But those who fall
in love at seven or eight seem to experience the emotions of love every
bit as strongly as do those who fall in love at eighteen or at twenty-eight
or at thirty-eight.
What the ultimate causes of the preadolescent love phenomenon
are is anybody's guess at this juncture in time.1 Some social scientists
are beginning to suspect that the need for heterosexual love and romance
has a genetic basis, and that it is conceptually distinct and entirely dif-
ferent from the biologically rooted need for sexual expression. Some
think that the need for love and romance is more closely related to the
need for esthetic satisfaction than it is to the need for sexual pleasure.
(See Vernon Grant's book titled FALLING IN LOVE.) Suffice it to say
that the need for romantic love manifests itself in many young children
long before there is any capability of sexual performance.
Some social scientists have speculated that prepubescent love inter-
est may be a reflection of a dearth of love in the family of orientation
vis-a-vis the mother and father. A vulnerability to unrequited romantic
infatuations at any age may quite possibly reflect deficits in family love.
But normal romantic boy-girl interests at the elementary school level do
not appear to reflect any shortfall of family love.
In fact, unusually early heterosexual romantic interests do not appear
to be very closely related to a dearth of love in the family of orientation.
Professor Broderick's research showed that 57 percent of all children
with unusually early heterosexual-romantic interests enjoyed happy,
loving relationships with their mothers and fathers. The analogous figure
for children who did not manifest such unusually early boy-girl romantic
interests was 83 percent. Thus in America there is only a mild association
between early romantic interests and poor relationships with mothers
and fathers.
But this statistical association is obviously far too weak to explain
the phenomenon of very early boy-girl romantic attachments because a
majority of the children who did become romantically interested very
early in life (57 percent) also enjoyed happy, healthy relationships with
their families. Further, there are several hundred societies in the prein-
dustrial world wherein it is most unusual for a child not to become
interested in the opposite sex by the age of six or seven.
As I documented in chapter one, people perform better (often much
better) than they ordinarily do when they are involved in a love rela-
tionship that is mutual and reciprocal. This is known to be especially
true for males of all ages. Only unrequited love, which is the basis of
"infatuation", is taxing on people's time and psychoemotional energies.
Only unreciprocated love seems to yield destructive, self-defeating results.
And only unrequited love appears to cause the development of intense
obsessions that keep a child, teenager or adult from attending to con-
structive, action-oriented behavior.
The love-shy seven year old needs to be dealt with in exactly the
same manner as the love-shy seventeen year old and the love-shy twenty-
seven year old. All need to be helped to stop excessive daydreaming
and to commence living! All need to be helped to reach out to the member
of the opposite sex in whom they are interested. The fact that a majority
of a love-shy child's classmates may not as yet have reached the point
of having heterosexual romantic interests is actually quite immaterial.
People must be helped in their effors to climb each step of life as they
themselves reach each step. Preconceived timetables that everyone is
"supposed to fit" need to be discarded; such timetables invariably
to destructive consequences.
"I remember when I was about nine my dad made me join the Cub
Scouts. It wasn't too bad; but I can remember dreaming all the time
about girls being there instead of boys. I mean I took part in most
of the activities, but I did so without saying much to anybody. Like,
the kids used to refer to me as the 'man of few words'. I never really
made any friends in the Cub Scouts even though I was with them
for three years--all the way through the fourth, fifth and sixth grades.
Maybe I can explain a little better what I mean. Like when I was
about eleven we went on this overnight hike up around the Delaware
Water Gap. And I enjoyed getting out into nature. But I didn't want
to talk to anybody. All the guys found me unsociable, and the three
fathers who led us on this trip I don't think liked me too much
either. Like, I'd be off in a world of deep fantasy as I was walking
along. And I just didn't want to be interrupted from what I was
daydreaming about because it was always much more beautiful than
the stupid, boring things the other 11 and 12-year old boys were
talking about--and the stupid, ridiculous songs they were singing--
Jesus!
Well, at that time I was really in love with the 8-year old sister of
one of the boys in my Cub Scout den. And I remember as I was
walking along I would be dreaming that she was right there with
me and that she and I were talking. And there would be other pretty
girls in my classes who I would be daydreaming about. I mean, I'd
see all of them there with me in my mind's eye. But most of the
time I would be daydreaming just about my favorite girl--Jenny.
She was my den mate's sister I just told you about. And even though
I was just eleven, I can remember getting moist and goosebumpy
all over as I dreamed she was there inside my sleeping bag with me.
Anyway, when I was twelve I finally got out of the scouts, even
though my parents didn't want me to. I just didn't see any point in
staying in because I wasn't getting introduced to any girls. I mean,
if my den group had been coeducational, there's no way in the world
anyone could have ever gotten me to drop out. I just didn't want
to participate in anything anymore where girls weren't present." (22-
year old love-shy university student.)
Nearly all of the love-shys spoke of having resented the American
custom of segregating the sexes. Virtually all social organizations for
elementary and junior high school aged young people are gender-
segregated. And these include the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Boys Club
of America, Campfire Girls, Brownies, Girl Scouts, YWCA, YMCA, etc.
Even at the senior high school level virtually all extracurricular activities
continue to be gender-segregated.
The love-shy men I studied had known what they needed better
than any of their parents or teachers. They knew that they needed a
copious abundance of opportunities for relaxed, informal heterosexual
interaction. Such opportunities had been denied them by a system that
they preceived as being totally unjust and insensitive to their needs--
and totally uncaring about their strong (albeit secret) desires for the
companionship of an opposite sexed friend.
This represents a key reason why the love-shy tended to withdraw
from social activities organized for children and young people. They saw
no need for further informal contact with age-mates of their own gender.
Like the young man quoted at length above, what is the point of going on
a hike with a bunch of age-mates of your own gender if all you do the entire
time is daydream about being with and talking with a GIRL!?
All of this flies in the face of a quite stubborn bias which continues
to prevail in our society. Many people strongly believe that it is "natural"
for boys in the eight-to-thirteen-year age range to want to spent their
time exclusively with same-sexed age-mates. It is also widely believed
that senior high school boys "naturally" prefer to spend the majority of
their free time engaging in "rough and tumble" athletics with age-mates
of their own gender. To be sure, most American boys develop these
typical preference patterns--most probably because (1) they have been
socialized (programmed; hypnotized) to do so, and because (2) these
preferences are in consonance with their native temperaments anyway.
However, not all prepubescent boys fit these "typical boyish" preference pat-
terns. AND IT IS ALWAYS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE TO TRY TO FORCE
SQUARE PEGS INTO ROUND HOLES.
The love-shy might well have been "premature" by conventional
American standards in their overwhelmingly strong heterosexual com-
panionship interests and fantasies. But in blocking any form of reali-
zation of these fantasies many of these seemingly precocious boys may
have learned to associate feelings of "haughtiness", anxiety, and "dis-
obedience" with the thought of being with a girl. In other words, the
feeling that their desires for close, female companionship were somehow
"not right" for them at their age, may have transferred to a more general
anxiety pertinent to heterosexual interaction that remained with them
long after they had arrived at an age when heterosexual interaction is
considered appropriate by society. Simply put, unless a child is involved
in a clearly dangerous type of activity, it is always best to both permit
and encourage him to grow and develop in his own way.
An organization called the "Coed Scouts" could clearly become a
godsend for boys with this sort of temperament and seemingly precocious
need for emotionally intimate heterosexual interaction. If such an orga-
nization could be made a socially acceptable alternative for children of
both sexes who want it, units could be established which cross-cut school
districts so that in the unlikely event that not enough boys from one
district wish to join, there would always be a sufficient number of pre-
love-shy boys from surrounding districts to fill the gap. Coed Scouting
groups would provide for such activities as hiking, swimming, arts and
crafts, music, visits to museums and live stage shows, etc. Indeed, the
only activities that would be ruled out would be the rough contact sports
such as basketball, football, baseball, softball, etc.
