Mike, I’ll certainly agree that people sometimes give up too easily. It happens in marriages, and it happens when people only allow twenty minutes for coffee because they believe that a magical sign will have descended within that time or the relationship is forever doomed.
I’ll even agree with you that most decent people with similar goals and values can make a relationship work if they’re both willing to invest in it. But notice all those qualifiers that weren’t included in your post?
The problem with the idea that all a relationship needs is a mutual willingness to “make it work” ignores the important fact that “making it work” might mean very different things to different people. And it’s entirely possible that a relationship that’s working out just fine for one person is making the other one miserable. Without a mutual understanding of what a working relationship looks like, even that commitment is useless.
And when, in week three, there are already “issues” to be worked through–when a woman is referring to someone as “the red flag guy” when she talks to her friends or a man comes home from a third date sure that he’s had enough but finds himself picking up the phone a couple of days later–it just might be a clue that those two people probably don’t have a shared idea of what a good relationship looks like. If they do manage to make it work…and most do, for a while…it will undoubtedly be at someone’s expense.
I agree that the value of a relationship can’t be measured in days, but I think it can be measured–and measured clearly–in mutual respect. And if a “couple” can’t make it through the first couple of months without drama and red flags, it’s a safe bet that respect is lacking.
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