Against Intention

“not satisfied to see water turn into wine, they must also turn wine into water”

— Søren Kierkegaard

For a while, everywhere I looked in the inter-webs, people were either crying out for intentional partners or anointing their partners as such. There were jokes, of course, claiming demonstrations of intention seemed limited to fancy photo-documented vacations in Bali, dinners at over-priced restaurants and car-gifts neatly tied in red bows. That “intention” was only possibly demonstrable by acts of this ilk, and was to this extent, only practicable by the wealthy. Proponents of intention in love reject this as a simplification and hold the practice as deeper than the jokes suggest, touching on less material aspects of relationships as well. Beyond romantic relationships, Hassan’s Whatsapp status revealed that this concept is also being touted as a critical quality in friendships. Suddenly, the tables seem to have turned on what one could call classical or conventional relationships and the best loves and friendships are now intentional. But what does the concept really mean? The activities of the intentional, as I understand them, do not radically differ from those of conventional lovers except for a critical quality of systematized deliberation. So that while acts of passion characterize conventional love, these are replaced, in intentional love, by the fruits of extensive pre-meditation.

What the element of deliberation in intentional love first brings to mind is cultivation — a word that has found use in describing the act of fostering relationships. The connection seems at first innocuous — it is all well and good to plant the so-called seed of friendship, to nourish it, and to do the required weeding if the weeds of virulent disagreement begin to grow. But while I understand the allure of a partner or friend that nourishes, what about the harvest? I am concerned that to be intentional is to fatten the ram for an imminent feast, to tend to the yams for a pounding to come. A similar metaphor is investment. The cadre of the intentional also talk about “investing” time and resources into love and friendships. It forces one to ask — has the entrepreneurial spirit of capitalism finally made its way into these hallowed institutions? Or am I just naïve for never seeing love in such terms? Have lovers and friends always been merely emotional and material investors, investing time and recouping acts of service, investing touch and recouping reassurance? Do intentional relationships calculate a Return-on-Intention on a yearly basis? Do they switch to “investments” with higher ROIs when such opportunities arise? Such calculations, even when playful, would not be surprising in the prevailing economic system. If it can encourage us to view ourselves as merely agents of production, and view the private post-work events of our lives as minable for “content”, how much of a stretch is it to turn lovers into merchants of love? Conversations with intentional friends failed to show intentional relationships in a less cynical light and steer me away from these parallels with the deliberateness of agriculture and business. Where does planning, the borrowed quality in agriculture and business, end, and scheming (even if towards delightful evenings and surprises) begin? It leads one to seriously question whether what we know as intentional love is even love at all. Admittedly, this proposition of the existence of true and untrue loves appears a tad melodramatic, but before you let out that deep sigh of disappointment, consider that we routinely make these true-fake distinctions.

It’s a familiar Nollywood scene — our protagonist is in a sketchy clearing in a forest, with trees adorned with red fabric, masks, feathers and the bones of indeterminable animals. The babalawo asks what our protagonist wants, and she confesses to wanting to induce love in a person that has caught her fancy. The babalawo’s laughter is guttural and he promises that the task is relatively facile, at least for a man of his abilities or “maternal” backing. Prescriptions are made, our protagonist is on her way, and soon enough gets someone madly in love. We are quick to identify the loves that evolve from such prescriptions as “fake”, and no one debates our assessment. We, very often, begin to root for the scorned and jazz-naïve lover as a “true” love. The uncontroversial nature of such distinctions arises from a public understanding and reification of love as concept and institution. It allows us to react similarly to such questions wherever they arise — in a cultural production or on the Twitter timeline. We extend this judgement to stalkers who spend weeks combing the pages of love interests and suddenly developing similar interests, to the “strategically positioned”, and all similar actors who deliberately and painstakingly manufacture the initial sparks of love. So that while it is presumptuous to believe oneself capable of definitively defining what love is, I am encouraged to proselytize about the topic because of the communal understandings of “true” love from which individuals draw templates and inspiration. While this proposed central repository is by no means static and expands as storytellers, musicians, and journalists make new arguments for underreported types of love, not every argument is accepted. Love contrived, or subtly or overtly coerced falls into this rejected category in the public eye. The systematized deliberation of intentional love forces it into this category as well. I relate these sentiments to a friend in the cadre of the intentional and he suggests “making […] friends genuinely” that is, in a manner not akin to scheming, and then “establish[ing] ways of keeping them”. But why can’t we enter platonic or romantic relationships genuinely, and proceed genuinely as well?

I am reminded, now, of a game early-stage lovers play where they prod each other to reveal the exact root of the love they profess. One party lists, say, five qualities in the other and the other reverts that “sooooooooooo, if another person with those five qualities were to materialize, you’ll love them too?”. The listing lover scrambles for more words and tries to qualify their list, tries to make the other see that they are the only possible solution to the equation of their love. But this is merely a game. No one can be described without referring to qualities randomly distributed in the population. The only escape would be to say “I love you because of your DNA” but the creative lover would simply invoke a hypothetical clone and ask if the lover would love that as well. Before I stray too long, let me get to the crux of what I’m trying to argue — in every equation describing a love, there is a magical element that cannot be articulated. In support of this assertion, consider that with old lovers, physical attributes fade, behavioral traits change, and memories made together erode and love seems to persist regardless. Consider that the “specs” we swear by occasionally appear, and the spark of love does not accompany them. Consider that the “icks” we decry crop up repeatedly, and love papers over them.

If the foregoing is the case, how can we even begin to create intentional programs in love when we are missing the key variable that would allow us truly describe our love? Won’t our small assumptions about the nature of our love and how to preserve it, over years, snowball into a giant error in the maths? The programmatic approach that the gospel of intentional love promotes reminds me of Spike Jonze’s 2013 film “Her” in which the protagonist falls in love with an AI virtual assistant. Take a moment to imagine this kind of love, privy — in addition to what is shared through conversation — to all our musical and pornographic preferences, privy to confidential e-mails, medical records, dream vacations, and all that can be revealed at the interface between man and device. Won’t such a robot be the most intentional of lovers? Later in the film, the AI reveals to the protagonist that she is, in fact, in similar relationships with thousands of people. When love is reduced to algorithms fed with data about “how we like to be loved”, “how we like to be touched”, and other theses about our (former) selves, don’t we obtain an unoriginal version of love that can be doled out by AI and bureaucrats? By actively choosing intention, don’t we miss the opportunity for self-rediscovery in love? Don’t we discount the incalculable influence of luck and magic? Don’t we reject the romantic which is often diametrically opposed to the practical? The age-old phrase about the beginning of love describes a “fall in[to] love”. From whence does this need to descend into the ditch of love with a sturdy ladder, a helmet, a shovel, and headlights arise?

But I am not attempting to propose rules on how to proceed after the miracle of love. I am simply trying to uncover underlying patterns in intentional love that are innately antithetical to the very idea of romance. The intentional lover sets a reminder to call their lover at 3:00pm every day. The conventional lover calls when they ache to hear their lover’s voice. In both cases, a call is placed. But are they the same? Is the difference not as clear as that between a chore and an interest? The conventional lover uses “us” frequently in discussions with their lover almost instinctively. The intentional lover has learnt, at a seminar or on a podcast, that using “us” frequently in discussions fosters a feeling of belonging in a relationship. In both cases, the recipient “awwwns”. But are they the same? Many such comparisons can be made between intentional and conventional love in which the actions are similar but the impetus behind them seriously differ. I am reminded of a line from Carrie Rudzinski’s “Dreams” — “the trick of love is that it is a decision as much as a feeling”. I have wrestled with the proposition of this line for years and finally believe the two ideas to be fundamentally incompatible, that there is a choice to be made between decision-based love and love as a feeling, that is, a full-body reaction.

Not all intentional lovers can, however, be painted with a Machiavellian brush. There is the consideration that intention is an instinct of the times. That we are unintentionally more intentional. That the scientists touting theories about neurotransmitters and brains in love, have led us to trivialize the incalculability of love. That among the sea of self-help books addressing everything from financial success to interpersonal relationships, the idea that even love can be optimized by simple rules and practices has taken root. And who am I to try and stem the tide of history if it decides to flow in this direction? All I can do is call for a recognition of the shift. That if intentional love holds, we must pronounce, in Nietzschean fashion, that wahre liebe ist tott and we have killed it.

Acknowledgements: Hassan, for helpful conversations on the topic. Gbemisola and Kemi, for edits.