“The tingles” refers to a kind of feeling as below: you had feelings for a girl that you had never felt with any other girl. When you kissed, it was like a trip to heaven. When you saw her after an extended absence, you actually felt chill bumps. You liked everything about her. You liked the day she looked, the way she talked, the way she walked and she was especially captived by her brown eyes. You even liked her mother and volunteered to paint her house - anything to let this girl know how much you loved her. You could not imagine any other girl being more wonderful than her. You think she had the same thoughts and feelings about you.
When encountering “the tingles”, you get warm, bubbly, tingly feelings for a member of the opporsite sex. It is the tingles that motivate us to go out for a hamburger with him/her. Sometimes we lose the tingles on the first date. We find out something about them that simply shuts our emotions down. The next time they invite us for a hamburger, we are not hungry. However, in other relationships, the more we are together, the tinglier the feeling. Before long, we find ourselves thinking about them day and night. Our thoughts are obsessive in nature. We see them as the most wonderful, exciting person we have ever known. We want to be together every possible moment. We dream of sharing the rest of our lives making each other happy.
The tingles are important. They are real, and their survival should be favored of. But they are not the basis for a satisfactory marriage. It doesn’t mean that one should marry without the tingles. Those warm, excited feelings, the chill bumps, that sense of acceptance, the excitment of touch that make up the tingles serve as the cherry on top of the sundae. But you cannot have a sundae with only the cherry. Many other factors must be a vital consideration in making a decision about marriage.
Being in love is an emotional and obsessive experience. However, emotions change and obsessions fade. Research indicates that the average life span of the “in love” obsession is two years. For some it may last a bit longer; for some, a bit less. But the average is two years. Then we come down off the emotional high and those aspects of life that we disregarded in our euphoria begin to become important. Our differences begin to emerge and we often find ourselves arguing with the person whom we once thought to be perfect. We have now discovered for ourselves that being in love is not the foundation for a happy marriage.
The primary purpose of dating is to get to know each other and to examine the intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual and physical foundations for marriage. Only then are you able to make a wise decision-to marry or not to marry.
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