Then you sit down and bang out a workable arrangement for the next 50 years of your life. Here's where the pressure comes in. I suspect arranged marriages were some cultural defense mechanism against our own ambitions. They just don't work that way. It's easy to believe in a religion, but far harder to observe all its practices.
Relationships require so much work.
I'm not sure, but I think it involves a lot of discussions, arguments, tears, and phrases that don't look good tattooed on a plush bear's heart-shaped chest. This Valentine's Day, let's take all those expensive arrows away from Cupid, sit him down, and give him some relationship counseling. It's not glamorous, but we're getting too old for glamour, and all religions get amended sooner or later. It probably won't make a good Disney movie, but it just might, in the long run, make us happy. David Nurenberg, who grew up in Northampton, teaches high school English in Concord.