From Adhere To Eternity

I'm a 42-year-old woman, and I've been dating the guy in the town house next door for two years. I love him, and I'd like to get married, but he has always taken me for granted. My friends say I'm too available. Yes, I'm always there for him, always picking up the phone or texting back right away, etc. Why is this a bad thing? I'm loyal and caring. Also, I'm not sure how I could be less "available" when he lives next door.

--Undervalued

Being neighbors is so convenient: "Hi...could I just borrow your stepladder until tomorrow and your vagina for, like, an hour?" Unfortunately, being ready, willing, available and conveniently located is not exactly the launchpad to romantic longing. Consider that the restaurant everybody wants to go to is the one where getting a table requires Hollywood connections plus selling two-thirds of your soul to bribe the maitre d'. The food there might not be substantially better than that of the bistro up the street. But exclusivity -- how tough it is to book a table -- elevates the apparent value of a place. There's a related concept in relationships, "the principle of least interest." The term was coined in the 1930s by a sociologist, Willard Waller, and it describes how the person who has the least interest in continuing a relationship has the most power over it. (Modern research by sociologist Susan Sprecher supports Waller's theory.) Sadly, your boyfriend most likely has a set opinion of your value, so your chances of getting more appreciation from him are probably blown. Still, it's important to note that in a relationship, you don't have to keep up the "least interest" gambit forever; you should just hold off on being full-on loyal and caring till you have somebody who's inspired to do that for you, too. Ultimately, it's important to work on yourself so you'll be "hard to get." But before you get to that point, you can act "as if" -- like by setting an alarm for four hours and returning texts then instead of 8.6 seconds after they hit your phone. It's sure to be seriously hard at first. But you could probably get into a balanced, loving relationship if you'd just adhere to "the principle of least interest": We pine for what's slightly out of reach, not what's all over us like an oil spill.