In life there will be a time when some of us will choose to settle down with the person we love. The person will be someone we want to spend the rest of our lives with and conquer the hardships and challenges that will inevitably arise. That person is traditionally bound to you through a ceremony.

Marriage is a serious commitment made between you and your spouse. It’s a contract, if you will. You promise to cherish that person for as long as you live, to share in triumphs as well as in grief. In this marriage, you devote all of yourself to your significant other. This devotion is the reason why being pure before marriage is terribly important.

Yet, the idea of having only one partner before committing to just one may not sound appealing to some. However, there is an emotional determent to being promiscuous before tying the knot. The concept of sex is not casual. It is an act that seals a bond between two people. Sex is an emotional connection where you strip yourself of all your walls and allow another person to share in your deepest privacies.

Considering sex a nonchalant rendezvous demeans sex’s meaning and what it is supposed to accomplish. The bond that sex creates loses its value the more times it is done. The more partners you have, the more of yourself you leave behind. There is then less you have to offer the person you want to spend the rest of your life with.

As society has evolved, the way we decide to love and how we accomplish that love has changed. Humans have determined many names for how we love. The ideas that we can have multiple partners or have affairs or get divorces are all accepted. Not only is sex deemed casual, but marriage is deemed obsolete.

The idea that there are plenty of ways to love could sound appealing to those looking to experiment. Psychologists like to put names to the different forms of love that we have come to recognize. For example, polyamory — a form of love with multiple partners — is a practice that we have started to acknowledge in society.

Polyamory is a relationship philosophy that recognizes “people’s capacity to share and multiply their love in honest and consensual ways.” Some authors have suggested that polyamory might be a broadly feminist way of conducting relationships, empowering women to move away from the oppressive regime of compulsory heterosexual monogamy (Ritchie, Ani and Barker, Meg (2005)).

The issue I see with this form of love is the lack of fulfillment. Something is missing. The idea that you have to share your intimate self with more than one person is incomprehensible to me. It certainly doesn’t seem to be a form of love that could be kept up for a long period of time.

The natural emotions, like jealousy, that humans experience are unavoidable. There would more than likely come a time when the facade could not be held in place. Personally, the feeling of always searching for something, never being satisfied with only one person and having to keep up with multiple relationships seems exhausting.

However, there was a point in my life — as I’m sure many others have experienced — when I considered the notion of having multiple sexual relationships before I finally settled down with my one and only. The question I asked myself was, “how could I be sure that I would be happy with this one person sexually for the rest of my life?”

I entertained that idea for a time, until I came to the conclusion that when I finally meet the one I want to spend the rest of my life with, the intimacies won’t matter. Or, at least, the one I choose to be with forever will be more than satisfactory in that department. And so, waiting for that one person would be worth it.

“You only need one man to love you. But him to love you free like a wildfire, crazy like the moon, always like tomorrow, sudden like an inhale and overcoming like the tides. Only one man and all of this,” said C. Joybell C.

Because there is a significant importance in building a strong relationship and taking the time to find that perfect someone as you journey down the path known as life, there are other people you will meet along the way, but intimate encounters aren’t necessary to get to know them.

I’m not saying that you can’t have multiple relationships while you are trying to figure life out and find that special someone you want to spend the rest of your life with. It’s the sexual part of those initial relationships that can be done away with.