For a man who wants to take a woman in hand, or a woman who wants to be taken in hand, a conventional equal relationship can feel like a living death – a dull, grey, flat, boring blankness. Something is missing: verve, vitality, life. Something is missing: power, passion, concentrated focus, force. Something is missing: intensity. A person without any intensity is not a person I could be with. It is not that intensity alone is enough. There are plenty of bad intense people – narcissists, psychos, horribly co-dependent types, individuals whose intensity is not a force for good. It would not do to end up with one of those people. But if you need intensity in a person, you need it. “How foolish you are to require this!” shriek our critics. “At this rate you'll be single and celibate for life!” they gloat.

What these people fail to appreciate is that not everyone shares their particular preferences in life. For some of us, the alternative to being with a person who has intensity is not a relationship with a person who lacks intensity, but no relationship at all until the day we die. That, at any rate, is my preference. And I know other folk feel the same way, though we may sometimes try to feel differently. We try to squeeze ourselves into the conventional box with a conventional person who is happy in a conventional relationship, and it fails. We tell ourselves not to be so silly, to stop needing a relationship, to be thankful for what we have, or to stop rejecting potential mates because they do not have the intensity and desires of a person. We beat ourselves up for wanting what we want and for being who we are, just like some try to overcome their desire to be with someone they find attractive instead of someone they find repulsive. Some (very misguidedly) tell themselves that they are being “too superficial” in caring about physical attraction. We tell ourselves that we shouldn't want a relationship. But what folly it is to pretend not to care about these things. How much worse it is to delude ourselves – how much worse for all concerned.

Many of us have tried to create relationships with persons who lack the fire – and failed. If you hardly ever meet anyone with the necessary intensity, you might begin to wonder if such individuals exist. You might wonder whether and the thousands of people reading and posting on are all a figment of your fevered imagination. If the only intense individuals you meet are self-serving narcissists or crazy bunny boiler types, you might begin to wonder if your desire for a relationship is entirely healthy. You might try to be happy with the person next door who is, after all, nice – except that there's something missing: intensity.

But then you meet someone who is kind and sane and reasonable, like the person next door, but who also has intensity and Taken In Hand tendencies that thrill you. And then you remember why you can't settle for the person next door. Then you know with renewed conviction why you feel so strongly that you would rather be single and celibate for life than settle for a conventional equal relationship with the person next door. Even if the relationship with the intense but sane and kind person does not work out, it can be a source of joy for you, helping you keep clearly in mind what you want.

When a person is right for you, they feel right for you. They add vibrancy and joy to your life, as you do to theirs; they do not make you feel flat, bored, annoyed with yourself for failing to feel what you are supposed to feel, or any other such depressing things. They do not seem dull, numb, flat, lifeless. When a person is right for you, you do not have a nagging feeling that something is missing – and neither do they. The person may well be full of faults; there may be many problems; but they feel right nevertheless. This is not to say that you should ignore glaring faults and commit yourself to someone unworthy on the basis on a foolhardy romantic notion that if it feels right it is right. But if it does not feel right, it isn't right. And if you are the kind of person who likes a bit of intensity in your relationship, and would rather be single and celibate until the day you die if you never meet someone who has that quality, then you might understand my title: Give me intensity or give me death!

Almost all of my recent "relationships" felt OK, but none of them had that special "zing" or "spark". They were just OK, and I had that nearly depressing feeling of "why bother?", which, of course, led to the rapid end of those "relationships". It's very difficult to find anyone who feels alive in an overwhelming sea of zombies.

Intensity, that's what's missing. If you need it, you need it: why pretend you don't, why conform to the "norm"? Saying that though, what does one do when one's partner is "conventional and safe", the marriage is reasonably good and has no "real" reason to leave the marriage? I guess one has to learn to deny one's own feelings. I've been divorced once already, I don't really want to go through it all again. Gee, I feel in a right quandary now. I'm with a good man, we are happy in our own way, but it lacks intensity and that "spark", we are very, very comfortable with each other, (we've been together 8 years, married 5), both in our mid 40's & 50's. I have a choice to leave and find someone that is "right" for me, or be on my own which I'd be ok with (though lonely at times) or stay with my husband who is a good, kind, caring man though safe and "normal", and I know he does love me, though our love is not a passionate love, but a brother/sister, good friends type love (if that makes sense)? There is no denying there is a love between us.

...you have two choices: (1) End it; (2) Find a way to make it work for the two of you. If you choose (2), it follows that doing things that make you less happy in the relationship, more dissatisfied, more frustrated, not so nice to your spouse, are a huge mistake. Falling between the two stools is a sure way to misery. Constantly wanting the impossible is antirational and a mistake. If your man is completely incapable of being the man in a Taken In Hand relationship, banging your head against a brick wall is not going to help. You need to accept it and move on positively from there, not waste time trying to achieve the impossible. Focus on the good things you DO have with him, not the things he lacks. That is the way to become happier with him. That is -- if it really is as hopeless as all that. To anyone in this situation, are you sure you are judging these things correctly? Could it be that you are not seeing the potential or actuality that is there? This happens all the time in marriages. Then someone else comes along who CAN see what you can't, and the spouse is away with the new person whose view is so much more positive. But if it really isn't going to happen, and you want not to be completely miserable for ever, and you do not want to end it, for goodness sake stop reading this site and fantasising about being with a different kind of man, and put all your focus and love and attention and positive regard on the man you have. That is the only way to give yourself a chance of feeling better, in my opinion.