but it also requires a certain boredom tolerance – something some
sensation-seekers just aren’t good at. Being with the same
person year after year just doesn’t provide the same thrill that
hunting for a new relationship delivers.
Some sensation-seekers find they are pretty good at the first
part but may struggle with the second. The thrill of the hunt for
a new relationship might not deliver the same excitement as being
with the same person year after year. This doesn’t mean that they
are doomed to a life of solitude or serial monogamy. It might mean
that some sensation-seekers with high boredom susceptibility who
want a long-term relationship may need to find the shared excite-
ment and discovery only people in long-term committed relation-
ships can have together.
High sensation-seekers may be more likely to keep their
options open to have as many of those new and interesting activ-
ities available to them as possible.^19 A total of 986 participants filled
out Zuckerman’s sensation-seeking survey and also filled out
Robert Franken’s “Keeping Your Options Open Scale,” which mea-
sured a tendency to put off making commitments, act impulsively,
and break commitments if something more interesting comes up.
Not surprisingly, sensation-seekers have a general disposition to
keep their options open and were more likely to indicate that they
“like to maintain the option of being able to do what I want when
I want even if people think I’m undependable.” They may do this for
relationships as well.
Remember Anne, the woman inChapter 3who dropped
everything, gave up her apartment, and took off for Samoa on
a whim? She told me that she loves skydiving, zip-lining, and flying
in helicopters (preferably over active volcanos). She chuckled when
I asked her about jumping out of perfectly good planes. “My main
opponent in everyday life is boredom, and high sensation-seekers
do not only jump out of perfectly good planes,” she told me. “I also
leave perfectly good jobs, homes, and relationships, because I get
bored. It definitely happens in my sex life. I do seem to get bored
with the same partners after a period of time, no matter how
exciting it is. Two years is usually the cut off. Now, I don’t want to
give you the wrong idea. That doesn’t mean that I cheat on anyone.
It’s more like I’m a serial monogamist. If that makes sense.”
It’s probably obvious that sensation-seeking would predict
certain things about an individual’s sex life. Those with high sensa-
tion-seeking personalities seek greater amounts and more intense104 / Buzz!Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:21:35, subject to the Cambridge