Their difficulty with interpersonal intelligence may be yet
another reason some high sensation-seekers struggle with long-
term relationships and have higher divorce rates and lower rela-
tionship satisfaction than average or low sensation-seekers.^26
It may sound as though I’m painting a grim picture of the
high sensation-seeking person in romantic relationships. Some
sensation-seekers may just see love and sex differently than the
rest of us do. It might also mean that couples who are interested in
a long-term commitment could benefit from finding shared inter-
ests that can lead to excitement and discovery for both people. This
may be particularly important for high sensation-seekers with high
boredom susceptibility.
At first the idea that high sensation-seekers may have strug-
gles with emotional intelligence seems counter to the evidence that
they have more empathy in intercultural communications, but
that’s just it. They seem to only have higher levels of empathy
with people who are culturally different from them. It seems that
the more culturally similar you are to a high sensation-seeker, the
less likely they may focus on what your experience might be.Intense Experiences Leads to Intense Love
While some high sensation-seekers have a proclivity to promiscu-
ity, this doesn’t mean they all remain single or in serial monoga-
mous relationships. I’ve met many high sensation-seekers who
successfully maintain deep and meaningful long-term relation-
ships. Take Kris and Jess, a couple of sensation-seekers in their
early thirties. They are academic linguists who engage in what
they call “outdoor shenanigans” when they aren’t researching,
writing, or teaching classes. These shenanigans include alpine
climbing, sport climbing (with ropes), and bouldering. Bouldering
involves scaling along a house-sized rock with no ropes, but there
are pads underneath to soften the fall.
“Fall?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah, there’s lots of falling involved,” Jess offered
emphatically.
Jess and Kris have been married for over ten years and they
couldn’t be happier or more attuned to each other, in fact they
often finish each other’s sentences. They were both interested in
climbing, skiing, and hiking since long before they met. Their first107 / The Relationships of High Sensation-SeekersDownloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:21:35, subject to the Cambridge