Filed under: Golf & Tennis
I scoured the web searching for a good, scientific definition of love addiction, but it was tough to find. I did find something on loveaddicts.org with 40 questions to know whether or not you're a love addict. The site was created by a counselor who gives help to those who want it. She even offers a 12-step program to help those who are addicted to love.
I find it plausible that love addiction is a very real phenomenon. I just wonder if confessing to some sort of addiction publicly is the celebrity's way to find excuses for embarrassing behavior. We know that Tiger went to counseling for sex addiction after his mistress list was revealed, and now Rachel says that she was an addicted too. Perhaps I am addicted to something; I just need to figure out what it is so that I can talk about it on CNN.
My own perception of love addiction had been those cases where a person chases one relationship after another the way a little kid keeps putting new pieces of chewing gum in his mouth. When the sugar has been drained out of the last piece, he simply gets another one. The high from falling in love is typically more interesting than the monotony that can follow later on down the road. In fact, I've seen some married couples where at least one partner stays married, but enjoys repeatedly falling in love with other people. In fact, there can sometimes be a disconnect between the person we love, the person we're married to, and the person we want to have sex with. That's what can make life so complicated.
One thing we can say about Rachel Uchitel is that she was probably the smartest of all of Tiger's mistresses. She was the first one to go public and the only one to get royally paid. Woods paid Uchitel a reported $10 million to keep quiet about their affair, with little incentives thrown in, sort of like an NBA contract for jumpoffs. Since that time, she has been as quiet as a piece of fried chicken, not saying a word about what happened. Why Tiger would pay a woman so much money to keep a secret is beyond me, but that's the way the ball bounces in the world of celebrity love, protecting endorsements and keeping the world from knowing your freaky side.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action Resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.