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I mentally reviewed the brief overview of proteins that I had given. Next, I quickly considered the steps that were remaining to establish the metaphor I had in mind.

When I was ready, I said: "There are a number of themes which affect the relationship between a man and a woman. Consider a list of thematic possibilities consisting of trust, creativity, communication, intimacy, power, companionship, openness, spirituality, growth, love, compromise, stability, family, career, sensitivity, passion, growth, commitment, security, respect, independence and sexuality.

"Not everyone thinks about, or values, these themes in the same way. Men differ from one another in the priorities they assign to these themes. Women also differ from one another with respect to how they would hierarchically rank these themes. And, of course, men and women often differ from one another in terms of the relative importance they would give to various themes from the foregoing list.

"Thus, one person may place intimacy, trust, family, respect, compromise, sensitivity, commitment and communication toward the top of her or his preference-ranking. The same individual may put creativity, passion, independence, career, and sexuality near the bottom of his or her preference-ranking. Finally, this person may arrange themes such as stability, growth, power, security, companionship, openness, and spirituality somewhere in the middle of the preference-ranking hierarchy.

"Many people might put love at the top of their preference hierarchy. At the same time, many of us realize we may have to settle for a preference sequence that is devoid of love, even while companionship, intimacy, passion and sexuality may be present in varying degrees and combinations.

"Another individual may want to give primary emphasis to themes which, for the other person, were of only middling significance. Furthermore, themes that were toward the bottom of the first person's preference hierarchy may be moved toward the middle of the preference-ranking hierarchy by the second individual. Consequently, the themes that had been of primary importance to the first person get pushed to the bottom of the preference hierarchy by the second person.

"Obviously, the possible combinations are quite extensive. Even if two people included roughly the same kinds of themes in the top, middle and bottom portions of their preference hierarchy, the way in which these themes were organized and ranked within the three sections could be very different.

"Let us treat each of these themes- that is, openness, trust, passion, and so on, as if they were amino acids. There is, however, at least one major difference between such themes and amino acids.

"In the case of amino acids, two of the three components that make up the amino acid- namely the carboxyl and alpha-amino groups, are always the same across amino acids. Even the third component of the amino acid, the portion which distinguishes one amino acid from another, will stay the same in every instance of a particular kind or type of amino acid.

"In human beings, on the other hand, the meaning of any given theme- such as intimacy, independence, commitment, communication, respect, and so on, will often vary from individual to individual. This is not only true across individuals, it may also be true within one and the same person over time.

"However, just as any given amino acid has three components, so, too, all of the previously mentioned twenty-plus themes also could be said to have three components. More specifically, there are social/cultural, biological and hermeneutic or interpretive dimensions that interact to form the structural character of each of the twenty-plus themes which are being treated like amino acids.

"Naturally, there are certain commonalities of understanding that link, say, your understanding of themes such as commitment or independence and my understanding of these themes. These commonalities come from similarities in our biological, social and interpretive experiences. Nevertheless, because there also are differences, of varying degrees, in our biological, social and interpretive experiences, we may not understand the aforementioned twenty-plus themes in precisely the same way.

"For instance, there are some who would argue that, among other differences between men and women, the way men and women understand, and rank, the various themes which tie a relationship together differs quite significantly from one sex to the other. Whether these differences of ranking and understanding are due to inherent differences between men and women, or are due to processes of socialization, or some combination of the two, involves issues of considerable contentiousness."

Jennifer interjected with: "Is this protein theory of relationships a guy-thing?"

"Of course, it is a guy thing," I said. "After all, the inventor of this illustrious theory just happens to be a guy.

"Presumably, however," I added, "you are really probing to determine if the protein theory of relationships is typically and characteristically, if not stereo typically, the way all men or most men think. Is my presumption correct...?" I was about to say "miss", but changed it to the more politically correct: "ms." in the nick of time.

"Well, yes, I guess so," she replied.

With words of dulcet reassurance and overtones of mock hallowedness, I indicated to her: "One can only hope the truth of things is gender-neutral. On the other hand, I am open, within certain limits, to the possibility that just as, say, chains of polypeptides may come, at least in theory, in left-handed and right-handed properties of optical activity, so, too, there may be sex-based versions of reacting to, or transmitting, the unitary light of truth."

An expression of realization came over Jennifer's face. She said: "You know the famous Zen koan that asks: 'What is the sound of one hand clapping'?"

I nodded affirmatively.

"I wonder," she mused, "if anybody ever asked whether the master was talking left hand or right hand?"

Laughing, I said: "Perhaps, we should leave that issue as an exercise for the audience to work on in its spare time. Now, if you will kindly permit me to return to the far more important issues...excuse the pun...at hand."

"By all means," Jennifer murmured.

"Thank you," I said in a perfunctory sort of way. Beginning, once again, to try to finish off the effort of many idle hours, I said: "If our listening audience will remember, we left our hero back at the laboratories of the protein theory of relationships.

"When one arranges the aforementioned twenty-plus themes in a ranked order of preference, one has something which is similar to a sequence of amino acids or a polypeptide chain. We will refer to this as the primary structure of the hierarchical ranking or sequencing of one's preferences concerning themes such as security, creativity, family, career, independence, intimacy, commitment, love, etc..

"As is true in the case of polypeptide chains, the themes of a given person's preference ranking establish shared bonding arrangements with neighboring themes in the hierarchy. These bonding arrangements help give stability, as well as an over-all order, to an individual's preference rankings.

"For instance, let us suppose that the first five items in someone's preference hierarchy sequence were the following: trust, commitment, companionship, intimacy and family. Obviously, the issue of trust will share certain bonds of commonality with commitment, and the theme of commitment will, in turn, share links of various kinds with both of its neighbors: trust and companionship. This sort of shared bonds or links will continue all the way down the preference hierarchy sequence.

"In addition to the shared bonding arrangements among neighboring themes within a preference hierarchy ranking or sequencing, there, also, are various dynamic arrangements among the themes in different portions of a preference sequencing. This kind of interaction might be likened to the dynamics that goes on within a polypeptide chain.

"More specifically, depending on the character of a given preference sequencing, different parts of the primary structure of an individual's ranking of preferences will enter into dynamic relationships, of one kind or another, with each other, as a result of an individual's personal history, personality traits, interests and so on. Thus, themes from the top portion of one's preference hierarchy will be drawn toward, and/or repelled by, other themes in the middle and bottom portions of one's preference sequence, and vice versa.

"For example, one individual's preference hierarchy sequence might show certain links of attraction and/or repulsion among, say, themes of security, compromise, stability and respect which are distributed, in some fashion, across that person's preference sequence. The fact a given theme appears in the middle or bottom portion of a preference hierarchy doesn't necessarily mean this theme will be antagonistic to, or opposite from, those themes that appear higher up, or lower down, in the hierarchy.

"Sometimes, the themes which are most important to one, are incompatible with, or conflict with, one another. Sometimes, one will consider one theme as being more important than another theme, and, as a result, the second theme will get pushed toward the bottom of the hierarchy, but not necessarily because of inherent conflicts between the two.

"The second theme just may not be that important to one's happiness or peace of mind or whatever. Nonetheless, there still may be various kinds of resonances and secondary or tertiary links, both positive and negative, between themes in different parts of the preference hierarchy. Depending on the character of an individual's preference hierarchy, different patterns of attraction and repulsion throughout the preference hierarchy sequence are possible.

"These patterns would be the basis of what one could envision as a set of dynamic folding arrangements that are observed in any given preference hierarchy sequencing. However, unlike the three-dimensional folding patterns of proteins, the folding patterns of a preference hierarchy sequence would be far more complex and could not be restricted to just three spatial dimensions. Nevertheless, as far as the protein-theory of relationships is concerned, this multi-dimensional pattern would still constitute the tertiary structure of a person's preference hierarchy sequence."

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