The saying goes, “Leave the best for last.”

Sounds easy. Sounds like something anyone would enjoy. But there is one problem: that would require logic and discipline, which means “game over” for the majority of us. Because let’s face it: we just don’t have either when it comes to pleasing ourselves and giving ourselves happiness and joy.

Everyone knows that the basis—the very foundation of a great relationship—is communication and discipline. We have heard it a million times before, but that is not where we start, is it? Instead, we go immediately to the one thing that shuts down logic, communication, and discipline. The very thing that blinds us and makes us obsessed and crazy: sex.

We base all our feelings and emotions on that. Sex gives us the “appearance” of happiness or a real connection. Sex brings us so close to each other that we completely ignore everything else that actually can bring us close to each other. It enables us to justify things that we would otherwise quite possibly see as “deal breakers.”

Sex makes us skip to the middle of the book, ignoring how the story evolved, who the characters are, understanding anything about them, and not even caring about the plot, story, or how it may all end up. I call this “the sex bridge.”

Sex (in my opinion) is too good, too powerful, too emotional, and it is blinding, paralyzing, and, worst of all, it completely shuts down logic.

A married or committed man (or woman) sexually aroused by a coworker or a friend or even a stranger will literally stop at nothing to ignore the devastating consequences that going through with their momentary lust will bring to their lives and those around them. They will ignore the betrayal, made-up lies, justify why they should, avoid thinking about why they shouldn’t, and go through with it while blocking every attempt by logic to get through only to reach unmeasurable amounts of guilt, regret, and shame. But the second that moment is over, they will develop hatred toward the other person and themselves.

But we wouldn’t care, because a few days later, after we have lied to everyone we love (and mostly to ourselves), promised ourselves we will never do it again, and that we just had a moment of weakness and somehow manage to forgive ourselves or behave better based on the excuse that “we are all humans,” we are back at it, because it has now stained us. We can’t forget the excitement, the freedom, the wrongness of it, and we want more. And we keep getting deeper and deeper until it destroys us.

In a relationship, it is the same. We meet someone we really enjoy being with, we court them, we buy them flowers and gifts and expensive dinners, but not with the intention of building something amazing, getting to know them, learning about them, maneuvering through their faults, showing them who we are and letting them do the same, nope. Our only reason this time is so we can have sex with them. “The rest will come later,” we convince ourselves, but it is not true. Anyone who tells me otherwise is lying.

A great relationship needs to be built like a house, upon which the foundation is not sex; the roof is sex and the roof of a house always comes last. If you put the roof up on four columns, you may think you have a house and that you are safe, but it is only a shelter that lasts in perfect weather. And now, building everything around it will be nearly impossible. How do you build a wall when the roof is already up?

The foundation, instead, should be made of things like learning about each other’s families’ backgrounds, your careers, your emotional state, meeting each other’s friends, and learning about what makes this person tick, or not.

The walls should be made of more important things that will make things stable and secure, such as our  financial stability, our political and religious beliefs, our tolerance, our patience, how we handle crisis and stress. Basically, of our values and morals.

The windows should be the trauma and the issues each one of us brings with us into the house that we may choose to escape through or close to keep us both safe.

Now, comes the roof. The last piece of the building. Now, it can fit perfectly above the rest and shelter the entire thing securely.

This process is the only process that should be followed, but it literally never is. This process should be taught in schools and churches and by our parents to encourage logic. But it just isn’t. Everything we do is based on impulse and emotion, and how has that worked for us so far? The divorce rate, according to Google, is around 53 percent. But I don’t believe that number, because I don’t know a single person who hasn’t been divorced at least once. They may be married now, but they should still count as part of the divorce figure.

I am currently in a relationship solely based on sex, and the sex has become so unbelievable that the word “love” has come into the picture without an invitation. It just popped in like a friend pops in on a Friday night unannounced. It is like one of those friends you really like who is funny and congenial and pleasant, but should he pop in just like that at any moment?

But how could I not “love” someone who makes me feel like I am wrapped in joy? Someone who caresses me and gives her body to me unconditionally and pleases me constantly?

The answer is: I can “think” that I love her, but the second sex becomes a routine, or repetitive or predictable (which it will), I will be in the company of a stranger whom I either know nothing about or who doesn’t know anything about me, leaving us no option but to “start talking,” and more likely than not, running into the things that both of us will not like and might even hate about one another.

Now, it is raining hard, the roof is leaking, and we stand with our arms crossed in opposite corners with no protection, or way to start building.

We started at the end. We blew our chances. We never build anything, to begin with.