While in Montreal, our days are usually spent walking and our nights on St-Laurent. Frankly, there’s nothing sexier than a humid summer night in that City.

There’s a certain air to Montreal, the language, the sense of style, the attitude that differs from any other part of Canada. There is no urgency in action and no reaction that isn’t slightly languid. On summer evenings, that turns everything sensual.

More intriguing is that, for the most part, no one is quite shy, least of all lovers.

Watching couples walk by, I couldn’t help but wonder What is it that draws and then keeps people together?

So I started polling my friends, both male and female.

Almost certainly, all answers began with something akin to “sexual chemistry, obviously…”

When I asked what that meant, no one could go beyond the words “physical attraction, obviously”.

And so, beyond my immediate distaste for the word ‘obvious’, I started thinking about ‘sexual chemistry’. The reality is, there’s absolutely nothing obvious about sexual chemistry. That it is ambiguous never really occurs to anyone, but rather, they focus on its necessity.

And, it is most definitely a necessity. Nothing can transpire if there is no immediate and almost caustic sexual chemistry. It won’t happen all too often in our lives, it may only happen a number of times; it goes beyond visual appreciation and reaches into something a lot more palpable. The more urgency there is in that initial explosion, the more likely the relationship will at least begin on the right path.

If it were a means of physical attraction and nothing more, then we’d be drawn to thousands of individuals in our lifetime, no one in particular standing out. No one unique creature to whom we keep returning, at least in our thoughts (to return on nothing more than a physical level diminishes this to a booty call).

Personally, I’ve yet to have the pleasure of such an experience. There are gorgeous men everywhere, but not one has been able to keep my attention for very long; terrible, really, how quickly I get bored. But I understand this is because God’s letting me save all of that energy for one very special man. It’ll be interesting when I finally do meet him.

I expect that it will be immediate, even if the relationship itself is not. (Luckily, life isn’t scripted to fit into a 1.5 hour romantic comedy.) I don’t expect that he will be the most beautiful man I have ever laid eyes on, nor do I expect to be the most beautiful woman he’s ever laid eyes on. But, I do expect that seeing one another through the others’ eyes is when we’ll both reach our full potential.

Look for a certain energy in which you want to be enveloped. If you’re any level of mature, then you should be able to read the energy of the person in front of you; if you find yourself poised, relaxed, attentive, attracted, intrigued and wanting to share in that energy then don’t let that person walk away from you.

And to all men: if you choose to turn your back on a woman because she is the kind who deserves nothing less than everything, then recall Napoleon’s Fortune is like a woman – if you miss her today, think not to find her tomorrow, you tool.

Ultimately, it’s that energy which makes people stay together: The ability to work through one another to reach their individual as well as their combined potential. And since we can never reach our complete potential, that process is unbroken and takes the suited lovers with it. Always.

Now. Go buy Natacha Atlas’ Something Dangerous and listen to ’Quand je ferme les yeux’ before any of the other tracks.