These are the cookie crumbs for my depreciating mind.

Tag: kissing

Someone asked me, What is Love?

I thought really long about how to answer it… Love is hard to define let alone know the answer, if there is one.

I often find myself watching a lot of romantic comedies in hopes that one day the end of the movie will come with some sort of revelation or reveal as to what it actually is. Funny part is, I have, over the years, comes to enjoy the romantic comedies that leave the “answer” blank more than the ones that try to package in neatly in a box for the viewers. Sure love is about the ups and downs and laughs and crying you see in the films but when the film ends, the cameras stop rolling, those fictional characters carry on in their fictional world without an audience and regardless of it filming or not their lives are still in motion. And in that moment where we can’t see it, we can’t voyeuristically watch in hopes of the end all be all answer to “what is love” that is where I believe love is. The fact that regardless of the time when the cameras are rolling and lights blasting when it all goes dark the two people left continue to live their lives together… The montages and cuts from scene to scene are now flowing minute to minute and that relationship is built for those two characters to continue forward with, no fast forward, no rewind, no pause. Just each other. To me… That is love. 

Practice Dating and Lists

When I was young, as many others did, I had created a list of “wants” for a significant other. While this seemed to work when I was 14, as I got older I realized this was a really poor way to approach dating. I guess I figured “must have beaten the third stage of the fourth boss in my favorite video game” was a bit too unrealistic.

So what better place to explore the “no expectations” ideal than online dating. Oh the irony. Online dating is starting to look to me more and more like a dating 101 class than actually meeting people to form a real relationship.

I mean between figuring out how to end poor dates without excuses, learning the different sub genres of people and personalities, and actually enjoying yourself, you have to battle through those who are using the tiny semblance of anonymity provided by these sites to boost their egos, recover from breakups, or feel they are not worthy of another counterpart due to a self perceived flaw.. so you start to subconsciously make that list again!

But unlike childhood we aren’t writing these down, making some sort of crayola version of an excel sheet to keep track, we are just experiencing it on every date we go on and either smiling or cringing when it happens.

All the different parts of people, their voices, their personalities, their likes, dislikes, outdoorsy, indoorsy, drug use, animals, kids, social skills, their height, their body size, their smile, lips, sexual compatibility, smell, pheromones, 2d pictures vs 3d in person… That silly list you had as a child starts to become a real thing but this time with dislikes, likes, loves, and deal-breakers. Yes deal-breakers are a thing, that one thing that you can literally breath out and say, “phew I don’t have to talk to 5 people at once and just 4 now that I realized this person has a deal-breaker.”

What I am starting to realize is there is a lot more that needs to match up for a match that can bring me happiness, problem is there is really no way to expedite the process. We have to experience multiple dates with these people in order to get past intuition and actual application in real life scenarios. I didn’t realize someone I liked was extremely racist until we went out for the third time and I almost crawled under the table as she berated the Chinese waitress for not speaking perfect English.

Each person we date or are attracted to usually has one or two of these things we have been adding to this fictitious list, but not all of them, making us feel unsatiated, thus afterwards deciding to move on. Not only the good but we are adding the bad too. So as we date more we are checking things off the list but simultaneously and maybe even subconsciously adding them. Because the difference is night and day when we meet someone with 90% of our indescribable experience list… Even the smallest thing like the sound of someone’s voice can have a huge impact.

Is the massive amount of dates just making us numb to seeing what is right in front of us? Or worse yet are we piling onto a metaphorical list through jaded dates? Are we putting more value on the bad than the good? It is like after each date we are rebounding and the next person who is the opposite of the last date just jumped up the list because we aren’t seeing the things that may be even worse for us.

Not to mention, going from one person that may have been a great experience to the next can change your emotional state. Stressing or depressing your ability to give the new person the same amount of uninhibited attention and creativity. You may be left feeling a little empty having fueled the person before to full. Not that you don’t want to give your all, you just have a bit of burn out. Who doesn’t want to give their best version of themselves?  But we do have to remember, that version was specific to the other person and how they made you feel. Remember that. This I believe will allow you to do your best to be who you are now, burn out and all. Let it breath it’s own life into this new moment, with this new person, however it shapes itself. Due to the numbers game that I speak about in my podcast, “Things change, make a conscious effort’, you just never know how much time will pass in between your next “good” date/experience. This can take an emotional toll and be draining. I don’t have an answer on how to not pile onto the lists of prior nor avoid the burn out, I guess speaking with the person about it as I talk about in my podcast “Embracing the Past, Verbalizing the Present” could be an option if the person seems receptive to it, being open to those reflections being your today, not defining it, but having a say in your day. Perhaps this kind of un-abated raw honesty could make these transitions easier for everyone.

I guess I am still a romantic at heart because even when recovering from the last date, or subconsciously playing Jenga with my “lists”, when I run across someone who breaks the mold of the categories and sub-genres I have put people into.. Someone whose voice makes me nervous that I might stumble my own words, but more importantly, feel comfortable enough to do so and makes me feel insecure and vulnerable from the chance that they not feel the same way, yet secure and safe to say it anyway… if you can embrace it, you realize how little your “list” intentional or not matters. You realize that the moment, the day, the want for tomorrow is now your list. Your list is defined by timehad, time spent, and time to come. You don’t see a giant scroll with your Christmas wishlist to Santa anymore, but you hear the jingle of the bell when you still believed.

I am online for dating because I believe in the idea that technology can help us to skip some of the less desirable parts of “meeting” and truly help us make great connections. If we don’t invest some time into an honest profile, aren’t we just showing our faces for a physical attraction and then drudging through figuring out what in the profile was real or a boasted version of self? How does this differ than going to a bar? We have so much more control over our “self” on these sites than we admit to and I feel like it is time we start acting on it.

But for now the list grows, changes, gets marked up, folded, bookmarked, highlighted, and the like. I cannot wait for the day that I can tear it to shreds and start actually diving into the real fun: Love.

Intimi”dating”…

Dating can be intimidating.. with all the different dates we go on, it feels like a rush to the metaphorical finish line of “pulling full attention”. So we work hard to get it, but do we compromise just being ourselves for the “win”?

It’s all about perception, state of mind, and timing.

Will tomorrow be a day of bliss or agony for you? Maybe it felt slow for you, maybe it felt fast… then we have a date and you meet me with the day on your mind. Now will my day counter or compliment yours? Will my timeline, like an inner monologue match speeds?

What if you had a date yesterday. What if it went well? Do you now compare everything I say to the good you saw from that date? Of course. It is natural. But does this affect the whole?

What if the date was terrible and it makes my mediocre seem refreshing?

Timing, perception, and general ability to be the same person we are when doing errands as we are on a date all play an important role in the first date. If we can be who we are with our friends with this new person I feel like we can avoid the ‘competitive” need to win or fight over that first “dating pool” hump. It either works or doesn’t, but many don’t like this idea because not a lot of people go naked to a first date. Most wear hard to penetrate jeans or baggy outfits to protect themselves. So in our 80’s attire wearing minds, even if one is themselves, what guarantees the other is? Nothing and I believe that is why it is frustrating. You go in as yourself and you hope the other person can be too. Is it incompatibility if one person isn’t able to get over the first date jitters? Is it incompatibility if one person is having a different perception that day? Should your potential match “date” like you date?

That’s why date two..three… four…are way more important than date one. You established a baseline and now you want to explore more. You start to dispel the “idea” of the person and see the person in front of you.  You can start to “I miss you” with an actual representation than the innate need to want.

What if having such a large pool of people to “pick” from has made us numb to what is in front of us? I find a lot of dates end with a feeling of not even knowing if I should call or text more. Not knowing how to even approach a second date, sometimes this will even apply to date two and three. It isn’t because I feel disconnected from you, actually I am quite interested, and we seem to be having a great time together, but there is this weird nonchalant feeling to it. Complacency with first dates over the idea of seeing more. As if perhaps we have to act “cool” so not to mess with our busy lives or open up to hurt. I want to say “I would love to go out together on another “date” and perhaps see if you were interested as well, more than just “cool dude” but “hmm might make a nice boyfriend, eventually, maybe, perhaps, could be, worth checking out” “ without having to say it.

(last snippet taken from above entry, “do I really miss you?”)

Love will find you… but stop hiding!

My mother always told me to “wait, be patient, love would come to you”.

If and when I hear this today, I can’t help but think this is the furthest idea from the truth. Either it is my innate need to rebel against my mother’s advice or it is my sense of self being defined enough to know that the “Love will find you” love is not the love I want. I do not strive for the staple white picket fence, mortgage, two kids, and flat screen TV 2 inches bigger than my neighbors. My white picket fence is not a place or a thing, it is a feeling, a way of being. My “hallmark family” is defined by how we live our lives and treat the world around us, not building up a literal and metaphysical wall to create a new world, isolated from the paved street filled with other’s also hiding in their own homes, feet from one another. My ideal love is able to live in the world in front of me, to be present for the ups and downs, and to feel everyday as intensely as the last.

I have written many things about two people’s timeline’s and how that can affect your ability to love and that once you do love that love alone, is not enough.

The question I often struggle with is, how do you “find” love then? We seem to be OK with it “finding” us, but someone has to be doing the hunting. If it isn’t me, who is it? If your mother taught you the same thing, what kind of stasis is love attracting us to one another in?

If you do run into a situation where there is a potential for love, should you grab it by the head or should you, like a child, pull its hair and run away giggling, in hopes that it got the clue? We often use words like “clingy” or “intense” to define those who show their true intentions up front when it comes to the topic. I come off as the little kid yelling “Mom, Mom Mom” still, but I’m just excited about most new things and people in my life. I find it to be a tricky tight rope to walk, not only for the other person and to not scare away the deer who heard the twig break, but to also keep your own guard and not get trampled by an idea of love. To keep the balance of self vs infatuation, letting it breath and grow naturally, but also adding wood to the stove before it burns out too quick. 

Finding someone else regardless of the social constraints:

  • Who pays the bill

  • Who buys the first drink

  • When you split the bill

  • who sends the first message

  • Who txts first

  • Who calls first
  • Who says I love you first

What does it all really matter or mean in the long run?

In an organic situation you will find someone attractive and then subsequently judge them based on who they are. What you do in that moment is almost irrelevant, since if and when you decide one day to spend the rest of your lives together today is going to be a distant memory. You will remember feelings, looks, exchanges. You won’t remember the taste of the food or the price of the wine. Things change, jobs change, we change… but our connections grow and to grow together surpasses the social confines of a date.

We shouldn’t put so much pressure on the first impressions or circumstances rather than the person right in front of us. The thing that is most important.

So maybe that is the answer to “letting love find you”; allowing yourself to be open, vulnerable, and safe all at once, in the moment, with the person, regardless of the place, time, or everyday needs bestowed on you as a human being. Listening to them and them to you, letting go of your body to be yourself and actually see them and you in the full picture, before making a judgement or acting on an impulse. We don’t have to meet at the pinnacle of perfection we just have to meet. Then we have to be open to communication and understanding. Then if what ever interested us at our first “spark” is strong enough as we travel along our own life lines we will actually become two people who encourage and inspire one another.

By the way feel free to replace the word love in this with relationship or partner or girlfriend or friend at any point. You will find they all fit.

Just some food for thought today.

Love is not enough.

…we often prioritize our accomplishments over the simple accomplishment of bringing a smile into someone’s life, being there for someone, or unconditionally loving. It is so important in a world that grows up on disneys ideal love and finding that prince or princess that we put a little more effort into our interactions as we would for that promotion or next client. This leads me into why love is not enough.

Every one of my last relationships has ended because “love” was enough for them. “Love” is the beginning of opening up the rest of your life. It lifts the weight of trying to find the unattainable life goal so you can do other things magical with the love, the person you have found, and your life in general.

So why stay in a relationship defined by hopelessness, I am not a hopeless romantic, I am hopeful. Should you be “waiting” for the perfect moment? Is it like where you love your job but don’t know if it is where you want to be till the end, so you stick it out waiting to see what will happen in a few years time that may push you closer, further, or to a similar path? So should you be waiting or should you be fixing, actively, or is the waiting, part of the fixing. There is no black and white to any of this shit. It is what works for you or what pushes your brain to the edge of insanity allowing you to evolve to the place you need to be.

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