Avoid Dating a Sociopath

Sociopaths are common in today's dating scene. You may even be dating one right now! According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSMMD) a sociopath is "a person with a psychopathic personality who's behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense or moral responsibility or social conscience." But how does sociopath behavior manifest itself?

1. Sociopaths lie....A LOT. They're usually very believable liars and rarely tell the truth. They aren't concerned with what's real or truthful and that makes it easier for them to deceive you.
2. Sociopaths lack remorse or guilt. They don't have empathy for other people's feelings. They don't take responsibility for their actions or accept blame.
3. Sociopaths are incapable of feeling real love. Because sociopaths make more enemies than friends, they don't give or receive love easily. Their deceit usually runs in their relationships.
4. Sociopaths are irresponsible. They're usually unreliable and often oblivious to the harm or disappointment they cause others.
5. Sociopaths are impulsive. They often exhibit behaviors of promiscuity, infidelity, alcohol abuse, yada, yada.

Are you dating a sociopath?

Happy People

It's a common belief that positive thinking leads to a happier healthier life. As children we're told to smile and be cheerful and put on a happy face. As adults we're told to look on the bright side, to make lemonade and see glasses as half full. Sometimes reality can get in the way of our ability to act the happy part. Your health can fail, boyfriends can cheat, friends can disappoint. It's in these moments when you just want to get real, drop the act and be your true scared unhappy self. Ask most people what they want out of life and the answer's simple...to be happy. Maybe it's this expectation of wanting to be happy that just keeps us from ever getting there. Maybe the more we try and will ourselves to states of bliss, the more confused we get to the point where we don't recognize ourselves. Instead we just keep smiling trying like hell to be the happy people we wish we were, until eventually it hits us. It's been there all along. Not in our dreams and hopes but in the known, the comfortable, the familiar....

New History

We live in a world of constant progress and forward motion. Stand still for a second and you'll get left behind. As hard as we try to move forward, as tempting as it is to never look back, the past always comes back to bite us in the ass. As history shows us again and again, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Sometimes the past is something you just can't let go of and sometimes the past is something we'll do anything to forget. And there's times we learn something new about the past that changes everything we know about the present.

Myths and Relationships

Do modern-day singles need modern day myths just so they can date? Heroes, boyfriends, cyclops and divorced guys. Are they really that different? The primitive Greeks clung desperately to myths to explain the random hopeless of their, at times, miserable lives. Do modern-day singles need modern-day myths just to help us get through our random and sometimes miserable relationships? Are we willing to believe anything to date?

In every myth there comes a time when mere mortals are given a test. The way they respond usually determines whether they find paradise or find themselves tied to a big rock for all eternity. In turn, I feel at some point my mystified myths and relationships will become real as I don't want to be tied to a big rock for all eternity.

August 16, 2007

What Are You Waiting For?

You have what it takes to change your life or even your world. So what's stopping you? Quit making excuses and embrace your power. Life could pass you by while you wait for just the right time.

Imagine having the power to step forward and change anything we want to change; to have a point of view, stand up firmly for it and be strong. Sounds simple and yet the most confident among us give away that power from time to time. It's not because we're weak or because our courage fails us; it's because we don't know how strong we really are. Even if we get a glimmer of our true grit, we back off.

When the opportunity presents itself, take it!

September 5, 2007

Defining Moments

The Eskimo have hundreds of words for "snow." And we've invented three times that many words for "relationship." But the more words we invent, the harder it becomes to define things. In a world where you can date without sex, screw without dating and in the end keep most of your sex partners as friends long after the screwing is over, what really defines a relationship?

Maybe what ultimately defines a relationship is another relationship.

September 4, 2007

Soul Mates

It was a lovely and uneventful day. Two lattes, a newspaper, and one dating service application. It reads "Don't Let Your Soul Mate Slip Away!" It's almost a threat. It's like "We have him! He's just waiting for you, but hurry 'cause he's slipping, slipping away! Opps, there he goes!"

Soul mate. Two little words. One big concept. A belief that someone, somewhere is holding the key to your heart. All you have to do is find them. So, where is this person? And if you loved someone and it didn't work out, does that mean they weren't ever your soul mate? Were they just a runner up contestant in this game show called Happily Ever After? And as you move from age box to age box on a dating service application and the contestants get fewer and fewer, are your chances of finding your soul mate less and less?

As I sit here alone thinking and writing, I start to feel really sad. I dislike myself for saying this but it felt really sad not to have a man in my life who genuinely cares about me. No special person to wish me happy birthday. No special person to rescue me when I need to be rescued. No damn soul mate and I don't even know if I believe in soul mates.

Soul mates. Reality or torture device?

September 3, 2007

What Goes Around Comes Around

While I always ascribe thoughts about karma to the Fortune Cookie School of Psychology, does a string of bad dates equal one good one and will treating someone badly in one relationship insure that you will be treated badly in the next? Does everything that goes around really come around? And if so, will it come around to bite you in the ass? Is there a thing as "relationship karma?"

The universe may not always play fair, but at least its got a sense of humor.

September 3, 2007

Hot Child in the City

Are the teens in this day dressed like thirty-something year old women or are we trying to look like teenagers? One of us is ordering Dom Perignon while another is tooling around the town on a scooter. When you're a teenager (back in my day) all you want to do is buy beer. But once you hit 30, all you want to do is get carded. I wonder, in today's youth-obsessed culture, are the women of my generation growing into mature responsible adults or are we adults going on 13?

After little thought, I was definitely 30+ going on 30+ (haha!). But in a city like ours with its pace and its pressures, sometimes it's important to have a 13 year old moment to remember a simpler time when the best thing in life is just hanging out, listening to records and having fun with your friends in your very own house.

September 3, 2007

Drama Queens

An excerpt from that unwritten book I've not been typing....

One day in a search for unpaid bills, unanswered phone calls, unmet deadlines, you hadn't missed so much as even a teeth cleaning. Life appears to be in order. Soon you realize you're in the throes of an existential crisis. What's wrong? For the first time in your life, you're in a relationship where absolutely nothing is wrong. It's just smooth sailing. Nothing but calm seas and blue horizons as far as the eye can see. You adore each other. You have fun together. You mesh. And it feels really good.

For most, we seem to be used to the hunt and now we're in a relationship that effortless. Maybe we're just not used to being with someone who doesn't do the ever so seductive withholding dance. When things come too easy, we're suspect. Do they have to get complicated before we believe they're for real? We're raised to believe that the course of true love never runs smoothly. There always has to be obstacles in Act II before you can live happily ever after in Act III. But what happens when the obstacles aren't there? Does this mean there's something missing? Do we need drama to make a relationship work? I should think not. So why can't we get used to the effortless, smooth sailing kind of relationship to which I know there has to be such thing.


August 30, 2007