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

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

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

Serial Dating 101

Not having been on a dating website in forever, much less dating at all, I browsed one for a few days. It never fails. I seem to attract the stalker, or the now "serial dater". A more politically correct term for serial dater would the infamous "player"! There's so many people out there, men and women, who engage in this process of systematically dating an obscene amount of people in a short span of time. There's no limitation whatsoever when it comes to serial dating, including Internet dating, long distance flirtation, phone service dating, blind dating, bar dating, match making, one night stands, friends with benefits and personal ad surfing. How can people find their mate with insatiable amounts of dating with no real intention of finding true love? Dating. It's over-freakin' rated.

What Women Want

Being desired is extremely arousing for women. The reason for that is that being desired means that a man doesn't just want to have sex. He wants to have sex with you. If you look at how women behave and what they spend their time, energy and lots of money on, it's on desire-creating behaviors rather than on try to get sex.

One of the most common fantasies when it comes to women and sex is to be dominated by a desirable man. The fantasy only holds if you're attracted to the man who is dominating you. It's not about coercion or violence. When women talk about domination, what they're trying to communicate is 'I was so wanted by someone I wanted'.

One of the most complicated aspects of female desire is that women want different things at different times. Women are complicated but I don't think they're confused. They want to be desired sometimes. Sometimes they also just want sex. They want a combination of things. It's like a 'mating' game.

And speaking of the 'mating' game.....there's alot in a kiss. You're seeing, smelling, touching, tasting and hearing. All of your senses are engaged. During a kiss, different regions are our brains are stimulated. Euphoria, elation, focused attention. The first kiss is the beginning of a long, wonderful relationship or the end of it. You can learn alot from a kiss!

What do women want? To be desired.

Kiss and Don't Tell Part 3

I have moved the couch!

Kiss and Don't Tell Part 2

It really wasn't tricky sharing my space at all. It felt good to have company, something that I haven't experienced in twelve years. Yes, twelve years! That number of years makes me wonder if there's something wrong with me. How can I be so selective when it comes to relationships is beyond me. I haven't quite figured it out. Maybe I will in the next twelve years to come.

As of now, the couch has been moved (but it was moved weeks ago), but I don't feel like doing laundry or going back to life as usual. However silly this may sound, I feel like I'm in mourning.

Power Dynamics

Power dynamics. From the earliest age, we grow up with them. Parent/child. Teacher/student. But as we get older, relationships become more complicated, less easily defined. We would like to image equality amongst friends, with spouses. Are we just fooling ourselves? You tell me, in the Dance of Life is it possible to have two equal partners or does someone always have to take the lead?

We are the daughters of a feminist movement. Taught from an early age that nothing can stop us. That we can rise as high and achieve as much as any man and in some ways that's true, we have taken great strides stepping over traditional gender roles and going after and getting exactly what we want. But part of being powerful is knowing when to take the back seat and look at life from another prospective. The thing is that in a relationship there is no CEO. It's a delicate dance, a push and pull, a back and forth, an up and down, but we endure because at the end of the day we don't want to go it alone. And when we find someone, a partner, we compromise, loving everything we can and putting blinders on to everything else, because love isn't perfect but it's the really great imperfect love that keeps us evolving, happy. In the end, isn't that what life's all about?

Kiss and Don't Tell

It seems that everyone is taking in a guest these days. It’s a tricky thing sharing your space whether by choice or circumstance. We all want to bend over backwards to make our guest feel at home but what happens when our home stops being our own? How do you find space for yourself? It is possible to let someone in and still keep your distance?

Opening your door to someone is in many ways like opening your heart. It’s not always easy. Some of us aren’t used to opening up. It can hurt, but we do what we can for our guests. We try to be hospitable, giving them whatever they desire. Sometimes all you can do is help them feel better while they wait to return home and soon enough the guest is gone leaving us to move the couch, do the laundry, go back to our lives as usual….if that’s possible. But what happens if you don’t want to move the couch, do laundry and go back to life as usual?