Seeking Questions from Women about Guys

What perplexes you?  What are you thinking and what do you wonder about us?  I am here to help!  Comment your questions and let this Communication Guy have a go at it.

 

Tired of sleeping alone but don’t want to be in a full-blown committed relationship

Is it possible others are in the same situation?  We would like to date but that’s all.  A little bit of night cuddling, but not with any aim toward a “committed relationship”.  

Remember when we were in school, and we dated all the time?  There might be some going steady, but it never felt like it was a trial for a long-term relationship necessarily.

When you get older, (I’m in my mid-40s)  it seems like everyone wants to size you up for your “long-term potential”.  I don’t want that.  

I met a woman who said she doesn’t want to start a relationship.  I said, “I just wanted to start with a dinner.”  Why is that so impossible?  Why can’t we just get together for fun?  Take away some of the goal and live in the now.

I want someone in my bed tonight.  But not necessarily tomorrow night.  But the weekend’s coming.

 

Still out here, still looking, still alone…

How long do we wait before we start to settle for something less than what our ideal mate is?  if life is meant to be shared, does it matter that it is with the most perfect person for us?  Or is a person more important than the perfection of that one true love?

Personally, I think it DOES matter that we not settle for less and agree to be alone until we find that one person who is really the right one for us.  I believe she/he is out there.

But as Tom Petty sings, the waiting is the hardest part.

 

Where to go to find that person who’s still a stranger

We want that person to be a stranger no longer.  When we meet, we will have realized the bumps and bruises we had on the way led us to them. 

But how many bumps do we need?  If it’s not happening, is that the world telling us we are not ready? 

Or could it be that the OTHER PERSON is not ready, and we have to wait some more?  Maybe that’s it.  Maybe we don’t know why if we feel ready, nothing is happening.  But maybe we have to be patient for them. 

I don’t like the waiting, but I realize that is part of it.  We cannot force this stranger into our lives, we have to let them in when the time is right and they enter our sphere of consciousness.

Maybe we are ready, but not ready for them.  Maybe it’s the same for them, too, with us.  We just have to trust that they’re on their way. 

When you arrive, I’m right here!

 

Stop Waiting, Start Living!

That’s the point I want to always keep in the forefront of my mind.  Living now is imperative to living at all.  Not putting off the vacations, or the lunches with friends, or the adventures (until a better time). 

Now is the best time.  We need to live now, because now is all we have.  And we don’t know when it will end, so stop saving it.

Do it.  Use it.  Use it up.  Exhaust the possibilities.  Grab life by the horns today!!  Today!!!

Really, what are we waiting for?  Time is moving forward.  We are not stopping the wheels of life.  We are missing out if we are not engaged fully. 

Make plans for tonight.  Tomorrow.  This weekend.  Next weekend.  And the next. 

Go on a road trip.  Try a new sport.  Ask her/him out.  Visit a friend.  Book the flight.  Buy the concert tickets.  Do whatever you want to do.  But do it now. 

Stop wating, start living!!!

 

Together is better than alone…

That’s the secret of life.  Whether it’s together with friends and friend, together with a lover, or whatever (and not to knock alone time sometimes), but it’s the together time that counts.  That time we spend with others we love is the time that is the most important, I think.

Everything is more fun shared.  That’s the point I have to make.  That’s the meaning of life, I think.

We need to be connected.  I would bet most criminals and troubled souls have no one meaningful in their lives.  I would bet that if we all had love surrounding us, we wouldn’t fight, we wouldn’t go to war. 

John Lennon really had it right: All you need is love.  Love is the answer.  Love makes it all okay.  Even tough times.  Even troubled times.

Just to be able to walk those roads with someone, and not alone.

Love is the answer.   It’s all that matters.

 

I Don’t Understand Meanness!

When people are together, and if they are choosing to be together, why do they act so mean sometimes?  I mean what can come from that except distance?

What can result except protective walls going up to be ready for the next attack?

If you really cannot help but be mean, (and if you don’t know when you are, take a cue if your partner is telling you it hurts!) then get out of the relationship.  No one needs that kind of treatment from the one they are supposed to be closest to.

That they choose to be closest to.

That they wish to be closest to.

Meanness has no place in a relationship.  Or in a friendship.  Or anywhere, for that matter.  You can deal with any situation by choosing to “take the high road” and saying whatever you need to say with respect and dignity.

Without snideness and cutting words.  Without arrogance.  In a loving way. 

You can.  And so can she or he.

 

So, does sensitive equal unmanly?

So, which is it?  Do women really want the nice, sensitive guy?  Truly?  Honestly?

Or is that something you say, but the truth is you need a man–protection, support, someone to be the “strength” and do all the brawny work?  Someone who will make the decisions and be the dominant at all times?

Often real manly men don’t talk much.  I wonder why. 

At what point does talking about feelings instead of just “bucking up and taking it like a man” get you labeled sensitive and unmanly?

Do you see the difficulty, the trap, we have to dance around?  How it’s sort of a catch-22?  (I think women deal with a similar situation when they want to be “feminine” but are smart and independent–and they have a similar dance to do.)

Anyway, I think if you want a talkative, communicative man, you have to encourage them that it doesn’t make then any less manly for having discussed the relationship, feelings, etc.

Or the wall of armor will go up and there will be no more communication at all.  Just strength.

 

An Agreement With Women (From a Guy’s Point of View)

Two parts to this agreement:

1.

Give us a place to be open and encourage us to be open, and we will be open.  But that means no attacking us if what we say displeases you when we are being truthful.

Give us a place of support and encourage us in our endeavors, and we will succeed.  We need your support at all times. 

Give us a break when we fail, and let us know it’s okay to stumble and we won’t be called on it, and we will show you our failures.  Let us know our failures are safe with you.

Give us excitement when you see us, the kind you have for all your special friends.  We need to feel (and hope) that we excite you like they do. 

Give us the space to be who we are.  Encourage us to show our true selves.  It won’t be easy at first, so have patience.  But eventually, we will turn that corner and be genuine with you.

Stay with us if you truly like us as we are, not because you think you can change us into what you want.  If not, please say goodbye with graciousness, in a loving way.

2.

We will do the same for you.

 

Be Happy (It Annoys the Advertising Industry)

It’s true.  If you figure out that you are perfect as you are, that you don’t need anything to be happy (it’s from within, not from within the big box stores!) your need for “stuff” will be reduced significantly. 

Freud figured out long ago that a disgruntled and discontented society is one that will buy lots of stuff.  Watch this video:

Century of Self, Episode 1: Happiness Machines 

Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud ‘s nephew, invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud’s ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn’t need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticizing the motorcar. His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.

There are lots of other great free video documentaries on that site.  Yes, free!!!

If we are happy with ourselves and raise our overall self-esteem, wouldn’t it seem likely to carry over into our relationships?

Do you know that you are perfect as you are?  Do you know if you are in a relationship, your partner is too?  Have you told each other lately?

(That doesn’t mean that everyone is compatible.  Just perfect as they are and need to find compatibility for their perfection.)

 

Feeling Okay with Being Single

Though I believe we are meant to be together and sharing our life with someone, maybe at some points in our lives we are meant to be alone.  Maybe there is something we need to learn to take us to that next level.

If that is the case, what is it we are learning and how long will it take to learn?  And are we prolonging the time alone the more we fight it?  If we would just sit quietly and be okay with being single, would we make it to the other side, where that someone is waiting?

In a world of couples, single feels so isolated.  You get the worst tables at the back of restaurants.  You sit alone at lonely bars–feeling like you better arm yourself with a computer, a good book or at least a newspaper. 

Without any of this armor, going out isn’t much fun–sitting alone by yourself, eating and drinking, looking around at everyone else, pretending not to mind being alone.

Maybe we are at a place though where we need to read those books, get that work done on the computer, or whatever, to be ready for the next chapter of our lives, in a relationship.

Perhaps we just have to be okay with being single, and then soon enough, we won’t be.

 

Can we be 30 or 40, single and a still a catch?

Or do we come with so much history at this point, that all things point away from us succeeding in love?  How do we get past this history?

When we were in school, we had a pool of friends and their friends to meet and go out with.  They were all our age.  They all had the same amount of experience–none.  They were all fumbling with us as we fumbled with them.

We were equal, and there were lots of friends to choose from, all single!

As we get older, we just have our work circle and our neighborhood.  The older we get, the more closed off it seems that circle is–everyone’s married and with kids, there’s no time for us single folks.

By now we may have children, a divorce and other prior records (I’m kidding, sort of) and are trying to not live in the past, but the past is a big part of making us who we are. 

How can we completely dismiss that? 

We may even have some broken relationships since those kids and divorce.  We don’t look like quite the catch, anymore. 

But we are.  We have to know we are who we are at our core.  We our our soul.  Our passion for life doesn’t end at a certain age.   We are still the same heart.

We just need to find someone who understands that heart and soul, who thinks in some of the same ways and delights in our passions. 

To them, we can be the greatest catch of all.

 

What to do when you want someone now?

There’s a biggie.  I guess it teaches us that we can’t always get what we want on the time schedule we want.

But that doesn’t make me feel better now, dammit!  As I walk along the busy streets of my city, I see couples walking together, eating together, being together. 

It’s in front of me everywhere, like a great concert happening inside a venue and I am outside–I can hear it, I can hear the crowd roaring, but I can’t find a way inside.

It sure sounds like fun.

I can’t help but think of the other single (or at least non-coupled) women passing by me, wondering if they are looking at me in the same way as I see them–walking alone, wondering how to get from here to there, how to break down the wall that separates us. 

How to say hello.  (But I might be laughed at, rejected.)

How to meet each other.  (But I might find I don’t like you.)

It’s a mystery.  I don’t think dating services work very well.  I don’t think bars are the answer.  I think time is the only thing that works, and that’s a hard price to pay.

When I want it now!

My logical mind knows that the waiting is the hardest part, but necessary to all this.  But my emotional mind craves to meet you now. 

Such a conflict inside.  No wonder we end up eating comfort food!

 

Where to find happiness?

Just like the fun of a long bike ride isn’t the ice cream at the end, but the journey getting there, happiness isn’t out there somewhere, it’s within us.

I think guys can get deluded into thinking that happiness is in the best new gadgets and cars, other expensive toys and a woman.  It’s not.

I think women can get deluded into thinking that happiness is in the latest fashions and looks and a guy.  It’s not.

It’s within us.  When we know we are rich, we are beautiful, we are perfect, we have enough–right now as we are–we see the light and we realize we can be happy. 

When we seek it outside of ourselves, we struggle and fight to reach it.  (Because it’s not there.)

How many millionaires are happy?  Celebrities?  Models?  CEOs?  Would we really want to trade with them to have their Mercedes and house (and have to take the work that comes with the job)?  We know the answer, yet we aspire to be like them.

It’s all a smokescreen.  We have to realize we are who we are, love ourselves for us, and then we can really reach out to the world as happy people.

Happy people are the ones others want to be around.  They are attractive–they attract others, including lovers.

 

Why Not Suprise Her or Him Today?

The surprise needn’t be anything expensive.  It really is the thought that counts.

A glass of fresh squeezed, handmade lemonade for him/her when he/she is cutting the lawn. 

An offer to do dishes if he/she cooked dinner.

A vase of wildflowers picked from a nearby field.

A note in their car that says, “Hi, I was thinking of you and thought you should know–and I am looking forward to seeing you after work.  Maybe we can take a walk up at the lake together….”

Whatever.  Why not today?

Why not everyday?  We all can use a nice surprise, can’t we?  To let us know that we are being thought about.  That someone loves and cares about us.

Isn’t that what life and friendship is all about?  Isn’t your lover your best friend?  Don’t you want to treat them like the most special person in your life?

You can.  And they will know they are–if you show them in not the occasion(al) way, but the everyday ways.

 

Maybe to Find Love, We Have to Stop Looking

Maybe when we want to find someone to be in our life, we have our best chance when we are not showing our “I want a mate self” but when we are showing our “This is me as I am self”.

How do we do that?

By not looking for love.  By enveloping ourselves in the things that allow us to live fully, whether it’s sports or hobbies, or whatever.  By finding our bliss and being fully ourselves.  Not wallowing in lonliness (That’s never attractive).

If we are doing what we love to do, and can find a place to do that where other people are also participating, don’t we have a much better chance to shine, to show our light, then if we just stop living and search, and search, and search?

John Lennon wrote similar words, but I will say: Love is what happens when you’re busy making other plans, and out and about living your life.  Meeting other people living their lives, who are not on their own search.

Bars are a great place where two unknown souls meet with nothing in common (except a love for drink), both on a search, and both hoping to meet someone.  Neither one living their lives, showing themselves.

And when they do meet, it’s disappointing.  Wonder why?  It might be good enough for sex.  That’s often all it is.

We have to stop searching for the searching to happen.  When we are just searching, we are stopping the search.

Puzzling, isn’t it? 

We have to just go out and live our lives.  Do what we love to do and have as much fun as we can.  And trust we will attract someone having as much fun who wants to find out a little more about us–what makes us so excited!

Without a search.

 

Why can’t we just learn to be alone?

I know why. 

Because the blazing, red, sunset sky is prettier when you are watching it with someone.

Because a sizzling chicken stir-fry tastes better when you are sharing it together.

Because raking the leaves can even be fun if you are with the right person.

Every single task of life is better when you can do it with someone you love. 

We are social beings.  There is a time for being alone, but the point of life is to share in it together, with friends, family, and most importantly, a lover.

So, don’t stop seeking her/him out.  They’re out there waiting to meet you.

(And everyone knows peach ice cream never tastes better than when you are in the arms of your mate!)

 

Everyone wants the same thing!

Everywhere I look, I see the same thing.  Everyone wants to feel special and loved.  Everyone wants to find acceptance.  And we are willing to do anything to get it–even if it means not being ourselves.

Which makes me think we might be onto something.  Now that we know that the masks and games are what we hide behind and what keep us from showing ourselves and ultimately hamper relationships, how do we allow others to see us and not fear rejection as a result?

We know what each other needs.  Why not give it to them?  Guys and girls both need to know that the other is really going to be there, all the time, no matter what.  And Is going to accept them as love them as they are (if they dare to share who they are with us).

We all need to know we’re attractive, we’re lovable, we’re desired.  In this day and age, we need reassurance too.

That’s often not stressed nowadays.  And that’s surely missed. 

Now that we know what each other needs (and marketers are trying to constantly sell it to us in cosmetic surgery, clothing and other “beauty” products), we know we just need each other to love us as we are.  To remind us we’re perfect as we are and don’t need those products to be so.

When was the last time you told your lover he/she was perfect?  (And every negative comment chips away at the credibility of this statement, so we must be careful what we complain about.)

But we are all perfect.  That’s the secret that no one realizes (lost in the pop culture/media cloud).  One day, perhaps we will remember.

 

Will we evolve someday and relationships will not be so tough?

I just can’t imagine an educated society continuing on like this, with war between every level, from lovers up to nations.  At some point, will we evolve to not taking up arms anymore?

How do we start it?  If you figure a couple can’t make it, and neighbors can’t make it, and there are rival cities, and states, it’s no wonder we cannot prevent war among nations. 

We are deceptive, vindictive and downright mean beings sometimes.  We are untrue, unfaithful and uncaring.  We are totally disrespectful (from the first shove of wedding cake to the face!)

But if we start the evolution (or is it revolution?)–what we need is for two people to come together who are not fighting, who are loving and respectful, and to somehow raise children who learn that behavior and carry it further.  Then we need them to grow up and marry similarly evolved people and spread the peace from the smallest unit–the couple–through families and then neighborhoods and then on and on so that eventually it becomes ubiquitious.

Can it work?  Do you see how important it is for us to become evolved on a relationship level to make it at the global level?  It is the secret to peace on earth.

I think it can work.  I think it may take a long time for the old ways to die out and the new ones to take over.  Probably beyond our lifetime, but it can certainly happen if we can just figure out how to make our relationships work peacefully.  Starting now.

At least I would like to think so for our childrens’ sake!

 

Maybe we should start a club – Dating Club for Be Yourself(ers)

Maybe if we had a place where we knew we could be ourselves, and not being would be considered very unattractive, we would be able to share ourselves as we are.

Maybe if we could create an environment that says “It’s okay to be you, that’s who I want to get to know”.  The only thing is we would need assurance that the other person will not take this openness and tread on it, mock it, tear us down for it.

What a world it would be if we could be respectful and say “no thank you” if someone doesn’t interest or work out for us, instead of being mean, ignoring them, and generally being disrespectful.

Maybe there would be more peace if we could meet and embrace each other as we are. 

No judgments.  That is what makes us play the games and hide behind the masks.

Just openness and truth. 

I wonder what that would be like.

 

Is it society that makes it so difficult for relationships?

I can’t help but wonder what role the American society plays in making us struggle with relationships.  How much of what we think is a “good relationship” comes from our constant viewing of pop culture, tv and movies?

Are we such a product (here in this consumer society) that we have lost the ability to have likes and dislikes, and only like what we’ve been programmed to believe is to be liked, is right and is good?

I don’t think we should have to have so much baggage, so many games to get from here to there.  And we wouldn’t except for one thing: WE ARE NOT WHO WE PURPORT TO BE. 

We are the masks that we put on, for fear of showing ourselves.  If we were all showing ourselves, we would be direct and possibly crass–“No you don’t interest me”, You I would have sex with but that’s about it”, “You I find very attractive”, “Listen, I just want to be left alone”, I want to be wanted”, etc.

Instead the guys wear the armor, act strong and confident (even when we aren’t).  The girls look pretty, act cool and collected, even though there are thoughts racing through their minds and emotions taking control.

But we all walk the line, play the game, act like nothing bothers us.  That’s the way Brad Pitt and George Clooney make it work.  Or Kathleen Heigl or Angelina Jolie.

We keep playing the game.  Reveal nothing.  Be cool.

And we wait for the day when we meet the one person where we can finally BE OURSELVES.

If only we could start right now.  What a concept

 

I believe in LOVE (no matter what)

All these ramblings, all these questions and thoughts, the truth is, I believe in love.  when you or I am in love, we are at our best, our absolute finest. 

We are truly alive.

Love is all there is, and we all need to strive for it at all times.   Life in love is the reason to be alive!

 

What if the one we are waiting for isn’t out there?

Will we know when we meet them if they are the one?  Is it possible to miss them? 

I think they are definitely out there.  But they may not be out there on our time frame (which we think is now but perhaps we are not ready yet).

How hard is it when year after year asks for more patience?

How can we get ready for a relationship if we are not now?

Lots of questions, I guess it comes from being human and here to learn things.

I am learning a lot about patience.

 

Or do we expect too much from another, when we were meant to be alone…

…and we would be stonger, wiser, better off alone.  Independent.  Is the sharing of life with another a trapping, like we’ve been made to believe that sex should be in slow motion with candles like in the movies?

Is it just nature vs. nurture and nurture gets more TV time?

 

Does anyone think like me?

I’m just curious, am I crazy?  I’m a guy–should I not be thinking like this?

I welcome your input.  Thanks!

 

I wish my future lover were reading this now…

…and I would tell you how I couldn’t wait to meet you.  How I couldn’t wait to sweep you up in my arms and hold you.  To really hold you.

To love you.

To love only you.

To love you for the beautiful, perfect person that you are.

To be with you.

To share my life with you.

To share my world with you.

To have you be the most important person in my life.

And for me to be the most important person in yours!

To wake up next to your smiling face, your unbelievable body.

For you to want to wake up next to me.

Wow.  

I know we are getting closer. 

Every second.  Every day.

I wish it were today!

 

So Tough to Be Single in a Couples World

I don’t know about you but I have no interest in eating out alone.  Restaurants are for couples, period.  If I go in alone, I sit alone, I eat alone and I leave. 

Where’s the fun in that?  Eating out is for the social experience with friends.  For sustenance, I might as well eat at home, alone. 

Do you know what I mean?

I love to eat out.  I love to be with good friends in a new restaurant trying new dishes.  But it’s all about the friends.  Period.

On any given weekend, what I do is about my friends.  Who am I spending time with?  To bo biking, or hiking.  To dine out with.  To play miniature golf with.  To be with.

Someday, to be with my lover, to be with alone.  To spend time together, alone. 

Someday!

 

I want to meet you but I don’t know when…

I believe that if you do what you are here to do, you will meet when you are supposed to meet, when the time is absolutely perfect to meet. 

But that patience is hard as we continue to wake up alone.  I wonder where you are.  Where have you been?  Have our paths crossed?  More than once?  Will we meet soon?  Will we ever know that we were in each others midsts before?

I would like to think that we have been together before.

And that the meeting will be sooner than later.

I want you now.

I want you in my life.

 

I want someone beside me in my bed

I don’t want to wake up alone.  I want to wake up with someone in my arms and her arms around me.

That’s what life is for!  I know that now.

The rest is supplementary!

 

All You Need is Love

I was talking to a woman last night and she’s struggling with a relationship and financial issues and I realized when I hung up the phone, that she is not struggling with anything but the relationship. 

That is all that matters. 

Love.

I went to a bar after our conversation and there it was in front of me, everyone either in love, or looking for love.  We all want the same thing–to love and be loved.

Then all the rest is managable. 

But without love, every single thing from house trouble to money issues to job satisfaction takes on such monumental weight.

Be in love and those things don’t matter so much. 

For one thing, you have someone to lean on.  And you have to be able to lean on each other, of course!

As I scanned the bar, the band was playing and the players were scanning the crowd.  The single guy at the tall table next to mine.  The single woman who met her two friends (a happy-looking couple). 

We all want to love and be loved.

Life spent alone, out of a relationship, is time not well spent.  Not fully spent. 

It may be a necessary part of transitionary time, but the real life happens when we are enveloped in someone and truly in love.

It’s true:  All you need is love.  Then the rest is all very managable.