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.

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.

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!

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!!!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!)

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.

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 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.