Saturday, August 11, 2012
Day Fifty Four - Really??
An actual email that I received this morning:
"I love your look especially your beatiful tattooes. You look very sophisticated and sexy. At your convience please call me at ***-**** and lets have a casual drinks and just hang out. no strings attached. Aloha....."
1. I have this compulsion to correct all his spelling and grammatical errors and return his email.
2. "tattooes"......is that like the whole potatoe debacle?
3. And most importantly............seriously?!?!
"I love your look especially your beatiful tattooes. You look very sophisticated and sexy. At your convience please call me at ***-**** and lets have a casual drinks and just hang out. no strings attached. Aloha....."
1. I have this compulsion to correct all his spelling and grammatical errors and return his email.
2. "tattooes"......is that like the whole potatoe debacle?
3. And most importantly............seriously?!?!
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Day Fifty Three - Communication
The online dating world seems to be separated into two general segments (sorta like right and left lobes of the brain). On one side are those who seem to want to meet immediately. No foreplay email to get a glimpse of just who this person might be.....just look at some photographs, say "hi", and let's meet. That makes me a little uncomfortable. I'm not sure if it's because:
1. I want to at least have a general feel for someone before agreeing to meet them in person.
2. Possibly Google them to see if they might be on any offensive list or indiscreetly posting naked pictures of themselves (or others).
3. Or because I'm thinking that they might be incapable of writing a decent paragraph.
And while there apparently are people (on the other lobe) who want to exclusively communicate via email and/or text and never actually meet in person (yeah, I know.....just as telling and odd in its own way) which would be okay if I was interested in a pen pal but otherwise a little unfulfilling to say the least.......I have found that I may be more.....or even initially attracted to someone with interesting writing skills.
This is a relatively new discovery for me. No one writes letters any longer. We talk on the phone....write little snippet text messages....perhaps a quick email....but when is the last time that you wrote to someone who you see regularly in your life? I mean REALLY write....ask questions....dig deeper....express something that you wouldn't normally bring up in day to day conversation. Are we starting to lose our communication skills?
I had a pen pal in grade school. I no longer remember her name or much about her letters (I don't save things) but I do recall that she lived in Iowa (which seemed very Little House on the Prairie to me so I imagined that my pen pal was Laura Ingalls Wilder) and had large, loopy handwriting. My mom used to correspond with her sister (who lived on Maui) for much of their adult life. I remember seeing the incoming and outgoing letters and the excitement that my mom would have when a new letter arrived. She would always save reading it for that brief quiet time that she had between work and the busy household. I would peak in her room and see her sitting at her desk reading.....pages too...not just a brief one page letter but pages of handwriting. The letters went back and forth until my aunt passed away a few years ago.
Where am I going with this thread? What constitutes and sustains attraction? I posted this quote a little while back:
"For a relationship to stay alive, love alone is not enough. Without imagination, love stales into sentiment, duty, boredom. Relationships fail not because we have stopped loving but because we first stopped imagining."
Perhaps when we step out of our box and experiment with various means of expression and communication we may be able to see much more of individuals than we ever could have otherwise.
1. I want to at least have a general feel for someone before agreeing to meet them in person.
2. Possibly Google them to see if they might be on any offensive list or indiscreetly posting naked pictures of themselves (or others).
3. Or because I'm thinking that they might be incapable of writing a decent paragraph.
And while there apparently are people (on the other lobe) who want to exclusively communicate via email and/or text and never actually meet in person (yeah, I know.....just as telling and odd in its own way) which would be okay if I was interested in a pen pal but otherwise a little unfulfilling to say the least.......I have found that I may be more.....or even initially attracted to someone with interesting writing skills.
This is a relatively new discovery for me. No one writes letters any longer. We talk on the phone....write little snippet text messages....perhaps a quick email....but when is the last time that you wrote to someone who you see regularly in your life? I mean REALLY write....ask questions....dig deeper....express something that you wouldn't normally bring up in day to day conversation. Are we starting to lose our communication skills?
I had a pen pal in grade school. I no longer remember her name or much about her letters (I don't save things) but I do recall that she lived in Iowa (which seemed very Little House on the Prairie to me so I imagined that my pen pal was Laura Ingalls Wilder) and had large, loopy handwriting. My mom used to correspond with her sister (who lived on Maui) for much of their adult life. I remember seeing the incoming and outgoing letters and the excitement that my mom would have when a new letter arrived. She would always save reading it for that brief quiet time that she had between work and the busy household. I would peak in her room and see her sitting at her desk reading.....pages too...not just a brief one page letter but pages of handwriting. The letters went back and forth until my aunt passed away a few years ago.
Where am I going with this thread? What constitutes and sustains attraction? I posted this quote a little while back:
"For a relationship to stay alive, love alone is not enough. Without imagination, love stales into sentiment, duty, boredom. Relationships fail not because we have stopped loving but because we first stopped imagining."
Perhaps when we step out of our box and experiment with various means of expression and communication we may be able to see much more of individuals than we ever could have otherwise.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Day Fifty Two - It's a Fool Who Plays It Cool By Making His World a Little Colder
I have never cheated on a partner (well....except maybe in board games but that's a different topic). No....I don't think that I'm a saint or in any way deserving of a medal for being able to state that......and perhaps that's the problem with society. I have a friend who is embarking on a new relationship with a fellow who has admitted to cheating in previous relationships. He had "reasons" for doing so, although in his defense he did also seem to realize that those reasons all amount to trivial justifications of wrong doing.
So now she's asking me if she should still get involved with him. I know what she wants to hear. She wants me to tell her that his cheating was in the past with its own unique circumstances....that he has learned from his mistakes....that he really loves her and that love will keep him from hurting her. I know that's what she wants to hear because that's what I've told myself in the past.......and of course, I was mistaken.
Should we be able to hold the past against the present? Or should relationships be like court trials? Only the current facts can be introduced and weighed? Or is that just naive given human nature and patterns? Maybe this guy really did learn from the past. A male friend of mine said it's in their DNA to spread their "seed" as much as humanly possible in order to propagate the species. Uh.....right. If you've evolved enough that you can now use a computer, no longer hunt for your food, and wouldn't be able to run 3 miles across a desert plain to escape Tyrannosaurus Rex.....I really don't think you should start pulling out the "in our DNA" card.
So again.....what to tell her? This is what I wrote her:
"I'm not gonna lie.....my gut instinct tells me that his cheating (for whatever reason) has become a pattern for him. Does that guarantee that he will cheat on you? Of course not. Maybe he's figured out why he chooses that route....maybe this time when the situation arises he'll choose a different path....maybe, maybe, maybe....in the end there is no predicting anyone's future actions HOWEVER we don't live in the future....and our decisions should be based on the present. If you love this guy and choose to accept his past then you need to remain in the present with him. You also need to be able to trust him completely or you may as well walk away right now. In the end which will you regret more? Walking away now and never knowing what might have been? Or possibly having your heart broken? Possibly. How much does possibly mean to you?"
So now she's asking me if she should still get involved with him. I know what she wants to hear. She wants me to tell her that his cheating was in the past with its own unique circumstances....that he has learned from his mistakes....that he really loves her and that love will keep him from hurting her. I know that's what she wants to hear because that's what I've told myself in the past.......and of course, I was mistaken.
Should we be able to hold the past against the present? Or should relationships be like court trials? Only the current facts can be introduced and weighed? Or is that just naive given human nature and patterns? Maybe this guy really did learn from the past. A male friend of mine said it's in their DNA to spread their "seed" as much as humanly possible in order to propagate the species. Uh.....right. If you've evolved enough that you can now use a computer, no longer hunt for your food, and wouldn't be able to run 3 miles across a desert plain to escape Tyrannosaurus Rex.....I really don't think you should start pulling out the "in our DNA" card.
So again.....what to tell her? This is what I wrote her:
"I'm not gonna lie.....my gut instinct tells me that his cheating (for whatever reason) has become a pattern for him. Does that guarantee that he will cheat on you? Of course not. Maybe he's figured out why he chooses that route....maybe this time when the situation arises he'll choose a different path....maybe, maybe, maybe....in the end there is no predicting anyone's future actions HOWEVER we don't live in the future....and our decisions should be based on the present. If you love this guy and choose to accept his past then you need to remain in the present with him. You also need to be able to trust him completely or you may as well walk away right now. In the end which will you regret more? Walking away now and never knowing what might have been? Or possibly having your heart broken? Possibly. How much does possibly mean to you?"
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Favorites: Tori Amos
"I know I'm an acquired taste - I'm anchovies. And not everybody wants those hairy little things."
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