Shopping for Love

Facebook rocks for online dating

2010-10-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

Well, I predicted it. Now there are special "apps" that help you date with Facebook. SNAP Interactive, the developers behind the “Are You Interested?” app, is now the largest Facebook dating app. Last week the company announced record quarterly revenues: $1.65M, more than double the revenue of the same quarter the year prior. Zoosk.com is dramatically larger than Are You Interested’s destination site. FULL ARTICLE @ ALL FACEBOOK See all posts on AreYouInterested

I'll check some of these apps out soon and let you know what I think.

One in three women who use online personals admit they hooked up for sex on the first date.

2010-03-25T19:24:00.000-07:00

Today I found some pretty disturbing new statistics about online dating and hookups. It's getting wilder, looser and wierder.

- One out of three women who meet men online have sex on the first encounter. (40 million people use online personals in the US alone. That means more than 7 million women in the US alone admit to hooking up for one night stand sex with a stranger they met on Craigslist or whatever. Eeeeew.
- And 1 out of 5 of the women who hooked up did not use protection. That means 1 million women every year are having unprotected hook up sex with total strangers they meet online. And those are the ones who admit it. Double eeeeew.
- One out of ten users on online dating sites are scammers. (Oh really?)
- One out of ten sex offenders reportedly use online dating to meet people. (I personally have had the misfortune to meet a few of these sex addicts and players who habitually use personals to hook up. The most common ploy is saying they want a "serious relationship.")
- Online, men lie most about their age, height, and income. (No kidding. Especially their interest in an actual, sincere relationship instead of their chance to be one of those lucky 7 million guys who got laid on a first date that probably cost no more than a latte at Starbucks.)
- Online dating has caused a decline in online porn. (Well, if you can get laid for the cost of a latte, why would you shell out money for phone sex?)

Is it just me, or has morality, commitment and just plain getting to know each other first (for like, at least, you know, a week or two. How about for two lattes?) gone completely out the window?

Are people just too broke in "today's economy" to go on a date and get to know each other's last names before they jump into the back seat of the car and boink?

By the way, statistics of heterosexuals with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases are soaring. Probably in no small part due to the success of "NSA" ads enabling easy hook ups.

Do you really think someone who doesn't even know you yet and will never see you again gives a hoot if they pass on their little "infection"?

70 million people are living with STDs in the U.S. alone, as well as an estimated 400 million people worldwide. But don't worry. There's an online dating service for that too including Positive Singles, STD Match, Herpes Online, AfterH.com, STDfriends.com, HMates, STDSinglesmeet, FreeSTDsinglesmatch, and Pozmeeting.com.

SO glad I didn't click that: "In a relationship" button.

2010-03-10T16:10:00.000-08:00

According to the London Daily Mail (referenced in a recent New York Post story), "A new poll finds that 48 percent of people under 21 and 18 percent of people ages 22-30 dumped a loved one via a social networking site like Facebook."

That's half of all relationships, folks. And you thought getting dumped on the phone or in a text message was bad form. Getting dumped on Facebook is like a global public hanging.

This has lead to a recent surge of Miss Manners types to say that new rules of social etiquitte must be instituted to ensure this atrocious act of rudeness happens less often.

Like, do unto others as you would like them to do to you. Basic kindness. Respect. Consideration.

All seemingly in short supply these days, and we switch glibly from "Single" to "Random Play" to "In a relationship" to "Engaged" to "Married" to "It's complicated."

No kidding.

I've even seen married couples get into a row about it when "she" wants to say they're married and he's got cold feet about announcing it on Facebook. Huh? You're married folks.

And it's typical that the Woman is all to eager to click "in a relationship" while the man still has cold feet. Leading to ... complications.

Like, when the Other Woman finds out! Which is what happened to my friend Troy, leading to his getting dumped by all the women he was seeing once they all found out about each other on his Facebook page.

Or what about those other potentially embarrassing widgets and features? Like getting an Erotic Gifts from that lover you're seeing on the side? Or a big, smoochy kiss or purple flashing heart that can linger on your page long after the notorious womanizer player has moved on to his next target...letting everyone on your friend list know you were one of his victims.

And what about those who have been dumped, publicly, on Facebook. Nothing like waking up to see your boyfriend's "in a relationship" suddenly disappears and changes to: "random play"?

Me, I'm keeping it simple. And I'm not clicking that button until he and I both mutually agree we're "In a relationship" we are confident enough about to announce to my 780 "friends". If that ever happens I'll dance from the rooftops, and crow about it on Facebook. Heck yeah.

In the meantime, I'll just stick to: "networking" and "friends."

It's not complicated, it's easy!

2010-01-03T11:23:00.001-08:00

One of these days I'm going to finally get the confidence to click that little button on Facebook that says: "Braindancer is in a relationship."

And I want to be able to click the option that says: "And It's Not Complicated."

Why do we expect that relationships are a nasty chore, a bitter pill we have to put up with and swallow? Why isn't there an option on Facebook for: ___________ is in a relationship. And it's blissfully easy."

We can't change the past. But we can change the future.

2009-12-21T23:31:00.000-08:00

Somehow your story reminds me of the relationship I had with Josh, which was right before I met you. He made $250,000 a year at a big corporation, used to brag about "getting people fired." Mean alcoholic who skiied and worked out all the time. alternately charming and ingratiating - and very cold. Controlling. Not a team player at all.

He had zero imagination and no sense of humor. My friends and family always hated him. He is the one person I have left who I never, never spoke to again. I ended up being "friends" on Facebook, only to perversely spy on him, but I get satisfaction in knowing he is still exactly the same as he ever was, just older now, and looking rather sad -- and I'd still be trapped there, being an arm decoration.

Your story reminds me so much of the woman my friend Jeffrey married (a younger, blonde, gorgeous, perfect smart achieving fashion designer from a blue blood family who, after the wedding, replaced him with her obsession with thoroughbred horseback riding, criticized and castrated him and moved to a city that was great for her career, but made it very difficult for him to succeed in his own career. Wives are supposed to build a man up. She tore him down. It's a partnership, not a competition. Jeffrey's career finally thrived after the divorce.

I think we both have something in common -- (in the past) that we both
may have a tendency to fall for "narcissists" who demean us and cut us
down--or use us for their own egoic advancement. Dig back into your
childhood for the roots of that (probably a narcissicic parent who
either ignored/neglected you or never was satisfied with your
accomplishments) ... and sever those roots. Cut the chords that are
pulling you and manipulating your life to this day.

Don't let that wounded little boy make the decisions for your adult life
anymore.

The idea that life is a struggle in the middle may be your own spin on
it.

When you get away from the incessant striving for perfection, it's
not a struggle anymore. You were obviously spending your last 7 years
with a major achiever/striver, and that (or her grand expectations of
YOU) may have colored your perception of what's an acceptable happiness
quotient ... a bit.

Seeing my ex "before" and "after" that relationship, I wonder if that woman hammered your
self esteem and identity. Would anything you did make her
happy? Did she ever love you for your essence -- or for the outward the
image you gave her?

Ask yourself that before you blame the end of your marriage on yourself.
Was this a relationship where you could comfortably be your own
authentic self?

I really do feel that you need to separate yourself from her as much as
possible (hard to do with a kid, I know) and develop your OWN identity
and worth again. Keep distance. Build your own life and friendships.
Don't look back. It's got to be brutal watching her exhausting pursuit
of perfection.

Eventually it might implode -- or it might continue forever. Until she loves herself she--or her partner--will never be "good enough." I don't know her, but I can imagine the kind of ghosts of self loathing and the deep insecurity that haunts her, as I've been
there myself.

It usually takes some kind of major life trauma to compel women to rise
to the top of the corporate ladder. I used to always feel like nobody
would take care of me.

By the way, if we get back into the MOMENT of now, and are present, I
realize that you/I have a good 20 years ahead of us...

...in which either of us could write a best seller, have a fantastic
relationship, have a great family, start a thriving business, join a hot
startup or flip another fixer upper.

I'm trying to focus on that possibility, and avoid looking back, because
the past is so painful sometimes, so filled with regrets....and because
we can't change the past, but we can change the future.

So focus there. Present. Forward. Don't look back.

What do you want those next 20 years to be? (And don't blame the
potential on the government or whatever--times are always in flux and
often challenging. It's what we make of them that matters.

I appreciate the busting -- I'm not here to hang out with a yes man. And
I'm not a yes girl. I enjoy the stimulation and the challenge of hanging
out with you on many levels...

Why is love such a chore sometimes?

2009-12-21T23:24:00.001-08:00

Yeah, why is just making love and having fun such a chore sometimes?

Like, why can't people just hang out and enjoy each other and not let
all their baggage get in the way?

Like, we could probably be doing that
right now, but, you know, it's so much of a commitment, and it would
then "mean something," and there would be all kinds of "expectation"...

And why is everybody so busy all the time that they don't have time in
life for the "best things in life that are free"?

Really, i think all these "issues" around "relationship" are just
another way that "they" can control us and ruin all of the fun we could
be having. It's just another way, now that sex before marriage is no
longer a big taboo, to turn the most precious things in life into yet
another commodity that can be controlled and manipulated and people can
make a profit from.

All worthwhile spiritual issues to consider, as long as you're on that
topic.

What I want - relationship New Year's Resolutions for 2010

2009-12-21T18:28:00.000-08:00

It's time to let go of the '00s.

Good riddance!

I call it the Double Zero Decade. That is more or less what this decade summed up to for me in my relationships, career and just about every other metric except money, in which it got off to a roaring start, and then, as it has for all of us, fizzled out.

After an incredible relationship and engagement to the man who stands out as The Love of My Life, my late 30s to 40s...whizzed by. A few "why did I let that nice guy slip away?" and a long list of users, losers, slippery liars and one or two men who could probably qualify
as outright con artists and sociopaths. (I think at least one appeared on "America's Most Wanted," and there were two guys I dated briefly who bragged that they'd been: "Kicked out of Burning Man," and several who had been banned from the wildest, most swinging nude hot spring on the West Coast for blatant attempts to hit on women repeatedly. Not a good sign.

How did another decade of life experience lead to so many poor choices?

I think that can be summed up in one word: "Insecurity."

As I got older, I started believing the societal programming that says "you're too old" and started demanding less, and getting more...desperate. Desperate choices lead to a life as a Desperate Housewife. Or an aging hottie on the prowl in Cougar Town.

Or so it's Seen on TV.

Ah hah! Unless we get realistic about the men we choose and actually start to date in our own age range, and perhaps lower our societal programming standards while raising our standards for the real qualities that matter -- like heart.

This is the list of intentions I wrote a few months ago. Shortly after that, they started to materialize in my life. One thing that helped is just making this very clear to me, and stating my intention out loud, to the current men I was dating. (It made them run like hell. That's what you want the America's Most Wanted types to do.)

I released the "society tells me I shoulds" -- and have started following my heart. I also listen, carefully, to the impressions of friends and family, and I watch how other people in community react and respond to a man I am dating when he is introduced. If they recoil in horror, I no longer take that as a bias, and I actually pay attention.

Here is my list of New Year's Relationship Resolutions for 2010 and beyond. It's a new decade.

I want to make love every morning and every night, to be touched and held.

I want to eat healthy, clean, vibrant food.

I do not want to be pressured into drinking hard booze, doing hard drugs, breathing smoke, or eating meat just because my partner has a junk diet. I am not going to slip back into addictions just so I can be "loved."

I want to be with a man who is radiant and who respects his body like a temple.

I want to be surrounded by aesthetic beauty, gardens, nature, clean air.

I want community, live music, art, shared meals and extended tribal family around. Maybe children and pets too.

I want to have a healthy body and to feel beautiful.

I want to finish writing my books some day -- have a relationship/partnership that grounds me with someone supportive of that, who is not threatened by the fact that I have some ambition to make a difference in the world...and who sees how that ambition can benefit US as an interdependent team/partnership.

I want financial abundance -- there is nothing wrong with having money to buy nice things, travel and eat well. Or the abundance that is created from the land and community around you.

I want fulfilling work that does not require commuting to work in traffic and smog and sitting in a cubicle in a sealed room under florescent lights.

If I work for a corporation, they have values I believe in and products that are making the world a better place, and I own a share of it.

Dream business - create multiple internet revenue streams (with a partner). Work all summer traveling the world on festival circuit, then spend winters in a nice funky small town on land, build simple, eco-type green home, off grid.

I am looking for someone to team up with, who is a "together we are greater than the sum of our parts" kind of guy.

Facebook or Flirtbook? Social nets eclipse online dating sites for hooking up

2009-10-30T16:26:00.000-07:00

This isn't verified by any of the major news sources, but in my own life, Facebook totally rocks for dating. Most of the dates I've had in the past year have emerged from the gradual, 'get to know you' that happens on this social network. I can learn more about a guy's friendships, sleep habits, likes, dislikes, interests and politics from Facebook than he'd ever reveal in a Match.com ad. It's also braindead obvious when a guy is married or dating someone (she'll post obsessively and posessively!)

Flirtbook indeed!

Get back into the now. Don't look back.

2009-06-29T22:58:00.000-07:00

A note to a friend...

Dig back into your childhood for the roots of that (probably a narcissicic parent who
either ignored/neglected you or never was satisfied with your
accomplishments) ... and sever those roots.

Cut the chords that are pulling you and manipulating your life to this day.

Don't let that wounded little boy make the decisions for your adult life
anymore.

By the way, if we get back into the MOMENT of now, and are present, I
realize that you/I have a good 20 years ahead of us...

...in which either of us could write a best seller, have a fantastic
relationship, have a great family, start a thriving business, join a hot
startup or flip another fixer upper.

I'm trying to focus on that possibility, and avoid looking back, because
the past is so painful sometimes, so filled with regrets....and because
we can't change the past, but we can change the future.

So focus there.

What do you want those next 20 years to be? (And don't blame the
potential on the government or whatever--times are always in flux and
often challenging. It's what we make of them that matters.

Love needs two.

2009-06-16T23:17:00.001-07:00

Love and awareness - the highest form of polarity

Love and awareness is the highest form of polarity -- just like man/woman, life/death, darkness/light, summer/winter, outer/ inner, yin/yang, the body and the soul, the creation and the creator. Love and awareness is the highest form of polarity, the last polarity, at which transcendence happens.

Love needs two. It is a relationship, it is outgoing, it is energy moving outwards. There is an object: the beloved. The object becomes more important than yourself. Your joy is in the object. If your beloved is happy, you are happy; you become part of the object. There is a kind of dependence, and the other is needed. Without the other you will feel lonely.

Awareness is just being with yourself in utter aloneness, just being alert. It is not a relationship, the other is not needed at all. It is not outgoing, it is ingoing.
...
Love is very essential. You have to lose yourself to gain yourself. Love is the only possibility of losing yourself totally. When you are lost totally, then you will be able to remember what you have done.
It is like a fish which has always lived in the ocean. It will never become aware of the ocean and the benediction of it. It has to be caught in a net, a fisherman has to come to take it out, throw it on the shore. Only on the shore, in the hot sun, will it remember for the first time. Although it lived for years in the ocean, it was oblivious, completely oblivious, of the ocean. Now the thirst, the heat, makes it mindful of the ocean. A great longing arises to go back to the ocean. It makes every effort to jump back into the ocean.

That is the state of a seeker: thirsty to be back at the original source. And if this fish can enter the ocean again... can't you imagine the celebration! And the fish has lived in the ocean forever but there was no celebration. Now there is the possibility of celebration. Now it will feel so delighted, so blessed.
Love is a must for spiritual growth. And, moreover, love functions as a mirror. It is very difficult to know yourself unless you have looked at your face in the eyes of someone who loves you. Just as you have to look into the mirror to see your physical face, you have to look in the mirror of love to see your spiritual face. Love is a spiritual mirror. It nourishes you, it integrates you, it makes you ready for the inner journey, it reminds you of your original face.

In moments of deep love there are glimpses of the original face, although those glimpses are coming as reflections. Just as on a full moon night you see the moon reflected in the lake, in the silent lake, so love functions as a lake. The moon reflected in the lake is the beginning of the search for the real moon. If you have never seen the moon reflected in the lake you may never search for the real moon. You will go again and again into the lake to search for the moon because in the beginning you will think, 'This is where the real moon is, somewhere deep down at the bottom of the lake.' You will dive again and again and you will come up empty-handed; you will not find the moon there.

Then one day it will dawn on you that maybe this moon is just a reflection. That is a great insight. Then you can look upwards. Then where is the moon if this is a reflection? If it is a reflection you have to look in the opposite direction. The reflection was there, deep in the lake -- the real must be somewhere above the lake. For the first time you look upwards and the journey has started.

Love gives you glimpses of meditation, reflections of the moon in the lake -- although they are reflections, not true. So love can never satisfy you. In fact, love will make you more and more dissatisfied, discontented. Love will make you more and more aware of what is possible, but it will not deliver the goods. It will frustrate you; and only in deep frustration -- the possibility of turning back to your own being. Only lovers know the joy of meditation. Those who have never loved and have never been frustrated in love, those who have never dived into the lake of love in search of the moon and are never frustrated, will never look up to the real moon in the sky; they will never become aware of it.

Love is not as valuable as freedom is. Love is a great value, but not higher than freedom. So one would like to be loving, but one would not like to be imprisoned by love. Hence, sooner or later you become frustrated. You try to possess, and the more you try to possess, the more impossible love becomes and the more the other starts going away from you. The less you possess, the closer you feel to the other. If you don't possess at all, if there is freedom flowing between the lovers, there is great love.

Firstly, the effort to possess a person is bound to fail: in that frustration you will be thrown back on yourself. Secondly, if you have learned not to possess the person, if you have learned that freedom is a higher value than love, a far more superior value than love, then sooner or later you will see: freedom will bring you to yourself, freedom will become your awareness, meditation.

Freedom is another aspect of meditation. Either start with freedom and you will become aware, or start with awareness and you will become free. They go together. Love is a kind of subtle bondage -- they go together -- but it is an essential experience, very essential for maturity.
...
Love makes you real; otherwise you remain just a fantasy, a dream, with no substance in it. Love gives you substance, love gives you integrity, loves makes you centred. But it is only half of the journey; the other half has to be completed in meditation, in awareness. But love prepares you for the other half. Love is the beginning half and awareness is the ending half. Between these two you attain to God. Between love and awareness, between these two banks, the river of being flows.

Don't avoid love. Go through it, with all its pains. Yes, it hurts, but if you are in love it doesn't matter. In fact, all those hurts strengthen you. Sometimes it really hurts badly, terribly, but all those wounds are necessary to provoke you, to challenge you, to make you less sleepy. All those dangerous situations are necessary to make you alert. Love prepares the ground, and in the soil of love the seed of meditation can grow -- and only in the soil of love.

So those who escape from the world out of fear will never attain to meditation. They can sit in the Himalayan caves for lives together, they will not attain to meditation. It is not possible -- they have not earned it. First it has to be earned in the world; first they have to prepare the soil. And it is only love that prepares the soil.

Hence my insistence for my sannyasins not to renounce the world. Be in it, take its challenge, accept its dangers, its hurts, wounds. Go through it. Don't avoid it, don't try to find a short-cut because there is none. It is a struggle, it is arduous, it is an uphill task, but that is how one reaches the peak.

And the joy will be more, far more, than if you were dropped on the peak by a helicopter, because you will have reached there ungrown; you will not be able to enjoy it.

The journey creates the goal. The goal is not sitting there at the end of the journey, the journey creates it at each step. The journey is the goal. The journey and the goal are not separate, they are not two things. The end and the means are not two things. The end is spread over all the way; all the means contain the end in them.

So never miss any opportunity of living, of being alive, of being responsible, of being committed, of getting involved. Don't be a coward. Face life, encounter it. And then slowly slowly something inside you will crystallize.

Yes, it takes time. The Skin Horse is right: 'Generally, by the time you are REAL, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are REAL, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand... Once you are REAL, you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.' It is forever.

But one has to earn it. Let me repeat it: in life you cannot get anything free. And if you do get it, it is useless. You have to pay, and the more you pay for it the more you will get out of it. If you can risk your whole life in love, great will be your attainment. Love will send you back to yourself; it will give you a few reflections of meditation. The first glimpses of meditation happen in love. And then a great desire arises in you to attain to those glimpses, not only as glimpses but as states, so that you can live in those states forever and forever. Love gives you the taste of meditation.

A loving orgasmic experience is the first experience of SAMADHI, of ecstasy. It will make you more thirsty. Now you will know what is possible and now you cannot be satisfied with the mundane. The sacred has penetrated you, the sacred has reached your heart. God has touched your heart, you have felt that touch. Now you would like to live in that moment forever, you would like that moment to become your whole life. It does become -- and unless it becomes man remains discontented.

Love on the one hand will give you great joy and on the other hand will give you a thirst for eternal joy.

Osho

Getting hugged by the great one

2009-06-08T16:36:00.000-07:00

If, after love shopping on the internet, you're still not getting enough (love, that is), you can always wait in line for a free hug from Amma, the "Hugging Guru" from India.

Amma is like the rock star of hugging. For 30 years, Indian spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi, to give her her real name, has been hugging people, and is said to have hugged people 26 million times. She was visiting on tour in our area, so some friends and I decided to get our first-ever hug from the greatest hugger on earth.

We were on the edge of suburbia in America, but it was like stepping into a time machine and landing in India. Her temple even smelled and sounded like India.

Welcome to the Amma shopping mall, from the moment you enter the village, made of little wooden kiosks exactly like you'd see on the street in Mumbai. All kinds of "Ammabilia" foe sale here -- Amma keychains, Amma gold jewelery (blessed by Amma), Amma diamonds (worn by Amma), Amma food, Amma chai, Amma photos, Amma cards, Amma altar items. Most of her most devoted followers are dressed in simple, modest, flowing white clothes. Others are walking around barefoot.

There are clothes from India, and all sort of spiritualabilia and quasi religious tchotchkes. (Sort of like what you find at Lourdes in France, or around any temple in India, only Indian temples are devoted to deities and not living saints.)

You can buy roses or fruit to give as an offering to Amma, and what's funny is, after someone gives her these things, an assistant whisks them away into a basin of water, and they are brought back to the cash register again so they can be given to her, recycled over and over and over again.

She is laughing and conducting business, reading notes, and signing documents and running hundreds of charities and this
huge global operation while she hugs people, often hugging for 23 hours at a time without ever even getting up to use the bathroom. (My friends and I whisper to each other, "How does she do it? Is it a spiritual power? Or does she wear Depends?) Amazingly, she is said to run more than 20,000 global charities while hugging people.

Since it was my first time, I checked in at reception and was given a green dot to wear and told that this would enable me to sit in front and meditate near her. "This is the only time in your life you will get the green dot," the assistant told me. I was also handed a little ticket, like you'd get at the DMV, with a "darshan number". You can shop around and browse the kiosks while you wait for your number to be called.

(Imagine how fast the state of California could solve its budget woes if the DMV took a lesson from Amma, and not only sold useful items for your car like mud flaps and designer license plate frames that you could browse and shop for while waiting in the "DMV mall", but then had DMV employees who greeted you with: "That will be $583 and you need a smog certificate first before you can get registered. Awwwww, you look so disappointed -- can I give you a big hug?").

Waiting for a hug from the great mother is more like waiting to see Santa Claus than the DMV or an emergency room. The air is ripe with anticipation.

There were assistants busily wrapping Hershey kisses in rose petals and handing them to Amma, a fascinating act of cooperation that kept the line flowing quickly and smoothly. Patiently, nodding off from time to time as it was already well past 1 am, I waited in a long line of beige folding metal chairs, moving forward from one chair to the next.

I tried to snap a photograph of the line, but her assistants ripped my cellphone away from my hands off when I tried to take a photograph. The fact is, like most celebrities, (and yes, even Santa) Amma's photos are either very old, or heavily retouched. Hugging tens of thousands of people a year is wearing on her. Her hair is gray, she's quite overweight, and she has wierd dark blotches on her face, and deep dark circles under her eyes. She has a big, sparkling diamond pierced lotus blossom in her nose. (Presumably to soon be placed in the case of jewels "worn by Amma.")

(It reminded me of when I was a little girl, and my great grandmother would tuck little rosaries, cards with angels on them, and handmade doilies and handkerchiefs blessed by the priest into the jars of cookies she sent at Christmas.)

Amma's face lights up and she absolutely glows when she smiles, and beauty radiates from her. It is a beauty unlike any other, the beauty of pure love. Despite the fatigue, she seems to enjoy giving hugs, very very much.

I could feel the energy from the doorway to the temple, and as I got closer and closer, inching up chair by folding metal chair, I could feel this bright, white energy radiating out of her. It was almost hard to get near, kind of like a force field.

Finally, I arrived at a little red stool where someone motioned me to kneel. The energy now was radiating in a way that made me feel a bit disoriented.

When it was my turn for a hug, she grabbed me (or someone pushed me) forward and buried me in her enormous breasts, which smelled like rose petals. There were assistants and her entourage buzzing all around me, everyone dressed in white, and the energy was confusing and i was dazed, maybe from the waiting, the fatigue, the chanting...and then she started shouting this gibberish in my ear, and it sounded angry, it sounded like "MURDER." but it was, i guess, in her language, and more like: "murrrrrbeulash" and she repeated quickly it over and over again. What did it mean? Was it a mantra for me? A secret message?

Then she thrust a Hershey kiss wrapped in a rose petal in my hand, and something, a force, (one of her assistants?) pushed me away, and I reeled backward. Amma then used the manual clicker in her hand to record my hug, and before I could sit down, she was on to the next. You can't expect a lot of personal attention from the hugging saint. You have to share her.

When I tried to stand up, I was dizzy and almost fell over. I fell into a deep meditative trance, and stayed that way until the chanting stopped, and someone nudged me and said the darshan was over. It was well past 2 am by then and the crowd started to trickle outside into the gardens. I guess even Amma needs to pee and get some sleep.

When I told this story to my friend, he quipped:

"I hear they sell Amma's pee there as well, but it's really, really expensive. You have to know the right people. It's called, "gurine" as in "guru urine." The black market on this stuff is phenomenal. It's said that her golden essence will sprout roses in winter."

Uh, I think I'll pass on the pre-owned altar items, thank you. The hug will stay with me for a long time.

Why can't we just have fun?

2009-06-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

Why is just making love and having fun such a chore sometimes?

Like, why can't people just hang out and enjoy each other and not let
all their baggage get in the way?

We could probably be doing that right now, but, you know, it's so much of a commitment, and it would
then "mean something," and there would be all kinds of "expectation"...

Why is everybody so busy all the time that they don't have time in
life for the "best things in life that are free"?

Really, i think all these "issues" around "relationship" are just
another way that "they" can control us and ruin all of the fun we could
be having.

It's just another way, now that sex before marriage is no
longer a big taboo, to turn the most precious things in life into yet
another commodity that can be controlled and manipulated and people can
make a profit from.

Is it ok to smoke... if he's smoking hot?

2009-06-05T19:50:00.000-07:00

Isn't it funny that we can insist on non smokers in the online world, but when we meet in real life, where chemistry overrules the logical brain, we suddenly end up falling head over heels for the Marlboro Man?

After all, we think..."Maybe if I kiss him enough I can get him to quit."

There's an interesting discussion about this over at Blogher:

http://www.blogher.com/node/15289

Shut up and let him drive

2009-05-19T14:06:00.000-07:00

The other day I reunited with an old flame. We haven't seen each other, physically, for at least seven years. He took me to lunch at a Chinese restaurant.

At first I was shocked to see how he'd gone from dark hair to gray. But what was more jarring was how he'd mellowed out -- from a trendy mysterious bad boy full of hubris, ego and attitude, to a stable father, a responsible, caring, loving adult.

Having a child cracked his once guarded heart wide open.

Last time we were together, I was a hard driving corporate executive and focused most of my energy on my career and acquiring stuff, including a house worth almost a million dollars. I was living an inauthentic life that was about materialism and doing the things society tell you to do, rather than following my heart.

I was stuck deep in my masculine, and it was turning men off.

Like most women, I longed so much to be in love, to surrender to love, but something inside me didn't trust that a man would ever be able to provide and take care of me. Basically, I was trapped in the lonely paradox of modern feminism -- the modern myth that I was better off on my own than wasting any time daydreaming that some knight on a white horse would scoop me up and whisk me away to a happy family and a picket fence.

I always wondered, "wasn't there something in between these extremes? A partnership where a man and woman could team up and co-create a business or work of art together? Why did the woman always get stuck in backseat, as the woman behind the man.

There was a powerful attraction from the minute we met -- and I ran from it because a lot of the things he was into at that time (from alternative music to astrology and metaphysics) were just way too out there for me to understand. I took off on a trip overseas for the summer.

While I was gone, he married the next woman he met -- and not long after that, here was one of the baddest bad boys I've ever known, holding down a corporate executive job, raising a child, and buying a house.

For most of those 7 years, I've been in and out of relationships. One lasted a few years and we got engaged. But the relationships that followed were painful, hurtful and even abusive experiences that left me with thick layers of scar tissue and an ever-growing distrust of men.

Seeking the love inside that I wasn't finding outside, I delved deep into a spiritual journey that has involved tantric healing work, workshops and therapy, shamanic journeying, the artistic underground, yoga, meditation, raw food... I focused on the external too--paying thousands of dollars for skin treatments and the best hairstylists, new clothes and makeup.

I went way out on the edge, just about as far as you can go in search of erradicating whatever it was inside me that was making me so unlovable. Little did I know that it was my aggressive, competitive inner masculine that was turning the guys off. Once all about material striving and black pinstripe suits, I dove deep into the murky waters of the sacred feminine mysteries.

I started dressing like a goddess. I learned to dance, sing, perform, give a massage, move energy, surrender to bliss. Some people called me a Dakini. Some people thought I'd lost my mind. But sometimes you have to get lost in order to find yourself.

As I sat across the table over lunch, he cracked open a fortune cookie.

It said: "A good friend is the best mirror."

It struck me as painfully ironic -- now, here we were, 7 years later - strangely closer to each other and with more common ground than we had when the journey began. My rock found a kite, and started to fly. His kite found a rock, and became more stable.

Sadly, his marriage was destroyed, to a large extent, by his wife's ardent feminism and controlling behavior -- which included her insisting on driving all the time, working while he stayed home and cared for the kid as a house husband, competing as an athlete, and finally, spending most of her free time on a spiritual path that severed their last thread of common ground.

We might also say that perhaps my friend also lost his core masculine essence as he took on the feminine role, and that his wife overcompensated with her growing masculinity and competitiveness.

It is especially ironic that such a physically large and strong man, a man who is like the very essence of masculine, ended up so "pussy whipped". And it's ironic that a woman would knowingly choose a radical iconoclast as her partner and then try to suck the life out of him and turn him into a striving conformist.

The other day I wrote to him:

"I think it is very sad that women so often cage the wild creature they were first attracted to. And then once they have him in their lair, subdued, emasculated, slaving away to the domicile, firmly tied to the bed with velvet ropes, they start complaining: "What happened to the man I fell in love with?""

He wrote back: "I am pinching myself."

As a hard driving career chick who was comfortable in the company of Ivy league CEOs and sitting in board meetings, I lived in the world of men all day long. In relationship, I tended to choose very soft, physically small and efeminite men, or men with long flowing hair, earrings and peacock wardrobes.

Often I picked men who were weaker than me financially. I didn't see that my own feminine defecit was forcing me to be with feminized men in order to find that natural yin/yang balance that all relationships seek (including gay ones). For example, there's usually a "butch" and a "femme" in most lesbian partnerships, and a more financially or sexually dominant and submissive partner in gay male couples.

Now that my journey had softened me up, healed the wounds that made me mistrust and thus need to control men, made me more comfortable with my divine feminine essence, I could relate more to the wisdom in allowing the yin/yang of masculine / feminine polarity take over -- much as Ginger Rogers let Fred Astaire lead her in the dance.

"I did everything he did," Ginger said, "Only backwards and in heels." If Ginger didn't follow so gracefully, she wouldn't be supporting Fred, and neither of them would succeed in the dance.

I was feeling more comfortable with the idea of being with a masculine, powerful man, and letting him set the pace of the relationship, letting him pursue and lead. And with the idea, eventually, of relinquishing my lonely independence and allowing myself to be interdependent someday.

Writer and relationship guru David Deida talks about striving, ideally, for "interdependent" (rather
than co-dependent) relationship between men and women, and the balance
of masculine / feminine energy. Interdependent relationships the next step in the evolution of relationship. Deida says they are extremely rare.

Along that theme, Laura Doyle wrote a controversial book, "The Surrendered Wife" a few years ago that advises women to let go, become more feminine, and let the man drive, make the financial decisions and take charge.

I'm looking forward to relaxing and seeing where that takes me on the road to the interdependent relationship that I know I'll find someday, if I can just learn how to shut up, surrender and let him drive.

Craigslist killer strikes again

2009-04-22T15:39:00.000-07:00

Thank God I haven't met the Craigslist panty raider yet. He's not just a lingerie thief--he's a killer. He pursued women who were living somewhat on life's margins, so that he could dominate them and abuse them.

Sounds like some of the creepy men I've unfortunately been too trusting with at times in my life -- and sadly, these are "real" guys I've met in "real" life, not stalkers on the web.

One reason not to be needy, or to convince yourself that you're not worthy of asking for some information about a guy, up front. If he balks, he's probably got something to hide. Next!

One more reason to screen anyone carefully with LOTS of questions, and absolutely do not ever, ever, ever let a someone you've met in a personal ad know your real address, your home number, and girls, don't go on a hike or a kayak ride on your first date, and do not let him, no matter how charming, into your apartment.

If anyone raises a red flag in your BS detector, Google him profusely, do a search on Intellius (well worth the $14.99), and check his wallet for an ID when he's out of the room so you can confirm his name. One of my girlfriends sprang for the full $40 search and discovered that her new beau not only lived in another state -- but he was married.

Sorry if this sounds paranoid and mistrusting -- but it's better to be safe than end up in some guy's box, next to his gun and a copy of Gray's Anatomy.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/04/sources_craigsl.html

An intellectual love hostage?

2009-04-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

It's incredible how many men will take your personal ad post -- no matter what you say -- and twist it around into a kinky sex fantasy.

Here is the most ridiculous response I've received this week from a personal ad I posted. I swear I am not making this up!

I'd like to try to impress you so much that you'll agree to surrender into my sensual/intellectual "hostage" for a day or two and will help me to put everything together before release... i am not looking to get laid - "satisfied man cannot create", but i'd love to enhance my creative process by sharing what i know (as input), so you could "output" an enhanced version, or your interpretation of my original information + your vision/ ideas /experiences...

Why "hostage"?

Because

- trust is probably the most stimulating /erotic thing that is out there...
- it might be an interesting/new experience for you;
- it will be a really empowering for me;
- it is probably the easiest way to define boundaries of our connection;

I am younger and age difference will automatically put you in the position of authority - you have more life experience. If you'll decide to submit voluntarily allowing me to make decisions about form of information exchange, then you 'll become an inspirational goddess-alike... Stronger individuals do not need to control because they could afford things to "happen"

The main idea of my project is to stop wars in the world through non-violent "terror" - voluntary human shields.. in every military conflict there is no "right"/"wrong" sides. Somehow it happened that human life lost its value - we get one war after another.... There must be a force that will stop killing...

Using social networking it will be possible to consolidate human rights/antiwar movements... Monetizing web traffic will help to pay for 7-10K tickets for volunteers, who will decide to become a "human shields".

Spreading the knowledge about original intentions of all major religions will allow to melt together people's believes and will also help to save lives... people of the same faith are less likely to kill each other.

i interpret religions as "mental games" and right now it might be a good time to transform institution of the Church.

Human shields force will be equipped with devices allowing to blog in real time.. Each shield will have at least 5 people who will be waiting him/her back... 10k x 5=50K people will be providing info about conflict.

Both sides involved into conflict will have to deal with either
mini-holocaust of foreigners broadcasted live on the Web (which is not likely)
submission to shields' demands to start peaceful communication.

There is no way to arrest and place into prison so many people at once. Interference with every military conflict will discourage people to invest into weaponry.

there is a lot more to this project. In order to get attention to the project i will release few interesting journalist investigations ....

I wasnt trying to offend with indecent part of this offer- i just like the idea of finding equilibrium between a business and pleasure, plus i thought that you might like to have a creative/entertaining younger friend..

The ever-profitable dating industrial complex.

2009-04-22T11:41:00.001-07:00

I got this in my in box today. When did dating become such a battlefield? When did it become a strategy game? When did it become such a mystery? When did it become an INDUSTRY?

Is the online dating scene and all of the workshops, singles parties and the myriad of consultants and matchmakers really necessary? Or is it just another way that even the most sacred, basic, simple things in our lives (like love and sex) have been warped into an industry that people can profit off of?

Personally, I just long for the days when I was a teenager and we were fresh, innocent, and blissfully unaware of the "games". When it was just about hanging out because you liked someone and thought they were cute. I think if we could step back and forget all the fear, games, strategies and mistrust, maybe, just maybe, we could fall in love with each other again.

Are you disillusioned with dating?
Feeling less than powerful?
Feeling less than optimistic?
Tired of the "games?"

Ever considered that it's HOW you're dating?

Hey Everybody! Join me and my guests, Relationships/ Dating experts
Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski, for a riveting
hour on how you can date intelligently and
successfully!

Judith & Jim: SMART Dating: How to Attract
Only the People Who Are Right for YOU!

If you invest only one hour this year on your dating
and dating success, make it this one! It could seriously
change the course of your life!

Learn...

* How dating games defeat your goals for a solid
sincere love connection

* Why traditional dating is not in your best interest

(So what do you do instead?)

* How men and women lose their power to each
other in the dating scene

(Yes, that's so true.)

* Why contemporary dating must empower you
rather than what everyone learned growing up

* How to spot emotional resistance and know what
to do about it . . . so the negative blather that goes
on in your head doesn't run the way you date

* Why online dating is a great rehearsal ground for
a successful relationship

* And much, much more!

Hitting a home run? First you gotta get to first base.

2009-04-14T04:51:00.000-07:00

This is a witty personal ad I found today on Craigslist...and within it, some of the best relationship advice I've ever found from a guy's perspective. In a guy's language. Baseball.

Strangely, though, contrary to all advice that tells us gals to "hold off and let 'em chase", I've had my longest, and most successful relationships (and marriage proposals) with men who practically hit a home run on the first date. (Yes, all of the bases....well almost.) Ridiculous, uncontrollable chemistry seems to lead to the most sustainable relationships in the long run. Yes, and avoiding any discussion of the M word. Just don't say it. Don't mention it. Play the game.

----

Seeking a long-time relationship from the get-go is like swinging for a homerun. Homeruns are errors by the pitcher. If the hitter hits in hard enough and with the right timing, the possibility of a homerun is very great. But to go up to bat with the intent of hitting a homerun only raises the possibility of a strikeout. Pitchers can feel this and know you will be swinging for the fences. You will strikeout more often than hit a homerun. You will only scare the guys away. Ergo, you can use this knowledge to turn away unwanted advances.

Seeking for a long-term relationship from the get-go is like this. There is no patience involved. LTR seekers are just as bad as the ones who want to get you into the sack on the first exchange. They want a long-term relationship on the first exchange. Hence all the ridiculous requirements. There is no compromise. There is no growth; only broken promises of impossible expectations.

The other categories are more amicable. They are like the real thing. The idea is to get on base and let your teammates do their part to bring you home. You try your best to get on base, first base first (consummate the relationship), then second base (move in together), third base (meet the parents, go on a vacation together), then probably all the way home, if your teammate (lover) gets a hit.

Now the casual encounters!!! These people want to get on base 100% of the time. And the only way to get on base 100% of the time is to get hit by a pitch. Which is okay if that's your game, but getting hit by a pitch hurts, and you cannot be making a career from this.

So stop swinging for the homeruns. Don't seek the long-term relationship without seeing the pitches. Chances are you will strikeout. Chances are you scare the guys away. Be patient. Know the pitches. Get on base. Rely on your teammates to bring you home. Don't be a one person team.

And, on the same dimension, let's face it sex has alot to do with compatibility, unless you have gobs of money and sex with your partner, or even your primary partner, is a duty more than a product of your passions. Do I have a witness??

Here's to Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics, the best team for its money.

Is it polyamory -- or polyagony? (My response to the responses to "Single (again) during the holidays.

2009-04-11T16:54:00.000-07:00

Are we evolving to a new, openly loving society? Or are we a culture full of shallow, self-centered pleasure seekers who don't want to do any of the difficult work it takes to maintain families and deep, committed relationships?

In theory, ideally, polyamory means you have the best of both worlds -- and multiple partners who are committed, adoring, present, helpful, and there for you in sickness and in health, during the fun times AND the downturns.

Awwww....wouldn't that be nice?

Polyamory, in my experience, and the experience of other friends who have agonizingly endured it, means instead of having two lovers remember you on Valentine's day, your birthday, Christmas--nobody remembers you on holidays.

Instead of having a lover to pick you up at the airport, you're taking a cab home alone.

Instead of being able to freely call whenever you want, or just pop by to visit, you're on a strict schedule and have to set appointments (lest you embarrassingly stumble in on a tryst.)

For the polyamorist in the driver's seat, it's all the fun with none of the commitment or responsibility.

Who's there when you get sick, when you need cheering up, when it's "that time of the month" or when it's time to move? The polyamorist is off having fun with someone who is having a good day-- and his menagerie of partners are stuck with a fair weather f*ckbuddy who only shows up when it's time to hook up and party.

Interestingly, since this was posted, "Bozo" has told me that "Mr. Poly" still sees many other partners on the side. When I see the twisted agony in her face as she says that, I can tell that her heart isn't into this sharing, and it still causes her a lot of pain. Would she dye her roots and dump this guy if she had better self esteem? Of course.

I now have moved from anger towards her to empathy. I was there in her shoes, and I remember how miserable I was.

I have now accepted that I was in a relationship with a sex addict who hid his addiction behind a groovy urban community that promotes and endorses "polyamory."

My own lack of self esteem (going back to early experiences in childhood) enabled me to put up with this and be a co-dependent to his addiction -- because the person I was then did not truly feel that I deserved deep love and caring.

Through the 5 years of growth I've gone through while writing this anonymous blog I've changed now. It was a journey, and I survived. Doormat? Moi?

It makes me absolutely sick now to hear other people beam at their public relationship performance art and say things like: "Oooooh! She's so good for him!" Well, yes, she is so good for him!

Excuse me, but when he takes her to a party, his typical behavior is to ditch her immediately and run off with someone else?

Excuse me, she continues to look the other way and call herself "polyamorous" while HE is the one who carries on with other people, while she is never seen dating anyone publicly but him?

Excuse me, but the two of them are never seen out unless they are going to a sensual or cuddle party when he can roam around and indulge himself in front of her while she winces and undoubtedly feels unworthy?

I call that tolerating a self-centered, narcissic cheater, if you ask me. Yes, she's "good" for him. (Loved hearing her post little Twitter feeds from his bedside while she was in the hospital nursing him to health after his surgery!)

This particular woman (and my ex) engage in this behavior in the name of 'polyamory' -- which is the new buzz word for having multiple simultaneous relationships.

My therapist says: "Oh, polyamory? In the old days, we called it "adultery." Just a new word for the age old act of dishonesty and cheating.

It's not polyamory if you're lying about it--it's cheating. Polyamory means "many loves" -- not "many f*cks." Some people call it "polyf*ckery."

If you're not showing up for the real work that it takes to be in an intimate relationship, or you're spread too thin with too many partners, then it's polyf*ckery -- which leads to polyagony. Which ultimately leads to polyangry.

In all of my 30+ years of relationships, they were almost always faithful and monogamous, until about 5 years ago when it seemed like the whole landscape tilted in favor of men and the polyf*ckery craze began.

(Coincidentally this is right about the time that those fabulous tools for cheating, online dating, online banking (no more receipts for the wife to find!), text messaging and cellphones, became so ubiquitious.)

Were we suddenly openhearted and loving everyone -- or is the polyf*ckery craze because we all now had web access, and cellphones and text messages and Craigslist and Online Bootycall and FWBs and NSAs and cheating suddenly became cheap, easy and technologically feasible?

Sorry, call me old fashioned, but I'd rather be a perpetually single woman with self esteem, ethics and values, than the new modern woman who "gets" to have a partner only because she's willing to swallow her pride, look the other way and tolerate a fair weather f*ckbuddy. A

Looking for a guy who can keep me warm and dry in the post peak oil financial meltdown

2009-04-06T12:07:00.001-07:00

If things get really rough, I'm looking for a man who can help me stay warm and survive the rigors of a total economic collapse.

Geeks are out (unless they're handy with tools) as computer programming isn't going to be much needed in a meltdown.

Forget stockbrokers, fnancial managers, venture capitalists, accountants and bankers.

And real estate agents and mortgage brokers are going to be useless.

Born rich? Trust fund babies and people who are living off their investments and stock portfolios are freaking out now, because their finances are not "liquid" -- and many of these men have gotten soft and decadent, and have few real world skills to boot.

Massage therapists, yoga teachers and musicians are especially unappealing in times like this--unless you're looking to be rubbed, flexed and serenaded while the world crashes down around you.

Yeah baby, I want a man who can build me a bomb shelter in the apocalypse.

I want a man who can grow a Victory garden. Climb a coconut tree. And live off the land.

I want me a handy man.

A contractor, a plumber, a gardener, oh yeah. Auto mechanics are probably a good bet right now, as are doctors, EMTs, fire fighters and men who know how to get a generator running or -- or any man who is already self sufficient and living off the grid.

Cops, if that's your thing -- at least they'll always have a job.

Pot farmers -- hey, not a bad idea. They have a green thumb.

Guys, you'll probably want a woman who isn't afraid of spiders, not one of those high maintainence lipstick and heels girls -- or a gal with some real skills like a seamstress, chef or nurse.

And if a girl has been relying on hair dye, botox and Collagen for her good looks, you may be in for a rude awakening when all that chemical magic wears off and she starts to look like a pumpkin again.

What do you think? Are handy guys and practical girls suddenly hot?

Back to a time when life was simple

2009-03-20T13:03:00.000-07:00

This is a very bizarre personal ad response I found on Craigslist. But hidden between the lines is the angst that seems to get communicated in the personals by men who feel unable in the current world to satisfy the archaic desire that women still have for a white picket fence, monogamy and family.

---------

I wish I could move. I would move backwards in time. Back to a time when life was simple. When The Beach Boys with Pendleton shirts sang songs about cars & girls. I want to live in the 50's. Back in the 50's, all housewives had those tattoos on their lower back! That being said....

Back when I was a kid, they didn't have stuff like synthetic oil. All that we had was old fashioned dinosaur juice, pop rocks, and 7-Up. Does having Brady Bunch & CHiPs flashbacks make me old? Sometimes it feels like I'm suffering Post Traumatic Stress from all that Disco.

The B&W TV era was an age of innocence, wasn't it? Didn't we all grow up with Leave It To Beaver? I loved how the Beaver could get into all kinds of mischief, and get out of it all, in 22 minutes with a few commercials thrown in. And who could forget how American Graffiti, Grease, and Happy Days painted a picture of the 50's that we all wish we could visit?

How I would love to live in a era where a man on a single income could afford a house, wife, 2.5 kids, white picket fence, & two cars in the driveway. What was gas back then? A nickel a gallon? Wasn't that back when "till death do us part" actually meant something? There was no divorce back then. You had to stick to your commitment, or commit suicide to get out of it.

Like other boys and girls, having negotiated through the minefields of dating and mating, I'm sure that both of us have a few battle scars. I've made it through all of my tours of duty, and came through seemingly unscathed. Guess what? No ex-wives, no ex-kids, no alimony, no child support, no divorce, no bankruptcy. I should get at least a Congressional Medal, if not a Purple Heart.

I'm now at the phase in my "career" where I don't come out of the corner swinging anymore. I'd rather jab away the first few rounds, measure my distance, develop my timing, get into my rhythm, and conserve my energy for the later rounds.
So now I'm just a regular boy, wearing Levi's & Pendletons, driving a big old pick-em-up truck, in a small city, with narrow streets & no parking. I'm still stuck with the kind of girls who show off their breast implants & lower back tattoos, with bare midriff tank tops & low cut jeans; and think that dancing on a speaker box at a nightclub can lead to bigger things in life - like being picked to dance in the cage suspended over the dance floor. I can only hope for and dream about those rich girls from Marin, who live on a trust fund, and want to save the world from hunger, war, malaria in third world countries, and the Republicans. Can you feel my pain?

No recession for online dating

2008-12-30T17:59:00.000-08:00

Is it a coincidence, or are all of my formerly wild and crazy free loving girlfriends suddenly talking about being in monogamous relationships again? And even the wildest, craziest players among my male friends are suddenly pairing up with just one girl, or moving in together and getting married.

That's right--two incomes are better than one, and suddenly it's very chic to be paring up with someone practical and reliable.
After all, two can live cheaper than one, and dating is expensive.

According to this week's Time Magazine and the LA Times, the fast and freakish free fall of the economic recession has generated a sudden bull market for online dating.

Match.com reported its largest monthly membership growth in seven years in November, while Perfectmatch.com reported a 47% jump in membership over the past quarter.

If you feel lonely during the holidays - reach out to others

2008-12-22T16:04:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, while I was dancing with my friends, one of my exe's exes broke down in tears in the corner of the room. Two people embraced her as she cried. I have no idea what she was upset about, but I have a feeling she is sad and lonely during the holidays. Perhaps. like many single women over 40s, she feels abandoned and unlovable.

So many of my friends, male and female, are breaking down in tears right now or feeling isolated and alone. The connection we seek isn't just with a partner or a lover -- its a connection we want with each other, will all of humanity, with community. Right now, I feel like many of us--the ones who are awake and not snuffing our our emotions with drugs and alcohol and distractions -- are feeling this collective pain, and it's starting to well up inside of us and pour out.

When I received this essay today, I realized I am not alone. Reach out to someone this week. Dance with them. Hold them. Give them an embrace. Send them a note or a card and remind them that you love them and that you care.

UNDERSTANDING RELATIONSHIPS: Icing OR Cake?

(author-unknown)

I should be really happy to be in charge of my life,
to live the way my heart calls me to. But I also feel emptiness now, in spite of the
seeming full, interesting and down right adventurous
life I lead. There is something missing, and this year
it has become painfully clear, not just for me but for
so many. I feel emptiness because I do not have a deep
and intimate personal relationship.

Victories and
adventures are dulled when there is no one home to
share them with. When I was finished, Connie said,
"Sounds like you have all the icing without the cake."

Now Connie has led a blessed life with very little
chaos, at least from my perspective. She married her
one and only, and still to this day glows from the
love they share. They have raised 3 sons together who
are all exceptional adults and delivered Connie, and
husband Pete, with a house full of beautiful
grandchildren. The respect they have for each other is
amazing and the glow of real deep intimacy shows.

Connie knows what cake is, and she works hard to keep
cake in her life.

And what stops us from having it all! Why do so many
on the spiritual path endure traumatic relationships
or have no relationship at all?

This conversation -- cake icing theory -- led me into
a whole process of thought over the next few weeks. I
looked at where I was not fulfilled and where my
extended family felt unfulfilled. I knew of some who
had lived the solitary life for many years were now
coming to a place where they were beginning to feel a
deep loneliness, and I had to ask myself why.

I looked
at the world in general and looked at how we try to
fill those empty spots inside of us. And I had to ask
why the empty spots seem to be getting larger, rather
than smaller, with our spiritual growth. Maybe this
has something to do with the Star Elders statement
this past March about this being the year of the
heart.

I began to see a pattern in various groups. First
there are those who crave the depth in life, but seem
to have an abundance of sweet icing. They want the
home, the intimate family and loving partner, the
garden in the back, and a kitty in the window still.
It isn't that they do not appreciate the icing, they
do, it's just the icing has no home base, no roots in
which to rest after a great adventure or victory. The
icing doesn't fulfill the spirit and these ones know
there is more to life than they have been getting.

Then there are the ones who would rather grab the easy
fix and go for the icing. They feel if they get the
new car, the big house, the perfect job, or Barbie
Doll girl friend or Prince Charming, that they will be
happy. Let's face it -- the new car will get
scratched, the house will have to be cleaned over and
over, and the job will become a boring routine once
again... and Barbie doesn't have a brain, and Prince
Charming never gets off his white horse. It's all
icing, very sweet upon first taste -- but it will make
us sick if we eat too much of it.

We run from fear
of being hurt and from the hard work it takes to bake
the cake that is the very foundation for the icing we
crave.

Then there is the really sad group who forgets there
is cake at all. They are like squirrels on a treadmill
going around and around working night and day to keep
the icing up high. These ones have no idea what they
are missing. They have only tasted icing and the cake
has eluded them completely. My question is, if you
never tasted the cake how do you know what you are
missing.... Maybe you don't.

Don Miguel Ruiz in his book "Mastery of Love" says
that we need to fulfill ourselves first before we can
fulfill ourselves in a relationship. I believe we need
to know ourselves to be able to draw in the right
person, BUT still in nature nothing exists without an
intimate connection with something else. We are part
of nature. Do you see anything under the sun that does
not need something else to survive?

We are not
autonomous beings, as much as we would like to be. Are
we using spiritual new-age concepts and teachings to
avoid intimacy? Are we using them to protect ourselves
from getting hurt? Are we using this kind of teachings
to build a wall in which to protect our wounded hearts
and to avoid possible future pain, instead of risking
and opening ourselves to God's magical gifts of Love?

Now don't get me wrong here, I love Marianne
Williamson and Don Miguel and other teachers like
them. Without a doubt they are opening us to look at
ourselves in new and expanded ways. These teachings
are profound yet they also seem to create a lot of
confusion about relationship -- relationship to
ourselves and each other. We are torn between living
in the idealism of spirit and the reality of being
human.

Christ said to go into the kingdom of heaven as a
little child. Children do not approach life with fear.
They don't worry that if they take their first steps
they will fall and hurt themselves.. . and when they do
fall, they feel it, get up, and go do it again and
again until they get it right. They live with wonder,
curiosity, and LOVE. Most of all their hearts are not
yet closed, their minds not programmed with limiting
concepts. They take life as it comes to them.

Do we? Have life's challenges closed us down? Have our
painful experiences made us jaded, cautious, and
overly discerning?

Icing needs
cake! Cake needs icing. And we need each other, so
let's quit pretending that we don't. Let's quit
twisted profound spiritual concepts to hide behind.
Let's quit professing everything is wonderful, when it
isn't. It is time to get real. It is time to feel the
heart not just speak about it. It is not codependent
to desire a deep relationship with another human being
to feel fulfilled! It being human, it is being real,
it is natural.

I began to think in deeper terms about relationship
and how it relates our planet. If we can't get real
with each other, how can we assume we can get it right
with humanity and manifest harmony!

We crave relationships and
community that will support us on our worst days and
that will be there to celebrate our victories.

One day all that we have owned, created, and done here
on this plane will pass away. It is a fact. All that
we will take with us is the love we shared, the
connectedness we have experienced with one another,
and the lessons we learned. This is the real stuff --
the stuff that makes life rich. It is the soft and
crumbling cake we need -- to gobble up every crumb
while it is still warm from the oven like it was the
last crumb and to lick the plate like a child when we
are done. We need deep and intimate connection with
others, and with God. What we crave most is eternal.

The Star Elders say this is the year of the Heart.
They didn't say it would be easy. Opening the heart
and living with love takes work.

We are all working together -- to deny
this fact is to deny nature itself. I am beginning to
see that the days of the spiritual hermit, the lone
seeker are over. We have all done the hermit thing. We
have fasted on the mountaintops and we have gone to
the desert. We have isolated ourselves from each other
because of hurt and trauma. We have learned who we
are.

Maybe the loneliness many are beginning to feel is a
universal push to bring us together once again. First
a partner, then community, country, and planet.

The Maya have a saying, "In Lak'ech - A La Kin". It
means, I am you and you are me. It reminds me we are
simply wanting to re-connect the other parts of
ourselves. It is time to recognize that we need each
other to create our dream and to feel fulfilled,
because we are a part of each other. In fact we have
never been separate. It has been the greatest
illusion.

I don't have any more answers than when I began this
quest for understanding relationship. In fact I seem
to have more questions. I have shared many things I
have been feeling. Sometimes it scares me to do this,
but I try with all my heart to live open and be
vulnerable.

I know things are changing and we are not
really sure how things are going to end up. All we
know is what we have been doing is not working anymore
and we are all looking for the answers, the new path.
But the one thing I am sure of it that the answers can
only come from our open hearts.

Single (again) during the holidays.

2008-12-18T16:43:00.000-08:00

Sunday, my girlfriend broke down in tears in the middle of a dance. It's been a rough time for her -- her grandparents just passed away, she has the same economic struggles we're all facing, and her boyfriend seems kind of indifferent to her emotional turmoil. She wanted to be held, supported, you know -- cuddled. So she dragged me to a brunch party hosted by Reid, the suddenly famous host of the Cuddle Party.

Even though a cuddle brunch seems innocuous enough, I had a bad feeling in my gut about it, but I wanted her to feel better, so we picked up some eggs and went there.

We left our shoes in the hall of a small but beautifully decorated classic San Francisco flat, and Reid, who has shaggy blonde hair, was much cuter and, well -- huggable -- that I possibly expected, welcomed us with, of course, a fabulous warm hug and a big beaming smile. He was wearing printed flannel pajamas, though it was at least 3 in the afternoon. (Reid always wears PJs -- that's the de rigeur attire for the Cuddle Party.) I was starting to cheer up. But still, that vague "this is not right feeling" was stalking me.

When we walked into the kitchen I knew why: there was my ex -- and the (boo, hiss!) woman who snagged him away. I'll call her Bozo Hair, to protect her identity. She's a frumpy middle aged woman with this enormous pouf of frizzy hair dyed Ronald Mc Donald Red. Ok, Bozo the Clown Red. It is not a color of hair that exists in nature, even if you're Celtic. Contrasting the frizz of hair (in which, as usual, there were about an inch of gray roots showing), she was wearing one of her typically unflattering, loud, garish neo Goddess outfits -- a pair of widelegged printed purple hipster yoga pants that shouldn't even be manufactured in her size. (Some people do not have a licence to wear stretch pants.) It looked like they had both been out partying all night and rolled in still awake and wearing whatever they had on the night before. He had deep dark circles under his eyes, and they both looked kind of gray. Ex put on a show keeping himself busy fetching heaping plates of food to feed Bozo, which she scarfed up nervously. It was like watching someone fatten up a calf for slaughter.

Bitter? Moi? Nine months have passed. I recovered, therapized, workshopped and soothed myself into a wiser woman with higher self esteem. I tossed out every card and gift he ever gave me. (Except the vibrating razor. It's a wierd narcissic gift, but my legs have never been smoother.) I abandoned my communities and avoided every possible party where I might run into him. But once in a while, I run into THEM -- and in Eckart Tolle's words, it retriggers the "pain body" of grief.

So here's my worst nightmare, right? Him with HER (boo, hiss!) in a VERY small cuddle party! Yikes.

I looked around. The flat was cramped. There was no possible place for cuddling to happen except the bedroom. This was not looking promising.

I pulled my girlfriend aside and whispered, urgently:

"Get me out of here!"

"Let's eat first, I'm starved," she said.

There was one seat available -- of course, the one directly across from "them." Bozo made an awkward attempt to be polite (she always has this nonchalant touchy feely attitude of: "Why won't you be friends with me? We're all just one big polyamorous happy family, why can't we love one another, blah blah blah, San Francisco New Age Double Speak.)

The fact is, she "got" him for only one reason: She was willing to stalk a partnered man, she knew he was a cheater, and she was willing to tolerate it. I asked for respect, honesty, transparency and commitment. He didn't give it to me either, so I left, with my self respect intact.

She continues to look the other way. He continues to "pretend" to be her boyfriend while he continued to chase me for months and still blatantly sees others on the side -- business as usual, nothing changed. Maybe it works for them.

We scrambled some eggs, ate nervously, made some polite small talk, hugged everybody (except you know who!) and scrambled out of there.

It was the latest in a string of "he's a cheater" experiences in my dating life.

Is the Internet and all of our high tech toys (like instant messaging and cellphones) to blame for what seems to continue steamrolling into a total erosion of traditional values in our culture?

Or is it just me? Am old fashioned and out of step in this new age of "polyamory" and NSAs and FWBS and "hook ups" -- and just not getting with it?

It just feels like an avalanche of cheating, dishonesty and two-timing is falling all around me, and I sit here in the midst of it, wanting just one simple thing: Someone to hold, to trust, to love, to unwrap gifts with, to share the warmth with. And I wonder why something so basic, so human, so simple to ask continues to elude me?

Ten rules for dating in the zombie apocalypse

2008-12-17T17:19:00.000-08:00

If the end of the world is coming, better find a hammer--and don't make the first move.

Stumbled on this in PinkRaygun.

As the worldwide zombie uprising continues and worsens, we should stop for a moment to consider how this will effect our dating lives. Unless you have mad mixed martial arts skills, you’re not going to make it on your own, no matter how Mary Tyler Moore you think you are, and will have to revise your ideas on dating. To this end, Pink Raygun has developed 10 Rules for Dating in the Zombie Apocalypse.

1. Lower your standards - Dates will be hard to find. “Breathing” should be your top priority. “Teeth” should be optional.

2. Cultivate plumpness - If you look well fed, it means you’re near a food source. A steady supply of food is attractive.

3. Carry a hammer - A hammer can be used as a building tool, a food preparation tool and a self-defense tool. It will be the new must-have accessory, so set yourself apart by bedazzling your hammer. A bedazzled hammer says “I’m practical and trendy!” Extra points for preparedness if you name your hammer. “Mjolnir” and “Smashy” are great names and show your date that you appreciate your hardware.

4. Don’t make the first move - Its easy to mistake a newly dead guy for a guy with no social skills or coordination. Let him make the first move, so you know he fulfills the “breathing” requirement.

5. If his first move is to bite you, whack him with your bedazzled hammer.

6. Don’t meet him halfway - When it’s time for that magical date, you’ll only increase your chances of getting nabbed by a zombie as you try to cover ground. Make him pick you up at the door.

7. Don’t talk too much - You’ll only give away your hiding place and draw more zombies to your location.

8. Learn to love poor hygiene - Body odor, haggard looks and missing teeth help a guy (or girl) blend in with the zombie landscape and helps prevent attacks, thus ensuring your continued safety.

9. Let him take the lead - That way, he’ll take the brunt of the zombie attack.

10. Be kind to zombies - You don’t want to thin out the zombie dating pool too much because one day, you’ll be a zombie, too. You may miss out on “Mister Right,” but you’re almost guaranteed to find “Mr. Bite.”

Dating RIP? NY Times says now it's just hooking up.

2008-12-17T16:13:00.000-08:00

This week, the New York Times posted an obituary to dating, (well an opinon piece) called: "The Demise of Dating." I think Mr. Blow (what an unfortunate name for someone writing an essay about hookups!) is definitely on to a trend that is not just sweeping teens and the Generation Y, but has pretty much infected our relationships ever since the dawn of the Craigslist hook up ad.

By CHARLES M. BLOW

The paradigm has shifted. Dating is dated. Hooking up is here to stay.

(For those over 30 years old: hooking up is a casual sexual encounter with no expectation of future emotional commitment. Think of it as a one-night stand with someone you know.)

According to a report released this spring by Child Trends, a Washington research group, there are now more high school seniors saying that they never date than seniors who say that they date frequently. Apparently, it’s all about the hookup.

When I first heard about hooking up years ago, I figured that it was a fad that would soon fizzle. I was wrong. It seems to be becoming the norm.

I should point out that just because more young people seem to be hooking up instead of dating doesn’t mean that they’re having more sex (they’ve been having less, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) or having sex with strangers (they’re more likely to hook up with a friend, according to a 2006 paper in the Journal of Adolescent Research).

To help me understand this phenomenon, I called Kathleen Bogle, a professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia who has studied hooking up among college students and is the author of the 2008 book, “Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus.”

It turns out that everything is the opposite of what I remember. Under the old model, you dated a few times and, if you really liked the person, you might consider having sex. Under the new model, you hook up a few times and, if you really like the person, you might consider going on a date.

I asked her to explain the pros and cons of this strange culture. According to her, the pros are that hooking up emphasizes group friendships over the one-pair model of dating, and, therefore, removes the negative stigma from those who can’t get a date. As she put it, “It used to be that if you couldn’t get a date, you were a loser.” Now, she said, you just hang out with your friends and hope that something happens.

The cons center on the issues of gender inequity. Girls get tired of hooking up because they want it to lead to a relationship (the guys don’t), and, as they get older, they start to realize that it’s not a good way to find a spouse. Also, there’s an increased likelihood of sexual assaults because hooking up is often fueled by alcohol.

That’s not good. So why is there an increase in hooking up? According to Professor Bogle, it’s: the collapse of advanced planning, lopsided gender ratios on campus, delaying marriage, relaxing values and sheer momentum.

It used to be that “you were trained your whole life to date,” said Ms. Bogle. “Now we’ve lost that ability — the ability to just ask someone out and get to know them.”

Now that’s sad.

E-mail chblow@nytimes.com

Have you Googled your date yet?

2008-12-17T13:57:00.000-08:00

In the old days, when we met "In the real world", at church or school or in community, it was easy to tell if your date had a "reputation" or was a cad -- the word would be on the street. But in the anonymous world of Internet dating, when we're meeting someone from a different sphere, across town or maybe another state, you get "Googled."

Oldest online dating cliche in the book

2008-12-14T00:06:00.000-08:00

Ok, anyone who has been reading this blog knows I am not a big fan of online dating. But after relentlessly getting spammed by Chemistry.com, I decided to give this service a try. Immediately I got 29 messages from "Men who want to meet me."

Here are a sampling of the tepid personal ad cliches that have arrived in my in box so far. I wish these guys would say something halfway original so I have some sort of clue as to who the human being behind the cliche might be. With generic names like "Ralph" and "Bill" and these deadly dull headlines, I really don't have much to go on.

By the way, I am not making this up. These are real, authentic responses to my personal ad. Aaaaack!

Who would you click on?

Looking for you

The one you've been waiting for!

Adventure Awaits

Total intimacy

“Cold hands, warm heart”

Looking for a connection

Passion and Adventure

WORLD'S GREATEST GUY (The whole letter is written in ALL CAPS and I imagine a guy who shouts a lot.)

Me Tarzan, You Jane

Sincere, Compassionate, and Sensitive Man

Nicest guy you will ever meet

Have broom. Ready to sweep. (You. Off your feet.) <<---ok, this one is at least kind of clever. In a "groooooan" knock knok joke kind of way.

And...drum roll please....

Your search is over!

Aaaaaaaagh! Delete, delete! And I'm supposed to pay money for this?

Here's a blogger's advice on tired dating cliches to avoid.

http://online-dating.suite101.com/article.cfm/online_dating_profile_cliches

Holding hands while walking on the beach in the sunset, anybody?

The new Web 2.0 way to humiliate your ex and get revenge

2008-12-12T15:09:00.000-08:00

Now on Breakkup.com, you can expose that jerk (or jerkette) for the world to see, and the community will evicerate him/her on line -- sort of a modern version of the public gallows.

I found this today on Thrillist.com:

"When suffering through the throes of relationship trouble...get intimate advice from people you don't even know, with Breakkup.

A Digg-styled community dedicated to exploring relationship issues, BKU lets users post predicaments to a "Latest Drama" page, where community members vote on whether to Break Up or Chill Out, as well as leave specific comments, with the most pathetic active posts being slapped up on the homepage.

In the event you have no stones, the site's augmented by a Breakup Assistant. Submit a name, address, and grievances, and personal assistants will send your formerly-loved one a letter ranging in tone from You Really Hurt My Feelings to Don't Ever Talk To Me Again."

There are communities for online dating. So it only makes sense that there would be communities for breaking up. Could divorce networks be next?

The Case of the Disappearing Man-vanished without a trace

2008-11-04T01:05:00.000-08:00

Image courtesy of http://www.menaredogs.com

Want to see a man disappear? It's easy. Just date him for a few weeks. It's happened to me, too. Things were rolling right along, we'd been dating for a few months. He took me out for my birthday to a nice French restaurant. We were going to parties together as a couple. It wasn't perfect, but it was nice enough. But then, suddenly. Nothing. Not a word. I call, asking "Hey, what happened?" No reply. It's like he's dead. And I'm thinking: How incredibly rude. How incredibly spineless. How incredibly...typical.

Well, I'm not alone. And here, in the bowels of Craigslist, are guys fessing up the unpleasant truth of the Disappearing Man Act.

Ok, this will be the same dating saga that women everwhere hash out on girls-night-out. Over and Over and Over! But I have yet to hear a guys explaination... let alone advice on how to handle it.

Guys.. help me out!

Here's the skinny:

--We met online, wrote and talked on the phone for 3 weeks.
--We seemed to have all the same wants, needs, likes, values, situations...etc.
--We met and had three AMAZING dates! We talked about everything, he said all the right things, was very attentive, warm and affectionate.
--We had sex on date three (amazing, yummy sex!)
--He spent the next three weeks texting me, calling me, coming to see me. He told me he was crazy about me, that he missed me, that I made him smile, that he couldn't wait to see me. He made me believe that he meant it too!

Then...
BAMM!

Just when I start to let my heart open up and believe all the wonderful feelings were real... he falls off the face of the earth! No text messages, no phone calls, the "sorry baby, I've been busy, I'll call you soon" excuse... but still no call.

I am so hurt! And I feel like such a sap!

I understand that everything happened fast for us. And I too have fears and reservations to work through.

But, why is it so incredibly hard for a man to just simply call and say:
1. I'm suddenly having some reservations that I need to think about
2. I'm suddenly feeling unsure
3. I feel that we moved too fast, can we slow down
4. I'm suddenly aware that I'm gay

hell... even
5. "I'm suddenly aware that you repulse me" would be better than the silence!!!

This is so unfair!
Why is it ok for men to act as if they are falling in love, and then dissapear?
Is it just a fact that men spout out all the best lies knowing full well that they will bolt in a few weeks? Are they even aware that they do this???
Common guys... you KNOW you have! Would you be upset if women did this to you?

But here's what I need to know...

What do I say to him if he calls?
What could I have done to avoid this in the first place?
From talking to my friends, this 'withdraw period' happens to all guys, every time. Is that true?
Do men actually take some time away, think about it, decide they miss us, and then come back and expect nothing has changed?

Right now I would love to write him a seething letter outlining all the reasons I was falling for him... and how this one thing has ruined my trust in him (and in men!)

My guy friends tell me that I should just move on and if he misses me, he'll come back. Why the HELL should I take back someone who can turn his feelings on and off like a bic lighter?

But, on the remote chance that I start to really miss him... does anyone have any advice for me?

Thank you!

Location: Dating Hell

This is the oldest trick in the book, and sorry it happened to you. You got used for sex, plain and simple. Men will say anything to get laid. He never wanted anything more with you than a few rolls in the hay for a little while. Once you said you wanted more, he was outta there.

First off, if the guy you are referring to is me, "I am sorry" although i can't remember any girls that made me wait till date THREE.

This guy is playing the on-line world and living by the philosophy of not putting all your eggs in one basket.

When you 2 first started talking he probably had 3-4 other girls he was working on at the same time and probably one that he felt a better connection with. Now he likes you and isn't sure about the other girl so he doesn't want to dump you but thinks he should keep you on the hook just in case.

What do you do? Well, if he is playing cold right now you could tell him how you feel and force him to make the choice of either dumping you or forgetting about the other girl(s) but more than likely you won't enjoy the outcome. Even if he does choose you he will more than likely stray, because he thinks he can get better.

Do not take this personally. It isn't really anything about you, it's more about him and his inability to commit. I know sounds like bullshit, but think about this. Christie Brinkley's husband cheated on her. Jennifer Aniston can't seem to keep a guy, and neither can Carrie Underwood. The only thing that you are doing wrong is probably going for this alpha male type that is always on the prowl.

BTW i typically get dumped by girls 2-3 weeks after playing phone tag because i rarely have the balls to tell a girl to her face I am done with her so I try and hide until she gets the message.

Advise is MOVE ON -- and give me a call. I can wait 3 dates as long as they are all on the same week.

I sympathize with you over your loss. These are my thoughts:

You can understand men better if you STOP.
Your questions come from a failure to recognize that men aren't like women. Of course you and your girlfriends ask each other these questions all the time!

STOP. Understand that men are different from women. Very different! Don't expect them to act like you would, or like your girlfriends would.

As one example, let's see how men and women are different when they see something, like a snake. A woman's reaction is usually to be afraid, perhaps
scream, maybe wave her hands back and forth about shoulder high. A man's reaction is usually to back up, watch the snake in fascination, perhaps look for a stick to poke it or kill it. Different reactions.

For many men, maybe even most men, intimacy is a fearful thing, like that snake is to a woman. They don't know what to do, so they do nothing. It's painful for them, by the way, because they know they had something good and are at a loss to understand why it scares them. It's also painful because they know they are hurting the woman and don't know how to handle it.

You might say that all they have to do is call her and at least tell her what's going on, or how they feel. Simple. And they might say to a woman who fears a snake, all you have to do is walk around it, or find a stick and poke it. Simple.

It ain't easy being afraid of intimacy. Try to understand us, we will try to understand you, and remember this: Mother Nature made us to procreate, and not necessarily to have intimate, lasting relationships.

He's dead.

The detectives will be at your door soon.

Be prepared to go downtown.

You may want to get an attorney.

Good luck.

Animals don't fall in love? According to Joe Quirk, love is only for penguins, and monogamy is non existent.

2008-10-31T12:28:00.000-07:00

Move over Mars and Venus. Joe Quirk, is poised to become the hilarious George Carlin of Science, with his new San Francisco Chronicle bestseller IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S BIOLOGY: THE SCIENCE OF LOVE, SEX, AND RELATIONSHIPS.

Who falls in love in the animal kingdom? Only penquins and humans go for it. Monogamy is virtually non existent in the animal kingdom. You'll be loaded with enough pithy facts to hold court at a cocktail party after you read this book.

It's a funny look at the science of why men and women act the way they do.

For a sneak peek, check out this very funny video on You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEdHz0eIpm4

Catch him live:

November 6, 3 p.m.
October 29, Noon
Foothill College
Student Lounge/Campus Center
Foothill College
12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills. (650) 949-7777.

How do you make love stay?

2008-03-25T13:11:00.000-07:00

I was looking into a HAI workshop today and found this
list of "How to Make Love Stay" guidelines on Chip
August's blog.

Then I was reminded of Tom Robbin's
quote about how to make love stay in one of my
favorite books, "Still Life With Woodpecker." I'm
sharing both with you here.

I am finally realizing that love isn't something you find--
love is something you make. A relationship isn't
something you discover -- it is a co-creation. A co-
creation that like any other magnificent work of art or beauty
requires dedication, teamwork, risk and hard work.

This discovery is a major "ah hah" for me.

------

Ten Promises That Invite Love To Stay, by Chip August

1) I promise to listen to you.

2) I promise to tell you the truth, saying both
the hard stuff and the easy stuff.

3) I promise to always make time for us.

4) I promise to choose being in love over being
right.

5) I promise to always look for the joy in our
relationship.

6) I promise to do all I can to have my passion
for you grow.

7) Talking to each other is very important to
our relationship.

8) Loving, intimate touch is more important than
talk.

9) I choose to love you, and if I forget,

10) I promise to choose to love you again.

How to make love stay.

by Tom Robbins:

Who knows how to make love stay?

Tell love you are going to the Junior's Deli on
Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake,
and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.

Tell love you want a memento of it and obtain a lock
of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense
burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face
southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a
convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the
burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your
face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will
stay.

Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the
world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee
out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that
everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love
will be there in the morning.”

More from Tom Robbins:

“We waste time looking for the perfect lover,
instead of creating the perfect love.”

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't
adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to
sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor
and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That
would mean that security is out of the question. The
words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love
for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.”

“When two people meet and fall in love, there's
a sudden rush of magic. Magic is just naturally
present then. We tend to feed on that gratuitous magic
without striving to make any more. One day we wake up
and find that the magic is gone. We hustle to get it
back, but by then it's usually too late, we've used it
up. What we have to do is work like hell at making
additional magic right from the start. It's hard work,
but if we can remember to do it, we greatly improve
our chances of making love stay.”

“When we're incomplete, we're always searching
for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years
or a few months of a relationship, we find that we're
still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up
with somebody more promising. This can go on and
on--series polygamy--until we admit that while a
partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we,
each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment.
Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe
otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to
program for eventual failure every relationship we enter.”

Tantric Engineer Available for all Your InHouse Chakra Re-Wiring Needs!

2008-03-17T14:29:00.000-07:00

I swear this is a real Craigslist ad. Posted in Marin County, California of course.

Ever wonder about what it would be like to have a really hot (or really cool if you prefer!) Boyfriend that was a fully trained and certified Tantric Electrical Engineer Expert?

Well, you can find out tonight (or even sooner!), if you're brave enough and willing to open up your Wholey Shakric Field Systems spontaneously to Eco-static Advanced Enlightenment!

I was a Substitute Teacher of Eco-static Advanced Enlightenment Wholey Shakric Field Systems Tantric Engineering at Karmic Sutures for 5 years in Portland, Oregon, until I got laid off about two years ago. I have since relocated to the Bay area, and I haven't been practicing much but like they say, it's pretty much like riding a bicycle.

I would like to find a willing, able, and available partner, not too tall and not too short, not too thin and not too fat, not too dumb and not too smart, to help me bring back the level of Serio-Sexological Mastery that I once enjoyed when I was teaching and practicing every morning. (And at mid-day, and most afternoons, and right before washing up the dinner dishes, and before bed, of course, and at 2:35am also~~on weekends the practice was a little more intense and demanding so we ate off paper plates.)

Would you like to learn to ride perfect Tantric Glassy Totally Tubular Waves of ECo-stacy and finally find out for yourself what it's like to feel the Energy of the entire Universe Pulsating into your Divine Navel and charging through your Wholey Pelvic Basin and Beyond? (Have you ever seen your toes actually glow bright neon orange, post coitally? That is very common among advanced Karmic Suture Eco-stacy Experts!)

Luckily for you, I'm not in a committed relationship right now so you might want to jump like a bunny rabbit on steroids at this once-in-20-lifetimes opportunity!

(I am pretty adept at 59 of the 108 Holy Moist Eco-static Positions but never did quite get the hang of the "Divine Split Double Backwards Butterfly Falling Into The Void Space While Spitting Into The Great Wide Eye." (No. 60) I can teach you the first 59 though, and maybe we can figure out the rest just by reading the manual together and fooling around. Could you bring a booklite over with you, please?)

Be sure to mention in your response whether you are "male" "female" or "decline to state"? I'd vastly prefer female, but when we close our Worldly Eyes, and truly fall into the great Supreme Ravine of Truncated Fully Exquisated Bliss and Unified Mind Field Matter Minus All Dualities of the Supreme Pleididactic Heavenly Holy Grail InfraGalactic Eco-Static Empire, I can assure you, at that point you won't remember which sex you are, or where you even went to high school! (Just be sure to bring a toothbrush!)

In preparation for our Cosmic Eco-stacy, we will braid our pubic hairs together so our bonding will be stablized and secure during the more vigorous postures, so if you are heavily trimmed down there these techniques may not be appropriate for your current primal eco-static needs. (Traditionally, each partner was actually surgically stitched to one other but this now is considered cruel and unnecessary enlightenment by most highly respected Karmic Suture Eco-static Experts in the Field.) So let it grow out a little and call me back!

We will subsist primarily on wheat grass, ham hocks, Peppermint Patties, and Dr.Bronner's Bouillon Cubes during the length and depth of our more serious practice sessions, and you may also eat small amounts of Sea's candy, and chew Bubblicious chewing gum if you like. (Don't forget to bring your favorite breath mints too, please.)

I'll be in deep Cosmic you-know-what till I hear from you and am looking forward to your eager, willing, and divine participation. (Maybe this coming Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday??)

Sex, especially when it's Tantric, is pretty darn good entertainment when you do it correctly, and many Karmic Suture Practitioners find that their TV watching is greatly reduced within two or three days of beginning their serio-ecostatic-oasisial Initiatory practice. Plus, you'll save a lot of money at Ross's! (Could you bring some shampoo over too? Something organic? Maybe tea tree? Thanks!)

The Seven Habits Of Highly Dramatic People

2008-02-28T14:10:00.000-08:00

Relationship counselor Scott Kalchenstein wrote this essay and sent it out today in his newsletter. It's his playful and provocative parody of The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People. It could create a whole new category at bookstores, a Self-Helplessness section. (This isn't actually original -- there are 2600 hits for "Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective People" in Google - and a book has already been written with this title.)

But I like the way that turning this idea on it's head helps me see how my own negativity, self doubt, anxiety, fear and blame just backfires and destroys all of my relationships, most importantly the one with myself.

This year, on Valentine's Day, I decided to love myself and be my own Valentine. Thinking in a positive way is just the first step in exercising good self love. After all, if you don't have positive thoughts about yourself, who else will?

You can contact view Scott's website here.

The Seven Habits Of Highly Dramatic People

By Scott Kalechstein

Do gratitude, contentment, and inner peace sometimes creep up on you and undermine your ability to indulge your anxiety?

Here's a quick and handy two-step process to make sure you get your M.D.R. (minimum daily requirements) of worry and chaos.

1. Believe and act like your safety, security, and happiness are dependent on people and forces outside of you that you can't control.

2. Try to control them.

For those of you who prefer to keep it complex, here are seven habits to develop that will help you go deeper into your practice and guarantee a daily overdose of adrenaline. Allow me to be your drama director as we shout out the traditional opening words "Lights! Camera!! RE-ACTION!!!

#1. Harness The Power Of Negative Thinking - Everybody accentuates the negative on occasion. What if I can't pay my bills? What if I lose my house? What if I get sick? What if I'm alone for life? What if I'm in this relationship for life? But as your drama coach, I want to inspire you to master 'The Secret' by focusing all of your attention on the most negative possible outcomes all of the time. When this discipline has been achieved, you can relax into the certainty that you will always find something to freak out about in any situation, and fear will never abandon you again.

#2. Be Busy Till You're Dizzy - Being too busy to still your mind and take good care of your body is essential on the path to drama-realization. Temptation is everywhere these days - health food stores, spas, gyms, yoga studios, meditation classes, and it takes courage to maintain abstinence while the whole world is stretching, sweating, chanting, and going organic. Remember, as our parents tried to warn us, engaging in meditation can lead to blindness, losing sight of all the things right in front of you to worry about. So wake up every morning painfully early, splash cold water on your face, brew up your caffeine, and go, speed racer, go! Have you answered all your emails? Who needs a shoulder to lean on? Is there something on TV? Always make sure your life and your mind are filled with clutter and free of those annoying empty spaces between your thoughts that can disturb your absence of peace.

#3. Have A Swinging Good Time - In the 60's and 70's, a swinger was a person who relieved the monotony of monogamy by attending a variety of extra-curricular relationships. Nowadays, the term swingers has broadened, and is often used to refer to drama majors when they are found swinging like a pendulum from one extreme to another, churning with the thrill of constant crises, skillfully sidestepping the boredom of emotional stability. Would you like to be able to create, at the snap your fingers, a soap opera drenched in drama anytime you want? All you need to do is to stuff your feelings till you can't hold them in any longer, and then explode without restraint or care for anyone, especially the ones you care most about. As a practice, try being 100% nice and sweet. Stretch yourself to accommodate someone as much and as long as you can, and then take the lid off and let the steam out, like Mt. Saint Helens does once in a while. There is nothing as satisfying as having a good eruption after being good and silent for a spell.

#4. Leave Your Inner Child Alone Without Parental Guidance - When the child inside the adult gets scared, some really juicy drama can happen, but only if we withhold our compassion, re-assurance, and loving boundaries. When we can resist such mushy self-help nonsense, our inner children will wreak havoc trying to get those things from others, usually through some very exciting acting out in the drama department. When two or more people abandon their little kids at the same time, oh boy, that's when the fun begins. The adults have left the vehicle, and you can guess who's in the front seat, banging on the horn, flooding the accelerator, yelling out the window, and playing extreme bumper cars. Yippee!

#5. Set Huge Goals, Maintain Unrealistic Expectations -There is nothing more beneficial to your lifestyle than the habit of reaching for the stars, falling short of your lofty goals, and feeling like a colossal failure. Taking big leaps and falling flat on your face is paramount for maintaining healthy low self-esteem, which is the foundation of all good drama. Go for the mountaintop, and don't look down at your feet on your way. One step at a time is for people satisfied with proceeding at a snail's pace, always leaving behind a slime trail of serenity, gentleness, balance, and other dismal downers that drama kings and queens take royal pains to avoid. You can do better than that!

#6. Judge Your Judgments - Every human being judges, but only the ones who have learned the art of judging their own judgments excel in creating melodrama. Have you ever been known to shame and blame yourself for feeling afraid and stuck, telling yourself that there is something really wrong with you for not moving forward? Good! You are on the right track. Now, take your next step. Judge your judgments! Tell yourself that you should know better than to shame and blame yourself. Heap truckloads of guilt on yourself for stooping so low to the curb of self-criticism, yet again. This will make you quite an energetic downer that can't help but suck energy from those around you. You'll be the lifelessness of the party!

#7. Get Grounded In The 3 B's...Blame, Blame, & Blame! - Blaming yourself has already been covered. But don't rest there. Blame everyone else too. Life's not going the way you want? Blame, blame, blame! Blame first, ask questions and take responsibility later, if at all. Appropriate targets are Mom and Dad, friends (if you still have any), your mate (if they are still around), the Bush administration, the Clinton administration, big corporations, small minds, and, of course, God. Self-responsibility can lead to issues finding solutions, which flushes good drama right down the drain. Instead, be generous with the blame dispenser, letting it overflow on everyone, uncontained, uncensored, unedited. Blame, Blame, Blame!

Affirmations For Good Drama

Every day in every way I am stressing out over everything, real or imagined.

Everything is working together to conspire to bring the worst possible outcome to my doorstep.

Life is against me and I am doomed.

This, or something worse, is now manifesting for the highest cost to all concerned.

I no longer have to work to create drama. Drama happens effortlessly and naturally, all around me.

Whatever calamity I can conceive, I can achieve.

I always have everything I need to manifest everything I don't want, and all is hell in my world.

Copyright 2008 Scott Kalechstein, All Rights Reserved

Scott Kalechstein is an inspirational speaker, a transformational humorist, a life coach, and a modern day troubadour. He makes his home in Marin, California and loves presenting at conferences, giving talks, concerts and workshops. In his phone counseling practice, he is a relationship specialist, helping both individuals and couples heal, manifest, and awaken into conscious relationship. Call 415-721-2954 to schedule a session, or email him at scott@scottsongs.com. You can visit www.scottsongs.com to read more about his workshops, to hear his talks or to sample songs from his nine CD's. Sign up for his free muse-letters to receive writings like this one on a semi-occasional basis.

A lesson in humility on Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T12:06:00.000-08:00

About 10 years ago, when I was a lot snottier than I am now, my then boyfriend, Don drove up from San Diego to meet me on a weeknight for Valentine's Day. He was horribly late, dressed badly, and like an idiot, didn't even book a reservation in a restaurant.

So here we are, it's like 9 pm, I'm grouchy and starving, my blood sugar has bottomed out so low that I'm almost dizzy, and we're driving all over Santa Monica trying to find a restaurant that will let us in. One after another, we're turned away.

This goes on for an hour and I'm getting increasingly annoyed with my boyfriend. We finally are allowed to sit at the bar in this cheezy, not terribly romantic seafood grill. The stools are packed up against each other. The guy next to me is eating alone, and nd is flagrantly hitting on me. The service is terrible and we wait again, 30 more minutes, just to catch the waiter's attention. When the food finally arrives, it's sloppily prepared -- the chef no doubt is in a bad mood himself by 11 pm on Valentine's Day.

Just then, I see this gorgeous, radiant couple walking out of the restaurant -- his hair is long and blonde. His smile is angelic. She has transparent, luminous skin, and long flowing golden hair. He's wearing jeans. She's in a simple, almost frumpy navy blue sundress. They're holding hands and shyly exiting.

It's at that moment I suddenly realize it's Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow.
At first my inner snob was thinking: "Wait a minute. These people are wealthy celebrities. They can go anywhere. Why aren't they eating at a five star restaurant, or the Hotel Bel Air, or perhaps the Beverly Hills Hotel on Valentine's Day?

But then the beauty of this moment hit me: "If it's good enough for Brad Pitt to take Gwyneth Paltrow here on Valentine's Day, it's certainly good enough for me." It was one of life's great humbling moments.

That experience taught me a lot about how it's the experience that matters, the thought and the caring, and not the material frills. Where you are is not as important as who you're with. Every year since then, I've been grateful if I even have a boyfriend on Valentine's Day, if he gives me a simple card with a heartfelt inscription, that expression of love alone is enough to make me happy.

Though I am quite sure of one thing: Reservation or not, Brad and Gwynneth certainly got a table that night.

I still hate Valentine's Day!

2008-02-11T12:27:00.000-08:00

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Ugh. It's almost that time again. Valentine's Day is a Halmark holiday, and one of those days that you can never live up to. There's just too much pressure to be happy. My best Valentine's Day ever was the time we decided to avoid the hype altogether. My partner and I made dinner at home, and took a walk on the beach in Malibu Colony. As we walked at night, two dolphins danced in the waves. He gave me a simple card with a mushy inscription. This was the most magical Valentine's Day ever for me--and it didn't contribute more than $4 to the retail economy. Last year, I went on a great Valentine's Day dinner date with a guy who wasn't even my boyfriend. (His partner was living in a foreign country so he was alone for the night and took me out for dinner.) Since we were just platonic buddies and not lovers, it took the pressure off and we actually had fun!

This year, I'm single on Valentine's Day, so I'm planning to spend it at a big party which will hopefully be devoid of loving couples smooching and holding hands.

Here are a few anti-Valentines I found for you to shower your single friends with.

(His) relationship commitments

2007-12-05T09:58:00.000-08:00

Six months into it is the time when couples start examining a relationship and trying to decide if it's time to move forward into a deeper commitment -- or give it up.

I was on the edge of giving up this week, when my partner sent me his list of Relationship Commitments. I was touched, but I have to admit, he failed to live up to a lot of the commitments on this list, which he wrote a year ago. Revisiting them, we realized that the biggest mistake we made was not voicing and clarifying our needs and expectations. Our expectations were based on assumptions -- not clear agreements.

After a blizzard of emails and two weeks of tense, hurt conversations, retreat and withdrawal, he coaxed me back inside with this list.

For many of us, plunging deeper into intimacy and risking the loss of someone you love is a terrifying thought, and it can be easier to not take that risk and simply run away and never go there.

If I live in the moment and stay present, have faith that there are no mistakes in life, that everything is a process and nothing lasts forever, maybe I can go there.

My Relationship Commitments

Take care of all my relationships, don’t begin or continue ones where that isn't possible. (Figure out if it’s possible as soon as I can.)

Communicate fully and honestly.

Don't allow the old pattern of making sexual relationships into love relationships automatically, including by telling people that it's my pattern up front.

Clarify expectations to death and in detail.

Make all agreements as explicit as possible.

Face the difficulties and reactions in the moment rather than putting them off and hoping for a positive outcome later.

Be aware that timeliness and my manner of communicating sensitive stuff is also really important.

Try try try to look at things from the other person's point of view BEFORE taking action.

Men, here's what you need to do when you take your girl to a party

2007-11-27T23:31:00.000-08:00

Some men are utterly clueless when it comes to respecting their date or girlfriend when they are out in public. Their innocent flirting with other women can end up creating explosive consequences. And yet, flirting is a natural part of life, and there needs to be space for it when a couple goes out together.

I like to be with a man who is capable of respecting me and who is conscious of my feelings. How can you say you love someone and not protect their feelings?

Things that will make me feel liked, respected, adored and loved when we
are out in public:

- Walk into the event together. For the first ten minutes or so, introduce me to people. Make it clear that I am your guest by putting your arm around me. (Make me feel like I am valued and that you are proud of me.) After these initial introductions, we can start wandering separately, and maybe come back together from time to time to check in.

- Dance with me at least once during the night. Make me feel like you are actually enjoying this -- not doing it grudgingly just because you "have to." I don't want to spend the whole time with you either, but some time feels good and you're so fun to dance with.

- Make me feel as if you are proud to be seen with me in public. It feels fantastic to hold hands when entering a room, or walk hand in hand down the street together. I love that.

- Put your arm around me once in a while. Touch me subtly. Do something romantic or caring once in a while. Doesn't have to be constantly. It's ok to flirt and interact with others. Just remind me that you still like me and find me attractive, too.

- If we are away from each other for a long time, check in with each other once in a while and ask how we're doing. Are we having fun? Is the party boring? Do we want to leave?

- Try spend as time talking to, dancing and being seen with me and not just other women. (At least 25% of the time--doesn't have to be all the time.) Just remind me that we have an attraction and a spark.

- If you are touching, flirting with me a lot, and also paying attention to others, then I still feel attractive and valued. If you are being really flirtatious, touching other women but you are NOT touching me AT ALL at this event, this makes me feel rejected.

- If exes of yours are at the party, let me know who they are, point them out to me in advance so I know who they are and can navigate the minefield. Introduce me to them to help ease the tension. Maybe I will like them and we'll get to be friends.

- If you are talking to a bunch of people, try to include me too. I want to feel included, not excluded. It feels good to be part of the group and to belong.

- Toss me a compliment once in a while. Or just a smile from across the room. A wink. A glance. This feels great.

- Find ways to make these public interactions hot and juicy for us. Why not nibble my ear, whisper a suggestion or caress me subtly but in a very sexy way -- or pull me off into a dark corner for ....hmmmm?

- If you are going to disappear to go off to have a private conversation with an ex girlfriend, please let me know in advance first and explain why you need to have this discussion right now. Ask why are you having this conversation, which might be tense or emotional, or explosive, at a party, publicly, instead of later, privately. What is the outcome you're trying to create? Be honest with me (and her!) about your intentions.

- Why are you even interacting with exes anyway? Move on. Be present. You're with me now.

- Keep things light and playful, flirtatious and friendly in your interactions...not too overtly sexual. Being subtle is always sexier anyway!

- If my parents, a boss, or an influential person is in the room, be very conscious of how your behavior might be interpreted. For example, if my conventional, Catholic East Coast family is at a party, it would be very rude for you to be seen flirting with another woman or cuddling with her. It will be seen as disrespectful to me. Best to project a very conventional appearance if family / coworkers are present.

- When introduced to my family or friends, make an attempt to impress them and be interested in them.

- Introduce me to exes, when we run into them socially, to help clear tension between them and anyone you are now dating (It's harder to dislike someone you know and see as a human being.)

- If we run into o0her friends or ex lovers socially, find a way to create a conversation where we can all be included. This can help ease the tension between everyone and create friendship. It's hard for me to be friends with others if I am not given the chance.

- If you are alone at a party, event or dance, and I'm not there, be conscious of the fact that people who know us might be there and
observing you. What kind of image are you projecting? What impression are people getting about your relationship with me and your respect for my feelings? We have to take care of each others feelings even when the other is not present. Taking care of your lover's feelings is a deep act of conscious love.

- Live in the present moment, not the past. Meet new people, have fresh new experiences, don't be stuck in old patterns and be open to change.

- Do you really want to be my date at this party -- or would you rather be alone? Be honest with me about your desires and intentions. Don't take me to a party if you're going to ignore me all night. I have better things to do.

-g

When we lie, we destroy relationships

2007-11-19T13:48:00.001-08:00

Two weeks ago, I took my first workshop with the Human Awareness Institute, an organization devoted to helping people have more loving and effective relationships. The workshop turned my life upside down. Tucked in the back of our handouts was this essay by the organization's founder, the late Stan Dale, on the effect of truth on our relationships.

"When we lie, we destroy relationships - both the one we have with ourselves and those we have with others," he says. "The only true foundation a relationship can be built on is trust. So many relationships are falling apart because trust - if it was ever there - is being eroded."

After so many experiences where my dishonesty -- or my partner's lack of honesty -- has destroyed my intimate relationships, I now feel that there is only one way to relate, truthfully, and with blunt, radical honesty.

Trusting And Truthing

An honest look at the effects of dishonesty

by Stan Dale

One of the articles in Friends & Lovers (IC#10)
Summer 1985, Page 25

Copyright (c)1985, 1997 by Context Institute

WHETHER WE'RE AWARE of it or not, we human beings communicate 24 hours a day. Even in dreams we communicate. Even when we don't say anything we communicate. Our relationships are built or destroyed by communication - and there's virtually nothing else involved in a personal relationship except one form of communication or another.

Throughout my life as a husband, lover, father, friend and therapist, I have both experienced and observed the destructive power of dishonest communication. When we lie, we destroy relationships - both the one we have with ourselves and those we have with others. Lying is counter communication. It erodes the very foundation of a relationship. It is a time bomb that will eventually destroy the relationship.

To tell a lie weakens the already weak esteem of the lie-teller. The person to whom the lie is told, whether that person finds out the truth or not, feels the lie's effects. Why? Because lies are negative communications. They take away what is attempting to be built. The only true foundation a relationship can be built on is trust. So many relationships are falling apart because trust - if it was ever there - is being eroded. One more lie; one more time bomb.

Then one day, ka-BOOM! Why? Because communication finally broke down beyond the point of no return. If relationships are communication with trust as their foundations, then honesty is the cornerstone. Dishonesty is a protective device. Lies are protective devices. Lies are told because the person telling them believes that he/she has no other choice.

However, we're being two-faced if we tell someone that we love them - and then also lie to them. There can be no real love without trust. We'd be protecting ourselves from the very person we need never fear. If we don't trust the person we say we love, how can we ever be intimate? How can we ever be vulnerable? And if we can't be intimate and vulnerable, what do we have but a lie?

Lies are protective devices. We think we are protecting the other person when we lie, but in reality we are protecting ourselves. When we lie, we set the time bomb ticking, and the explosion will rip through the delicate fabric we attempt to weave between ourselves and someone else.

There are two basic lies - the overt and the covert. The overt lie is usually spoken. It's a falsehood. Even a little white one.

The covert lie is more subtle, and the most often used. Its telltale signs are usually seen in body language - such as darting eyes, downcast eyes, side-glancing eyes, twitching of some part of our extremities, false smiles, a deadpan face and so on. In other words, it's something that needs to be said, but isn't. The covert lie is usually more damaging than the bald-faced lie because the other person may never perceive that something is wrong. Reading body language takes quite a bit of experience. If covert lying can be detected, however, we can defuse the time bombs before they explode.

Envision a gorge. The only thing connecting the two land masses is a bridge built by the hands of those who dare to risk. Isn't that the process two people take when they try to establish a friendship? Here are two entities wishing to connect. They put out furtive feelers at first. Then they get slightly bolder the more they feel they can trust.

Each communication, no matter how conveyed, is one more plank in that bridge. The more honestly we communicate, the more we get to know one another, and the stronger the bridge gets. The more we get to know each other, the sooner we can lower the barriers of self protection. We almost always approach the others like knights in armor. Slowly we shake their hand, "checking for weapons" as in the days of old. Then slower yet, we raise the visor to get to "see" the other person.

Why are we so armored? Probably because intimacy is so frightening to us. In reality, it is probably the single most frightening thing we face. The effect of being totally intimate is being totally naked - emotionally, psychically, and possibly even physically. It is to let every part of me connect or touch with every part of you.

It is total vulnerability. Now I am totally defenseless. When we are defenseless, we fear that "now you will walk all over my unprotected guts with your cleats. You will hurt me in ways no other person could."

It seems that what we cherish most, we chase away in so many creative, fearful ways. For every time we lie, hiding our "nakedness," we are telling the other person, "I don't trust you!" Not in so many words, of course, and that's another contributing cause to the downfall of that painstakingly built bridge between two people. After all, who trusts a bridge with loose or missing planks?

We are so afraid of hurting others and of being hurt that we do the very thing that is guaranteed to destroy what we cherish. Every time we lie, overtly or covertly, we drive another nail into the coffin that will hold our dead relationship.

The paradox of being totally naked, vulnerable and intimate is that we are also totally potent. In reality, we cannot hurt or be hurt unless we choose it. Being naked, vulnerable and intimate with someone else is first to say that we are totally naked, vulnerable and intimate with ourselves.

That's the ultimate question: Do we trust ourselves or not? Do we trust that we can handle whatever comes up; or will we run scared, hiding in the tunnel of darkness that is laden with ignorance and fear?

The decision, of course, is up to each one of us. How long are we willing to live the lie? Or will we defuse the time bomb that would otherwise destroy us and those we love?

The sinking relation dinghy

2007-11-07T17:12:00.000-08:00

Dear ____,

Why are you so armored? Probably because intimacy is so frightening to you. It is probably the single most frightening thing you face.

Why do you lie, constantly to yourself and other people? Because the truth is so frightening to you. Telling the truth means facing the truth of who and what you are.

There can be no real love without trust. We'd be protecting ourselves from the very person we need never fear.

Truth = reality.

Lie = untruth.

False reality. Illusion. Building an Impression. Spin control. Artifice. Creating a story that pleases other people. Making yourself look good in another's eyes.

Our relationship started with untruth. And I just went deeper into denial in order to accept you.

Lying to others ultimately shows that you are not being honest with yourself. I'm untruthing to myself all the time in order to be with you. You are untruthing to me all the time in order to convince me to go deeper.

We are building a relationship (it' s more of a relation dingy or an inflatable raft with a leak in it than a ship) on this really weak foundation of continual deceit.

You untruth to yourself as you create this illusion. Because every time you pretend, to other people, that you and I are less, you are making us less. You are creating that reality -- less intimacy, less closeness -- with your words and your actions.

Why do you lie? You think it is to protect me, but it is really to protect yourself. The truth, you fear, might make me like you less. The untruth, on the other hand, might trick me into liking you more, supporting you, standing up for you--even loving you.

But is that relation-dingy floating on spin control and platitudes seaworthy-- or just an illusion built on a shaky foundation of illusion?

I trusted you. This was the impression I had--the untruth. The spin. I put that spin in our relation dingy and denied it.

And now the relation dingy has another leak in it, and it's sinking.

This story was created by Brain Dancer in her mind, with the very limited facts that you revealed to me, to make her happy so she would be tricked into going deeper into intimacy with you.

I was totally in denial when I created this story to please myself, instead of looking at the truth. I lied to myself and looked the other way. I created a fantasy that enabled me to continue with the illusion that makes me happy and put that fantasy in my little relation dingy.

"Right now, I'm only sometimes happy with ____, because he is constantly abandoning me for other women/people/priorities/experiences, but he is going to surrender to me, take care of me, and nurture me, and make me happy someday. So I will tolerate all kinds of behaviors that hurt me and make me feel unworthy and abandoned as I wait for him to change and start to give me what I want."

Is there anything you can do for me that will heal this and enable us to get closer again? Or is it time for me to put an end to this painful ride and jump off the "love dingy" and go find a real Love Boat?

The CEO of a dating site writes back

2007-10-31T19:29:00.000-07:00

Hi Brain Dancer,

Just wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know how much I
enjoyed reading your alternately hilarious and sobering blog.

I founded __________ about five years ago because I had a wonderful
experience with online dating and thought I could put together an
easier to use system. I think I've made progress, but there's still
a lot of work to do.

People regularly send me cute and heartwarming notes about getting
married to someone who met on _________, so for some people, it works.

Being able to see things from the inside also makes me aware that
there are a lot of people who find it impersonal, exasperating, and
ultimately shallow.

Ultimately, I am sanguine. This thing is still in it's infancy and
people are still struggling to figure out how to do it. This is true
for both service providers and users.

Your observations surprised me though. Is it really that difficult
for an intelligent, articulate, successful (terminally 39) woman to
find a great man? Or are you exercising your prodigious writing
talent to tap into the groundswell of frustration and anger about the
state of dating and relationships today?

With the current ratio of men to women online, and the apparent
dearth of people who can string a couple of coherent sentences
together, it would seem that you are in the catbird's seat.

Best,

Chris

Dear Chris,

Thank you for your well written and articulate post and your compliments. I love to see the reaction of others out there to my observations. I am usually an optimist, but I really do think that online dating has changed our relationships for the worse.

I can't believe that my failure to JUST FIND A BOYFRIEND (let alone a life partner or someone to marry) after two years of dating, after at least 100 dates (to men I met both out there in the real world and on here in the fantasy cyber world) ... I can't believe it's because I'm not desirable. Or that I'm "too picky." Or that I'm "too old." I really think the Internet is to blame. (By the way, a year after I started this blog, and stopped Internet dating, I did meet a lot of really great men, and have been dating someone amazing, who I met slowly, over time, the old fashioned way, while dancing in a community of friends.)

Back in the "old days" I always had a boyfriend. A boyfriend. I wasn't expecting the world -- just someone to do things with on the weekend. Someone to walk with. Go to parties with. Go to concerts with. Hang out with.

Back then, a 45 year old man didn't dream of trying to date a 25 year old. (Now, with online dating offering so many choices, it's de rigeur...men my age won't even think of dating a woman their own age. They all first lie about their age, and then they dial down their age requirement to 10-15 years younger.)

Back then, a man that much older than me probably never would have crossed my path -- not at a party or a social event. But the Internet gives these guys access to younger women, beautiful women, blondes, brunettes, redheads, rubenesques, BBWs and petites -- and they think they can just order up what they want. Online dating reduces us all to a product offering. Choose your size, hair color, eye color, age, height! It's just like Costco!

It seems that now unless you are 100% PERFECT and meet a laundry list of requirements a date won't "waste their time" with you, even just to date casually. It seems that back when there weren't so many options, when dates were rare and precious, we took them seriously. And we expected less.

This HOLY GRAIL, Hefty Bag, Costco wholesale approach to dating makes us all ultimately lonelier.

Do I sound bitter and disillusioned? Yes. And yet I keep submitting myself to the ongoing process of mutual rejection. I kept believing that it would happen, and when I abandoned online dating and spent more time doing what I love in the real world, it did start to happen.

If I just click one more time...

I agree that there is a groundswell of frustration and anger ... and when I started Braindancing, I thought I was the only one who noticed it. I have since discovered dozens of blogs about dating and its discontents. In a way this makes me feel better -- at least I'm not alone. But what can we all do to change the situation and make it better?

BrainDancer

Yet another class action lawsuit against an online dating site

2007-06-16T10:18:00.001-07:00

Most online dating services deliberately make it darn near impossible to resign -- finally consumers are fighting back against this unethical and sneaky practice. If they have to work so hard to keep members -- one has to wonder about the real value any of these sites provide.

A lawsuit has been filed against TrueBeginnings, LLC, the owner and operator of the TRUE.com online dating website. The lawsuit seeks certification of a class action on behalf of TRUE customers who were charged service fees by TRUE after cancelling their subscriptions.

Allegedly TRUE bills its former subscribers service fees after they have attempted to cancel their subscriptions over the phone. TRUE charges fees in excess of $50 per month and advertises on its website that memberships can be cancelled at any time. However, only over the phone. The lawsuit also seeks an injunction prohibiting the enforcement of a provision in TRUE's terms granting it a perpetual, world-wide license to use, distribute or display all information - including photographs - submitted by subscribers. Wong v. True Beginnings, LLC, has been filed in the District Court of Dallas County, Texas and the Plaintiff is represented by Tycko & Zavareei LLP and Crews, Shepherd & McCarty LLP. Contact: Jonathan Tycko, 202-973-0900. FULL ARTICLE @ EARTHTIMES

Hey, you look familiar. We met in Reality.

2007-03-07T16:00:00.000-08:00

Well, in the interest of more material for this blog, I thought about putting myself back on the market. The online dating market.

I get a lot of offers for dates out here in the "real world" and my utter disgust with Internet dating has reached the point where I've pretty much given up on it, but in the interest of blogging, and the eternal hope that someone on the Web might be better than whomever I've been meeting here in Reality, I freshened up my profile again.

It's been at least a year. But as I browsed around, I discovered at least half the guys I met in the last round were still hanging out, profiles a little frayed and dusty, still single, still hunting for woman who are prettier, younger and hotter than they probably deserve.

And then I saw him.

_____________! A man I've been seeing kind of on and off again, who I've known for years now. I guess you'd call it one of those mythical "friendships with benefits" -- a convenient, low profile "thing" where we see each other and hang out between stints of dating other people. Something safe because it's not too challenging. Something easy because there's not much at stake. Something comfortable, but always naggingly deficient.

He says he's not in love with me and that's not his role with me. I say he's too superficial and shallow.

He's always trying to get me to eat at Burger King and thinks Organic food is a ripoff. I'm a vegetarian and health food fanatic.

I think his house is barren and cold. He thinks I have too much clutter.

He thinks I'm too old. I think his trendy friends are shallow and inmature.

He's a skeptic. I'm a believer.

Hey, but as Woody Allen said in Annie Hall: We do it for the eggs. It's there and it's safe and we always kind of sheepishly retreat to each other when nothing else pans out.

But sometimes, he rocks my world. We like to ski, we go to the beach, we almost never fight, we cook dinner together, we encourage each other. He's supportive and grounded, he fixes my bicycle and brings my computer up after a crash. We enjoy the simple things, and over the years, our shallow relationship has acquired a patina of depth that comes with familiarity.

And here he is, on _______.com. "Wow!" I thought. "He's really cute." Not just that, but his profile was...surprisingly interesting. Intriguing. Sincere. He grew up Catholic? I had no idea. He's an atheist? We never talked about it before. He used to have a ponytail and was clean shaven? I've only known him short haired with a beard.

How many years did I have to know someone in the "real world" before I learn these things than any stranger with a modem has total access to?

He wants meet a girl within biking distance of his house? Who likes to have deep philosophical discussions? Well, actually, I fit the bill perfectly.

We met in the real world the natural way, dancing. The chemistry was instantaneous and raging. But here I stumble on him on the web and think, well, actually, he looks pretty hot here too. Would I have passed on this one, I wonder? Or would I have clicked for more? Would he have responded? Or would I be outside his age range?

Do we actually have a better chance of meeting "out here" where chemistry can overcome the laundry list -- or on the web where we can get all those things out of the way before the hormones take over?

So it all makes me wonder, you know... does the very existence of this global online candy store of unlimited options make us overlook something pretty good within biking distance? Would we have progressed into something deeper if it was harder to meet new people and there weren't so many perceived options? Or is the real promise of the Internet the ability to find our absolute soulmate - not just someone "comfortable". Not just someone "nice to be with" and "good enough"?

Will we ever actually see each other?

2007-02-27T14:24:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am, alone with my notebook PC on a rainy day, thinking what a lovely time this would be to curl up by the fire and listen to the water pound the roof with someone special. But it takes so long, so very very long to meet anyone anymore.

I'm not the only impatient one. I found this post today on Craigslist::

i am not the type of guy to spend time online

i love to go out and meet new women in PERSON
not online

If that does not work for you
there are 10,000 more ads you can look at

i am specifically looking for women who are brave enough to risk a date in person

i cant feel a vibe online--only in person can i feel if i like them or not--and even then i am a patient man

it may take 3 or 4 date s for me to feel the right vibe or not

i cant always tell right away whos gonna be right

so all you women who can relate please ....lets have coffee or a beer

asap.

Nominated for best ad from a shameless golddigger

2007-02-16T01:20:00.000-08:00

I found this on Craigslist today and it was so clever and so poetically written, I just had to give this ad some attention. If I was a guy, I'd write to her just to find out what her black lace looks like.

Captains of Industry (Financial District)

Modest genius with the potential to be a famous millionaire craves your skill in mixing business with pleasure. What makes your heart race faster--pulling off a killing in the market place or getting tangled up in black lace? Shhhh. Don't answer that yet. First tell me if you're addicted to peer pressure. Personally, I don't need to be hip and cool because I'm cute and smart. You, I hope, don't need to break the rules because you make the rules. We're both far from perfect, and that's the way we like it. Our vices are more useful than most people's virtues. Baby, let's rule the world together. I lust for your attention to detail. I await your fax.

Hackers attempt to destroy Valentine's Day with Virtural VD

2007-02-15T10:40:00.000-08:00

Hackers have now stooped so low that they're sending viruses disguised as Valentine's Day love note emails. Yes, it's a form of electronic "VD" for Valentines Day.

The sneaky messages simulate a always come from a woman's name such as Sandra, Willa, Wendy or Vicky. In these days of being virtual "friends" and lovers with thousands of people you barely know, it's easy to see why we're susceptible to computer-borne social network disease.

Panda Labs has detected the new Nurech.B worm, which arrives in emails with subject lines such as: Happy Valentine's Day," "Valentines Day Dance," "The Valentines Angel." The email attachment simulates an e-greeting card using file names like "Greeting Postcard.exe," "Greeting card.exe," or "Postcard.exe. The worm disables certain antivirus, antispyware, andsecurity applications installed on the system.

In real world dating or online dating, always use protection.

Shocking scientific research verifies online dating dishonesty

2007-02-12T12:08:00.000-08:00

Shocking new scientific evidence revealed in this month's Scientific American that a staggering 90% of online daters lie in their personal ads.

According to the article, (and a funnier one in the Inquirer) survey research conducted by media researcher Jeana Frost of Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that about 20 percent of online daters admit to deception. If you ask them how many other people are lying, however--an interviewing tactic that probably gets closer to the truth--that number jumps to 90 percent.

The research verifies the obvious:

- On average, online profiles shave off about five pounds and add perhaps an inch in height.

- For men, the major areas of deception are educational level, income, height, age and marital status; at least 13 percent of online male suitors are thought to be married.

- For women, the major areas of deception are weight, physical appearance and age.only 1 percent of online daters listed their appearance as "less than average."

The researchers also found that the dating services themselves lie about the number of users--saying that 50 million Americans use Internet personal ads. But recent independent studies suggest that only 16 million Americans were using online dating services by late 2005 and that satisfaction levels were low.

Jupiter Research reports that "barely one quarter of users reported being very satisfied or satisfied with online personals sites." Another survey conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Projects suggests that 66 percent of Internet users even think that online dating is a "dangerous activity."

The writer concludes: "Long-term relationships take patience, skill and effort. In cyberspace, unfortunately, the bar is so long and the action so quick that few people are willing to put up with even the slightest imperfection in a potential mate. If someone is the wrong height or wears the wrong shoes or makes the wrong kind of joke, he or she is often dismissed instantly. After all, it is a simple matter to go back and click, with tens of thousands of potential mates ready to fill the void."

Casual Encounters - coming to a PC near you

2007-02-09T13:07:00.000-08:00

I hate to be the first one to break this shocking news to you, but people everywhere have turned the Internet — mankind's greatest achievement in technology — into nothing more than a massive game of spin the bottle. Proof positive is right here, in this Internet video mockumentary that follows the libidinous misadventures of painfully unattractive people in search of the ever-elusive "friend with benefits".

I thought this film was kind of lame, but it does show that the "NSA" or Casual Encounter in Craigslist or Adult Friendfinder has become such a phenemenon that it's now parodied in an Internet TV series. Are NSAs here to stay? Do they ever accidentally lead to LTRs? Or just STDs? Stay tuned as this series continues.

I'm trying to keep an open mind about this, but personally, it feels like a sad and pathetic degradation of our relationships into the lowest common denominator -- find someone, anyone, willing to have sex, get it over with as fast as possible, wash our hands clean, pretend it never happened, go home alone to our web cam, and search for the next willing participant. Is this what mass global communication has delivered in our in box?

I hate Valentine's Day

2007-02-08T02:10:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and there are painful reminders everywhere you look. You can't turn on the radio or walk into the grocery store without being bombarded with red candles, chocolates, heart shaped fuzzy furry things or teddy bears. Ugh.

It's blatantly commercial, consumerist and has absolutely nothing to do with real passion, which is a rare, fleeting moment we feel in those times of absolute timelessness, absolute immersion in the now. In honor of Valentine's Day, here is a serenade from the 70s band Nazareth, crooning: "Love Hurts."

Cooking up chocolate passion

2007-02-06T01:28:00.000-08:00

Photo by Chuck Stevens.
Ugh. The dreaded Valentine's Day is coming soon. If you're lucky enough to find someone in the Personals who you'd actually even consider licking chocolate off of, here are Brain Dancer's own heart-melting recipes to set the perfect stage for a romantic evening that is guaranteed to entice your special date into the kitchen—-and the bedroom.

If you’ve seen the movie Chocolat with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, you experienced a "taste" of a culinary aphrodisiac at work. It was a slow, lush movie showing plenty of sexy shots -- close-ups and action shots -- of one of the world's most well-known and glamorous aphrodisiacs: chocolate. The second main character Viane (Binoche) opens a chocolate shop in a provincial, abstemious French village. From the minute she sets to work making the chocolate, we witness languid ribbons of chocolate cascading from well-crafted pots into delicate china, and countless other sensual scenarios: wet lips smacking, tongues licking, people guiltily touching their fingertips in chocolate and licking them clean.

With chocolate as its sexy centerfold, the film (besides being one big chocolate commercial) accented the connection between food and sensuality. A decadent dinner could be the secret romance weapon that will bring a potential lover closer to your heart.

Date by date, nibble by nibble, there are many elements in cooking up a passionate meal:

Sensuality. In Chocolat, the food was prepared deliberately, deliciously, with care and attention, and not a little sensuality (ooh, smack, lick, aaah-h-h).

Sharing. Sometimes the characters shared conversation; sometimes they shared the little "guilty" pleasures with looks askance as if they were being quite naughty together. Food brings people together.

Caring. Most people read a partner's act of cooking for them as "caring." If your partner has a favorite meal, a favorite flavor; make the effort to produce it at home yourself. Guys cook for your ladies, ladies cook for your guys; or you can both share a bottle of wine, get a little tipsy, cook for each other and lick the cream sauce or the chocolate mousse off each other’s fingers. You might get impatient and never get around to eating!

Memories. The scent and texture of food is a powerful memory maker. You probably know this if you've passed by a bakery or restaurant and found your mind suddenly snapping back to another time in your life. If you create a meal or a dessert for an evening on which sparks fly, those food scents will be indelibly planted in your lover's mind for all time. In the future, you'll need only have that meal simmering on the stove and your partner will be getting aroused as they walk in the door.

Smooth, creamy textures. In the food world, they talk about “mouth feel.” A romantic meal has textures that are rich, smooth, creamy and buttery. Coconut milk, creamy cheeses, raw seafood, custards, sauces, whipped cream and of course, chocolate are like velvet on the tongue.

Light on the stomach (and nose!). A romantic dinner should be light and energizing – not heavy and rich. Stay away from foods that are hard to digest, pungent or just plain smelly. Avoid brie, sauerkraut, garlic, blue cheese, raw onions, curry and (for the obvious reasons) hard to digest foods like cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and beans!

Aphrodisiacial. Some foods can increase energy, get the blood flowing, heat up the body. Legendary aphrodisiac foods include asparagus, wild mushrooms, raw oysters, ginger, vanilla beans, tropical fruits, red wine and of course, chocolate.

Serving your lover with sensual style:

Whatever it is you create, the next thing to consider is how to serve it. After all, this is lust we're talking about.

Lights, candles, action! Dim the lights low, or drape lampshades with scarves to soften the light, scatter the room with inexpensive tea candles and spin some exotic trance-like Buddah Bar beats, Billie Holliday or passionate piano music on the stereo.

A change of scene: Eat on cushions around the coffee table in the living room…on a flotaki rug, in a bean bag chair, in the tub, in the garden…in front of the fire.

Foreplay: A little dessert before dinner? Ask your partner to cover their eyes with their hands and serve it to him or her yourself. Hold it just under their nose and ask them to inhale the scent first. Make them eat slowly, make them lick and suck your fingers. Ad lib from here.

For couples only: Serve it on your naked body or on his naked body. Desert is optional and perhaps unnecessary!

A passionate spring menu:

Chilled Champagne
Raw oysters on the half shell with fresh lemon
Spring Salad with Baked Goat Cheese
Shrimp in Pastis with Fresh Fennel
Sensual Saffron Rice
Coconut Gelato With Fresh Mangos and Whole Strawberries
Gingered Chocolate Sauce

Spring Salad With Warm Goat Cheese

2 large handfuls of mixed baby greens, rinsed, dried and chilled.
One log of creamy goat cheese or two small goat cheese rounds (crottins)
Herbes de Provence (a dried mixture of marjoram, sage, savory and rosemary)
Olive Oil for drizzling cheese
3 tbsp. Hazelnut or virgin olive Oil
1 tsp. Shallot, finely minced
1 tbsp. red wine vinegar
Freshly ground pepper
Sea salt
A handful of toasted pinenuts

1. Slice the goat cheese into 1 inch thick circles. Toss each round in olive oil, sprinkle with the herb mixture and a grating of fresh pepper. The cheese should be quite thoroughly coated with herbs.
2. Heat the broiler until very hot. Place cheeses on a pan and grill under the broiler until lightly browned on top.
3. Place nut or oilive oil, shallot, vinegar, pepper and salt into a salad bowl and whisk until creamy. Toss ligntly with the greens.
4. Arrange half of the greens on a plate, top with warm cheese and nuts, and a grating of pepper. Serve while still warm.

Flaming Shrimp in Pastis with Fresh Fennel

1-1/4 lbs. Tiger prawns or jumbo shrimp, peeled & deveined – leave the shells on the tails.
3 Tablespoons Pastis liqeur (Pernod or Ricard)
3 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
4 tablespooons olive oil
1 shallot, minced
1 fennel bulb, sliced as thinly as possible
1 Tablespoon chopped parsley
1 Tablespoon minced fennel greens
Sea salt & freshly ground pepper

1. Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan over high heat. Add the shrimp and cook about 2 minutes, stirring frequently, until just barely pink. Remove from pan.
2. Add the fennel and shallot, sauté gently until soft. Return the shrimp to the pan. Pour in the pastis; remove from the heat and flambé. (That means throw a lit match into the pan and shake the pan until the flames die down and the alcohol burns off.)
3. When the flames die, add the lemon juice, parsley, fennel greens and chives and season with salt and pepper.

Serve with good French bread or saffron rice to soak up the fantastic sauce.

Sensual Saffron Rice

Jasmine rice and saffron perfume your kitchen with a light and delightful incense and the color of saffron rice is a vivid contrast with the pink shrimp and green herbs.

2 cups jasmine rice
4 cups of water, soak a pinch of saffron in the water
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 clove garlic, pressed
1 tbsp. minced parsley

1. Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed, one-quart saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. Add garlic, stir briefly until translucent. Do not burn! If you burn the garlic, wash the pan and start over again – burnt food is the opposite of aphrodisiacal!
2. Add rice and stir in the oil until rice is translucent and grains are coated with oil.
3. Add water, increase heat, bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes until water is absorbed.
4. Fluff rice with a fork. Toss with minced parsley before serving.

Creamy Coconut Sorbet

The rich creamy cool texture of this very simple tropical fruit sorbet will soothe your lover’s tongue. The bananas should be completely covered with black spots so they are very sweet before freezing.

1 8 oz can coconut milk, chilled
2 tbsp. maple syrup or other sweetener of choice
3 very ripe bananas, frozen.
1 tsp. Real vanilla

1. Mix all of the ingredients in a blender rapidly until smooth.
2. Eat immediately or chill before serving.
3. Serve a scoop of sorbet on a plate, with a few fresh mango slices, a berry, and drizzle the plate with warm gingered chocolate sauce. Dip whole strawberries into the sauce and feed them to your lover.

Spicy Gingered Chocolate Sauce

The best part about making this sauce is licking it off each other’s fingers!

1 six-ounce semisweet chocolate bar
1 tbsp. olive oil
honey to taste
2 tsp. Finely grated fresh ginger root
1 tsp. Real vanilla extract
3 tbsp. water
pinch of sea salt

1. In a double boiler, break up the chocolate bar into small pieces, add water, olive oil and honey to taste.
2. Stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until smooth. Do not overheat.
3. Squeeze the ginger juice through a fine cloth (a clean handkerchief or cheesecloth) into the sauce. Add vanilla. Taste for sweetness and adjust the flavorings as needed. Add a very small pinch of sea salt to taste. (The salt makes the sauce seem buttery.)

All recipes are originals by BrainDancer. Please refer back to this blog url and give me credit if you republish them.

The disastrous effects of Match.com

2007-02-05T19:08:00.000-08:00

"The Disastrous Effects of Match.com and What Women Can Do About It" is an essay that appeared last week in the Washington Post sending shockwaves through the internet dating industry.

It's about time that someone in the mainstream media had the guts to admit what dozens of bloggers have been observing for years now -- online dating has drastically changed the ways we relate offline by giving everyone a false sense of unlimited opportunities. (Or why "Online Dating Sucks" returns more than 2,000 hits in Google including a multitude of blogs devoted to the subject.)

While the anonymous writer of this essay is pretty much in alignment with what I've been bitching and moaning about for months now, I do have to say she unfairly excluded the male side of this story. (Men complain that women are all out to find a venture capitalist, millionaire or a guy who looks like Brad Pitt.) Here's an excerpt from the essay:

Jennifer Aniston. Christie Brinkley. Sheryl Crow. Teri Hatcher. Either dumped or cheated on in a most humiliating and public way.

Every woman in the dating world has thought, "If it can happen to her, it can happen to me." While he's snoring away, we think quietly at night about what we can do to make sure it doesn't happen to us.

We respond by trying to make our stomachs flatter, our boobs bigger, our faces prettier, and our clothes tighter and more revealing. We do everything possible to please our man. You prefer French cooking? Mais oui, mon cher! You want my hair long? No problem, I'll get a hair extension. Spending part of your vacation with buddies? Go have a good time. You don't want to be with my family on Christmas? I'll see you on New Year's Eve. Is that OK or would you prefer some other time? Do you like my mani-pedi'd, spray on tanned, liposuctioned, Pilates body? Can't commit? Oh, that's right. You're just not that into me. Or her. Or her. Or her.

What the hell has happened? Three words. Match dot com. Match.com and other online dating services have given men access to thousands and thousands of women in every city who look just as great in jeans and a little black dress (the requirement in every man's profile), a smorgasbord of women each one more delicious to devour than the next...

Essay:

If you can get over your ovaries, I'll discipline my testicles

2007-02-02T02:11:00.000-08:00

This personal ad in "Men Seeking Women" on Craiglist is outrageous. I love the headline. Will men ever discipline their testicles? Will we ever stop being ruled by our baser, biological instincts and rise above them to a new level of conscious relating? Or is that just too new age woo-woo for this guy?

-------------------

I'm looking for a SF city woman that can enjoy the relationship in the present, without too much of agenda and trading the futures. If you care if we fcuk or don't fcuk on the first date, if you are looking for a potential husband or if you care about my tax bracket I am not interested in you. Also, to be stimulated, I need extremely clever, eloquent, literate and educated, sexy and sex loving, fit woman, not fucked up with new age/mysticism/religion, without TV and with identity independent from consumer items, pop culture or class (and if you can differentiate between your yours, you'res and youres, that makes me mad with passion.)

Obviously, the intersection of the above specs among SF female population is near-zero. Maybe 6-7, but they are all taken, with a long waiting list.

So what we need here is a freak accident, a probabilistic singularity, a counter-intuitive event against all odds, something less probable than politician uttering the truth, that one of those is reading this stuff.

I am degreed, wide interests, non-mainstream, tall & fit, good looking, big ick, and addicted to improbable outcomes.

Please use a few caps in the reply.

Gwyneth's dating disasters and "Dealbreakers"

2007-01-31T14:38:00.000-08:00

Click here for Gwyneth Paltrow's charming and sometimes hilarious new short film about dating disasters, "Dealbreaker."

The lesson is here that no man is perfect. What can we live with? Are women just too picky? As Janis Joplin said: "Everyone is messed up when you get inside their head. It's just a matter of degree!"

What's interesting to me is that Paltrow both directed and wrote the script for this film, so we might assume it's at least somewhat based on her own real life dating experiences with men. When you consider that she's dated Ben Afleck, Luke Wilson and Brad Pitt among others, you have to wonder which characters in this film might be reflections of the dating blunders of her leading men.

Perfect Date Movie (for guys)

2007-01-29T23:00:00.000-08:00

One of my guy friends thinks that horror movies are the perfect date flick. His strategy? "She gets so grossed out or scared that she cuddles up to you and begs you to turn the movie off. Then you have your way with her!"

Men can be so devious!
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When looks can kill a date

2007-01-26T16:17:00.001-08:00

Once I was three hours late for a date--but my potential suitor was more miffed that I don't look like my photograph than the fact that he stood outside all afternoon shivering in the fog.

Face it, looks matter in the online dating scene. A lot. Too much, I think. (Did I mention that you were a lot smaller and shorter than I expected? That your hairstyle was kind of conservative for my taste? Did that make me disappointed? No, but your crestfallen facial expression sure did. It was obvious that SOMETHING WAS WRONG.) Ooops, I guess I should have postponed this one until the my acne facial peel recovered. Ooops, I guess I should have blowdried my hair instead of appearing with it in its natural curly state.

But ooops-- dont' you think that you're idea, arriving just after running the Bay to Breakers race was a bad idea. (You did warn me you'd be "a little bit sweaty.")

Being thought of as a good looking woman most of my adult life, it's difficult for me to accept the idea that I get rejected on the basis of my looks so often when I meet someone in the personals. (I'm quite attractive. An online date fell flat...but the very next day a man asked me for my number in Whole Foods Market while I was standing next to the bananas.)

No, I think there's just something warped about meeting someone online. It warps the expectation meter.

There was one man who hit on me constantly at a dance event. A few months later we stumbled on each other in the personals so we went out, and it fell flat.

He said: "I'm not feeling any chemistry." What? You were trying to put your hands all over me when you met me "out there". But then we do the standard, uptight internet date and it just whithers and dies. There's just something downright toxic about Internet dates.

The expectation level is ridiculous. Why does every man think he "deserves" a 10? Why do they all think they "deserve" a woman ten years younger? One man met me in a date and the first said: "Your hair isn't red! You lied!"

Looking good in a photograph is not the same thing as looking good in real life. As an image-creator, as a person who meets and mingles with and works with people in the public eye, we know this is true. At first, when I saw some celebrities I've met...oh my God. Some of them looked so shockingly, horrifyingly different than their glam airbrushed photographs. But over time, as their wit and personality and verve and life emerged...those frumpy middle aged women with the cavernous wrinkles and those middle aged paunchy men with the bags under their eyes became sexy and vital and attractive. Because beauty and vitality really come from within...from our confidence and our personality. And that vitality can vary greatly from day to day, depending on our moods, the weather, what we're doing, where we are and who we're with.

I've met some stunningly attractive men from these ads...but that didn't make the sparks fly. It all comes from within. It's ineffable. Indefinable. You can't put your finger on it but you know it's there...when it's there.

Unfortunately, I happen to be photogenic--but variably attractive (that is, sometimes I look great, sometimes horrible. I'm not consistently gorgeous from day to day and I know it). I have great photographs...all taken during those peak moments when I was in love, my hair was having a good day, on the beach, on vacation. Well of course I look better in that light than I will when I've been sitting in traffic for two hours rushing to get to a date, or I've been working all day, or we're feeling lonely and rejected. Rush hour isn't usually a Kodak moment.

Is that too much to ask? Do I have to be THE LOVE OF THIS GUYS LIFE to spend some time hiking and driving to the country and having some fun? Do we have to be lonely just because we're not perfect? If we all lowered our standards we'd be a lot happier -- and these websites would be out of business.

So I have a new dating rule -- no coffee dates. No sweaty hikes. I am only going to meet men in situations where I can dress nicely, where the room is intimate, where it's appropriate for me to wear a miniskirt and heels, where the mood is relaxed, where chemistry might have a chance to spark. The only successful Internet dates I've had (success being measured by the first date leading to a second and then a third) were drinks in a quiet bar, or intimate dinners, at night, wine served. The hit and run 25 minute job interview style coffee date has a dismal track record.

Learning how to be in your body

2006-12-10T17:23:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I spent the day at the "Embodied Community Day." I know that sounds (groan) sooooo Californian.

The invitation promised: a day that is "fun, juicy, inexpensive and open to everyone who'd like to find out what’s possible when grounded, empowered, open-hearted people come together." There would be an "enliven your body playshop, where we would learn new ways to express your essence through movement, dance, yoga and touch and deepen our emotional connections. Then an Empowered Intimacy workshop led by Scott Longwell promising "new skills and new ways of being that will enable you to be connected, free, and empowered in romantic relationships, at work, and in Community." All capped off with an Intimacy Lounge of "Sultry Dance and Sacred Chilling."

I was introduced to this group a week ago when I attended one Whole Body's free David Deida video screenings. It was an interesting concept -- workshop leader Scott screened the Deida film to the group and then lead exercises from the video, or exercises that took a riff on Deida's renowned teachings on sacred intimacy and we experienced them first hand.

I have heard so much about Deida lately (maybe I'm just the last one on my block -- he's written ten bestselling books) and wandered into the seminar to learn what all the hype is about. I came away from the evening feeling a better sense of what it means to be a woman, to be fully present in my body and my femininity and how creating that presence and openness makes me significantly more attractive and available to the right kind of men.

I was impressed with this group of people. First of all, they were definitely far healther and more attractive than average -- very centered in their bodies, physical and fit. An uncommon number of them seem to be acrobats, contact improv dancers or yogis, and they exude a confident, self-assured presence.

At first the room seemed to be filled with people younger than me, but later I learned that most of the participants were in their mid-30s to late 40s and simply looked a lot younger than their actual age. The ages ranged up to a man in his 70s.

It was raining here in the Bay Area so I decided, hey, why not -- and made the long drive south to the light, airy white loft in a run down block of Oakland where Whole Body Wisdom has it's events. A girl named Jamie Love with a sparkly heart painted on her cheek greeted me, and I deposited my shoes in the heap at the door, and padded across the patchwork of thick oriental rugs and sat on a cushion in the packed room.

As I arrived, the group was concluding the playshop where they were doing acroyoga and contact improvisational dance exercises.

Then workshop leader Scott was moving into the Deida-inspired intimacy sessions.

Scott said: "Remember a time when you weren't fully empowered." He's sitting on a futon in front of the group, flanked by a thin, athletic man in his late 40s and a beautiful younger woman with waist length blonde hair who strokes his hand as he speaks and "holds space." She beams radiantly as if just being in this man's presence is energizing for her, though I have to wonder if it's just an ego trip for him to have the loveliest girl in the room practically sitting in his lap as he lectures.

Scott has a confident, self-satisfied air about him, and a big enigmatic cheshire grin. He's a big man with a powerful build and a shiny shaved head. He reminds me of a New Age Mr. Clean, here to clean up our karma and scrub our inhibitions away. He tapes our answers to that question with a small silver electronic device that beeps on and off.

"The thing that we think is ugliest about us...when we share it, it's no longer hidden, and that in turn makes us more attractive," Scott says. One woman in the room says her weakness is rescuing drug addicted men who end up living in her house and taking her money. An attractive silver-haired elderly woman says her fear is that her body will never make love again. In turn, we confess to strangers, our deepest weakness. When it is my turn, I say: "My pattern is that I get in relationships with fixer upper men -- and buy fixer upper houses." The room giggles nervously.

"A lot of us choose a relationship based on the question: "Do I feel safe?" he says. "Choosing someone weaker than us makes us feel more powerful, but it's a lie. We want to be in control so we hire someone not as smart as us." Scott, who formerly was a management consultant in the corporate world, and still exudes this confident executive power over a room, says: "It takes a lot of confidence to hire experts who are smarter than you in areas where you are weak. In love, and work, you want someone with different skills, but more powerful."

Scott then confesses to us that he was picked on as a child, and very self-conscious as a young man because he was bigger than everyone else. In confessing this secret to us, he did become more human, more real, and in turn, more attractive. (Perhaps this is why we like to learn the relationship woes of celebrities and relish in the marital distress of stars. It makes them more human, vulnerable and thus even more attractive to us.)

Scott points out a sign on the wall: "Often others see us more clearly than we see ourselves. Our deepest gift is often underneath our biggest fear."

We then moved into an exercise where we were asked a question by a partner and then in turn, had to answer the question first as if we were coming from our head, then as if we were centered in our heart, and finally, as if we were one big genital. "Come on, answer this one as if you're one big dick or one big juicy yoni," Scott joked. The room roared with laughter as put our whole bodies into answering that question. My partner was a thin, nervous guy who seemed forever stuck in his head, and I instantly "got" how that when we respond to a sexual need with an intellectual response we're not able to communicate effectively to our partners and then just come across as wimpy and unattractive. (I found myself totally turned off by his rigid, almost robotic responses.)

Later that night, we moved into the sacred chillspace -- which by the end of the night had steamy windows and was starting to look more like a high school dance, with couples making out in the shadowy corners of the room on floor cushions. A beautiful man taught me how to do contact Salsa dance (a variation on Contact Improvisation, which is depicted in the photograph above.)

I've been opening myself and my heart more to intimate energetic connection with others, and now that I am less self conscious and defensive I'm surprisingly a much better dancer. I was able to feel my partner's energy and sense what direction he wanted to lead me. Instead of stepping all over his feet, I was flowing, utterly in the moment of what we were doing. I suddenly understood why dance is the ultimate seduction, and the best way to feel out a potential partner for compatibility. Somewhere along the line we've become too intellectual and too centered in our heads and thus unable to listen to our hearts. I guess the Whole Body Workshop was at it's core about learning how to return to this kind of playful presence when we interact with each other.

The community playground that Scott creates promises the "opportunity to be playfully serious and seriously playful, an expansion of your ability to be open, loving and powerful in the face of real world challenges." I think one could be cynical and say that's all just a bunch of West Coast new age double speak, and there were a few newcomers to the event who uncomfortably admitted they felt that way about it, but in the end, I'd say his words just about sum it up. By the end of the night, I felt more alive and present in my body than I have in a long time, and less self conscious about my inadequacies.

To learn more about Whole Body Wisdom and the Church of Soul, visit: www.wholebodywisdom.com

Save the Internet

2006-09-07T22:54:00.000-07:00

Freedom of the press belongs to anyone who owns one. With the Internet, we are no longer passively watching the media, we're actively making it. We're no longer just consumers, we're producers. Unfortunately, the big telecom companies don't want us to continue this freedom free for all and have a plan to choke our access by making their "approved" sites load faster than those that are disapproved.

What Can You Do To Help Save The Internet?

* Sign the SaveTheInternet.com petition

* Call your representative today and demand that Net Neutrality be protected

* Encourage groups to please the SaveTheInternet.com Coalition

* Show your support to Internet freedom on your web site or blog. Tell your friends about this crucial issue before it's too late.

* Add SaveTheInternet.com on MySpace.com

Men on blind dates are so deceptive.

2006-08-24T14:28:00.000-07:00

Blind Date from Hell

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Some guys will do anything to get your sympathy.

Add a video comment to this video

Confessions of a former infantile, self-absorbed commitment phobe

2006-03-23T21:48:00.000-08:00

I posted the previous essay in an edited form on Craigslist and got a deluge of mail from men who commented on it. This was the most astute comment I received:
I wanted to give you my feedback in response to your post. Up until
a year ago (43) I was definitely the guy you describe; infantile,
childified adult, self-absorbed, active-running thrill seeker, rode
(red) motorbikes like a madman, was looking for commitment-phobes
just like me and was also striving for more adventure than I could
handle.

Then, a funny thing happened. I met this woman of about 36
who was exactly the SAME as me. She subscribed to all of the
behaviors that I and (you) have listed and more. I took on the
passive pursuer role and she took the active running role. I got
emotionally attached and she became highly ambivalent.

Then I ran, again, because I could not stand to face my fears. But this time it
was totally different. I spent many nights pondering what happened,
consequently breaking down dramatically. I tried to make sense of it
all not really realizing that all along, the issues were deep within
me. I spent the last 3 months doing serious self-analysis and finally
understanding and reconciling my actions.

So, what is all this leading to? Basically, don't give up. I
learned first that I jumped in too deep, too fast with someone who
was also not emotionally available (a reflection of me), and
consequently, was terrified at having to face my own fears of
inadequacy, abandonment and infidelity.

You are echoing the feelings of our generation. Especially those who
have finally matured and are ready to face reality. I feel and have
felt exactly the way you do and now I am trying to just relax and
become more introspective.

I liked the line you wrote:

"The cul de sac and barbecue are finally not the big boring threats
they once were"

I agree....

Peace

ABin

Is cyberspace better than your place?

2006-03-22T09:45:00.000-08:00

I was wearing a red shirt and a black mini skirt that night. I felt gorgeous. I felt alive. It was the way you were supposed to meet the love of your life--with 20 of my friends there as witnesses, surrounded by everyone I love, surrounded by people who should have known better than to invite us both there.

He was standing in the kitchen. And the moment we saw each other it was like, POOF instant recognition. Sparks. Lightning bolts. The kind of spontaneous combustion that happens two or three times in your life. My life at least.

Within hours we were on the couch, and I was crying in his arms. He felt like someone I knew already. Someone I could trust.

He later told me that the smell of me was intoxicating. He would dream of that smell.

And I thought: "Yes, this is the way. This is the way it's supposed to happen. In the real world where the pheremones are there, where all the senses are engaged and you can touch and taste and smell and see, where the attraction is obvious, where you're one degree of separation apart because you both know the same circle of people.

Yes, this was the real world, not an Internet Personal so it had to be better. It had to be right.

The next day he wrote me a long letter. He said he was really interested in getting to know me better, and that he was glad that I could trust him like that.

As we walked back to the car, a homeless man said: "You two are beautiful together."

And people always said that. You two are beautiful. You look like you are so in love. We seemed to be rolling on the same cloud. I guess I forgot that clouds eventually swell and burst and the rain comes.

I was thinking: Yes, this is the way it's supposed to be when you meet someone in the real world. This is the way you fall in love.

He was calling every day and every night. He was driving 200 miles round trip, twice a week, to see me.

By our second month together, he joked, if we kept seeing each other at this rate, within two weeks we would be living together.

And then, something changed. I can't put my finger on it, but reality intervened. And we finally learned the ugly shocking truth about each other:

We wanted the exactly the opposite things from life.

He was a hardworking single Dad in a house on a cul du sac with a lawn and a barbecue who was finally on the home stretch, looking at freedom ahead, plotting his escape -- early retirement and a freewheeling life of rediscovering the adolescence he never had. Parties, concerts, raves, drugs, a different woman every night...this was the light at the end of his frustrated, middle aged tunnel. Somehow he thought I was the perfect woman to explore the world and head off on this existential journey with.

I'd sown my oats and then some -- free and unencumbered, Lonely Planet book in hand, exploring any and everything I ever wanted to discover, nothing tying me down, no responsibilities but to myself. And I was sick of all this freedom -- I wanted to take care of someone. The cul de sac and barbecue were finally not the big boring threats they once were. I was a grown up and ready to take on some responsibility and drill some roots into the turf and nurture something beside my own self indulgence.

I was attracted to that hardworking dedicated single Dad and thinking, wow, I'd love to settle in and help him raise his kids, be the woman that his ex couldn't be.

We wanted not what each other was becoming, but what each other had been. Once this realization emerged, it was over. The cloud burst and it rained and rained.

But what if we had met online, on the Internet?

The big, nasty ugly questions:

- Do you want (more) children?

- Where do you see yourself in the next ten years?

- Are you looking for a casual short term fling or a life partner?

On the Internet, you didn't even see a man's profile before those questions were out of the way. You didn't even click. You didn't even stand a chance of accidental spontaneous combustion with someone whoose path was only crossing yours because you were just getting ready to do a u turn.

So here I am, a bit humbled. Wondering if, indeed, the Internet might be a better way.

Or if finding someone on the same path is indeed such a monumental task that we just have to keep bouncing back into cyberspace, keep clicking, keep hoping, keep that flicker of fearless irrational optimism alive in our hearts that makes love possible.

Why do they look like mushrooms?

2006-01-26T01:44:00.000-08:00

I found this hysterically funny and beautifully written post today in WOMEN SEEKING MEN on Craigslist. Yes, guys, we really don't get turned on when you send us photos of your dismembered, detached, disembodied members. We're looking for a heart, not a head. But that occasional penis in my in box is at least always good for a giggle.

Why do they look like mushrooms after all?

I would like to point something out. "They" are not cute. "They" look like mushrooms, and generally speaking it's a good shape for the purpose but not to look at.

You guys must know that while you want to see us - we do not care so much what your parts looks like. We are after a feeling. The picture may be a shorthand - or a kind of "I owe you", but as such a picture of a penis is just so much human compounded by so much ego.

Yes, I like them. (You have no idea...) But isolated from the frame of a man, from the face of a man, from the voice and interests and violence of a man - it looks to me like some austere shrub - like some peculiar hothouse flower. (Native, perhaps, to the tropics).

I'm not clear on where I'm going with this. I just think you all should know. The girl thing - we want the composite, not the close-up. "It" is an accessory. Make love to me me with your brain. With your arms or your heart. Mean it. Care more. Study more. Take the time and you'll get it all back. I will wait on you. I will defend you to the world, comfort you, care for you. The whole thing. Deep clean desperate screwing?

Yes.

Degraded, fine, guilt-ridden, unharnessed subservience? Yes. Yes already.

I do want it - but not the picture, the real thing - the push and pull of hope and fear, of wanting the other person to meet you half way and never being sure where that is. Give to my giving and you will be overwhelmed. That is the difference between men and women. We actually have more to give. It's because of what nature makes of us. We're always ready to be transcended.

You - your funny mushroom flower.

Is it Match.com's fault you didn't get a date?

2006-01-24T15:35:00.000-08:00

I know this is old news: Online daters have filed a lawsuit and are seeking class action status against the cyberspace love connector Match.com. The suit claims employees from the Internet matchmaking service sent out bogus romantic e-mails and even went on sham dates with subscribers as a marketing ploy.

But the new news is that yours truly, Brain Dancer, has signed on and joined this lawsuit. I got some very suspiciously perfect looking dates in my in box just as I was getting ready to cancel my membership -- and was hooked into staying in hope of giving the service "one more chance." I'll keep you posted as I learn how it's progressing.

I saw many complaints about Match.com about this issue that I referred to in a post earlier this year in Braindancing, but I had no idea it would go as far as a class action suit. It seemed like paranoia -- online daters insisting that Match was sending them phony ads to lure them into joining the service. But I have to admit, some of the guys they sent me seemed way too good to be true, and never replied to my emails.

And after paying them good money for over two years, I found Match's success record in actual dates with online personal ads significantly than the old tried and true method: meeting guys in the real world at parties or events. Match would have a much better luck at retaining customers if they solved the real problems that plague the service -- people who lie, people who post bland profiles, too much emphasis on photos and looks rather than real values, not "alternative" enough and too mainstream (out of touch with the real values of today's hip young singles), not specialized enough (there should be specialized communities, as Friendfinder has), and a system that doesn't ask questions that coax the personality out of shy people (Smart Cupid/Nerve does a much better job of drawing out presonality with provocative questions like: "What is your favorite sex scene in a movie?" or "What is the worst lie you ever told?".)

Register your Match.com Complaint

If you are Match.com member and feel you have received bogus e-mails, you may qualify for damages or remedies that may be awarded in a possible class action lawsuit. Please fill out the form below and we will have a lawyer review your Match.com complaint.

Your complaint will be sent to Arias, Ozzello & Gignac - H. Scott Leviant at Lawyers and Settlements.com.

I admit it, I was rejected 7,365 times

2006-01-20T15:24:00.000-08:00

Can I admit here the embarassing fact that during a year, 7,365 men viewed my profile on Match.com -- and yet I got only about five actual dates from it? So does that mean I'm a total babe and everyone wants to look at my photo -- or that I've been rejected by a staggering seven thousand men? (That could be every man in my age range in the entire city of San Francisco!) It might be painful, but useful, to know why they clicked on to the next. Is it because I'm unconventional and one of a kind and too gorgeous and brilliant and out of their league? Or wierd and repulsive and needy and clingy?

A feedback loop might give me insights into what I'm writing in my profile (or scary relationship ideals I'm admitting that I want) that sends these guys boomeranging back into cyberspace.

Over at Online Dating Insider, David Evans writes: "Who's Viewed Me Is Only The Beginning"

"The ability to know who has viewed your profile is a mixed blessing. On one hand, you may be exposed to people who are out of your normal search criteria. On the other, lack of people viewing your profile can be taken as a sign it's time to revise your essay and photographs. Or that you will never get another date unless you get a haircut. There is room for some sort of peer review service in there somewhere.

One one hand, I want to know who and what type of women find me appealing. On the other, I don't know anything more than that they have seen my profile and clicked on my photo. I want to know what their immediate reaction was. Mild butterflies or disgust? Were they reaching for the delete key or the Wink button?

Until dating sites provide (in a non-threatening comfortable way) greater transparency into the searcher-searchee process the majority of singles will continue to choose traditional matchmaking and social interaction over online dating sites (which are really introduction sites, as no one actually dates online.)"

A rating service (anononymously, perhaps) would really add value to online dating. I think David has a brilliant idea.

Hot -- or not so hot?

2006-01-17T17:33:00.000-08:00

Here is are actual photos I found on Hot or Not.com, an online dating website that gives us all a chance to get rated like a cut of USDA meat.

Could these guys really seriously think they're hot, sexy guys on a scale of one to ten? Or are they just pulling my leg? (Hey, one guy pulled it so far it's amputated.)

Or is there truly someone for everyone out there in the vast online dating smorgasboard that is cyberspace?

Integrity -- the missing ingredient in Internet dating

2006-01-17T15:55:00.000-08:00

This article was written by my friend, Tonja Weimer, a dating coach. I am reprinting it here for you. Integrity is the character that is bereft in the world of online dating. The lying, double timing, misrepresentation, and hurtfulness experienced by so many Internet ad daters is epidemic and it's poisoning the potential of the Internet to help us sift through the millions of potential stars in the universe to find our one true partner.

Why are so many people in cyberspace just looking for a quick hook up, satisfaction of only our basest, lowest-chakra instincts instead of elevating their quest to a higher love?

Why are so many married people using the Internet to cheat on their partners?

Why are so many single people stringing on a series of seductions, dangling people with the tantalizing promise of a relationship, only to flee and abandon them as soon as they click on to the next?

Is online dating to blame or is it simply a reflection of the sickness of the world at large? Are people who date only "in the real world" more ethical and honest than Internet daters?

Honesty and integrity isn't just something we bring to our love relationships -- it's something we need to expand in every aspect of our lives.

Tonja writes a column on dating published in more than one million newspapers. You can visit Tonja's website for more information.

Integrity

Life coaches often quote one of my favorite poems, The Invitation, by Indian elder Oriah Mountain Dreamer. When people read it or hear it, you can see an instant response on their faces--an Aha! moment.

The poem calls each of us to examine the degree of integrity we bring to our lives:

"It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing..."

How closely we live our life in alignment with what we deeply desire brings us into our integrity. The greater our integrity, the more we are able to connect with others on a meaningful level. Some people are born into families that live and model integrity, and therefore, they carry integrity with them into every aspect of their lives.

Some people discover their values and what is most important to them after experiencing loss and resurrection. And others search for a substantive life in every conversation, sermon, class, or counseling session they find themselves in, looking for answers that will illuminate their way towards deeper meaning.

Whatever path one takes to arrive at the core of what matters to them, they bring that great richness to the relationship with their life partner.

"It doesn't interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive..."

Having integrity is a choice. Ask yourself:

1.. Where does my life lack integrity right now and how do I know this.? Am I guilty, judgmental, defensive, or incessantly distracted so I don't have to face what I am running away from?

2.. What five big or small changes could I make right now that would restore my integrity?

3.. What would it take for me to live a life of no tolerations? What energy drainers have I been putting up with?

If you know that you are doing things that are hurting you, holding you back, keeping you hidden behind people or places, and you are not implementing systems that would make your life work, you do not have enough integrity to sustain the quality of life you long for.

Visualize what your life would look and feel like if you lived in a state of calm and grace, doing work that you felt passionate about, surrounded by people who loved and supported you. Visualize this often because--this is what you deserve.

The last lines of the poem speak to the heart of integrity:

" It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,
and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments."

NSA Is For Losers

2006-01-11T03:19:00.000-08:00

I found the NSA Is For Losers tribe on Tribe.net So far, it only attracted 26 members. Guess there are more people into No Strings Attached, fly by night, flingy relationships than the stringy, messy kind -- at least on Tribe:

!!NSA is for LOSERS!!

This tribe is for those of us tired of selfish egomaniacal failures hiding behind the guise of NSA for their own pathetic purposes. This is an angry tribe - mainly for women, queers, and people interested in creating a world where romance is honest and free of self serving players. MISOGYNISTS stay away!!!

Then someone responded:

NSA?

I'm a bit of a n00b here so please forgive me. what does NSA stand for?

I'm assuming it's not National Security Agency, National Stroke Association, National Sheriffs' Association, National Society of Accountants or National Shellfisheries Association. I guess Google doesn't have an answer for everything.

Nothing to complain about (life is too perfect)

2005-12-25T00:50:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I gave myself an attitude adjustment.

I decided that instead of gazing into the half empty glass and whining that I was terminally single, over the hill, and living in a city filled with picky bachelors and unavailable gay men I would look at the half full glass:

I was lucky to be single, relatively young, and living in one of the most stimulating, well educated and open minded cities in the world. I decided that I was beautiful, desirable and worthy of worship. And I decided, quite simply, to stop looking and allow myself to be found.

And suddenly everthing changed. Dating got fun again and men started pursuing me by the truckload.

I didn't change anything that I was doing, or saying or wearing -- I just changed my attitude.

I would go out on dates with only one goal in mind--to have fun on the date.

I would stay in the present moment.

And I would give anybody who showed interest in me a chance to unfold and reveal himself - instead of judging and looking for flaws and reasons to write them off my list.

My blog might get boring from now on, with little to complain about and so much to embrace, to be thankful for, to rejoice.

My aesthetician was giving me a facial the other day and I said I was getting ready for a Christmas party, a date. And she said:

"You're so lucky!"

Lucky, I thought, with a groan (oh no, not another date.)

And she said, "I've been married for 15 years, and so the idea of a date is so very exciting to me. We have a saying in Russia that you always wish for what you don't have until you have it."

Which reminded me of the old Pogo cartoon I once had taped to my fridge until it yellowed and curled and eventually disintigrated.

It said: "Most of us don't know what we want in life. But we're pretty damned sure we don't have it."

Was it the Russian mother who was worrying about her child's fever that switched my attitude? Or something deeper inside me that had been changing for a while? But I suddenly realized how truly lucky I was and how much opportunity and promise the world held. I suddenly didn't see much use for this blog anymore, and the steady stream of angst and negativity, of so much thought and energy entrenched in the past.

And, with newly arched eyebrows and skin as smooth as a newborn baby, I went forth into the world, thankful that so many men were pursuing me, petting me, dining, wining and calling me. Even if they were ten years younger or 14 inches taller or wearing tie-dyed socks. I decided to enter the idea of dating with an open heart.

I should have figured this out years ago. But isn't life always what happens when we're busy making other plans?

Spammed personals

2005-12-13T12:43:00.000-08:00

This is a first -- today I got a personal ad spam in my in-box. Someone obviously found a spam list for personal ad members, or possibly even the email address from this blog, set up a spam list and blasted their personal ad to the entire Western Hemisphere, from what it looks like.

Curiously, the spam romancer isn't seeking marriage, but a relationship with "discretion" with a woman he can trust.

And this great catch even has his own fish pond -- a first for me, indeed.

--------------------------------------------------

I am by the name Nelson 35 years of age, from Nigeria, I want to bring this to your notice that I have an interest in you.

For me to be seeking a discreet mature woman in you, i have finally decided to go forth with what i am seeking. I will be totally honest, I am a professional computer scientist. I also owned a Fish Pond which is still under development.

What i am seeking is to meet a woman that is interested in meeting me. I am only looking for life partner, and I believe you can be, just one that i can feel comfortable with, trust and is on the same level as I am as far as what we both are seeking.

Your age, race and weight are not as important as your seriousness and maturity level. I am open to you because I know I would be comfortable with you. I am of height 179 with an athletic build. I have black hair and black eyes, a great smile and an easygoing personality. I'm not the pushy type and always respect others.

Discretion is a must along with playing safe. If you find an interest and feel that this is something you would like to do, So whatever your age, race, shape, size or maritial status let me know if you are interested. Sincerly I'm easy-going and mellowed. I enjoy having fun, laughing and I like to stay active. I'm in good shape, healthy and fit. I'm genuine, honest and down-to-earth. I'm caring and friendly, and I'm content with things in my life. I like movies and eating out, playing golf. I live alone and have a good stable job. I enjoy the outdoors, sports, movies. music, cooking and traveling. I also enjoy being at home and relaxing, listening to music or having good conversation with friends which I believe you would make good example.
I hope all the above qualities suits your desire.

Lastly, I am looking forward to a relationship that will be build on a strong foundation of honest, hence, we have a lot in common in our qualities which I believe will make us to be compartable.

Looking forward to your reply soonest.

Thanks and God Bless.o

I get all the winners

2005-12-08T12:36:00.000-08:00

One of the online dating services sent me this "winner" in my "cupid report." Well I do like to play Scrabble, but other than that, this man meets not one of my qualifications -- from location to age to fitness level. Isn't it great that we're now leaving the most important decisions in life to computers?

Is porn to blame?

2005-11-15T12:46:00.000-08:00

After learning that dressing like a porn star = getting rated a 10 on Hot or Not, I started to read the chapter on the rise in pornography in Eric Schlosser's "Reefer Madness" the other day, and suddenly the light bulb went on. Maybe Internet personal ads aren't the only factor in the frustration that so many singles are having with dating today -- there's also the impact of Internet porn.

I've always considered pornography fairly harmless -- a fantasy world that exists outside the bounds of our "real" flesh and skin interactions. Though even from my high school days, my friends and I never felt we could live up to the airbrushed women in Playboy and Penthouse, who they themselves couldn't live up to their fantasy images. (I became friends with a woman who posed in Playboy once -- not only was she really smart, but, she was now bespectacled, overweight and really frumpy! You would have never imagined her as a centerfold.)

But I started to think of the ways that the fantasy of unlimited access to thousands of women has changed the way men relate to us. I just feel a lot more objectified out in the personal ad world, with men reacting and responding purely to my legs, my breasts and my face, and all but ignoring anything else I have to offer from the neck up (like a college education or an inquiring mind.)

There are of course, smart men who appreciate a woman for more than the physical -- though it seems that more and more, men have sexual fantasies and tastes that stretch outside the boundaries and deeper into the realm of what they're seeing on Internet porn sites.

A new Harris poll confirms my hunch.

"When men look at pornography, what effect does that have on the women who love them? Fully 47 percent of women and 33 percent of men believe porn harms relationships between men and women," stated an article today on Netscape.

"Even so, we are a nation divided. An online Harris Poll of 2,555 U.S. adults finds that when it comes to pornography, we're not sure what should be done about it. Women are generally much more critical of pornography than men. As a result, a small majority of women, but not of men, favors government regulation of pornography on the Internet if that were possible.

"About half of all adults believe that pornography raises men's expectation of how women should look and that it changes men's expectations of how women should behave. About the same amount say pornography is demeaning towards women, although this view is more widely held by women than by men.

"What is the effect of pornography on kids? If children see a lot of it, 30 percent of adults say it distorts boys' expectations and understanding of women and sex, while 25 percent say it makes kids more likely to have sex earlier. Just 7 percent think it distorts girls' body images and their ideas about sex. Only 2 percent say looking at pornography helps children better understand sexuality."

Am I really a 9?

2005-11-08T15:11:00.000-08:00

Just for the heck of it, I decided to post a photo of myself on the Internet's favorite haunt of raging narcicists -- Hot or Not.

I always though Hot or Not (which now bills itself as an online dating site!) was the ultimate in superficial. Who wants to be rated like movies, or wines or for that matter, livestock?

But spending time there with a friend, flipping around the men (a motley collection that included a few she-hes) and women (ranging from downright scary looking to more gorgeous than many celebrities) we found that Hot or Not is a lesson in what we've been programmed to believe or accept, universally, as beautiful. It's amazing to see that almost consistently your rating matches, almost exactly, the rating that others gave that person's photograph.

We noticed that men in suits consistently score higher marks.

But criminal-looking guys with tattoos and the Harley look also often score above an 8 too.

A heavily made up Transexual or man in drag scores way higher than a real woman in plain clothes.

Affluent looking, well dressed men consistently score higher than goodlooking grease monkeys.

A thin woman with an ugly face will always score higher than a beautiful chubby one.

Heavy makeup and fake boobs score high marks. The more you look like a Hooters waitress or a porn star, the higher your score!

And skin sells, baby.

So I posted three photos: on was a very natural picture in a bikini top and a sarong, without makeup. That one scored a very surprisingly respectable 8.2.

A photograph in makeup with styled hair, miniskirt and a skimpy top scored higher, 9.

And I got an amazing 9.7 (and three nominations for the HOT OR NOT hall of fame) when I posted a photograph in a Halloween costume with a bare midriff, silver false eyelashes, a blue waist length wig and very heavy makeup.

I have to say, this was the best boost to my self esteem I've had in years. There's nothing like having 250 people rate you above average to make your day.

So is "beauty" more than skin deep -- or is it just about showing flesh and wearing heavy makeup? At least on Hot or Not it is.

I'm afraid to look in my in box

2005-11-07T21:13:00.000-08:00

Here is the latest batch of real doozies that a service called Perfect Match dished up in my in-box. There was a guy who just whined continually about how much he hates personal ads, then there was the sex crazed guy with the snake around his neck ... and a man who has a profile that might make one assume he's a petty thief or small time criminal or maybe a member of the mafia.

I logged off Perfect Match. Delete! Delete!

the brutally honest guy

Wow reality set in today about this online dating ritual. I have realized that on every search the same faces show up time and time again and I mean over a LONG period of time. Many years ago I thought , " This online is a way to meet people" now what about 8 years later I am more so like " I need to take up drinking and lieing to find someone" I can't find it fun to write 10000 emails back and forth when two live only 30 miles away. I don't like the computer rather lone sit at it for hours on end discussing what the past HE did that makes her so hurt. Well guess maybe this isn't for me , you kids have fun and remember if you never settle for just ONE , your gonna be here ALONGGGGGGGGG time listening to the same sorta stories I have.

whe he's looking for
I thought I was looking for a woman as a companion but seem to have just wasted ALOT of time listening to excuses and lies. Well life in my world goes on be it alone or with someone so I guess I shall look at the big picture and laugh at the others that believe they really know who they are but paint such a picture that says the other. Good luck I have chores to do rather then sit here

The snake guy (yes, his photo showed him half nude with a snake around his neck)

how he's different

i've never been married, have no kids, well except my dog, lol. i'm not controling, nor abusive, and beleives a woman should have her own freinds and life separate, from the one we have together. i was in the very first mr. romance contest, in san diego. i was asked to pose for playgirl, but turned them down. i used to work building movie sets. i have worked in theater, been a roadie. i play guitar, dance, and sing, i also like to write and love to draw. i am a very sexual person, with a very high libido, and i know how to please a woman. i have a great sense of humor, and im sure i can make you laugh. so if you are looking for a bestfreind/lover, and like to have a good time, i'm your man.

who he's looking for

i am looking for a woman that is inteligent and creative enough to find me. oh , so you need a few clues, ok. well you already know what i am called. all you need now is where to find me. lets see, there are two places you could look, you could look somewhere very warm, or maybe you could go to the alps and just yodel. i hope this is enough for you to know what kind of woman i am looking for, hope to to hear from you soon.

how he's different
playing in the mud with my truck

the criminal guy

how he's different
i like the beach,night life & the jym. sex,sex & more sex with the right lady is the one thing that I think about constantly. i would like it more if my sexual drive can transformed into an emotional & spiritual state.

how he's different
interests - [you, if we match] hobbies - [devious, pushing limitations] backround - [ask your local authorities] goals - [make a difference, take over world]

who he's looking for

A true partner in crime. Oe who is willing to let go and let destiny take its course.

Are we in limerance yet?

2005-10-31T19:31:00.000-08:00

This essay came to me from a friend...it apparently originated by a man named David in the U.K.

Most of us have had several 6 month to 1 year relationships that failed to leap over limerance. What does it take to bridge that gap from limerance to lasting love?

> Distinguishing Limerance & Love
>
> Love is as critical for our minds and bodies as oxygen. The more connected
> we are, the healthier we are both physically and emotionally. The less
> connected we are, the more we are at risk. It is also true that the less
> love we have, the more depression we are likely to experience in our lives.
> Love is probably the best antidepressant there is because one of the most
> common sources of depression is feeling unloved. Family provides this to a
> degree but a being in a loving spousal/partner relationship is the core need
> for most people.
>
> There is a mythology in our culture that love just happens. As a result, the
> depressed often sit around passively waiting for someone to love them. But
> love doesn't work that way. To get love and keep love you have to go out and
> be active and learn a variety of specific skills. Most of us get our ideas
> of love from popular culture. We come to believe that love is something that
> sweeps us off our feet. But the pop-culture ideal of love consists of
> unrealistic images created for entertainment. We think it is love when it's
> simply distraction and infatuation. One consequence is that when we hit real
> love we become upset and disappointed because there are many things that do
> not fit the cultural ideal. It is then necessary to change one's approach to
> love. Follow these strategies to get more of what you want out of life--to
> love and be loved.
>
> (1) Recognize the difference between limerance and love. Limerance is the
> psychological state of deep infatuation. It feels good but rarely lasts.
> Limerance is that first stage of mad attraction whereby all the hormones are
> flowing and things feel so right. Limerance lasts, on average, six months.
> It can progress to love. Most love in fact starts out as limerance, but most
> limerance never evolves into love.
>
> (2) Know that love is a learned skill, not something that comes from
> hormones or emotion particularly. Erich Fromm called it "an act of will."
>
> (3) Learn good communication skills. They are a means by which (face-to-face
> and email) you develop trust and intensify connection.
>
> There are always core differences between two people, no matter how good or
> close you are, and if the relationship is going right those differences
> surface. The issue then is to identify the differences and negotiate about
> them so that they don't untowardly distance you. You might be able to do
> that by understanding where the other person is coming from, who that person
> is, and by being able to represent yourself, gently. When the differences
> are known you must be able to negotiate and compromise on them so that, if
> possible, you find that common ground that works for both.
>
> (4) Focus on the other person. Rather than focus on what you are getting and
> how you are being treated, read your partner's need. What does this person
> really need for his/her own well-being?
>
> (5) Develop the ability to accommodate "simultaneous reality". The loved
> one's reality is as important as your own, and you need to be as aware of it
> as of your own. What are they really saying, what are they really needing?
>
> (6) Actively dispute within yourself internal messages of inadequacy.
> Sensitivity to rejection is a cardinal feature to address and
> circum-navigate.
>
> Recognize that the internal voice is strong ----- but it's not "real". Talk
> back to it. "I'm not really being rejected, this isn't really evidence of
> inadequacy". "I made a mistake." Or "this isn't about me, this is something
> I just didn't know how to do and now I'll learn." When you reframe the
> situation to something more adequate, you can act again in an effective way
> and you can perhaps find and also sustain the enduring love that you seek.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm so busted.

2005-10-29T00:29:00.000-07:00

The first time I posted "I'm recycling myself" on the Internet, it was a lot more scathing than the version you're reading today. Devon, my ex, was portrayed as a "high rent computer nerd with a heart of cold." Unfairly, and I admit, it was strictly to get sympathy from my readers, I painted him as a pale, sunlight deprived nerd, with bulging eyes and a thin hairline, heartless, self centered and driven.

None of that is really true. But when a man just trickles off and doesn't have the cojones to break up with you, and when he cheerfully announces that he's already spending the day with another woman (had sex with her on the first date), what's a broken hearted gal to do? We're emotional creatures, and we tend to respond viscerally, fight or flight.

Devon doesn't call me much anymore, (nowhere near as often as he used to, back when we had the "when the battery dies on the phone we'll hang up" agreement) but there he was, calling me, smack in the middle of his work day, just minutes after that post went out into the cyber ether.

I was on my daily workout walk, hyperventilating when he called. And somehow (come on, girl, you know you wanted him to read it) I said something about the fact that I was having a technical problem on my blog.

"Oh, let me fix it," Devon said.

"No, no, that's ok...really....it's fine. You don't need to fix it now," I said.

"No, really. Where is it? I can't remember the URL..."

Oh no. I am so BUSTED.

I heard keys frantically clicking in the background.

"No really, I don't want you to read it right now."

I was about 1/4 mile away from my computer at this point, and I turned around and started running.

"Devon, what are you doing?"

"I'm in Google, looking for your blog."

"You'll never find it in Google. It's anonymous."

Shit. This guy's so smart. Any other man would have taken weeks to find it but no...

I'm running back to the house now. I'm panting. Sweat is running down my sides.

"Devon!"

He's laughing. "Wait, I'm in Technorati now.....

"Devon? Don't go there...not yet...I haven't finished it yet...I just posted it...."

"FOUND IT!"

Silence.

"Devon? Devon? DEVON!"

The guy reads very very fast.

"Hey, I think I need to go now," he said.

"Devon, talk to me. Devon?"

I'm recycling myself. Yet another Hefty Bag Relationship (TM)

2005-10-24T17:29:00.000-07:00

It began on the Internet as love affairs always begin. Innocently. With hope.

"If I could be anywhere...," I wrote in my online profile. "I'd be swimming hand in hand with my lover in clear blue water while the technicolor fish dance around us."

"If I could be anywhere, we would be feeling the dark, the sensuous flow of warm water, the vibrant colors of nightlife while diving amongst the reefs deep at night in Bonaire," he wrote. "... sun sparkling with the lapping waves, my mind devoid of all thought, emoting tranquility…"

A few emails, a telephone call, a dinner I'll remember forever. We snuggled in front of the fireplace until the waitstaff kicked us out, and then stumbled to Sausalito and danced under the stars. Within weeks we were on an exotic trip overseas, he was introducing me to family, it felt like love.

We were there for each other, in a sweet way, like family. It was a year of helping him buy towels at Target on a Saturday night, coaxing him to try on a hipper pair of jeans, patiently waiting as he rebuilt himself after a divorce. It was a year where he coached me through my job challenges, helped me navigate the mysteries of buying a new computer, encouraged me, in a way no man had before, to express myself in words, to be my most authentic self. Almost every night, we called each other and spoke before we went to sleep, sometimes until dawn. It was a relationship of extreme disclosure, at times too much.

And just when Devon was hitting his stride, when everything finally seemed to fall in place in his life, the space for me was smaller. He needed that space to grow, to become his own authentic self, a journey he feared would be limited by one woman and perhaps more exhilirating with several.

I had to say goodbye.

So we clicked on the next profile.

Yet another Hefty Bag Relationship (TM). Here I am, neatly tied up and tossed into the personal ad recycling bin, with my Internet profile spiffed up with a new headline and ready for the next potential suitor (who has just resurfaced after ditching or being ditched by his last.)

And so it goes. We recycle ourselves back into the online personals. And once in a great while someone gets married and goes off the market (semi)permanently. But all too often, we just swap one profile for another, trying new people on like clothes, wearing them to a party without clipping out the price tags and then returning them with the complaint: "This one just didn't fit right."

Every time we had a fight, a fear, a doubt, Devon or I would retreat to the comfort zone of The Profile, and it would come out of hiding. Then, after one particularly mediocre date, or when the indecision waned, we'd shut the profiles away again, and crawl back to each other with open arms. It was an on again, off again thing, in a way that the Internet encouraged. Before Internet dating became so widespread, my relationships had always either been "on" or "off" -- not constantly hovering back and forth between the two.

Was it this way even ten years ago, before it was so easy to find someone you might love? Now it's easier to retreat from every roadblock and argument, squabble and fear. And how many of us were doing it -- the married couples who surreptitiously correspond with strangers from afar, the straight men who dally with gay men from the safety of a screen? How many relationships had ended prematurely, senselessly, simply because there were now so many options that the pain of working things out, accomodating change, facing our demons, was no longer necessary?

It's the relationship equivalent of being downsized. We used to have permanent jobs, permanent loves. Now we are reduced to this constant cycle of being independent contractors working in the temporary agency of relationships, with our resume always out there on the web -- just in case we get laid off.

Out of curiousity I went to the place we met nearly one year ago. Revisiting the personal ad is now the modern day equivalent of walking beneath the tree where we might have kissed the first time and reading the initials a lover carved into the bark. I wanted to see what his ad looked like, now that I had officially broken up with him.

My heart sank into my bowels and I let out a cry.

"Oh no....not that one."

It was photograph of Devon I took just four weeks earlier, while we shared a precious, and to me, intimate moment on the beach. Our vacation. The last time I ever saw him.

Finally we were there, in that place we would be if we could be anywhere. We spent our day swimming hand in hand, a moment of entrusting everything to him in the waves, immersed in psychedellic beauty. He draped a pearl necklace around me while I was almost sleeping, and kissed the nape of my neck. We ate fish tacos at a little stand on the roadside. He had a shaved ice that turned his tongue blue. I coaxed him out on a perfect crescent of clean white sand at Makena beach, coaxed him out of his clothes. I beckoned to him, playfully, come into the water with me.

"Come on...it's beautiful. It's so warm!"

But he remained on shore as I ran, squealing with laughter, splashing the water toward him, as I ran into the body temperature waves and danced with the tide.

Click. Click. Click. Devon, ever behind the screen, beamed his digital camera at me from shore and captured me in the waves.

Our relationship had been slowly dying since he moved away, I knew, but at that moment I took his picture I thought, perhaps, that we weren't breathing the fumes of a love affair's last gasp. It seemed too perfect, that moment, not to continue forever.

I imagined him in a future we might share, visiting all of those places we'd be if we could be anywhere, his agile mind, his love of history, his deep knowledge of the written word, the perfect tour guide to explore a new life. I imagined him, finally in his element, and wondered if I had to let him swim there alone, or if it was possible to reach that place together.

This almost perfect moment was ours alone, one of those pearls in life that I would always cherish. I wouldn't dream of sharing it with millions of strangers on the Internet, or using it to market it myself to someone new, just as I'd never wear that pearl necklace on a date. It had sentimental value. But then, that's me. Pictures hold magic for me. Objects have power. I don't open up immediately, or share my magic with others casually, recklessly.

But now here he was taking that perfect moment frozen in time, a moment that would be one of my most precious memories in life, and posting it on the Internet so he could attract another girl. To me, it was the ultimate slap in the face, the worst thing a man could possibly do to say: "It didn't mean anything to me."

Devon, can you just twist the tines of that fork in my heart and turn it one more time so it really hurts?

It doesn't hurt enough to spend thousands of hours together talking through a man's transitions, and then have him say "I don't want what you want," -- that he needs to go away in order to find himself, and that you're getting in the way.

But to have one of our last moments together captured digitally and used this way, as an advertisement on Match.com, it's just plain...tacky.

I picked up the phone and called him and vented to his voice mail. (The late 20th century new millenium way to communicate with your long distance lover.)

"You asshole!"

"What were you thinking? Did it for one moment occur to you that you might hurt my feelings by posting photographs from OUR VACATION in your personal ad? What would other women think of you if they knew the context in which that photograph was taken? Would they respect you? Of course not. Have you considered the karma of your actions?"

Ok. To his credit, at least he didn't take a photograph of us, together, and white out my face, or blur me out, or chop off my body leaving my hand dangling and a few stray hairs on his shoulder. We've all seen this so many times before on Internet personal ads and it's become a cliche.

"Please take those photos out. Now. Please."

Devon eventually called me back, and defended himself, logically.

"No. That was my vacation too. I have a right to those photographs as much as you do."

"It was a private moment!"

"We were on a beach for crying out loud. There were a hundred people there too."

"The body wasn't even cold yet."

Logically, I have to admit, it made sense. But the heart is not about logic, it's about empathy. It's about listening to the hurt in someone's voice and remembering that you once loved them. It's about caring about how they feel, even if they are no longer part of your day-to-day life.

Weeks later, the photographs are still there, photographs of Devon smiling at me on the beach in Maui, advertising him to hopeful Seattle babes who want to meet an ambitious globe-trotting man who so adroitly caresses the written word and wants to swim with her at night in the dark tropical waters of Bonaire. The words are the same ones that seduced me a year ago, the pictures, thanks to me, are a little better now.

Was any woman stupid enough, really, to believe that this image of a man, seemingly naked, similing coyly, laughing in the sun, was taken by anyone but his ex? It's sure not a photo his buddy would have taken.

What would the woman clicking on that photograph think if she knew the truth? Or did anyone care anymore? I mean, maybe she herself is using photos taken by her ex on their honeymoon, or maybe she's really married and just looking for a fling, or maybe she's just so desperately eager to get her hands on a solvent, single, child-free mid-40s man that the photo doesn't matter at all.

I asked my friend Steven what he thought about it, a guy's point of view. Was I out of line for getting so upset?

"You have every right to feel the way you do," Steven said. "He did this to you before, remember the time you had a fight and he put your photos from your first trip together in his Match.com ad when you had just started going out? There was that one of your scarf on a chair, staring right up at you on the Internet. Only you weren't in the chair? He knew it bothered you and now he did it again. I'm so glad you finally broke up. Why are you still stuck on him?"

But sadly, Devon and I are not the only victims of the Hefty Bag Phenemenon out there, not by far. Jake, a guy I had been talking to, again, now that our profiles were both back up out of hiding, had just been recycled. And he wasn't even dating on the Internet.

"I met her at work, at the company picnic. We were just dating casually, sort of a friends with benefits thing. At first, neither one of us thought it had potential. But after time, I developed strong feelings for her.

"And then, one day, she just called me and said: 'I met someone on the Internet, we've been on one date, and I just know he's the love of my life.' And she left me, just like that. I was very hurt. I'm still hurt."

Eric had been divorced for a year, one child, actively looking for an adventurous woman to ski and hike with. But then, during our first (and last) lunch, he somehow let it slip that he had been dating for three years.

"I thought you had been divorced for only one year," I said.

"Well, actually," he admitted, "My wife were best friends, buddies, and we wanted to stay together for our daughter, but I was never in love with her, and over time, the pain of that was unbearable. I was meeting women on Craigslist and having affairs. At first, I was terrified, thinking, what kind of diseased woman would be out here looking for sex? But I was astonished -- these were beautiful, desirable, interesting, educated, high-caliber married women. I had some fantastic experiences -- I even fell in love with one for a while. But now I'm divorced and, to be honest, dating hasn't been as fun." This one definitely belongs in the Hefty Bag, I thought, as I clicked on to the next.

Another recycled man I spoke to, Arthur, was recoiling from the loss of his 20-year marriage. His wife was studying French and would practice her language skills in chat rooms. His wife started taking trips, alone, to visit her new friends in Paris. It turned out that one of her new "friends" was a hunky French fireman (tres chaud!) (who else was up after midnight when it was still mid-afternoon in America?) and she'd been carrying on the steamy affair for months.

It seems to me that even five years ago, couples negotiated these transitions -- when you couldn't just order up a new date like a book on Amazon.com. But now that Internet dating has become so widespread, so pervasive, you can just punch in your requirements -- age, zip code, hobbies. There's always someone new to try on for fun, to take to a party, just click on the next profile, and she's there.

And you can test the waters from the privacy of your own home -- right under your girlfriend or spouse's nose -- and then jump immediately from the comfort of one relationship to the next without ever having to endure the painful self reflection that might happen if "you tried to work things out in therapy together" or if you had to endure the loneliness of even one day of downtime between your relationships.

Is anything private anymore? Do moments from our most intimate life have any meaning? Or are they as Devon says, just images that we have a right to. Just photographs. Or just words in a blog like this one.

It's time for a new copyright: "This is an image from my life and you can't use it to meet a new woman. All rights reserved."

But if that was true, then would there be the corrolary: "This is a moment from my life, and you can't write about it, or I'll sue your ass."

Would all of the world's literature suddenly dry up? And as Devon says, does it really matter who took that photograph, or when? It's just a picture. It's just the past. This moment, and the next are the only ones that matter. It's just four million pixels, pinpoints of light, ephemeral, fleeting.

Obviously my feelings are no longer as important at the value that photograph now has in attracting the next woman. After all, smart marketing is what it's all about these days when you're a product competing on the overcrowded shelves in the Internet love superstore. And Devon, ever the saavy Internet guy, has even turned himself into the human equivalent of an "endcap" in Fry's -- paying a little more money for a "Gold" membership so his profile would show up as the first hit in his zip code.

Our last moment together is here in an personal ad, beckoning to new women to fill my void. It's a fitting beginning and ending for love in 2005. It's a world created by computer geniuses like Devon, a world they can confidently conquer and excel in, where smart, articulate men with computer skills finally have an edge over the jocks, where artistic and tech savvy women who are handy with Photoshop have an edge over the genuinely beautiful ones, where ad copywriting skills matter more than flirtatious charm, where we have all reduced ourselves to a commodity that can be rated like a movie, or auctioned off like someone's old toaster on eBay.

But that door is closed now. Find an open one. Just click on the next recycled profile. And maybe, just maybe, one woman's discarded Hefty Bag man will be my new treasure.

Trailer trash quickies

2005-10-15T15:36:00.000-07:00

I found this in the "RANTS AND RAVES" section of Craiglist. Was this guy serious about taking his online "No Strings Attached" personal ad hookup into an RV sales lot for a quickie?

He seems to really know what he's talking about...

Re: Where can two people go to have a sex affair?

Well, there are a lot of places depending on how brave you are. I used to go to RV sales lots. You need to find one that has a lot of RVs. Pick one that is on the outskirts of the lot and is either used or dirty but open. You then go in, lock the door and have a quickie. 15 minutes is that max that I would do. If someone tries the door, then you have about 5 minutes before they return--takes them that long to walk back to the office and find the key and come back.

Have done that about 10 times and only got noticed about once. Never got caught, just noticed as we were returning from the waaaay corner of the lot.

Another place is tract homes that are almost finished have doors on them, but not locked. You need to take a blanket for that. Go upstairs to the bathroom and find one that already has hardware on the door and lock it.

Another great place is industrial parks on Saturdays and Sundays, there are plenty that have very little traffic around them, so the back seat will work just fine.

I just want your seeds

2005-10-14T14:02:00.000-07:00

The replies to my faux Sperm Donor post were all over the map -- from the most sincere nice guys -- to over the top narcisists. Here are a few:

(Identifying characteristics were changed to protect the identities of these men, who are all too eager to share their DNA.)

Nice guy in San Francisco

I'm 48, 5'11'', SWM, no kids. I tried a similar thing with a Lesbian girl, but she couldn't have kids.

This sounds great, but it would be even better if we hit it off and really could have a loving relationship to share with a child!!!

Mr. Larger than Average

Hey you've described me well enough:

- age 40

- caucasian, or at least 50% Caucasian/European

- height 6'1

- high IQ, well-educated, or very bright -- one conversation is all you'll need to confirm this.

- we find each other sexually attractive -- cuddly boob man, w/a larger than average penis

I have been a child support target once, and have a 9 year old boy to adopted parents. The mother was a "Elite" hacker groupie in the early 90's back when hacking was truly a fun frontier on the net, and I was the sex icon of the hacker gropies, (However, not promiscuous.)

I am an independant software consultant and precocious to a painful degree with the wrong environment to foster my talents. IQ was rated 155 in pre-teen years, and certain numerical tests and reflex tests score off the charts. The Big Lebowski scenario is quite fascinating to me. I have references, for good bad or otherwise; fun in bed.

The GQ Guy

Well first can we start with a picture befor any thing else. (sic)

(Attached was a nude pic entitled "GQ GUY")

I SHOULDA BEEN A CONTENDER

Greetings and salutations, that is quite a posting, I can say that I believe that I meet and possibly exceed the qualities and traits you are looking for, I'm very confident that I do. Real life chemistry is really important I have come to learn, it's part of what they call "the dance".

To take part in your selection would be an experience to be sure. I know you are going to pick to someone who you feel is best, I'm open to talking, meeting and getting aquainted. Here is a small first step, this letter to you. I feel willing to give it go. As Marlon Brando says in On The Water Front 'I coulda been a contender'.

THE POTENT GUY

You sound just wonderful...

I'm mature, 50, 5'10, 180lbs, brown/green, European born WM - very potent and very fertile...

I'm in quest to find open minded, healthy, responsible and fertile
woman for discreet intimate friendship +...I'd be happy to send you on a way to motherhood right away...

(I bet he'd be happy to send me on my way -- right after ejaculating.)

THE SHAG BOLTER

A brief glimpse of what I'd bring to our gene pool:

Handsome, tall, cultivated 42 yr old Englishman.

Classical musician at highest professional level Martial artist and interest in Eastern philosophy

Well educated and emotionally intelligent

Clean and compassionate spirit

And (just for you) rest assured that I'm a considerate and accomplished lover *smile*

(This man's email address was, ironically, "Shag bolter." I guess he likes to shag and run!)

Sounds like a male fantasy to me.

2005-10-11T20:01:00.000-07:00

I was shocked to find that 40 responses to my faux Craigslist ad flooded my in box almost immediately after I posted the ad. I actually removed the post to staunch the deluge, feeling a little guilty about the fact that it was an experiment rather than a real request.

I'm not sure if the result was disappointing -- or disillusioning. At first, I was invigorated by the kindness and thoughtfulness of many of the replies -- some from men urging me to find a real father for my child. And then an email arrived from a familiar address...an ex-boyfriend.

He was someone I liked a lot -- but who mysteriously stopped contacting me after a few wonderful dates. It made me sad to think this man was unable to be a boyfriend, but willing to be an anonymous sperm donor.

My first message was from "Al Baby":

Sounds like a male fantasy to me. I'm all of the above, but 47. Good luck.

Al-baby

My reply:

Yes, the ad was somewhat an experiment for me to post. And I have been astonished by the response. Many top tier, well educated, handsome men. Oddly enough, one of them is a man I was dating for several months!

It is sad however to see that the very same men who are terrified by the idea of a commitment with me have no problem at all with the idea of a non commitment. It's this realization that makes me realize that what I really want is a man who will love me first and foremost, and an active father. Without that, it is unfair to bring a child into the world.
Al Baby wrote:

This year when I was teaching English to 9th-graders, and when we did our unit on poetry several of the Latinas (they're not many white kids at the school in which I teach) wrote some heart-wrenching poems about fathers leaving, mothers weeping, and their own sense of isolation and helplessness.

Men can and often do turn their back on children. I myself get my paternal instincts out at school with emotionally-needy children. Committment and change is a real fear to the men of my generation; most of us have had real difficulties in becoming mature adults. You really sound like a decent person whose heart's in the right place. Good call on the kid.

My reply:

So true that commitment is a real fear for men of your generation.

Possibly because so many of them were abandoned by one or both parents, either emotionally, or via divorce.

I think of the film the Ice Storm, which is reminiscent in some ways of my own experience as a kid in upper middle class suburbs with parents who sometimes seemed to have no clue what their kids were up to.

Al wrote:

I've never seen the Ice Storm, but I'm reminded of the best-seller of about 25 years ago The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch. Many in our generation became self-absorbed, greedy, and materialistic. When I read it so many years ago (I was a senior in college), I didn't agree with his notion of a breakdown in parental authority causing our personal and societal deficits, as well as his solution of back to basics (including the family). Now I reluctantly tend to agree with his solution that individually and collectively we needed a return to a work ethic, and a strong family unit. In sum (cause I'm rambling), we wanted to avoid the pain of growing up. I don't know if this makes sense, but your experiment offered men an incredible stroking of their ego, as well as a painless accomplishment, because at this point in our lives society tells us we are supposed to have fathered a child. It is a sad fact that most of us are not self-aware and need society to define who we are.

But there still are decent men out there...Good luck in your search

This one was even non-committal about being non-committal.

Should women have the right to have children without even having sex?

2005-10-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

This post appeared today on Dialogic. While I don't believe that it is right for women to raise children without the influence of a father, I certainly believe it is a woman's right to make this choice. This is yet another outrageous attempt by the "Moral Majority" to restrict the reproductive freedom of women--particularly lesbians.

Ironically, having sex as an unmarried woman in order to get pregnant will still be legal. But if this boneheaded legislation actually passes, could making sex before marriage illegal be next?

- bd

New Proposed Law in Indiana to Bar Unmarried Women From Having Artifically Inseminated Children

This would make a crime! You know just when you think it can't get any worse...(Courtesy of Melissa Purdue and the Democratic Underground)

We just got a heads up about an upcoming article in NUVO, regarding a draft of the legislation which, among other things, bars unmarried people from having children by articifial means is here

Here's a draft of the story that is running this week. It will be my cover story in two weeks also.

Feel free to pass this info along to every one you know. This has to be stopped! Keep fighting the good fight!

The Crime of "Unauthorized Reproduction": New law will require marriage as a legal condition of motherhood

By Laura McPhee

Republican lawmakers are drafting new legislation that will make marriage a requirement for motherhood in the state of Indiana, including specific criminal penalties for unmarried women who do become pregnant "by means other than sexual intercourse."According to a draft of the recommended change in state law, every woman in Indiana seeking to become a mother through assisted reproduction therapy such as in vitro fertilization, sperm donation, and egg donation, must first file for a "petition for parentage" in their local county probate court. Only women who are married will be considered for the "gestational certificate" that must be presented to any doctor who facilitates the pregnancy. Further, the "gestational certificate" will only be given to married couples that successfully complete the same screening process currently required by law of adoptive parents.

As the draft of the new law reads now, an intended parent "who knowingly or willingly participates in an artificial reproduction procedure" without court approval, "commits unauthorized reproduction, a Class B misdemeanor." The criminal charges will be the same for physicians who commit "unauthorized practice ofartificial reproduction."

The change in Indiana law to require marriage as a condition for motherhood and criminalizing "unauthorized reproduction" was introduced at a summer meeting of the Indiana General Assembly's Health Finance Commission on September 29 and a final version of the bill will come up for a vote at the next meeting at the end of this month. Republican Senator Patricia Miller is both the Health Finance Commission Chair and the sponsor of the bill. She believes the new law will protect children in the state of Indiana and make parenting laws more explicit.

According to Sen. Miller, the laws prohibiting surrogacy in the state of Indiana are currently too vague and unenforceable, and that is the purpose of the new legislation."But it's not just surrogacy," Miller told NUVO. " The law is vague on all types of extraordinary types of infertility treatment, and we wanted to address that as well."

"Ordinary treatment would be the mother's egg and the father's sperm. But now there are a lot of extraordinary things that raise issues of who has legal rights as parents," she explained when asked what she considers "extraordinary" infertility treatment.

Sen. Miller believes the requirement of marriage for parenting is for the benefit of the children that result from infertility treatments." We did want to address the issue of whether or not the law should allow single people to be parents. Studies have shown that a child raised by both parents – a mother and a father – do better. So, we do want to have laws that protect the children," she explained.

When asked specifically if she believes marriage should be a requirement for motherhood, and if that is part of the bill's intention, Sen. Miller responded, "Yes. Yes, I do."A draft of the legislation is available HERE The next meeting of the Health Finance Commission will be held at the Statehouse on October 20, 2005 at 10 am in Senate Chambers and is open to the public.

To Read More Commentary and To Contact Boneheaded Homophobic Legislators Supporting This Legislation

Giving up on love...just seeking sperm

2005-09-26T15:14:00.000-07:00

I found this post on Craigslist today...and it made me profoundly sad. I know an increasing number of women who are considering this option. How could a man knowingly create a child and never know them, never love them, never provide?

"Giving up on love, at least for now, just seeking sperm.

One day I will meet my "other half" but I'm not going to get married or pair up with a man just to have a family. I want to be with someone I fall madly in love with and can imagine spending my life with. My biological clock is ticking and I really want to have a child. I am looking for an attractive, professional man, no history of mental illness and in excellent health. I seek purely a sperm donor relationship. It does not matter to me if you are married or single. You do not need to be in the child's life in any way, shape or form. I don't want a cent from you and I would be willing to sign something to that affect.

I could go to a sperm bank but then I wouldn't meet the child's "biological father" and I would like to be able to tell my son or daughter a fair share about who helped create him or her so that he or she will have some sense of where they come from. I am single, have no boyfriend and am not seeing anyone. I have made no connections in terms of potential relationships and don't casual date. In short, it just hasn't happened for me. I have a lot of male friends but have yet to make a romantic connection. I am attractive, normal, educated, successful and under 40.

Hopefully, one day, i will meet a great man who wants children who i will fall in love with and he will think my child is awesome and i will tell him how wonderful a man you are for giving me this beautiful child that I can nurture, love and care for. write me and tell me about yourself. and thanks for considering helping me make my dream come true.

I finished reading her post and thought: Has it come to this?

And what will this child of the future think of men when she learns that her mother had to create a child anonymously...that no man wanted to have the responsibility...that no man loved her mother enough to care. Can unloved mothers create lovable children? I know that bearing a child is an awesome responsibility, not to be taken lightly, but I wonder....what will these children of the next generation think of these ghost fathers?

In the past, we were raised by tribes and perhaps in the future we will return to them, intentional tribes where we raise children together, where men have an increasingly diminished role. They've opted out of the family -- choosing instead to have fleeting sexual encounters, to skydive, scuba, mountain bike and ski. Alone, alone, alone.

Someday, as these men enter their senior years, with nobody to care for them, too old and crippled to windsurf, sitting on their stock portfolios and retirement funds, without heirs, with nobody to share the holidays with, nobody to carry their name... will they regret the children that they never created?